I’m sure you’ve had to hear them out. In fact, one of them is probably standing right near you or might even be found sleeping in your bed. I’m talking about “Fatalistic What Iffers” and they live their lives through the harrowing, self-imposed, terror of the “What If” that they press upon you in every waking moment.
The false charges against Barack Obama from the Clinton campaign claiming plagiarism is laughable on the surface and ridiculous in the depths.
The bane of plagiarism, however, is a serious matter and it deserves more discovery and I will more formally address that topic in a future article.
Plagiarism — taking someone else’s ideas and claiming them as your own — is an issue to some in the theatre. I argue the distinction is meaningless because in a live performance the difference between stealing and inspiration is ever-changing.
Continue reading → The Invented Line Between Stealing and Inspiration
Blogging is the new Theatre.
We are now our own producing companies and we create — in real time — new tragedies, musicals and comedies every single day online.
Bertolt Brecht was a SuperGenius author, writer and director.
As a radical man of the German theater in the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s his influence and style provide us great vision today.
Continue reading → Bertolt Brecht and the Meaning of White Light
I have never been a big Sopranos fan. The acting on the show has been generally pretty good, but I never drank from the Sopranos well of dedicated fanaticism and I missed the first few years of the show when they originally aired.
I am now caught up on all the episodes and — after watching last night’s dreadful “Final Episode” — I am left, once again, wondering what all the fuss was about over a mediocre show.
Milton Glaser has some fascinating thoughts:
I think this idea first occurred to me when I was looking at a marvelous etching of a bull by Picasso. It was an illustration for a story by Balzac called The Hidden Masterpiece. I am sure that you all know it. It is a bull that is expressed in 12 different styles going from very naturalistic version of a bull to an absolutely reductive single line abstraction and everything else along the way.
What is clear just from looking at this single print is that style is irrelevant. In every one of these cases, from extreme abstraction to acute naturalism they are extraordinary regardless of the style. It’s absurd to be loyal to a style. It does not deserve your loyalty. I must say that for old design professionals it is a problem because the field is driven by economic consideration more than anything else.
Style change is usually linked to economic factors, as all of you know who have read Marx. Also fatigue occurs when people see too much of the same thing too often. So every ten years or so there is a stylistic shift and things are made to look different.
I also find truth in what Milton Glaser said about lying:
Lies erode your ability to act. Ultimately the lie is an instrument of power.
I was disappointed you so easily let go of your brilliance. It is important for you as an artist to not compromise, to not give in to lesser ideas, and for you to fight for your aesthetic.
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