For Bertolt Brecht's birthday … a parable for Trump's America. If sharks were men, there would be schools: "In these schools the little fish would learn how to swim into the sharks' jaws."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7EQ...
Happy Birthday, Lady Ada Lovelace …
“Your best and wisest refuge from all troubles is in your science.”
A new blog post about my new play, "The Rake's Visit: A One-Act Capriccio on a Theme from Don Giovani" …
playsonideas.com/2025/12/08/t...
This is hard news. Such a great playwright, such a great mind. He was a huge influence on my own work. Thank you for all the wonderful plays you gave us, Sir Tom.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/t...
I looked this up to make sure it's real. Someone really did put up this plaque on Constitution Corner at West Point. This is worse than vandalism. It is sedition and punishable by death.
(Irony alert, for those who need it.)
Fascinating …
"'If you have an animal that lives close to humans, you have to be well-behaved enough,' Lesch says. 'That selection pressure is quite intense.'"
www.scientificamerican.com/article/racc...
Watching the East Wing of the White House being destroyed brings this poem to mind. (The post includes a recording of me reading it.)
playsonideas.com/2021/05/10/a...
Today a supposed ICE agent approached my Mexican-born daughter demanding to see identification proving she's a U.S. citizen. She showed him her U.S. passport card. The only possible reason he had for approaching her was because she is brown.
If you voted for Trump, you brought this on us all.
More AI musings on my play "The Mad Scene" …
Google AI just came up with this thematic analysis of my play "The Mad Scene."
www.google.com/search?q=Ela...
This post is getting a flurry of clicks today from Montenegro. I wonder why …
playsonideas.com/2025/02/17/v...
But was it such a big deal, really? That's the question Pat and I ask in our current blog post.
playsonideas.com/2025/06/20/r...
“The lesson of 1933 is: you get out sooner rather than later.”
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
HAPPY PRIDE!
I can only assume that my Trumpist-Putinist acquaintances are fully on board with this.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...
Thanks to the editors of Open Arts Forum for publishing my poem "Quintains of the Red Death" today.
openartsforum.com/24184-2/?fbc...
"Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, shared photos of himself and his grandchildren swimming in waters that handle sewer overflow."
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/u...
Our new blog post: thoughts on reading Mark Twain in the age of Donald Trump …
playsonideas.com/2025/05/06/t...
He solemnly swore—twice—to preserve, protect, and defend a document he's never read.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
And of course Trumpist-Putinists are fine with this as long as it upsets liberals.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...
Happy Birthday to Mary Wollstonecraft …
"Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison."
Pat's piece "Life Forms, Eventually to Wonder," on display in the Down to Earth exhibit at the Artcenter in Carrboro …
“As long as I am your governor, the meddling hand of big government creeping down from Washington DC will be stopped cold at the Mississippi River.” —Sarah Huckabee Sanders in January
This is what success looks like.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Our new blog post about my play "The Mad Scene" and its pertinence today …
Oh, Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!
—Madame Roland before her beheading on November 8, 1793
playsonideas.com/2025/04/10/i...
Issue #14 of our FREE monthly newsletter MUTANT FOXES is our LAST issue! (playsonideas.com/.../2025/04/...)
It concerns many of our books that are about to be removed from schools and libraries.
Another conservative heard from—David Brooks:
"Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful."
It is truly a time for shame.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...
Just ran across this alarmingly timely poem by Adrienne Rich …
"… our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear."
www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51092/...
This poem of mine was published back in 2019. I SO wish it now seemed quaint and outdated.
openartsforum.com/america-in-2...
More government efficiency at work. Now he's going after the penguins, which isn't smart. A trade war with penguins is sure to turn really ugly.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
For René Descartes's birthday, a short play in which I finger his killer …
playsonideas.com/2014/09/24/t...
