http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811,374064,374064,1.html/full
John Maynard Keynes was twitted with changing his mind. He replied, "When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
My favorite example of a change of mind was Norman Mailer at The Village Voice.
Norman took on the role of drama critic, weighing in on the New York premiere of Waiting for Godot.
Twentieth century's greatest play. Without bothering to go, Mailer called it a piece of garbage.
When he did get around to seeing it, he realized his mistake. He was no longer a Voice columnist, however, so he bought a page in the paper and wrote a retraction, praising the play as the masterpiece it is.
Every playwright's dream.
I once won one of Mary Ann Madden's "Competitions" in New York magazine. The task was to name or create a "10" of anything, and mine was the World's Perfect Theatrical Review. It went like this: "I never understood the theater until last night. Please forgive everything I've ever written. When you read this I'll be dead." That, of course, is the only review anybody in the theater ever wants to get.
My prize, in a stunning example of irony, was a year's subscription to New York, which rag (apart from Mary Ann's "Competition") I considered an open running sore on the body of world literacy—this due to the presence in its pages of John Simon, whose stunning amalgam of superciliousness and savagery, over the years, was appreciated by that readership searching for an endorsement of proactive mediocrity.
But I digress.
I wrote a play about politics (November, Barrymore Theater, Broadway, some seats still available). And as part of the "writing process," as I believe it's called, I started thinking about politics. This comment is not actually as jejune as it might seem. Porgy and Bess is a buncha good songs but has nothing to do with race relations, which is the flag of convenience under which it sailed.
But my play, it turned out, was actually about politics, which is to say, about the polemic between persons of two opposing views. The argument in my play is between a president who is self-interested, corrupt, suborned, and realistic, and his leftish, lesbian, utopian-socialist speechwriter.
The play, while being a laugh a minute, is, when it's at home, a disputation between reason and faith, or perhaps between the conservative (or tragic) view and the liberal (or perfectionist) view. The conservative president in the piece holds that people are each out to make a living, and the best way for government to facilitate that is to stay out of the way, as the inevitable abuses and failures of this system (free-market economics) are less than those of government intervention.
I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.
As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.
These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."
This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.
But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part.
And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.
I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.
For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.
To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches which are for most of us (I include myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.
The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.
Rather brilliant. For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bullshit and go straight to firearms.
I found not only that I didn't trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.
Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.
And I began to question my hatred for "the Corporations"—the hatred of which, I found, was but the flip side of my hunger for those goods and services they provide and without which we could not live.
And I began to question my distrust of the "Bad, Bad Military" of my youth, which, I saw, was then and is now made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world. Is the military always right? No. Neither is government, nor are the corporations—they are just different signposts for the particular amalgamation of our country into separate working groups, if you will. Are these groups infallible, free from the possibility of mismanagement, corruption, or crime? No, and neither are you or I. So, taking the tragic view, the question was not "Is everything perfect?" but "How could it be better, at what cost, and according to whose definition?" Put into which form, things appeared to me to be unfolding pretty well.
Do I speak as a member of the "privileged class"? If you will—but classes in the United States are mobile, not static, which is the Marxist view. That is: Immigrants came and continue to come here penniless and can (and do) become rich; the nerd makes a trillion dollars; the single mother, penniless and ignorant of English, sends her two sons to college (my grandmother). On the other hand, the rich and the children of the rich can go belly-up; the hegemony of the railroads is appropriated by the airlines, that of the networks by the Internet; and the individual may and probably will change status more than once within his lifetime.
What about the role of government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow.
But if the government is not to intervene, how will we, mere human beings, work it all out?
I wondered and read, and it occurred to me that I knew the answer, and here it is: We just seem to. How do I know? From experience. I referred to my own—take away the director from the staged play and what do you get? Usually a diminution of strife, a shorter rehearsal period, and a better production.
The director, generally, does not cause strife, but his or her presence impels the actors to direct (and manufacture) claims designed to appeal to Authority—that is, to set aside the original goal (staging a play for the audience) and indulge in politics, the purpose of which may be to gain status and influence outside the ostensible goal of the endeavor.
Strand unacquainted bus travelers in the middle of the night, and what do you get? A lot of bad drama, and a shake-and-bake Mayflower Compact. Each, instantly, adds what he or she can to the solution. Why? Each wants, and in fact needs, to contribute—to throw into the pot what gifts each has in order to achieve the overall goal, as well as status in the new-formed community. And so they work it out.
See also that most magnificent of schools, the jury system, where, again, each brings nothing into the room save his or her own prejudices, and, through the course of deliberation, comes not to a perfect solution, but a solution acceptable to the community—a solution the community can live with.
Prior to the midterm elections, my rabbi was taking a lot of flack. The congregation is exclusively liberal, he is a self-described independent (read "conservative"), and he was driving the flock wild. Why? Because a) he never discussed politics; and b) he taught that the quality of political discourse must be addressed first—that Jewish law teaches that it is incumbent upon each person to hear the other fellow out.
And so I, like many of the liberal congregation, began, teeth grinding, to attempt to do so. And in doing so, I recognized that I held those two views of America (politics, government, corporations, the military). One was of a state where everything was magically wrong and must be immediately corrected at any cost; and the other—the world in which I actually functioned day to day—was made up of people, most of whom were reasonably trying to maximize their comfort by getting along with each other (in the workplace, the marketplace, the jury room, on the freeway, even at the school-board meeting).
And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace.
"Aha," you will say, and you are right. I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of conservative writers, and found that I agreed with them: a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than that idealistic vision I called liberalism.
At the same time, I was writing my play about a president, corrupt, venal, cunning, and vengeful (as I assume all of them are), and two turkeys. And I gave this fictional president a speechwriter who, in his view, is a "brain-dead liberal," much like my earlier self; and in the course of the play, they have to work it out. And they eventually do come to a human understanding of the political process. As I believe I am trying to do, and in which I believe I may be succeeding, and I will try to summarize it in the words of William Allen White.
White was for 40 years the editor of the Emporia Gazette in rural Kansas, and a prominent and powerful political commentator. He was a great friend of Theodore Roosevelt and wrote the best book I've ever read about the presidency. It's called Masks in a Pageant, and it profiles presidents from McKinley to Wilson, and I recommend it unreservedly.
White was a pretty clear-headed man, and he'd seen human nature as few can. (As Twain wrote, you want to understand men, run a country paper.) White knew that people need both to get ahead and to get along, and that they're always working at one or the other, and that government should most probably stay out of the way and let them get on with it. But, he added, there is such a thing as liberalism, and it may be reduced to these saddest of words: " . . . and yet . . . "
The right is mooing about faith, the left is mooing about change, and many are incensed about the fools on the other side—but, at the end of the day, they are the same folks we meet at the water cooler. Happy election season.
― latebloomer, Saturday, 15 March 2008 10:35 (eighteen years ago)
prety sure we have a thread...no disrespect
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 15 March 2008 10:43 (eighteen years ago)
sorry my bad
― latebloomer, Saturday, 15 March 2008 10:47 (eighteen years ago)
OMG!!!! MAMET IN BLACKFACE????
― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Saturday, 15 March 2008 10:50 (eighteen years ago)
this guy wrote oleanna and that article, so fuck him.
― GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ, Saturday, 15 March 2008 11:31 (eighteen years ago)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/converting-mamet_561048.html?nopager=1
― more horses after the main event (Eazy), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 05:51 (fourteen years ago)
“My grandmother came to this country and she and her two boys were abandoned by her husband,” he said. “She couldn’t speak English. No education. And during the Great Depression she was able to work hard and save and she put them both through law school.” His voice had a tone of wonder to it, as though still awed by a fresh discovery. “I mean, what a country. That’s a hell of a country.”
yeah pretty sure that would be literally impossible in any other country in the world.
he blithely announces that the earth is cooling not warming, QED
ugh what an awful blowhard. or, what gott punch ii hawkwindz said.
― England's banh mi army (ledge), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 09:21 (fourteen years ago)
“I wondered, How did the system function so well? Because it does—the system functions beautifully.” How did the happiest, freest, and most prosperous country in history sprout from the Hobbesian jungle?
“I realized it was because of this thing, this miracle, this U.S. Constitution.”
the thing, the miracle, the constitution that the 'fucking republicans' did their best to render null and void for eight years!
mamet's bullshit plain-old-common-man routine in this article is about as irritating as the phony sub-pinter dialogue tricks in his plays. and this is pretty golden:
He told me he doesn’t read political blogs or magazines. “I drive around and listen to the talk show guys,” he said. “Beck, Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved.”
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 09:40 (fourteen years ago)
a lot of this stuff is what makes him a good writer. i want writers who can convincingly do the voice of the_system. sometimes at the brink of self-parody (clark gregg bro in 'state and main': "you stay soft all your life, people despise you; it awakens Avarice in them, they take advantage of you, and that's Human Nature.") otoh it's a while (seven years) since mamet's done anything, or so it seems.
― the whole of the goon (the whole of the moon is a famous song) (history mayne), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 09:50 (fourteen years ago)
Yeah this has always fascinated me, this American concept of "land of opportunity" that at least sometimes seems - to my dim distant view - to be spouted with pride as something the US offers and no one else does. Which is utter bollocks, of course. Australia's quite literally built by and from immigration as the US was, for starters. (sorry I didnt read the actual link, just reacting to the bit ledge quoted)
― The man who mistook his life for a FAP (Trayce), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 09:57 (fourteen years ago)
What's more, it elides the fact that thanks to various factors it would be like 100x. Difficult to do the same thing today, thanks to 30-odd years of wage stagnation as a result of his new right wing pals' economic policies.
― Captain Hyrax (Phil D.), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 10:01 (fourteen years ago)
"I fought and worked my way up. And I'll fight to the death anyone that tries to usurp me!"
― Mark G, Wednesday, 18 May 2011 10:04 (fourteen years ago)
Australia's quite literally built by and from immigration
much of it voluntary
― taking ilxers out with a flurry of butthurt (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 10:05 (fourteen years ago)
but not all.
― Mark G, Wednesday, 18 May 2011 10:07 (fourteen years ago)
Yeah hello convicts?
― The man who mistook his life for a FAP (Trayce), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 10:08 (fourteen years ago)
y'see mine was elegant
― taking ilxers out with a flurry of butthurt (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 10:11 (fourteen years ago)
Granted, you did say much of.
― The man who mistook his life for a FAP (Trayce), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 10:15 (fourteen years ago)
I don't understand the last line of the article. Why will we see who's laughing?
― Ned Trifle (Notinmyname), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 10:17 (fourteen years ago)
He seems strangely very unintelligent.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 18 May 2011 10:24 (fourteen years ago)
back in 2001, mamet was enough of a 'brain-dead liberal' to dismiss capra's 'it's a wonderful life' as right-wing propaganda for the blinkered masses (whom he still holds in contempt, revealingly):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2001/dec/14/artsfeatures.davidmamet
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 10:38 (fourteen years ago)
otoh it's a while (seven years) since mamet's done anything, or so it seems.
November and Race were 2008 and 2009, respectively.
― jaymc, Wednesday, 18 May 2011 12:29 (fourteen years ago)
Terrible writer, terrible person.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 12:34 (fourteen years ago)
cosign. best thing he ever did was rebecca pidgeon
― ♥, (remy bean), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 12:40 (fourteen years ago)
Mamet is irrelevant since we now have Aaron Sorkin so fuck him
― akm, Wednesday, 18 May 2011 13:42 (fourteen years ago)
I'd watch an adap of Accidental Billionaires by Mamet, wd be more interesting than Burpkin's.
― the gay bloggers are onto the faggot tweets (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 13:45 (fourteen years ago)
I love that it was the hedge dispute that turned him. Don't fuck with a man's hedges.
And how lucky for him that his political conversion demonstrates him to be a plucky free-thinker.
― We need to talk about Bevan (DL), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 14:33 (fourteen years ago)
a lot of this stuff is what makes him a good writer.
yeah i agree with this. and anyway, as we were saying in the other thread, anyone whos seen more than a couple mamet plays would have to be pretty stupid to have ever thought of his as a liberal, brain-dead or not
― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Wednesday, 18 May 2011 14:43 (fourteen years ago)
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/01/28/gun-laws-and-the-fools-of-chelm-by-david-mamet.html
― goole, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:37 (thirteen years ago)
As rules by the Government are one-size-fits-all, any governmental determination of an individual’s abilities must be based on a bureaucratic assessment of the lowest possible denominator. The government, for example, has determined that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people, and, so, must be given certain preferences. Anyone acquainted with both black and white people knows this assessment is not only absurd but monstrous. And yet it is the law
I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a paragraph.
― ledge, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:54 (thirteen years ago)
perhaps it runs along the lines of the standard conservative disavowal of context, history, or any general determinative factors other than individual choice, free will, ability, etc. ergo a policy addressing structural or historical inequality quite literally has to be reinterpreted as making determinations about individuals. just a theory!
― ryan, Monday, 28 January 2013 19:58 (thirteen years ago)
some kind of fine line between "holding fast to a few clear ideas" and "knowing anything beyond a few clear hard ideas is a waste of time and probably evil"
― goole, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:02 (thirteen years ago)
And yet it's the law.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:03 (thirteen years ago)
for a guy who's written so many books and affects this kind of seen-it-all tough-minded cynic persona, mamet's ignorance of pretty much everything he talks about in that article is impressive.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:23 (thirteen years ago)
yeah maybe i shouldn't be shocked by how ignorant that is but i am. wow.
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:24 (thirteen years ago)
there are more than 2 million instances a year of the armed citizen deterring or stopping armed criminals; a number four times that of all crimes involving firearms
This is an NRA stat that is on the face of it utterly absurd if not actually paradoxical. Actual rebuttal may be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States#Self-protection
― ledge, Monday, 28 January 2013 20:32 (thirteen years ago)
-- that marx thing at the start is just wrong: marx was referring to the way things would be in the post-state utopia, not the way things would be under the 'dictatorship of the proletariat.' -- "The government, for example, has determined that black people (somehow) have fewer abilities than white people, and, so, must be given certain preferences." -- i've read a lot of shitty arguments against affirmative action and still i've never stumbled on one that got it quite this wrong. -- 'the founding fathers weren't politicians' -- would've been news to adams, jefferson, madison, hamilton...-- obama never said the constitution was a 'set of suggestions,' so no idea why mamet put that phrase in quotes.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:43 (thirteen years ago)
includes imagined crimesxp
― rockism against racism (schlump), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:44 (thirteen years ago)
includes crimes vividly imagined while standing in queuesthe statistics on the number of cartwheels that would be performed by gun-carrying patriots in the process of stopping robberies, murders, &c would blow your mind
― rockism against racism (schlump), Monday, 28 January 2013 20:45 (thirteen years ago)
This is the thing. He's shifted philosophers, from Velben and Marx (inspiration for Glengarry, American Buffalo) to Thomas Sowell, but the sensibility stays the same.
Still, he's had as much of an effect on the American dramatic voice as anyone since Hemingway.
― to each his own but (Eazy), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:20 (thirteen years ago)
http://prospect.org/article/why-playwrights-arent-political-analysts
...Political writing is a craft, just like writing plays. Pretty much everyone who has ever read a newspaper thinks they could do it as well or better than those who do it for a living, but most of the time they can't. David Mamet spent a lot of time and energy working on his craft, but the fact that he got famous doing it doesn't mean he has any opinions about or analysis of politics that anyone would gain anything from hearing. I'd never say to anyone, "You should just shut up and do nothing but the thing that got you famous." Everybody has a right to speak about anything they want. If Joe Biden wants to try his hand at recording an album of Guns 'n Roses covers, he should have at it, and if anyone thinks it's any good they can buy it. If Paul Ryan wants to write a play, more power to him, and if it makes it to Broadway then he deserves whatever praise he gets. But a theater producer who says, "I know this play is going to be great—after all, it was written by Paul Ryan, who is a skilled politician" would be someone who didn't know his job. Just the same, an editor who says, "I know this essay on gun control is going to be great—after all, it was written by David Mamet, and he wrote Glengarry Glen Ross," is being just as foolish.
― The New Jack Mormons! (kingfish), Monday, 28 January 2013 21:45 (thirteen years ago)
pageviews probably the more relevant metric to the editor
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Monday, 28 January 2013 23:20 (thirteen years ago)
Thomas Sowell is a "philosopher" like I'm Dawn Richard.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 January 2013 23:27 (thirteen years ago)
Just to his mind, all I'm saying.
― to each his own but (Eazy), Monday, 28 January 2013 23:31 (thirteen years ago)
did anyone care what tennessee williams or eugene o'neill thought about politics?
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 28 January 2013 23:31 (thirteen years ago)
Shaw and Arthur Miller set the standard for that.
― to each his own but (Eazy), Monday, 28 January 2013 23:32 (thirteen years ago)
I should reread Eliot's religio-political writing. As rhetoric some of it was quite effective.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 January 2013 23:51 (thirteen years ago)
Mamets books on drama and directing are just as dumb as his political analysis tbh.
― wk, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 01:59 (thirteen years ago)
― ledge, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 09:32 (thirteen years ago)
pretty good, thorough takedown here:
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/29/david_mamet_should_stick_to_writing_plays/
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 29 January 2013 19:05 (thirteen years ago)
Mamets drama and directing are just as dumb as his political analysis tbh.
Yeah, I can't speak to his plays but I thought the movies I've seen of his were awful. I don't get the acclaim.
― wk, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 19:48 (thirteen years ago)
He casts Rebecca Pidgeon in lead roles. Tells you what you need to know.
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 29 January 2013 19:49 (thirteen years ago)
"If, indeed, a firearm were more dangerous to its possessors than to potential aggressors, would it not make sense for the government to arm all criminals, and let them accidentally shoot themselves?"
(-_-)
― that's real banjo bro (Hunt3r), Tuesday, 29 January 2013 19:57 (thirteen years ago)
everyone needs money, that's why they call it money
― Matt Armstrong, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 19:58 (thirteen years ago)
http://media.salon.com/2013/01/david_mamet-620x412.jpg
http://img0.etsystatic.com/000/0/5391322/il_fullxfull.49076628.jpg
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 20:11 (thirteen years ago)
I really don't know how to pronounce this dude's name
― mh, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 15:32 (thirteen years ago)
"David Moron"
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 30 January 2013 15:35 (thirteen years ago)
Daffy Marmot
― Gollum: "Hot, Ready and Smeagol!" (Phil D.), Wednesday, 30 January 2013 15:54 (thirteen years ago)
David Malort.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 16:06 (thirteen years ago)
i remember quite enjoying his On Directing Film when i was in college, but otherwise this dude can pretty much blow me
― Still S.M.D.H. ft. (will), Wednesday, 30 January 2013 16:10 (thirteen years ago)
Did y'all know his wife has been touring the country as a singer/songwriter the past couple of years? Anything to get out of the house, I guess.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 16:17 (thirteen years ago)
you can find better and cheaper, sailor
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 30 January 2013 16:18 (thirteen years ago)
Ta-Nehisi Coates:
All jest aside, I find the process that produces this sort of work to be utterly amoral. I've said this before, but this is the kind of writing that would get you bounced out of any decent essay writing class at a credible university. Words have meanings. You cannot change the fact that Thomas Jefferson served in the Virginia House of Burgesses because it's unfortunate for your argument. Unless you have a name like David Mamet.The message one derives from this is that power gives you the privilege of lying. If you are big enough, if your name rings out far enough, you may make words mean whatever you want them to mean. I experience this as a kind of violence against language. If we can't agree on the meaning of "is," then we have no ability to talk. And if we have no ability to talk, we really are that much closer to guns.
The message one derives from this is that power gives you the privilege of lying. If you are big enough, if your name rings out far enough, you may make words mean whatever you want them to mean. I experience this as a kind of violence against language. If we can't agree on the meaning of "is," then we have no ability to talk. And if we have no ability to talk, we really are that much closer to guns.
― Gollum: "Hot, Ready and Smeagol!" (Phil D.), Thursday, 31 January 2013 15:46 (thirteen years ago)
As long as someone keeps him out of the director's seat, you end up with The Untouchables, Ronin, The Edge, and (as translator) Vanya on 42nd Street.
― a tidy profit in Russia (Eazy), Thursday, 31 January 2013 15:50 (thirteen years ago)
"The Verdict!"
As a director, he did a good job with "The Spanish Prisoner" and "The Winslow Boy."
Christ, according to Wiki, Mamet took a stab at "Malcolm X," but Spike Lee rejected the draft. Bullet: dodged.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 31 January 2013 16:09 (thirteen years ago)
He also adapted Kurosawa's High and Low for Scorcese, which seems like a good fit.
― a tidy profit in Russia (Eazy), Thursday, 31 January 2013 16:43 (thirteen years ago)
Too bad Spike's script for Malcolm X was resoundingly mediocre.
Things Change was nice.
why you don't fact-check David Mamet:
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2013/01/how-david-mamet-gets-away-with-it.html
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 31 January 2013 16:51 (thirteen years ago)
Forgot about Things Change. Really nice.
― a tidy profit in Russia (Eazy), Thursday, 31 January 2013 16:53 (thirteen years ago)
Morbs, who cares if Spike's "X" is mediocre? Mamet's "X" would have been a disaster.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 31 January 2013 16:54 (thirteen years ago)
Mamet's drawing style, if it could be referred to as a style, made James Thurber look like Gustave Dore.
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3
― Gollum: "Hot, Ready and Smeagol!" (Phil D.), Thursday, 31 January 2013 16:55 (thirteen years ago)
if u say so xp
you do know screenplays are changed and rewritten w/out credit all the time, right?
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 31 January 2013 16:56 (thirteen years ago)
Really? I thought they wrote themselves.
WTF, Spike Lee is remaking "Oldboy?"
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 31 January 2013 16:57 (thirteen years ago)
These guys bought the cartoons, too.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/mamet-bleach-060530-ent.jpg
― a tidy profit in Russia (Eazy), Thursday, 31 January 2013 16:59 (thirteen years ago)
You're fucking kidding
― ledge, Thursday, 31 January 2013 17:32 (thirteen years ago)
- Tyler, age 5
― Gollum: "Hot, Ready and Smeagol!" (Phil D.), Thursday, 31 January 2013 17:47 (thirteen years ago)
Is that Sam the Eagle from the Muppets on the left there?
http://www.wallpaperhi.com/thumbnails/detail/20120220/kermit%20the%20frog%20the%20muppet%20show%20sam%20the%20eagle%201600x1062%20wallpaper_www.wallpaperhi.com_69.jpg
― bizarro gazzara, Friday, 1 February 2013 11:44 (thirteen years ago)
His Hoffa screenplay is p gd, don't see why his X screenplay wouldn't be p gd, too
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 1 February 2013 12:06 (thirteen years ago)
Because Malcolm X is a totally different type of human being, with a totally different sort of gravitas, from Hoffa? Because Mamet has never written a black character in his life?*
*possible hyperbole
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 1 February 2013 12:55 (thirteen years ago)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbelt
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 1 February 2013 12:57 (thirteen years ago)
Oh yeah, that one!
Anyway, this is interesting. Mamet didn't write his screenplay for Lee. He wrote his screenplay way back in 1983 for Sidney Lumet, after they worked together on "The Verdict;" it looks like at one point you could actually buy Mamet's version: http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Autobiography_of_Malcolm_X.html?id=Jw6DNwAACAAJ
Lee didn't like Mamet's old version, and apparently Lee's version was co-written not just with the credited Arnold Perl, but with James Baldwin, too. Lee claims Baldwin's sister, who controls his estate, had his name removed from the credits when she thought too much was changed.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 1 February 2013 13:02 (thirteen years ago)
Probably was like Ali with more speeches. And if he directed as well, a stationary camera and Rebecca Pidgeon as Robert Kennedy.
― a tidy profit in Russia (Eazy), Friday, 1 February 2013 17:31 (thirteen years ago)
The more I look at that cartoon the angrier it makes me. Not least of all for two hyphenated word breaks in a one-line joke.
― Gollum: "Hot, Ready and Smeagol!" (Phil D.), Friday, 1 February 2013 20:04 (thirteen years ago)
http://playboysfw.kinja.com/entropy-decoding-the-dna-of-this-american-moment-1487425922
starting to wonder how this guy was ever considered a good writer. couldn't get more turgid.
― goole, Friday, 28 February 2014 20:20 (twelve years ago)
As we are a product of energy (some quantum folks would say we are energy), we must run downhill; that is to say, we, forced to make decisions, must regularly choose wrongly, which is to say, expend irretrievable energy. Therefore, all civilizations must eventually fail. Lincoln put it magnificently in his Second Inaugural Address, in which he suggests that all the wealth accrued through slavery may have to be dispersed through the medium of war.
But there is, of course, no status quo ante, and the effects of slavery, and of the Civil War, are, even today, occupying our energies, physical and mental; and original unfortunate choices in the source of cheap energy (slaves) are still playing out their course downstream in affirmative action, welfare, "diversity," busing and our foreign policy (those with darker skins are considered "more worthy"), just as they did in Jim Crow segregation, lynching and miscegenation laws.
"It's a shame we ended up enslaving a group of ungrateful, uppity freedmen."
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:24 (twelve years ago)
The question, finally, is, What is going on here? How is it possible that Germany and England, twice in two decades, retired to the traditional dueling grounds to kill off an entire generation of their youth? Why did we follow France to Vietnam, and Russia into Afghanistan? Why have we, the citizen—owners of this country, allowed an entrenched class of bureaucrats to have control over our laws and resources? Here is my own law of thermodynamics: The blonde always breaks up the band.
― goole, Friday, 28 February 2014 20:26 (twelve years ago)
is he doing Dada cutups with words and sentences
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:29 (twelve years ago)
"Slavery was abolished at the cost of great agony, sacrifice and waste. It was the expenditure of energy in the service of Good (a rather unique choice and one recapitulated by our participation in World War II). Here the United States, as a body politic, acted to defend the powerless, with no ulterior motive. But two things occurred, the first being that such massing created the most expeditious machine for the dissipation of energy the world has ever known, the Federal Government; and the second, that we, as a people, had learned a Good Trick."
i want to argue with this but tbh i'm not sure i know wtf he's even talking about.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:31 (twelve years ago)
I just imagine Zosia reacting to his political 'writing' in character as Shoshanna
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:32 (twelve years ago)
Here the United States, as a body politic, acted to defend the powerless, with no ulterior motive.
*cough* Lincoln much?
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:33 (twelve years ago)
does he know what "recapitulated" means
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:33 (twelve years ago)
The entire thing is embarrassing, just total sub-Usenet crackpottishness
i do like this:
"the most expeditious machine for the dissipation of energy the world has ever known, the Federal Government"
makes the federal government sound like a rickety old-timey jules verne style flying contraption.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:36 (twelve years ago)
the energy from the entropic sweep of a single butterfly's wing just wafted the turgid stench of this guy's "prose" through my interwebs. now moochers are camping on my lawn, and stealing my electric.
― i ain't allergic i just sneeze a lot (Hunt3r), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:38 (twelve years ago)
i like the idea of war being a way to burn off excess - very bataille
― Mordy , Friday, 28 February 2014 20:40 (twelve years ago)
looks like mamet is the last person left in america who has never been exposed to that 'i would save the union' lincoln quote that is legally required to be included in every single book, article, and online discussion about the CW.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:42 (twelve years ago)
I suspect he got his ideas about energy from Information Society.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:42 (twelve years ago)
it's like the line from The Godfather, "getting rid of the bad blood"
xxp
yeah, and maybe someone shoulda had a talk w/ Joe Kennedy and those other guys before they armed Hitler so we didn't have to be Good later. xp
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:43 (twelve years ago)
Playwrights are easily enthused by mythologies and archetypes. The conservatives are better at dressing up their politics as mythologies and archetypes atm.
― Aimless, Friday, 28 February 2014 20:50 (twelve years ago)
starting to wonder how this guy was ever considered a good writer.
i think he was considered a good writer because he was a good writer. i mean, read some of those classic plays. his muse seems to have dried out at a certain point. i've sat through more than a couple mamet plays that were damn near torture. it happens. (see also: sam shepard. though shepard thankfully isn't a neocon lunatic, as far as i know. mamet's been one since before most people here were born.)
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 28 February 2014 22:48 (twelve years ago)
quantum folks
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 28 February 2014 22:53 (twelve years ago)
yeah he seems to be milking this 'conversion' for a hell of a long time. he dates it in interviews to the kerry election. knowing his work i was a little surprised he ever considered himself a liberal.
i've never seen it put on but oleanna reads like a redditor's fantasy
― goole, Friday, 28 February 2014 22:55 (twelve years ago)
oleanna was one of the mamet tortures i sat through.
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 28 February 2014 23:02 (twelve years ago)
i read the synopsis of 'edmond' recently and it was...interesting
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 28 February 2014 23:04 (twelve years ago)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_%28play%29
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 28 February 2014 23:05 (twelve years ago)
<<Edmond claims she is not a real actress because she only takes acting classes and does not actually perform for a paying audience. Edmond encourages her to be honest with herself, and to say that she is not an actress but a waitress. Glenna begins to find his odd behavior disturbing and asks him to leave. An argument escalates, and Edmond kills her.>>
interesting indeed, considering mamet's views on actors in general.
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 28 February 2014 23:09 (twelve years ago)
that kind of sounds like his acting book, which i have, and seemed kind of useful when i was thinking more about acting.
― goole, Friday, 28 February 2014 23:11 (twelve years ago)
i always liked oleanna but the more i learn about mamet the more i wonder if i 'misread' it
― AIDS (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 28 February 2014 23:18 (twelve years ago)
christmas candy bar (al leong)Posted: February 28, 2014 at 11:04:56 PMi read the synopsis of 'edmond' recently and it was...interesting
lol this is not the role u want to watch wm h macey in
― lag∞n, Friday, 28 February 2014 23:22 (twelve years ago)
people who r good at things shd stay in their lanes imo
― lag∞n, Friday, 28 February 2014 23:23 (twelve years ago)
like its hard to be good at one thing ur prob not going to at another
― lag∞n, Friday, 28 February 2014 23:24 (twelve years ago)
oleanna is about a false rape accusation
― Mordy , Friday, 28 February 2014 23:25 (twelve years ago)
mamet was inspired at least in part by clarence thomas/anita hill
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Friday, 28 February 2014 23:27 (twelve years ago)
people who are at good anything should probably not go looking to clarence thomas for inspiration.
― fact checking cuz, Friday, 28 February 2014 23:45 (twelve years ago)
otm
― lag∞n, Friday, 28 February 2014 23:47 (twelve years ago)
the great writers who are gross conservative cranks somehow weasel their greatness into cranky prose (Burke, Eliot, K. Amis). This guy isn't even as good as Jonah!
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:38 (twelve years ago)
mamet is money dont h8 his movies r hella tite
― lag∞n, Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:42 (twelve years ago)
i even liked redbelt
― Mordy , Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:42 (twelve years ago)
redbelt owns
― lag∞n, Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:48 (twelve years ago)
some if his movies aren't that good but redbelt is v good
redbelt owns yeah. i'm down w/spartan too.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:50 (twelve years ago)
heist-spartan-redbelt is a great trilogy of man stuff
― lag∞n, Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:51 (twelve years ago)
he's good at that masculine hypercompetence stuff. always evil women lurking around tho, aren't there...
― goole, Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:54 (twelve years ago)
heist is the worst of them because of it.
― goole, Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:56 (twelve years ago)
agreed heist is the weakest of the three its still p rad tho love heists, his politics are bad and he's not a cool dude for sure but idc
― lag∞n, Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:58 (twelve years ago)
You girls.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:58 (twelve years ago)
i told u stay out of my room
― lag∞n, Saturday, 1 March 2014 00:59 (twelve years ago)
Put that coffee. Down.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 1 March 2014 01:00 (twelve years ago)
funny that redbelt happened because of ed o'neill
― goole, Saturday, 1 March 2014 01:00 (twelve years ago)
this Phil Spector movie
― Οὖτις, Monday, 18 August 2014 21:42 (eleven years ago)
it's kinda mind-boggling that this was made in this particular way
apparently because Terry Gross declined to interview him once? https://bsky.app/profile/coreyatad.com/post/3lvle2jeqxc2x
― jaymc, Tuesday, 5 August 2025 03:16 (nine months ago)
interviewer starts by saying, "i still don't understand..." and by the end of the clip it's not much different
― budo jeru, Tuesday, 5 August 2025 03:56 (nine months ago)
how it endedhttps://bsky.app/profile/coreyatad.com/post/3lvlaprd6rk2x
― conspiracitorial theories (stevie), Tuesday, 5 August 2025 11:26 (nine months ago)