Into the Sewer: the American right wing, 2011

oleanna is one of those... "we report... you decide" plays that "forces you to question the nature of sexual harassment" or whatever, except it doesnt, because none of the characters are real people

and the movie is just horrible

not at all shocking that this dude is a conservative, imo. thought i'd seen a decent number of his films but realized it's just wag the dog (don't remember it that well), the edge (BAD ASS), heist (ok i thought, nothing great), ronin (GOAT), and spartan (incomprehensible at the time of viewing due to [redacted], so i won't pass judgement).

which, maybe wag the dog aside, are all bona fide dude films. sort of assumed that if someone was v serious about making quality spy flicks (or novels or w/e, a la clancy), that meant that they were de facto libertarians if not outright conservatives. this is stuff made for if not exclusively consumed by middle-aged men who enjoy intelligence with their violence.

or: "grumpy men know how to do stuff

― goole, Monday, May 16, 2011 3:07 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark"

haha part of why i hate mamet is he came to speak at my college and gave this very "wake up, sheeple!" talk about how college is dumb and how much smarter he was than all of us and it was very offputting.

anybody who weighs heavy on the "sure you've got your book-learnin but it's out there in the REAL WORLD where you'll get your actual education" trope is my least favorite person

...particularily if they're paid a small fortune to chat shit at a commencement. Go tell it at a tech institute, Dave... except they wouldn't know who the fucking hell you are.

I saw Oleanna at the Royal Court and it was like being trapped in a middle aged white dude's butt-hurtedness at being told off for pinching an arse.

Not long after moving to the city, Mamet undertook his first foray into civic activism, when the City Council revived a 60-year-old ordinance and tried to force Mamet and his neighbors to cut the hedges around their homes, in accordance with a newly articulated “public right to the viewership of private property.”

First they came for the hedges and I didn't speak out.

it wasn't commencement tbf, but still. it was like, oh you're so daring, for coming to the belly of the beast that is higher education and speaking truth to power.

If he's remembered primarily as a film director rather than a playwright, t'will be some fine revenge.

I pretty much quit on him after the first Broadway production of Speed-the-Plow, where Madonna was the scheming gal, then there was that Homicide movie lunacy. American Buffalo and A Life in the Theatre have no perceivable politics.

minimalist writers are always conservative dicks

was Beckett? no idea

I think Robert Duvall originated the role of Teach in American Buffalo, so maybe they can hit the trail together next year for Herman Cain.

Mamet movies I own on DVD: Ronin, Spartan, The Edge, Glengarry Glen Ross, Heist. Mamet political opinions I give a dripping fart about: none of 'em.

bnw, what about Harold Pinter? Blows yr theory out of the water.

i should get around to seeing ggr huh

oh yeah, xp

can't believe the guy whose dialogue is the perfect distillation of intellectual machismo is a conservative dickhead

Is Vonnegut considered minimalist?

funny the playwright i think of as closest to mamet is caryl churchill but that' just how their words look on the page maybe

The Corner says that Trump and Shakey Mo Collier are out--any truth to this?

Not sure where to stick this one. Maybe the toilet?

...For years now, I’ve been saying that the modern Democratic party is the unholy issue of thirties gangsters and sixties Marxists, a criminal organization masquerading as a political party, composed of thugs, lawyers, layabouts, and guilt-ridden dupes, and motivated entirely by a lust for power disguised as the phony virtue of “compassion.”

Man, I WISH.

which, maybe wag the dog aside, are all bona fide dude films. sort of assumed that if someone was v serious about making quality spy flicks (or novels or w/e, a la clancy), that meant that they were de facto libertarians if not outright conservatives. this is stuff made for if not exclusively consumed by middle-aged men who enjoy intelligence with their violence.

John Le Carre/The Constant Gardener and the Bourne films are pretty much the only parts of this genre I can think of that don't seem this way, maybe outliers like Enemy of the State/The Conversation?

the guy whose dialogue is the perfect distillation of intellectual machismo

but we took it for satire, no?

i certainly did circa GGR

but we took it for satire, no?

speak for yourself!

i took classes at the atlantic theatre co. for awhile. i really enjoyed them. in a weird way mamet's theories about acting could be seen as classically neoliberal: each actor busily goes about "rationally" attempting to achieve goals that have been determined through script analysis. for mamet, actors are discrete entities that never share information onstage unless it's in order to further their own ends. like game theory or something. maximizing advantage. one of our tutors (who had studied with mamet) commented one day, "it's depressing to realize how little of what we do in real life is actually helping us accomplish our goals", implying that the stage was different. and yes, it is different. so much of the other non-advantage-maximizing business is just streamlined away, both at the writing stage and in the performances. which is important for telling a story, i guess. i dunno. the thing is, for many actors this REALLY WORKS as a technique.

like, mamet really believes that drama is where HEROES strive HEROICALLY. they do things we can't. they have the time and space and vision to apply all their energies toward overcoming their obstacles whereas us real-life schlubs are always getting confused by life, and lazy in our ways. and that's why we like drama, as a model of the good or even the perfect. not the perfect politics, mind you, but the perfect individual striving toward a goal.

"it's depressing to realize how little of what we do in real life is actually helping us accomplish our goals"

this seems pretty stupid to me considering every actor has the next 90 minutes of action mapped out for him when the curtain goes up. what "goals"?

well i assume you have goals in your real life

If those are Mamet's theories, how does Sweet Neo Con explain Reagan's success?

lol i meant that to stand in for the whole deal up there

xp

"1. post more to ILX"

goole i could go on at length about this but script analysis usually results in "actions" ("get someone to spill the beans", "get someone to make an exception", "get a bully to back down") - things you can imagine doing, things you can have fun doing - that accomplish what it seems your character is trying to accomplish in the script; in real life we seldom are so willful as to consciously come up with actions and then do them

well right, that makes sense

a dude with a really aggressive show-pony attitude toward actors maybe has a bit too high opinion of his ideas then? oh no, they will fuck it all up in translation, all this pesky stage-time with other people involved when i could be writing op-eds instead, just SAY THE LINES GODDAMIT...

and say them loudly, and stand on your mark. without twitching around too much.

it's true that if you're writing a script, having "victim" and "oppressor" roles already sketched out immediately crushes all the nuance and surprise that might make your script good. but it is like, REALLY WEIRD to draw a direct line from this condition of artistic creation to, say, judgements about society and who benefits and who suffers.

thugs, lawyers, layabouts, and guilt-ridden dupes

http://www3.images.coolspotters.com/photos/107199/charles-montgomery-monty-burns-profile.jpg
author photo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lUMc7we5ks&feature=player_embedded

lolzzzzz

"thanks for sharing"

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/sovereign_citizen_resists_traffic_stop_arrest_as_a_free_citizen_on_a_free_highway.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/assets_c/2011/05/Michael-Creath-Jones-cropped-proto-custom_2.jpg

A sovereign citizen in Virginia was arrested and charged with five misdemeanors after a bizarre encounter with a state police officer where he called himself a "free citizen on a free highway" and gave multiple fake names.

Michael Creath Jones, 31, was pulled over last week by State Trooper T.M. Simmons because he had a fake painted license plate with the words "Virginia" and "private use" handwritten on it.

The News Virginian reports that according to the search warrant affidavit:

Jones locked his doors and barely cracked open his window and refused to identify himself. He told Simmons he was a "free citizen on a free highway" and provided different names. The trooper asked for identification at least 10 times.

Jones also said he did not have to provide a driver's license, and only got out of the car when Simmons threatened to arrest him and break the car window. Jones struggled when Simmons tried to handcuff him. He was later charged with "resisting arrest, obstruction of justice with force, driving without a license, having an expired inspection sticker and defective equipment," Staunton's News-Leader reports.

Simmons said he found documents relating to the sovereign citizens movement and their activities in the trunk of the car, as well as a Geiger counter, according to the News-Leader.

Sovereign citizens are a loosely organized anti-government group who believe all forms of government and laws are illegitimate. Some sovereign citizens, when confronted with law enforcement have become violent, while others have sought revenge through "paper terrorism," like several in New York who were recently convicted of mail fraud.

so, why did he pull over?

The people who market to these guys are geniuses, imo

I just put this on order--anyone read it?

http://www.frogenyozurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Mad-As-Hell.jpg

There may be some overlap with the Rick Perlstein books, although it mostly covers years he hasn't gotten to yet.

A lot of Panama Canal stuff I'm sure

hidden messages in the birth certificate?

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=301329?bestoneyet

actual i'm not shitting you first sentence:

Recalling Dan Brown's bestselling novel "The Da Vinci Code," computer experts have discovered strange anomalies in the Obama birth record released by the White House.

doctor's signature profile sketch = pure comedy gold

lmao @ this

http://www.wnd.com/images/110520colorfilter3.JPG

Why would the Hawaii DOH allow the document issued to the president to contain an obvious smiling face hiding within the first letter of the state registrar's signature?

Or, could it be the work of a forger leaving his mark, laughing at those who take the document seriously?

I started reading Mad as Hell but had to return it to the library before I had time to finish. Not as much overlap with Nixonland as you might think, and actually managed to make the Ford presidency interesting. I recommend checking it out; I plan on going back and finishing it soon.

i should read nixonland shouldnt i

Cherry Hill student's challenge to Tea Party champion Michele Bachmann prompts 'threats'

A Cherry Hill High School East sophomore who challenged Tea Party champion Michele Bachmann to a constitutional debate says she is concerned for her personal safety.

"A lot of them are calling me a whore," 16-year-old Amy Myers said, referring to anonymous comments reacting to online news reports about her challenge to the 55-year-old Minnesota congresswoman.

In a letter addressed to Bachmann and dated April 29, Myers leveled pointed criticisms at the Tea Party Caucus founder.

"I have found quite a few of your statements regarding the Constitution of the United States, the quality of public school education and general U.S. civics matters to be factually incorrect, inaccurately applied or grossly distorted," Myers wrote.

"As one of a handful of women in Congress, you hold a distinct privilege and responsibility to better represent your gender nationally. The statements you make help to serve an injustice to not only the position of Congresswoman, but women everywhere."

Myers and her father, Wayne, posted her letter to Bachmann on CNN's iReport website on May 6. News outlets including Yahoo and The Atlantic picked up the story over the weekend.

Amy and Wayne Myers said the comments on conservative websites alarmed them most. Several commenters threatened to publish the Myers' home address.

Others threatened violence, including rape, they said.

"They're targeting me just because I'm challenging Bachmann," Amy said.

Amy's challenge is arguably unrealistic: Few if any sitting members of Congress would actually agree to debate a teenager.

does roger ailes count for this thread? i am having trouble distinguishing between "mainstream republicanism" and "right wing sewer"

heres a good article about ailes

http://nymag.com/news/media/roger-ailes-fox-news-2011-5/

there was a great nyer article about him and the tiny local newspaper he bought (and turned into a right-wing hit machine) in his hometown a couple months ago that gawker followed up with

http://gawker.com/rogerailes