'Sand' 36 Cecil St. (Rehearsed Reading)

'Sand': a rehearsed reading followed by after-show discussion, 36 Cecil St.
What was I doing there?

Well it was free in, and I wanted to see many things so I could pontificate about them here I spose.

There were six women on the stage. Three dancers and two readers and somebody kind of setting out a picnic. The play was in three 'acts'; the first of which had been choreographed, and the other two were just read out by the actors sitting in chairs.

The first act was, unsurprisingly, the interesting one. The style of dance involved three people going backwards and forwards and spinning occasionally. The stage was more or less bare, the style of acting was an impersonal monotone, and the style of writing was extremely repetitious, while all the while someone set out a type of picnic, and although this might sound awful it really wasn't.

'Sand' brings you to the seaside.

The choreography made perfect sense as a description of tide and surf and little eddies and swirls, the ghostly line repetition made sense in this context too. The words, the questions, these little snatches of dialogue came rolling back and forth in an way that also evoked the constant rumbling in/out of the beach.

This was a nice good satisfying bit of 'scene-setting', and a pleasant ritual.
For the second two acts we were left with just the script on it's own- and the absence of movement, acting or any discernable story left me feeling like I might as well have been at mass.

Having seen the contrast between the (rehearsed and choreographed) 1st and the (cold-read) 2nd and 3rd acts it seems fair to say that the context of movement is what made sense of this play and therefore the bald reading of the second two acts seemed kind of pointless, being neither entertaining nor informative.

Based on what little I gathered, I'd imagine a full production of 'Sand' isn't the sort of thing that'd float my personal boat out to sea. The writing style was a bit 'Poemy' and a bit 'Becketty' to suit me; if there was a story there I didn't get what that was.

Having said that, shows don't have to be 'about' things to be engaging and satisfying and, as a pleasant and evocative/medititave bit of performance, the first act did have much to recommend it; also the ensemble cast were excellent. Even though I didn't really connect with it, lot of people did, so I was left with the dissatisfied question that pops into my mind at all rehearsed readings:

Why didn't they just do the damn play?






I shan't tell how the after-show discussion went because I wasn't there.

I'm agin 'em. And this is why

“Sand” written by Deirdre Nunan, choreographed/directed by Mary Nunan,
performers: Lisa Cahill, Laura Murphy, Cathy Walsh and Mary Wycherley.


unfringed awards

UnFringing the night away (plus awards results)

Okelee Dokely,
A quick one this as I've been indulging in all things theatrical to the point of overload and penury... I 'm gonna spread out the reviews over the week so that I dont have to be thinkin' of different shite to be bloggin' about. I'm off to the awards ceremony, so I should have news of that as well as me own tuppenceworth.

The next exciting instalment tomorrow folk...

EDIT:

Here be them awards:

(an asterisk indicates that I saw the show)
Best Female Performance

Nominations
Crissy O’Donovan – A Different Animal*
Marie Boylan – A Different Animal *
Amy Conroy – The Blanch *
Maeve Leahy – Her Name was Pamela Mooney*

WINNER - Crissy O’Donovan – A Different Animal*

Best Male Performance

Nominations
David Bolger - Swimming with My Mother
Dan Canham – 30 Cecil St
Duncan Molloy – 7 Versions of a Song {this performance had no mention in the festival programme}
Jamie Carswell – The Blanch *

WINNER - Duncan Molloy – 7 Versions of a Song

Best Production

Nominations
Killer Kabaret – Bottom Dog
Swimming With My Mother – Coiscéim
The Blanch – Carpet Theatre*
Storybook – LSA
A Different Animal – Wildebeest Theatre Company*
An Shean Fhear Beag - Branar

The winner of this category was 'swimming with my mother', I believe; I haven't been able to confirm this

Spirit of Unfringed

Nominations
Absence & Loss – Nigel Rolfe & Irish World Academy
Storybook – LSA
Love Letters Straight from Your Heart – Uninvited Guests*
My Life in Dresses – Sorcha Kenny

WINNER – Love Letters Straight from Your Heart – Uninvited Guests

Judges’ Special Award

A Different Animal *
Choke Comedy – Ensemble
Her Name Was Pamela Mooney – Pontoon Theatre*
Connected – Script & Performance *

WINNER – 30 Cecil St – Dan Canham

Rachel Finuchane's article on the Unfringed 2011. Irish Theatre Magazine

This 'Connected'

It seems an obvious thing for theatre to address, the 'new world' the online-interweb-hyperhighway, for that is where we do much of our interaction today, and relationships and freindships are maintained and strengthened, even rekindled down these ubiquitous electric tubes.

The days of snailmail produced the epistolary novel, and an epistolary novel gave us 'Dangerous Liasons', so surely it's high time we had a decent play that reflects the way we write to each other nowadays?

Well the world being a big place, and full of creative types it's entirely possible that someone has done this before, but the first time I've seen anybody tackle it as a theme is when I went last night to see 'connected' as part of this years unFringed(sic).

And how did they do? They did brilliantly. Karl Quinn and Will Irvine do a fantastic job at making the virtual 'real' as well as dramatic/comprehensible and true. They do so in a very physical and innovative way that had their audience grinning with pure pleasure.

I had niggles, I wouldn't be me if I didn't, but before I get in to them I have re-iterate that this was a gem of a show, creative and brave, and getting to see it for a mere tenner I felt like a lucky, lucky man indeed.



Okay niggles:
1# The acoustics in 36 Cecil St. and the use of sound effects made it very difficult to hear the opening dialogue, which was a little frustrating and I don't want to start watching a play feeling even slightly frustrated.

2# The stage is bare, the office that the two men work in, and the various online 'realities' they inhabit are evoked for us by the actors use of mime. When they are in the office reality one ribs the other mercilessly, with jokes and snide comments which is fine but when he also mimes things(as office-bound piss-takers do ) it kind of jarred with my brain a little. I would have found the convention clearer and more comprehensible if the actors only mimed what was 'real'.

3# SPOILER ALERT Ironically enough, 'the real world' element of the story was the least engaging reality. There is a 'ticking clock' deadline, and one character has an important choice to make, but personally I didn't get a sense of any gravity to these elements.
The deadline is missed, and there are no real consequences, one character is frustrated that this has happened but it's hard to see why.SPOILER OVER

Over all the show is so enjoyable that these minor niggles are hardly worth the mention. If you want to see a comedy that's fun and fresh that depicts the world online in a clever, creative, and hilarious way, the connected is the show for you.

I'd go see it again

and I don't say that of many things.

unfringed awards

Going for a song

Good ol' Momus.

Part of the fun of th'interveb is the ability to share... Here is an image BANG! No you don't have to queue up to the Guggenheim, or wait for the salon to host its grand exhibition; here it is BANG! Here's a bit of music I think you'd like, no there's no need to call around to my house and watch me pull out my vinyl LP's ...BANG! whatcha think? Good eh? Here's their influences BANG! Hear the similarities? It was used in this scene for that film BANG! Rick Astley did a cover of it...BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!BANG!

Okay the last bit was me shooting Rick Astley repeatedly in the nose but you get what I'm at: this is the world now and we spread the pop-culture 'round the web like so much manure. Methinks and mehopes that this manure will prove fertile ground indeed for the pop-pickers of tomorrow,- but I wouldn't be my anachronistic, crotchety curmudgeonly, Luddite self if some small part of me didn't think that back in the day of queuing outside record shops that the comparative inaccessibility of music meant that the music itself 'meant more'.

It must have, mustn't it?

Era I dunno... Either way the availability of all this musical output does make me feel perversely pleased if ever I go looking for summat and can't find it... It's like somehow the Borg haven't assimilated it yet, or something. But whose not there?
Once upon a time I couldn't find any MOMUS, but those days are gone.
Nobody is not there anymore it seems. 10 years ago maybe, but now everything's pretty much everywhere.

Today's blog, is an act of gratitude to the people* who reached into their vinyl collection and put the needle on the record so that they could introduce me to this work, (*you know who you are).
In the pantheon of pretentious 1980's pop-musicians; MOMUS makes Morrissey look like a member of Status Quo. Which is why you have to love him and also why nobody seems to have heard of him.

I searched the whole wide web, I searched the whole wide web just to find him, well one song in particular. Might not be your cup of tea, but it's my favourite by him and I do think he has some crackers.

In this one he uses the conceit of taking the wars of the 20th Century and making them just one persons life: They live, stuff happens, they die...as a story it's a bit like that film 'Synechdoce New York' I spose.

Please check it out 'coz it's worth the listen.

Clicky here for the song

Here are the words:

Three Wars


The first war, the war of 14 to 18
Begins with an uprising of adrenalin
The first war begins with the testicles descending
And desire assassinating the child

that you once were

The war begins at school
when you rebel against the maths teacher
Who touched you up behind his desk
And ends
when you've failed your final maths exam
And had your first success with sex
The war brings new discoveries
How to make dog fights
with your thyroid and pituitary glands
How the Zeppelin can fly at your command

And a generation lays down its life
When after all they've done for you
The good parents
The good parents die
Resurrected

as your enemy

And when the girl you've started wanting
More than all you've ever wanted says no
She is
She is your enemy too
But you survive

And from the trenches of your newly found opinions
Quickly dug, quickly abandoned
The white flag waves
for an armistice on Christmas Day
Then your voice rings round the family front room
Like a drill sergeant's in front of his platoon
Broken
Broken too soon
But you survive



The second war, the war of 39 to 45
Begins when you identify your own inner Third Reich
The second war begins with a sudden hypochondria
A visit to a doctor who waves a piece of paper and says
'This time...
it's just a false alarm'
The war begins at work
with some intoxicating news
When the letter comes that offers you promotion
And ends
when you decide to let them offer it
To younger men with more ambition
The war brings new perspectives
when you suddenly see through
The politics of power which possessed you
Through all your waking hours

And a generation lays down its life
When the whizz kids of the industry
Slow down
Slow down and die
resurrected

as your enemy

And when the woman who accepted you
When all the rest rejected you goes
She is
She is your enemy too
But you survive

And at weekends you get custody of an only child
Already adolescent and unreconciled
Who laughs at you,
you and your new-found piety
And his laugh rings round your faint desire for god
Like an order from an inner firing squad
Breaking
Breaking the ties of blood
But you survive



But the third war is the war that never comes
The war that never comes to everyone
Begins the second after next by accident
Ends everything except itself
The war brings nothing,
the unimaginable
That the old imagine all the time
Imagine
imagination dying

And a generation lays down its life
When it refuses the creation
of new ways
new ways to live
And when the great invention falls apart
Ripping through the atoms of your heart
The third war will start

Which no-one survives












Not exactly 'Walkin on sunshine', but I love it.

The Male Feminist pt 3

And so ends this journey, most definitely with a whimper rather than a bang.

I think 'the compliment of rational opposition' is a compliment always, and one to be all the more treasured when it's in response to a statement that wasn't all that rational to begin with; so I want to earnestly say thanks for any heckling from the wings on this one. I hope my general half-bakedness doesn't enrage anyone too much, as for meself,-I really have enjoyed faffing around the interweb and trying to get a fuller picture of this Marston chap.

'Feminist' as a term seemed to be the major flag-raiser but there aint no way around that because that is the word associated with Mr Marston I took exception to and really didn't realise took much defining.

So, seeing as the horse has bolted, and there's a bit of a draught in here why don't we close the door:

Feminism defined (via five minutes and a search engine):

.....

#1.a doctrine that advocates equal rights for women. wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn #2. Feminism refers to movements aimed at establishing and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women.[1][2][3] Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights. Feminism is mainly focused on women's issues, but because feminism seeks gender equality, some feminists argue that men's liberation is therefore a necessary part of feminism, and that men are also harmed by sexism and gender roles.[4][5][6][7] Feminists—that is, persons practicing feminism—can be persons of either sex. wikipedia #3. Feminism does not have a single fundamental definition. Feminism refers to the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes; that each individual is a valuable human being in his or her own right. The goal of feminist work is broader than simply a stronger emphasis on women; the goal is to revise our way of considering history, society, literature, etc. so that both male and female are seen equally conditioned by the gender constructions of their culture. Magaessays.com

Feminism from the above definitions is grounded in a desire for equal rights for all people regardless of gender. In other words all that is good and right and every civilised society should be aiming for so: what on earth did I think I was talking about?

Okay. Back when I was a gorsoon in Art college, I came in one day and this poster was on the wall:



Whatever section I had in my head under the word 'Feminism', this poster was the thumbnail for it. 'Feminism' was, for me, whatever put that poster up and thought it was a good thing.
The 'Male Feminist' whom I did not trust, is the person ( with their genitalia mainly outside their body ) who is not offended by it.

Now that's a simplistic and uninformed way of thinking as it turns out, and I really oughta no better -but it's good to be learning at this stage in my life.

When I read Marstons' interviews, my own reaction is that the man was essentially 'White-knighting',on a grand scale- I could be wrong, but his notion of the perfect society with loving, nurturing, females incapable of aggression at the helm is one I find shockingly patronising.

In spite of all this was he a 'feminist'? -Well he definitely tried to make a positive contribution, and although her readership has always been 90% male and although when she joined the Justice Society of America superhero group they only took her on as club secretary ( I kid you not), Wonderwoman was probably over-all a better role model for young women,( and what they might be), than what was out there before.

Gloria Steinham considered her the right gal for the cover of issue#1 of 'Ms' Magazine:


And it's probably unfair to judge the Marston by today's standards (that the F.B.I. under Hoover administration had no time for him doesn't actually tell us much about the mans character either).

So, to finish up then here is a modern male self-proclaimed feminist who's attitude I complete agree with, this is from a blog called atopthefourthwall. The subject is Wonderwoman's new costume 2010, and the author is not in favour.


....'But wait,' many of you have asked me, 'Aren't you a feminist? Aren't you happier now that she isn't wearing a sexist bathing suit and is actually wearing pants and showing less skin?' Well, let's address that last part first - she's not really all THAT much more covered up. She's still got exposed cleavage and frankly most comic book artists draw pants on women as skintight to the point that it might as well be spray-painted on anyway. And even then, as I said, the Project Rooftop examples had plenty of costumes with pants, but they weren't black. And in case you're wondering if I'm just misinterpreting the colors and it's really dark blue, check out the article or buy Wonder Woman #600 for yourself - they're black.

Now let's address my feminism. This is once again a misinterpretation of what feminism is - the thing is, showing skin is not the problem. I mock it in a lot of books because it seems like a lot of women's costumes are designed to show as much skin as possible for titillation reasons. Instead of designing costumes that are logical for a character based on who they are, their origins, or their thought process, they're designed so that they can ride up a woman's ass and heterosexual men can drool at it. Part of feminism is that you don't have preconceived notions about a person simply because of how they dress, how society might look at a girl or a woman in a mini-skirt and think to themselves, "they must be a slut," when in reality they could just really like mini-skirts.

Costumes themselves are not necessarily sexist one way or another and the same goes for Wonder Woman (though I continually groan in frustration whenever an artist decides that Wonder Woman's lower half rides up her ass like a thong). How the characters are written and how their body language is portrayed is what makes things sexist one way or another. Frank Miller writes Vicki Vale to be obsessed with superhero penises and put in the script that he wants Jim Lee to sexualize her for titillation, making her into nothing more than an object to be gazed at, describing in detail that she should be in skimpy attire and that her ass should be front and center for the reader. THAT is a sexist portrayal...



This is a point of view I find perfectly valid and have no problem agreeing with, (a short skirt is simply a short skirt and what is depicted is different from how it is depicted e.t.c.) Personally, I'm for equal rights for everybody and I think objectification doesn't do much for human dignity of any gender, race or creed,

but I wouldn't call myself a feminist.

Thoughts upon The Road

We interrupt 'The Character Assassination of William Moulton Marston by the Coward Darren Maher' to give you a book review:

A while ago, I went to The very wonderful Moviedrome to rent me the flick called 'The Road'. Which I had a hazy notion of as a 'post-apocalyptic something or another'...
I love Moviedrome, and think of it as one of the reasons I even live in this town but I've been avoiding it of late (for similar reasons that 'Rick' from 'Casablanca' might have continued to avoid Paris even after the war).
Long story long,-it was out (I think I got 'Kick-ass' that night instead) but because it was out, I made the internal decision; "D'you know what? - I think I'll read the book first". And so some time last week I was in O'Mahony's searchin' out the volume.

I don't like cover blurb, and as a general rule I don't read it until I've seen the thing; but I do like a well-designed front cover. My copy of The Road lost instant points on this score. I bought 'One Day' a while ago (not bad) and was majorly irritated by the first two pages, which were crammed with emboldened and enlarged 'OMG this book is SO Cool!' type-comments.
The cover of my copy of 'The Road' is entirely text: the author's name, the title, and then "A WORK OF SUCH TERRIBLE BEAUTY THAT YOU WILL STRUGGLE TO LOOK AWAY -the Times" and that's it.

This is what the cover is:



I actually put it back on the shelf and picked it up again twice before resigning to myself to the fact that even though I could never get the cover out of my mind, that these things happen, and once I got into the book, the cover would fade from memory with every page. So I bought it.

But the cover was still on my mind so I couldn't really read it right away.
Yesterday, disillusioned with the flicky-screen-typer and all things related, I figured I'd save on the heating bill if I ensconced myself under the duvet and gave it ago.



Not a good idea.

I have a piece of advice now;- which is tantamount to blurb and spoiler in its own way but the book and film are both out a while now so I hope not to infect anyone's brain too badly. I feel I must say it, out of fairness to Mr McCarthy and my reaction to his creation,that if you are having a grim, all the-bills-came-in-at-the-same-time week, and your newly-re-found addiction to cigarettes, penchant for Shakespearean theatre and desire to buy a daycent book, has left you with a less than adequate food budget; if your days have become so entirely without structure that you've evolved a sleeping pattern that does not necessarily involve much daylight; if you feel isolated and alone in a Godless universe, and all you can see around you is a planet in decay and a system that cannot save it: then , perhaps 'The Road' is not the book for you.

Now, it is good and I do recommend it under other circumstances. It's nice, it's quiet, it 'feels true'. Mr McCarthy does tend to use a little-used word every now and then, :'Canebrake' 'harrowtroughs' 'palladian' 'clerestory' 'cakebell' 'hasp' 'palimpsest' 'isocline' 'haspstaple' 'soffits' 'kerfs' 'rachitic' -( I just had a quick flick back through the pages and picked out words that I don't know right now) but that's part of the power of the thing.

Just on words; the dialogue is sparse and never placed in "inverted commas" which suits the 'bare bones' feeling of the story, but one exchange that I personally found didn't scan, was when the dislocated and and dispossessed boy (who has no concept of where Mars is, or what 'the crow flies' means, or what a train sounds like,) arrives at the sea, which he's never seen and later comments to his father: " I couldn't hear you. I couldn't hear you because of the surf"

Which made me think: "How come he knows what 'Surf' is?"

Okay I found that bit now, and upon reflection it could be what the father says to son. This is why inverted commas are handy.

Anyhoo, there's my ten cents 'orth on 'The Road'. I wont say I enjoyed it, and it's possible I'm just too ignorant to appreciate it. It made me feel two things: hungry, and distrustful of strangers.


At no time did I struggle to look away.

######EDIT#######
Fathercrow has referred to an alternative cover in his comment,
this is the one he's talking about:

The Male Feminist pt2

Right so, where were we?

I began this thing with notions and prejudice. My notion was: "that Marston fella who invented Wonderwoman is constantly referred to as a feminist*, - I doubt it! (says Croker) - I'll just pop a couple of juicy facts down here and look up a couple more, and then we'll see how feminist he is!" a foolproof plan, which, like many the foolproof plan before it completely underestimates the ingenuity of fools.

Being neither a social scientist nor a true aficionado of DC comics in the post-war era; it turns out that there's a lot I don't know, and some of the stuff I do know and had wanted to talk about I don't really want to talk about any more, as it turns out.

Big Eeejit.

Anyway, by way of illustration I set before you an illustration: The last post began with a black and white photograph featuring Marston and Olive among others and so it is today. Observe:



Now I know it's only a photograph, and that the most hideous domestic situations are never revealed in the eternally smiling holiday snaps but something about this photos general wholesomeness puts me right off commenting on William Marston's home life.

It makes me feel frankly that it's none of my business. There was one sketchy report from a friend of his describing it as a patriarchal set-up but that hardly means anything, I mean; what does a visitor ever know? Upon reflection, I can't actually draw from his polygamy that he was a feminist or he wasn't a feminist, and as a blog commentator has so kindly pointed out, I have yet to even define feminist so I suppose that I should simply slap my forehead now and say, "Umm..Err.. I don't know what I'm talking about and it's none of my business anyway...".

But I'm not really smart enough for that folks.

Rather than commenting too much on several peoples' private lives, or attempting to define feminism, I think a wiser tactic might be to see what there is to support my original prejudice that a male feminist is, in some sense, a phoney.

There's a fantastic piece of phonyism in the 1941 article of 'Family Circle' where he's interviewed by Olive on the subject of the Wonderwoman comic and the doctrine of female supremacy which I have to link here and I strongly recommend reading as a delightful bit of hocum. The theories he propounds are not in spirit anyway different from the quotes in yesterdays blog, but what reads so strangely in the light of what we actually know of their relationship, is the fiction invented to give context to the article.



Our intrepid female reporter, comes back from a friends house. The friend has been widowed by recent events in Pearl Harbor, and is weary of all this talk of war, when she spots a comic-book on the table, and is suddenly inspired to visit her avuncular friend; the source of the comic-book heroine and a sage for her troubled mind.

She finds him, in his office of course, reading the exact same issue she noticed at home on the table: and then it's pretty much Harry Potter in Dumbledore's Study from there but instead of 'a scar', it's Olives' femininity which has marked her out for greatness. She remains incredulous and signs off in a tone that's more wistful than inspired as a result of her encounter with this delightful old dreamer.

Phony? check. Baloney? with extra slices, but to be fair it is Olive's phoney-baloney and it is for Family Circle magazine and it is the forties and the Japs have just bombed Pearl Harbor so it's not like an honest and direct version was ever going to be considered for publication. It's a piece of journalistic Hokum, but so what? So nothing really, I just felt I had to include it because I enjoyed it so much. It does illustrate another problem with any conclusions to be drawn from Marstons living arrangements because clearly it wasn't anything that he or his spouses could ever comment on at that time.

Still, she does lay it on a bit thick.

While Marston may or may not have been in favor of the fictional element of the article, and therefore by association, a 'phony'; he was, ironically enough for the man who invented the lie detector, an actual convicted criminal.

The article, "Will Give Hearing to Alleged Mail Defrauder," the Bridgeport Telegram, Wednesday, 7 March 1923, p. 13: WASHINGTON, March 6. -- Dr. William Moulton Marston, Jr., Professor of legal psychology at the American university and inventor of the sphygmomandmeter [sic] or "lie detector," has made $3,000 bond and will be given a hearing March 16 on a charge he "lied by mail."

Dr. Marston was arrested on a warrant charging use of the mails to defraud and was taken before United States Comissioner McDonald, who fixed the date of the hearing. He was indicted last November in Boston on complaint of a number of creditors who charged that as treasurer of the United Dress Goods, Inc. he misrepresented the financial condition of his firm and thus obtained considerable bills from them. Prominent among the complainants are A.D. Julliard & Co. and C. Bahnsen & Co. of New York. Another is his ex-furnace tender, of Boston, whom it is alleged he owes more than $100.

So what's goin on here? Well in all honesty I don't know and any further facts of this case other than what you see here elude me. On the face of it, Marston was found guilty of mendacity by correspondance to the tune of a hundred dollars; a hundred dollars may well have been a lot in those days but it was only a 30th of the bond he had to pay. There were two federal indictments and a number of creditors.
He was obviously strapped for cash and tried something he didn't get away with.

I think this makes him perhaps poor and desperate, but not necessarily a phony of any great degree and it certainly tells us nothing about his attitude to women.

The F.B.I. actually had a file on him, which is now a matter of public record. And although there isn't that much in it; I think it's fair to say that they definitely did regard him as a bit of a phony.

E.P. Coffey, who headed the FBI's Technical Laboratory,- had Marston's book reviewed for the bureau:

Re: Review of book entitled, Lie Detector Test by Doctor William M. Marston. The above-entitled book was reviewed by Mr. Quinn Tamm of the Technical Laboratory who reports that in his opinion the book is typical of all the work done by Doctor Marston in that it is written in an extremely egotistical vein and that the sole purpose of the book seems to be to establish the fact that Doctor Marston was the first to use the blood pressure test in the detection of deception. The first three chapters in the book deal with the subject of pointing out how Doctor Marston discovered the blood pressure test as a deception detector and also ridicules all other psychological attempts along this same line. The balance of the book is devoted to the various uses to which Doctor Marston has put the so-called lie detector test such as actual use in police cases, examination of employees in banks, a chapter entitled "Love and the Lie Detector" in which Marston points out how he has settled marital difficulties by the use of his psychological test. It is noted that throughout the book the author points out that the blood pressure test for the detection of deception in the hands of a trained operator is infallible and that once the deception has been detected it has been his experience that if this is pointed out to the subject he will admit his guilt and it will have the psychological effect upon him of making him always in the future tell the truth. This to Mr. Tamm, exemplifies the same egotistical ridiculous strain in which this book is written.

So they weren't exactly blown away.

Here's another illustration, not unusual for the era I suppose, where Marston has convoluted the application of his lie detector to demonstrate the sharpness of the Gillette blades:



Now, to yourself and meself, this seems like just another ludicrous forties advertisement, but the vast majority of its audience took it absolutely seriously.
So it seems did the F.B.I. They seem to have had an informer and have a full report on Marston's Gillette tests in Detroit. According to the report he interfered with test results to provide data the advertisers wanted and encouraged his colleagues to share the deception.
1

2

Scribbled at the bottom of the first page is the comment:
"I always thought this fellow Marston was a phony & this proves it!"

Well I always thought that fellow was a phony too, Special Agent John. S. Bugas!
Unfortunately for me though, discovering that on more than one occasion Mr Marston was willing to bend the rules in order to secure cash for both his families isn't enough for my purposes.

I've come nowhere near outing the man as a phony feminist.

But if he was a genuine feminist, he was also a a bit of a phony too.


I've a bit more to say about this, but you can all shag off until tomorrow because I'm turning into some sort of hunch-backed translucent skinned web-wraith.

*Anyone who doubts exactly how often William Moulton Marston is described as a feminist can do a Google search of his name and the word 'feminist' he is given this title in every bio I could find.

The Male Feminist pt1

Okay I admit it, I bit off more than I can chew. I've really bitten off more than I can chew this time and the worst of it is that you; denizens of the data flow, you are the ones who have to digest it.

Upon reflection, perhaps things aint all that bad after all.
Because, (after all,) the interweb is an infinite menu and and instant click will take folk far away from this rubbish and onto something more palatable in an electronic nano-thrice.

Well today shall be one of them sloppy posts, so: If the urge should strike you, as you scan the pixels before you, to do this: then my advice is to obey that urge, (instantly).

Still here?-Okay then, I'spose that I might as well begin:

Have a look at this picture. This picture is from 1938 and depicts, in a fairly stagy way, the use of the first systolic pressure lie detector test. The gentleman on the far right is William Moulton Marston. The Lady taking notes is his student, Olive Byrne.

Have a look at Olive; Look familiar? Yes/No? Well there's no real reason why she should, except that, as you may or may not know, as well as inventing the stystolic pressure lie detector test, William Marston also created Wonderwoman, and cited Olive as one of his inspirations.


So let me say that once again:
Mr Marston invented the pre-cursor to the modern polygraph and he also invented the most well-known female super-hero of all time, based on Olive, (observe the bracelets!). How cool is that?

Marston is often referred to as a kind of 'proto-feminist', and at a time when women were regarded almost as children (and granted about as much self-determination), Marston was envisaging a new dawn of female supremacy. His most common quote (on the interveb) is from the American Scholar interview of 1944 where he said:

"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power... ...Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."

Now that's a pretty cool thing for anyone to be coming out with back in 1944, I think you'd have to admit. Also, on the absolute fabbo-ness front, this man deserves respect for championing comics.

Marston examined comics when other psychologists were queueing up to blame them as a contributer to illiteracy and juvenile delinquency. It was when this intellectual crusade, ( which lead to the infamous 'comic-codes authority'), was in full 'Spanish Inquisition' mode, that Marston celebrated the popularity of the comic book form; seeing it as an opportunity to get kids to read -- and a platform to circulate his feminine supremacist ideal.

Here he addresses it in the same interveiw:

"It’s too bad for us ‘literary’ enthusiasts, but it’s the truth nevertheless -- pictures tell any story more effectively than words....If children will read comics...why isn’t it advisable to give them some constructive comics to read?"

Go on ya good thing Marston me boyo! So is it possible perhaps that William Moulton Marston was simply a brilliant and fantastic person, years ahead of his time and totally under-appreciated? Well.. um.. er... Okay this is where I get into the area of having bitten off more than I can comfortably chew... The answer to the above question is 'Yes!': but, it is a 'Yes!-but...'




As I admitted in the earlier post, I started this whole thing from a position of prejudice. It doesn't show much faith in human nature I guess, but I'm wary of folk who champion causes. I'm even more wary of folk who champion causes that do not seem to further their own self interest in even the smallest way. And a 'male feminist' kinda strikes me as likely phoney.



When I decided yesterday, to have a closer look at William, I was hazily aware that he lived in a menage e trois and that his second 'wife' ( Olive, incidentally): had been one of his students. I also knew that that 'gold-rope-that-made-you-tell-the-truth' didn't come out of nowhere and there was a huge aspect of bondage to his comics and to his psychological philosophy; I knew that an early study with his lie detector was to ask girls ( who, had been through a humiliating 'hazing' ritual,) whether they had enjoyed being beaten up and spanked. Conclusion: 'They loved it really the little tarts!'.

Alright I paraphrase, but my point being that when I decided to have a wee scratch on the surface; I wasn't really expecting to find what you'd call a 'feminist' and certainly, by today's standards, I didn't. But I didn't get a sense of a straight-forward fake either.

I shall have to finish this tomorrow, the computer's acting up and it's too late for me to continue.

I told you I bit off more than I can chew didn't I?

With Extreme Prejudice ( male feminist pt 0.5)

I'm not prejudiced but...

I am of course.

Human brains are pretty much hard-wired for it. Evolving as we did, in far smaller groups than the super-tribes of millions we interact with now, we just don't have the mental capacity for dealing with all the other people as individuals.

The brain takes short-cuts. These short-cuts lead to prejudice.

Case in point, if you had your lunch money stolen by a green-haired person at school; if you got mugged and badly beaten in your teens by a green-haired gang; if your green-haired neighbour poisoned your dog, and the one time you dated a green-haired person, they ran off with your best friend and all of your money; then the next time you meet a green-haired person, that person is going to have to work harder to gain your trust.


All the statistics in the world demonstrating that green-heads are no less moral than any other hair colour wont mean a damn to you in comparison to your own experience.

Green hair is a hypothetical physical characteristic, but there are millions of others. There are accents we don't like, ways of dressing that set off warning signals, even a persons age or gender is going to affect the way you view them. I think it's wrong for anyone to claim they are entirely without prejudice; it is never true: we constantly divide people in our minds into groups: 'Golf-drivers', 'Squash Players', 'Students', 'Scumbags', 'Suits', 'Emos', 'Mods' and 'Rockers'.

Anyway, my point being, that despite my best efforts; I notice what gender/age/skin-colour/clothes and accent people have, and that affects to some extent how I interact with them. I'd rather it didn't but it does. The phrase is :'To Keep an Open Mind', but I see 'closed' as the human mind default setting.

I would say that I don't Keep an Open Mind; I keep a closed mind, same as everyone else.

I try and open it as often as possible, but the sad fact is that the older you get the harder it is not to dismiss that green-haired person (or girl called 'Bláithín', or whatever the detail, that your own experience has led you to despise about people who share it, is ) and even if you do make friends with a green hair later in life, ( or you do come across a Bláithín who has a soul,) it's hard to dismiss all those years of having a contrary opinion, and the brain makes excuses to accommodate the original world view:

"No. The man who saved my life had kind of 'bluey green' hair"...

"She's not like all the other Blathins, I think of her more as a Sandra"...

My point is I'm prejudiced. I believe in the same rights and opportunities for all types of people but there are some types of folk I'm pre-disposed to more than others, and I'm probbly not gonna change at this stage. I believe that as soon you notice that someone is green-haired you have in some way categorised them in a different way.

All this is the pre-amble for the extremely prejudiced comment I am about to make:

Okay here goes.

Might as well just say it, and be done with it.

Right.

Here we go:

Any man who claims to be 'a feminist':I don't believe him.
I think he either actually thinks that he's something he's not,
Or he's pretending to be something he's not.

Todays post is only the intro,

In the next post I'll be having a look at one self-claimed feminist chap in more detail, but I just thought that I'd let you know by way of a heads-up.

I am completely prejudiced.

And if you think that it's in anyway typical of a white heterosexual male to be so judgemental:

Then so are you.

Shakespeare in pub.

Romeo and Juliet in the Loft Venue


Okay I'd better say this before I say anything else: A tenner to see a professional thayture company perform Romeo and Juliet is nothing. It's a gift. This week, last night, tonight and Sunday also, Limerick has been given this gift by Bottom Dog and Forestburgh playhouse.

It's hard to criticise in any way without seeming ungracious and ungrateful.

Mind you that's never stopped me before.

Okay then: niggles, there are only two and one of them was probably dictated by the constraints of the smaller-type stage in the loft.

Niggle#1: The costuming was impressive and clever, as well as making the cast look... well 'hot' I suppose... but there was a convention of colour-definition to help the audience identify a Montague from a Capulet and while most of the reds where clear reds there was blue, and there was a rich purply blue and there was a pale pastelly blue and this confused me and I didn't understand the colour convention immediately and so didn't reap the benefit in the first few scenes.

Niggle#2: ( And I presume that this was dictated by the space)After two separate stage deaths, the lifeless bodies were dragged off by the other actors. Cool. Effective; but then when Juliet dies, the actress kind of 'wakes up' to leave the scene. Because hers is the most significant death, this jarred a little with how I'd seen death portrayed up until that point; I'd have preferred a uniform convention for how dying was dealt with, even if it meant losing the cool 'drag-offs' from earlier.

This is all I really have to say negative about it, and that should give you an inkling of how positive the experience was over-all. This was fun and alive and chock-full of energy and style.

I will say, of Shakespeare, that to my mind there is only three ways of doing it. One is the conventional rep-company Shakespearean style that you see in films like 'The Dresser' and that we associate with great british Actores and the RSC.
With this approach, much is made of the text's built-in poetry; lines are 'end-stopped'(i.e. clipped where the verse dictates,-as opposed to where the actor 'feels' is most natural) and words are pronounced with a special emphasis out of respect to the text and to help retain the mechanics of poetry (which was written at a time when many English words were pronounced differently than they are today).

The second approach is to abandon any search for the purity of language and concentrate on instead on the dramatic element. To, in a sense, explain the meaning of these archaic words and expressions with a clear depiction of the moment and the character's emotions. With this approach, the emphasis is on actors to bring their personal dynamism into every scene and tell us, with their blocking and voices and reactions, what is going on rather than relying on archaic and almost impenetrable dialogue to do it for them.

The third approach is kind of hypothetical but necessary for the purpose of illustration. The third approach is identical in intent to the first except this time you actually mean it. The third approach is to accept that the English language has changed so much since Elizabethan times that it is impossible to know what it sounded like, ( Shakespeare's accent was probably as different from the way Geilgud, Olivier, or Brannagh speak upon the stage as urban Glaswegian differs from the voice of a CNN newsreader). The third approach is to accept that what you are staging isn't theatre, but instead an Historical re-enactment of theatre, and then to attempt to stay as faithful to the re-enactment as one can. This would involve: daylit productions without sets, two weeks maximum rehearsal time, and a 'made-up' accent (analagous to the 'Aramaic' used in 'The passion of the Christ') where 'banished' would have three syllables, 'love' would rhyme with 'prove' and the abbreviated 'i' in " I met a fool i' the forest" would have no more emphasis than the 'n' in fish 'n' chips.

This production sets it's camp fairly solidly in approach number two, which to my mind is certainly as valid as options one or three.
It wont please everyone but I had no problem with it, and as they have sold out and even added an extra date, I don't think audiences have a problem with it either.

For Giuseppe Verdi himself, when asked:

"What do you think the Theatre should be?"

replied:

"What should the theatre be?

The theatre should be full."

I've no doubt oul' 'Shake-scene' would've concurred.

Above pictures are of Alyssa Wall (Juliet) and Lowam Eyasu( lady Montague) rest of the cast were: Dana Martin, Sarah Norris (also the director) Kyle Jones and Eric Hunicutt and they were all brilliant!

Fond De L'Etange (internat)

Tonights viewing was ‘The Chorus’; a foreign fillum no less. French- if you don’t mind,- a story about a teacher and a school full of hard-chaws in post-war France. It was in the grand tradition of : ‘to Sir with Love’ and ‘Dead Poets Society’, ‘Dangerous Minds’ and a little bit of ‘Scum’ thrown in.

I think it’s a fact, of any artistic endeavour, that people respond well to it if they can see themselves in it.

An aspect of all school-days-based-operas is that everybody has been to school and remembers the dynamic of that system and the operators within it: so they should be able to see themselves, or at least their younger-selves, easily enough.

For me though, these films have an extra angle because I have spent time and energy and years of my life going back in to those rooms and playing to that tough crowd not only as the messer, but also as the bloke who's 'sposed to be in charge. So what can I say of this fillum?



I was moved (as if that means anything). Well alright it is French, and what with it being all'n all French'n all, I feel inclined to let it away with things that would absolutely rankle in an English-spoken equivalent.

It was sacharrin in some ways, yes. But although the story had many of the clichéd and upbeat markers of the genre, it didn’t have the standard happy ending and it didn’t have the eventual redemption of ‘the bad kid’ either and so deserves praise for that. Also, as one might expect from the premise, there is some truly, truly beautiful music and I feel worthy also of mention is the casting.
Casting is a small thing, and it doesn’t account for much by way of work, but it does have an inordinate effect on one’s perception of things; when a film is cast and some body plays the main character as a boy and somebody else plays him as the teenager and somebody plays the adult and somebody plays the old man- they have to look like each other.



In this film, the only match-up to be done was between a twelve-year old boy and a man in his sixties and, I kid you not, they were the most perfect inter-age coupling of two actors to play one person I have ever seen. Also the ‘bad kid’ the rough nut, whatever you-call-him; he just had a completely believable head for that part. I’m sure he grew up on the Donaghs,- and tried to sell me a stolen mountain-bike one time. I’m sure of it.

A film to end all films? A film to rock your world? A brainless roller coaster ride with a decent bit of blood and snots flyin' round in it? 'The Chorus' was none of the above, but it was good and... I dunno... honest (in a stylised French way).
A good film for ex-ideological educators who like kids singing in French.

There are people who would see it on a par with 'The Mighty Ducks' and...



I'm one of them.



Mind you: I love 'The Mighty Ducks'.



Most under-rated fillum. ever.



And I mean that now.

This is exactly how naive I am.

I'm sure it has been pointed out before, by clever folk who notice such things- that 'the accessible philosopher of today is the stand-up comedian'; and that comedy shows in general,(the good ones,) often illustrate better than anyone else the underlying reality of things.
I'm drawing down from two Golden sources of just this type of brilliance to explain my own current dilemma: the Simpsons and South park.

My dilemma is one I always face around election time; but as I occupy a similar political niche to the 'Dude' in 'The Big Lebowsky',(i.e.'Somebody the square community doesn't give a shit about'* )I normally wouldn't bother sharing it.

*-and by that I just mean that no political stragetist worth his salt is going to advise his candidate to spend any of his precious campaign-time securing the 'penniless-single-failed-dramatist' vote.

But this time it's different. First of all, this time I am half-way through an eighty-year olds' life-span, which is pretty grim when you think about it,(and I do). And, looking at the effect that all my previous votes have had upon politics in this country, it's hard not to feel that there isn't really any point in taking part in this charade any longer.

But, then again, this time is different for other reasons: this is one election where I feel that I share my dilemma with many more people than usual. And what dilemma is that?- Well this is where the Simpsons and South Park come in.


The Simpsons were probably specifically addressing the American two-party presidential race when they had their evil aliens both run as either the Democratic or the Republican candidate,- and thereby taking advantage of the fact that nobody ever considers a third option.

I'm sure that you get where we're going with this.

The Simpsons did it first, but, (to me,) South park did it better when the school had an election to choose a new Mascot for their team and Stan couldn't see the point in taking part in any democratic process which offered him the choice between a 'Giant Douche' or a 'Turd Sandwich'.



I have been dealing with this choice my whole democratic life. But I live in a country where people seem to inherit their election preferences genetically and politicians run 'Clinics' where they behave as if they have been personally responsible for everything their 'clients' receive by right as Irish Citizens.

As the Americans say: "It's the economy stupid" and any bunch of gangsters would continue to be the nations darlings so long as everyone had cash in their pockets. But this time 'round it's different. This time 'round, I'm not alone in thinking: "These are not the people we want making decisions that affect our future". My dilemma is, 'I'm just gosh darn it plum sick to ma teeth of havin' a vote that don't matter none and I'll vote for anybody halfway good who has a ghost's chance of getting in' but I cannot see that person on the ballot.

The Nordic countries seem to work fine to me. Who wants to do that to Ireland? Who wants a good balance between taxation and services? Who wants lower crime? More money for education and bottle-banks inside the shops that work like cash-machines and not only 'wash and return' ('instead of smash and remould') - but also pay you for doing it? Who wants broadband as a right? Who wants good libraries everywhere?
Who wants fines set not by amount but as a percentage of the guilty person's income?

Anybody who wants to do that to Ireland, you have my vote. I don't care what your Granda did in the Civil War, I don't care whether you can get me a medical card no questions asked, I don't care if you want to sell Leitrim to the Japanese or invade the Isle of Man: this is what I want for my home country. Make a commitment to that and I will vote for you.

And that's an election promise.

Down in the woods.

I'm feeling a bit like the poor man's Emily Dickenson today.
I do apologise. Anyway;- d'jever have one of those dreams where you're in an enormous north european forest?...and you know that night is falling....and you're lost and off the path, and fear is driving you forward a little bit faster than you know is safe and you're almost bracing yourself for the sound of your ankle breaking....

No?


Oh it must be just me then:

Scramble on, blind from sweat, or blind from tears,

‘Twill make no difference if you break your neck,

and smash your body, break and rend and wreck,

your twisted form, to lie frozen for years,

in this dark place of silence; no thing nears,

and no-body will come this deep to check,

if pain or perspiration cleft your trek,

and made you stumble here among these firs,

and lie out broken on the boulders white,

bare bones that mark the glacier's torn road,

The headstones of an ancient cemetery.

No. Wipe your eyes, for you are losing light.

and can’t look back to see the night erode,

the fading blossom from the Cherry tree.

Easily suede.

Can you imagine if there had never been Elvis?

Do you believe that agoraphobics would suffer less in solitary confinement?- or more?

Have you ever dreamt of Jeannie?

Does Elvis strike you as a magnificent, or tragic figure?

If you were confined inside a bottle for a thousand years and then one day you were liberated and could grant a wish to the person who freed you, and the wish that they asked you for, was to speak and understand a language, that they didn't know, absolutely fluently, and you said "yes no problem,- what language is it?"
and if they replied "Irish",
- would you consider it a bit of a waste of a wish?

Do you think that if Elvis had not been around to be Elvis, that someone else might have gotten the job?

Do you believe that the language used to express a thought changes it?

Do you believe that in a universe devoid of Elvis, Marylin Monroe or James Dean that the walls of Abra-kebabras would be adorned with representations of other icons of the era or do you think that there would be people you've never heard of on those walls:
stars that 'didn't make it' to take their place?

Do think Elton John's a bit crap?

Do you think any of his songs would be improved by translation into Irish?

If you were confined inside a bottle for a thousand years and then one day you were liberated and could grant a wish to the person who freed you, and that person was Elvis, and the wish that Elvis asked you for, was to live a normal life free from the constraints of fame and success, would you consider it a good or a bad thing?

If upon granting that wish, you no longer had to be a Genie and could now walk the earth, and you decided to spend your first night at the first gig of the 'no-fame or success' Elvis, and you went there, and he played and sang beautifully to a room of people that kept talking and completely ignored him; would you find that sad or smile and think 'job well-done'?

Do you see what I'm trying to do?

Do you think that buildings become especially beautiful as they are destroyed by fire?

Do you think a song of sadness would sound more, or less poignant if sung by an Elvis that nobody but you could hear?


Do you think that this is how Irish songs sound to those who speak Irish?


Can you tell what I've been reading recently?

Did you enjoy it yourself?

Welcome to the Garbagerie...follow the happy feet.

I have always believed that there has to be a way. There has to be a better way, there is, there has to be, surely, some sort of approach. I mean at least until I’m made Emperor of all the land and am placed in a position of absolute power, (with many wise and trusted advisors at my disposal mind you). There has to be some way some approach to living life that is ‘right’; some small way at whittling down some tiny piece of the Universe into a better thing than it would’ve been otherwise. My bit. Where shall I begin with this? It’s a difficult thing to explain to anyone who wasn’t around for it, but back 30 years ago, when I were a gorsoon, the whole idea of Nuclear War really felt like a ‘when’ rather than an ‘if’. There was 'two tribes' and 'If the russians love their children too' films like:'the day after', 'when the wind blows' and 'bomb threads'. It weighed heavier on the consciousness of some kids more than others obviously and an interest in Science Fiction didn’t help; so many stories began in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse ('a dog and his boy''mad max''damnation alley') that it started to simply be more or less a given. And you can see why it was a popular genre -the apocalypse is a great thing for the story maker because you just take the world that you know and the people you know and ask a big ‘what if?’ and take it from there. Pretty cheap to film too, it makes it possible to set your western in a dump. It's kind of a depressing view to be taking in all the time as a kid though. While I may have believed in the possibility of global catastrophe as a given; I have still always believed that there had to be a way to avoid it. The apocalypse hasn’t gone away of course and these days it’s environmental, but it’s still there in fillums and books and comics and what have you, and it’s still inside my head. I believe in it, I suppose, it’s in there deep. It definitely affects the way that I feel about my bit. It’s not that honestly think that next week the world as we know it will collapse in some instantaneous natural disaster but, I dunno…all this waste is piling up so quickly. Those photos from space of all the detritus we've left up there over the past 50 years only.... there has always seemed an element of madness to the ‘work-and-buy-and-consume-and-die’ template of life that society in general and television in particular seemed to be telling me was the whole point of existence. And also, it seems to be getting worse. People talk about raising 'awareness' but back when I was less aware, the problems hadn't become so acute,- for example: Before I ever realised that i 'ought to'; I used to buy fair-trade sugar. Grown by farmers who made a decent wage and were not the pawns of enormous multinational corporations exploiting unjust economic arrangements with weaker countries to the point of slavery: it was called ‘Siucra’, and it was made locally and you can’t get it anymore. You can get something in the distinctive purple and white package that’s called ‘Siucra’ but that’s only because enormous multinational corporations exploiting unjust economic arrangements with weaker countries to the point of slavery recognise a trusted brand when they see one. To buy fair-trade sugar now, I have to pay extra, get less and have it shipped from half-way across the world. There’s a lot of these kind of things, ‘dissappearing world’- old git type complaints really, that I’ve witnessed in my life and continue to witness and that depress me. The policy of ‘planned obsolesence’ in manufacturing for example seems to me to be an actual intentional crime against the future. It makes absolutely perfect sense economically to create irreparable products with a limited life-span, the fact that this is a shocking waste matters not. The factory needs orders like the body needs food. The waste product is 'the product'. In buying this product the consumer not only hands over their capital but also takes upon themselves responsibility for the waste. There is no reason in the world, from the factory’s point of view, to make a repairable long-lasting machine. It’s counter-productive to the factories aims (and the company's survival) to do so. Looking after my bit will never change this. I feel that exercising my right as a consumer to choose more sustainable products e.t.c. only turns that desire 'to do the right thing' into a commodity itself. One example: Recently, I bought a torch, (I say recently I actually bought it for the Electric Picnic) it was about three times more expensive than a normal torch because it wound up and not only didn’t need batteries but could charge my phone. I don’t get to splash out often on, what was for me, a frivolous ‘boy-toy’ so I was only delighted with meself. It could charge any phone*. (*Any phone; how? It could charge any phone because all phones charge the same they just have bizarrely different sized and shaped attachments so that you have to buy a different charger for each different type of phone. There is no godly reason for this except economics). I had splashed out. On a torch, that I couldn’t afford, but that I felt in some way represented my attitude to a society built on constant consumerism. I needn’t tell you that it took all of ten seconds for someone to point out to me that the many plastic moving parts required to make it work were not manufactured with either longevity or repairs in mind and I had simply been another 'consumer-sucker' fooled into buying a piece of straight-to-bin-tat having been fully convinced that it represented some aspect of my personality and ‘aspired to’ lifestyle. Looking after your own bit is a lie. I think that I’m going to have to stop whittling. I think I’m going to have to abandon my own personal feeble attempts at staving off the apocalypse and just accept that actually sorting this stuff is not an individuals job, it’s a governments job, it’s a global governments job. And even if I could magically grant tomorrow to each person a global right to vote for a global government to solve these problems no global population would vote that global government into power. And if i could, and if they did, global business would not allow it to exist five minutes. And I thought the idea of nuclear war was depressing.