Drama according to david mamet

I am qouting from this article in Movieline, so that I won't lose the important bits. Sorry, Mamet writes in All-Caps.

WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, ACUTE GOAL.

WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES OF EVERY SCENE THESE THREE QUESTIONS. 1) WHO WANTS WHAT?
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?
3) WHY NOW?

SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE THE SCENE DRAMATIC. IT IS NOT THE ACTORS JOB (THE ACTORS JOB IS TO BE TRUTHFUL). IT IS NOT THE DIRECTORS JOB. HIS OR HER JOB IS TO FILM IT STRAIGHTFORWARDLY AND REMIND THE ACTORS TO TALK FAST. IT IS YOUR JOB.

THE JOB OF THE DRAMATIST IS TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE WONDER WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. NOT TO EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT JUST HAPPENED, OR TO*SUGGEST* TO THEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

REMEMBER YOU ARE WRITING FOR A VISUAL MEDIUM. MOST TELEVISION WRITING, OURS INCLUDED, SOUNDS LIKE RADIO. THE CAMERA CAN DO THE EXPLAINING FOR YOU. LET IT. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS DOING -*LITERALLY*. WHAT ARE THEY HANDLING, WHAT ARE THEY READING. WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING ON TELEVISION, WHAT ARE THEY SEEING.


START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE: THE SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. it must start because the hero HAS A PROBLEM, AND IT MUST CULMINATE WITH THE HERO FINDING HIM OR HERSELF EITHER THWARTED OR EDUCATED THAT ANOTHER WAY EXISTS.


Mamet also criticises the "Penguins-in-blue suits" for demanding information rather than drama in dramatic writing. Mamet's implication is that 
"ANY DICKHEAD, AS ABOVE, CAN WRITE, “BUT, JIM, IF WE DON’T ASSASSINATE THE PRIME MINISTER IN THE NEXT SCENE, ALL EUROPE WILL BE ENGULFED IN FLAME”
WE ARE NOT GETTING PAID TO REALIZE THAT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS THIS INFORMATION TO UNDERSTAND THE NEXT SCENE, BUT TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO WRITE THE SCENE BEFORE US SUCH THAT THE AUDIENCE WILL BE INTERESTED IN WHAT HAPPENS NEXT."

These notes surfaced in a memo to the writing team of "The Unit", a military espionage series that ran four seasons. It was taughtly written and brilliantly acted. Mamet was producer and head writer.

"Enlightenment Fundamentalism": A warning or a slur?

The term "Enlightenment Fundamentalism" has been used by thinkers such as Ian Buruma to criticise other intellectuals such as Hirsi Ali. The term suggests that enlightenment values are parochial western values and that ethical arguments for free speech, for example, actually serve as colonial arguments that promulgate western hegemony.

Paul Berman's book" The Flight of the Intellectuals" is reviewed in Slate. Berman chastises "the liberal left" for failing to defend Hirsi Ali's critiques of Islam in the face of death threats from militant muslims.

how's that transparency and corruption fighting working out for you?

The CBC reports that the ministry of Public works( remember the Libs got into trouble there) gave out 12 million Dollars for a contract in Haiti. No bid, no announcement.

But the folks involved made donations to the Tories.

British anti-tory ads

These posters make fun of the airbrushed perfection of British Tory leader David Cameron.






Some are a little more subtle:

time and space; latitude and longtitude, seconds and distances

It was thinking this morning, as I sat with my young son, how remarkable it is that we measure distance with units called 'minutes' and 'seconds'. We were playing with the book 'Tick Tock Sharks' which uses a shark themed poem to teach time telling with a representation of a clock in the middle of the book. A dial using two concentric rings moves the hour and minute hands, and an associated digital dial providing the numeric time, i.e. 05:00 and so on. The units "minutes and seconds" are used not only to measure the span of time it takes a clock hand to rotate around a clock face, but to indicate the divisions between the lines of latitude and longitude that navigators use to indicate locations on the surface of the earth.