Little Orphant Annie

by James Whitcomb Riley (1885)

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 INSCRIBED WITH ALL FAITH AND AFFECTION 
To all the little children: — The happy ones; and sad ones;
The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;
The good ones — Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.

ITTLE Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay,

An’ wash the cups an’ saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,

An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep,

An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep;

An’ all us other childern, when the supper-things is done,

We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun

A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ‘at Annie tells about,

An’ the Gobble-uns ‘at gits you

Ef you

Don’t

Watch

Out!

 

Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn’t say his prayers,–

An’ when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,

His Mammy heerd him holler, an’ his Daddy heerd him bawl,

An’ when they turn’t the kivvers down, he wuzn’t there at all!

An’ they seeked him in the rafter-room, an’ cubby-hole, an’ press,

An’ seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an’ ever’-wheres, I guess;

But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an’ roundabout:–

An’ the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you

Ef you

Don’t

Watch

Out!

 

An’ one time a little girl ‘ud allus laugh an’ grin,

An’ make fun of ever’ one, an’ all her blood-an’-kin;

An’ wunst, when they was “company,” an’ ole folks wuz there,

She mocked ‘em an’ shocked ‘em, an’ said she didn’t care!

An’ thist as she kicked her heels, an’ turn’t to run an’ hide,

They wuz two great big Black Things a-standin’ by her side,

An’ they snatched her through the ceilin’ ‘fore she knowed what she’s about!

An’ the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you

Ef you

Don’t

Watch

Out!

 

An’ little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,

An’ the lamp-wick sputters, an’ the wind goes woo-oo!

An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray,

An’ the lightnin’-bugs in dew is all squenched away,–

You better mind yer parunts, an’ yer teachurs fond an’ dear,

An’ churish them ‘at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear,

An’ he’p the pore an’ needy ones ‘at clusters all about,

Er the Gobble-uns ‘ll git you

Ef you

Don’t

Watch

Out!

[images via donaldtyson.com and xenophilius.wordpress.com]

“Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away.”
~Clarence Darrow

As with Tesla’s Letters, I’m happy to report that Medicine, Man is now available on Kindle and that a free excerpt is also available via the new Kindle web browser app which lets you buy and read Kindle books without needing to own a real Kindle.  Great idea from amazon.  An excerpt of the play was also published in the ep;phany literary journal in 2003, which you can also read for free.

A word to the wise  — do not buy a hard copy of this script on amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com from the scammers trying to resell it for tens or hundreds of dollars.  Be sure you’re buying a hard copy directly from barnesandnoble.com for $6.75, or the Kindle version for $7.13, or a hard copy directly from amazon.com for $7.50,  or the amazon.co.uk Kindle version for a similar amount in Euros.

In case you’re not familiar with the play, after the success of the Mill Mountain Theatre’s regional premiere of Tesla’s Letters in my hometown of Roanoke, Virginia in 2001 (after its world premiere Off Broadway in 1999), artistic director Jere Lee Hodgin asked me what I was working on next.  I shared with him a two- (continue reading…)

The cool kids in the programming department at amazon.com have come up with a unique way for authors whose works are available on the Kindle to share their opening pages, so here’s an excerpt from Tesla’s Letters.  You don’t need to own a Kindle to view it.  This new app for reading Kindle-formatted books right in your browser without owning a Kindle is, understandably, a marketing tool to get you to want to buy a real Kindle and download the whole book. And that’s okay.  It’s only a Kindle, and they’re cool.

A word to the wise — *do not* buy a hard copy of Tesla’s Letters from one of the resellers on amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com listing it for exhorbitant amounts like $43.00, $100, etc.  There are some unscrupulous jackasses operating through those websites trying to rip you off.  You can buy this script directly from Samuel French or download the Kindle version from amazon.com for just $7.50, and at a similar price in Euros from amazon.co.uk.  Enjoy.

If you’re not familiar with the play, it’s a semiautobiographical wartime drama set in the late 1990s Balkans with unfortunately (continue reading…)

Once again the New York Times is better late than never on reporting human rights abuses.  It took them nearly a decade to start reporting on rogue US soldiers killing civilians for sport in Iraq and Afghanistan. I call your attention to the Winter Soldier testimonies of 2008 which were ignored by the mainstream media — New York Times, LA Times, et al; even the Washington Post only covered it briefly in their local edition — apparently because to report on civilian atrocities during Bush made you a traitor. You had to go to a noncorporate show like Democracy Now to even be aware of such crimes.  We’ve also got paramilitaries there operating freely above the law, which only got acknowledged in the New York Times this year due to Wikileaks forcing the Times‘ hand. Thankfully, now that Obama’s in power the mainstream media seems to feel freer to at least tentatively discuss such matters as they relate to Iraq and Afghanistan.

I’m not sure what their excuse is for waiting 39 years to let us in on this 1971 nightmare that wasn’t deemed particularly newsworthy at the time it was happening, when something could perhaps have been done to stop it.  I know, I know, there are many such horrors during wars around the world all the time, I get it.  Welp, here’s one more.  Maybe it’s not too late to bring some of the war criminals responsible for it to justice. It’s the least these women and their families deserve.

Bangladesh War’s Toll on Women Still Undiscussed

By NILANJANA S. ROY
Published: August 24, 2010

NEW DELHI — The numbers are in dispute, but the story they tell has remained the same for four decades: 200,000 women (or 300,000, or 400,000, depending on the source) raped during the 1971 war in which East Pakistan broke with West Pakistan to become Bangladesh.

The American feminist Susan Brownmiller, quoting all three sets of statistics in her 1975 book “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape,” compared the rapes of Bangladesh with the rapes of Chinese women by Japanese soldiers at Nanjing in 1937-38.

Accepting even the lowest set of figures for Bangladesh forces a horrifying comparison — the 1992-95 Bosnian war saw one-tenth the number of rapes as did the Bangladesh war. The rapes of Bosnian women forced the world to recognize rape as “an instrument of terror,” as a crime against humanity. But so far no one has been held to account for the sexual violence against Bangladeshi women in 1971.

As the 40th anniversary of the 1971 war approaches, the Bangladeshi government has set up an International Crimes Tribunal to investigate the atrocities of that era. But human rights advocates and lawyers fear CONT’D AT NEW YORK TIMES>>

If you’re all about the Gilded Age (hey, some of us are), please enjoy my latest book review in the Brooklyn Rail‘s 10th anniversary issue.

Charles W. Calhoun
From Bloody Shirt to Full Dinner Pail: The Transformation of Politics and Governance in the Gilded Age
(Hill and Wang, 2010)

The phrase “Gilded Age” started as a satirical term co-coined by Mark Twain and co-opted from Shakespeare in 1873. It was an apt description of the post-Civil War United States. The increase in industry and modernization, the ostentatiousness of high profile wealth, and extremely high voter turnout made our culture look as good as gold on the outside even while it festered on the inside. Greed and rampant get-rich-quick schemes were the norms of the day. Political partisanship and sectionalism were at their egg-throwing worst. Bloody injustices were perpetrated almost daily against newly freed slaves in the South, and increasingly against striking factory workers in the North. Three presidents were assassinated.

For the serious student of U.S. history or political science, Charles W. MY FULL REVIEW CONT’D AT THE BROOKLYN RAIL>>

[image via historybookclub.com]

Despite my deep passion for theatre I’ve often quoted the cynical aphorism, Theatre changes nothing, but at least it changes that, and I have believed it to be true.

I stand corrected thanks to the new book, Performing New Lives: Prison Theatre by Jonathan Shailor (Kingsley Press, 2010) about 14 prison theater programs.  The chapter ”Drama in the Big House” was penned by my good friend Brent Buell, a director, actor and writer who has volunteered for more than a decade for Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), a division of Prison Communities International, directing plays and teaching acting classes to inmates.  Brent’s locus in the New York State prison system is the original Big House, Sing Sing state penitentiary in Ossining, NY.

I first met Brent in 2004 through our mutual friend David Gaynes and took my first trip via Metro-North train from Manhattan,  zooming along the Hudson to the Big House to see the inmates’ production of Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code, a farce written and directed by Brent (a photo from that production adorns the book’s cover).    I returned the next year to see the bold satire The N Trial, a meditation on the uses of the dreaded “N-word” in our society, including within prison walls, written by inmate Philip Hall, who was wrapping up a 20 year sentence.

Such productions of a full-length play performed for the general public have become an annual event at Sing Sing.  The cast and crew are primarily inmates, co-mingled with professional actors and crew who volunteer their time (continue reading…)

In your mourning for the great Tony Curtis please throw up a little prayer for another Hollywood legend of sorts, Sally Menke, known primarily as “Quentin Tarantino’s editor.” I still have fond memories of my first year as an NYU Tisch Film & TV undegrad interning for Sally in her at-home, SoHo editing suite around 1988-89, thanks to her friendship with my incredible production professor and future friend Carol Dysinger.  Fresh off the turnip truck, I really felt like a bigshot.  Sally was the editor for hit TV show The Equalizer of which I was a big fan. I remember bringing home some 35mm frames of Edward Woodward from the trim bin to add to my memory box.  I probably still have them tucked away in an envelope someplace where by now they’re cracked, brittle and turning to dust…

Thank you, Sally, for your patience and kindness with this nervous, bungling kid.

Sally Menke: 1953 – 2010

By Brian Brooks and Nigel M. Smith (September 28, 2010)

Quentin Tarantino’s longtime film editor, Sally Menke, was discovered dead early this morning near Griffith Park in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times reported that Menke had gone hiking in the morning, and friends alerted police after she failed to come home. Her body was found by searchers in Beachwood Canyon.  Born in Mineola, New York in 1953, Menke graduated from the NYU Film program at the Tisch School of the Arts… CONT’D AT INDIEWIRE.COM>>

[photos via museum.tv and indiewire.com]