Back in 1959, when my all-male Catholic high school in Manila staged The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial by Herman Wouk, the Christian Brother (F.S.C.) in charge of the drama club arbitrarily assigned me to take care of publicity. I was all of fifteen years old. What did I know about writing press releases, or how to…
Our NRA Father, which art in America, Hallowed be thy Second Amendment. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in schoolyards and college campuses, As it is in movie theaters and convention centers. Give us this day our daily massacre. And forgive us our assault weapons, As we slaughter them that trespass against us. And…
For some unfathomable reason, in the summer of 1969, when I was a new student at the University of Kansas, I decided to audition for a couple of Shakespeare plays being presented on the main stage at Murphy Hall. On the form that I filled out at the audition, I indicated that I did not want…
There’s a wonderful profile piece in the Lawrence Journal-World this morning about the indefatigable Ric Averill, founder of the pioneering local theater group called the Seem-To-Be-Players from the 1970s, and current director of performing arts at the Lawrence Arts Center. In the article, Mary Doveton says this about Ric: “He’s like any of us that…
We rehearse Act Two of my play Flesh, Flash and Frank Harris this afternoon, for a free staged reading at the Lawrence Public Library at 7 PM on Thursday, December 3rd. After having been the toast of London society in the 1890s, Frank Harris at age 76 is penniless and finds himself living austerely in…
We rehearse Act One of my play Flesh, Flash and Frank Harris this afternoon, for a free staged reading at the Lawrence Public Library at 7 PM on Thursday, December 3rd. The play was written back in 1980, was produced by the Lawrence Community Theatre at that time, and subsequently also had a successful run…
Being a person obsessed with language in all its odd manifestations, I decided to look up the origin of “Black Friday,” and here’s the best and the worst that the internet has to offer. First the worst: The day after Thanksgiving was “when slave traders would go into town to show off their best slaves,”…
Growing up as I did in Manila, even with the all-pervasive colonial influence of the United States, the yearly gross consumption of food on the last Thursday in November simply was not part of our cultural appetite. Hard to imagine Filipinos as Pilgrims, not even as Filgrims, except perhaps on the receiving end. But, after…
TOTUS (Turkey of the United States) was granted a presidential pardon amid much fanfare yesterday at the White House by POTUS. And now all eyes turn to President Vladimir Putin. Will he or won’t he pardon a troublesome Turkey shooting down a Russian plane for flying where it shouldn’t? Or will the hungry Bear gobble,…
I was with a group of KU retirees right outside Pioneer Cemetery in Lawrence this morning, the closest we could get to watch the 9 AM detonation and implosion of McCollum Hall on Daisy Hill. Although we waited in anticipation for over an hour, and the actual destruction of the building took only ten seconds,…