Who among us who grew up in the play's time period does not recall something of the conversations you've created between David and Bud, when the reality of war's horrors and the political machine clashed with the desire to imagine into existence a world and life "without the greed and the corruption and the lies"? And isn't that what we're looking for again, as we seek answers to that question Bud poses at the end of this chapter? The philosophical differences, if you will, that have riven life today echo through our pasts, though perhaps we are more the Davids of the world because we had to grow up. Your play, Jay, resounds with relevance.
When I first thought I might serialize the play here on Homo Vitruvius, it was still some time before last year's election, and though I feared, I didn't fully imagine the outcome we got. And then it took time before I completed that first draft of Reason for Being in the World, in which I was bringing more fully to my mind ideas that had been growing in me, particularly about repetition and its through lines in human history. When I wrote the play, I was working on the connection of the 60s to the 90s and you'll see later in the play, the 50s arise, and they're connected to the 30s, and yes, what's happening now connects to all of that and the Civil War and the acceptance of slavery in the Constitution. And against all that, people try to live lives of something else and more.
The whole was watching when David and Bud discuss what they must do. As you say, Jay, "The whole world is watching." That is true now and this play recalls a time when we saved our democracy. Will we save it again?
Your play is so relevant to today's events.
I just posted in notes this: Yesterday, I drove past the Marines Trump sent into Los Angeles. They were at a federal building in full armor, heavy uniforms and with tanks standing around doing nothing in over 80 degree weather. It is cruel to have them here for them and for us in Los Angeles where nothing is going on that requires any military to be used against its own citizens.
We were going to dinner and folks were walking their dogs. At the same time, Biden made his gentle appearance at the memorial service.
We now need a democratic Congress and a democratic leader to save the republic that Benjamin Franklin rightly said, “A Republic if you can keep it.” Is it lost? Let us all stand up to save it.
Mary, you draw quite a contrast in images: abuse of the Marines, the compassion of Biden. In 1973, we lived in a country, for all its ills, when one clear act of presidential criminality earned the condemnation of almost all. Today, two thirds of the eligible voting citizenry can't tell the difference between corrupt criminality and that compassion -- or hate so much they don't care. I despair. I despair but I resist. I resist but I despair.
Your play is at once burningly relevant and timeless. Your aging protagonists, whose youthful world I shared, are running out of time to square their visions with the choices they have made since the 60s. At the same time, they confront eternal questions: what parenthood and friendship ask of us. Looking forward to the next scene.
Thank you, Rona, and for reading. "Relevant and timeless" is surely a dream and aspiration. Thanks for imagining it so. The rest your observations, from so keen a reader as you, I think will be borne out by what's to come.
Ah, well, I meant to be attesting to the content, not the quality. I think probably most writers are a contradictory combination of aspiring self-confidence and gnawing doubt.
Who among us who grew up in the play's time period does not recall something of the conversations you've created between David and Bud, when the reality of war's horrors and the political machine clashed with the desire to imagine into existence a world and life "without the greed and the corruption and the lies"? And isn't that what we're looking for again, as we seek answers to that question Bud poses at the end of this chapter? The philosophical differences, if you will, that have riven life today echo through our pasts, though perhaps we are more the Davids of the world because we had to grow up. Your play, Jay, resounds with relevance.
When I first thought I might serialize the play here on Homo Vitruvius, it was still some time before last year's election, and though I feared, I didn't fully imagine the outcome we got. And then it took time before I completed that first draft of Reason for Being in the World, in which I was bringing more fully to my mind ideas that had been growing in me, particularly about repetition and its through lines in human history. When I wrote the play, I was working on the connection of the 60s to the 90s and you'll see later in the play, the 50s arise, and they're connected to the 30s, and yes, what's happening now connects to all of that and the Civil War and the acceptance of slavery in the Constitution. And against all that, people try to live lives of something else and more.
The whole was watching when David and Bud discuss what they must do. As you say, Jay, "The whole world is watching." That is true now and this play recalls a time when we saved our democracy. Will we save it again?
Your play is so relevant to today's events.
I just posted in notes this: Yesterday, I drove past the Marines Trump sent into Los Angeles. They were at a federal building in full armor, heavy uniforms and with tanks standing around doing nothing in over 80 degree weather. It is cruel to have them here for them and for us in Los Angeles where nothing is going on that requires any military to be used against its own citizens.
We were going to dinner and folks were walking their dogs. At the same time, Biden made his gentle appearance at the memorial service.
We now need a democratic Congress and a democratic leader to save the republic that Benjamin Franklin rightly said, “A Republic if you can keep it.” Is it lost? Let us all stand up to save it.
Mary, you draw quite a contrast in images: abuse of the Marines, the compassion of Biden. In 1973, we lived in a country, for all its ills, when one clear act of presidential criminality earned the condemnation of almost all. Today, two thirds of the eligible voting citizenry can't tell the difference between corrupt criminality and that compassion -- or hate so much they don't care. I despair. I despair but I resist. I resist but I despair.
I, as well, Jay ...
Your play is at once burningly relevant and timeless. Your aging protagonists, whose youthful world I shared, are running out of time to square their visions with the choices they have made since the 60s. At the same time, they confront eternal questions: what parenthood and friendship ask of us. Looking forward to the next scene.
Thank you, Rona, and for reading. "Relevant and timeless" is surely a dream and aspiration. Thanks for imagining it so. The rest your observations, from so keen a reader as you, I think will be borne out by what's to come.
A confident writer. Good to see.
Ah, well, I meant to be attesting to the content, not the quality. I think probably most writers are a contradictory combination of aspiring self-confidence and gnawing doubt.
"What are you willing to do to make the world new?" I really enjoyed the to-and-fro between David and Budd.
I enjoyed writing it. Maybe that helps. :)
It shows :)