ismsetcetera

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Annie Dillard

Teaching a Stone to Talk

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Fell in love with her sensibilities with “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” and have been going through her other published works and found this bit of humor.

Also worth a read from her: For the Time Being

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"Laughter allows us proximity to things that are otherwise impossible. As we’re sitting in this very polarized moment, if we can understand how we can laugh together, maybe we can find solutions. There’s something quite dangerous about being able to laugh together, that might be as easily controlled."

Tala Madani (Seattle Times, Feb. 23rd 2025 — Margo Vansyghel, journalist)

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From "Democracy in America"

by Alexis de Tocqueville

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Machiavelli

Discourses on Livy, c. 1517

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Our problems are not new, but they are our problems.

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"The Cat"

Charles Baudelaire

(translated by Roy Campbell)

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Just discovered Jeffery Sweet has a blog!?

https://jeffreysweet.blog

Sweet is – in my opinion – in the highest echelon of Journalists, Educators, and Practitioners of stagecraft in America, and here all his thoughts lay bare with a wall-of-text-wordpress-blog which he posts to regularly, even today.

Books by Jefferey Sweet worth reading for burgeoning Actors, Directors, Playwrights, dramatists all:

The Dramatist's Toolkit

What Playwrights Talk About When They Talk About Writing

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A beautiful cake I saw in a window while walking home tonight.

It's a bit hard to see because of the reflection, but there is a white and a black flower atop this piece; i think they're faux Peonies?? idk.

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"I write down what I feel in order to lower the fever of feeling."

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Do you ever read something and then it stays with you for the rest of your life? inspires you again and again when all else fails?

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Fernando Pessoa – "The Book of Disquiet" (Publisher: Serpent's Tail)

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It's OK to take 15 years to write what you need to say.

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Jeffrey Sweet interviewing the late Lanford Wilson – "What Playwrights Talk About when they Talk About Writing" (Yale Press, 2017).

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Throwback to 2020 when Google had at-a-glance-discernible app icons :(

Color and Shape -> ??? GOOD BRANDING.. I GUESS ???

But! Today I actually found the Photos app correctly the first time!! And it only took 4 miserable years!!

They still suck, but WOW LOOK (insert exclamation mark here) on how perfectly on-brand they are

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"... I've got some word that won't leave me alone."

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Time and again in this series of interviews, the underlying call for these world-renowned playwrights wasn't some a top-tier education at Oxford or Yale or Harvard, but instead has been "I wrote what I wrote because it spoke to me." And of course many went on to teach courses at those institutions later in their career.

It's a liberating read for aspiring playwrights.

Dear tumblr users: we dearly need your voice on the Stage! Speak up!!!

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Jeffrey Sweet interviewing Moira Buffini – "What Playwrights Talk About when they Talk About Writing" (Yale Press, 2003).

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Studying – in my own time – Dialogue. This is from a college text called "Writing Dialogue" by Tom Chiarella. It's terribly wry and funny and, importantly, helps one consider the act of dialogue in a new light. (Published by Story Press).

Still working my way through it but the context it brings is clear and concise and, importantly, practicable!!

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Excerpt from Anna Badkhen's "The World is a Carpet"

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On emergency-preparedness for seafairing vessels.

"Log from the Sea of Cortez" - John Steinbeck

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Here’s an excerpt from the Introduction to John Redmon’s “How to Write a Poem”

Really wish I had this kind of text back in High school and College.

See: https://ismsetcetera.tumblr.com/post/691707624288387072/this-is-the-best-book-on-how-to-write-no-how-to

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This is the best book on how to write – no, how to think about writing poetry – that I’ve ever come across. It’s not printed in the US and will cost ~$40 to have it shipped here, but it’s worth the price.

Excerpt from the Introduction here: https://ismsetcetera.tumblr.com/post/691717293013712896/heres-an-excerpt-from-the-introduction-to-john