Fringe Festival — 4 out of 6 Plays Were Great!

So this year I and my love attended six plays, all of which were part of the New York Fringe Festival. Had a blast; we absolutely heart Fringe. There is no place and time in New York when you can see so much daring, inventive and raw theater than you can during the two weeks in August when the Fringe Festival runs.

“Raw” is an important word here, though: at Fringe, you should expect to see some shows that aren’t quite at the polished-to-a-blindingly-brilliant-sheen level just yet. In fact, most shows could probably use an extra minute or two in one of those bowling-ball buffers (remember those things?). One of the reasons to perform your play at Fringe, in fact, is to figure out what needs to be revised about your show. And it works: as the Fringe web site will testify, Fringe shows have gone on to become award-winning productions and/or commercial successes.

And in the mean time, theater lovers can see writers and performances that lie well outside the chewed cud of mainstream theater. My favorite thing about Fringe is its daring, no-holds-barred attitude toward the art of the play. There are plays you will see that will NEVER become mainstream hits, that have no desire to be that. They want to be smart and cater to a dramaturgically-savvy audience, for instance. Or they want to tackle subject matter that a quorum of American theater-goers would never financially support. Or they want to experiment with language and form that they themselves aren’t quite sure about yet. Etc.: the point is, when you go to Fringe, you’re going to see theater at its generative tipping-point, when its still as skinless as the Visible Man, instructively displaying its inner organs — and beautiful in its own right as well.

We saw six plays total. Two of them were awful. And, forgive me, I’m not going to say which ones: my love and I have decided only to emphasize the positive when it comes to Fringe, in order to honor the risk-taking and creative spirit the festival embodies. But I will tell you about the four plays I felt were successes. Here they are, in the order in which I saw them:

Hillary Agonistes (the title is a hat-tip to John Milton and his Samson Agonistes) is a political fable in which President Hillary has to deal with the greatest mystery of modern times: why millions of people from all over the world have suddenly vanished. We hear from the military, the religious right, science, and the Catholic Church, all of whom offer the first woman president advice on how to deal with this catastrophe: and reveal in the mean time their own not-so-hidden agendas. Best moment of the play: when Chelsea Clinton comes onstage wearing a hijab.

This play was good grad. school fare — 516 is the story of a professional paper-writer and her Moonlighting-esque affair with a Mass. Comm. graduate student who thinks that writing papers for required courses is beneath him: especially given the importance and magnitude of his thesis. One minor gripe: I have to think the playwright hasn’t been involved with academia in a while, as the character of the professor had a few off-key notes that didn’t ring quote true. Still, great writing, great performances from the leads, and a peppy pace made this play time well spent.

Two middle-aged women pretend to be two old women and sell a special peanut butter that Vermonters are going nuts for. Its secret ingredient? Penises. Ahem.

Well written and funny, PB&J is darkly funny and, given its topic, surprisingly light-hearted. Like 516, I had a few minor gripes — slutty French maids, even when they’re French Canadian maids, are still cliché — but in all, this was a good time.

Tragedy! The Musical I think just edges out Hillary Agonistes as my favorite of the Fringe plays I saw this year. And part of it probably has to do with the fact that I had this exact idea for a musical back in 1996. Really, I swear! The story is a retelling of Shakespeare’s (arguably) worst play, Titus Andronicus. It’s really bad. But bad turns to great in this musical, full of sick humor, social commentary, and a terrific cast of mostly William and Mary graduates who did the right thing after they earned their degrees and put on a show together. Bravo, folks!

And bravo to all of the Fringe Festival. Next year, my love and I hope to hit a lot more shows.

New Story in Written Word

Hey folks, I have a new story out now in the August 2007 edition of Written Word magazine. It’s the heart-warming tale of how a Japanese man’s robot son crushes his right arm into jelly. Go check it out!

Virtual Cheating — the Second Life How-To Guide

So the Wall Street Journal featured an article recently on the painful human consequences that may come from living part of one’s life in a virtual world. The graphic on the left, courtesy of the Journal, pretty well maps out the bizarre love triangle featured in the story, but let me give you the quick and dirty: Ric Hoogestraat has an avatar on Second Life named Dutch Hoorenbeek, and that avatar is married in-game to Tenaj Jackalope, controlled by Janet Spielman. Ric’s rl [real life] wife, Sue Hoogestraat, isn’t happy.

Why? He plays, like any of us who’ve been addicted to an MMO game will recognize, like Second Life is his first life. He works there — he’s made a bunch of mula online (a million in a half in-game money, which is about 6,000 USD) running a virtual strip club — and he plays there: he takes motorcycle rides, smokes and drinks, and, well, enjoys his virtual wife.

Yes, I said that to imply salacious virtual sex, and I think the story implied it as well, even if it didn’t come out and say it. But I mean “enjoy” in a more platonic and important sense. According to the story, Ric and Janet never intend to meet in real life or extend their communication beyond Second Life. But why would they need to? Mr. Hoogestraat is on as much as he can be, and when he does log on in the story, several other avatars messaged him, wondering what took him so long to get on. His virtual wife was the first to message.

In short, he’s using Second Life for all of his important human activity: work, play, and social interaction. He spends more time communicating with his virtual wife than his corporeal one. And as for other activities, the story seems to imply that, due to some health problems, maybe Mr. Hoogestraat isn’t the physical specimen he once was. Some activities might be beyond him for the moment. But not in Second Life. Dutch Hoorenbeek has flowing, grayless hair, six-pack abs, and a virtual cock. He’s good to go.

The article asks the question “Is This Man Cheating?” If we’re talking about a heteronormative, monogamous relationship, I don’t think there’s a question. He is. His mind and soul are in Second Life. He’s built the life there that he can’t quite have in our world.

Now, he’s tried to interest his wife in SL, and she could not be less interested. So there is an aspect of this that reads like Mr. Hoogestraat has found a hobby that Mrs. Hoogestraat simply isn’t interested in. If he liked hockey or building cars or model trains or playing Magic: The Gathering or a hundred other hobbies, and spent inordinate amount of time pursuing them, we wouldn’t call that cheating per se. We might say he needs to get his priorities straight, but we probably wouldn’t say his hobby amounted to infidelity. The trick is this: you don’t have sex with hockey games. You don’t share your hopes and dreams and fears with your Magic cards. You don’t “pretend” to marry your model railroad set.

In all those other instances, you may or may not engage in social interactions with people: but there is always a content to the hobby itself. In Second Life, there is content too: building things in-game, for instance. But he’s not just building. For Mr. Hoogestraat, the most important content of the game is the human interaction. Second Life is serving as a surrogate for his first life: which, truth be told, and with apologies to the Hoogestraats, doesn’t sound so great. And so, if Second Life is replacing the needs he normally has for human companionship, and if he has made a commitment in his first life to be a loving companion to someone else — say, through marriage vows — then the former is in obvious conflict with the former. He is reneging on his marriage commitment.

People divorce. People grow apart for different reasons. If he can no longer keep the promises he made, and has found a way to be happier through a different kind of relationship, then Mr. Hoogestraat should consider doing the right thing and divorcing Mrs. Hoogestraat. But he shouldn’t, as he does in the WSJ story, say “It’s just a game.” It’s most definitely not. It is the place where he has found comfort and solace and human warmth during a difficult time in his life (read the story if you haven’t to read just how difficult). Even if he abandons it all later and comes back to Mrs. Hoogestraat, begging her forgiveness for neglecting her these many months, there’s no doubt that he was getting his needs as a person met in Second Life and not from her. His play is an act of infidelity.

Interzone 211 is out and I am in it!

Note: I’ve edited this entry to clarify what I meant and to remove an inflammatory comment I made.

Interzone is England’s longest-running Science Fiction publication, and this month, besides featuring Michael Moorcock, they have published my story, “Exvisible.” I couldn’t be happier: this is my second time to be published in Interzone, and both times I can’t tell you how pleased I was both with the editorial process and the final look of the publication. I really hope Interzone finds a way to make it to newsstands in the U.S.; we really need this top-notch magazine on this side of the pond.

I’ve read a few reviews of this issue and in particular of my story. I’ve gotten some nice ones — on Suite 101, Colin Harvey says of my story

“just as death has its rites enabling the survivors to cope, so will a process that is in effect a little death, and ‘Exvisible’ may well be the first story to look at the customs needed to cope with it. This is SF at its best — making the reader look at the world anew.”

and at least one unfavorable one (doesn’t say much; just says he couldn’t relate to the main character’s emotions. That’s fine.) It’s always very interesting as a writer to see these reviews and see where people’s own predilections and penchants lead them in their reading. For instance, Jonathan McCalmont says that “Exvisible” is the best story of the issue, but it is only a “good” story, not a “great” one. The reason?

… for all its clever intent, the story never quite delivers the key psychological insight or moment of drama that would take it from a merely good to a great story. Instead Hernandez plays about with an entirely superfluous romantic sub-plot and a bisexual character who exists purely as a mouthpiece for Hernandez’s views on bisexuality.

I know it’s considered declasse for authors to criticize the critics who critically criticize them, especially critics who are trying (ultimately) to compliment them, but I don’t think I can help myself here. The sentence second above could be read as saying that there is a bisexual sub-plot; there is none. There is character development of a bisexual character named Travis, and part of that development involves Travis espousing pro-bisexuality opinions, but that by itself does not constitute a subplot. Like plots, subplots need a beginning, a middle, and an end. This character development might have constituted a beginning to a romantic subplot, but nothing else happens in regards to it — because it isn’t a plot! In fact, if anything, there are hints of a future romantic sub-plot between the female surgeon Dr. Trebuchet and the main character, Juan Otero. And Travis — who hates the term bisexuality, by the way, and self-satirizingly calls himself “stray” [straight + gay] — even encourages the plain old heterosexual romantic sub-plot that, if it happens, happens well after the end of this story.

Unfortunately, it seems that McCalmont, who seems to me an interesting and smart critic from what I read on his blog, made much more of the mention of bisexuality that the text justifies. Hilarious to me how he presumes to know my opinions on bisexuality: I happen to identify as heterosexual and have a lot of very nice things to say about monogamy. The fact that I can imagine very good arguments for being bisexual does not mean I necessarily agree with them. This is right out of Interpreting Literature 101: characters’ opinions do not necessarily agree with the author’s!

Finally, he states that the character exists for no other reason than to be a mouthpiece for my opinions on bisexuality. I would humbly submit this to be patently wrong. If McCalmont hadn’t gotten hung up on the bisexuality stuff, he might have noticed that there are three major, plot-vital conversations that Travis has with Juan. Those conversations are where, in my opinion, the “key insights” of the story were delivered: especially the last one. Glad he liked the story, but I can’t help but think that, if he had correctly classified the relatively brief mention of bisexuality as character enrichment and not a subplot of sexual politics, he might have gotten more out of it.

Mr. McCalmont, if you are reading this, please understand that, just as you were not trying to insult me personally when you wrote your review, neither am I seeking to insult you. But the fact is I think that your mischaracterization of the story may very well keep people from reading it, despite some of the nice things you say about it. I certainly do not think you a “miserable, lonely git” as Jay Rayner does. I enjoyed reading your review of Interzone 211, and even agreed with some of it. :)

And as for the rest of you, what are you waiting for. Go buy Interzone 211! You can do so here.

Updates: Lacking, and Spotty for the Foreseeable Future

A pipe burst in a wall on my apartment; water leaked all over the wooden floor and ruined it. A month later, things are just getting fixed: I’ve had to abandon ship here for a few days while they put in a new floor. Now I basically have to move back into my apartment. All this is to say that, well, blog has had to wait while I try to reclaim my life. But soon it will be reclaimed, and regular updates will abound.

Armor For the Fight Against Terror

Ready to lay the smackdown on those e-vile terrorists, but not sure what you should wear? Cory Doctorow has the answer: this spiffy tee! Note: be sure to click on the image so you can read the small print around the image of the eagle. ZOMG!

When I went to the web page, they were already sold out, but, true to his share-the-love and fuck-copyrights ethos, the image on the shirt is licensed under a creative-commons-share-and-remix-as-you-will license. So have fun with this one, kids!

The Bionic Man Is Also an Iraq War Veteran

Really and truly. This man’s computerized hand and arm read the electrical impulses coming from the muscles in his arm that would have moved his biological hand, and duplicates the action. In other words: his mind makes the robot hand work.

Watch the video, courtesy of AP.

The One-Sentence, No-Spoiler Review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

First half — meh; second half — yes!

(I am going to wait a little while longer before I post a longer review; don’t want to risk spoiling the book for anyone. But c’mon slowpokes, get reading. My love and I finished it in less than two days, and we were reading aloud to each other!)

Even Zombies Need a Balanced Diet

I found this on 7 Deadly Sinners, which in turn got it from Threadless. I had no idea lungs were so important to the zombie diet.

The Best Use Yet for Second Life

This little piece of machinima by artist Robbie Dingo is literally one of the most moving things I’ve seen published on the InterWebs. And, on a different note, it also displays Second Life at its best. I was frustrated by Second Life because I tried to use it in my Comp. II class in the Spring, but it was too fussy and temperamental for me to make it work. (I know, other professors have had smashing success with Second Life in the classroom, but look, I’ll bet you a can of Diet Sprite that every last one of them has his/her own favorite “I couldn’t get Second Life to work” stories. But I digress.) Watching this video, however, makes me believe again in Second Life’s possibilities.

One of the commentators on the YouTube site called this “achingly beautiful.” Couldn’t agree more. Especially in the end, when he frames himself and his art … but enough: go see for yourself! And once you’ve done that, you can go to this page and get a behind-the-scenes look at how it was made.