Third Wing

Last night I saw the first play of  IVP series, Third Wing (TercerCuerpo) a dark comedy Written by Claudio Tocalchir, translated by Jean Graham-Jones and directed by Emilio Williams, in collaboration with Instituto Cervantes and the Consulate General of Argentina in Chicago.

The Argentinian award-winning play “Third Wing (the story of an absurd attempt)” is a poignant and often hilarious dramedy by one of the most successful international theater artists working today. Five very different characters are united by loneliness, incomprehension and the need to love and be loved. A ramshackle office, a couple’s apartment, a bar and a medical consulting room are the different stages where these human beings try to, one day at a time, survive and move forward with their incomplete lives.

Relevant to our absurd life in the absurd global world, this play in surface is about nothing, because nothing really happens on the stage, but it’s about everything we deal with in our daily life and beyond…our profound loneliness, our strangeness towards each other, our lack of empathy and sensitivity towards those who are in need. All characters --although ordinary but somehow extraordinary--wandering in their web of loneliness, try to solve their problems, especially Hector who dyes his hair jet black, dreaming of someone who falls in love with him!

Life

By Ezzat Goushegir

Half-deflated balloon,

Clung to the tallest corner of ceiling

Stared out the window,

Inhaled fresh scent of apple tree blossoms
From the broken glass
Cried

For the last gulp of air.

Disgrace

 Audiobook:  Disgrace  by J. M. Coetzee 
Read a review of the book.

Linden blooms

I'll soon be drunk by the scent of Linden blooms in Evanston...I call the tree "the tree of Love"...

The Right Amount of Bad

Actors Dan Zellner and Nathan Pease getting ready to perform a reading of William Jordan's 'The Right Amount of Bad.' (Photo courtesy of Sunday Salon)

Last month I watched a short scene of The Right Amount of Bad by William (Bill) Jordan, a young, candid and enthusiastic playwright at SundaySalon. He sent me a copy of his play later that week. As I read the play I found it poignant, absurd and inclusive. It kept me follow the dialogues with enormous interest. The Right Amount of Bad gave me an elaborate picture of the psychology of men and women in today’s American life where the characters are trapped in their lonely, incongruous existence; their need to love, and be loved; their desire for lust while the principles prevent them of their wild dreams. This play examines what humans think, feel and desire for unlimited, for unrestricted. It is a play about an internal struggle between “good” and “bad” and how women and men deal with them.

Free University

In New York City’s Madison Square Park, hundreds of people attended a Free University "Free University" hosted by Occupy Wall Street, where professors gave free classes to May Day protesters. Activists said the event marked an alternative means of sharing knowledge outside the capitalist system. "This movement is all about building community and sharing and coming up with alternatives to the economic system that’s so pervasive in our lives in everything that we do," said Amin Husain, a key facilitator for the Occupy movement, who attended the event.

May Day

Yesterday, my friend, Mahasti Shahrokhi, a writer and poet  from Paris called me and with a certain exciting tone of voice said: "Happy Workers Day!"
-"Thank you, Same to you", I said.
-"Today is our day. The workers day! Aren't we workers without pay? We work so hard as writers...
-"...And we're being severely exploited as writers!" I continued.
-"France celebrates May Day beautifully and it's a public holiday in Europe. All the shops, offices, banks are  closed right now!"
And I thought to myself, May Day historically originated in Chicago in 1886, but American public doesn't know much about it!

"Outside the U.S., May 1 is International Workers' Day, observed with speeches, rallies, and demonstrations. Ironically, this celebration of working-class solidarity originated in the U.S labor movement in the United States and soon spread around the world, but it never earned official recognition in this country."

 “It was mostly immigrants who led the first May Day movement for the 8 hour day. Now a new generation of immigrant workers have revitalized and brought May Day back to life,” observed María Elena Durazo, the feisty head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor who enthusiastically embraced the Occupy movement in her city.

Watch or read the interviews on Occupy Everywhere in May Day in Democracy Now!
Watch another interview with Tariq Ali and Ann Wright in Democracy Now.
Some of the voices of of organized labor at the May Day rally in New York.