Sproul Plaza, 1992

This piece first appeared in Shuffleboil, in November 2007.

For a small city, Berkeley, California gets a lot of attention. Having experienced New York City, the Limelight in Atlanta circa 1980, and West by God Virginia, I don't always see why. Then a memory surges up.

October 1992.

Muslim and Jewish student unions rally on Sproul Plaza for embattled Bosnians.

An old black man with a bible heckles them.

A Muslim woman takes the microphone and says "right on, salaam alaikum".

The old man responds in what is either high-speed Arabic or a comedy imitation. "But I'm not a Muslim!" he finishes, in a manner which suggests he is proud of his Arabic.

A Jewish boy approaches. The old man yells: "Get away from me! I will destroy you!"

A Muslim man describes his memories of a flare shot into a town from Serbian-controlled mountains: the flare hanging in the night sky over an apartment building; fleeing inhabitants picked off by snipers, dropping like discarded toys.

The old black man makes train whistle sounds. He spits.

An old white man brandishes a bible and yells something about abortion mills.

The Muslim man says: in 1492, when Jews were driven from Spain, Bosnians welcomed them. The old white man yells: "the Jews were driven out because they're evil!"

A crowd of Asian teenagers appear. They dance through the crowd, banging gongs and waving banners, like a tapeworm working its way through someone's gut.

The Muslim man summons up some reserves of good nature.
"That was a nice musical break."

Maybe Berkeley does stand out.

Read more!

The play is done

... done enough to take out of the oven, anyway.

Last winter (2006) I took the Scamorama book show on the road to Brooklyn, New York.

Scamorama book readings are participatory events. Audience members perform the correspondences between e-mail scammers and their intended victims.

One of the readers, Claire Beckman of Brave New World Repertory Theatre, encouraged me to keep at a play I had begun, based on Scamorama.

Read more!

not been slack at all

I've been writing more, posting less. Working on a play inspired by my book Scamorama (about people who write back to e-mail scammers just to waste their time), and finished a ten-minute play which takes place just before, and a long time after, the Fall of Pompeii.
Read more!

Peace and Quiet in Bookstores

Piped-in music drives me out of bookstores.

I once told a Barnes & Noble sales person I wished there were no music on.
"You need to learn to live with other people," she responded.
[That is more or less exactly what she said.]

They're closing that branch now, but I'm sure it's a coincidence.

Not every moment in life needs a soundtrack.
Read more!

Finished a radio play

I sent my radio play ("THE FARTHER IT GETS, THE HARDER IT IS") to the BBC World Service radio playwriting competition.

The entry certificate has a stylin' picture of a sixties transistor radio.

One reads of writers being surprised by their own characters - this actually happened with THE FARTHER IT GETS.

How nice that radio has an infinite budget for space and time.
As I've often said, reality is just a crutch for people without { radio : Photoshop : you name it }.
Read more!

Holy haggis

Great trip to Edinburgh and thereabouts. A lovely city, lots of places to sit and drink beer (and now there's no smoking in bars, even ones with live music, which was great). At one point I turned a corner and ran into a crowd of boys milling around playing bagpipes. I'm pretty sure that wasn't staged for my benefit. Stayed in a beautiful country house outside the city, guarded by large red cows with wide horns. Cold all the time. And lovely.
Read more!

Prague Rock

I gave a talk about scam-baiting at an IT conference in Prague, on the grounds of the lovely Prague Castle. The unexpected treat was a performance by a Czech string band, Poutnici (Pilgrims). They did a terrific cover of Telegraph Road. The CzechR seems to be a hotbed of string, jazz & bluegrass music. Maybe this used to be a political choice? Or maybe it's just like that. I am slowly learning more about Czech culture, and how the Czechs have navigated the rough waters of politics over the centuries.

The good soul on the program committee who translated my paper told me he had a hard time finding an exact translation for 'scam-baiter'. Everyone was familiar with the subject, though, if only because of the tragic incident in which a Czech scam victim shot the Nigerian consul in Prague. Prague must have seemed like a pretty sweet post too.

I enjoy this country every time. Of course my view has been colored by the wonderful treatment I've received. But it really is a great place.
Read more!

Red Elvises (your favorite band)

... at Slims in San Francisco.

That's entertainment.
Read more!

Luck in publishing

The Disinformation Company approached me about publishing Scamorama, which is not how publishing normally works. Usually the author beats her wings against the window of an agent, or publisher, before collapsing on the frosty sill. Or not, depending on the merits of her work, the publisher's catalog, the agent's state of digestion, and luck.

I like to think it's a decent book (well I've been told it's a good bathroom book - which I think was a compliment) but luck was definitely involved here. Someone sent me a photo of a man walking a hyena in Nigeria. I posted it on Scamorama and Disinfo asked to use it in another book. And by the way, did I want to write a book?

I did, and it looks like this:

The photo was also used in the art for the recent Gorillaz album, Demon Days.
Read more!

Setting forth

I begin by mentioning my writing, but will no doubt roam further afield.

I've been writing for years - mostly plays, and bits of novels, and music.
My first book was published in September 2006:
Scamorama: Turning the Tables on Email Scammers
(publisher: The Disinformation Company)

There's a separate blog about that: Scamorama: The Blog.

It's about people who write back to e-mail scammers just to waste their time.
(If you keep winning lotteries you didn't enter, this book might be for you.)
Read more!