5 comments about I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World.

1. Eve is a sane voice, crying out in a world where violence, injustice, cruelty, and insensitivity are oft considered normal. It takes a cry from the soul, such as Eve's to begin to respond to the madness around us.



2. I will admit that this is the first book of Eve Ensler's I have read so I do not have anything to compare it to in terms of her writting ability. I have seen her on t.v. and I have seen The Vagina Monologues three times over the years and found the play to be extremely powerful and moving each time.
   
   So, I think I was expecting the book to be that powerful also and it just isn't. I think it falls flat. For most of the monolgues, there is no real depth and that might just be because of how short they are. There are a few where you really get a sense of who these girls are but then there are some that totally miss the boat. For instance, the monologue of the child prostitute is a moving monologue. The monologue of the child soldier misses the boat. It is more about rape than being "drafted" as a child soldier. There just could have been more done with it.
   
   Lastly, apparently, there are no good fathers or men in the world if one is to go by Eve's book. With one very, very brief exception, all the men/fathers are abusive, dismissive, or cruel. It would have been nice to have at least one monologue by a "daddy's girl." Just one, that's all.
   Also, there is a strong, negative anti-Catholic/Christian bias in this book. Without exception, every mention of Catholicism or Christianity is negative.
   
   There are better books out there about our girls. I would skip this one and look for more indepth ones.
   
   Dena



3. The stereotype that has always plagued teen girls is that they live in and react from their feelings and emotions and are not logical, or even capable of logic. Certainly teens, both male and female, can be emotional. The transition from childhood through individuation and into adulthood is a bumpy road. One of the "poems" in this book includes the following lines:
   
   "I am an emotional creature.
   Things do not come to me
   as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas.
   They pulse through my organs and legs
   and burn up my ears.
   I know when your girlfriend's really pissed off
   even though she appears to give you what
   you want.
   I know when a storm is coming.
   I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air.
   I can tell you he won't call back.
   It's a vibe I share."
   
   Things do not come to me as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas?
   
   So we are telling teen girls that it is not normal or usual for them to think rationally, or to be intellectual rather than constantly emotional? Well geez, why don't we just go back to the stereotypes of the 1950's and tell them that science and mathematics, that the life of mind, is not really for them, that they are well, just too emotional for that.
   
   There may be other parts of the book that are healthy and healing and promote positive things for girls. The message in this particular "poem" is insulting, patronizing, denigrating, stereotypical and seeks to limit the horizons and minds of fine young women... Fine young women everywhere who need to believe that they are intellectually capable, and that they need to develop their gifts of intellect as well as of feeling to share with the world.
   
   Alternatively, perhaps we could say:
   
   The feelings in my heart
   which speak to me with such passion-
   are mine.
   
   The gifts of a questioning mind
   speaking of logic,
   the beauty of
   mathematics,
   of science-
   these things too
   are my heritage...
   
   Being woman
   Being human
   I bring forth the gifts of my spirit
   I bring forth the keenness of my mind
   I bring forth my passion, my feelings
   
   because all these things
   are alive within
   me.
   
   In a form of psychotherapy used with teens called Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), the idea of "wise mind" is talked about. Wise mind is a combination of our emotional thinking and responses, along with our logical and analytical thinking. When we bring both these sides of our mind, our being, to a decision making process, we make better decisions. Decisions that reflect both our capacity for logic and for feeling. Why would we want to rob girls of this ability by speaking to them only of feeling?



4. I Am an Emotional Creature is, quite simply, a book of diverse monologues, told by young girls all around the world. Whether these girls' stories are familiar or foreign to you, they all are confronting the complex issue of defining oneself in a world full of contradictions, where girls are told they must be polite and pretty and perfect to fit in, yet are encouraged to be strong and independent and to dream big at the same time. Every girl's story is unique and equally jarring, from the simple confrontation of peer pressure in the average high school to tales of girls sold for sex miles and oceans away. This book is filled with girl stories: those forced to undergo unwanted plastic surgery, working in far-away factories making Barbies, pregnant girls, anorexic girls, and girls just talking. Each story is surprising and alive.
   
   I Am an Emotional Creature is a hybrid in the style in which it is told. Though most of the monologues are straightforward prose, poems and scripts are sprinkled throughout these fictional stories, made even more realistic by the many "Girl Facts" interspersed throughout the book. Ensler captures the essence of being a girl and being human without being trite or even touching on clichés, and the result is a bold, incisive, emotional, and achingly real testament to teen girls and their power and verve. This book will not only make you think, but also quite possibly change the way you think about teen girls today.



5. I LOVE Eve Ensler and The Vagina Monologues and have very high expectations for her work. She did not disappoint! Even though this book is intended for teenage girls, women of all ages will love it, and will read it over and over again. Read either as an entire book or as pieces, it's incredibly moving and motivational. I would definitely recommend buying it and copies for all the women in your life!

5 comments about The Cello Suites: J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece.

1. What a wonderful journey this book is!
   
   How refreshing and rewarding it is to travel with Eric Siblin in his discovery and learning to love these truly wonderful suites, and gain more knowledge of them. He weaves SO much into this marvelous book, including a semi biographical line of Pablo Casals...the "discoverer" of these wonderful pieces as a young cellist and his "growing" with them, practicing daily for many years before ever playing them publicly and recording them for EMI. We also get Mr. Siblin's personal journey of discovery and fascination with this music, cleverly used piece by piece and movement by movement as chapter and sub-chapter titles! And, also, the wonderful searching into and documentation of J. S. Bach's life and likely time-frame of composition of these most lovely pieces for solo cello, at the time a most neglected instrument. Bach, ever the genious and consummate artist/creator, surely had an insight that no-one else of his time shared...and how very very fortunate, lucky, and gifted we are to have, in particular, these six pieces, along with all his other masterly compositions....truly one of the greatest musical geniouses ever to grace the planet.
   
   Mr. Siblin has certainly done ALL his homework before writing this excellent and enlightening book. I cannot think of anyone, music lovers of course, but also anyone interested in history, biography, and plain "discovery" who would not be totally caught up in this fabulous journey of the author in his quest to learn more, from interviewing cellists, listening to many many recordings of the works, researching "Papa" Casals' life and journey with this music, and also J. S. Bach and the creation of these wonderful Suites for this truly most expressive and beautiful of all instruments!
   
   Kudos to you, Eric Siblin, for one of the finest reads that I have had the pleasure to enjoy in a very long time!
   
   operabruin



2. It is hard for me to imagine Bach's Cello Suites as absent from my collection of CDs, or from the records that I used to have, or, for that matter, from the role of standards within the huge Bach oeuvre. They are beautiful, jaunty, sad, and puzzling, and meet anyone's definition of fine classical music. The truth is, though, that they dropped away from the world's musical knowledge (only partly because the world was slow to understand how much Bach had given it) and really didn't surface until the twentieth century, when Pablo Casals resurrected them. Even then, they didn't make any impression on music critic Eric Siblin. That's not surprising. Siblin had been a pop music critic in Montreal, "a job that had filled my head with vast amounts of music, much of which I didn't want to be there." Still, in 2000 idle curiosity led him to a performance of the suites, mostly because he chanced to be in a hotel near the recital hall. The performance was a revelation: "music more earthy and ecstatic than anything I'd ever heard." In _The Cello Suites: J. S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece_ (Atlantic Monthly Press), Sibling tells the welcome stories of the composer, the performer, and his own growth in understanding of the suites. Part of his "search" is literally for Bach's lost original score for them; that's OK, but it won't ruin your appreciation of the book to know that if he had found the original, there would have been international headlines about the discovery. The better part of the search is his growing musical appreciation and fondness for the suites, and for their historical lore.
   
   Bach was not a musical sensation in his own lifetime. His own contemporary Handel was far more famous, and Bach never approached the sort of superstardom that Mozart or Beethoven would attain. After his death, it was the sons that got the manuscripts of his work. There are stories that some of his handwritten pages went to the padding to wrap around fruit trees, or in a shop for wrapping cheese, or even as detritus in a New York City construction site. The original manuscript of the Cello Suites has never turned up. Bach's wife sometime around 1730 made a copy of the original manuscript to give to a violinist. Her copy went from one musician to another, winding up in a royal library in Berlin in 1841, where it was mostly ignored. The thinking seemed to be that the suites were perhaps technical exercises for cellists, not performable pieces. Then in 1890, Pablo Casals, thirteen years old and a prodigy, was looking for music to play, rummaging through a sheet music store in Barcelona. A tattered copy of the suites caught his eye; he had not known that they existed. They were to change his life. He practiced them every day (a routine he would keep up during his long life), but it was twelve years before he would perform them in public. Casals, in exile from Spain, refused to play in countries that recognized Franco's government; he might have waivered on this pledge in order to enter the US and play at the United Nations, but he would not play the Cello Suites which were his spiritual key signature.
   
   Siblin's book is a lovely tribute to the suites, to Bach, and to Casals, but it is also a rewarding introduction to classical music itself. The classical world was new to Siblin (although he can't help commenting on, say, Bach's influence on Procol Harum, or on hip-hop) and the book would be a fine introduction to give to a young person who might have a first interest in classical music. Siblin's descriptions of the music are good, though abbreviated. Much more fun are his expeditions to put himself into Bach World. Interviewing Walter Joachim, an 80-year-old veteran cellist, he got the advice that he should learn to play the cello. "Not that I could ever be any good, he cautioned. I was too old for that to ever happen. But it would give me some insight." And it does; he got to play some Bach, although not the suites themselves, which were simply too intimidating. His modest results were sobering, but they did bring him closer to appreciating the suites. He joined a choir of amateurs spending a weekend learning to sing a Bach cantata for a one-off performance. Remember what an amateur is literally: someone engaged in an activity for the love of it. Throughout this sparkling book, Siblin the amateur has written intelligently about the Cello Suites as a newbie coming to a fuller appreciation. It is an appealingly fresh view of a pinnacle of music.



3. Eric Siblin has done a nice job of combining just enough biographical information (ie stories) about Bach and Casals and the wonderful cello suites with just enough about Eric Siblin. He rightly recognizes that Casals and Bach are more interesting than he is, which is not always the case in these personal history books.
   
   If you're already up on Bach and Casals and the suites you won't find anything new here, but the story is charmingly told in a way that interests people not already classical music buffs. Siblin has done a service here, and had fun doing it.
   
   There's a useful bibliography and an unobtrusive set of sourcing footnotes, too.
   
   The copy editing is lacking - for example, don't try to find a biography of Casals by .i. Katz. However irritating this and other minor errors may be, they don't ruin a very pleasant read.
   
   So if you have a nonscholarly interest in Bach, in Casals, in the cello, or in the magisterial Cello Suites, you'll enjoy this book and learn from it - painlessly.



4. This book is awesome! Reading about the history of Bach and Pablo was a delight. I really didn't know much about the two and now I have a good understanding of who these great men were. I even started taking cello lessons! The stories seem so vivid when you read them as if you were there observing Bach and Pablo. Buy this book!



5. If you like JS Bach's music, especially the cello suites, you must read this book. It is well conceived and well written. I enjoyed it thoroughly. There is a lot of speculation in it (things may have happened this or that way), but that's inevitable due to the dearth of documentation of Bach's life. I highly recommend it.

5 comments about The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks.

1. If I had to describe this graphic novel, I would say it was zombie short stories influenced by Heavy Metal. I have not read the Zombie Survival Guide yet. It's in my "to read" pile. I saw this at the book store and purchased it on a whim.
   
   It's not a bad book. Probably the best parts are the artwork and the stories plausibility since they give just enough information to wonder if they were true.
   
   One thing that is rather light is the dialog. This book is mainly pictures but they do convey what is lacking in words.
   
   Overall, it was a nice little read and I am not disappointed with it. However, I am not sure it's worth full price.



2. Simply put, this is the graphic rendition of the stories Max Brooks put in the back of his Zombie Survival Guide. The artwork is good and the stories were entertaining when I first read them a few years back. It had been a while so it was nice to revisit these very brief tales but the negative is that Brooks didn't try to add any new stories to the mix and give us something different than we have already seen. It was entertaining, but not sure it was worth the price charged. You can get fresh new zombie stuff in graphic novel form on an ongoing basis with the Walking Dead series, amongst others, so why couldn't Brooks done a bit of refreshing here and added a few other interesting tales throughout history?
   
   Still, the quality of the art work is good and if you have not read the recorded attacks from the Survival Guide already, this is a good way to introduce them to you if you are a fan of zombies.



3. I, unlike all the one-stars, was pleasantly surprised that this was a graphic novel. I was basically expecting another world war z, and was wondering why the cover had zombies drawn all over it. When I opened it, I completely understood. The art was good, the stories were well written, I just wish it was 2-3x as long as it was. I read it in the greater part of an hour.
   
   If you want a zombie "read", then check out Dead City by Joe McKinney (5 stars!)



4. Great book, fast read, art is good. If you like zombies and decent art, get the book. If you want to complain, go somewhere else!!!



5. This is the third Brooks book I've reviewed and this one has to be the biggest disappointment. "Recorded Attacks" wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting more in depth situations and information but everything feel a little too short. Although what we got was good, I wanted more out of the stories.
   
   It starts off in the year 60,000 BC where the first recorded attack took place. All of the stories are just speculation; there was never any real evidence to support the stories, (which is a good thing because I would hate to find someone who takes these historical events as fact). We travel all over the world from Egypt to Siberia and even to the United States . Solanum is referenced in the book like it has in his previous books.
   
   This is a graphic novel so it's pretty cool to be able to see the zombies on print. I think the best part of this book is the illustrations, done by Avatar Press. The zombies look great and surprisingly horrifying. The illustrations match the story 100%, Avatar Press did a great job.
   
   Over all "Recorded Attacks" was a good read even though it only takes a little over a half an hour to read and enjoy. It is ridiculously over priced at $17.00 here in the United States. It's a good book but not worth the money, even though it did have interesting parts like the practical purpose for removing someone's brain before being mummified. To know what I'm talking about you'll have to read the book. I give "Recorded Attacks" 3 Undead Heads out of 5.

4 comments about The Celebrity Tweet Directory.

1. This is a very comprehensive book that gives a full directory about celebritites that tweet. Jeanne Harris did a great job at picking out tweets to highlight, and the book is easy to read. And I love the cover design - nice work! I hope there is a follow up book, or something similar for other tweeters! Maybe a political tweet directory? Or small businesses directory for tweeters? A++++++++



2. I absolutely adore this book--what a little gem! I love how it's organized (in categories of the famous) and how many people are listed (it's PACKED with names). I also enjoyed reading the random tweets from celebrities sprinkled throughout the whole book. Since I am still fairly new to Twitter, the section on how to use Twitter's functionality to connect with people, in general, was a good resource. I highly recommend this book if you enjoy social networking and you like up-to-date news from your favorite celebrities.



3. As a newby to the Twitter World this was a remarkable life saver and very intriguing, filled with so much information, great comments and juicy inside "insight" into the rich, famous and those who will forever be wannabees. Jeanne Harris really did her research and homework on this. Very valuable to those who TWEET.



4. This has got to be one of the best guides to who's who in entertainment and celebrity that I have seen in a long time. Jeanne Harris has not only come up with a great idea, but has turned that idea into a book that both fun and practical. I couldn't wait to get my copy and see how many celebs I could locate.
   
   And here's the thing. It is totally practical. The Table of Contents is straight-forward and divided into logical groups, some of which are expected and others which you say, oh, yeah, why not? There are, of course, your favorite actors, directors and producers in either the theatre or in movies and well as Comedians, musicians and personalities who have separate listings.
   
   Sports personalities in baseball and basketball are there, as is an interesting group that probably has a very special following: Car Racing. Then there's politics, and not just the pols themselves, but the pundits and correspondants as well. Now I know who to twit when my blood starts boiling. Speaking of which, there is also a category for Journalists. You gotta figure that's going to a hot category.
   
   But the real surprise is the Celebrity Chefs/Foodies. I mean WolfgangPuck (@WolfganBuzz) and Rachel Ray (@RacaelRayShow) sure, but Pim Te (@chezpim, The Foodie Handbook) and the king of Bizarre Foods, Andrew Zimmern (@andrewzimmern)? It shows the author's attention to detail to even have thought of these guys.
   
   It's a great guide just to lay back and thumb through, but if you want to find a specific person, there is even a comprehensive index you can use to find your favorite celeb instantly. The only downside to this book is that my name and books Master Spies Die Laughing: A novel interpretation of undercover espionage and a singular lack of intelligenceand Citizen Poet's Take on Tiger Woods: Ten Ways to Play the Lie (Citizen Poet's Take on...)aren't in it--not this edition, anyway. (Jeanne, are you listening?) Oh, well. In the meantime, what I've got is good--no, great--to go.
   
   [...]

5 comments about Hamlet (The New Folger Library Shakespeare).

1. "Hamlet" doesn't need any introduction -- the tortured Dane, the ghost, meditations on suicide and a climax full of death. But as well-known as the storyline is, the play itself is what deserves the attention, both for Shakespeare's shadowy plot filled with uncertainty and treachery -- and for his brilliant, immortal writing, which takes on a new dimension when read on the page.
   
   Prince Hamlet of Denmark is understandably upset when, only a short time after his father's death, his mother Gertrude marries his uncle Claudius, who is now the new king. Who wouldn't be unhappy? But when Hamlet encounters the tormented ghost of his father ("I am thy father's spirit/Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night"), he learns that his dad was murdered by his uncle -- but he's plagued by indecision, since he's unsure if the spirit was truly his dad.
   
   In response to this vision, Hamlet's behavior becomes more bizarre and erratic -- he dumps his girlfriend Ophelia, arranges a play that mimics real life a little too closely, and generally acts like a loon. But when an argument with his mother ends in tragedy -- and the death of one of Ophelia's loved ones -- Hamlet's fate is sealed as Claudius begins plotting to get rid of him too.
   
   Small warning: like all Shakespeare's plays, it's best to read "Hamlet" after you've seen a good performance, because the entire thing was intended to be acted out. Otherwise, it's like reading a movie script to a movie you haven't seen -- easy to get lost, and the dramatic effects aren't easy to connect to.
   
   But if you HAVE seen a good performance of "Hamlet," then the play will just jump off the page. The plot is a relatively simple one, but it's tangled up in all sorts of moral dilemmas, personal doubts, deteriorating personal relationships, and a creeping undercurrent of darkness. The best part is that Shakespeare leaves you with all sorts of questions that are left up in the air -- is Hamlet crazy or just faking it? Is the ghost really his dad?
   
   And, of course, it contains some of the most intense, powerful examples of Shakespeare's work here -- vivid, nasty imagery ("In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed/Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love/Over the nasty sty"), some bleak humor ("you're a fishmonger"), and Hamlet's immortal soliloquies. It's also one of Shakespeare's most quotable plays -- obviously you've got bits like "Alas, poor Yorick," "to be or not to be" and "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," but there are countless other familiar phrases littered through the text.
   
   On the page, Hamlet is basically an embittered young man who is torn between his doubts and convictions, but is still determined to fix things ("O cursed spite,/That ever I was born to set it right!"). A lot of the supporting cast are hard to follow, but there are some brilliant and enduring roles here -- the incestuous queen Gertrude, the subtle menace of Claudius, the windbag Laertes, and Ophelia, whose uncertainties spiral into madness after her ex-boyfriend kills her dad.
   
   It's best to get a grip on this classic tragedy by watching an actual performance, but reading "Hamlet's" text is a vivid experience on its own. Brilliant, complex and intense.



2. *Hamlet* is truly one of the finest masterpieces that human civilization has ever produced. This Shakespearean drama explores every facet of the human condition in a remarkable way and leaves you astonished at Shakespeare's genius.



3. Teacher said this was required reading. As far as I can tell, it's true to The Bard's style and penchant for requiring 10-15 minutes per page to read. For me, pure homework.



4. the shipment was good and the book was in wonderful shape just as the seller listed



5. The guy who gave Hamlet a one-star review is either a tongue-cheek humorist of the first order, or barring that, an absolute idiot.

5 comments about No Exit and Three Other Plays.

1. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) is extremely difficult to approach, for his reputation rests heavily upon the work BEING AND NOTHINGNESS: AN ESSAY ON PHENOMENOLOGICAL ONTOLOGY--an extremely complex work that many regard as the single greatest work of 20th Century philosophy and which is largely beyond the grasp of everyone but the most gifted philosophers themselves. Fortunately for the rest of us, Sartre translated his vision of the world into more accessible forms. Although his novel NAUSEA is widely known, he is more likely to be known for his plays--and for one in particular, the celebrated NO EXIT. This collection includes that play (in French titled HUIS CLOS), THE FLIES (LES MOUCHES), DIRTY HANDS (LES MAINS SALES) and THE RESPECTFUL PROSTITUTE (LA PUTAIN RESPECTUEUSE.) Each of these plays in some way revolve around ideas of self-determination, freedom of choice, and responsibility to one's self, addressing issues that are at the heart of French existentialism.
   
   Unlike many European dramatists of his era, Sartre was not an absurdist author per se, and while his plays sometimes make use of an unexpected premise, they are generally naturalistic in tone. NO EXIT, first played in 1944, is easily the most famous: a man and two women, none of them of any great moral or intellectual worth, are led into a small room. It gradually transpires that they are dead--and that they are completely incompatible. This is hell: humans determined to impose their wills and ideas and visions upon unwilling others, working without ceasing to undercut each other in a vain effort to gain individual advantage. Written in a single act and requiring about ninety minutes to perform, it is easily one of the most intense plays ever seen on stage, a combination of intellectual and emotional ferocity beyond easy description. It is truly one of the great masterpieces of western drama.
   
   The other titles are less well known to English-speaking audiences. Of them THE FLIES is the most widely performed. Pre-dating NO EXIT by a year, it is a full-length drama based on the ancient Greek ORESTIA, in which Orestes returns to his home--but unlike the original he has no intention of avenging his father's murder until he realizes that he can freely elect to do so as long as he freely embraces the consequences of his actions. As in most of Sartre's works, much of the play revolves around the necessity of the individual to define himself for himself, and often in rejection of the manipulative status quo, and the play possesses tremendous theatrical sweep. The characters are elegantly and powerfully redrawn from the Greek revenge tragedy, and the overall play itself has the power of its ritualistic orgins.
   
   DIRTY HANDS debuted in 1948 and proved extremely controversial, albeit for reasons that Sartre himself may not have foreseen. In general terms, it is the story of a World War II communist party worker who, on party orders, commits murder and who is afterward shocked to find how utterly meaningless his act has been--ideas and issues that are very typical of Sartre's work. But the play's story pitted one faction of the communist party against another, questioned how effectively any person could define themselves within a political system, and in doing so thoroughly outraged half the nation. Almost three decades had to pass before it was once more performed in France. This said, it is easily the most problematic of the four plays; it seems unduly long, unduly dry, a bit awkward in construction, and very obvious in its statements.
   
   Like NO EXIT, THE 1946 THE RESPECTFUL PROSTITUTE is a one act, and although it does not rise to same artistic level as NO EXIT or THE FLIES it has unique sting nonetheless. The play, somewhat surprisingly, is set in a small town in the deep south of the United States, where a newly arrived prostitute finds herself caught up a drunken murder that gives rise to a double killing calculated to cover up the first crime. Again, issues of self-determination arise, but on this occasion with an unexpected twist: the central character, the prostitute, is a woman of no particular intelligence. She is just smart enough to know that she has been duped and manipulated, but not smart enough to sort out the implications and ramifications of her situation as it unfolds. The play has an undeniable power, but Sartre is writing outside his direct knowledge here, and although technically accurate, his portrait of southern racism does not ring entirely true.
   
   Whenever I review plays I like to note that plays are not really written to be read. They are intended to be seen and heard on the stage, and many readers find it difficult to envision how a particular script will play out before an audience. The fact that each of these four plays has considerable philosophical depth may add to the difficulties involved. NO EXIT is a masterpiece, no doubt about it, and I think most people will find it highly readable--and I think most people will find THE FLIES not far behind. THE RESPECTFUL PROSTITUTE is flawed, and it may leave some readers wondering at the point, but it is short and worth the effort. DIRTY HANDS is probably best left to those who are more interested in Sartre's overall work than those who just want to read a good play. Recommended overall, and given five stars on the basis of NO EXIT and THE FLIES, with RESPECTFUL PROSTITUTE rated at four stars and DIRTY HANDS at three.
   
   GFT, Amazon Reviewer



2. Sartre's play, "No Exit," has a well-known premise--Garcin, Inez, and Estelle are an eternal triangle, captive in a small drawing room of hell, an endless merry-go-round of mutual torture for their sins. Another premise can be read, the major premise, actually--there is hope even in hell (contrary to Dante's epigram and Sartre's minor premise). And if there is hope in hell, there is even more hope for those who have not yet arrived.
   
   The key to this interpretation is Joseph Garcin. He stands apart from Inez and Estelle who are both complicit in murder/suicide. Garcin is no murderer but a self-accused coward, a deserter in time of war. Cruelty to his wife is the ostensible reason for his damnation, but Garcin is troubled by that not at all, "I have no regrets." He is extremely troubled by his reputation as coward, among his living colleagues, among his present, eternal companions.
   
   Garcin is obsessive in his need for vindication. He is totally a "being-for-others," to use Sartre's own terminology from "Being and Nothingness." He defines himself exclusively as he is seen by others. He is Kafka's Joseph K. ("The Trial") in the next phase of existence. Garcin would do better to emulate either of Joseph Heller's characters, Yossarian or Orr ("Catch 22"), or to take the meaning of Hillel's, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?"
   
   Estelle in life would talk to others while watching herself in the mirror, "seeing myself as the others saw me," in an echo of wee Rabbie Burns. To escape his hell Garcin must see himself _not_ as others see him. There are no mirrors in the drawing room to distract him. This may be an inkling of a way out, encouragement from the landlords. For Garcin's prospects "no exit" may be too pessimistic, the original "huis clos" possibly more apt.



3. Sartre explores and "projects" some of his deepest existential themes (freedom, consciousness, and acting in bad faith) through this short play, written immediately after his magnum opus "Being and Nothingness." The plot centers around three people (Garcin, Inez and Estelle) all condemned to serve out their sentences in hell together. Mostly due to their own self-hatred and embarrassment for having ended up in hell in the first place, they predictably all hate each other, but nevertheless proceed trying to convince each other (and themselves) that they are worthy individuals, unjustly condemned to their stations in Sartre's metaphorical hell.
   
   In Sartre's view, apparently this tableau of struggling with "bad faith" in hell is just a mirror image of what goes on outside it; as in both cases humans are continually acting towards one another in mutual "bad faith." Almost as a psychological imperative, they are always busy "fronting each other off;" pretending not to know that they are as much moral criminals and criminals of conscience as they are "real criminals:" all of whom got exactly what they deserved. But as the plot unfolds, we discover that they all also are indeed "real criminals," justly sentenced.
   
   Despite this, in each case they shrink not only from the reality of their crimes and from the reasons why they ended up in hell, but more importantly, they also shrink from the primary responsibility of their own freedom, and from who they are and to their humanity. As a result, the reader gets to see that these criminals are not condemned to hell just for their moral crimes, but also for crimes of conscience: their cowardice and "bad faith" as human beings. In this, they see their cowardice through the eyes of their cellmates, their eternal torturers.
   
   The tension of the play is created by and is centered on the interplay of the dialogues between different dyadic pairings of the couples. In each, they all struggle in their own idiosyncratic way to some how convince themselves and their respective partners (using the partner as mirrors), that they are better than the reality they each "fail to own up to." In short, they are all trying to "end run" their own "bad faith" creating a "false reality" by using their cellmates as a positively distorted reflection of themselves. In this very act, they lose the right to construct an authentic reality and an authentic self.
   
   The question the play begs: is how, writ large, do human beings deal with the "bad faith" of their own existence, and its corresponding failure to create a reality where the authentic self can thrive. That is how can they still come out on the other side of their conscience with their humanity and self-image authentically intact, as mature, responsible and heroic human beings?
   
   Sartre, with his own experience as a captured prisoner of war in France during WW-II intruding into the play as an important backdrop in the subtext (While under Nazi torture, Sartre admitted to seriously considering betraying France), assures us that there is no clear answer to this question, and thus no safe exit out of his metaphorical jail into a pristine and heroic world where the problem of "bad faith" is either an easy decision, or does not exist at all. The challenges presented by "bad faith" it seems are in our hands, completely independent of the domain of our humanity: Wherever he goes, "Bad faith" is destined to shadow man's existence.
   
   Three stars



4. No Exit and Three Other Plays
   An enjoyable & easy way to get into Sartre's Existentialism. "No Exit":3 people locked in a hotel room forever;Hell as other people:the last lines indicate how we can survive. "The Flies": The Electra story reformed; one can revolt against Fate and choose ones Destiny. "Dirty Hands":a free-thinker tries to find his own answer to the conflicts and pressures of others who have him caught up in their own political/moral/ethical prejudices;what price to stand alone? "The Respectful Prostitute": Power, racism and manipulation in 1950's Deep South USA;a naive/courageous prostitue escapes problems in New York to find herself at the centre of local racial bigotry and state encouraged murder;her decision could save or destroy all of those involved.



5. the book is in decent condition it does look very worn on the cover but the text is very clean

5 comments about A Streetcar Named Desire.

1. In the nihilistic social commentary entitled A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, the author constructs a tale of old and new south, wealthy and impoverished peoples, and brutality and gentility. Williams conveys Stella Dubois as a model of southern elegance. She graces everyone she meets and brings a sense of nostalgic southern values to her Louisiana friends and acquaintances. Blanche, a fallen southern bell, as well as Stella's wealthy sister, comes to live with Stella and her husband. She isn't accustomed to the blue collar life that Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski is providing. She points out many `flaws" in their economic situation which displays the socioeconomic differences in our society. Williams brilliantly crafted Stanley Kowalski as the blue collared, coarse, and barbaric "man's man" He displays no remorse for any of his insensitive words or actions. This starkly contrasts with Stella who is vary affable and sensitive towards everyone. Throughout this novel, Williams displays these themes successfully through the characters and situations they confront.



2. In the published edition of his masterwork, "A Streetcar Named Desire", Tennessee Williams uses as an epigraph the following stanza from "The Broken Tower", probably the final poem written by the American romantic poet Hart Crane (1899-1932):
   
   "And so was it I entered the broken world
   To trace the visionary company of love, its voice
   An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled)
   But not for long to hold each desperate choice."
   
   Crane wrote this difficult poem in 1932, shortly before his suicide. The poem speaks of Crane's efforts to capture the fire of the imagination and the gift of love in the course of an unhappy life. With his passionate romanticism and his lyricism, Crane was a deep and lifelong influence on Williams.
   
   It helped to think about the importance of Crane's lines when I revisited "Streetcar". They capture something of the way we are to understand Blanche DuBois The unhappy heroine of Williams's play did indeed live in a "broken world" of sundered dreams. She lost the remnants of Belle Reve, the family plantation in Mississippi, together with her self-respect. On her fateful visit to her sister Stella and her husband, the coarse, brutal Stanley Kowalski in New Orleans where the play takes place, Stella's world becomes broken again when she loses her last chance at love and her sanity.
   
   All Blanche has are her dreams and her attempt to find "the visionary company of love." She is a woman of illusions who attempts to hide the sordid details of her own past, including the suicide of her young husband, her attendant nymphomania, and her alcoholism from herself and from others. Her illusions cannot survive realistic scrutiny, particularly when they are exposed to Stanley. Blanche is unable to hold on to her last "desperate choice", similarly to the speaker in Crane's poem. As his own life progressed, Williams came increasingly to identify himself with Blanche DuBois, and perhaps these lines from Hart Crane apply to Williams view of himself as well.
   
   With its lurid, pulpy, and melodramatic story, Streetcar has always been a tempting target for critics. But in beautifully poetic language, the play raises certain timeless themes, including the search for love, the powerful and destructive force of sexuality, and the centrality of romance and imagination to give life meaning in a world of brute fact. In a short introduction he wrote to the play called "A Streetcar named Success" Williams suggested, following William Saroyan, that the theme of the play was that "purity of the heart is the one success worth having. `In the time of your life -live!'" The play and Blanche come to a sad end. But capturing Blanche's story in art gives the reader or viewer of the play a power to persevere, similar to the power given to art and love in Hart Crane's "The Broken Tower."
   
   Robin Friedman



3. Blanche Dubois is the houseguest from hell. She arrives at her sister Stella's cramped New Orleans apartment and showers contempt on the humble surroundings. She ties up the bathroom for hours, drinks all the liquor in the house and covers lightbulbs with paper lanterns to escape the harsh glare that reveals her fading beauty. No wonder Blanche and her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski don't get along. Stanley is part man, part beast, and his very existence offends Blanche's delicate sensibilities. But Blanche is not as pure as she seems. As the summer wears on, the sordid details of her past come to light, and the paper lantern is savagely ripped off.
   
   [...]
   111 Books in 111 Words Each



4. Obviously, A Streetcar Named Desire is a world-famous play that, along with The Glass Menagerie, made Tennessee Williams a household name (at least in the literary ones). And it thankfully took Marlon Brando to heights that the cinema history has never seen or will never see again. Having written both, it's extremely difficult for me to separate both from each other. The play was made for Marlon Brando, and Marlon Brando was made for the play. When he became Stanley Kowalski, acting was never the same again. What the people thought of Jimmy Cagney is radically changed, and the standards of excellence when it comes to acting changed. The play A Streetcar Named Desire presents to me a very odd story because I am using the thinking of today and transporting it to back then, the way things were. Blanche DuBois, another household name and for comedic purpose (see EdTV), seems to be an alcoholic from the outset who happens to be a sex offender too. So, the conventional thinking is that she needs treatment to take care of her problems. But in the play, the author lets Stanley Kowalski to suggest the admittance to mental hospital for her. But why? At that point, it still doesn't make any sense. Another scene, at the end of scene ten, Blanche DuBois accepts sex from her male counterpart. It was really an implied moment, but in certain ways, some have viewed it as "rape." Even the movie makes a pretense of that. I thought that it also was a very odd moment. Putting the two odd moments together, A Streetcar Named Desire is indeed a strange play to view when applied with today's thinking. However, it is a great play because of the language, the mood, the atmosphere, and the feeling. There is a clash of two cultures: the old and the new as evidenced in Vivien Leigh of Gone with the Wind and Marlon Brando. If you think about how Vivien Leigh used to act as Scarlett O'Hara and apply the idea to A Streetcar Named Desire, it's easy to understand how the rules of acting have changed, and at the same time, the changing of guard had taken place. When you take a look at Marlon Brando's performance in A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront and compare them to today's movies, there is no comparison, and I honestly don't think there was ever a changing of the guard again. Anyway, Stanley Kowalski and Blanche DuBois are immortalized in this play, and their legacies will always live on forever. Just make sure that you take a special notice of the many implicit messages throughout the play because missing them will cause you to judge the play differently for the wrong reasons.



5. This was a very passiont film from the south drenched with liquior, romance, and confrontation. By far the best actress in the movie was blanch. She showed every possible emotion a human can have while acting in this play. She sold the movie for me from the second she started speaking. She goes though her up and her downs throughout the whole play. She tries to keep cool and calm throught the whole fil but battles to be considered sane but stanley pushes her over the edge in many parts of this film. From what i have known about this culture and this time the play was played out just the way the times have been presented to me. The male domination with the drinking problem who hits his wife and she comes back and loves him every time. Then you have that one woman who defies everyone and acts like a male almost. This film was very well presented and blanch dubois sold me. This was the beginning of an era in film making.

5 comments about The 101 Habits Of Highly Successful Screenwriters: Insider's Secrets from Hollywood's Top Writers.

1. I always love to read about how people work, and this is a great example of that type of book. It gives a number of a screenwriters who have written screenplays you will recognize, and they comment on how they work, what inspires them, how they think up new ideas, how they keep their creativity flowing, etc. It also tells you how discouraging screenwriting can be -- which is good to know up front, in case you may think you don't have the stomach for this endeavor.
   
   This would be a fun book to read even if you WEREN'T interested in becoming a screenwriter! I think much of what is in this book would be beneficial to novelists or playwrights as well.



2. Y'know, this isn't a bad book to have. Get advice from writers actually making a living in the film and TV biz and see if emulating their methods helps you get ahead. And many of them have turned out fine films. But much of the advice given out is, and many of the suggestions made are, so typical and simplistic, it makes you wonder why you haven't made it, already. And the truth is, having someone like Scott Rosenberg tell you all you have to do is write a good script is hysterically funny, considering he has yet to turn one out but got his work produced because of connections. And also considering how many good scripts get completely ignored (not taking about mine, here) while dreck is sold for six-figures all the time.
   
   The fact is, I don't really see anything in here that helps a first-time writer get his or her work noticed without meeting someone who can get it through the door. And for that, what's more important is having someone who believes so totally in your work, they won't take no for an answer from anyone until it's a finalized product on the screen. Someone like an agent or producer...which a few do seem to acknowledge. So how do you find one? Keep meeting people and pushing and selling yourself...advice given out by hundred of other books on writing...which just makes this one...typical.



3. If you are having a problem writing a screenplay, you can use this book to look up the subject you need help with and get advice on that subject from multiple screenwriters. It's really great. You could read it from cover to cover but I like to have it available when I need advice on a given subject. The book is organized by topics you may need help with. Then successful screenwriters explain how they solve the problem you need help with. It's great!



4. Starts with a narrative of each screenwriters bio and how they got into screenwriting. Then the book is broken down by topic with each writers response to each topic. This is a good way to analysis successful habits and get a cross-section of personal habits. Cuts through the gloss and gives you a naked view of the grueling hard work that creates success. But something clicked inside me and I started writing.



5. The book contained lots of great ideas for writing a better script. Hollywood should read this book again!

5 comments about The Vagina Monologues.

1. I saw this live and it was so funny. I'd invited a friend however she was too embarrassed to go so, I bought her this book to read in the privacy of her own home.



2. This was so great, especially the "good rape" of the 13-year old girl by an older woman twice her age who plies her with vodka then rapes her. I didn't realize pedophilia was "good" when women committed it but now I understand. What an uplifting book!



3. It's great to touch on a topic considered taboo for the time it was written, and still considered too taboo to say today.
   Would recommend this book to anyone.



4. I rented this book from the library I work at. I work at the UCLA arts library and we host a large collection of plays. We are also located in the same area where the Center for the studies of women is at. I first encountered the Vagina Monologues around 2001 while watching Lifetime. I never considered myself a feminist (though I am grateful that I can do things that women were denied 50 to 100 years ago) so this didn't catch my attention at first. It was only after I had taken a few women's studies course for my history major and seeing the book was available for borrowing at the same place where I work at, I decided to take the plunge.
   
   The primary reason I decided to read this book was because it was heralded as the new Shakespeare. Normally I avoid fads like the plague but out of pure disgusting curiosity, I decided to take a read. Eve Ensler offers a variety of voices for the vagina. Some of them made me laugh, others were poignant, but overall, the book read like gratuitous self glorification which I find interesting because after all, the early feminists wanted women to be defined as people and not just by their organs below the belly button.
   
   For me, this book read like the women's version of Everbody Poops. I am not saying that it's not worth reading but I will say that Ensler offers a sort of gateway for women to talk about their most private part with some comfort and for that I am grateful. I liked the humor incorporated in 'What would your vagina say?'. I liked that part and the poem that dealt with Bosnian rape victims. That was dark and brilliantly written. I would have enjoyed that poem as a standalone piece in a collection of poetry instead of being placed in a book that defines a woman by her special body part and perpetuates the internalized victimology that I have seen in alot of women that I encounter. What I mean by that is that I got way too much of that victim mentality and I felt that the Bosnian rape victim poem sealed the deal.
   
   I won't get into specifics but I have had experiences like some of the women mentioned in Ensler's book and if you ask me, from what I got out of the entire thing was that I am not a woman unless I have been some sort of victim and continue to carry that chip on my shoulder. I understand that women have had a history of violence imposed on them but it is a tad unrealistic to say that women are the end all be all victims when they are just as equal to men when it comes to domestic violence (see RADAR for more detail).
   
   I also did not like the rampant misandry as well as the constant self glorification of the vagina. I remember a passage somewhere about how women have issues with their vaginas because they don't look at them. Um, there is a reason why I don't look at mine when I am putting on my tampons (it's uncomfortable and there is no reason to. I am not disgusted by it but there is no point in looking at it when I am doing that as well as other things). One of the first passages that I can recall dealt with a woman who couldn't find her own clitoris and her husband had to call out her itsy bitsy for intimacy. I find it a tad hypocritcal that when a man cannot get off, we laugh at him through Viagra commercials but when I woman cannot find her own clitoris everyone acts like it's World War Three. Aside from this, I found it unrealistic to put men and stamp them with the scarlet letter as rapists. Speaking as someone who has a father, three little brothers and owned a male cockatiel and watched him die after his mate passed, I find the misandry here a little bit of a turn off. It didn't offer anything new to me other than the usual ideological dribble that women are always victims and that men are always the perps. Ensler makes a poor attempt to undo this (unless that was her purpose) with the 24 year old in the 'coochie snorcher that could' because she places these perps as secondary characters. They are outsiders and not real 'women'.
   
   It just tells me the same thing when in real life, I have encountered the opposite.
   
   That being said, I don't regret reading this book. I am glad I was exposed, so to speak, to this but by no means, it isn't Shakespeare. Magical peace rays don't shoot out of my vagina. It's not the cure to cancer, either. It's just a body part. To be honest, the notion of calling the vagina a sort of magical sacred space just makes me cringe because I would rather be identified as a person who just happens to have a vagina. If I wanted to, a baby would come out, but that's it.
   
   Overall, I would say it's passable. There was another review I read that said that said "if you are sexually repressed this might be good for you" and I would have to agree (and I am over twenty and still a virgin).



5. Eve Ensler has written an astonishingly frank, but oh so true series of short essays. This was enlightening on so many levels. I actually was a member of a cast who did this as performance shortly after I got the script, and the humor as well as the pathos was impressive.

No comments about Theater Geek: The Real Life Drama of a Summer at Stagedoor Manor, the Famous Performing Arts Camp.