Ketzarim - shorts

Patrons at a theatre. The gong sounds, they take their seats, the house lights dim, the stage lights come up, an actor enters from stage right, we focus one one mousy patron and his wife who have paid their money and want to get their money's worth. They are looking at the stage when a stream of late arrivals come into the theatre, come up the steps to their row, and then file past them one after the other, so that they block the view. Some apologise, some just push past. Eventually the man, who has ben craning this way and that, can se again, but the newcomers are still making a racket as they settle, adjust coats, cough, creak and distract. The players on stage are gathering steam, when a new bunch of latecomers enter, and file into the row two down from our patrons. One of the newcomrs is very tall, and settles down in a seat which blocks the line of vision of the woman. She cranes, shifts, cannot see properly. Eventually she swops with her husband - while the newcomers sshhh her for maing a noise. Now she and he can see and irritated but hopeful, turn their attention to the play. But another bunch of latecomers arrive, and enter the row in front of them, where another tall man seats himself in front of her!

The mousy patron sums up his courage and taps on the shoulder of the large man. Could he please swop seats so that his wife can see? (Ssshhhhhes from various folk seated near them). The tall man says sure, whispers to the person next to him, and then a complicated manouvre begins as he and the person sitting next to him exchange seats, again obscuring the stage. Once this has finally been sorted out the mousy patrons settle back and try and understand what's going on on stage. The nod attentivey, as if attending a lecture. But therearrangement in the next row has not worked out, because the person who swopped with the tall man cannot see. She whispers to the prson n her other side to swop, and thus begins another complicated manouvre. This seems to open the floodgates - various patrons try to improve their seats, swop places, change rows, go to the toilet, knock over drinks, turn off phones, so that the stage is obscured by a maelstrom of activity. The mousy man looks at his mousy law-abiding wife despairingly. Then a glint of mutual determination appears in their eyes, they rise, go to the very front row and....
To be continued


PSA for Animals Australia - TITLES: Imagine if children had become as desensitized as us...?

We are with a group of very cute and small primary school children and their teacher, who are following her around like ducklings. We start off at some gates, where the teacher tells them to be on their best behaviour because today they are visiting "Old MacDonalds farm, where life is much simpler than in the city, and folks have time to say hello to one another."
Cut to them outside the chicken shed. teacher. here is where the chickens are debeaked, and dusted with antibiotic...here is where the mail chickens are suffocated in big black plastic bags....any questions??
They stare blankly. Dull eyes. No questions (Is this the response I want, or are they upset??)
Here is where the piglets are taken from their mommies, tortured / have their genitals removed without anaesthetic /

And here children, is where....

This Christmas, don't disconnect from compassion - eat ethically.

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Valentine Day

Girl at school. She's different. Original. Other kids don't know what to make of her. She has her buddies. Maybe she's pretty in an easily recognisable way. maybe she's not. She's quite intense. Rebellious. The class has a teacher. An eduator. Complex. Sincere. She's an outsider. He's an outsider. her in the playground. he in the staffroom. On Valentine's day the kids all send each other notes and gifts. Anonymous. From lovers. She's not going to get one. She's sufficiently different ( A Dvora Wolfson, a proto feminist, grows hair on her legs....? perhaps stutters, stammers, brilliant...) The teacher writes her a note. Truly affirming. She's trying to figure which boy sent it to her. Move from boy's fac to boy's face from her POV. The Teacher observes. He has to keep the note secret. All kinds of child care checks and shit. But its completely platonic. completely nurturing. Does she confide in him. ? In the school counselor. Maybe make the teacher female? What's the punch line. Todah laEyl.

Imagine a Christian graveyard desecrated with graffiti - sprayed on Stars of David, crosses broken, tombstones smashed and toppled over..hard to imagine, isn't it, cos it hasn't happened much in the last 1000 years...

imagine tens of thousands of websites dedicated to villefying Christians, or Moslems, and which selectively quote from Christian texts, or Moslem texts

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Flight safety bvideo. camera dwells on the attractive models groin, til the VO chides the camera to move onto the next section. The oxygen masks…which starts of well, but when it gets to the inhale deeply, the camera dwells lovingly on the rise and fall of her breasts, and we hear a sighed “oy vey” of the cameraman off screen…

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Premises – a collection of “what ifs”

What if academic papers were written like infomercials and infomercials were written like academic papers.

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Year 7s go off to an intergenerational debate at Montefiore. The topic is : life gets better as you age. This in itself is full of delicious ironies but wait… there’s more. One of the kids (perhaps bored, perhaps ADHD, perhaps there are two of them, slips off….and finds themselves playing chess with an old toothless man (his dentures are next to his bed) and having a strange exchange of notes…or they witness a death…or they witness something that changes their perspective on ageing (Theme: ageing and the eternal…..comparing real childhood and second childhood….or they witness something but completely misinterpret it – could intercut with the ongoing debate to form a dramatic commentary on each other…..March 19th….think about this…what if its a troubled “aged” child and a free “young” octogenarian – role reversal and a meditation upon

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Skit – very dignified older gentleman in suit enters public toilets, glances at the urinals which are stained and messy, and being used by drunken yobbos, decides instead to use the only availsable cubicle, goes in, its not to bad…but door keeps on swinging open and won’t lock, he tries afew times, it swings, so he holds it in place, then raises the toilet seat – oh no – it’s one of tose that doesn’t stay up, but falls down, so he gingerly holds it up so that he can pee…he’s now holding the door with one hand and the oilet seat with the other and attempting to guide his urine where its supposed to go – walk like an Egyptian etc etc

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Crossing bridges is a pain in the bum

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A fictional story – perhaps set in a small platteland dorpie – where a Jewish general store owner encounters – very unexpectedly – a suddent outpouring of philo semitism

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Dogs in my house – being a 4 legged social history of South Africa. (Cora Bailey)

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