Bias versus Subjectivity

Everything is embedded in a specific, particularistic set of circumstances. Seeing only what you see from your corner of the universe is not necessarily about bias, (although the deliberate refusal to consider other points of view may be) it is about human limitation – our conditioning is linear and non-repeatable, so we cannot authentically be products of multiple cultures and circumstances, although we can acquire a superficial knowledge of other cultures.

The word “biased” is itself a “biased” (or loaded, not value neutral) term. It seems to me – and perhaps this is my “bias” – that subjectivities are inherent and inescapable in any particularistic assertion about reality. It is not possible to talk about anything without the subjective, point-of-view of the speaker(s) informing their discussion. Perhaps the only differences can be found in the degree to which speakers are willing to own their “biases” i.e subjectivities, vs their pretence that they don’t have any.

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polarity and subjectivity: The balance between polarity and equality as far as the genders go: we want to achieve the latter without losing the former; homogenisation serves no one. the same is true for ethnic, linguistic, faith and cultural groupings in a mosaic of co-existence, how to achieve functional equality without emasculating / defeminising complex traditions....

Steal these ideas!

Did you see that film?
Which one?
That Italian one...or maybe it was Yugoslavian
He goes somewhere, they meet, then she comes backtell me more
it was by that director, you know the one who also did that film about the war, Golub, Hiroslav was it, maybe Miroslav
ah yes, i think i know, it was called the lost, or the damned
yes, something like that...the forgotten maybe. Anyway this one was very good. After they leave it turns around completely and both of them discover each other's past.
Was that the one with Marcellioni?
I think so....Marcellioni...Martrevioni...something like that. He was superb. And at the end the both leave.
Silence
they're making some amazing stuff these days,eh?

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slovakian vs slovenian...never quite sure where they are...ok slovakia must have been Checheslovakia, but was slovenia transylvania. or am i getting completely mixed up?
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A therapist is seeing someone in prison, a sociopath, who has been ordered into therapy, and wants them to become soft and vulnerable. But he knows that in the abnormal context of prison it is taking away the shield and armouring that protects them, and leaving them "naked", so to "heal" the client is to place them in danger. Another dimension is that the prison authorities exert great pressure on the therapist to collude with their judgement, to slap a label on the client so that they can put him into a higher security wing or remove certain priviledges.

As they explore the client's past, with a focus less opn what he did and more opn what was initially done to him...
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VARIATION

A Jewish therapist/psychologist with a young neo-Nazi or Moslem ganster who has been ordered into therapy after killing a man who he thought was Jewish.At first there is complete non-compliance, while the therapist wrestles with his own demons (a son who suicided). Quite early in the process the young man realises the therapist is Jewish and hurls a string of abuse at him. The therapist tells their supervisor they cannot continue, but then regrets this decision and decides to continue:

I don't want you to abuse me
Fuck you Jew cunt
[Now how does he repond? with a feel good for the audience physical assertion of his boundaries as per Robyn Williams in Good Will Hunting, or a more subtle response....?]
For example he leaves the room, and the client has to come for every session and sit there on his own for 50 minutes..which he does for five or so sessions, each time abusing the therapist, each time the therapist gets up and leaves, eventually the client stops with the abuse because he is bored, so they sit facing each other in silence.
Lets see if we can find something we can agree on, says the therapist, fishing for something on which to begin building a therapeutic alliance...
We can agree that you're a Jew cunt. He folds his arms defiantly across his chest. The psychologist gets up....
wait..wait...sit down
The psychologists sits
You married, eventually the client offers?
If I were married what would that mean to you?
Nothing, I was just making conversation. But if you're going to do that
psychology bullshit on me I won't.
The therapist considers this:
Yes I'm married
Long time
17 years...do you call that long?
Yes that's long.
Why do you ask?

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Children, along with water proofing and stranger danger classes (ironical since most abuse happens in the family from perpetrators familiar to the recipient of the abuse) could be given advertisement proofing training as well 
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The Witch of Washington

See also Let's do coffee sometime

Helen Joseph, the witch of Washington:

"Go back, go back, go back to your ghettoes
go back go back to your auto de fe
go back go back to your forced conversions
go back go back to your cossack pogroms
go back go back to your landless pale
go back go back to your second class status
go back go back to your yellow stars
go back go back to your blood libels and expulsions
go back go back to the state theft of your property
go back go back to your Chmielniki massacres
go back go back to your cattle trucks and pile of spectacles
go back go back to your death camps and crematoria
go back and vanish from my sight
like a wisp of smoke that never was

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Dictator giving a speech, a tirade against some target group, in subtitles appears a translation of what he really means:
(my mommy never loved me, she was cold and remote)
(my father beat me mercilessly)
(I drowned a few puppies but soon decided it would be better to kill anyone who didn't agree with me) etc etc

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animation:


psychologist as a deflated balloon, thin and rather scawny, but slightly buoyant, able to float a few feet above the chair
a client comes in , they are a huge and mishapen inflated balloon, a small rush of words leaks out as they uncomfortably settle down in chair, words leaking onto carpet, thenthere is a huge rush of words as the mouth of their baloon connects with the therapists "mouth"...thir words get pushed into the therapist, injected, they slowly deflate, but the therapist is now much bigger, filled with the rush ofwords, the therapist tries to disengage, thrashes around a bit, eventually the client baloon stahggers out, but in passing another huge and misshapen balloon enters, again there is an exchange of words, as the client uses their ovipositor to lay their words in the therapist, by the third client the therapist is no longer buoyant but weighed down in the chair, and almost as large as the client, by the fourth they are ready to explode and have begun leaking words themselves....

cut to

supervision. The leaking therapist is unburdening with a supervisory baloon, who grows a little bigger with each supervisory session

cut to

the supervisor is getting supervision from...

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Can a "corrective emotional experience" include sex with the therapist? Not if the therapist will be guilt racked afterwards, apologetic, and wanting some kind of ritual humiliation at the hands of the client in order to atone.

Comic Material - short skits

See also 9 ideas and Premises and more-potentially-comic-material

Call centre skit #3

A man is eating a  hurried breakfast at a small breakfast table. he rises, kisses his wife on the cheek when she enters, what's on your agenda? I'm going to phone the callcentre and get the account sorted out....
she dials, gets the irritating optus music that they haven't changed for years and years, interrupted regularly by messages such as "the call centre is experiencing usually high volumes, we appreciate your patience and will be with you as soon as possible" she puts it on speaker and does the dishes, she hangs up the washing, sits down with coffee and does some stuff on her computer,
cmon she says, I need to go out
she does an exercise routine / stretches / runs on a treadmill/
mows the lawn...looks atthe clock it says noon, she has to go out.
reluctantly she hangs up, heads out to the car, sitting in the car, hesitates , then dials a no.on mobile and gets the same music through the blue tooth. She drops off a parcel, meets with a business associate, explains she's een holding for hours so would friend mind if she just leaves phone on, does some shopping, goes to the post office, picks up kids, gets home. its no 3pm. walks the dog, come s home agin it s 4pm she reluctantly ends the call. Brings in the washing , makes supper, dials the number again, supervises some homework, husband comes home, mends a button, asks her husband to be on phone duty while she showers,gets out of the shower, yawns, watches the news, they get into bed, husband falls asleep, the phone is still playing its music, she falls asleep with light still on, the phone falls from her hand to the floor.
 "hello, this is raphael, how may I be of excellent service to you today"



Call centre skit #2

A man is bought into an investigation / torture room by two burly guards. He is handcuffed and has a sack on his head. They roughly hurl him to the floor, and exit, slamming the door. He lies there groaning. We cut to

Two agents are discussing what to do with the victim:
should we give him the water treatment?
Nah, he's too tough for that
Should we give him the shock therapy....
might work, but we'v been told by the boys upstairs not to leave any marks...
so then its the...?
I'm afraid so...poor bastard

CUT back to

one of the agents enters the torture room. he removs the hood,almost gently, and the hancuffs.
Right then, you're free to go.
The man struggles up heads for the door.
There's just one small thing before you leave us. We need you to change this phone for us. Its the wrong model. We ordered a Galaxy 8000 and they sent us a Galaxy 800. Here's the toll free number. Good luck.

he leaves: the man dials, gets an indian accent, they ask security questions, he gets put on hold piped music, stage lights on him go own but piped music plays in background albeit softer, we cut to numerous other skits, we return to him, he's till on hold, clearly much time has passed (for eg. he has a beard), he's still holding, someone answers with a phillipino accent, they ask him the same security questions, what was your first school? what was the name of the street of your first house? he has to spell out the answers, they spell it wrong...  its like starting from the beginning, once he's explaind they tell him thy'll just put him on hold, new terribly irritating pipd music that just goes on and on...he's slumped in defeat...no, plase, don't put me on hold, please stay with me

the two agen/scientists observe him through a key hole, detached, dispassionately

poor bastard, he'll crack soon etc etc
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car skit, man return to partking bay at 1h55 in a 2hr bay, ranger is there with a stopwatch waiting,
"beat you to it mate"
but his car won't start.
the ranger wants to fine him
you can see the bloody car won't start
The bay in front of him becomes available
Help me push her then
the two men push the car into the next bay
I got lucky that time eh?

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Not only can I not pull the rabit out of the hat, I've mislaid the rabit

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Women comes into vet:
he's listless, been depressed, doesn't take any joy in anything anymore, just lies around the house hardly moving, not eating, hardly drinks, he's half blind and arthritic...
Vet: well it sounds like the end of the road, (filling up a syringe) do you want to be in the room when...
she: no if its all the same to you I'd rather not..
he: I understand...Johannes could you please..
. the women exits
the door opens, Johannes wheels in an old guy slumped in his wheelchair.
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anyways little old lady, little old man, and little old dog limp their way into vet. The old couple hold hands - lots of cutaways of beautiful old, gnarled athritic hands. Sometimes one had goes down to pat the little dog - a daschund say, in a little winter coat - whose leg trembles uncontrollably. (Perhaps this parallels a tremor in the old man's leg)

eventually they get to see the vet. The old lady does the speaking. he's gone off his food. He can hardly walk. athritis everywhere. the termor's getting worse. We've both discusssed it and we think its best. With each point she makes we cut from her to her husband, who nods in agreement. Are you sure, the vet says. We're sure, she answers. Again the old man nods his assent. With a long sigh/groan he sits himself down. Rests his chin on his walking stick or walker - head to heavy to carry. There are tears in his eyes. there are tears in her eyes. the dogs eyes are also rheumy.

Should I piut him on the table so that you can say goodbye more easily, asks the vet. The couple nod. The vet scoops the daschund up and gently places him on the table. The old man struggles up again, holds onto the metal table for support, bends down to kiss the dog. The vet tells them he'll be back in a moment. The couple look long and deep into each other's eyes. the vet wheels a drip (iv) in on a long metal stand. We cut to their hands which are tightly squuzing each other. then they gently soften and release each other.

I'm sorry says the old lady, I can't. I'll wait outside. You're sure it'll be painless?

Just like falling asleep says the vet

he'll be fine.

She looks at the old man and the dog.

Thank you for everything, she says, and slowly shuffles out the door. We leave with her, as the vet fills a syringe with pentobarbital. The door closes on the old man, now sitting again, and the little dog, as the vet wheels the iv stand between the two.

the old woman stands in the waiting area, staring blankly at bags of dogfood and a wall chart about intestinal parasites. The minute hand of the clock on the wall shifts. the owner of a cat in a crate soothes the cat. The surgery door opens and the vet emerges.

He went peacefully, says the vet, do you want to see him one more time?

The old lady shakes her head. I think we'll just go home....I need to lie down.

Of course says the vet. Will you two get home ok?

The old lad y nods.

All right says the vet.

He goes back into the surgery and after a moment re emerges with the daschund on its lead. the final shot is of the old women and daschund tottering along the pavement (sidewalk) together, making their way home.

NOTES

the dialogue between vet and old lady could set it up as darkly humerous, depending on the ailmenst she lists for eg "he's incontinent. he's half deaf. he farts all the time. hardly functions.bangs into things. his teeth are rotten and his breath is foul...

also the reveal could be handled differently for eg, she goes back into the surgery where both the old man and dog are motionless, the old man slumped over his walker, the dog motionless on the metal table. we could pan from one to the other, and back again...both seem lifeless, cutaway to the vet's comforting hand on her arm, "i can arrange the burial" says the vet, she nods, o/s we hear a snore, pan back to the dog whose chest rises a millimetre.... then cut to her and dog heading home

I often joke to Viv, when my body is feeling decrepit, that she should take me to the vet and have me put down....this is a kind of extension of that. Anyway it makes me smile...a somewhat grim and self deprecating smile, but also a recognition that man and beast share the same fate....and on that  note I recommend a very poignant story of Herman Charles Bosman's called Unto Dust

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When I drive I scan the road repeatedly
for cyclists
pedestrians
people turning right from the wrong lane
attractive women with large breasts
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When all seems dark and grey
there's always coffee
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Black screen, sound of bubbling water

VO: what guy doesn't dream of his own harem. Of being the only man, surrounded by lucscious women all ready to serve and do his bidding
slit on screen, bits of bodies, giggles, splashing he lies there, its too good to be true, CU as he slowly rubs his eyes, keep the fantrasy going for a while longer, and then ...
the REVEAL
Huge sheilas, boiled red sheilas, meaty 110 kilo sheilas, freckled obese sheilas, train mechanic sheilas on steroids, have occupied the Jacuzzi and someone is going to suffer
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THIS COULD DO WELL AT JEWISH THEATRE SPORTS

Rabbi tries to get his English speaking congregants to do a call and response prayer with him:
"Please repeat each line after me."
He starts off with relatively simple lines, but eventually the words get more unintelligible, alien to the English ear, and unpronouncable. He looks at them
Come on people - you can do better than that (perhaps there is a faint hint of antagonism between rabbi and his congregation)
eventually it ends in a chaotic shambles, with loyal congregants doing their best to chime in the odd syllable whenever they can....
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Version 2:
The rabbi is actually giving them a bunch of insults in Hebrew, for example
"you're all a bunch of pompous dickheads"
"if I didn't need the salary I would be out of here like a shot" etc etc

The congregants revenge:
The rabbi has to read out all the names of the deceased before mourner's kaddish. He is given a list of increasingly complicated and unpronouncable names, for example:

TEOPHILA KODJAGEOZIAN
TIBERIO SLONOMOWOWITZKY
HERSZ Simon- Bratherswaite Sendrover
etc etc etc.

Do a short film on the absurdities of suburban congregational life.
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Song for call centres" "It'll be just like starting over"

Each person you speak to seems to work desperately alone, or for a different company - as if each company employee exists in a separate universe. Good stand up material. See also

Short story: "panic attacks are a pain in the bumb."
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Poster of women in dress shop holding up mirror for female customer so she can examine her posterior: "Prepare to meet thy end"

Visuals

 gross porno movie with overweight grizzled blowsy participants. The sound track is a collage of recordings from answering machine messages where sweet young things sound terribly enthusiastic about not missing your call, and call centre menus where you get to choose the action....
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Adam veChava

Young beautiful naked couple
 ala woodstock
facing the camera unafraid, unashamed, unselfconscious, their hands touch
she has a stain of mentrual blood on her inner left thigh

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PSA - the Australian coat of arms.
FX rifle shots. The kangeroo keels over. A joey emerges from its pocket and is clubbed to death, as per the guidelines...see this review of current legislation
then the kangeroo is stuffed, and glassy eyed, propped back up again next to the national coat of arms...

how to promote, suport and sustain ongoing integration in afractured world where contradiction seems to be built into the fabric itself?

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Fertility G-dess

Heavily pregnant woman whose stomach protrudes like a third breast - in fact a nipple has been drawn onto her obtruding belly button so that it really does look like a large nipple...a man is looking on appreciatively (hungrily) saying "wow"
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A father is showing his son some of the features of the summer night sky. Some can be seen with the naked eye, some like a supernova they train their 8 inch amateur telescope upon are only revealed in their full splendour through the eyepiece. the son searces the sky and stops on a celstial feature and gasps. we cut to what he is seeing...its is a spectacular supernova swirling in pinks and ornages and piurples and blues, and at its centre a dark blackness, what's that dad, he asks, dad says I'll look now, the son fiddles with focus controls, it becomes clearer and more centred
it looks like....a mouth or, no not a mouth...
the dad looks...
ah that son, he says, beautiful isn't it...some people say that's where human life came from...
what's it called dad,
that son is called the labia majora...beautiful aren't they

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All wrapped up (it's a wrap)
Present wrapped in Australian flag wrapping paper and then so tightly bound with red tape the present has become misshapen and distorted

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Guy is sounding off again on his computer about "the zionists this" and "the zionists that", tapping away furiously on the keys like a man posessed (which he is), we tighten on computer screen so that we can see what he's typing, its full of adjectives and hyperbole and righteous wrath and judgements...

CUT TO

dump trucks offloading their rotting cargo, a sewrage works pipe disgorging itself, cows burping and farting in a feed lot

Guy is now at a bar, trying to rouse his buddies, some of them are enrollable, others think its all a big joke...

CUT TO

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Beautiful young child minder walking in park with her charge, a little girl who is five, together a perfect picture of feminimity, they meet a handsome young man, start chatting, the child minder finds herself having passionate sex with the young man in a secluded area while the little girl looks on fascinated, still holding onto the one outstretched hand of her childminder for comfort....what a loaded situation , charged with all kinds of taboo resonances...

and see here


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Old woman whose jaws move mechanically on a piece of gum is rifling through fruit at a fruit and veg shop, turning over and pinching and squeezing. We are slightly irritated by her blissfully unaware presence - she blocks other shoppers who are trying to get to fruit. She finds something she likes , puts it in one of those thin thin plastic bags, ties a knot in it and puts it in a trolley, joing a multitude of other plastic bags each containing one item. She continues to the next variety of fruit

WE CUT TO

land fill site with mountains of plastic bags half decayd and being lifted by thermals to spin and soar before dropping

CUT TO

animal ingesting the plastic or chicks being fed it or seal with six pack etc etc

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Intercut between flood coverage and cricket coverageto highlight the similarities...lad with audio so that sometimes we'r not sure which is been spoken of...

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The spiral of life...ever since I saw these I've been on a downward spiral

Wanted: woman with large breasts to be photographed (face will not be seen) for a bona fide arts project...for details please call Mano. (Spirals radiating out from the nipple to cover entire breast - draw with koki pen). eg. Alex at eastgate

Large funnel which tapers down to a little tube mouth...at the one end sheep and chickens and cows and pigs are fed into it, pushed and rammed and shoved into it and at the other end is a little chiuaua dog in a coat, manicured, who feeds from the dog food dish at the base of the funnel. Title? "Privileged"

Toilet cistern with cigarette box warning: Usng full flush may be hazardous to your planets's health

Warning labels at fast food outlets

Video installations in windows of fast food places showing factory farms:"what's wrong with this picture?"

waterwalk

water tanks dressed up as supeheroes with signs on them "I saved 10 000 litres of water today"

pictures of dried up rivers mounted above toilet cisterns in public toilets

pictures of landfill mounted above bins where compostible material is mistakenly being put

with STOP sign - stop - think - why make this mountain of rubbish bigger - put in the composting bin!

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Recycle – a solar powered kinetic sculpture

This piece features a real bicycle and a human-rider-like figure made out of metal and plastic scrap with an electric motor mounted in a satchel on the figure’s back. The figure holds a large and whimsical umbrella which is covered in solar panels.

Current from the panels drives the motor which turns the legs of the human figure.

Behind the bicycle is an ordinary municipal rubbish bin which is being “towed” by the bike. The bin has been slightly modified: its lid has been removed and in place of the lid is a tight cover with a hole in its centre, large enough to allow glass and plastic bottles in. When a passer by inserts an item into the bin, it hits a trip wire as it falls. This activates the motor for two minutes. In other words, people have to put a recyclable item into the bin to turn on the motor and get “re-cycling.” A time switch keeps the motor running for two minutes after which it stops until someone puts more rubbish in. BETTER STILL MAKE IT A BACK PATTER

Micycles

I keep Spinifex hopping mice, and I would employ them – at well above the minimum wage – to run on mice wheels that are connected to a generator which powers an old record turntable upon whose perimeter are mounted tiny little bicycles – actually micycles. The faster the mice run, the more quickly the micycles spin round and round.

A second mouse powered turntable could be used to play appropriate music. The practical applications of this invention are so obvious there is no need to mention them.

I look at pornography
like a fish struggling on a hook - tis needs to be a literal imageThe Cosmic Surfer...a chasid with peyos and beard flying, a big blue sky domed kipa, surfing on a skateboard between saturn and Jupiter

Veyerastich li....vuluptuous woman and man - naked - bound together with tefillin

"Human beings celebrating being on top of the food chain." Barbie (braai / mengal) where men stand around poking saussages, beers in hand, trading sports results, while women put out salids or sit talking, off to the side are several bound, truseed, handcuffed and blinded animals - a calf, a pig, a turkey, " waiting to be eaten. Above this hovers Christ on a crucifix and from his lips comes a speech bubble "merry Christmas everyone..."

Could do the same with pasach - zeh zeman cheyruteynu...time of our freedom, but not time of freedom for animals

Annotated diagram of the unconscious Australian, kafiya, wineglass, dog, pork sausages,

A guide to Jewish coloured glases for my Gentile friends and family

a) We don't celebrate Christmas, although we are forced to in one way or another

B) our imagery does not include angels with wings and harps, we don't hve a fascination with catsclasmic end of days armageddons,

C) When you say to us "he's a good Christian" for many of us that's an amzing Oxymoron and we

d) please take the time to attempt to pronounce our names correctly

1) Sign seen at an Australian T Junction

Diamond Beach
Redhead
Blackhead
Pimple

2) Meat

3) Post Industrial Holiday - they are in a holiday house with huge glass windows through which lush forest can be seen, but are all staring at a large plasma screen on which the same forest is electronically represented.

4)Video for the Blake competition: An army lieuftenant is shouting at his new recruits (both male and female)
"You are that sweetness"
"yes sah!"
Moves down the line, spittles in to the face of the next recruit:
"You are the Supreme."
"Yes Sah!"
Moves down to a very old recruit who is nevertheless dressed in marine fatigues:
"You will never die
"Yes sah"
Perhaps to a young child ( we wouldn't have noticed these exceptional cadets earlier, they would have been masked by the more normal looking soldiers"
"You were never born"
(In childish pipe): Yes Sah
Sarge ...I
"Say something soldier?"
"Sarge I...
"Speak up cadet!"
I don't think....I can....sah"
Yes. Don't think. Then you can. True. No doubts soldier. I know you better than you think you know yourself.

4) I wish
Muscular trim jogger

5) Production office

6) Jewish erotica - see 2009 diary

Bondage

The mikvah experience

Third meal - when the male and female aspects merge - three people lie in a triangle, one male, one female one transgender, she is sucking the transexuals penis, heis sucking the transgendrs breasts, the transgender sucks the womans breasts, the man's penis is in the transgender sucking her breasts, a third person suck

sexual baby - to see the world as soft.

Fairy Tales for modern children

Once there was a family that had two children. They loved the one child very much. They would brush her hair and gave her a basket to sleep in by the fire. The other child was not so lucky. She had to sleep outside in a cold smelly pit, and no one ever spoke to her, although once a day someone would come and throw her a few mouldy scarps to eat.

One day some people came to visit. They heard crying and sobbing from the pit outside. Is someone hurt? they asked with concern. "Its nothing" said the father, "just a wild animal". But the faint noise persisted. "Excuse me" said the father.
He went outside and told the naughty child if she continued to cry he would beat her and cut off her tail. The child tried to stop crying, but the tears kept on coming.
Are you sure everything is allrighty asked the guests.

Nine works waiting to be written

See also comic-material-short-skits

Middle...a play about the quiet desperation of middle age, of a spreading middle, of striving to say unseen in the midle and simultaneously wanting to be seen, about the deflation of illusion and desire and hope
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A science fiction story where genetic engineering goes horribly wrong, with grave ecological consequences, a paranoid scientist,
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Theme: the notion of agency


Mr X was walking home from the video shop, lonely and confused and bored, when he saw a group of drunken youths laying ito a homeless man. He was wondering what to do when someone smashed into him and almost knocked hom over, and a large man burst into the fray and tried to protect the homeless man. The youths set about the stranger, one of them hitting him witha beer bottle, and soon the stranger lay nexyt to the homeless man, bleeding and concussed. Mr X waited til the youths seemed to have gone, and then called an ambulance. When he heard the ambulance siren he scuttled off, not wanting to have to go to the police station and answer questions or have to fill in endless paper work, because he had to get home and feed his cat and do some work, or perhaps have a break from work and do his course

At the moment Mr X worked as a subeditor, but the work was boring. Before being a sub-editor Mr X had worked as a tele-marketer selling "cheap holidays" where the hotels recouped their cut price room rates at meal time, and before that selling diet mik shakes..
He had got the job as a sub editor - quite by chance. Before that he had worked at a nursery but had ben fired for negligence. Mr X was not sure what he wanted to do in the long term. he had also been seeing a women, a 33 year old divorcee, but was not sure how he felt about her. Mr X wanted to feel certain about something - that was one of his biggest wants. His mother wanted him to get a profession and so he had taken her advice and registered for a course in network enginering His divorcee friend said she thought he was good at fixing thoings, so

Mr X joined in the crowd, terrified they might turn oo him. Death to Apartheid Israel he chanted, along with the crowd, death to the Jews. Hit ler was right shouted the man next to him. Hitler was right, repeated Mr X mechanically, and hoped he was saying it with enough venom.

THE PROBLEM OF THE ACTIVE PROTAGONIST. Make up your mind snapped the man, I haven't got time too stand here all day. A bad decision is much better than no decision he said, and stepped off the pier. I'l l have the vanilla he said. It turned out to have human excrement in it.

Mr X wasn't sure if he should take the bus or the train into work. Mr X wasn't sure if he should leave his girlfriend or stay with her. he liked the sex but he disliked her long rambling conversatoions about her friends and troubles at work. Mr X wasn't sure if he should discus this with her or not. Sometimes he tried to but the tears that gathered in her eyes made him retreat. Why don't you see a psychologist, said his GP, when he went to get some creme for his hemharoids, so he did. The psycholist listened politely, and then proceeded to describe a near death experience he'd once had. Mr X wasn't sure to say he didn't want to hear that or not. he wasn't sure if he should go back or not. One week he went back, one week he didn't. He missed the bus but accepted it philosophically. the chief sub berated him when he got to work.

Suddenly Mr X noiced he had a itchy chest. he couldn't locate the exact moment, it migt have been while he was looking for a clean shirt to wear to work and stopped to scratch his chest and notcied an angry weal there. Over the next few days the itch got worse and worse.

He could not stop thinking about the car. he stopped whenever he walked past oine parked in the street. he decided he had to have one. he had never been interested in cars before, but suddenly he became very interested.

WHY DOES A CHARACTER bECOME INTERESTED IN WHAT THEY ARE INTERESTED IN. WHY DO THY WANT WHAT WTHEY WANT. SURE WE TRACE THEIR FIGHT TO GET IT, THE RYTHM OF RTHEIR OBSTACLES AND SUCCESS, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE VERY WANTS themselves? How did they arise? ids the mechanism mysterious or unremarkable??


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A group of young people with rods and nets and bottles of beer, off to lynch a few fish. After hanging the fish, they took turns photograph its once beautiful silvery but now dead body in their arms, then took turns mutilating the body, gutting it and...
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A visit to the inefficiency institute, where most South African waiters are trained. This important institute, establishd in 1962, has survived and even thrived in the post- Apartheid dispensation
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A stranger comes to Sydney and must negotiate the roads and the parking. he gets to an intersection and indicates left, but his passenger points out there is a sign saying no left turn. He cancels the indicator but notices a big no entry sign on the other side of the intersection. Desperately (cars are piling up behind him) he indicates right tun, but there is a big sign saying no right turn either. Where the f%^$k am i supposed to turn? he yelps, as the cars behind honk and curse. he crosses into the street, nearly gets hit by a V6 with P plates, and then takes a small diagonal street which ends, predicatble, in a dead end, facing the sea....he turns off the engine gets out, looks at the waves

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A one act play called Bemikreh, about a teacher, a troublesome student (to whom he is secretly attracted), a quarellsome neighbour, and a psychologist (the latter three all being related) - a dark comedy about the web that is woven to lay us bare
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A poetry collection called Pitzaei Bagrut (literally "wounds of adolescence", denotes pimples, metaphorically the wounds of growth, almost birth pains, the pain in the resistance to coming-of-age)

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'Typical' Ozzie bloke - working class, blue collar, delivery man, is sitting in the bar, sipping on his beer and telling his mates about this Jew school to which he had to deliver something to...his descriptions are intercut with visuals of what he is describing, his voice continues as VO
"they were all wearing big hats"
visuals of small children running around & screaming on the playground, some are playing cricket, all of them wear soft wide brimmed sun hats, ominous music plays on the soundtrack to underscore the sinister nature of these playground activities. Then he glimpses through a classroom some children saying prayers / making chanukiyot???? and his interpretation is again at striking variance with what we see on screen.
His mates ask him questions, which eggs him on to further invention and embroidery of the tale...


When I seek to change others or myself, I inhibit the change that is already happening effortlessly, by itself

Ketzarim Nosafim - more shorts

Scenario No 1:

Very polite besuited business man meets his doctor (who is of similar age and class and conditioning) in the waiting room:

How are you?

Good doctor. And you?

Well thanks. Come through (extends his arm, they enter into the doctor's room both seat thmselves)

Doctor: Family well

Yes thanks, Marge is in the UK at the moment, visiting her brother

Ah yes, Cornwell isn't it

Exactly. Excellent memory. Your family are all well?

Fine, James is deciding whether to change to actuarial science (more small talk until eventually)So what can I do for you.

Well doctor, the thing is....I've been dribbling a bit....also

Doctor: might be an enlarged prostrate ( as the examination becoms increasingly biological, the effort require to maintain the evasive small talk becomes increasingly supreme, so as the doctor has his hand in his clients bum and is feeling around they are both hard pressed to find futher topics of conversation.)

Doctor (eventually, still checking the prostrate) unusual weather we're having

Client: yes, rain at this time of year (he lets out a G-d awful fart)...sorry old chap.

Doctor: Hmmm...the blighter is slighly enlarged. Might have to do a biopsy just to check everything is shipshape. But you're strong as a horse. I'm sure everything is right as rain. But just to make sure. Anything else bothering you?

Patient. Well yes, one small thing..I had an unfortunate incident...won't elaborate...but seem to have picked up something on the old John Thomas, hurts like the devil when I pass water and

The Doctor is now examining his patient's penis and they've moved on to sport

Watch the final?

Yes, I think they deserved it

Especially with O connor playing like a bit of a dick

Yes, I alsways said they didn't have the balls to go through with it

Scenario 2. "Cleans so clear, you won't know its there"

Man watches infomercial for magnetised window cleaners. He's impressed, rushes out and buys a pair. As soon as he gets home he tries them out on his 3rd floor window. Of course the one on the outside of the window falls as soon as he tries to do a neat curve on the glass, and it drops down to where it bangs a large muscular man on the head, who picks it up and,in a rage, hurls it up and neatly towards the window the first man was trying to clean. Slow mo as it flies up into the sun and then descends like a first world war fighter, cut to interior, surprised man (who is unaware how the magnetised window cleaner has returned) watching first in delight and then in terror as it approaches, hits the glass and smashes the pane....

Scenario No. 3:

A very bustaceous young women is waiting in a busy doctor's waiting rooms. Eventually he comes through, holding a file, and calls out "Elena Mankowitz".

That's me says the young woman, and stands up. The doctor is immediately bewitched by her bosom, and can hardly tear his eyes from it (them.) He ushers her into his room, all smiles and pleasantness, and closes the door.

Please, please have a seat...or lie down if you prefer"

She sits opposite him, on the other side of his desk.

Right, what can I do for you today.

Well, doc, I have this fungus between my toes.

Any other funguses....vaginal.....(hopefully) breasts?

No. She shakes her head.

Any rashes under the breasts? Do you sweat quite a lot

Not that I've noticed. About my toe.

How old are you?

27

Excellent. You actually look younger. Weight?

56 kilos

Good, good. (Eyes her appreciatively.) You seem to be in excellent shape. Anyone in your family have breast cancer? Mom? Gran?

She shakes her head

Good. But I'm sure you do regular breast examinations anyway?

She shakes her head.

You don't....you really should. And you should have a mammogram every year
About my toe....
Yes, yes, I'll have a look now...you can get undressed behind the screen
Doctor, I just want you to look at my foot
Yes, just remove your sock and your blouse.
I'd rather just take of my sock
As you like, but its much more difficult to accurately examine you through a shirt
Its these two (she thrusts the relevant toes under his nose where he gets a whiff of the ripe camembert smell)
Yes, he says, its athletes foot, you'll need quite a strong fungicide. I'll write you a script. I just want to check these two as well ....
He takes out his stethescope and places it on her breast. He listens intently. Breathe in, Breathe out, Breathe in, Breathe Out

Are you for real....?

Of course.

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Young man stands before Mac Donalds. Low angle shot of him, clouds skudding behind him, square jawed chin foregrounded, a stubborn hero. He's about to step in. Two angels hover on each shoulder. The one is a continuous stream af advetisong images - sizzling food carefully doctored by food stylists, happy white teethed families wolfing down tubs of freedom fries and battered chicken bits, two for one incentives, a sequence typical of the never never land created by ad agencies, their crass manipulations powerful because of the torrent, the sheer volume of them, so that everything that is unconscious in us is further hypnotised, lulled into an even deeper sleep where even as we eat the tasteless food which turns to sawdust the moment it has been wellchewed, we still lookforwards to the next bite, and indeed, we do temporarily forget our sorrows while the jaws are chomping in bovine fashion on the muscles of bovines...

he shakes his head , as if to cast of the mirages that beguile him, the siren song from the warm and lit up shop, where friendly staff entice him in from the loneliness of the wind swept seats...he shakes his head again, shuts his eyes tightly, turns his head the other way, now we see the repressed bits, the abbatoir, the blood being hosed down, the bored worker kicking the animal along, the machines pumping additives into the sesame buns, the oily greasy gears on the hamburger patty machine, the industrialised greyness, the growth hormones, the bored staff of pimply adolescennts and immigrants, the robot like regulation of the "quality", the loveless nature of food cooked anonymously and served anonymously, food without ritual or tradition, plastic food, the cockroaches hiding in the cracks who venture out at 3:45 am when the night staff are slumped on their stools and the police patrols are dozing in their cars....

He turns and goes away, away from the temptation towards reality...opens a can of lentils at home, goes onto his minute urban balcony where herbs are growing in old tin cans, harvests coriander and dill and some tomatoes, chops up onion in the kitchen, and soo has them frying in some ghee...

to be continued

Scenario No 5.

Busy staff room at school. teachers are marking papers, preparing lessons etc etc. One of them is having a VERY inapropriate conversation in a very LOUD voice so that the others find it increasingly hard to remain poker faced. Could be:

"Doctor Lee please...yes I'm phoning to get my biopsy results....so its my entire rectum...OR

so the results are positive. Oh my G-d. And you're certain its the Ebola virus?

"So if its not ghonorhea then what are those pussy ulcers on the glans?

"I did not say your breasts are sagging, I said your stomach hasn't been the same since the ceasar, but that's not the reason for the affair..."

"If its not thrush or candida then why is my vagina so itchy"

"I did not rape you

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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