David Mamet (born November 30, 1947)

David Alan Mamet (born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and film director.

Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997). Mamet's books include: The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; and Bambi vs. Godzilla, a commentary on the movie business.

Edmond is a one-act play written by David Mamet. It premiered at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, on June 4, 1982. The first New York production was October 27 of the same year, at the Provincetown Playhouse. The play consists of twenty-three short scenes. In the original production, each of the actors took on multiple roles, save the two playing Edmond and his wife. Kenneth Branagh starred as Edmond in a production of the play in London in 2003.

A movie based upon the play, starring William H. Macy and Julia Stiles, has been shown at some film festivals in the U.S. and Europe, and underwent limited U.S. release on July 14, 2006.

The plot, which has a certain fable-like quality, revolves around the titular character, Edmond Burke, a white-collar worker in New York City. After a visit to a fortune teller, he decides to leave his wife and embarks on an odyssey through New York's seedy underbelly, which takes him to two bars, a bordello, and a peep show. When he accuses a three-card monte dealer of running a crooked game, the dealer and his shills beat Edmond to the ground. Increasingly convinced of the ugliness and difficulty of human existence, Edmond buys a knife from a pawnshop. He threatens a woman on a subway platform, then beats an African-American pimp who is trying to rob him, while calling him racial slurs.

( Read more... )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mamet

( Further Readings )

Fernando Pessoa (June 13, 1888 – November 30, 1935)

Although his sexuality cannot be documented, Fernando Pessoa, the greatest Portuguese poet since Vaz de Camoes in the Renaissance, wrote homoerotic verse, much of it in English.

Pessoa established Modernism in Portugal and deeply influenced the language. It is said that even Lisbon chamber maids speak differently from their grandparents because of him. He was born (on June 13, 1888) and died (on November 30, 1935) in Lisbon, but grew up in Natal, South Africa, where he had an English education, attending the University of Cape of Good Hope, Capetown. At fifteen, he published a number of virtuosic English sonnets modeled on Shakespeare's.

In 1905, he returned to Portugal, where for the rest of his life he earned his living as a business correspondent (writing letters for export companies in foreign languages) and was also a habitué of literary cafes. He was briefly connected with the nationalist movement in poetry called saudosismo and edited two short-lived journals.

Like his near contemporary Langston Hughes in the United States, he was essentially a reclusive, though dandyish, person. His sexuality is at best a guess, for no certain relationship with man or woman has been documented, but homoerotocism is important to his poetry.

Like Cavafy, another near contemporary, he developed a style based on multiple voices and distinct personae. He wrote and published under a great number of names, each of whose work grew from competing traditions, and some of whom engaged in literary rivalries with one another in journals and had biographies and even horoscopes attached to their publications.

( Read more... )

Citation Information
Author: Mager, Donald N.
Entry Title: Pessoa, Fernando
General Editor: Claude J. Summers
Publication Name: glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture
Publication Date: 2002
Date Last Updated December 3, 2006
Web Address www.glbtq.com/literature/pessoa_f.html
Publisher glbtq, Inc.
1130 West Adams
Chicago, IL 60607
Today's Date November 30, 2012
Encyclopedia Copyright: © 2002-2006, glbtq, Inc.
Entry Copyright © 1995, 2002 New England Publishing Associates

( Further Readings )

David Miller & Ryan Murphy

Ryan Murphy (born November 30, 1965) is an American film and television screenwriter, director, and producer. Murphy is best known for creating or co-creating a number of television series, including Popular, Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story, and The New Normal. Murphy is married to David Miller, a photographer. He was previously in a long-term relationship with director Bill Condon. On December 24, 2012, Murphy and Miller welcomed their first child, a son named Logan Phineas, via surrogate.

Murphy grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, in an Irish Catholic family. He attended Catholic school from first through eighth grade, and graduated from Warren Central High School (Indianapolis). He has described his mother as a "beauty queen who left it all to stay at home and take care of her two sons." She wrote five books and worked in communications for over 20 years before retiring. His father worked in the newspaper industry as a circulation director before he retired after 30 years.

After coming out as gay, Murphy saw his first therapist, who found nothing wrong with him other than being "too precocious for his own good." Murphy performed with a choir as a child, which would later inform his work on Glee.

Murphy attended Indiana University, Bloomington. While at college, he was a staff member of the school newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student, and he was a member of the school's 'Singing Hoosiers' show choir.

Murphy started as a journalist working for The Miami Herald, The Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, Knoxville News Sentinel and Entertainment Weekly. He began scriptwriting in the late 1990s, when Steven Spielberg purchased his script, Why Can't I Be Audrey Hepburn?.


Ryan Murphy (born November 30, 1965) is an American film and television screenwriter, director, & producer. Murphy is best known for creating or co-creating a number of television series, including Popular, Nip/Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story, and The New Normal. Murphy is married to David Miller, a photographer. He was previously in a long-term relationship with director Bill Condon. On December 24, 2012, Murphy and Miller welcomed their first child, a son named Logan Phineas, via surrogate.

( Read more... )

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Murphy_(writer)

( Further Readings )

More LGBT Couples at my website: http://www.elisarolle.com/, My Ramblings/Real Life Romance

Rainbow Awards pre-party and 7th anniversary (Day 30)

November 2013 marks the 7th anniversary since I opened my first journal (and yes, I have an itch, but I will scratch it!), on LJ, and the 5th anniversary of the Rainbow Awards. So, of course I decided for a big bash party. 190 authors, all of them in the 2013 Rainbow Awards, have donated or an ebook, or a print book, and I will use them for a Treasure Hunt. Every day, for all November, I will post 6 excerpts (a random page of the book). No reference to title, or author, or publisher. You have to match it with the book ;-) comment on the blog (do not leave anonymous comments, if you post as anonymous, leave a contact email (comments are screened)), you can comment 1 time for more matchings (you can even try for all 6 books if you like, so 6 chances to win every day). Until the end I will not say which matching is right, so you will have ALL month to try. No limit on how many books you can win, the more you try the better chance you have to win. End of November, among the right matchings, I will draw the winners. So now? let the game start!

Be aware that these previous excerpts: 11, 23, 25, 166 have not yet been matched, so if you go back there is good chance to win them! if at the end of the treasure hunt they will be still unmatched they will go to the one who matched more books.

The books are (Author - Title - Format of prize):

( The books are (Author - Title - Format of prize) )

Previous Post: reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwidth.org/3944364.html

Today excerpts are:

( Today excerpts are )