Pat Perrin's Blog, page 9
October 4, 2014
In the Belly of the Fish: Bryan and Darrow After the Scopes Trial — a short play
Characters: Clarence Darrow William Jennings Bryan The scene is the railway station in Dayton, Tennessee, July 22, 1925—the day after the end of the Scopes trial. Darrow is alone on a platform, waiting for a train. Bryan quietly walks up next to Darrow, then speaks. BRYAN. “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to […]
October 3, 2014
A Play and an Idea
“… and did you know that William Jennings Bryan died on the last day of the trial, right there in the courtroom?” I was sitting in a café listening to two customers at another table holding forth about the Scopes “Monkey” Trial of 1925. Each seemed to be valiantly competing to prove himself more ignorant […]
September 28, 2014
A Noble Kind of Thievery
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” —T.S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood I think this famous dictum is correct as far as it goes. But poets of outright genius commit a whole lot more than petty thievery. They think themselves licensed to pillage nothing less than all of the world’s literature. Consider William Shakespeare, whose thefts […]
September 24, 2014
The Gateway of the Soul: Queen Christina and the Death of Descartes — a short play
Characters: René Descartes Queen Christina The scene is the royal library in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 1, 1650, at about 5:00 a.m. Queen Christina is elegantly dressed in male attire. René Descartes enters, bows to the queen, and begins to speak. He shivers almost convulsively, despite being warmly clothed. He is extremely ill and coughs […]
September 15, 2014
Tolstoy and the Shaker
The work Pat and I do together leads us on some fascinating detours. While we were researching the Shakers for our multiple-award-winning novel Anna’s World, we ran across a startling letter from the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy himself … I received the tracts that you sent me, and read them, not only with interest, […]
September 4, 2014
Ruins for the Future
I see this meme pop up from time to time. And yes, I too feel a certain pang about the Library of Alexandria. Even so, I can’t help but wonder if our grief might be just a tad misplaced. For one thing, just which of the four fabled destructions of the Library of Alexandria is supposed […]
August 15, 2014
The Wand Bearer — Still in Progress …
Once in a while Pat and I receive a note from a reader who enjoyed our award-winning novel Juggler in the Wind, and who asks when to expect the rest of Randy Carmichael’s story. Please rest assured that we are still working on the Wand Bearer chronicle. Like many stories that Pat and I tell together, […]
August 5, 2014
Trump VI: The Lovers (poem)
“So tell me—what is love?” asked Socrates. The banquet guests fell silent in their cups, covertly craving inebriated naps— until the comic playwright broke the pause: “The Trickster Titan labored many days, molding our race from river clay by the scoops; twin souls he devised, combined in single shapes— twin-male, twin-female, or coupled he’s and […]
July 25, 2014
Robert E. Lee’s Mexican “Noche Triste”
… one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation … That was how Ulysses S. Grant described the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 in his Personal Memoirs. Some two decades before he commanded the Union Armies during the American Civil War, Grant served in Mexico as a young lieutenant. I […]
July 20, 2014
My Chat With Oscar Wilde
Have you tried out that new iPhone app called NstantAuthor®? I did just now. It allows you to have a conversation with your favorite dead author—or pretend to, anyway. The selection of “virtual authors” ranges from Leo Tolstoy to Jacqueline Suzanne, so you can pick out really just about any literary figure you regard as a […]
