Edward Willett's Blog, page 52

Nice review of “A Little Space Music”

Speculating Canada, a relatively new blog focusing on Canadian science fiction, fantasy and horror, has a nice review of “A Little Space Music,” my humorous “amateur theatre in outer space” short story just published in OnSpec. It begins:

In “A Little Space Music”, Edward Willett demonstrates his creative wit and humour. He plays on an issue that is familiar to any of us who have done amateur theatre… the issue of making a cast out of actors with varying skills. But, his theatre has a twist – it is made up entirely of aliens being directed by a human. Willett explores what it would be like to direct diverse alien bodies in drama, dealing with issues like movement, blocking, and the portrayal of emotion for people without human bodies, human movement, or human faces. How do you direct emotional display by your actors when they don’t display their emotions with their faces but through producing different colours of slime?

Read the whole thing!

Saturday Special from the Vaults: The Shelter

I missed a couple of Saturdays of posting bits from my vaults, and I may even be running a bit short on material, but here’s something that might be of interest. This play was written a long, long time ago, in the 1980s, when I was working at the Weyburn Review. Someone (the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, maybe?) held a playwriting contest. I entered this, and I was one of the finalists…honorable mention, maybe? I remember an awards ceremony of some sort in the old theatre department at the University of Regina, in what is now the movie soundstage. It’s never been produced. (I’m open to offers!)

I haven’t touched it since, so it’s a real blast from the past, from a 20-something version of myself.

Enjoy!

***

THE SHELTER

By Edward Willett

 

THE CURTAIN RISES ON A WINDOWLESS ROOM OF GRAY CONCRETE. THERE ARE TWO DOORS; ONE, UP RIGHT CENTRE, IS MADE OF STEEL, ITS RED PAINT FLAKING. A HEAVY METAL BAR HOLDS IT CLOSED. THE OTHER, LEFT, IS ALSO OF METAL, BUT IS NOT BARRED. THE ONLY FURNISHINGS ARE TWO SETS OF BUNK BEDS, ONE AGAINST THE WALL AT RIGHT, THE OTHER IN THE CORNER UP LEFT, AND A WOODEN TABLE DOWN CENTRE WITH FOUR CHAIRS, TWO BEHIND AND ONE TO EITHER SIDE. THERE IS ALSO A BOOKSHELF DOWN LEFT. THE ROOM IS LIT BY A KEROSENE LAMP ON THE TABLE. NEXT TO IT IS A BATTERY-OPERATED RADIO AND SOME STACKED PLATES AND SILVERWARE, REMNANTS OF A MEAL.

SEAN, A MUSCULAR YOUNG MAN, 17 OR 18, IS SEATED AT THE TABLE, SLOWLY TURNING THE TUNING DIAL OF THE RADIO BUT HEARING NOTHING BUT POPS, SQUEALS AND STATIC.

PETER IS SEATED ON THE LOWER BUNK UP LEFT, READING A BOOK. HE IS THE SAME AGE AS SEAN.

SEAN

Nothing.

HE SNAPS OFF THE RADIO.

PETER

What did you expect?

SEAN

Why isn’t the government telling us what to do?

PETER

If there still is a government, I doubt it knows.

 SEAN

Don’t you even care? Your parents are out there–and mine and Crystal’s. And your girlfriend’s.

PETER

Your parents went fishing up by Prince Albert, you said. And mine and Lisa’s are in New Zealand. They’re all better off than we are.

SEAN

You really think there’s been a war?

PETER

You’ve been listening to the news about war in China and all those countries that used to be the Soviet Union. You felt the shock waves.

SEAN

Maybe it was an earthquake.

PETER

In Saskatchewan?

SEAN

It happens. My dad told me about a tremor in Radville once.

PETER

What we felt yesterday was no tremor. Face it, Sean. Somebody did it. Somebody pressed the button.

SEAN

You can’t be sure! I think we should go upstairs and look.

PETER

Don’t be stupid. Those missile silos just a few miles across the border must have been hit. The radiation count must be sky-high. You go outside, you’ll die.

 SEAN

If there was a war.

PETER

There was.

SEAN STARES AT THE DOOR A LONG MOMENT, THEN TURNS ANGRILY.

SEAN

If you really believed there’d been a war you wouldn’t just sit there!

PETER

What should I do? Bang my head against the wall?

SEAN

Maybe. If I stay down here long enough I probably will. (PAUSE) So what if you’re right? What if there has been a war? How long before we can go outside?

PETER

I’m not sure. Dad intended to install a Geiger counter, but he never got around to it…

SEAN

Your old man never got around to a lot of things. This house is the joke of the town. Three-color paint job, holes in the roof, a patchwork lawn–and a bomb shelter in the back yard.

PETER

Which is keeping you alive!

SEAN

You haven’t answered my question. How long do you intend to keep us down here?

PETER

Dad’s stored enough food for six months.

SEAN

Six months? Six months? In this stinking hole?

 PETER

We might risk going out for short periods in a few weeks.

SEAN

Oh, great. Weeks. That’s a big improvement. Weeks in a hole in the ground with a jerk, his girlfriend, and my kid sister.

PETER

Would you rather be dead?

SEAN

Maybe.

SEAN PACES FOR A FEW SECONDS AS PETER RETURNS TO HIS BOOK; TURNS AND LOOKS AT HIM, THEN SHAKES HIS HEAD.

You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?

PETER

What?

SEAN

You heard me, Hillman. Listen, I know your type. There’s one in every class. Knows everything. Always puts his hand up. Always knows the answers other kids screwed up. Teachers love them–but the funny thing is, Hillman, kids like that don’t have a lot of friends. In gym class, they’re always the last ones picked for teams. They’re never elected class president. Nobody sits with them on the bus.

PETER

I assume you have a point.

SEAN

You think it’s different now, don’t you? You think that since this is your family’s shelter and you know all about this radiation stuff, you’re in charge. You think you’re going to tell us what to do. You figure this is where you finally get even with the world for treating you like the jerk you are.

PETER

You’re crazy.

SEAN

Come on, Hillman, admit it. You like this, don’t you? Don’t you?

PETER

So what if I do? What do you know about it? Big hockey player, girls following you around like flies in a farmyard. Elected school president on a platform of a party a month. People laughing at every stupid thing you say, like you’re some kind of hero. You should try being me, Fuller–one of us wierd types. Bored to death in classes that move at your speed, always the butt of jokes and stupid comments just because we aren’t good at sports and would rather read than hang around the rink or the Seven-Eleven.

HE POINTS AT THE DOOR.

Well, I’ll tell you something. Stick-handling isn’t worth anything anymore. This isn’t the team dressing room. There aren’t going to be any girls hanging around that door when we go out. What’s going to be important from now on is brains, Fuller–brains. The smart ones will survive.

SEAN

Like you?

PETER

Yeah. Like me.

SEAN

I’ll bet you set this whole thing up! There hasn’t been any war, has there? This is some kind of sick practical joke. (Strides toward the door.) Well, count me out!

PETER LEAPS UP AND BLOCKS THE DOOR.

PETER

I won’t let you go out there and kill yourself!

SEAN CLENCHES HIS FISTS.

SEAN

And just how do you plan to stop me?

PETER

I’ll do whatever I have to.

THE TENSE TABLEAU IS BROKEN BY THE ENTRANCE OF LISA, PETER’S GIRLFRIEND. SHE TAKES IN THE SITUATION AT A GLANCE.

LISA

Before you kill each other, would one of you please go finish up the dishes? I believe we agreed to share that job?

SEAN

Get Crystal to help.

LISA

Crystal has been helping. But anyway, Sean, it isn’t really your help I want.

SHE LOOKS AT PETER.

PETER

Sean?

SEAN, IGNORING HIM, CROSSES TO BUNKS AT RIGHT AND LAYS DOWN ON THE BOTTOM ONE. PETER HESITATES, THEN MOVES AWAY FROM THE DOOR AND FOLLOWS LISA OUT, WITH A BACKWARD GLANCE.

AFTER HE’S GONE, SEAN REMAINS MOTIONLESS, RIGHT ARM THROWN ACROSS HIS FACE, HAND CLENCHED INTO A FIST. AFTER A MOMENT CRYSTAL ENTERS. SHE IS A FEW YEARS YOUNGER THAN THE OTHERS, AND DRESSED IN THE LATEST MALL-CRAWLING FASHIONS. SHE STOPS IN THE DOORWAY AND LOOKS AT HER BROTHER, SHRUGS, AND BEGINS A SLOW, BORED CIRCUIT OF THE ROOM–BOOKCASE, BUNKS, FINALLY THE TABLE, WHERE SHE REACHES FOR THE RADIO.

CRYSTAL

Anything good on?

SHE TURNS ON THE RADIO AND STATIC SQUEALS.

Come in, Countdown Canada, I need you!

SEAN LEAPS UP AND TURNS THE RADIO OFF.

SEAN

Stop it!

CRYSTAL

What’s eating you?

SEAN

There’s nothing to hear but static. You’re just wasting the batteries.

CRYSTAL

If there’s nothing to hear, what difference does it make?

THIS EARNS HER A GLARE, SO SHE SHRUGS AND SITS DOWN AT THE TABLE.

I wish I had a Walkman. Or a ghetto blaster. This place is driving me nuts.

SEAN

Yeah. Me, too.

CRYSTAL

There’s nothing to do. And nobody to do it with.

SEAN

There’s Peter and Lisa.

CRYSTAL

Peter the Brain and Lisa the Brainess?

SEAN LOOKS AT HER THOUGHTFULLY, THEN MAKES UP HIS MIND AND SITS BESIDE HER, LOWERING HIS VOICE IN CONSPIRATORIAL FASHION.

SEAN

You know what I think?

CRYSTAL

You think?

SEAN

Shut up and listen.

HE LEANS CLOSE.

I think we’ve locked ourselves in here for no reason.

CRYSTAL

But the war…?

SEAN

What war? A little earth tremor and some radio trouble?

HE POINTS AT THE DOOR.

I’ll bet you outside that door is nothing but a sunny Saturday afternoon and a bunch of our friends wondering where the heck we’ve gone.

CRYSTAL

That’s not what Peter says.

SEAN

So what do you care?

CRYSTAL

I may not like him, but he is a brain, which you, big brother, are not–otherwise we wouldn’t have come over here in the first place.

SEAN

So I need a tutor in algebra! Big deal. You don’t need algebra to play hockey. Now look. I say we get out of here–now, while Peter’s in the other room. Out that door, up the stairs and on our way.

HE GLANCES AT HIS WATCH.

I’ll even make my date with Rhonda.

CRYSTAL

Rhonda? That airhead?

SEAN

If I was interested in brains I’d date Peter. What do you say?

CRYSTAL

I’d love to see the look on Peter’s face when he comes back in here and finds us gone.

SEAN

Not me. He’s crazy–certifiably, Grade A crazy.

HE STANDS.

So, you ready?

CRYSTAL

Sure. Oh! No, wait a minute. I have to get my school bag.

SHE DASHES OUT. SEAN STARES AFTER HER, THEN SHAKES HIS HEAD AND TURNS TO THE RADIO. HE SWITCHES IT ON AGAIN, BUT TURNS IT OFF QUICKLY AS STATIC SQUEALS. HE PICKS UP HIS OWN SCHOOL BOOKS ON THE TABLE, THEN SHRUGS AND LEAVES THEM THERE, TURNING TO THE DOOR. HE HAS HIS HANDS ON THE BAR WHEN LISA ENTERS.

LISA

Going somewhere?

SEAN LETS GO OF BAR AS IF IT BURNED HIM.

SEAN

Where would I go?

LISA

That’s what I’m wondering. You’re not seriously thinking about going up there, are you? Peter says –

SEAN

I don’t care what Peter says!

PETER ENTERS BEHIND LISA.

PETER

I’m trying to save your life.

SEAN

I’ll look after my own life!

HE STORMS OUT LEFT.

Crystal!

LISA

What’s his problem?

PETER

He thinks I’m making it all up–the war, the radiation, everything. He thinks I tricked him down here just to get even with him.

LISA

Even with him? For what?

PETER

For being popular when I’m not.

LISA

You’re popular with me.

PETER

I doubt Sean understands that, either.

HE TAKES HER HAND.

His problem is he doesn’t have enough imagination.

LISA

If he thinks you staged World War Three just to get back at him for being a jock, he’s got more imagination than he needs.

PETER

Wrong kind of imagination. Sean’s problem is he can’t imagine that anything could disrupt his comfortable little world of hockey and girls. He can’t believe it’s gone.

LISA

I’m not sure I believe it either.

PETER GIVES HER A SURPRISED LOOK.

Oh, I believe there’s been a war–it fits the facts. And the news has been awfully tense lately. But in my heart I can’t help thinking if I go out that door everything will be just the way it’s always been.

HER VOICE DROPS A LITTLE.

And I’m worried about our parents…

PETER

New Zealand wouldn’t even be hit. They’re perfectly safe. At least…as safe as anyone can be. What I’m worried about is the scale of the exchange. If it was big enough to trigger nuclear winter, then no one on the planet is safe.

LISA

How do we get word to them?

PETER

We don’t–not now, anyway. Until the fallout has subsided, we can’t leave this shelter. And what happens after that depends on how much of the government is left, and what kind of resources the country still has–and if the missiles have stopped flying. If things are as bad as they might be, our biggest concern once our supplies are gone down here is just going to be staying alive.

LISA

What about the people who don’t have bomb shelters?

PETER

Some basements might provide enough protection. Otherwise…

LISA

Is it really worth it?

PETER

What?

LISA

Staying alive. Is it really worth the struggle? I mean, what’s the point? Everything’s gone, isn’t it? Nothing is ever going to be the same again. Cars, television, movies–it’s all gone forever. I wanted to be a computer programmer. Now what will I end up doing? Crouching naked in a cave eating raw meat and picking lice out of my children’s hair?

PETER

No! Lisa, it doesn’t have to be like that. We can scavenge what’s left of the old world, for a while–until we can rebuild. And we will rebuild. Us–and our children. And maybe our grandchildren will inherit a world that will be better than this one–maybe we’ve learned our lesson.

LISA

Our grandchildren?

PETER

Uh–well, you know, that’s just a figure of speech–I meant, you know, uh, this generation’s grandchildren–

LISA

Uh-huh.

SHE LEANS OVER AND KISSES HIM; AFTER A MOMENT HE RESPONDS. THEY PULL APART AS SEAN ENTERS, CRYSTAL TRAILING.

SEAN

Don’t let us bother you–we’re just leaving.

CRYSTAL

Yeah–looks like you’d rather be alone, anyway.

LISA

Sean, you can’t be serious! You’re not taking your little sister out there?

CRYSTAL

He’s not taking me anywhere. I’m going home, that’s all.

PETER

But don’t you understand? There is no home! If you leave here you’ll die!

SEAN

We’ve already been through this. I’m going.

HE GLARES AT CRYSTAL.

You coming?

CRYSTAL

You know it.

PETER DASHES FORWARD, PLANTS HIMSELF BETWEEN SEAN AND THE DOOR, AS BEFORE.

PETER

No!

THIS TIME SEAN DOESN’T HESITATE. HE PUNCHES PETER IN THE STOMACH, AND AS PETER DOUBLES OVER, GRABS HIS SHOULDERS AND THROWS HIM TO THE GROUND. AS LISA KNEELS BESIDE PETER, SEAN SNATCHES THE BAR FROM THE DOOR AND YANKS THE DOOR OPEN, REVEALING DARKNESS BEYOND. HE SHOVES CRYSTAL THROUGH, THEN FOLLOWS HER, PULLING THE DOOR CLOSED WITH A CRASH.

LISA

Peter! Pete, are you all right?

PETER

Stop–stop them–

LISA

I can’t! Petey, I can’t! How can I?

PETER

Stop them…

PETER FAINTS. LISA SLOWLY GETS TO HER FEET. SHE LOOKS DOWN AT PETER ONCE, THEN AT THE DOOR; THEN QUICKLY, AS HER MIND IS MADE UP, FLINGS OPEN THE DOOR AND FOLLOWS THE OTHERS.

LISA

Sean! Crystal! Come back!

THE DOOR CRASHES SHUT, AND FOR A TIME THERE IS SILENCE ON STAGE. THEN PETER MOANS, ROLLS OVER, AND STRUGGLES INTO A SITTING POSITION, CLUTCHING HIS STOMACH. USING THE LEG OF THE BUNK BED FOR SUPPORT, HE PULLS HIMSELF AS UPRIGHT AS HE CAN, AND STAGGERS TO THE DOOR LEFT. HE CALLS THROUGH IT.

PETER

Lisa? Lisa!

NO ANSWER. PETER DISAPPEARS OFFSTAGE. A MOMENT LATER HE RE-ENTERS.

No. Oh, no.

HE STAGGERS TO THE TABLE AND COLLAPSES IN ONE OF THE CHAIRS, LOWERING HIS HEAD INTO THE CROOK OF HIS ARM ON THE TABLE. WHEN HE RAISES IT AGAIN AFTER A MOMENT, HIS VOICE IS HARSH, GRIM.

Survival. That’s what matters–survival. Somebody has to survive. Somebody has to live. Somebody…oh, Lisa.

HE STANDS, SLOWLY CIRCLES THE ROOM.

All right, Pete, take stock. You’re in good shape. Lots of food, water. Seeds for a garden, when it’s safe to go out. The house is probably still standing… the important thing is to live. Survive. Rebuild. Your grandchildren may have a better world than…

HIS VOICE TRAILS OFF, AND HE SITS HEAVILY AT THE TABLE.

Grandchildren?

NUMBLY HE TURNS ON THE RADIO, AND STATIC HISSES AGAIN AS HE ROTATES THE DIAL. ABRUPTLY HE SNAPS IT OFF, AND SPEAKS CLEARLY.

No. If I get Lisa back inside quickly, there’s still a chance. Even if it’s too late–I have to try.

HE GOES TO THE DOOR AND OPENS IT–LISA IS STANDING THERE.

Lisa!

HE GRABS HER, PULLS HER INTO THE ROOM, CLOSES THE DOOR BEHIND HER.

We have to get you into the shower. We have to wash the fallout off –

HE TRIES TO PULL HER OFFSTAGE, BUT SHE RESISTS.

LISA

No, Peter.

PETER

But, Lisa –

LISA

Peter, Sean was right.

PETER

What?

LISA

There hasn’t been a war. There’s nothing out there but sunshine and blue skies and children playing up and down the street. There was an earthquake in Montana–we felt the tremor. That’s all.

PETER

But–but the radio –

LISA

The tremor probably shook something loose.

PETER WALKS SLOWLY TO TABLE, SITS DOWN BLANKLY.

 PETER

No war. How could I be so stupid?

LISA GOES TO HIM, PUTS HER ARM AROUND HIS SHOULDERS.

 LISA

You’re the smartest stupid person I know.

PETER

Sean will be sure he was right–that this was some kind of practical joke. He’ll tell people I locked him down here overnight. Everybody in town will think I’m crazy–just like they think my father is crazy for building this shelter in the first place.

LISA

I don’t think you’re crazy.

PETER

You’ll be the only one. (PAUSE) You know what’s really scary, Lisa? You tell me there was no war, and the first thing I feel isn’t relief, it’s outrage–anger. I was so sure! And I had plans. We were going to survive, be in on the start of a new world, built on the ashes of the old… now it just sounds silly. Sean was right about that, too. I liked being in charge. For once in my life, I was the team captain–the class president. The one people looked to. For once brains mattered more than good looks or athletic ability. That’s how I saw it. But I didn’t fool Sean–I just made a fool of myself!

LISA

Pete, listen to me. You weren’t being stupid. I was just as convinced as you were. You were prepared, that’s all. If there had been a war, we would have survived–you and your father have seen to that. But, Pete–

SHE TAKES HIS HAND, AND HE TURNS TO LOOK AT HER.

If you could survive World War Three, don’t you think you can survive peace, even at the cost of a little more teasing? And after all, you don’t have to wait for a war to start building a new world. Our grandchildren could still inherit a better one than this.

PETER

Our grandchildren?

LISA

Isn’t that what you told me?

PETER SMILES AND STANDS, PULLING LISA UP, TOO.

PETER

And what will they say about their crazy old grandfather who imagines wars that never happened?

LISA

They’ll probably be a lot more interested in all the wonderful things he imagined that he made happen.

PETER

I hope you’re right. But I hope they’ll at least be interested in how brave their grandmother was during their grandfather’s make-believe war, when she went out to try to save two people.

LISA

I think what you did was braver.

PETER

Me? I almost left you there.

LISA

But you didn’t. You were coming out after me–and you were the only one who really knew the danger. I think our grandchildren will be proud of that, too. They’d better be, or granny will know the reason why!

PETER LAUGHS.

PETER

Well, come on, Granny, let’s get out of this hole in the ground.

THEY GO TO THE DOOR; BUT JUST BEFORE EXITING, PETER STOPS AND RETURNS TO THE RADIO. HE TURNS UP THE VOLUME, LISTENS TO THE STATIC A MOMENT, THEN BANGS THE RADIO WITH HIS FIST. AT ONCE THE STATIC GIVES WAY TO ROCK MUSIC. PETER SMILES RUEFULLY AT LISA, AND TOGETHER THEY GO OUT, LEAVING THE RADIO PLAYING.

CURTAIN

Edison’s Battery

Thomas Edison gave us many wonderful inventions, mainstays of 20th century life. However, since he died in 1931, you might be forgiven for asking, “What has he done for us lately?”

Him personally, not so much, what with being dead and all: but one of his inventions has just taken on new life, thanks to scientists at Stanford University.

Back in 1900, fully 28 percent of the cars built in the United States were electric. While they didn’t put out a lot of power (a kilowatt or two—by comparison, the Model T’s engine put out the equivalent of 15 kilowatts), they were considered viable alternatives, especially in the city.

And as Edison himself wrote, “There are no whirring and grinding gears with their numerous levers to confuse. There is not that almost terrifying uncertain throb and whirr of the powerful combustion engine. There is no water circulating system to get out of order—no dangerous and evil-smelling gasoline and no noise.”

Of course, in order to have a viable electric car, you had to have a viable rechargeable battery. King of the hill was the lead-acid battery.  Invented in 1859, it was used in most electric cars until about 1900, when alternatives began to appear—including Thomas Edison’s invention, the nickel-iron battery.

His battery’s advantages included a virtually unlimited useful life and a much safer combination of ingredients. Its downside? A bank of nickel-iron batteries had roughly twice the volume and weight of a bank of lead-acid batteries with the same performance…and cost some $600 more, equivalent to a $10,000 surcharge on a modern car.

Whatever they’re made of, all batteries work more or less the same way. Every battery has three parts: an anode, a cathode, and the electrolyte. The cathode and anode (the positive and negative ends of a flashlight battery) are hooked up to an electrical circuit.

The electrochemical reaction in the battery causes electrons to build up at the anode, creating an imbalance between it and the cathode. The electrons naturally try to redress this imbalance—but they can’t get to the cathode inside the battery, because the electrolyte prevents it. Instead, they take the only path they can, through the electrical circuit.

Over time, this process eliminates the ability of the anode and cathode to supply electrons, and the battery goes dead. Some batteries can be recharged: changing the direction of the flow of electrons using an external power source reverses the electrochemical processes, restoring the anode and cathode to their original state.

In Edison’s nickel-iron battery, the electrolyte was potassium or sodium hydroxide, rather than acid, and the battery contained no lead or other heavy metals, making it free of the risk of acid spills and reducing the environmental risk of its manufacturing and disposal. It was a popular backup power source for railroads and mines and other industrial uses for decades…but it largely went out of favor in the mid-1970s because of its drawbacks: slow to charge, slow to discharge.

That’s where Stanford University comes in. Honglie Dai, a professor of chemistry, and his colleagues found a way to create an ultrafast version of the nickel-iron battery that can be fully charged in about two minutes and discharged in less than half a minute, a thousand-fold increase in speed.

To do so they combined Edison’s old technology with cutting-edge nanotechnology. They used graphene—sheets of carbon only one atom thick—and multi-walled carbon nanotubes, consisting of about 10 concentric graphene sheets rolled together. By growing nanocrystals of iron oxide onto graphene, and nanocrystals of nickel hydroxide onto carbon nanotubes, they created a battery whose electrical charges could move much more quickly between the electrodes and the outside circuit.

Although this new style of nickel-iron battery, even if scaled up (Stanford’s version is only powerful enough to operate a flashlight) probably won’t replace lithium-ion batteries in today’s electric cars, it could assist lithium-ion batteries by giving them a power boost for faster acceleration and regenerative braking, and might be especially useful in emergency situations where things need to be charged very quickly.

More importantly, this work opens up the possibility of improving battery technology in general. “It’s different from traditional methods, where you simply mix materials together,” says Dai. “I think Thomas Edison would be happy to see this progress.”

In fact, you might say he’d get a real charge out of it.

No need for gas-price conspiracy theories

There’s a public perception that somebody must be pulling the strings on gas prices, that somewhere in some shadowy secret lair mustache-twirling oilmen are gleefully conspiring to raise prices across the board just in time for summer holidays.

It’s such a popular perception that it has sparked any number of public inquiries around the world…which generally turn up no evidence of any such conspiracy. (Of course, to some that just proves there’s a conspiracy: the complete lack of evidence is all the evidence you need, in conspiracy-world.)

A new study reveals why: you don’t need a conspiracy to generate cartel-like behavior in the prices of a commodity. That behavior can arise spontaneously from the market itself.

The study was conducted by physicists Tiago P. Peixoto and Stefan Bornholdt of the University of Bremen, and published in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.

Germany, like Canada, has had calls for investigations into the suspicious fact that gas prices from multiple sellers all seem to rise in tandem: just a few months ago, the German governmental cartel agency searched the offices of large gasoline companies in search of evidence of cartel behavior…but found nothing.

That prompted the researchers to wonder if the strong fluctuations in time and space of German gas prices could instead “be a sign for an interesting collective dynamics, of gas sellers, interacting with each other in a funny way.”

To explore that possibility, they created a computer model based on a real-life market scenario. The model involves one million “agents,” each of which has the role of both buyer and seller of a necessary commodity, such as gasoline. As buyers, the agents must buy the product in question, but they can choose which seller they buy from, just like drivers can pick and choose among gas stations. As sellers, the agents can set their price however they like—but they know that too low a price will not make them much profit, while too high a price will drive buyers to another seller.

Over the course of the game, buyers and sellers continuously update their strategies, trying to either save or make the most money. What the researchers discovered was that the key variable is which side can update its strategy the fastest.

If buyers can update their strategy—changing where they buy gasoline, in real-world terms—at a fast rate relative to the sellers, than pricing tends to favor the buyers and you get the model-equivalent of a gas war: the sellers offering the lowest prices profit most by drawing the most buyers, so other sellers replicate those low prices until all sellers have the same low price.

But there’s a flip side. If sellers can update their strategy at a fast rate above a critical value compared to buyers, then the entire population of sellers benefits at the expense of all the buyers: the sellers are so quick to copy the high prices of the more profitable sellers that the buyers have no time to react. Soon there are no low-priced options available, and the model enters a “cartel-like phrase,” with no actual cartel existing.

In the real world, Bornholdt suggests, “price comparison websites and smartphone apps can be a potential means to react more quickly to price changes. If a global and real-time ranking of sellers is available, this could significantly thwart a cartel-like scenario,” provided, of course, that enough buyers choose to make use of the information.

In a gas-war scenario, prices tend to settle at a stable low point. In the cartel phase, though, prices fluctuate tremendously, particularly when the rate of adaptation is near the critical value, because sellers are still competing, which sometimes drops prices to a reasonable level.

The model also revealed that in these fluctuations, the average price often rises very quickly and then drops more slowly…and doesn’t it always seem in the real world that gas prices spike quickly, and then take a long time to sink back down again?

Going forward, the researchers hope to improve their model in a number of ways (such as implementing spatial constraints, since few people will drive 100 km just to buy cheaper gas).

In the meantime, though, perhaps it will help your blood pressure this summer to consider the possibility that, rather than being the work of super villains sipping champagne in a high-tech underground lair on some tropical island, gas prices all rising at once across multiple gas stations are simply a result of inanimate market forces…

…although the former would certainly make a better summer blockbuster.

A handheld MRI?

Magnetic Resonance Machines are massive (and massively expensive) devices, large enough to slide an entire person into on a table.

But the technology that makes them so valuable in diagnosing cancer and other diseases doesn’t have to be either huge in size or cost.

In a recent post on the technology website Gizmag, Brian Dodson describes a handheld Diagnostic Magnetic Resonance device developed by a team of physicians and scientists led by Prof. Ralph Weissleder of Massachusetts General Hospital:  a device so sensitive that it can diagnose cancer with a greater accuracy than the current gold standard in a tissue sample far smaller (and far less painful to obtain) than that required by existing techniques.

Large-scale MRI machines work because human beings are largely made up of water. Each water molecule consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, and the nucleus of each hydrogen atom consists of a single proton.

Each proton is a little bit like a spinning planet Earth, with a north pole and a south pole. Under normal circumstances, the axes of all these little spinning protons are randomly aligned. But an MRI machine contains extremely powerful magnets, strong enough to cause most of the protons’ axes to line up with the magnetic lines of force within the machine.

When additional energy (provided by a radio wave) is added to the magnetic field, all these little protons resonate. Switching off the radio wave causes the protons to return to their resting state and release the energy they’d absorbed from the electromagnetic pulse as a radio signal that can be detected and used to create an image.

Since different tissues relax at different rates when the signal is switched off, different radio frequencies can be used to emphasize different tissues or abnormalities. An MRI scan is therefore typically made up of a series of pulse sequences, emphasizing different things.

Prof. Weissleder’s handheld Diagnostic Magnetic Resonance device works essentially the same way. The world’s smallest cancer diagnostic system, and one of the smallest magnetic resonance devices ever developed, it obviously doesn’t have a huge superconducting magnet: instead, it contains a permanent magnet just eight centimetres in diameter and 5.5 centimetres tall, providing a 1.2 cm region of constant magnetic field. Although just 0.5 Tesla (compared to the 1.5 to 3 Tesla fields in most MRI machines), it’s still 10,000 times the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Since the device isn’t designed for examining an entire body, it doesn’t rely on resonating hydrogen nuclei. Instead, samples are mixed with tiny magnetic particles to which are attached antibodies targeted for specific cellular markers of cancer. The antibodies attach to sites in the cell membranes expressing that cancer marker. Just like the protons in water molecules in the body in the full-size MRI machine, the magnetic particles line up with the magnetic field inside the DMR device, resonate when a radio signal is pulsed through them, and then emit an echoing signal as they relax, which can be detected and indicates the presence of a particular cancer marker in the biopsy sample.

The research team discovered that it took a diagnostic panel of several cancer markers to obtain a clear diagnosis of cancer. They used material from 50 cancer patients, looking for any of a set of 12 cancer markers, and discovered a set of four cancer markers whose DMR signals, properly weighted, indicated the presence of cancerous cells in 48 out of the patients.

They then applied that same test to 20 additional patients, and confirmed cancer in all 20. This indicates an accuracy of better than 96 per cent—compared to the roughly 84 per cent accuracy of the current gold standard of cancer diagnosis, which uses chemical stains and visual inspection under a microscope…and the DMR test took only an hour.

No, a handheld device can’t replace a giant MRI. But at a cost of only a few thousand dollars, the new DMR device holds promise of reducing healthcare costs, speeding the early diagnosis of cancer, and points the way to quick diagnosis of many other diseases that usually require long waits and large quantities of tissue.

Isn’t it great living in the future?

Where the germs are

Ah, vacation time! Relaxing by the beach or in the mountains, retiring at night to a filthy hotel room, crawling with germs…

Wait, what?

Okay, that might be a slight overstatement of the hygienic challenges of hotel rooms, but the fact remains that hotel rooms are, ultimately, public spaces, inhabited by hundreds of different people over the course of a single year, each one bringing with them his or her own cute little collection of germs.

Hotel rooms are, of course, cleaned daily (at least in the better hotels), but, alas, you can’t see germs, so just because a room looks clean doesn’t mean it is clean on a microbial level. Researchers from the University of Houston, Purdue University and the University of South Carolina therefore set out to find out exactly where germs lurk in hotel rooms.

They presented their study on June 17 at the 2012 General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Francisco, with Katie Kirsch, an undergraduate student from the University of Houston, doing the honors.

Kirsch noted that while “hoteliers have an obligation to provide their guests with a safe and secure environment,” currently, “housekeeping practices vary across brands and properties with little or no standardization industry wide” and “the current validation method for hotel room cleanliness is a visual assessment, which has been shown to be ineffective in measuring levels of sanitation” (because, duh, as I believe I just said, you can’t see germs!).

Kirsch noted that housekeepers typically clean 14 to 16 rooms per eight-hour shift, spending about 30 minutes on each room. If they knew which items were high-risk, housekeeping managers could better design cleaning practices to reduce the potential health risk of microbial contamination.

To that end, the researchers sampled a variety of surfaces from hotel rooms in Texas, Indiana and South Carolina, testing the levels of total aerobic (oxygen-using) and coliform (fecal) bacterial contamination on each of the surfaces.

While some of their findings weren’t exactly a surprise—the toilet and the bathroom sink were typically highly contaminated—they also found high levels of bacterial contamination on the TV remote and the bedside light switch. Worst of all, some of the highest levels of contamination were found in items from the housekeepers’ carts (such as sponges and mops). That means that, potentially, housekeepers could actually cross-contaminate rooms as they move down the hall.

(For the record, surfaces with the lowest contamination included the headboard, the curtain rods and, interestingly, the bathroom door handle, maybe because people are more likely to wash their hands just before using it.)

Now, before you run screaming from the hotel room where you’re reading this, the researchers can’t say whether or not the bacteria they discovered can actually cause disease. Still, clearly these are the places where bacteria may lurk, and so if there are disease-causing bacteria around…say, during an outbreak of some kind…this is where they’re most likely to be found. Contamination also poses risks for those whose immune system is compromised, due to illness or medical treatment.

It should also be pointed out that this was a very small study: just three rooms in each state, and 19 surfaces in each room. Still…and I think I speak for everyone when I say this…yuck!

There is a move afoot to improve hotel cleanliness by applying something called the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system. Originally developed by NASA, it’s described as “a systematic preventive approach that identifies potential physical, chemical and biological hazards and designs measurements to reduce these risks to safe levels.”

Besides the general public health argument for better hotel room hygiene, there’s a business argument to be made. After all, people are far more likely to stay at a hotel with high levels of cleanliness and sanitation.

“The information derived from this study,” says Kirsch, “could aid hotels in adopting a proactive approach for reducing potential hazards from contact with surfaces within hotel rooms and provide a basis for the development of more effective and efficient housekeeping practices.”

Sounds great!

Now if only they could do that before we go on vacation this summer. In the meantime…

“Dear, where did we put those Lysol wipes?”

(The photo: E. coli bacteria.)

Saturday Special from the Vaults: Orson Scott Card

I wrote two author biographies for Enslow Publishers’ Authors Teen Love series. One was on J.R.R. Tolkien, and the other on noted SF/fantasy writer Orson Scott Card. The former was easy because he was long dead and had been written about a great deal, the latter harder because he’s very much alive and hasn’t been biographied (is that a word?) nearly as much. On the other hand, that meant I had to get information directly from him, which was cool. He was very cooperative.

Below is the first chapter of Orson Scott Card: Architect of Alternate Worlds , entitled “The Beginnings of Ender.”

And here’s an Amazon link to the book, where you will find “the rest of the story.”

***

Orson Scott Card: Architect of Alternate Worlds

By Edward Willett

Chapter One: The Beginnings of Ender

In the late 1960s, a 16-year-old boy living in Orem, Utah, read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, a classic science fiction epic set in the far future.

There was nothing particularly unusual about that. Lots of teenagers read the Foundation trilogy in the 1960s. But this particular boy had a strong interest in writing. As a result, his reaction to the Foundation trilogy went beyond mere enjoyment.

“I found myself wanting to come up with a futuristic story myself,” he says.[i]

That boy was Orson Scott Card, and the idea he came up with was the seed of an award-winning short story published years later, which blossomed into an award-winning novel, which grew into a series of novels, and which may soon be a major motion picture.

Entitled “Ender’s Game,” that story and its spin-offs have struck a chord with both adult and young readers for more than 30 years, making Orson Scott Card one of the most popular writers among teenagers, even though he doesn’t write specifically for that age group.

Besides his popular books set in “Enderverse,” the fictional future of Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card has written dozens of novels, short stories, plays, audio scripts, musicals and articles, ranging from science fiction to political commentary to fantasy to historical to retellings of the great stories of the Bible and the Book of Mormon (see Words to Know at the end of this book).

In Ender’s Game, gifted children playing elaborate computerized war games are actually learning to fight a very real war between humans and insect-like aliens. The story gets its title from the name of the main character, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin.

The Battle Room

Key to the story is something called the Battle Room, which Card describes as “a place contained within walls, so you don’t lose soldiers off in space during training; but still in null-G so they can get used to combat techniques.”[ii]

Card (Scott to his friends and family) came up with the Battle Room when he began casting around for an idea on which to base his own futuristic story.

“Since I had been a Civil War buff for years, and because my brother Bill was in the army at the time (and the Vietnam War was at its peak), I speculated on how military training would be different in the future,” Card recalls.

He realized that in a war in space, there would be three dimensions to think about, and that, unlike in an airplane, there would be no “down” to orient to. Thus the Battle Room, a means of training soldiers for outer-space combat.[iii]

He had his idea; what he didn’t have yet was a story to go with it. And he didn’t have one for years.

But in the mid-’70s, Card found himself short of money. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in theater from Brigham Young University in 1975, he had tried creating his own theater company. Unfortunately, the company was a financial failure. He was in debt, and his job as assistant editor at The Ensign, the official magazine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, didn’t pay enough for him to live on, let alone pay off his debt. A second job as a copyeditor at Brigham Young University Press helped, but not enough.

Card had been writing for years, primarily plays. He decided to see if he could make some money writing something else. He chose the science fiction market because he felt it paid well enough to make it worthwhile, but didn’t pay so well that he would be competing with the top writers in the field–because, he figured, they would all be concentrating on novels.[iv]

He pulled out a short story he had submitted five years earlier to the science fiction magazine Analog. Called “The Tinker,” it told of a tinker who had the ability to heal people’s diseases and to communicate with birds. When the villagers slaughter some birds that the tinker considers his friends, he withdraws from the village, and that winter an epidemic kills many of them. The villagers blame him for the deaths, and murder him.

Card thought it was science fiction, since it dealt with special mental abilities, a staple in many science fiction stories; he envisioned the world on which the story was set as one in another solar system that had been colonized by people from Earth. But when he submitted the story to the new editor of Analog, Ben Bova, Bova didn’t agree. To him, the pastoral setting suggested a medieval fantasy. Analog, he told Card, didn’t print fantasy.[v]

However, “Apparently he saw some reason to hope that I might have some talent,” Card says. “His rejection letter urged me to submit a real science fiction story, because he liked the way I wrote.”[vi]

Card thought he already had submitted a “real” science fiction story, but nevertheless he set out to write something that would feel more like science fiction; or, as he puts it, “I set out to write an SF story with rivets instead of trees.”[vii]

He needed an idea, and he had one in hand: the concept of the Battle Room he had come up with when he was 16. But now, years later, he realized that the story would be more powerful if the soldiers being trained in the Battle Room were all little kids. “This…came out of the obvious truth that most of the time our soldiers are children, or we make them into children through training–we want them utterly dependent on their commanders for their understanding of reality, the way children are utterly dependent on their parents.”[viii]

Card began his new story, “Ender’s Game,” during an afternoon outing with a friend and her children. When it was complete, he sent it to Ben Bova at Analog. This time–after some tightening–it sold, appearing in the August 1977 issue of the magazine.

The first award

That story, by a previously unknown writer, made a splash in the world of science fiction. “Ender’s Game” was nominated for the Hugo Award, the genre’s top award (voted on by members of the annual World Science Fiction Convention). It didn’t win; but in 1978, Card won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Card had been right; he could write and sell science fiction. Over the next few years he sold many more short stories and several novels. Then, in 1983, Card’s agent, Barbara Bova (wife of Ben Bova, the editor who bought “Ender’s Game” for Analog), wanted to sell something of Card’s to Tom Doherty, who had just started a new publishing company called Tor Books. What she sold him was the outline for a novel called Speaker of Death (later changed to Speaker for the Dead).

Card began working on the book, but soon realized that to make it work he needed to include an adult version of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin. And in order to make that work, he also realized, he first needed to expand Ender’s story.

“I happened to be going to the ABA (American Booksellers Association convention) in Dallas,” Card says. “Tom Doherty happened to be there. I worked up my courage and found him to be absolutely approachable…

“Our ‘meeting’ consisted of walking around the ABA talking. I told him that the only way to write Speaker for the Dead was to first write a novel version of ‘Ender’s Game.’ I thought that I was going to have to start persuading or begging, that I’d have to kneel or pray. Instead, he said, ‘Sounds good to me.’”[ix]

Card went home and began to write. He wrote the first few chapters of the new novel version of Ender’s Game in one week, then went on a book-signing trip in support of another of his books, then, when he returned, finished the novel in three weeks. The whole book was written over December and January of 1983-1984.

When it appeared in 1985, it was an even bigger hit than the original novelette. It won the 1986 Nebula Award (the second-most-important award in science fiction, voted on by members of the Science Fiction Writers of America) and the 1986 Hugo Award for best novel. And then, the following year, Speaker for the Dead, with the adult Ender Wiggin in it, duplicated the feat, winning the 1987 Nebula Award and Hugo Award.

It was an unprecedented achievement. It firmly established Orson Scott Card in the top tier of science fiction writers. And it made him legions of fans, young and old, who continue to devour Card’s books.

To science fiction readers, Card seemed more or less like an overnight sensation. But in fact, the roots of Card’s writing and storytelling ability go deep into his childhood; and the ways in which he has used that ability go far beyond writing science fiction and fantasy.

CHAPTER ONE

[i] “OSC Answers Questions, May 12, 2000,” Hatrack River – The Official Web Site of Orson Scott Card, , July 6, 2004.

[ii] “OtherView: Orson Scott Card,” , July 7, 2004.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Duke, Jeff, “Orson Scott Card Interview by Jeff Duke,” Hatrack River – The Official Web Site of Orson Scott Card, , June 30, 2004.

[v] Tyson, Edith S., Orson Scott Card: Writer of the Terrible Choice, Lanham, MD, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2003, p. xvii.

[vi] DeCandido, GraceAnne & DeCandido, Keith R.A., “PW Interviews Orson Scott Card,” Publishers Weekly, November 30, 1990.

[vii] “Orson Scott Card Interview by Jeff Duke.”

[viii] “OSC Answers Questions, May 12, 2000.”

[ix] “PW Interviews Orson Scott Card.”

 

CHAPTER TWO

Seeking for life in all the wrong places

“It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it,” was never actually said in the original series of Star Trek (in fact, it’s from The Firm’s popular parody song “Star Trekkin’”), but it still sums up the notion that we might not recognize extraterrestrial life when first we encounter it because it’s so different from what we’re used to here on Earth.

But you know what? We’re finding out that even here on Earth, there’s quite a bit of life that is very different from what we’re used to everywhere else here on Earth.

In fact, we keep finding life in the strangest places: the scaldingly hot water and absolute darkness near deep-sea ocean vents, the incredibly cold and dry soil of the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, in water pockets embedded deep in solid ice, and 200 metres underground in hot springs. The life forms that live in these conditions, which would kill most Earthly life, are collectively called “extremophiles.”

Now a team from Colorado University in Boulder has discovered some new extremophiles: a handful of bacteria, fungi and other simple organisms surviving on the incredibly life-unfriendly slopes of the tallest volcanoes (they rise to more than 19,000 feet) in the Atacama region, on the Chile-Argentina border.

How life-unfriendly? To begin with, the slopes of the volcanoes are bone dry: they’ve been ice-free for 48,000 years. A little snow falls, but it mostly sublimates back to the atmosphere the moment it hits the ground.

Nutrients? There aren’t any. The research team, led by Professor Steve Schmidt, found that nitrogen levels in the soil were below the detection capability of their equipment.

The temperature is also extreme. While the Colorado researchers were there, temperatures dropped to 14 degrees Fahrenheit one night—and soared to 133 Fahrenheit the next day.

And then there’s the ultraviolet radiation, twice as intense in the high-altitude environment as it would be in a normal low-elevation desert.

Yet a DNA analysis not only revealed life forms, it revealed they are very different from anything else that has ever been cultured. (To be sure, there’s not a lot of life. Normal soil has thousands of microbial species per gram. The Atacama mountain soil is dominated by fewer than 20 species.)

How do the microorganisms survive? Not through photosynthesis: the team from Boulder looked for genes known to be involved in photosynthesis and used fluorescent techniques that would reveal the presence of chlorophyll—and didn’t find either.

The researchers’ best guess is that the microbes chemically extract energy and carbon from wisps of carbon monoxide and dimethylsulfide that blow into the area. They wouldn’t get a lot of energy from that process, but it might be enough to keep them going over time.

Their growth is also likely intermittent. Each snowfall would provide a little bit of water which the microbes could use to grow; then they’d become dormant again.

Most places in the world are colonized by microbes that blow in from elsewhere, either in the air or in rain or snow. But these particular volcanoes are so inhospitable that anything from elsewhere that gets carried up their sides is killed immediately: what Schmidt calls “a huge environmental filter.”

The Boulder research is a fascinating look into a strange corner of the living world. The scientists hope to try to grow the microbes in incubators in their lab that can mimic the extreme conditions, to try to better understand just how they manage to survive in such an unfriendly environment.

Studying extremophiles expands the breadth of “life as we know it,” and helps us set the boundaries of life on Earth. It may also point the way to understanding and discovering extraterrestrial life.

Schmidt is working with astrobiologists to model what past conditions were like on Mars, a place of rocky terrain, thin atmosphere and high radiation levels—very similar to the slopes of the Atacama volcanoes.

“If we know, on Earth, what the outer limits for life were, and they know what the paleoclimates on Mars were like, we may have a better idea of what could have lived there,” Schmidt says.

Or, indeed, what may still be living there.

If we ever do confirm the presence of life on another planet, our expanding knowledge of the extremophiles of our own planet may enable us to say “It’s life, Jim…just like we know it.”

(Photo by Christian Van Der Henst S. from San Francisco, USA (Atacama) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons)

Some reviews of The Helix War

[image error]The Helix War is a first for me, being an omnibus of two previously published books, Marseguro and Terra Insegura. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect in the way of reviews, except I figured there wouldn’t be quite as many of them.

And, so far, that’s certainly been the case. But there have been a couple.

Here’s one from Two Dudes in an Attic:

A verdict? The Helix War was fun. I laughed, I cried, I was on the edge of my bus seat. It won’t appeal to certain demographics, but would probably be a good SF gateway drug. Readers looking for Hard SF, right wing MilSF, or gritty fantasy where GRRM kills everyone will probably be nonplussed. Someone taking a break between heavier stuff will probably enjoy the quick ride. It’s not Stranger in a Strange Land, but not everything needs to be. I’ll be adding more Edward Willett books to my pile.

A.M. Donovan had this to say:

Imagine the most prejudiced person you have ever had the misfortune to work with. Now, give them not only the power to fire you, but to actually kill anyone that disagrees with them. Then, give them power over the entire world. Extend that hatred to anyone who is different in appearance or belief. Scared yet? Now, throw in (prior to this persons rise to power) geneticists that not only make food plants that are drought resistant, but also able to modify animal and human DNA so that living creatures can thrive in climates and on worlds that are not as friendly as Earth. What happens when you combine these two different cultures?…Throw in coming of age, redemption, love (familial and romantic – subtle though, thank you!) and looking for acceptance. You end up with a novel that could be very messy (rather like life) but Edward manages to tie everything together for us and prepare us for the second book. The science is believable and the psychology is very well done.

For the second book, we are reminded that hatred never sleeps…

And Josh Palmatier commented on the Marseguro half of the omnibus:

I don’t read a lot of science fiction, but I liked the setup of Marseguro and, more importantly, liked the characters in the book. Most SF that I’ve read has a tendency to NOT have characterization, at least not at the same level as the fantasy novels I generally read, so I was pleasantly surprised in that respect. In this novel, a bunch of questions are raised about the ethics of genetic modification, whether what we create can still be considered human, etc, but I don’t think the author beat us over the head with moralistic dilemmas. The book comes down pretty solidly on the side of the genetically modified humans as being . . . well, human, just like everyone else. The story focuses instead on the main characters and their struggles, to survive and to deal with unreasoning hatred…

So, I thought the story, the setting, and the characters were all interesting. They certainly kept me reading…

Saturday Special from the Vaults: Three Writers in Search of a Character

For two or three years, several years ago now, Globe Theatre ran something called “On the Line: A Freefall Through New Work.” Authors submitted scripts, which were given a staged reading. Below is the first script I ever submitted. It was a blast seeing it given life by the actors!

Oh: the following contains scenes of coarse language. Reader discretion is advised.

***

THREE WRITERS IN SEARCH OF A CHARACTER

By Edward Willett

(A MAN, FILTHY, DRESSED IN RAGS, LIES IN THE GUTTER OF AN URBAN STREET, ALIVE OR DEAD, WE CAN’T TELL.)

(ENTER THE POET.)

POET

How tragic, how typical!  Another victim of the pro-globalization capitalist agenda, another foot soldier in the fight for human dignity, worn down to nothing by the grinding wheels of industry, discarded like toxic waste in the gutters of the uncaring city!

(THE POET STRIKES A POSE.)

The weary warrior lost the fight

One black and icy winter night

And though the moon poured down so bright

His dying eyes could see no–

(ENTER THE NOVELIST.)

NOVELIST

Hold that rhyme!

POET

What?

NOVELIST

Not another word!

POET

How dare you censor my work!

NOVELIST

I’m not censoring it!  I don’t care what you say–as long as you don’t say it about him. He’s mine.  I saw him first.

POET

You can’t own another human being!

NOVELIST

Of course I can.  I’m a novelist. I’ve been stuck for weeks in Chapter Three.  I need a new character to move the story along–and he’s it.

POET

Too late!  He’s the perfect symbol of the vicious oppressiveness of right-wing thinking, and I’ve already incorporated him into my new poem cycle, entitled “The Vicious Oppressiveness of Right-Wing Thinking.”  It begins with an epic 687-line poem describing the current economic and political situation.

(HE RESUMES HIS POSE.)

All around the marketplace

The bulls and bears were dancing,

While in their towers of shining glass

The bankers were romancing.

The–

NOVELIST

That settles it.  You’re not a real poet.

POET

What?

NOVELIST

Your poetry rhymes.  Everyone knows serious poetry hasn’t rhymed since the 19th century.

POET

That’s what makes my poetry cutting-edge.  When no one else is rhyming, only the true revolutionary dares to do so.

NOVELIST

Fine.  Whatever you say.  But you’ll have to be revolutionary without this character.  He’s mine!

(BENDS DOWN AND STARTS TO DRAG THE RECLINING MAN OFF BY THE ARMS.  THE POET GRABS THE MAN’S LEGS.  THEY GET IN A TUG OF WAR.)

POET

No!  You can’t have him!  I am a poet!  I exist to exalt the common man, and I refuse to let you use this victim of society in your silly middle-class entertainment.  It’s my sacred duty to protect his dignity!

(THE NOVELIST ABRUPTLY LETS GO, LEAVING THE POET HOLDING THE MAN’S LEGS OFF THE GROUND IN A MOST UNDIGNIFIED POSITION.  HE CONTINUES TO HOLD THEM DURING THE NEXT EXCHANGE.)

I have already begun to formulate the lines that will describe his life and death, which will move people to anger and tears, which will cause them to rise up and bring the rotten structure of modern society tumbling down like a termite-ridden barn so that we may build a shining new tower of beauty and truth in the ruins of the–

NOVELIST

Betcha I made use of him before you did.

POET

Did not.

NOVELIST

Did to.

POET

Oh, yeah?

NOVELIST

Yeah!

POET

Prove it!

NOVELIST

(PULLS OUT HAND-HELD TAPE RECORDER, PRESSES PLAY. HIS RECORDED VOICE SAYS:)

Over there is a man lying in the gutter.  Perfect for Chapter 3!  Suzanne has to step over him to get in her limo, he opens his eyes, reaches out to her for help, she looks down at him and says–hey, you!  Get away from him!

POET

“Hey, you, get away from him?”  What kind of stupid dialogue is that?  And you call yourself a novelist…

NOVELIST

That’s not dialogue.  That’s what I yelled when I saw you trying to appropriate my character.

POET

Appropriate?

(HE DROPS THE MAN’S LEGS WITH A THUMP, STEPS OVER HIM TO CONFRONT THE NOVELIST.)

You accuse me of appropriation?  Me, when it’s obviously you who is the appropriator–a full-blown cultural appropriator, the most despicable kind of writer there is…well, except maybe for the people who write those huge trilogies about unicorns.

NOVELIST

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

POET

You would dare to speak in the voice of this man?  You, who have obviously never been hungry a day in your life, have never known a life of poverty, of wandering the streets, friendless, alone…how can you write in the voice of the down-and-out when you’ve always been up-and-in?

NOVELIST

What about you?  You’re planning to do the same thing.

POET

That’s different.  While I have not had the privilege of living among the people of the street, I, too have been poor and friendless…

NOVELIST

Not surprising, seeing as how you’re a poet.

POET

Is that a slur against poetry?

NOVELIST

Well, it’s not like it’s real writing, is it?  I mean, you throw together a few words, break lines wherever you please–you don’t even have to write complete sentences!

POET

Poetry is the oldest form of literary art!

NOVELIST

Guess that’s why it’s gone senile.

POET

Why, you pompous, self-righteous overstuffed middle-class baby-boomer prick–

NOVELIST

Baby-boomer? Baby-boomer?  You take that back!

POET

Baby boomer, baby boomer, baby boomer!

(NOVELIST STARTS FOR POET.  POET STARTS FOR NOVELIST.)

(ENTER THE PLAYWRIGHT.)

PLAYWRIGHT

Hold it right there!

(THE POET AND NOVELIST, FROZEN IN THE ACT OF GOING FOR EACH OTHER’S THROATS, STARE AT HIM.  HE WALKS SLOWLY AROUND THEM, TAKING IN THE TABLEAU FROM ALL SIDES.)

Not bad, not bad.  Should make a good picture on stage, if I get a director that knows what he’s doing…not that they ever do…

(HE PULLS OUT A NOTEBOOK AND SCRIBBLES IN IT.)

(POET AND NOVELIST BREAK OUT OF TABLEAU.)

POET

Who the fuck are you?

PLAYWRIGHT (musing)

Fuck, fuck…do I really want a fuck?  It’s used so much now that it’s pretty well lost its shock value.  And is it really in character?  This poet guy has been sounding pretty erudite up ’til now.  Hmmm…maybe too erudite.  He just said he’s been poor, friendless…hmmm.  Maybe he could use more fucks, a few shits, lots of hells and damns…

POET

Damn, I don’t fuckin’ believe this shit.

PLAYWRIGHT

That’s better.

NOVELIST

Who are you?

PLAYWRIGHT

Maybe that should be “Who the HELL are you?”  Hmmm…no, I don’t think so.  The novelist is solidly middle-class, respectable.  He swears deliberately, for emphasis, not as a matter of course…no, no swearing this time.

(SCRIBBLES.)

NOVELIST

I said, who are you?

PLAYWRIGHT

Hmmm?  Oh…oh, sorry, I’m always doing that, getting lost in my work.  Allow me to introduce myself.  I’m the playwright.

NOVELIST

Don’t you mean I’m “a” playwright?

PLAYWRIGHT

Oh, that’s very good, very precise attention to words, perfect for a novelist…um, no, I mean, I’m THE playwright.  I’m the one writing all this.

NOVELIST

All what?

PLAYWRIGHT

This scene.  Sketch.  Whatever you call it.  It’s mine.

POET

What the fuckin’ hell…?

PLAYWRIGHT

Hmmm…maybe a little TOO much swearing…

(SCRIBBLES.)

POET

You’re saying this isn’t real?  That we’re just play-acting?  And YOU wrote the script?

PLAYWRIGHT

Well, I wouldn’t say it’s not real.  I’ve always felt that the world on stage is more real than the world outside the theatre.  Hyper-real, you might say.

POET

You’re nuts!

NOVELIST

I couldn’t agree more.

PLAYWRIGHT

What?

(FLIPS BACK THROUGH NOTEBOOK.)

No, no, agreeing is out of the question.  I need both of you arguing over him.

(NUDGES THE MAN ON THE FLOOR WITH HIS FOOT.)

See, that’s the whole idea.  A novelist, representing the middle-class conservative, with a “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours ought to be mine” mentality, arguing with a poet, representing the radical, anarchist mentality of the street.  Making one a poet and one a novelist highlights the communication gap between the classes.  Clever, eh?

POET

Then what does he represent?

(INDICATES MAN ON FLOOR.)

PLAYWRIGHT

Him?  Oh, he’s just a symbol of the individuals whose immediate, day-to-day needs are sometimes forgotten by those who spend their time spouting political rhetoric.

NOVELIST

So how come he’s just lying there?

PLAYWRIGHT

Well, duh!, because he has to be voiceless.  It’s part of his symbolism.  You know, a novelist should really understand that.  Hmmm…

(SCRIBBLES FURIOUSLY.)

NOVELIST

Oh, I get it!

POET

But he’s not just voiceless, he’s dead!

PLAYWRIGHT

Not necessarily.  He could just be sleeping.  I haven’t decided yet.

NOVELIST

You’re making all this up, aren’t you?

PLAYWRIGHT

Oh, good, you really do get it, don’t you?  It’s about time…

NOVELIST

No, I mean you’re making up all this nonsense about this being a play you’re writing.  You’re just trying to steal my character.  Just like him!

(POINTS AT POET.)

POET

I told you already, he ain’t yours, Jack.

PLAYWRIGHT

Quite right.  Technically, he’s mine.  But then, so are both of you–

POET

No way!  No goddamn way am I letting you appropriate my voice.

(STRIKES A POSE.)

My voice, my voice is mine alone

It’s all I have to call my own,

My sword, my shield, my armor, too;

And if you want it–well, fuck you!

PLAYWRIGHT

Oh, now that’s going too far.

(SCRIBBLES, THEN READS ALOUD…)

Novelist and Poet glare at each other, then exit, unable to bridge the gap between them.

NOVELIST

I’m leaving, all right, but it’s got nothing to do with you.  I’ve just thought of a better way to make Chapter 3 work than using this old derelict, that’s all.  Suzanne steps over a dog, not a man, lying the gutter, and the dog looks up and…

(HE EXITS, MUTTERING.)

POET

Typical.  He can’t see a way to use the homeless wretch in the gutter, so he just walks away, wrapped up in his own concerns.  He…hey…hey, that’s perfect!

(EXITS, PROCLAIMING…)

The fat white rich man in his suit,

He doesn’t give a single hoot

About a man, all rags and soot

Who lies there at his very foot…

PLAYWRIGHT

Ugh.  Well, I can fix it in rewrites.

(HE STEPS OVER THE MAN IN THE GUTTER AND EXITS.)

(FOR A MOMENT NOTHING HAPPENS, THEN THE MAN IN THE GUTTER OPENS HIS EYES.  HE SITS UP, LOOKS AROUND CAUTIOUSLY, THEN GETS TO HIS FEET.  HE PULLS OUT A CELL PHONE, DIALS.)

MAN

Morty?  Josh.  Listen, I’ve got it!  No, I’m not kidding. It’ll be huge, huge!  Bigger than Titanic!  Listen to this…Fade in.  Exterior, night. A man lies in the gutter of a rain-soaked urban street. In comes this poet…

(EXITS, TALKING.)

BLACKOUT