On his play Bobby Gould in Hell: “The Devil says [to Bobby], ‘Nothing's black and white; nothing's black and white—what about a panda? What about a panda, you dumb fuck!’”

A red hand on the horse’s flanks
One hundred-and-some years ago
In these same precincts

What was it?
Something became lodged in the machine.
That was it. Which inflection could not cure.

The last of five vignettes.I was teaching a class which I believe was called “Dramatic Theory” but which, more accurately, if more dauntingly, might have been called “On the Nature of Group Perception,” the study in which the dramatist is act…

The fourth of five vignettes.M. F. K. Fisher had a magic gardener. This fellow, she wrote, understood the daily weather, the seasons and the various planting cycles, the necessity of encouraging or discouraging bird and insect life, landscape arrange…

The third of five vignettes. I played football against him, and I saw him not only at the games, but at the various league events. And I saw him at my cousin’s school banquets, open houses, graduations. He was the captain of their football team, t…

The second of five vignettes.He lived alone in various houses, and moved from one to the next in response to no discernible stimulus. I assumed that, at some point, he felt it was just “time to move.” He had lost his first wife, and their young …

This week, we’re presenting five vignettes by David Mamet.The fellow down in the front row of the auditorium was around my age. He was massively obese, and he was overdressed in many layers of wool. He held an oversized pet carrier which, one presume…