You’ll see why in just a moment. (Brace yourself.)

My Uncle Rich is busy breaking his end of the internet again. But Uncle Jay was able to explain 2008 in a way we can all understand — in song.

Below is a new TV commercial for a project called “One Laptop per Child,” which hopes to provide… well, you get it. This new commercial features John Lennon, who died in 1980 and, last I checked, was still dead. In the commercial, the lamentably late Mr. Lennon looks fit, and is garbed in a style most of his more knowledgeable fans associate with the period ” ‘lost in Los Angeles’ to ‘early New York,’ ” also known as 1973-1975. He also sounds rather well, especially after having been dead for 28 years. And I’m guessing that this reappearance from beyond the grave has given him extraordinary powers, because he says, “You can give a child a laptop and more than imagine, you can change the world.” Which is a visionary sentiment, given that Lennon perished before the commercial availability of laptops.

Just as I didn’t like it when an advertising agency dug up Fred Astaire to hawk vacuum cleaners, I don’t like this. This may be for a better cause — although that is debatable, given that the vacuum-cleaner company no doubt was helping to feed employees’ families — but I question whether the cause (donating laptops) merits putting words into the mouth of a dead man who always had a strong opinion about what he was for, and what he was against, and in this case could not be consulted.

Most people know the John Lennon song “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” What’s less well-known is that in 1974 George Harrison put out his own Christmas song, “Ding Dong Ding Dong.” This isn’t quite it.

My friend Adam Chester is a very funny and talented man. If you saw “What’s My Line – Live on Stage” last year, you’ll remember him as the one-man band who always had the right song to cue guests on or off, and as the singer-songwriter behind such memorable tunes as the Counterintuity jingle, which I promise — promise! — we’re going to post one of these days. Adam is a gifted musician and lyricist and songwriter and singer and you don’t have to take my word for it, because Elton John and others have noticed all this as well.

Adam is gifted. But as they say, behind every gifted Jewish man, there’s his Jewish mother. And now that I’ve learned a little more about his mom, it’s no wonder Adam has turned out so well. Adam is smart, but his mother is a sage. As you can learn by reading his blog, which is over here, over the course of 27 years, Adam’s mother has written him some 600 letters advising him on the do’s and don’ts of surviving the hell that is adulthood in the big city. To wit: be careful of intruders, get new tires, beware of killer bees, and don’t eat sushi.

For me, you’re going to want to watch the video below and then click over to YouTube to comment. And you are going to want to do this, trust me.

But first, let me just add this: This wonderful video provides a fascinating look into how the other half lives. Because this is utterly counter to how my stern German Lutheran mother raised us. Example: If you were going to cry, you were told to “Go cry on the steps.” And the steps were outside. What might life have been like with Adam’s mom? And if I had saved all those letters, my mother would have said, “Why?” This video opens an entire new realm of experience to me!

Last weekend, I did a talkback with playwright and good friend EM Lewis after a performance of her play “Song of Extinction,” which she developed in my “Words That Speak” workshop. That’s us, above, while she ponders the answer to one of my questions. It may have been this one: “Your play is about extinction, and yet even plays like ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Wit’ are life-affirming precisely because they take place in this live medium. It is called ‘live theatre,’ after all. In your play, we’ve got genocide, parental death, and species extinction. Is it still life-affirming?”

(And yes, that was pretty much the question. And Ellen’s unspoken answer may have been this one: “Why did I agree to do this with him?”)

Like Ellen’s writing, her answer was thoughtful, poetic, and unexpected. Her characters are entering a new phase after the play, she said, and so are we as a species. And she is hopeful.

The producers promise me that our 45-minute discussion, including questions and answers from the audience, was recorded for podcasting and will be uploaded soon. When it’s available, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’m going to once again highly recommend this play (this time after having actually seen it). Ellen’s play is smart, funny, and packed with meaning, and the production is filled with terrific performances, especially by Michael Shutt, whose work always blows me away. (I have directed Mr. Shutt, and he’s directed for me — now I need to get him cast in some of my plays.) The show runs through December 14th. Info and tickets available here. I’m very proud that this production at the lovely John Anson Ford Amphitheatre is by Moving Arts, the theatre I proudly serve.

Don’t know how I missed this the first time around, but now that I’ve seen it, I love it. The sound and the look. So here it is.

In my circle, some people know James Smith as an actor who has appeared in several of my plays over the past 15 years, including “The Size of Pike,” “Happy Fun Family,” “Safehouse,” “Animals,” and probably a few more. My students this semester at USC know him as one of the actors who made a guest appearance in my Survey class last month to read their scenes. (Some people may know him as the bartender at the Black Cat Inn in Absecon, NJ, but that’s a different James Smith.)

I’m now thinking that more people are going to know him as the pitchman of a post-apocalyptic console game. (Which my son and I, coincidentally, are playing.)

Watch this.

Today was museum and tour day for me here in Amsterdam. I have some great — or at least interesting! — shots and insights to post over the next few days, including photos taken during the grueling Nordic marathon. (I can see why the Dutch are so carefree about creature comforts — if I lived in this climate, I’d do anything possible to warm up too.)

In the meantime, here’s a picture I took of Vincent Van Gogh today at his museum. Actually, it’s a picture of Vincent’s picture of Vincent.

No, I’m not doing anything clever with perspective, the way Vincent often did — I’m just trying to get the placque in the photo as well. Which I did. But it isn’t legible. The iPhone takes pretty good pictures of pictures, but not-so-good pictures of placques.

(By the way, the instant after I took this (non-flash) photo, I felt a light tapping on my left arm and turned around to see a warm-eyed guard tut-tutting me off taking any more. By contrast, some iron maiden of a guard in the Rijksmuseum later that day just about tore off the arm of an unfortunate guy who wandered too close to a cannon preserved from the 80 years’ war with Spain. She pointed down to a warning sign on the floor that asked patrons to keep their distance. “Can you read that? Hah?” she snapped, her eyes squirting blood out of her skull. If I had been that guy I would have said, “No, because I’m accidentally standing on it.”)

But back to Vincent. It was undeniably thrilling to see these paintings up close and in person.  I don’t have much to add to that.

Afterwards, I had lunch in Vincent’s cafeteria. The food was excellent. I’ve been doing my best to have Dutch food while I’m here — and by “Dutch,” I don’t mean McDonald’s, or Burger King, or KFC, which now ring the Dam. I mean plates I can barely pronounce, and sometimes can’t identify. Later that night I had something I believe was called Pruttlepot or Puttlepot, or maybe even Pootie-Poot, which turned out to be a stew of beef with apples and mashed potatoes, with some vegetables somehow baked in the same dish along side, with several side dishes in their own serving bowls.

Here was my lunch (or what remains of it) at the Van Gogh:

That’s a bottle of appelsap (or apple juice — I just like saying appelsap), and the bag from a packet of paprika-flavored Lay’s potato chips. Unseen:  some sort of raw fish sandwhich that was excellent and which I’d already consumed. What I like about this (other than the word appelsap) and why I took the picture is the bag of paprika-flavored potato chips. I love finding these regional variations on American-branded foods. In London nine years ago I first noted that curry is a condiment choice at McDonald’s, but the true discovery was the 10 or so variations of American potato chips — except in meat flavors. There were bacon-flavored potato chips, and beef flavored potato chips, and probably mutton-flavored ones as well. Why is paprika favored in the Netherlands? And is paprika derived from red peppers, as intimated on this bag? Or do the Dutch define “paprika” differently than we do, and as the British do with bacon? (Just as the Eskimos are reputed to have hundreds of different words for snow, the British so prize eating the pig that there are differentiations for “bacon” (which we would call “ham”), “crispy bacon” (which we would call “bacon”), “gammon” (which I guess we would call “fatty ham” and then either trim or throw out) and probably a couple more I’ve forgotten.)

There was no mention, by the way, anywhere in the museum as to what Vincent ate. And I doubt that he could have afforded lunch in his own museum, let alone the price of admission.