Stan Lee is signing his new book next week at Book Soup.

‘Nuff said.

Imagine if you read this and then moments later looked at it and it seemed brand new, like you hadn’t read it before.

Imagine if you read this and then moments later looked at it and it seemed brand new, like you hadn’t read it before.

Imagine if you read this and then moments later looked at it and it seemed brand new, like you hadn’t read it before.

That’s a taste of what it’s like being Clive Wearing, as profiled in this New Yorker piece by Oliver Sacks. Twenty years ago when in his mid-forties, Wearing was struck by a brain infection that affected his memory. Since then, he has been reduced to a memory span of only seconds. This means that for Wearing, every experience no matter how often repeated is new.

It also means that Wearing lives his life on the surface. He has to. It takes time, and thought, and experience, to delve. Wearing is capable of only snap judgments (and these he would have to make again and again), and so his best adjustment to the terror of instant experience is to deal only with the surface of things. He is an everflowing fount of jokes, puns, and wisecracks. Like the obnoxious jokester most of us avoid in life, Wearing is doing his best to mask a deficiency.

When Wearing was first struck by this malady, he took to keeping a journal. The entries, a page of which is provided in the magazine but sadly not online, provide a terrifying look into the abyss. “I do live!!!!” reads one entry. Another from the same day on the same page reads, “Hurrah [times infinity] — I DO live. (First time known.)” There are endless repetitions of this theme: that for Wearing every moment is not just a waking moment but a birthing moment.

I am interested in this story for several reasons. There is of course the obvious bizarre subject, and the relief at not being that subject myself. Much of what passes for our entertainment is relief that we are not as bad off as those entertaining us. (Comedy is nothing if not savoring the thrill of others’ pain and misfortune.) I’m also enchanted by the way Oliver Sacks interacts with Wearing with all the objective expertise of a neurologist; our profession often prescribes our behavior. Sacks ascribes Wearing’s jokiness to “a weakening of the usual social frontal-lobe inhibitions.” As a playwright concerned with character and motivation, I would focus on Wearing’s moment-to-moment actions — how he copes with a daily life too similar to a needle skipping over the groove — and what that says about human experience, and our existence. Most (or all?) of my plays ask who are we, and how do we fit? If for Clive Wearing every moment is like being born, every moment before must be like being not-born, or dead.

Imagine the terror.

Wherever it’s written that it’s wrong to speak ill of the dead, that writing is wrong.

I’ve come not to praise Senator Jesse Helms, who died today, but to bury him. Which is only fitting, given how many people indirectly buried by his actions.

During the emergence of the crisis, Helms led the fight against AIDS funding. He voted no on civil rights, no to the United Nations, no to arms reduction treaties. He eviscerated the National Endowment for the Arts.

That Helms died on the 4th of July, and with the knowledge that a black man is about to be nominated for president by a major party, gladdens my heart. The latter could not have sat well (despite the encomium today from Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who said despite all evidence, “Senator Helms certainly was no bigot.”) The former gives us a wonderful opportunity to contrast Mr. Helms with two previous U.S. leaders who also died on July 4th.

John Adams: Led the independence effort. Negotiated a loan with the Dutch that financed the war for independence. Wrote the Massachusetts Constitution, which served as the basis for the U.S. Constitution. Created the U.S. Navy.

Thomas Jefferson: Wrote the Declaration of Independence. Doubled the size of the nation, in effect sparing us land wars at home. Founded the University of Virgina. Protected the rights of — and from — religion.

What will go on Mr. Helms’ tombstone?

“Against blacks, and gays, and peaceable assembly, and intellectual pursuits, he gave us Ronald Reagan.”

It seems to me that two news stories I’m following must be missing half the coverage. So I thought I’d supply what surely must be true, but somehow isn’t getting reported. And I’d put it in italics.

First, a little foreign news:

June 29 (Reuters) – Veteran Zimbabwean ruler Robert Mugabe has won the country’s single-candidate presidential run-off election, electoral authorities declared on Sunday. President George W. Bush on Saturday ordered U.S. sanctions against the “illegitimate” government of Zimbabwe, and called Friday’s run-off a “sham”.

In a related move, Mugabe called the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections “shams” and demanded an investigation into tampering and fraud in Florida and Ohio. He also ordered sanctions against the “illegitimate” U.S. government of “President” Bush.

And now, for something domestic (but with international implications):

Associated Press, July 1, 2008, SAN FRANCISCO — On his book-promotion stopover here, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was squired around by a “literary escort,” a pleasant woman named Naomi who drives visiting authors to their speaking engagements in a blue convertible. There were no motorcades, no street closures, no Secret Service.

McClellan slept at a Marriott Hotel, a couple of notches down from the Beverly Wilshire, where he, President Bush and the rest of the White House entourage stayed when in Southern California.

It is a long way from the Oval Office, where McClellan once basked in the confidence of the president, to the book circuit, where he is delivering a sharp critique of that president.

But nearly a month after the explosive book’s release, McClellan seems comfortable in his new role, polishing his one-liners about Dick Cheney, relishing largely sympathetic audiences and accepting his exile from certain ex-colleagues.

From the lectern, McClellan is looser and funnier than he was in the hot glare of the White House press room.

It probably helps that his book tour has taken him to such “blue” cities as Santa Monica and Austin, Texas. In Seattle, a sold-out crowd of 850 gave him a standing ovation. In San Francisco, a liberal city Bush has never visited as president, McClellan was drowned out by applause as he said, “The war in Iraq was not absolutely necessary.”

McClellan has incorporated some crowd-pleasing titles of books he imagines his former White House comrades writing:

“The Lies I Told, to Whom and Why,” by Karl Rove.

“Well, Paaaaaardon Me!” by Scooter Libby.

The jokes loosen up a crowd of 550 San Franciscans in the middle of a workday — and appear to crack McClellan himself up. Then he moves into the serious part of what has become his “stump speech,” an overview of the book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.”

The book accuses Bush of orchestrating a “political propaganda campaign to sell the war to the American people,” trying to make the “WMD threat and the Iraqi connection to terrorism appear just a little more certain, a little less questionable than they were.”

Reading at times from prepared notes, McClellan acknowledges, as he does in the book, that he was swept away by trust for the president and the intelligence he assumed top national-security aides must have had.

After reflecting for many months after leaving the White House, “I realized how badly misplaced my trust was,” McClellan said.

McClellan then looked at his actual reflection in the mirror and imagined in one hand a check for $4 million, and in the other hand the blood of innocents from around the world. This did not crack himself up, but the money made it easier to ignore.

By going where the votes aren’t — like Canada, Colombia, and Mexico. That’s what McCain is doing.

This isn’t my first trip here (it’s my fourth; the first, back in college, changed my life when at a party here I took up poker and cigars). But I do have some fresh observations:

1. It’s hotter than Hell. Or at least as hot as Hell. No amount of showering or antiperspirant-application or anything in any way prepares oneself for the wall of heat awaiting one when exiting any building. Even at 10 p.m.
2. It’s humid.  Which further compounds #1, above.
3.  If you go running, no matter which route you plot, it is uphill both ways. I’m not sure how this is possible, but it’s true. It does lend credence to the saying, though, that “Washington, DC is 10 square miles, surrounded by reality.”
4. Every building in the distance looks closer than it really is, especially the town’s chief obelisk, the Washington Monument. Here’s the effect:  “Oh, look, [where we’re heading] is just over there. C’mon, we’ll walk.” I’ve fallen for this again and again. In actuality, [where we’re heading] is far, far off in the distance. We’ve taken the Metro often, but I do like to walk, and so I keep getting suckered by the city’s mirages. Which, again, lend to the unreality. And to walking all 10 square miles in blistering heat, rolling humidity, and one’s own leaking torso.

Now we’re off to the International Spy Museum. If I see a Bush/Cheney closed-circuit camera trained upon the entrance, that will just provide further irony.

When I was invited to a good friend’s wedding in Washington DC, I decided to bring my nine-year-old daughter Emma. I’ve taken her brother Lex to DC (to lobby for the arts), to Arizona (to stump for Kerry, to no effect), to Lone Pine, CA (camping), to the San Diego Comic Con (!), to Philadelphia (to wonder what happened to our country), and probably other places I’ve forgotten. He’s 17 now, so I figured it’s her turn. Plus, he’s off hanging out with Arnold Schwarzenegger and others all week in Sacramento.

I don’t expect my kids to be the same as each other. As I remind my wife, “They’re different people, you know.” In her mind, what worked with one at a certain age should work with all; given what I saw of 12-year-olds when I was growing up, they would all be in the boys’ room smoking cigarettes. But no, times change, and people are individuals.

Although I did once before take Emma to southern New Jersey on a trip, she was instantly absorbed by an agglomeration of uncles, grandmother, aunt, cousins, and cousins-once-removed; here, it’s just the two of us. I’ve never spent concentrated time with just her before, and it’s been a learning experience. Here’s some of what I’ve learned.

1. She never goes to the bathroom. It’s true. When we get up in the morning, I’ll ask if she’d like to use the bathroom. No, she says — and apparently she has no need to. I don’t see her going in there before bed, either. Yesterday day and evening we walked just about all 10 squares miles of DC in heat that shrank my clothes two sizes and quaffed: a coffee, half a “homemade” lemonade, an Italian ice, a Smithicks Ale, two whiskey & sodas, and about two gallons of water. Well, that’s what I had. She had about a quart of water, the other half of that lemonade that wasn’t actually made in a home, a root beer, an orange juice, and a Coke. I used probably ever relieving station in our nation’s capitol. She skipped into one near the duck pond to wash her hands and promptly returned with damp hands. Not once have I seen her relieve herself.
2. She doesn’t eat. Well, barely. For breakfast yesterday she had one quarter of a Krispy Kreme donut. I had my donut, then my other donut, then the remaining 3/4 of hers. For lunch, I had the barbecue sausage special offered by the state of Texas as part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the national mall. She picked nine beans out of the corner and ate them. And was full.
3. She is impressed by small new things. Her first remark upon this hotel room was about the beds:  “Dad, put your hands under the cover! It’s so silky!” It turned out to be that beige-ish polyester throw we’ve all seen at Motel 6. Further checking out the room, she exclaimed, “The bathroom is beautiful!” Yep:  a toilet, a sink, and a tub with shower, all in white. (Not that she’ll ever need to use most of that.)
4. She is drawn to squirrels and birds, and shares several qualities with them. She roundly dismissed the statue of Alexander Hamilton, but judging from her behavior with trees nearby would have gladly run up and around him if possible. She has pointed out and interacted with every squirrel DC has to offer, noting the whitish patch on one and the daring puckishness of another. She roared at the birds sitting inside the bowl of the water fountain intended for humans outside the Washington Monument. She’s remarked upon every red-bellied whatever. This interest extends to larger birds. She wanted to walk the length of the reflecting pool so she could make personal contact with every duck and goose. One goose hissed violently at me in warning, but didn’t seem disturbed by her presence at all.
5. She loves stickers and tattoos and art projects, but she has no interest in the space program or technology of any sort. When I brought Lex here we spent an entire day at the Air and Space Museum, going into and out of space capsules and space stations and eating space food. Emma flatly told me she had no interest in any of that. She did insist on doing every NASA-related kid activity at the aforementioned festival on the mall, though, when she learned that she would receive an activity book as well as a special sticker at every station and, if she completed them all, a special commemorative pin. In about one-million-degree heat we dragged around for what seemed like eternity to, for example, drop different sized balls and marbles into cake mix to simulate moon cratering. This, so we could get that elusive cratering sticker. She was enormously thrilled to get a tattoo of the Hubble Space Telescope applied to her arm. I’m just hoping it’ll scrub off for the wedding.

I’m sure I’ll discover more about the ways of daughter in the days remaining here, but right now I’ve got to go out for a run. When I return we’re going to the museum she said she wanted to visit — the Natural History Museum, home to many ages of birds and squirrels, held firm by fixative and easier to study at length.

Congratulations to my friend (and former student) EM (Ellen) Lewis on winning the Primus Prize for her play “Heads.” This is a significant award, and I couldn’t be prouder of Ellen, and for being there at the birth. (The play was written in my workshop.) She’s an enormously talented writer, and also a wonderful human being.

I’m not sure why I’m so interested in this brief news video about a pig that survived 36 days of being buried in the recent Chinese earthquake, so maybe you can help me.

Maybe it’s the human-interest angle of the farmer who bought the pig to fatten and profit from, only to first fear the pig dead, then discover the pig alive but 40% thinner.

Maybe it’s the joyous expression of the young Chinese soldier who takes the surviving pig as a symbol of hope and resilience.

Maybe it’s the conclusion, wherein a local museum purchases the pig and promises to tend for it the rest of its natural days, which has me wondering just how China defines the word “museum.”

Or maybe it’s just the unthinking, indomitable spirit of a pig that survives more than a month drinking rainwater and living off its own flesh.

You decide.

(A side note to the folks at LATimes.com: Your video embed doesn’t work, no way, no how. Hence my using the link, rather than sharing the vid.)

No, it’s not what you think.

On Sunday at a backyard event for our new state Assembly Speaker, Karen Bass, I learned from my assemblyman, Paul Krekorian, that he’s about to face two opponents in his re-election bid. In addition to his Republican challenger, he’ll also be facing off against porn star Mary Carey. Here’s her announcement for office for, yep, California Assembly District 43.

Of course I — and no doubt many others — had many one-liners about this situation. (For starters, I told Paul that while of course I support him, I might be interested in working on the Carey campaign, depending upon the volunteer freebies.) But on further reflection, it might not be a laughing matter. Krekorian is a hard-working, common-sense public servant doing his best on behalf of his constituents. I hope that’s enough to offset the “why not vote for a famous whore just for the fun of it?” angle. Name recognition counts. Remember:  Hulk Hogan won. Arnold Schwarzenegger won. Ronald Reagan won.

For 20 years, Paul has dedicated himself to community improvement, as a volunteer, as a school-board member, and as assemblyman. To lose him to a porn star?

That would suck.