100 Things to Consume Instead of "Waiting for Gadot"

Here's a list of things to read, watch, listen, or otherwise consume, rather than my play, "Waiting for Gadot." This play is the first major piece of writing I have done in years, so I didn't want to boost my ego by simply pushing my play alone--in the interim I have still been a consumer of all different forms of media, and as a fan I would like to point people in the direction of a number of these different works of art as well.

Stuff that inspired me while writing:

• Twin Peaks: Season 3 or Twin Peaks: The Return is flawed, but it still shows everyone that there isn't a director out there like David Lynch.

• The Wildstorm: Warren Ellis's return to characters he wrote (and some he created) in '90s comics, notably Stormwatch and The Authority, taking all the ridiculousness of nineties comics and turning it into an understated spy comic... with aliens. So, yeah...

• Science Fiction: Brand New's last album. My dad told me the other day he thought Brand New was a boy band. They... aren't.

• The Secret History of Wonder Woman: Jill Lepore's book about the creation of Wonder Woman and the life of her creator, William Moulton Marston, and the women who helped in creating the character.

• Wonder Woman: Patty Jenkins 2017 film starring Gal Gadot. Where I came up with the idea of my play.

• Waiting for Godot: Samuel Beckett's play which helped lend me a title. An absurdist play that is consistently considered one of the great works of the twentieth century. A late interlude in my play makes extended explicit reference to Beckett's.

• Horace and Pete: Louis CK's anti-TV TV show, largely inspired by theater. I've only watched the first episode, but it's enough to know that this is something different.

• "Harlem": The poem by Langston Hughes that is often remember for the line "What happens to a dream deferred?" This is Hughes at his most angry and still a poem that explodes into the mind with unfortunate relevance. (In a perfect world, such a poem would seem dated, because those dreams would be deferred no more!)

• Depression Quest: A text-based online game (play here) that seeks to explain depression to people not affected by the condition. I'm more surprised by how refreshing the simplicity of this system seems--I plan to pattern some of the technical aspects of publishing The Roof on ideas I came to from reading/playing DQ.

• Save Yourself Before You Save the Game: I am always taken aback by the talent of my friends. While I made this play, they made this.

Works of the current political moment:

• Kill or Be Killed: Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are the preeminent creative team in comics today and this is their first ongoing series. Fittingly, my idea for doing this right up of different things to do instead of reading "Waiting for Gadot" is inspired by the way Brubaker writes a letter column--he talks about television and movies with the same regularity, if not even more of a focus, than he does the comic!

• American Horror Story: Cult: The seventh season of AHS is like any other season of the show in that it is uneven and at times annoyingly flawed, but it's an interesting reflection of the state of fear many of us have fallen into since the 2016 election. It'd be disingenuous not to bring it up in connection with my play.

• Archangel: William Gibson's first comic, the great science fiction writer brings a great time travel narrative to his new choice of medium; one of the quirks of the serial nature of comics is that the story seems to have changed towards the end to address Trump becoming president.

• Wind River: Taylor Sheridan concludes a thematic trilogy of sorts. Or maybe it isn't? I've only seen Wind River... When I look back on "Waiting for Gadot" now, I see how the play seems to really ignore the Native American struggle and their heritage, so I'm happy to point people to a movie like this or to Scalped, a comic you'll see below.

• The Eighth Seal: A webcomic turned print comic that I read first when it was available for free online. I think you have to pay to access now, which is a bit irritating (just in that it moved from free to pay--I know people need to pay for creators to make money, but once you release under a certain model, switching it up is disconcerting to say the least), but I quite liked this comic when I read it a while back, and I think reading it now in Trump's America would be even more affecting.

• One Mississippi: I've only seen one episode of Tig Notaro's show, but from what I've heard of season two, I think it's found a place where a comedy can talk about serious issues in a serious fashion. You can even see this from the first episode, where Tig returns home in the wake of her mother's pending death. In a comedy. You can see why a laugh track wouldn't work here.

• Mr. Miracle: On the podcast Word Balloon--see below--Tom King talked about his emotions in writing this comic. The feeling of wanting to escape from this political moment. Mr. Miracle, you see, is not simply a superhero, but a super escape artist!

• Blade Runner 2049: I just saw this--incredible film even if the ending wraps a bit too tight a bow on it--the first Denis Villeneuve movie that I have unequivocally liked (I could recommend Arrival but it's deeply flawed) and this is all coming from someone who didn't really get the first movie...

• Motor Girl: Terry Moore's quick little comic before he returns to Strangers in Paradise next year (something's in the air with these sequels and returns to old properties: Twin Peaks, Blade Runner, and SiP) which I expect him to wrap up soon. It'd be more fitting below, under Harvey for example, but here's the place I found for it. A war veteran comes home with some form of brain damage which leads her to see and talk to a 600 lb gorilla... Then aliens invade! Ha. Ha. I'm serious.

• Summer Wars: A Japanese animated film, which perhaps explains the odd title (or maybe the second half of the movie explains it, as I'm only halfway through) from 2009. A kid who loves puzzles accidentally breaks the internet, but that's not really what makes it a great film: it's actually in the characters, as there are like a hundred!

A list of plays that either impacted me as a playwright (lol) or seem to cover similar material as "Waiting for Gadot" (and do a better job of it, I'm sure!):

• Red King Rising: A play I'll never be able to read by Grant Morrison, concerning Lewis Carroll's relationship with Alice Liddell who would inspire the more famous Alice associated with Carroll. One of the weird quirks of our present time is that I know about an obscure publication like this, but the chances of actually getting a hold of it are slim and none; why not then send all you readers out searching for it? I'd certainly much rather read it than have you read my play!

• The Sunset Limited: Cormac McCarthy's play is often considered a closet drama not because of its complexity, like "Waiting for Gadot" might be, but because it's basically just two characters talking. Paring the medium down to just a conversation helped inspire me for the minimalist aspects of my play.

• The Talking Cure: The play by Christopher Hampton that he later adapted into the screenplay for David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method. A very affecting movie for me--I've never read Carl Jung, but I think of him regularly because of this film.

• The Day Room: The first play by novelist Don DeLillo, who I think of as the greatest living writer in English (even though I also think of Bret Easton Ellis as my favorite writer, because I'm odd like that), which captures the experimental aspects of theatre--an actor/character in a straitjacket plays a television set, for example--which I tried to shoot for at times in my play.

• JB: Archibald MacLeish's play that will stay with me always--MacLeish presents a retelling of the biblical Book of Job set in a circus with God and the Devil replaced with Mr. Zuss and Nickles. When I consider the setting now, I think of it as Gaiman or Bradbury-esque, but this is a play from 1958 (the year my father was born), so I guess their work might be JB-esque at times!

• Antigonick: Anne Carson's free translation of Antigone which has characters quoting Hegel in ancient Greece, and a new character, Nick, who measures things. I absolutely love Anne Carson and this book is an absolute delight (especially having taught Antigone myself, where Carson's references and shorthands can have their full effect), printed in what appears to be handwritten script, a wonder to read or just to flip through. (As I link in one of the behind the scenes posts during the play, I think this staging of Antigonick must have been incredible to behold.)

• Weird Comic Book Fantasy: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is now the main shot caller for the Archie Comics books, but back in the day he was a vile copyright abuser, when he wrote this play about Archie coming out of the closet. While the play was rewritten so as not avoid legal action, I still think it must be an interesting read!

• A Raisin in the Sun: An incredible play by Lorraine Hansberry, which takes its title from Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem." Once again, something that I am teaching and revisited after having written parts of my play. Had I revisited it earlier, I might have included George Murchison's line, "We're going to the theatre--not going to be in it!" as an epigraph to my "Pardon the Interruption" post about breaking the fourth wall in my play.

• Lasso of Truth: While watching Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, I thought throughout that the film felt like a play in many ways. It turns out Carston Kreitzer wrote a play about the creation of Wonder Woman back in 2015, so I'll have to check that out!

• M. Butterfly: Another Cronenberg movie adapted by the playwright from a play of the same name by David Henry Hwang. If I remember it fairly, you could say it's about the lies we tell and how we often tell the most convincing lies to ourselves.

Music for listening while not reading "Waiting for Gadot":

• Imperial Bedroom: Elvis Costello's fifth album masterpiece. "Whenever I put my foot in my mouth and you begin to doubt/that it's you that I'm dreaming about/Do I have to draw you a diagram?/All I ever want is just to fall into your human hands!"

• Joanne: Lady Gaga's most recent album and part of what I would call a New Sincerity turn in music, a move away from producing and towards instruments, and an almost acoustic feel, even when nothing acoustic is actually used on a track.

• The Stand-Ins: The follow-up to what was envisioned as a double album with The Stage Names, Okkervil River really captures the feels with songs like "Singer Songwriter" and "On Tour with Zykos." The latter really hit me while writing "Waiting for Gadot," or I might have used Stage Names with its great meta-narrative song, "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe."

• A Moon Shaped Pool: Radiohead's most recent album and their biggest shift since 2000's Kid A when the band went electronica; ironically, I see this album as a move away from electronic laptop music and a move not back to rock, but actually to orchestral ambience.

• Badlands: Halsey's debut album which, admittedly, I really didn't listen to until I completed "Waiting for Gadot," a great dystopia concept album. The Badlands, a physical space in the story of the album, actually became a metaphor for Halsey's emotions during the writing, something I'd love to capture in a poem I might never write called "The State in Which I Hate You."

• Hymns: Bloc Party's 2016 record actually received mixed to negative reviews, but is an important record for me--I feel it has taught me things about myself. A late reference to Bloc Party in my play is directed towards this album.

• Know-It-All: Alessia Cara's debut album. I'm particularly partial to "Wild Things," as Alessia sings "We have no apologies for being." (Alessia is referenced in the "Feature Presentation" of "Waiting for Gadot.")

• Fatherland: Kele Okereke's third solo album came out this month and has been seen as a turn towards folk music, a shift I see as following the trend of Radiohead and Lady Gaga's albums in this list, and a not unexpected turn after the subdued Hymns from his band Bloc Party.

• Ghosts I-IV: Nine Inch Nails did release The Slip before going on indefinite hiatus (from 2008-2013), but this is the goodbye album. Taking the atmospherics of The Fragile and going further, the instrumental effort is a clear glimpse of what Trent would do in the following years scoring films.

• Viva la Vida: Coldplay back when they were cool. I took some delight in hearing from a hipster friend of mine a while back that they went to shit after this album. I feel the same. Sometimes, you can't help but be petty.

Podcasts:

• The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast: Bret is my favorite writer so I get a lot out of his podcast, but it's not your usual interview show. Bret usually gives a rant or two and there's a few songs that play throughout, but the most noteworthy part is his questioning: he asks very leading questions, but I find them interesting.

• Car Talk: Best on the fly repartee in the business. Tom and Ray Magiozzi have a lot to teach anyone interested in story-telling, teaching, or simply entertaining. I feel like it's cheating to list a radio show, but since it's virtually off the air and the easiest way to listen is through the archived podcast, I'm going to count it.

• The Ryen Russillo Podcast: If you know me, you've probably heard me say something about Russillo. The Russillo Show is my favorite sports talk radio show, so of course its podcast would be on here.

• Cinephile: Adnan Virk is an ESPN sports anchor but also a movie aficionado. His movie podcast is worth a listen, but be prepared to mute or stop listening if you're worried about spoilers, because Virk has a tendency to inadvertently spoil movies. He hasn't ruined anything for me, but I'll admit that I probably posted about the podcast here so that I could mention that he gave spoilers to both The Usual Suspects and the more recent Split without even seeming to realize he was giving them away!

• Psychology in Seattle: I haven't listened to this podcast yet, but it's recommended by a friend and, more importantly, seems like a real-life version of the TV show Frasier which I somewhat parodied in a story I wrote multiple times and never quite landed as I wanted.

• Distraction Pieces Podcast: Scroobius Pip, spoken word artist. Go listen to "Thou Shalt Always Kill" on YouTube. He's interviewed fave comics writers of mine, Warren Ellis and Alan Moore, as well as a bunch of other people. Give it a hear!

• WTF with Marc Maron: I've really on listened to the Louis CK interviews, but I like Marc Maron. This one sure is long running!

• The Joe Rogan Experience: I think Joe Rogan is the preeminent podcaster at the moment. He recently hit 1000 episodes and while he can certainly be an irritating listen at times, it's productive to listen to someone you don't always agree with.

• Spektrmodule: A music podcast that Warren Ellis has been doing intermittently for years. Ironically, not Warren Ellis the musician, but Warren Ellis the comics writer! He largely forms it from music people send him I think, so if you make music...

• Word Balloon: A comics podcast from John Siuntres where he interviews mostly comics creators. He has a free style and is largely a fan interviewer--he asks good questions a lot, but the podcast rarely becomes about him. It's a nice contrast to the BEE Podcast we opened with.

Stuff that makes me think of what I wanted to do in "Waiting for Gadot":

• Mindhunter: David Fincher directed Netflix cop drama about the FBI first studying serial killers. It seems nothing like "Waiting for Gadot," but I've watched two episodes and I see some thematic similarities. (The show does it better, of course.)

• Scalped: It's possible that it isn't until halfway through this sixty issue comic that the main character has an extended first person inner monologue. It's also possible my memory is whack and I'm dumb and the character was speaking in first person panels the whole time... But the idea that it doesn't happen until halfway through the comic... That's such a striking idea.

• Professor Marston and the Wonder Women: Virtually none of it is true if Lepore is to be believed (and I'm going to go with the academic book over the film here), but it works as an Aaron Sorkin style bio-pic and it certainly is ripe for our current times.

• Harvey: All the cool stuff has been done already. While a play about an imaginary bunny named Harvey might have weird vibes this year, the idea of a play where a major character isn't there (isn't even real!) is a much better version of what I do with Carl and Selena in my play.

• Happy!: This is after Harvey for a reason: it's also about an imaginary character, but this time leading a cop to solve a crime. While I'll probably never get to it, I can imagine an old character of mine stepping into the Happy/Harvey role, Olympus Mons, named for the place he was conceived, entering into a person's life as either proof that the truth is out there or you're just insane!

• Home Again: I actually felt while watching this Reese Witherspoon film directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer (Nancy Meyers's daughter) that the three male characters could be different parts of my personality--which certainly fits with a play which collects a variety of different stand-ins for myself from my previous fictions!

• Her: According to Spike Jonze, "[Charlie Kaufman] said he wanted to try to write everything he was thinking about in that moment – all the ideas and feelings at that time – and put it into the script. I was very inspired by that, and tried to do that in Her. And a lot of the feelings you have about relationships or about technology are often contradictory." The Kaufman film is Synecdoche, New York. I think of this process as a form of bricolage and in many ways it's what my play became. 

• Leaving the Atocha Station: Ben Lerner's first novel that I read while writing my play and also a striking farewell to poetry--I read it after reading Lerner's essay, "The Hatred of Poetry," which seems a fitting pairing, but ultimately leaves me a bit melancholy over a future without new Lerner poems (FYI: it's my interpretation that we might not see more Lerner poems, not something I've read from him... Hopefully I'm wrong!).

• La La Land: I watched this on my flight back from Italy in June, but couldn't bring myself to finish it, so I'm not sure how it works as a complete movie. There's a scene, though, where Emma Stone derides Ryan Gosling for calling himself a "serious musician" that rings so, so true.

• Easy: Once again, I've only dabbled (one episode in), but Joe Swanberg made a true anthology television show, where you have a season of eight episodes that is basically eight thirty minute movies. You know, with how little plot "Waiting for Gadot" has, maybe that was the tactic I should have taken!

Movies starring Jude Law (*achem*):

• AI: Artificial Intelligence: One of two on this list I haven't seen, but an eventual must-see... I'm not a big Spielberg fan, but I think I'm just being a contrarian there and this being a project begun by Kubrick, I really can't avoid it forever!

• I Heart Huckabees: David O. Russell stops making David O. Russell movies to make this... I feel like it's almost a Wes Anderson/Charlie Kaufman film, but that's probably not right because I haven't seen it in a while.

• Gattaca: Good, classic philosophical sci-fi film. Just watch it.

• The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus: Heath Ledger's last film which he died during making, the plot then stretching around this through the help of Johnny Depp and, yes, Jude Law!

• Side Effects: Soderbergh at the beginning of his "Turning Channing Tatum into a real actor" phase.

• eXistenZ: Cronenberg. It isn't the Videodrome for video games, but it's still a fine film.

• Final Cut: Second film I haven't seen in this list... It seems like a non-science fiction version of Coherence made twenty years before, so I'm interested.

• The Grand Budapest Hotel: Wes Anderson at his finest. Usually his films come very close to annoying me at least once, but I loved this move through and through.

• The Holiday: Probably the worst movie on this list, but a personal favorite, two women leave their countries to escape their lives by switching homes for a vacation, and then they click into the other person's life like Legos. I love it.

• Contagion: Damn it! I did it. I put two Soderbergh films in the list! Contagion and Side Effects are very different though, where Side Effects is small and personal, Contagion is big and worldly, an example of hyperlink cinema, traveling all across the planet in an hour forty-five.

Dreaming America:

• Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech: I don't want to compare myself to MLK, I just want to say how humbling it was to listen to this speech again after trying to write of a similar sentiment and realizing how powerfully he already said everything I was trying to say only so much better than I could.

• In the Blood: I was reading about The Crucible and thought, "Oh, a stage adaptation of The Scarlet Letter could do something like this." Soon I was reading about Suzan-Lori Parks's play and thinking about how poorly read I really am.

• "I, Too, Sing America": A Langston Hughes poem where he notes the inequality he faces in the country today, but beautifully twists the negativity towards the future, where he says change will come. A brilliant expression of hope in the face of hopelessness.

• Gone to Amerikay: Derek McCulloch and my artist crush Colleen Doran tell an immigrant story that's also a mystery and spans multiple centuries. I'd tell you more but I'd be spoiling for myself--it's on the "To Read" list.

• The Audacity of Hope: Barack Obama's book is subtitled "Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream." It's the boldness of that perspective that I'd love to tap into--not simply a cynicism but a dream of a better future for our country. Obama follows Hughes in such positive forward thinking.

• Leaves of Grass: I think it'd be cool to have a cartoonist like R. Crumb illustrate Walt Whitman's iconic poem as comics. Maybe then I'd read it.

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay: The point where I couldn't really read Michael Chabon any more, but maybe you can. A celebrated novel about two immigrant comics creators in the early to mid-twentieth century finding their place in America. I couldn't master Chabon's third person, but I'm weird like that.

• The American Dream: Albee again. Maybe I'll spend a week or two one day just reading Albee. (And yes, I know how weird that sentence construction is.)

• Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt: I've wanted to read a Chris Hedges book ever since I first saw him talking on CSPAN or something, one of those boring channels on TV. Fittingly, this book is illustrated (at times in complete comics style!) by the great cartoonist Joe Sacco who I have also barely read. Immediately requested it at the library when I realized that.

• Death of a Salesman: Arthur Miller. You have to list the big ones, don't you? I haven't read it and if I'm going to write plays I guess I probably should. Care to join me?

Wonder Woman:

• Wonder Woman: Earth One: Grant Morrison's new take on Wonder Woman's origin is a let down--it couldn't be anything but, since Mozz is such a big talker--but it's still an interesting attempt at revamping WW for today.

• Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman: Greg Rucka first wrote Wonder Woman in the early 2000s, beginning with the great graphic novel, The Hiketeia, and moving onto a long run on her eponymous comic, Wonder Woman. Anyone more interested in a more recent take can read his Wonder Woman Rebirth, though I think it's a lesser work (worth the read for a particularly striking moment near the end, but full of missteps and odd decisions, in my opinion).

• The Legend of Wonder Woman: Another of DC's Wonder Woman origin comics, this one comes from Renae de Liz and started as a digital comic. It's great to see Wonder Woman in the hands a female creator and de Liz's modern retelling is well worth the read.

• Wonder Woman: The True Amazon: Jill Thompson first drew Wonder Woman in the early nineties, here she returns to the character as a cartoonist (acting as both writer and illustrator) for this gorgeously painted graphic novel.

• Wonder Woman #202-3: On my wishlist on comixology, Samuel R. Delany's two issues of Wonder Woman. While I think of Wonder Woman's loss of her powers that occurred in the years after her creator, William Moulton Marston, passed away as a clear example of misogyny and a fear of powerful women, Delany made a simple claim for why he didn't want her to regain them--real women don't have these powers! In a way, the powers make her unrelatable, which is a thought I certainly had when I saw Wonder Woman in the theater a few months ago.

• Glory: Rob Liefeld's rip-off of Wonder Woman has been the star, I'm sure, of many bad comics, but was briefly in an Alan Moore revamp of Liefeld's universe, and later in a Sophie Campbell illustrated rebranding written by Joe Keatinge that was my first experience with the character and with Campbell (when I first saw the art, I turned to my friend and said "that's really pretty").

• Promethea: Alan Moore and J. H. Williams III explore the power of the mind and the imagination, as well as meaning and history in the universe, in the one of the most metaphysical, personal comics you will read. Obviously drawn in part from Moore's plans for Glory before moving on from working with Liefeld, this isn't a comic about Wonder Woman, but it couldn't exist without Wonder Woman, and in its investigation of the past incarnations of Promethea, it comments on Wonder Woman's history in comics.

• Ms Magazine: Not a comic, yes, but an important moment in Wonder Woman's history, as she appears on the cover of the first issue of Ms. Ironically, it was Gloria Steinem's efforts to take a stand against the poor treatment Wonder Woman had received in decades prior that led to Samuel R. Delany being being kicked off the book after only two issues, but the Wonder Woman we know today would likely be very different if it weren't for Ms.

• Greek Street: There is only a brief reference to Wonder Woman in Greek Street, a character lies down in her room and part of a Wonder Woman outfit can be seen to the side of her bed, but Greek Street does what I fear very few Wonder Woman comics actually: it tries to consider the Greek gods in the context of their myths, while adapting to a modern setting. Not a perfect comic, but a noble effort.

• Wonder Woman by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang: While I'm not personally a fan, this is an important recent Wonder Woman run and one that inspired a fair amount of the film. Azzarello's work on this comic might have inspired his wife, Jill Thompson, to return to Wonder Woman with her own graphic novel (see above), and Chiang's art is always great, but I personally was turned off by the caricature-like presentation of the Greek gods.

Works based on or in reference to a person:

• US!: Songs and Stories: Chris Bachelder's loose novel (it's more like a collection of short stories that form a sequence) set in a world where Upton Sinclair comes back to life and starts pushing his dated socialist agenda. I've referenced it in a poem in the past and I believe I met Bachelder at a reading at the University of Florida a few years back.

• A Scar No One Else Can See: Max Landis's in-depth analysis of Carly Rae Jepsen's lyrics. What Landis shows is that even what we think is silly pop music can have an unexpected depth... This is a 150-page document, so be ready if you dip in!

• Unearthing: An essay by Alan Moore (later illustrated by Mitch Jenkins) about the life of his late friend Steve (no relation) Moore.

• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: Because, why not have another Edward Albee play on here? Once again, haven't read (hopefully) yet, and, like my play, not really so much about Virginia Woolf at all, if I've understood it right.

• Richard Yates: Tao Lin's novel starring the characters Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning that is, yet, in the vein of a Richard Yates novel.

• Waiting for Gadot: Great title, right? A contemporary article about the Palestinian and Israeli debate that uses Gal Gadot as a starting point for discussion. It's worth a read here.

• The Weird Brilliance of Joaquin Phoenix: A Bret Easton Ellis article about the life and work of Joaquin Phoenix that I'm looking forward to reading. I wanted a typical biographical entry here, so now you get one!

• Steve Jobs: Michael Fassbender plays Jobs in this Aaron Sorkin penned film somewhat showily directed by Danny Boyle. Just an FYI, Sorkin doesn't write bio-pics, he just uses real life as a starting point.

• My Friend Dahmer: Derf Backderf's comic about his infamous classmate Jeffrey Dahmer. A chilling consideration of childhood and growing up with a man who would become a serial killer.

• Being John Malkovich: Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze's fantasy of stepping into the head of John Malkovich. In actuality, like my play, there is no real focus on this film's subject, and the use of puppets in certain scenes seems to foresee Kaufman's later Anomalisa.