Monday, March 21, 2011

Bugwalk: No Returns, No Exchanges:

The next day, Steve and I went to visit Ann and Mac; Tom had gone skiing. Ann let me play her piano a little, which was a treat, and then she drove me and Mac to Berkeley for lunch at the Bistro Liaison and then they treated me to Mike Daisey’s show The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the Berkeley Rep. I was under the vague impression that this might be a comedy in which Mike Daisey plays Steve Jobs, and, since I don’t believe in getting a program (in order to maximize any surprises there may happen to be), it took me a while to figure out that this fellow, Mike Daisey, had personally schlepped to China, done an investigation on labor practices there, including some undercover work, crafted a two-hour (no intermission) monologue about it, and was at that very moment performing the same with tremendous skill: a true triple threat. I left the theater in tears, vowing to buy no electronic device that I don’t truly need, though there is no such thing as living a life that does not include increasing the misery of a thirteen-year-old Chinese girl. It cannot be done.