Charles Ludlam was, hands down, one of the most brilliant innovators in postmodern theatre. At a time when many radical theatre-types were resting on their laurels (or regurgitating works they created decades earlier), Ludlam and his constant collaborator/companion, Everett Quinton, were experimenting with new forms, keeping things fresh. Unfortunately (or perhaps not), he's been pidgeonholed by theatre historians as working exclusively in gay theatre; in point of fact, though, while his audience was largely "downtown" and therefore predominantly gay, his influence was felt throughout theatre community.

That's not, however, to say he was a benevolent gay genius. On the contrary: secondhand stories about his professional habits and beliefs are enough to curl the toes of even the cruelest tyrant. That, of course, is why this book is SO enjoyable--and important. Part autobiography, part manifesto, it explains Ludlam's ideas about art, life, and theatre in his own words. And while it's certainly polemic at times, it's very enlightening and always entertaining.

Ridiculous Theatre : Scourge of Human Folly : The Essays and Opinions of Charles Ludlam is a true treasure for anyone ridiculous enough to consider a career as an artist. Ludlam, the actor/director/writer/artistic director of the Ridiculous Theatre, knows a lot about creating art and as a result of his experience, has some very strong opinions on the subject. Ludlam writes about what he knows and what he loves -- the theatre. The essays included in this anthology are extremenly insightful and thought-provoking as Ludlam proffers his opinions on every subject from critics to drag to opera (and everything in between). In the end, the reader comes to an understanding of the utter ridiculousness (in a truly wonderful way) of a theatrical life.

Charles Ludlam's Theater of the Ridiculous was one of the pioneering gay theater companies of the twentieth century. This book is a collection of all the plays Ludlam wrote through his career.

His breakthrough play Camille is included in this text. Camille was his first major success. Written in 1975, Camille is a loving adaptation of Alexander Dumas' Camille. Ludlam's Camille follows the story of the original very closely, but he adds modern touches to make the humour more contemporary. For anyone who is not familiar with the story of Camille, the action takes place in Paris around 1865. Marguerite Gautier is the Lady of the Camillias. In the opening of the play, we find out that Marguerite has Tuberculosis, and has only a few months to live. She lives her life as a kept woman, allowing anyone to pay for her living expenses for a couple of nights of pleasure. Instead of listening to her doctor and taking care of herself, she drinks and throws lavish parties. Everything goes well until she falls in love with a penniless young man. Camille is a wonderful camp melodrama with some beautifully touching moments. The script reads like poetry, I would recommend Camille to anyone.

Also included in this volume is The Mystery of Irma Vepp, Ludlam's biggest success. Irma Vepp is a gothic horror play set in a dark old castle crawling with every classic monster one could imagine. There are wherewolves, mummies, and of course vampires. The play is cast with only two actors, requiring endless amounts of quick changes. The play is fast, furious and a pleasure to read.

Ludlam's career spanned only about 20 years, but there has been a resurging interest in his work lately. This book is perfect for anyone interested in the history of theater or gay writers of the twentieth century.

Charles Ludlum should be read by anyone in the theater; or by anyone who loves theater, and its history. Ludlum combines farce, with wonderfully ridiculous characters in search of great love; in other words, he holds a mirror to the world, and to our society. His plays are brilliantly constructed, funny and sad; yet ultimately magical. As a pioneer in American Theater, Ludlum is due for a "re-discovery." I highly recommend everyone discover, or rediscover, Ludlum. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want to wear heels.

A disappointment. Kaufman gets the facts, but misses the spirit. To be sure, any biographer of Ludlam is up against a lot. The main problem is that a lot of the man's art existed "at the vanishing point," that is to say, in performance. Ludlam was above all, an inspired actor, and acting (HIS acting) and style took precedence over everything (he gave the world no great plays, and his company consisted of weak, noncompetive actors). Capturing a performance in words is very difficult, and Kaufman has no aptitude for it. Further,he is too much the fan. Though he acknowledges all of CL's personal and professional faults, his admiration always guides the direction of the book and we never quite get the man whole, or any explanation of why we should admire him. The most one can say is that Kaufman has gathered the information necessary for others to assess Ludlam's quality and his contribution to theatre.

Reading this book reminded me of sitting in the cramped Sheridan Square theatre watching Ludlam and his cronies perform--sometimes the performances were magical, but just as often I was more frustrated than excited by the all-too evident rough edges. There are problems with this book that should have been addressed by the editor, just as a more objective director could have improved some of those ridiculous Ridiculous evenings.

The design, which eschews traditional punctutation such as indented paragraphs, is difficult and unpleasant to read, because it doesn't allow the narrtive to flow. Much of the writing is repetitous, as Ludlam's passive-agressive directing technique is detailed again and again for each show.

But the biggest flaw is a lack of an epilogue to update the lives of the book's vivid "supporting cast" (Black-Eyed Susan, Lola Pashalinski, Bill Vehr, the late Christopher Scott, and most important, Everett Quinton, who became an icon of the off-off-Broadway movement himself with his later perfomances in Irma Vep and Camille. Are they still performing or are they out of the business? (P.S. Pashalinski was just in a theatre piece about the changing lives of actresses.) I know that the book is about the life of Ludlam and not the ridiculous theatre movement in general, but this reader felt cheated by the amount of time spent getting to know Ludlam's actors in print, only to have them disappear at the book's final scene, the memorial performance.

Also needed is information about about the few shows that the Ridiculous produced after Ludlam. It would be fascinating to know just how many performances of Irma Vep (one of the most wonderful nights in New York theatre this show biz addict ever experienced) are given today, or if Ludlam's Die Fledermaus is still in the rep at Santa Fe or elsewhere. These are big questions, because Ludlam has been dead for fifteen years, and his light is dimming, in spite of his influence on Tony Kushner (and who is performing his epic Angels in America lately, much less Ludlam's Turds in Hell?) and Charles Busch (who had his biggest success in years as the author of a mainstream comedy where he didn't even perform, much less wear fish nets).

And finally, like many biographies, you end up wondering why someone didn't haul off and smack Ludlam--he's that exasperating, and ultimately, not the kind of person you want to may want to spend a lot of time with. But in spite of the book's flaws, I am grateful to Kaufman for catching the excitement of Ludlam's life and times.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Ludlam's life. The author does a terrific job explaining the origins of both Ludlam's talent and his powerful (and often exasperating) personality. Of course, the book can't be as much fun as the shows were, but it is nonetheless an exciting and full account of one of the true originals of our theatrical times. I do agree with the reviewer who says that a postscript about the Ridiculous post-Ludlam would have been nice, but the book still deserves the highest praise for capturing a tricky subject so clearly.

I bought this book with great expectations of learning Emacs. However, I was EXTREMELY disappointed with it. I can't tell you what a terrible book this is. But I'll try. The chapter on installing Emacs on a Windows platform refers to a nonexistent section in an appendix. Hence, you are left in the dark on how to perform this installation. If that wasn't bad enough, some of the files that the author talks about throughout the book have been omitted from the CD (mostly .el files). The WORST part about this book is probably the fact that it doesn't even mention the website where corrections are shown, and the website is extremely difficult to find while surfing the web. He doesn't seem in the least bit apologetic that this disaster is riddled with errors. He acts as if the printing errors were completely natural in every way. The thought of this book infuriates me. The only thing that might have been of use in this book was the section on installing NT Emacs, but since this was omitted, you may as well just forego buying the book and read this on the author's website. Do yourself a favour and miss this one completely; It should be retitled, "Learn how to bang your head against the wall in frustration in 24 minutes." Instead, run out and buy a copy of Learning GNU Emacs by O'Reilly & Associates. Although that book doesn't cover Emacs installation, you should be able to accomplish that via online instructions. It is an infinitely better book; trust me.

This is good beginner book for anyone who is un-initiated to the world of Emacs. Since this book is in a tutorial format like other Sams Teach Yourself books, one can read through this book pretty fast and get up and running using the power of Emacs very quickly. The author does a good job of introducing the reader to many of the powerful functions of emacs and also contantly mentions ways to customize the various functions.
One of the sources of irritation while reading the book is that the author refers too many times to the libraries on the CD rather than the generic functions available in Emacs itself. However, this does get the reader accustomed to the idea of customizing Emacs, which is what makes Emacs such a powerful editor. There is also a introductory chapter on Lisp, which should suffice most beginners.

The word on the street is that EMACS is tough to get in touch with. The book 'Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours' proves that word wrong; it's really not that hard. Coming from the MS-Windows world, one has been used to easy-to-use editors - though not that efficient, due to the limited use of shortcut keys. My very first use of this book was as a how-to-do tutorial. A swift look in the appendix, and I was able to cut, copy, paste and navigate the source like I had never done anything else. When getting curious to learn the more advanced features of the editor, it was necessary to read the book chapter by chapter, but the way it's written makes this quite easy. For each feature mentioned, the writer does a great job explaining the differences between the GNU-Emacs, XEmacs and Emacs for WIN32. In my opinion, this book is definitely one of the better ones. The only issue lacking is how to get the best from Emacs when not using X.