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Ok, I resisted writing about September 11th yesterday. But now, it's September 12th. The not so dreaded 9/12. The first thing I want to say about 9/11: Happy Birthday Uncle Norman. My pathetic, crazy uncle died a few years before 9/11. He was only 28—beset by misfortune and abuse his whole life—but at least the poor bastard died before his Holiday was the new D-Day.

So, I've been mulling this idea over with friends of mine—by email and live. And, after their consultations, I'd like to present a new plan for 9/11 in NYC.

Next 9/11, 364 days from now, precisely one year from yesterday …

Toga Party. Citywide.

I extend the invitation to New York, and the world.

Please, forward this invite to anyone you think might make a good guest, and have them show up, where shall we say? Downtown.

It is fitting that so many people have contributed to the dreaming up of the 9/11 Toga Party—and of course especially fitting that they are all New Yorkers. I imagine the festivities will meet, in some circles, an appalled reception—but we are New York. More charming than Romans, and lean enough (unlike those in the middle of the country), and pale enough (unlike them Californians), to wrap ourselves in Togas and look just fine (or, no worse) and make a night of it.

Perhaps not as larky as a Midsummer Night's Dream, but more along the lines of the tragi-comical Winter's Tale, or Cymbeline—it will be an evening of toothy smiles in the darkness, and ice-cubes melted in viscous Gimlets. We will howl at the moon, and kiss in dark elevators, and throw strawberries from rooftops. Togas will drag in gutters, and everyone will be wet with sweat and the sticky juice that oozes from the night.

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Recap: I've just published this book, All the World's a Grave: A New Play by William Shakespeare. The project takes the works of Shakespeare, and remixes them into a new tragedy (all the lines are from Shakespeare). As the title suggests, it ends in the death of everyone. Wednesday, September 10, 2008 (yesterday, that would be): subatomic particles traveling at the speed of the light, set to collide. The 7.7 billion dollar experiment—employing a 17-mile long donut shaped Hadron Collider—is designed to duplicate conditions believed to have been present at the big bang. Scientists who object to the plan—Professor Otto Rössler, Dr. Walter Wagner—have mounted international lawsuits seeking to halt the experiment. The two predominant theories of our destruction: instant, via little black holes; or, after a four-year wait, a slow-simmering implosion caused by quasars inside the Earth.

Well, as it turned out, when they switched on the thing, they were only warming up the engine, which will take three months, so the world didn't end yesterday. It will end around the time we swear in the next president. Or, in four years and three months from now, when we swear in the president after the next president.

Obama: "You can put a pig in lipstick … it's still a pig."

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Today is the end of the world, maybe.

I had planned to write a nice little piece about that. Something reflective—a remembrance of all the beautiful women I've seen sitting alone at bus stops. That sort of thing.

It seems worth remembering: the world, the women at bus stops.

For those of you who aren’t aware of the fact: today, Wednesday, September 10, 2008, scientists are set to collide subatomic particles traveling at the speed of the light. The 7.7 billion dollar experiment—employing a 17-mile long donut shaped Hadron Collider—will duplicate conditions believed to have been present at the big bang. Scientists who object to the plan—Professor Otto Rössler, Dr. Walter Wagner—have mounted international lawsuits seeking to halt the experiment. The two predominant theories of our destruction: instant, via little black holes; or, after a four-year wait, a slow-simmering implosion caused by quasars inside the Earth.

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All The World's A Grave: A New Play by William Shakespeare. It is, as advertised, a new play by W.S.. All of the text is plucked from the known works.

The question leveled at me: in Heaven's name, why?

After much wearing thought, the short answer ...

That's sort of like asking me why I exist, and as to that: I'm not sure.

Many months ago, when I could still entertain the question—before the answer become so multi-faceted and lugubrious and overwhelming—I penned an essay, an answer. Penguin/Plume mercifully whittled down the 30 pages to 13 (which can be found at the end of the book).

The reasons ...

Culture: an American atavism. Education: the uninspired U.S. classroom. Personal: me, the street-urchin "mutt." Literary: buy new books. Technological: the ways we have changed, the ways literature is growing. Political: our wanton war.

The answer after that: I'm a writer. You know what the mountain climber will say.

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Barack Obama: the Moor?  Or, more Hamlet.  John McCain: Henry V, or Richard III?  Joe Biden: Horatio, or Polonius?  And Sarah Palin: Lady Macbeth, or Cleopatra?

Penguin/Plume Books has very graciously offered me this opportunity to blog for a week on their site.  I believe I will be unvetted (we'll see).  To their mistake, I intended to add my own.  My new book, All The World's A Grave: A New Play by William Shakespeare, contains a brief essay at the end.  Before my wise editor got a hold of it, it was not brief, and I though to unload the whole story of my childhood, and rational for writing a new work by Shakespeare (I took apart all the known works and put them back together as a new tragedy), right here, for half a dozen people to see.

Instead, I'm planning to talk about my current obsession, Governor and Vice-Presidential Candidate, Sarah Palin.  I'm probably blowing any slim chance I had of making headway with her, but for the very few of you who have not investigated, there are not yet naked pictures of her on the internet: not "naked," not "nude," not "topless." 

The book, which stars Hamlet, Juliet, Romeo, Iago, Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the Weird Sisters, King Lear and the Ghost of old Hamlet, is meant to bring the spirit of Shakespeare to our times.  If Shakespeare were to weigh in on contemporary war and culture, this is my vision of what he would say.  And I feel somewhat backed up in my conjecture: every line, every word in the new play is sourced from Shakespeare.  (Footnotes and stage versions and word counts and monologues and scenes for actors and all that can be found at johnreed.tv or alltheworldsagrave.com.)  My intention being an extroverted one-to bring the tragedy to the concerns of our own day-it's perhaps not too terrific a stretch to consider Governor Palin.

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John Reed is our guest blogger during the week of September 8th. If you have any questions for John Reed, add a comment to any of his posts. Here is some more information about All the World's a Grave: A New Play by William Shakespeare:

 An epic tragedy of love, war, murder, and madness, plucked from the pages of Shakespeare

In All the World's a Grave, John Reed reconstructs the works of William Shakespeare into a new five-act tragedy. The language is Shakespeare's, but the drama that unfolds is as fresh as the blood on the stage.

Prince Hamlet goes to war for Juliet, the daughter of King Lear. Having captured Juliet as his bride-by reckless war-he returns home to find that his mother has murdered his father and married Macbeth. Enter Iago, who persuades Hamlet that Juliet is having an affair with Romeo. As the Prince goes mad with jealousy, King Lear mounts his army. . .

This play promises to be the most provocative and entertaining work to be added to the Shakespeare canon since Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.