David Mamet

David Mamet, the acclaimed playwright known for characters that drop the F-bomb at every opportunity, has dropped the ultimate bomb on his fans and the creative community: He is no longer a "brain-dead liberal" but rather a "newly minted conservative. " This revelation is spelled out in his new book, "The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture," which hits stores Thursday. According to the book's description on Amazon, the author uses his "trademark intellectual force and vigor to take on all the key political and cultural issues of our times, from religion to political correctness to global warming.

"I always had an acting bug," Clara Mamet declared recently during a rehearsal break at the Ruskin Group Theatre in Santa Monica. The confession wasn't exactly startling, coming from the newest member of a growing family dynasty of writer-performers. Clara Mamet, the daughter of actress Rebecca Pidgeon and author David Mamet, grew up reading a play a day and watching her parents shuttle between stages and film sets. One of her half-siblings, Zosia Mamet, also is an actress, portraying Joyce Ramsay on "Mad Men"and the nerdy Shoshanna on "Girls,"HBO's new outer-borough retort to "Sex and the City.

David Mamet has little use for political correctness, windy academic theorists or Bolshevik-minded theater directors. He's also not too keen on "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" or those big, splashy Broadway sets that make audiences go "Ohh." As Mamet writes in "Theatre," one of two new books published by the prolific playwright-screenwriter-essayist, "When we leave the play saying how spectacular the sets or costumes were, or how interesting the ideas, it means we had a bad time."

The Secret Knowledge On the Dismantling of American Culture David Mamet Sentinel: 242 pp., $27.95 David Mamet's "The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture" comes with a built-in get-out-of-jail-free card: Dispute it and you're part of the problem, a defender of the liberal orthodoxy. Such is the case, I suppose, with any polemic, but here the author is especially adamant. "The struggle of the Left to rationalize its positions is an intolerable, Sisyphean burden.

It's almost as if director David Mamet is saying, "Hey, look, I can do tender! I can do gentle!" The thing is, Mamet, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright best known for hard-punching, often scatological work, pulls it off in this small-frame movie starring Don Ameche. In "Things Change," co-written by Mamet and Shel Silverstein, an uncomplicated Italian shoemaker (Ameche) agrees to take the blame for a mob hit in exchange for a lot of cash.

Women have lives in the theater, too. Four women will play the roles in David Mamet's "A Life in the Theatre" in benefit readings slated for next month--apparently the first time women have taken these roles in a public performance. Mamet's play depicts two men--an older actor and a younger one--as their relationship evolves from mentor and apprentice to equals and rivals, during the course of a theatrical season.

David Mamet was unhappy with the way the scene was playing. "Back it up to one," he barked. Clearly relishing this newfangled movie lingo, Mamet quickly added: "I love saying that." There's no doubt about it. He is crazy about directing movies. That's right.

Although the South Coast Musical Theatre's production of "Revenge of the Space Pandas" at University High's Irvine Little Theatre is a cartoonish muddle, it is of some interest--chiefly because the play was written by Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet. Yes, the same Mamet who is known for razor-edged humor and strong language in such adult plays as "American Buffalo" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" wrote this lightweight saga of 12-year-old Binky Rudich and his adventures on the planet Crestview.

Most people forget that the term "politically correct" was coined by Adolf Hitler's propagandist Joseph Goebbels as the basis of a single-minded Nazi philosophy. But playwright David Mamet sees a similarity in today's version of political correctness--particularly in our acceptance of being told what to think--and he exposes that danger in his tense, absorbing one-act drama "Oleanna."

David Mamet may be one of our greatest playwrights but his audio commentary on his 1999 film "The Winslow Boy" was disappointingly mundane. For the digital edition of his latest movie, "State and Main" (New Line), the writer-director doesn't even do a commentary. Instead, he leaves the talking to several of the stars of this delicious comedy about what happens when Hollywood arrives in a small New Hampshire town to make a movie.

David Mamet, the acclaimed playwright known for characters that drop the F-bomb at every opportunity, has dropped the ultimate bomb on his fans and the creative community: He is no longer a "brain-dead liberal" but rather a "newly minted conservative. " This revelation is spelled out in his new book, "The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture," which hits stores Thursday. According to the book's description on Amazon, the author uses his "trademark intellectual force and vigor to take on all the key political and cultural issues of our times, from religion to political correctness to global warming.

COMEDY Demetri Martin Actor Jeff Garlin hosts an evening with Martin, a comedian known for his witty songs, ironic observations and wordplay. Martin will chat with Garlin, take audience questions, and sign and discuss his new book, "This Is a Book. " Proceeds from the show will support efforts to free the West Memphis Three, three men seeking retrial after being convicted in the 1993 killing of three Cub Scouts. Largo at the Coronet , 366 N. La Cienega Blvd., L.A. 8 p.m. $30. (310)

FRIDAY Prince The Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd. 7:30 p.m. $25-$181.40 thelaforum.com SATURDAY Villains Tavern 1356 Palmetto St. 1-5 p.m. No cover. villainstavern.com MONDAY The Five Minutes Game Cinefamily, 611 N. Fairfax Ave. 6 p.m. $10. http://www.cinefamily.org TUESDAY Supergood Tuesdays Central SAPC, 1348 14th St., Santa Monica 8 p.m. Free. http://www.centralsapc.com TUESDAY Ricky Jay and David Mamet Hammer, 10899 Wilshire Blvd.

The character Patrick Stewart plays with impish charm on Broadway this fall is, he insists, very familiar: a stage actor who begins to realize, after years of toil in small theaters, that he's never going to make it into the big time. "I've known actors like this, actors who are sad because the breaks never came," Stewart said, sipping a cup of strong tea just steps from the stage door of the Schoenfeld Theatre. "But all of us as actors think: Are we gonna be found out this week?

David Mamet has little use for political correctness, windy academic theorists or Bolshevik-minded theater directors. He's also not too keen on "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" or those big, splashy Broadway sets that make audiences go "Ohh." As Mamet writes in "Theatre," one of two new books published by the prolific playwright-screenwriter-essayist, "When we leave the play saying how spectacular the sets or costumes were, or how interesting the ideas, it means we had a bad time."

Forty years ago, in 1970, the young George V. Higgins was working as a federal prosecutor in Boston. By then he'd graduated from Boston College, done a creative writing course at Stanford and worked as a newspaperman before going back to school to study law. He'd written a string of unpublished books and his latest, "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" (Picador: 182 pp., $14 paper), had already been rejected many times. But Alfred A. Knopf decided to take a chance, offering Higgins the not-so-princely sum of $2,000 for the novel.

"Lakeboat" drifted quietly into a single theater on Friday, a year and a half after its premiere and with virtually no advance hype.

It has long been evident that American actors can be as good or better at doing the classics than British ones. But it has just as long been evident that there is little joy or profit in that contest. With tonight's "Great Performances" presentation of an Anglo-American "Uncle Vanya" (9-11 p.m. on Channels 15 and 24, 9:30-midnight on Channel 28), we can take solace in the seamless use made of good acting that hails from both sides of the Atlantic.

Fox will interview Obama President Obama will give an interview to Fox News Channel's Major Garrett, perhaps signaling a thaw in relations between the network and administration. The White House confirmed Tuesday that Garrett would be included among a round of network interviews that the president is giving today in Beijing. Fox and the administration have been in a public fight since former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said the network acted like the research or communications arm of the Republican Party.

When Doug Hughes, the director of the revival of David Mamet's "Oleanna," heard that his two stars, Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles, were sitting down with a writer for the Los Angeles Times, he freaked out. "He said, 'Ohmigod! Don't say anything to him or to each other!' " Pullman recalls with a laugh. " 'Just drink coffee,' " Stiles chimes in.