Has the recession hit you? Unemployed? Under-employed? Do you harbor secret Octopussy drag queen fantasies? Then try spy school. Or better yet, Stiletto Spy School.

From their site:

In just four days, learn valuable skills that will serve you for the rest of your life. Modules include firearms training, disabling an attacker in hand-to-hand combat, make up lessons and much, much more. Includes posh hotel with double occupancy room, delicious meals and wine with dinner. Airfare to Las Vegas, cocktails and incidentals are not included.

We're positive this is how Valerie Plame did it.

Marty Panzer, multi-platinum, award winning lyricist for Barry Manilow, Walt Disney, and many, many others, will speak about the art and craft of lyric writing. as well as some observations on the current marketplace, personal remembrances, and we hope, a little dish at a special event at Academy for New Musical Theatre.

Salon at the Academy for New Musical Theatre (ANMT) in No. Hollywood, CA on Sunday, August 5th, 2-6pm, but registration closes tomorrow, August 1st.

(photo by Phil Christie)

Face it--Monday nights are dull, you're dull and your career is dull. Why not spice up your evening, your life and your career by signing up for mediabistro's TV Symposium?

FBLA is well aware that this could appear to be a shameless plug, but this particular series gives attendees access to:

Allison Gibson, creator, Reba,

Drew Goddard, supervising producer, Lost,

Matt Shakman, director, Brothers & Sisters,

and a roster of other biggies.

Most of you would never even breathe the same air as these people. And as a added bonus--anyone who takes the class need not ever write into the forums:

i have an new idea for a reality show and i wanted to know if anyone knew what steps i should take or who i can contact?

YOU THERE--yes, you! Haven't you been talking forever about how lame all the reality shows are and how you have a really killer idea, and it's cheap, and castable, and sustainable for several seasons. So, put your money where your mouth is, and sign up for tonight's Pitch Slam.
Just don't pitch them our big idea:

Pay Off Your College Loans!

Contestants compete for the chance to pay off their big debt by performing a series of unspeakable acts. Winner is the recent grad owing the largest amount for the most useless degree who's most willing to suffer the most utter humiliation before total strangers. Bonus points for Women's Studies majors.

Why not celebrate the back-to-school season by, well, going back to school? The UCLA Extension course catalogue is full of classes that will certify an ambitious student in everything from interior design to fitness instruction.

We're intrigued by a weekend class, that for $95, teaches us how to do everything we do anyway, but as a writer.

Reading the Newspaper as a Writer. If we used to go to the grocery store, now we go to the grocery store as a writer. The same is true of doing laundry, washing the car, attending family reunions, going to the movies, having a relationship, walking on the beach. Eventually, we do everything as a writer. This is a critical leap and a source of deep joy.

FBLA twisted an ankle making a critical leap, a few years back. We notice that there's no actual writing in this workshop. Wandering around Smart & Final is all very well, but it doesn't produce 1,500 words on the trade deficit.

But this could be cool:

In this one-day course, we start with something very basic--reading the newspaper, asking: How do I read the newspaper as a writer? How can the newspaper improve, broaden, and deepen my own writing? What can I learn about plot? About language? How can I use the different sections of the newspaper for my art?

We use the different sections of the newspaper every damn day, because we have a contract here. UCLA doesn't have a class in blogging. Maybe they should.

One of most excruciating ways my father tortured our family in my childhood was to take a picture of us.

"Look intelligent," he'd say, then fiddle about and delay the clicking of the shutter for up to six minutes - until our faces were frozen, fatigued and unsmiling, with an icicle of drool threatening to drip from our maws.

Well, no more: Tonight, mediabistro.com offers you the chance to master that fancy digital camera of yours. Light quality, white balance, composition - they all get covered. Whether your photography is personal or professional, or whether you shoot portrait, landscape, documentary or product photography is no matter. Either way, you'll learn how to produce great images.

So stop by the Beverly Hills Bar Association tonight at 7 pm. $65 bucks at the door, $50 for AvantGuild members.

Grammar, like flossing, is one of those things that's easy to slough off as nit-picky. That is, until you show up on a first date with spinach in your teeth.

Fortunately, tonight at 7 p.m., we bring you Gary North, the senior copy chief of Variety and Daily Variety. Gary will be teaching one of his well-known, always-sells-out grammar-thons at the Beverly Hills Bar Association, and if you work with words at all, you shouldn't miss it.

Why? Because his seminar is not just 'its' vs. 'it's'; Gary will help you torpedo common misunderstandings about word usage and sentence structure. He'll reveal how root out redundancies, crush jargon, and understand your audiences. In short, you'll be a better writer for it. (And your copy desk might even speak of you in glowing terms - behind your back.)

Details at the mothership.