The New Yorker's great theater critic, John Lahr, hasn't been writing enough. Then on Dec. 12 the magazine doesn't put the compressed grace of his review of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" on line, and further goes on in the truncated "abstract" it does post to mangle Lahr's dramatic wisdom. It's criminal! But no matter —Continue reading “What really happened to the developer: Chekhov”
Category Archives: thinking out loud
Two roads diverged in a wood: Robert Frost
Louis B. Jones pens a great essay on Robert Frost, which thankfully The Threepenny Review puts on-line. Here are two gems from it, set together: It seldom occurs to me, frankly, to contemplate any of the thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird; nor could I recite from memory more than a few lines of “Four Quartets,”Continue reading “Two roads diverged in a wood: Robert Frost”
Why we shouldn’t like writer’s houses
From a marvelous piece by April Bernard in the NYRB (only partially available on-line, I should add): Here’s what I hate about writers’ houses: the basic mistakes. The idea that art can be understood by examining the chewed pencils of the writer. That visiting such a house can substitute for reading the work. That realContinue reading “Why we shouldn’t like writer’s houses”
Horror in Happy Valley: The Jerry Sandusky Movie
The scene: a nice little college town, where everyone is happy and peppy and civic minded, and really loves the football team. Someone from Colorado or someplace, transfers into town for a new job and … starts noticing things. It turns out that the town patriarch (Paterno) isn’t even the ruler… Something Else is… AContinue reading “Horror in Happy Valley: The Jerry Sandusky Movie”
Bank Transfer Day: The Insta-Protest Pays Off
From The Daily Beast, the best story I've seen on the remarkably successful Bank Transfer Day action, which went from an idea to billions of dollars in accounts transferred in a matter of weeks: Kristen Christian was feeling more than a little fed up with the county’s big banks when a month ago today sheContinue reading “Bank Transfer Day: The Insta-Protest Pays Off”
Prediction fulfilled: Keystone probably delayed indefinitely
As predicted a couple of days ago: Obama administration "considering a move" to delay decision on the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The hope, apparent in this Los Angeles Times story, is that the pipeline proves too controversial to survive a transparent vetting. From Neela Banerjee's story, which should make the front page. "TheContinue reading “Prediction fulfilled: Keystone probably delayed indefinitely”
Glee: Best TV show ever? A neuroscientific perspective
About ten years ago, while pursuing a story on the roots of depression, I tracked down the great scientist Jaak Panksepp, originator of the field of affective — that is, emotional — neuroscience, and he kindly let me interview him over the phone for half an hour. Panksepp has spent years studying the physiology ofContinue reading “Glee: Best TV show ever? A neuroscientific perspective”
Why Occupy Wall Street made Francine cry
Francine Prose explains: As far as I can understand it myself, here’s why I burst into tears at the Occupy Wall Street camp. I was moved, first of all, by what everyone notices first: the variety of people involved, the range of ages, races, classes, colors, cultures. In other words, the 99 per cent. IContinue reading “Why Occupy Wall Street made Francine cry”
The frustration of the long-term unemployed: The Onion
From the Pew Research Center [pdf link], the General Accounting Office [pdf link] and the Washington Post, the hard news about older unemployed people: Bad news…55 to 64-year-olds have fared worst in the recession than any other demographic. But from The Onion, the same kind of news — Matt Millen on TV simply too muchContinue reading “The frustration of the long-term unemployed: The Onion”
We are the new PETM: National Geographic
Their headline is a little less wonky: Hothouse Earth. No matter — it's still a typically great National Geographic story. Just how much carbon was injected into the atmosphere during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, as scientists now call the fever period, is uncertain. But they estimate it was roughly the amount that wouldContinue reading “We are the new PETM: National Geographic”
Kit Stolz 