A Midsummer Night’s Dream is probably the funnest play William Shakespeare ever wrote. It winds down, after several twisted noctural love stories resolve themselves, with a usually hilarious (if performed well) play within a play, staged by several “rude mechanicals” from the local forest who’ve been enlisted to enact the … Read the rest
Here’s something unusual: a 1955 appearance by science-fiction author Ray Bradbury on Groucho Marx’s famous TV game show “You Bet Your Life”.
Stocky and hearty, the 35-year-old author is at this time already a successful writer, but not yet a famous one. He cites his accomplishments to Groucho: stories in … Read the rest
1. A favorite baseball player of mine died last week.
2. Here’s a fun literary site that’s been making the rounds: police sketches based on descriptions of fictional characters, by Brian Joseph Davis. I’m particularly impressed by his Emma Bovary and Humbert Humbert, but I sense subconscious influence … Read the rest
1. Ann Beattie’s new novel is Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life
There’s been an explosion of popular interest in the novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand lately, and not only because I wrote a book called Why Ayn Rand Is Wrong and Why It Matters
1. I’ve read a few good tributes to the late Beat/hippie poet Ira Cohen, a good guy I used to see around the East Village a lot. I did a poetry reading with him at the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus in 2002, but I never knew that Ira Cohen invented the … Read the rest
A video captured from Osama bin Laden’s final home has just been released. It shows him watching news coverage of himself on TV, and I find this strangely satisfying to watch, because it underscores what I have always suspected about the basic motivation behind Bin Laden’s acts of terror. Why … Read the rest
I catch episodes of “Jersey Shore” on MTV whenever I can — because it’s hilarious, that’s why — and during a recent episode a powerful realization came over me.
I’d heard a friend complain that this show signaled the fall of Western culture due to its brainless, shameless exhibits of … Read the rest
1. Here’s a newly-found old video of Beat Generation/Summer of Love poet Michael McClure reading poetry to caged lions. The last section of the poem consists of McClure yelling “roar” repeatedly. The video might strike some as precious — Steve Silberman called it “beat kitsch” in a recent … Read the rest