Fiction and What Woment Wear

Some readers of my novella "Manhattan Morning" have wondered why my protagonist, Dan, spends so much of his time thinking about attire -- mostly female but not entirely -- as he walks around midtown.

His excuse in the book, if he needs one, is that his former wife worked in the fashion industry and that as a result, clothes were a constant topic of consideration and conversation. He has been conditioned to be observant.

"The Sympathizer:" A Perspective on the Vietnam War

Much has already been written about "The Sympathizer," a Pulitzer-prize winning novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen that takes a different slant on the Vietnam war.

It wasn't on my reading list, but it was given to me and I was going on a trip that promised long waits in airport lounges and long hours on airplanes so I thought, why not?

The Art of The Deal & The Gang That Can't Shoot Straight

Time out for some important news from our Nation's Capital, otherwise known as Washington D.C., or in the words of the incumbent President, "the swamp."

Well what's been going on?

"The Donald" (that's our president) and most Republican legislators campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare.  It was going to be all so simple and in the words of the President, "everyone" would end up "beautifully insured."

Today in Congress, this critical issue -- getting rid of Obamacare -- came to a head. When all was said and done, they couldn't do it.

The Gang That Can't Shoot Straight (that's the majority House Republicans) met "The Art of the Deal" (that's The Donald) and the result was a continuation of Obamacare.

As the old cartoon character Pogo famously put it: "we have met the enemy and it is us." That, in a nutshell, was what is was all about for Trump and the Republicans.

What next?

Magical Realism as Deus ex Machina at Lincoln Center

I've mentioned or  written about "How to Transcend a Happy Marriage," a current play by Sarah Ruhl, in a couple of previous posts, which you can find here and here.  But I want to touch on one more aspect of the piece before moving on.

When Greek playwrights spun out complicated and seemingly unresolvable plots, they would sometimes call upon divine intervention to sort things out. A god would be typically lowered onto the stage  from somewhere above (deus ex machine) and employing super-human powers, bring about a happy ending.

Danspace Project: The Sun God Apollo and The Higgs Boson

Is there a connection between Apollo, the Greek and Roman sun god, and the Higgs Boson, an elusive element or aspect of particle physics?

Most definitely in the view of dancer Emily Coates and physicist Sarah Demers who have for the past few years collaborated on connections between science and the arts, and are currently in the process of co-authoring a book on physics and dance.

Was Rome Founded on the Basis of Fake News?

Well, if you believe Henry Purcell's only opera, "Dido and Aeneas," the answer is yes. The foundation of Rome definitely stemmed from a serious incidence of fake news.

Why bring this up now?  Well, fake news is definitely in the news and equally to the point, the Mark Morris Dance Group is currently performing Purcell's  opera at the Brooklyn Academy of Music along with a short opera by Benjamin Britten called "Curlew River."

Handel the Merciful: His Last Oratorio, "Jephtha"

Despite the fact he never married, or perhaps because of it, no one to my knowledge has ever accused the baroque composer George Frideric Handel of being a misogynist. Quite the contrary, he frequently re-wrote parts of The Messiah so that sopranos in particular and other soloists could appear at their best.

Handel was definitely a "singer's composer."

Idomeneo: The Story of Abraham With a Twist?

Attending Mozart's "Idomeneo" at the Met the other night got me thinking -- and I'm certainly not the first to have made this connection -- of the Biblical story of Abraham.

In both cases, a god requires a mortal to kill his first-born or at least most important son. That's perhaps the most difficult order a father could receive, in a patriarchal society at any rate.

The Met: Elza van den Heever's Mad Scene Steals the Show

When one thinks of operatic mad scenes, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor almost inevitably comes to mind first and foremost and not without reason. That, of course, is in the opera of the same name.

But last night at the Metropolitan Opera, South African-born soprano Elza van den Heever stole the show in Mozart's Idomeneo with a riveting performance of Elettra's meltdown when her long-shot hopes of marrying Prince Idamante are finally dashed by Neptune, god of the sea.

Van den Heever's performance was not only vocally splendid, her acting was captivating.

All You Need is Love, or How to Tanscend a Happy Marriage

In 1967, the Beatles released what was arguably their sappiest song: "All You Need Is Love." It became an anthem of the hippie era -- encapsulating the sentiment of the San Francisco Summer of Love -- much the way "We Shall Overcome" became an anthem of the slightly earlier civil rights movement.

The notion that love can conquer all is back, in the form of a play by Sarah Rhul called "How to transcend a happy marriage" that is currently playing in New York at Lincoln Center.

Identity Defined by Sexual Practices

In an earlier post, I talked about how Maggie Nelson, a current darling of intellectual feminism, defines herself by the nature of her sexual practices.

Today I saw "How to transcend a happy marriage" at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, a play by Sarah Ruhl where, among other things, the same theme arises.

A Mother's Judgement

When it comes to assessing success or failure in life, it's interesting how often individuals measure themselves against what their mothers believe -- even while often rebelling against them.

This is probably particularly true in cultures that are very family-focused, such that of the Chinese.

An example can be seen in a poem written by Chinese-American poet Chen Chen who is gay while his brothers apparently are not.

"I am a gay sipper [a cautious person], & my mother has placed what's left of her hopes on my brothers," says one line of Chen's poem "Self-Portrait as So Much Potential."

"Beautiful sons," the poem ends, referring to all but the poet himself.

By clicking on the name of the poem above, you can read the entire short piece as printed in a recent edition of the New York Times Sunday magazine.

I recommend it.

Lincoln in the Bardo: An American Chorale

In a previous post, I referred to George Sanders' first novel, "Lincoln in the Bardo" as the current "book of the moment."

What sort of a book is it?  Well, among many other things, it has been described as a cacophony of voices.

That may be most evident in the audio version for which Saunders rounded up 166 different people, one for each voice in the book.

"I love the way that the variety of contemporary voices mimics and underscores the feeling I tried to evoke in the book: a sort of American chorale," Saunders told Time Magazine.