A Curious Misunderstanding of Virginia Woolf in T Magazine

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the cover story of a recent issue of "T, the New York Times Style Magazine," contains a rather prominent misuse of Virginia Woolf's fiction.

The magazine runs an annual issue on "The Greats" and the lead article this time around is about Nick Cave, an African-American artist known for colorful, eclectic works of art. Megan O'Grady wrote the piece and in it, she describes Cave as having "a Dalloway-like genius for bringing people from different walks of life to the table in experiences of shared good will."

A Very Brief Word About the Theater

Why go to see a play?  Instead of, say, reading a novel?  They're both about stories, right? And some plays are even based on books, often well known.

"It's a night out," some might say.

"Or, I like to see live acting. No matter how many times it has been rehearsed, anything could happen and, arguably, no two performances are ever exactly the same."

Leaving comedy aside, the main reason to go to the theater, I think, is to experience emotional behavior of the sort that can't easily be expressed safely in ordinary life.  Often, such emotions are transgressive in nature -- the sort we often feel, but have to suppress because they are dangerous or antisocial. In this respect, one can argue the theater functions as a sort of safety valve.

I mention this because I just received a brochure in the mail from New York's Roundabout Theater Company, a respected non-profit entity that puts on Broadway plays. "Take A Ride On Our Emotional Roller Coaster," the cover of this flyer, announcing the 2019-2020 season, urges.

If you are interested, check out the company's website.

Zadie Smith Has Some Explaining To Do

I'm a white male of a certain age -- in case you hadn't already figured that out.  So what would your reaction be if I said the following:

"The first time I was aware of Zadie Smith's existence was a few years ago. We had James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Earnest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. What did we need with a black writer?"

My guess is I would be viewed at best as being politically incorrect and at worst as an outright racist.

So what should one think when Zadie Smith, herself, says the following in "Feel Free," her collection of essays published in 2018:

"The first time I was aware of Debbie Harry's existence, I was in college.  We had Joan Armatrading and Aretha and Billie and Ella. What did we need with white women?"

A Good Project for Lin-Manuel Miranda

Whatever happened to Maria?

How did the remainder of her life play out after Tony, the young white man she wanted,  was shot dead by her fellow Puerto Rican-American Chino at the end of "West Side Story?"  Maria, readers will recall, got the gun after Chino dropped it and threatened to use it to kill both others and herself, but couldn't pull the trigger. So there she was, still alive when the final curtain came down.

Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" Remains Relevant

The on-line version of The Wall Street Journal recently posed a question for readers: should startup technology companies in the U.S. be open to financing by Chinese venture capital?

Those responding must follow WSJ civility guidelines and identify themselves.  The paper then publishes a few answers soon after a question has been posed.

Vulnerable Women and "What the Constitution Means to Me"

I was recently in New York and, among other things, saw a much-discussed play on Broadway entitled "What the Constitution Means to Me."

In truth, it is more of a one-woman monologue than a play, although at the end, there is a brief debate between Heidi Schreck, the author and chief actor, and one of two school-age girls as to whether the Constitution should be kept or scraped.  Audience participation -- cheers or boos for the various points made -- are encouraged at that part of the show.

I mention this because Schreck focuses mainly on the 9th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution, the latter of which in particular underpins the Supreme Court's decision that a person's right to privacy (unmentioned explicitly in the Constitution) allows a woman to get an abortion without government interference at least in the first trimester of her pregnancy.

This is a hot topic at the moment because various individual states have recently passed legislation would undermine or overrule that decision. Moreover, because of recent changes in the make-up of the Supreme Court, it is possible Row v Wade, the landmark ruling on abortion, will eventually be revisited.

"Daisy Miller," or "It's All About Me"

One can wonder, when reading classic fiction, how relevant a work is to contemporary life.

Henry James, an American author who lived and worked mostly abroad, wrote the novella "Daisy Miller" in 1877-78. Highly controversial in America, where many readers were scandalized by his description of the behavior in Europe of a young American girl coming of age, the story, more than anything he had previously written, put him on the literary map.