All posts by drJ

A few snapshots from Amsterdam-Bruges-Paris

When I’m not worrying about the state of the world we live in, there’s a lot to appreciate…

Democracy at the crossroads

Perhaps it’s just always been true that democracy in a very fragile thing. All too easy to be turned into something very undemocratic, into oligarchy and autocracy.

I always remember what I read in college by a Frenchman (de Tocqueville) who visited in the early days of an independent United States. He worried about the American experiment in democracy: An electoral majority could trample everyone else’s lives if it chose. Democracy could an autocracy that could do what it wants, hampered only by fighting within itself, oblivious to the populace as a whole. This would be the diametric opposite of the democracy core principle: everyone has an equal say in what is to happen and it’s corollary: everyone’s needs and beliefs are equal.

I believe we are at this crossroads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Added Essay on Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch

For the past two months, I’ve been putting together an essay on the Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch.  The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and was also chosen by the New York Times as one the best books of the year. This is the first time I’ve chosen to devote my writing energies to the task of unraveling issues raised by a work of fiction, so certainly I was strongly affected by it.

If you outright loved the work, you may be disconcerted by my questioning a key psychological and philosophical underpinning of the novel. If you haven’t read the book,  I hope you’ll find enough description of it to be engaged by the argument I raise here.

If you’re a student of contemporary literature or psychology, I hope you’ll find the discussion useful, though of course you would be well advised not to cut and paste.

Yellow Bird – Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch

 

 

 

For the Legalization of Marijuana

There is no reason why anyone should be considered a criminal for the simple fact of possession. Production and distribution should be made straightforward, without being made commercial, big business. This is the really challenging part.

The big question everyone asks but no one can truly answer is whether more teens will smoke pot once it is legalized.  There’s more than a little doubt that illegality is what stops teens from smoking it,  For many teens, the forbidden is what allures,  I agree that pot is not what teenagers need.  The teen years are tumultuous enough that adding pot into the mix can wreck havoc.

But putting people in threat of being arrested isn’t the solution. Prohibition of marijuana has not resolved this any better than the prohibition of alcohol helped a century ago.

It’s time for more reasonable approaches to emerge and legalization is the right direction.

A teaser Part 2 of the Other Box story  Ignatz leads Philip

Ignatz leads Philip

Philip had decided to trust Ignatz, though he could not precisely say why. Just at the moment he’d had the thought, Philip and Ignatz came into the light and Philip was dazzled by what he saw. From the utter blackest of darkest night or outer space to dazzling brightness as though inside of an opal in late afternoon sun.

Late afternoon, yes, he thought, late afternoon. How had he managed to go so far in his life with no enduring attachment to anything? How? He blamed it on his early life in am unending series of traffic jams. Trapped. And too much of his life had been absorbed getting out of that traffic jam and into a life of his own.

All that in a moment as his eyes gazed on this dazzling brightness.

He was blind because he now could see everything, far, far more than he had ever seen. But so fleetingly. So fleetingly. It was as though he were inside the opal and all the light was radiating through him.

“Stand back,” Ignatz said. “Don’t come closer to the light.”

 

more to come soon, full book target is March 2016

On working on new production of Dracula

Added an article today on the process of thinking through how to create an entirely new production of Dracula. So many interesting themes (morality and sexuality, religion vs. science, life and death) as well as serious acting challenges. If you’re curious about how an actor in a project of bringing Dracula to the stage in a very different way than it’s been presented in the multitude of cheesy productions that exist, take a look.

New recommended NYT Crossword puzzle & BEQ puzzles; update on Other Box; Exciting fall season coming to Hooker-Dunham

A while back I started going through the NYT crossword puzzle archive looking for particularly good ones. It’s taken a while to come across one that meets the criteria I set in the article, but working my way backwards from the earliest ones you can get from the archive, the one from Saturday, March 19, 1994 is a good one. I hadn’t looked who the author was until I was more than halfway done and beginning to think this was a really good one and, sure enough, it was written by Manny Nosowsky, my all time favorite constructor. Very little crossword-ese, few gimmes and many words that can be figured out once you get a couple letters, and some nice well known expressions that aren’t overly well-known to crossword solvers.  Several clues I really was curious to find out what the answer would turn out to be, like “Bryophytic” (My Mac doesn’t even think that’s a real word!). Anyway, if you’re looking for a challenging puzzle worth trying and have a NY Times puzzle subscription, I highly recommend it. (btw: Today’s (Saturday, Aug. 22) NYT Crossword puzzle Barry Silk’s puzzle is a good one with lots of interesting phrases. Silk is also one of the all time best puzzle creators.

UPDATE: I am also a huge fan of Brendan Emmet Quigley’s puzzle site: www.brendanemmettquigley.com.  His puzzle for Monday, Aug. 24 is a wonderful tribute to one of the greatest puzzle creators (no, not Nosowsky this time) and very aptly titled. There’s no cost or even log in required for the site, though donations are accepted.

 

Meanwhile: I’m almost done with The Other Box where that takes up where the short story left off. It’s turning into at least a novella and possibly a full-length book. I’m setting April 1, 2o16 as a deadline for myself for completing the book and publishing it here.

Tons of events happening at the Hooker-Dunham starting on Labor Day and continuing at least into November.  There are also two exciting theater projects in the works for this coming spring, so keep an eye on the site to see what’s happening at the theater.  Some really cool stuff, including a very exciting (and scary!) production of Dracula (last two weeks in October) that’s certain to be unique and entertaining! I’ve started writing ideas about what makes Dracula an enduring fascination and will be publishing blog entries on it in the next few days.