Cracker Squire (Free subscription) | 16/11/2009
David Brooks writes in The New York Times : Some days the Republican Party seems to be going crazy. Its public image is often shaped by people who appear to have gone into government because they saw it as a steppingstone to talk radio. But deep in the bowels of the G.O.P., there are serious people having quiet conversations. The people holding these conversations created and admired Bob McDonnell’s...
Hog House Blog (Free subscription) | 16/11/2009
… or at least the GOP nomination. By Denise Ross The John Thune in 2012 movement has officially begun. In case there was any doubt before, New York Times columnist David Brooks (a personal fave here at the Hoghouse) essentially sanctioned Thune as the GOP’s Obama in a Friday column. (D)eep in the bowels of the G.O.P., there [...]
Seattle Weekly (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
Satori Group's sharp new production of Ashlin Halfnight's Artifacts of Consequence is like the Coen brothers meets Woody Allen's Sleeper. It's also a sweet, bizarre mash-up of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Thornton Wilder, and Huey Lewis and the News. With litt...
Why? What Have You Heard? (Free subscription) | 29/10/2009
"The women and girls who live this story do not want to be seen. They tell their stories in dim light, in rooms with tightly closed doors; they glance at windows to be sure there is no opening. They do not want to remember. They do not want to speak. No matter. What is not spoken is still heard. " -- Speaking Without Tongues" Follow this link to see the slideshow at full size . Our Town....
The Shiny Headed Prophet (Free subscription) | 26/10/2009
A friend at work lent me a book recently called The Bridge of San Luis Rey . It's a short book (127 pages) written by Thornton Wilder in 1927 and I have read it in more or less one sitting (bar eucharist and evensong) yesterday. It's an amazing little book and the synopsis on the back cover tells you all you need to know before you read: 'An ancient bridge collapses over a gorge in Peru, hurling five...
A Bookworm's Diary (Free subscription) | 23/10/2009
Children are our most precious gift. They're limitless possibility personified. And as adults it's our duty to bring out their natural talents and gifts. Here are some tips to do this, from Rafe... {{ Read More }}
Critic-O-Meter (Free subscription) | 21/10/2009
GRADE: D By Thornton Wilder. Directed by Carl Forsman and Jonathan Silverstein. The Clurman at Theatre Row. Through November 14. Only Talkin' Broadway 's Matthew Murray and Variety 's Sam Thielman seem to have much affection for Thornton Wilder's one-acts and playlets that make up Such Things Only Happen in Books . The other critics think that this is scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of Wilder's...
Eat, Sleep & Read! (Free subscription) | 18/10/2009
Synopsis The evening of shorts includes Such Things Only Happen in Books , in which a domestic life is slowly unwrapped to reveal the complexities at the heart of all families; Cement Hands , about an uncle who attempts to explain to his niece the precariousness of marrying a tight-fisted young fellow; and The Angel That Troubled the Waters , which shows the healer's pain, and how his suffering makes...
Bread and circuses (Free subscription) | 18/10/2009
A fair amount this weekend on Lustrum, the new book from Robert Harris: the fictionalised biography of Cicero. Charlotte Higgins is reliable and even handed in the Guardian; Matthew Bell is solid in the Independent; but Jane Shilling at the...
The Huffington Post (Free subscription) | 13/10/2009
When you are a hoarder of books, you know that a day will come when your books will prompt an identity crisis, or a crisis of faith; a crisis of space, or at the very least a dust allergy.
"Let's Not Talk About Movies" (Free subscription) | 11/10/2009
The Story: Thornton Wilder could be pretty dark. Anyone who's seen his stage-plays will tell you that. Which is why his 1943 collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock was a match made in....well, I'm not sure where it was made, but it can't be anywhere pretty, that's for sure. The story of a mentally cracked serial killer who decides to take a cooling-off sabbatical with his Sister's family is a weird tale...
Hair Balls (Free subscription) | 08/10/2009
For part of last night's performance of Thornton Wilder's Our Town at the Alley Theatre, audience members were paying more attention to a row of center seats a few rows up from the stage. Actress...
The Playgoer (Free subscription) | 06/10/2009
Or, at least, our "most produced" plays announced in the current 2009-2010 season at professional nonprofit theatres across the country--according to American Theatre Magazine . boom (9)* by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb The Seafarer (8)by Conor McPherson Speech & Debate (8)by Stephen Karam Dead Man's Cell Phone (8)by Sarah Ruhl The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (7)by Rachel Sheinkin...
Alterdestiny (Free subscription) | 03/10/2009
James Vega has a provocative and I believe solid piece about the racialism of the teabagging rallies . After carefully examining just what sorts of images of Obama appeared on signs at the rallies, Vega notes that relatively few contained the traditional iconography of anti-black racism. Rather, they remind him more of the late 19th century "yellow peril" anti-Asian freakout. The “yellow...
Culture Monster (Free subscription) | 02/10/2009
Thornton Wilder, notable for winning Pulitzers for a novel and two plays, was a theatrical experimenter whose most arguably conventional work is “The Matchmaker,” a sweetly rendered Valentine to 1890s New York. Of course, Wilder’s gentle comedy about the inimitable...
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