It has been a week since my last post. Sometimes life intrudes. Work, relatives visiting, birthday parties (Alex is 5!) and trips to the emergency room (having two sons will require lots of those) can keep you from doing other things.
Oh well, I am back!
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
Our Town
I watched Paul Newman's version of "Our Town" tonight. This has been one of my favorite plays. I remember as a child watching it on PBS staring Robbie Benson. In junior high school, I was in the hospital and the tutor assigned the play for me to read.
It is funny how a play sticks with you. All these years, it seems that the characters occasionally perform parts of the play inside my head. Why should this play more than others have that effect?
It is a strange play in many ways. Scenery is a bare minimum and there are hardly any props. The characters pretend to eat or string beans or throw baseballs. The Fourth Wall is constantly broken, and characters even shout out questions from the audience. In lesser hands, this play could have degenerated into farce, as so much of modern experimental theater often does.
And yet, the play is rightly considered a triumph of American drama.
By stripping the scenery and props, Wilder forces us to concentrate on the themes of the story. The story itself and the characters are quite ordinary. It is mentioned that one minor character, a newsboy, later graduates MIT with honors but dies in France during World War I. As for the rest of the characters, they are typical New England townsfolk. And the play begins with those typical townsfolk doing what typical townsfolk do. A doctor comes home from a house call. Mothers make breakfast for their families. The milkman goes about his deliveries. Nothing earth shaking, quite boring really.
But in many ways, that is the point. Life is really best lived by appreciating the little things, by taking time to occasionally stop and look at each other. Life, love, marriage, birth and death, gain and loss, all are parts of life to be treasured. Wilder was a Congregationalist, and while I do not know his real attitude toward religion, the play does try, in the words of the Stage Manager, to grasp the eternal.
You can argue that plays such as this are no longer relevant, but I would argue that Our Town is even more relevant today than when it was written. The world has sped up, do we ever really stop and take time to remember what is important, who is important. Does anyone stop and look, really look, at their spouses, children, friends, family? Shouldn't we?
When the movie ended, I walked into my children's room and looked at them as they were sleeping. Can I really appreciate this time with them? They grow up so fast, have I really noticed?
It is funny how a play sticks with you. All these years, it seems that the characters occasionally perform parts of the play inside my head. Why should this play more than others have that effect?
It is a strange play in many ways. Scenery is a bare minimum and there are hardly any props. The characters pretend to eat or string beans or throw baseballs. The Fourth Wall is constantly broken, and characters even shout out questions from the audience. In lesser hands, this play could have degenerated into farce, as so much of modern experimental theater often does.
And yet, the play is rightly considered a triumph of American drama.
By stripping the scenery and props, Wilder forces us to concentrate on the themes of the story. The story itself and the characters are quite ordinary. It is mentioned that one minor character, a newsboy, later graduates MIT with honors but dies in France during World War I. As for the rest of the characters, they are typical New England townsfolk. And the play begins with those typical townsfolk doing what typical townsfolk do. A doctor comes home from a house call. Mothers make breakfast for their families. The milkman goes about his deliveries. Nothing earth shaking, quite boring really.
But in many ways, that is the point. Life is really best lived by appreciating the little things, by taking time to occasionally stop and look at each other. Life, love, marriage, birth and death, gain and loss, all are parts of life to be treasured. Wilder was a Congregationalist, and while I do not know his real attitude toward religion, the play does try, in the words of the Stage Manager, to grasp the eternal.
You can argue that plays such as this are no longer relevant, but I would argue that Our Town is even more relevant today than when it was written. The world has sped up, do we ever really stop and take time to remember what is important, who is important. Does anyone stop and look, really look, at their spouses, children, friends, family? Shouldn't we?
When the movie ended, I walked into my children's room and looked at them as they were sleeping. Can I really appreciate this time with them? They grow up so fast, have I really noticed?
Monday, November 3, 2008
Sometimes Politics Takes a Back Seat
Madelyn Dunham, grandmother of Senator Obama and the person who raised him, has died. As I said previously, there are times when we all must remember that politics is not war, that the other party is not the enemy, that politics is not everything, and that we are all humans.
Ms. Dunham lived an amazing life, rising in banking, which was then very much a man's world. Not much was seen of her during the campaign, she obviously was not doing well. But she must have been very proud of her grandson. This must take some of the shine off his success the past few weeks.
I am not a supporter of Senator Obama, but I wish him and his family the best.
Ms. Dunham lived an amazing life, rising in banking, which was then very much a man's world. Not much was seen of her during the campaign, she obviously was not doing well. But she must have been very proud of her grandson. This must take some of the shine off his success the past few weeks.
I am not a supporter of Senator Obama, but I wish him and his family the best.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
P.J. O'Rourke on God, Evolution and Death
To the extent I have a favorite philosopher, it is PJ O’Rourke. I am not sure exactly what that says about me (it cannot be good), but I find him to be the modern Mencken, without the nastiness.
O’Rourke just found out he has cancer and while things look good, he deals with it in his usual way.
Read the whole thing. And get well soon PJ.
O’Rourke just found out he has cancer and while things look good, he deals with it in his usual way.
I looked death in the face. All right, I didn't. I glimpsed him in a crowd. I've been diagnosed with cancer, of a very treatable kind. I'm told I have a 95% chance of survival. Come to think of it -- as a drinking, smoking, saturated-fat hound -- my chance of survival has been improved by cancer.His biggest concern is that he has a malignant hemorrhoid and he is not sure what color bracelet to wear (or where to wear it). Along the way he muses about God, evolution, life, death, pain and meaning. While his theology and philosophy would probably fail freshman courses at Catholic universities, he is right on how death is a part of life. In O'Rourke's words:
Death is so important that God visited death upon his own son, thereby helping us learn right from wrong well enough that we may escape death forever and live eternally in God's grace. (Although this option is not usually open to reporters.)
Read the whole thing. And get well soon PJ.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Sometimes Politics Takes a Back Seat
Senator Ted Kennedy has brain cancer. There are times when we all must remember that politics is not war, that the other party is not the enemy, that politics is not everything, and that we are all humans.
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