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?
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Monday, November 17, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Books to Read Before I Die
There are lots of great books out there and so little time. There are so many books and authors I want to read but just never get around to.
I was thinking about this the other day when the Nobel Literature Prize winner was announced. I was looking through the list of previous winners and noticed that there were very few I had read, though to be frank, none of the recent winners are people I want to read. And I was thinking, which of the current writers I read have a chance at a Nobel? Nick Hornby MAYBE in 20 years or so, but I doubt it.
Then there is Mario Vargas Llosa. I doubt he will win as he is (i) a Latin American and the Nobel committee is biased in favor of Europeans and (ii) he is a right of center person and an unapologetic supporter of liberal democracy, the Nobel committee choices there days skew far to the left. In any event, while I have read lots of his essays over the years, I have read only one of his books "The Feast of the Goat." I did buy two of his books however in case he gets chosen over the next few years.
So, leaving aside the question of whether you have library privileges in the afterlife, I decided to make a list of those books I want to read before I die. In no particular order:
1. The Gulag Archipelago. All people with pretensions of being an intellectual need to be cured of the totalitarian temptation that seems to effect that class. (Am I an intellectual? Good question, I have pretensions of being one)
2. The Diary of a Young Girl. This seems to be such an important book for our time.
3. Two more Charles Dickens books. I have read a Tale of Two Cities and played Scrooge in Fifth Grade. I just need to figure out which ones to read.
4. An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. I believe that all university trained English speaking Catholics can never read too much Newman.
5. The Summa Theologica. This book is so central to the Catholic faith, it is incredible I have never read more than the snippets required in my college theology classes.
6. More of the classical historians.
7. Something by Voltaire (other than Candide, which I have read). Though I am not sure what the Church's position on that could be.
8. The Discovery of Freedom. An obscure text these days to be sure, but one of the foundation documents of American libertarianism.
9. Tender is the Night. The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books, so I should read more Fitzgerald.
10. Churchill's histories of World War I and II. I have read quite a few of Churchill's books. Churchill was a great writer -- despite his aristocratic background he was not that wealthy and lived mostly a hand to mouth existence until the 1950s. He survived on his books and lectures, so they had to be good. Granted, some of his books, like "The Malakand Field Force," have no interest to us today except as historical curiosities. But others, such as "My Early Life," should rank as great monuments to historical literature. Given the centrality of the two World Wars both to Western society and to Churchill himself, I think I should read his works on the conflicts.
11. Orwell's pre-WWII works. I have read "Animal Farm" and "1984" of course, along with some of his WWII era essays. Orwell should be considered one of the finest writers in English history. But he has such a wide variety of literature that I think if you read only 1984 you miss out. He is as relevant today as he was when he wrote. His essay, "Notes on Nationalism" could have been written yesterday.
12. Sword of Honor and Brideshead, Revisited. Waugh was very English, very aristocratic and very Catholic. He lamented a world he saw as in decline, the old virtues misplaced in a new world of common culture and industrialized warfare.
13. The Skin of Our Teeth. I read "Our Town" as a I teenager, stuck in the hospital after a hip operation. I still carry its message -- life is really best lived by appreciating the little things. As "The Skin of Our Teeth" is considered Wilder's second best work, that makes my list.
Well, the list does not include the two Vargas novels I bought, so once I finish those, I plan on working on the rest of my list.
I was thinking about this the other day when the Nobel Literature Prize winner was announced. I was looking through the list of previous winners and noticed that there were very few I had read, though to be frank, none of the recent winners are people I want to read. And I was thinking, which of the current writers I read have a chance at a Nobel? Nick Hornby MAYBE in 20 years or so, but I doubt it.
Then there is Mario Vargas Llosa. I doubt he will win as he is (i) a Latin American and the Nobel committee is biased in favor of Europeans and (ii) he is a right of center person and an unapologetic supporter of liberal democracy, the Nobel committee choices there days skew far to the left. In any event, while I have read lots of his essays over the years, I have read only one of his books "The Feast of the Goat." I did buy two of his books however in case he gets chosen over the next few years.
So, leaving aside the question of whether you have library privileges in the afterlife, I decided to make a list of those books I want to read before I die. In no particular order:
1. The Gulag Archipelago. All people with pretensions of being an intellectual need to be cured of the totalitarian temptation that seems to effect that class. (Am I an intellectual? Good question, I have pretensions of being one)
2. The Diary of a Young Girl. This seems to be such an important book for our time.
3. Two more Charles Dickens books. I have read a Tale of Two Cities and played Scrooge in Fifth Grade. I just need to figure out which ones to read.
4. An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. I believe that all university trained English speaking Catholics can never read too much Newman.
5. The Summa Theologica. This book is so central to the Catholic faith, it is incredible I have never read more than the snippets required in my college theology classes.
6. More of the classical historians.
7. Something by Voltaire (other than Candide, which I have read). Though I am not sure what the Church's position on that could be.
8. The Discovery of Freedom. An obscure text these days to be sure, but one of the foundation documents of American libertarianism.
9. Tender is the Night. The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite books, so I should read more Fitzgerald.
10. Churchill's histories of World War I and II. I have read quite a few of Churchill's books. Churchill was a great writer -- despite his aristocratic background he was not that wealthy and lived mostly a hand to mouth existence until the 1950s. He survived on his books and lectures, so they had to be good. Granted, some of his books, like "The Malakand Field Force," have no interest to us today except as historical curiosities. But others, such as "My Early Life," should rank as great monuments to historical literature. Given the centrality of the two World Wars both to Western society and to Churchill himself, I think I should read his works on the conflicts.
11. Orwell's pre-WWII works. I have read "Animal Farm" and "1984" of course, along with some of his WWII era essays. Orwell should be considered one of the finest writers in English history. But he has such a wide variety of literature that I think if you read only 1984 you miss out. He is as relevant today as he was when he wrote. His essay, "Notes on Nationalism" could have been written yesterday.
12. Sword of Honor and Brideshead, Revisited. Waugh was very English, very aristocratic and very Catholic. He lamented a world he saw as in decline, the old virtues misplaced in a new world of common culture and industrialized warfare.
13. The Skin of Our Teeth. I read "Our Town" as a I teenager, stuck in the hospital after a hip operation. I still carry its message -- life is really best lived by appreciating the little things. As "The Skin of Our Teeth" is considered Wilder's second best work, that makes my list.
Well, the list does not include the two Vargas novels I bought, so once I finish those, I plan on working on the rest of my list.
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.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The Crucifixion and MultiverseTheory
Having moved to Brooklyn, I now need to find a new church. And Brooklyn being the "Borough of Churches" I have plenty of choices -- there must be 6 Catholic churches within walking distance of our new apartment.
So I choose Saint Saviour, I will admit, mostly because the Mass was most convenient to when I woke up.
The Homily was about the Crucifixion and the importance of it to Catholic belief. Yet, it also has been very sanitized. The crucifix we see at home or in church is nice and clean, it cannot convey the horror and suffering Jesus endured.
But one thing the priest said was quite interesting. It was not important to the homily, to be sure, but raised my interest. Namely, if multiverse theory is correct, would the Crucifixion be the one common event in all multiverses.
In a nutshell, multiverse theory is that there exist an infinite number of alternative universes. In each, history takes a slightly different turn. For example, in one universe, the US Navy may have received the "war warning" in time to win the battle of Pearl Harbor. In another, you did not stub your toe on the bedpost this morning.
The homilist wondered if in each multiverse, the crucifixion would have been the one common event. He used the term "Omega Point" which I think was somewhat unfortunate. The term has something of a loaded meaning, under a very controversial theory of Catholic theology as the point to which all human consciousness is evolving.
Questions of terminology aside, it does make for an interesting thought experiment. I will admit that I always though a bit differently, that I could imagine a multiverse under which humanity accepted Christ's mission, making the Crucifixion unnecessary. But when you think about that, would you still have Christianity. For as the homilist today noted, without Good Friday, you cannot have Easter Sunday.
So I choose Saint Saviour, I will admit, mostly because the Mass was most convenient to when I woke up.
The Homily was about the Crucifixion and the importance of it to Catholic belief. Yet, it also has been very sanitized. The crucifix we see at home or in church is nice and clean, it cannot convey the horror and suffering Jesus endured.
But one thing the priest said was quite interesting. It was not important to the homily, to be sure, but raised my interest. Namely, if multiverse theory is correct, would the Crucifixion be the one common event in all multiverses.
In a nutshell, multiverse theory is that there exist an infinite number of alternative universes. In each, history takes a slightly different turn. For example, in one universe, the US Navy may have received the "war warning" in time to win the battle of Pearl Harbor. In another, you did not stub your toe on the bedpost this morning.
The homilist wondered if in each multiverse, the crucifixion would have been the one common event. He used the term "Omega Point" which I think was somewhat unfortunate. The term has something of a loaded meaning, under a very controversial theory of Catholic theology as the point to which all human consciousness is evolving.
Questions of terminology aside, it does make for an interesting thought experiment. I will admit that I always though a bit differently, that I could imagine a multiverse under which humanity accepted Christ's mission, making the Crucifixion unnecessary. But when you think about that, would you still have Christianity. For as the homilist today noted, without Good Friday, you cannot have Easter Sunday.
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