Tag: drama
-
Showboating for the Prez
This is where I was week before last: With a black hood covering my head, all I could see outside was blurry and dark. The outside couldn’t see in. After an hour of standing still, my muscles began to ache terribly. The cardboard sign I carried felt like a slab of concrete. Sounds blended and…
-
A Civilized Conversation about Militarism
“As a nation we’re waking up from a national drunk,” said Washington Post military correspondent Thomas Ricks at CUNY Graduate Center tonight. Together with the SSRC’s Alex de Waal and retired General Barry McCaffrey, he spoke on “Military Power”—inevitably, the holy trinity of the last decade’s foreign policy disasters: Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur. Early in the…
-
What Would Darwin Do?
Happy Darwin Day! If you didn’t already fall victim to all the fuss, today is both the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of the origin of species. It’s even Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. (And my friend Jake Rosenberg’s birthday too!) To celebrate, I have essay in today’s Religion…
-
What You Mess with When You Mess with Star Trek
The following is cross-posted at Marc Andreottola’s excellent new moving pictures blog, CINEMA IS YOUR SYMPTOM. Keep an eye on that one, believe me. The trailer for the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie came out last week. My RSS feed lit up, as they say, like a Christmas tree. No fewer than three Facebook…
-
Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Last night, Dr. Atomic closed at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and I saw it from standing room. I have already written about a slow opera with big hopes, Philip Glass’s Satyagraha—this is another. What is it about these new operas, which have to turn every historical event into a funeral march? In John Adams’s presentation…
-
Critics, Critique, and LAWMAKERS
I’d like to invite you, if you’ll be in New York this weekend, to see the final performance of WE ARE THE LAWMAKERS, a daring play of political chaos directed by my dear friend, Marc Andreottola. It is part of this year’s New York International Film Festival and will be playing Saturday, August 23 at…