Let the boys be boys
Could we please have a moratorium on the media’s use of the word “slam” to represent one politician’s criticism of another? Stop trying to make it exciting. It’s not.
—10/21/08
Ed Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
On Saturday, Karen and I went to see my good cousin Ed (of the Ed Zone) in his first dramatic appearance since the renowned Rockland High production of Annie nigh on twenty years ago. This time he played asylum orderly “Aide Warren” in the Gateway Players’ production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Ed seemed natural in the role of the sadistic, brutal Warren, which makes me wonder what life is like for the employees he manages at his job, but whatever. Dressed smartly in a white shirt with a black bow tie and sporting his clean-shaven head, Ed’s Warren looked like a 1950s gas station attendant–from hell.
As for the play itself–I’ve managed to get through twenty-nine years of life and a first-class education without ever having read the book or seen the film, but I thoroughly enjoyed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. While ostensibly an indictment of 1950s mental disorder treatment, its significance has become less pragmatic and more symbolic as time goes on. I found myself making comparisons to Sartre’s No Exit. (You can read an official review here.)
There’s still another weekend of performances to go, but tickets are sold out, so if you don’t already have one, you’re out of luck. But if you’re going, prepare to enjoy an enlightening evening watching one of the classics of American drama–or a bald guy gleefully beating on mental patients, if that’s your thing.
—10/21/08
No comment
I’ve participated in online communities ever since the days of Prodigy’s bulletin boards back in the early 1990s. I still remember my first–and only–flame war: it was with a guy named Den Elms over how realistic the effects in Jurassic Park looked. I also remember another poster chiding me for the anti-Elms posts I was writing, saying I didn’t need to “build a temple of hate” to the guy. I took that criticism to heart,* and ever since I have stayed away from flame wars and arguing on the Internet–which is, of course, the best modern analogue for the myth of Sisyphus.
But by the early 2000s, the Internet had become all about the user. And so the sort of close-minded, competition-based arguing that had once been done primarily about the supremacy of one sports team over another or whether or not Balrogs have wings is now found beneath news articles, editorials, and anything else on the Web. (more…)
—10/20/08