[{"id":71175,"date":"2026-09-15T19:20:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/?p=71175"},"modified":"2026-09-15T19:20:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T00:20:57","slug":"the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"The Revolution Will Be Televised as a Baseball Game in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before he became the celebrated columnist who chronicled the tumult of the 1960s through the lens of a working-class New Yorker, Jimmy Breslin was a sportswriter. While reporting for the <em>New York <\/em>Journal-American and later freelancing for magazines, his milieu was stinky stables and sweaty locker rooms, populated by weather-beaten horse trainers and weaselly bookies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1962 Breslin turned to the New York Mets. \u201cWorst Baseball Team Ever,\u201d proclaimed the title of his piece in <em>Sports Illustrated<\/em>. That inaugural season, the new expansion franchise went 40-120, a record-shattering mark of futility. Yet the Mets were stocked with delights: the bumbling first baseman \u201cMarvelous\u201d Marv Throneberry, the ancient and hilarious manager Casey Stengel, the fans who screamed \u201cLet\u2019s Go!\u201d in the ninth inning of yet another blowout loss. When Breslin titled his short, jaunty book about these Mets, he borrowed an alleged quote from Stengel: <em>Can\u2019t Anybody Here Play This Game?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Breslin\u2019s book opens with the scene of a construction worker helping to build Shea Stadium, balancing on a 500-foot-high beam. As it continues, it drips with bitterness at baseball\u2019s oligarchs, who manufactured the exodus of the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. And yet it smiles upon the lovable losers\u2014not just the Mets, but also the fans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis is a team for the cab driver who gets held up and the guy who loses out on a promotion because he didn\u2019t maneuver himself to lunch with the boss enough,\u201d he writes. \u201cIt is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. And it is the team for every woman who looks up ten years later and sees her husband eating dinner in a T-shirt and wonders how the hell she ever let this guy talk her into getting married.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The New York Mets, insisted Jimmy Breslin, were the team of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022  \u2022  \u2022 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A.M. Gittlitz carries this idea into new waters. His book, <em>Metropolitans<\/em>, tells an alternative history of the New York Mets, through the lens of class struggle. Extensive and educational, entertaining and exasperating, it employs the team as a vehicle of left-wing politics, while prodding at the cultural conservatism associated with the national pastime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gittlitz realizes that he is challenging the traditional leftist critique of sports as a mass spectacle that dulls the revolutionary impulse. He admits, moreover, that \u201cthe people\u201d are not the same as \u201cthe left\u201d: A history of American populism has to account not only for William Jennings Bryan and Huey Long, but also George Wallace and Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>A poll in 2020 found that the Mets had the highest percentage of fans who identified as Democrat (42 percent) and the second-lowest as Republican (28 percent).<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet Gittlitz invests this endeavor with personal meaning. As a teenager in the New York suburbs during the heyday of Derek Jeter\u2019s Yankees, his Mike Piazza jersey not only elicited jeers of \u201cMets suck!\u201d, but also marked him among \u201cthe mall-goths, weebs, juggalos, and <em>Magic: The Gathering<\/em> players in black Hot Topic tees sporting nu-metal album covers or non-sequitur rebellious slogans like <em>Normal people scare me.<\/em>\u201d His fandom withered as he became a Brooklyn-based anarchopunk organizer in the Occupy movement. Yet by the Mets\u2019 thrilling pennant run in 2015, he found himself peering through bar windows, checking the score before hopping back on his bike to deliver fried chicken around Williamsburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In <em>Metropolitans<\/em>, Gittlitz casts the Mets as the counterpoint to the leviathan Yankees, as well as the jester in baseball\u2019s staid court. In the 1960s, Shea Stadium lent a home to countercultural fandom, while hosting baseball\u2019s versions of civil rights and anti-war protests. Even in the twenty-first century, when the franchise is owned by billionaires with dubious ethics, strands of that ethic survive. A poll in 2020 found that the Mets had the highest percentage of fans who identified as Democrat (42 percent) and the second-lowest as Republican (28 percent).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Gittlitz gives the Mets his renewed devotion, he seeks to reframe the history of a sport steeped in tradition. \u201cI am a writer and a Mets fan,\u201d he states, \u201cand this book\u2019s task has been to rewire readers\u2019 brains to enjoy baseball in a more radical way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022  \u2022  \u2022 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Metropolitans <\/em>is divided into three sections. The first predates the Mets, reaching back to the nineteenth century. It tells the history of New York baseball as an allegory of class conflict. The original \u201cMets,\u201d in fact, were the Metropolitan Club, formed in 1880 by John Day, an agent of the Democratic political machine Tammany Hall, and John Mutrie, a populist \u201cdude\u201d who fancied a \u201cpeople\u2019s team\u201d that catered to the working class with cheap tickets and Sunday games. Yet the short-lived squad\u2019s best players moved to the Gothams, who played in the more stable, respectable National League. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>Gittlitz\u2019s evidence can appear selective, with his analysis serving his political ends. Babe Ruth had common-man appeal, for sure, but he was also a capitalist phenomenon, with a populist heroism fashioned by ghostwriters. His booming celebrity served to mass-market consumer goods from breakfast cereal to chewing gum.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Gittlitz\u2019s eyes, this class dynamic infused baseball from its origins. The early player-run teams contained a \u201chipster exuberance,\u201d but succumbed to the money-driven professional game. The Brooklyn Dodgers of the early twentieth century illustrated \u201can American dream of classless community, where labor was play, and the highest value produced was collective pride.\u201d Most notably, he casts Babe Ruth as a working-class hero, living the dreams of the common man while flouting bourgeois propriety. \u201cWhile America would never have a political Lenin,\u201d he writes, \u201cRuth served as his athletic equivalent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A touch overheated, no? Gittlitz\u2019s evidence can appear selective, with his analysis serving his political ends. Babe Ruth had common-man appeal, for sure, but he was also a capitalist phenomenon, with a populist heroism fashioned by ghostwriters. His booming celebrity served to mass-market consumer goods from breakfast cereal to chewing gum. Gittlitz\u2019s avowedly radical approach melts away some of that historical complexity. It runs the risk of substituting one myth for another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Metropolitans<\/em> nevertheless sharpens a focus on the class and cultural tensions that animated baseball\u2019s rise as the nation\u2019s pre-eminent spectator sport. Take the \u201cBums\u201d who cheered for the Brooklyn Dodgers, with their underdog resentments of the dynastic Yankees, their embrace of pioneering Black superstars such as Jackie Robinson, and their anguish at the franchise\u2019s 1957 departure for Los Angeles. In those dark days before the exodus, one activist group proposed a boycott until fans could purchase the team. Their pamphlet proclaimed: \u201cDodgers Fans of the World, Unite!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The endeavor failed, of course. New York City needed a new team of the people. Five years later, it arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center alignwide wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022  \u2022  \u2022 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gittlitz calls the second section a \u201cspiritual fan history.\u201d It spans the Mets experience from the inception of the major league franchise through the sloppy aftermath of its World Series triumph in 1986. Borrowing from Carl Jung, he considers its players, writers, and fans as \u201ctortured heroes eternally journeying in the Yankees\u2019 kingly shadow,\u201d playing \u201cthe iconoclastic trickster profaning baseball traditionalism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They called themselves \u201cthe New Breed,\u201d a type of sports counterculture, with irreverent dismissals of baseball\u2019s conventions. The uniforms and \u201cMr. Met\u201d had pop art vibes. The cast-offs on the roster somehow became folk heroes. The wobbly ramblings of manager Casey Stengel weaved nonsense into poetry. The crowds\u2014old Giants and Dodgers fans, new hipsters, happy kids, angry drunks\u2014took an ironic delight in the team\u2019s terribleness. Young sportswriters mined them all for stories. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Robert Moses\u2019s massive, multi-purpose, brutalist Shea Stadium accommodated the political turmoil of the Sixties, starting with CORE protests during the 1964 World\u2019s Fair. Baseball enthusiasts had long lauded the ballpark as an oasis from social troubles, but in the late 1960s, the Mets voted to postpone a game after Robert F. Kennedy\u2019s assassination, and Tom Seaver offered an anti-war public statement in conjunction with the 1969 Moratorium Day demonstrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMuch of the New Breed had become the New Left,\u201d writes Gittlitz. In his telling, the team and its followers had coalesced around a rebellious ethic, imagining a more peaceful and equal society. This vision achieved its highest expression with the Mets\u2019 improbable triumph in the 1969 World Series. In radically spiritual circles, \u201cthe Tet Offensive, Woodstock, Stonewall, and the Miracle Mets provided equal confirmatory signs of this coming messianic Age of Aquarius, in which <em>the last shall be first<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Again, it can seem like a bit much. The average Mets fan was celebrating an incredible evolution from worst to first, not envisaging a society free from capitalist, imperialist, and racist oppression. Yet Gittlitz possesses an undeniable talent for weaving the Mets story into the fabric of an urban narrative. He centers the experience of fans who read larger meanings into a team that, at times, popped out from behind the Yankees\u2019 shadow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As Gittlitz paints it, the plight of a struggling, crime-stricken \u201cFear City,\u201d marked by the flight of White residents and working-class jobs, was mirrored in the struggles of the Mets during the 1970s. In the Yuppified 1980s, as wealthy investors boosted the franchise, a democratic sensation again filled Shea Stadium, with fans inventing custom chants, unfurling banners, and fashioning <em>K\u2019s<\/em> out of tape to record strikeouts. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>The average Mets fan was celebrating an incredible evolution from worst to first, not envisaging a society free from capitalist, imperialist, and racist oppression. Yet Gittlitz possesses an undeniable talent for weaving the Mets story into the fabric of an urban narrative.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Metropolitans <\/em>posits the mid-1980s Mets as the reincarnation of the people\u2019s team, pulling together \u201ctwo seemingly contradictory elements of the countercultural working class\u2014the \u201creal\u201d New Yorkers who had survived the arsonous decay and depopulation of the seventies, and white flight\u2019s returning children.\u201d They rallied around an extraordinary, combustible team of fast-living, ill-fated stars including Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gittlitz describes not only the Mets\u2019 exciting World Series comeback victory in 1986, but also the messy aftermath. The Mets, in time, scrubbed the roster of players with chaotic and self-destructive behavior. By 1991, when the team fell to fifth place, the old populist spirit was dissolving away. The modern, corporate age of global capitalism chiseled at Gittlitz\u2019s faith. It was getting harder to believe in a working-class revolution, and it was getting harder to be a Mets fan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022  \u2022  \u2022 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:25px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The final section of <em>Metropolitans<\/em> is the most personal. Gittlitz has attached himself to a team prone to late-season collapses and playoff disappointments. Meanwhile, a host of social justice movements have collapsed, while American politics got darker. He cannot help seeing the parallels: \u201cWe cling to a franchise that we know is likely doomed, racing toward defeat again and again in hopes for an October revolution that may never arrive.\u201d &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From Gittlitz\u2019s perspective, the Mets represent the excesses of capitalism run amok. One owner, Fred Wilpon, was among the biggest investors in Bernie Madoff\u2019s Ponzi scheme, which crumbled the team\u2019s fortunes in the early 2010s. The latest owner, Steve Cohen, is dogged by accusations of massive financial improprieties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And yet, Gittlitz nevertheless conjures portents of democratic hope. The Mets lost the 2000 \u201cSubway Series\u201d to the Yankees, but in comparison to his bat-tossing troglodyte nemesis Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza could only be the people\u2019s hero. In ensuing years, Latino stars such as Pedro Martinez and Carlos Delgado drove the team\u2019s revival. In 2012, the introspective knuckleballer R.A. Dickey overcame a past of abuse and poverty to win the Cy Young Award. Gittlitz attributes the team\u2019s march to 101 wins in the 2022 season to a \u201cmilitant confidence\u201d powered by a \u201cspirit of solidarity\u201d in the wake of a successful push by the Players Association to unionize minor leaguers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These efforts to interpret a baseball team through the lens of class struggle are strained. And yet, they are charming. The epilogue of <em>Metropolitans<\/em> is a diary of the 2024 season, centering upon a subversive, hipster fan culture, best evidenced by the appropriation of the McDonald\u2019s mascot Grimace into a combination good-luck charm and folk idol. This diary lacks the specificity and sharpness of Gittlitz\u2019s better writing, and it could have been cut. It nevertheless reinforces a key thread in the book. If the team\u2019s twenty-first-century owners have shrouded the legacy of the New Breed, the spirit survives in these irreverent, democratic expressions. Like any good radical, Gittlitz sees power in the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a id=\"_msocom_1\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A.M. Gittlitz\u2019s \u201cMetropolitans\u201d tells an alternative history of the New York Mets through the lens of class struggle. Extensive and educational, entertaining and exasperating, it employs the team as a vehicle of left-wing politics, while prodding at the cultural conservatism associated with the national pastime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":71181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11665],"tags":[],"toc":[4],"class_list":["post-71175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-letters","toc-reviews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Revolution Will Be Televised as a Baseball Game in New York - Common Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A.M. Gittlitz\u2019s \u201cMetropolitans,\u201d tells an alternative history of the New York Mets through the lens of class struggle. Extensive and educational, entertaining and exasperating, it employs the team as a vehicle of left-wing politics, while prodding at the cultural conservatism associated with the national pastime.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Revolution Will Be Televised as a Baseball Game in New York - Common Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A.M. Gittlitz\u2019s \u201cMetropolitans,\u201d tells an alternative history of the New York Mets through the lens of class struggle. Extensive and educational, entertaining and exasperating, it employs the team as a vehicle of left-wing politics, while prodding at the cultural conservatism associated with the national pastime.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheCommonReader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-16T00:20:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-16T00:20:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/app\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Metropolitans.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@TCRWUSTL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@TCRWUSTL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ben\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ben\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f11dca72d5c3ab94094cbafc8e1aa0a9\"},\"headline\":\"The Revolution Will Be Televised as a Baseball Game in New York\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-16T00:20:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-16T00:20:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":2105,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/Metropolitans.jpeg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Arts &amp; Letters\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Revolution Will Be Televised as a Baseball Game in New York - Common Reader\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-revolution-will-be-televised-as-a-baseball-game-in-new-york\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/Metropolitans.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-16T00:20:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-16T00:20:57+00:00\",\"description\":\"A.M. Gittlitz\u2019s \u201cMetropolitans,\u201d tells an alternative history of the New York Mets through the lens of class struggle. 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Flying high<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the pantheon of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Op_wYUqzhjM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">onscreen Supergirls<\/a>, Milly Alcock runs (or flies) with the pack as well as anybody ever has. Despite Sasha Calle\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=soYqzxIJCpM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">excellent (and too-brief) turn<\/a> as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=n6ItOsCgD8s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the Kryptonian refugee<\/a> in 2023\u2019s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hebWYacbdvc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Flash<\/a><\/em>, James Gunn and Peter Safran booted Calle from the role after becoming DC Studios\u2019\u2014and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XHbmSFcAcUE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the rechristened DC Universe\u2019s (or DCU\u2019s)<\/a>\u2014lords and masters. And considering how well Calle plays Kara Zor-El in Andy Muschietti\u2019s overstuffed superhero movie, being one of that film\u2019s two saving graces (the other being Michael Keaton\u2019s return to the dual role of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OUl5HoR4ksY\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OUl5HoR4ksY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bruce Wayne<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/sKvXLJU5ri4?t=55\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Batman<\/a> after a 31-year absence), this choice is a pity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alcock, who first appeared as Supergirl in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LbjB7PEuji8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the final scene<\/a> of Gunn\u2019s just-fine 2025 <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ox8ZLF6cGM0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Superman<\/a><\/em>, plays a much-different version of Kara than Calle; than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bsEFyBKmB9s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Melissa Benoist<\/a> in Avi Adler, Greg Berlanti, &amp; Andrew Kreisberg\u2019s commendable 2015-2021 television program <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mlgL6FbqsVI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Supergirl<\/a><\/em>; than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_FOLcDonYmc\">Laura Vandervoort<\/a> in Alfred Gough &amp; Miles Millar\u2019s winning 2001-2011 television series <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=70Y32si4yb8\" rel=\"nofollow\">Smallville<\/a><\/em>; and, especially, than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QYbWKpVfAWg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Helen Slater<\/a> in this character\u2019s live-action debut (the now-infamous 1984 movie <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NMUeFT7iqSQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Supergirl<\/a><\/em>, the last superhero film produced by <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/JcCP3hpeVF4?t=373\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">father-and-son duo Alexander and Ilya Salkind<\/a>, which features <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=io7WFfVFrLs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Faye Dunaway as a modern-day witch named Selena<\/a> in a performance so bizarre it must be seen to be believed).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Benoist played Supergirl longer than anyone else, making her commitment across 126 episodes this role\u2019s definitive take so far, although <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bTFPZ38BeM0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Slater\u2019s Kara so fully personifies guileless innocence<\/a> that her movie emerges as a winsome example of \u201980s kitsch. Benoist\u2019s and Slater\u2019s never-cloying earnestness may make <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fWSuXAycrdo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Alcock\u2019s drunken, gruff, and seen-it-all-before approach<\/a> a jarring departure for audiences expecting more of the same, but Alcock adds so many nuances to Kara in her film\u2019s 108 minutes that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=s1-pfiVMKAs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this new production<\/a> is better than you have heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:75px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>2. Flying along<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When <em>The Common Reader<\/em> editor Gerald Early asked me to write this review, he requested that I comment upon <a href=\"https:\/\/cosmicbook.news\/why-supergirl-failed-what-went-wrong\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026\u2019s \u201cfailure to launch.\u201d<\/a> Explaining the movie\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/P0z3n\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">box-office underperformance<\/a> does not seem straightforward to me, although <a href=\"https:\/\/thetab.com\/filmshrine\/2026\/06\/30\/smear-campaign-dc-fans-call-out-suspicious-supergirl-hate-train-after-film-undersells\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the online haters<\/a> celebrating what they gleefully consider its downfall simplify the matter in the way such misogynists always do: <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026, in their view, is simply a bad film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>Alcock adds so many nuances to Kara in her film\u2019s 108 minutes that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=s1-pfiVMKAs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">this new production<\/a> is better than you have heard.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The problem with this perspective is that <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.undertheradarmag.com\/news\/supergirl_is_better_than_youve_been_led_to_believe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">is not a bad film<\/a>. The performances are too good and the themes too relevant to dismiss <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/film\/columns\/supergirl-stinks-hollywood-failing-female-superheroes-1236798145\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the movie as an outright failure<\/a>, although this observation cannot ensure that <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026 is, indeed, a good movie. It instead occupies that middle ground, or that artistic no-person\u2019s-land, that so many cultural productions (be they cinematic, televisual, literary or otherwise) come to inhabit, somewhere between the poles of bad and good, dross and masterpiece, terrible and terrific (what I sometimes call the land of the Not-Great-but-Not-Awful or, in simpler terms, the territory of the Just-Okay).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This comment may seem to damn <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026 with faint praise, yet I confess that, no matter how sophisticated are the other viewers, reviewers, critics, and castaways who have panned the film, I enjoyed watching <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026 and have enjoyed thinking about its characters, storylines, symbols, and themes since seeing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Does its plot of Kara Zor-El, despite her best efforts to dodge getting roped into noble causes and to avoid caring about people like her cousin Kal-El (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=e4ZImSF6250\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">David Corenswet\u2019s amiable Superman<\/a> returns from Gunn\u2019s 2025 movie to offer pep talks to his wayward cousin) remind us of the hundreds of revenge quests we have seen so many times before? Yes, but <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026\u2019s opening narrative gambit\u2014with Kara assisting Eve Ridley\u2019s teenage Ruthye Marye Knoll (screenwriter Ana Nogueira ratifies the comic books\u2019 penchant for fanciful names) in bringing Mathias Schoenaerts\u2019s Krem of the Yellow Hills to justice after Krem slaughters Ruthye\u2019s family\u2014smoothly shifts into a liberation story about several trafficked women held captive by Krem (a mad, bad, and dangerous-to-know space pirate whose scenery-chewing villainy Schoenaerts relishes). No matter how much <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026 reminds us of George Miller\u2019s 2015 <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YWNWi-ZWL3c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mad Max: Fury Road<\/a><\/em><strong> <\/strong>and 2024 <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XJMuhwVlca4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga<\/a><\/em> (to name only two of several recent films that tackle this issue), Gillespie\u2019s movie still rings true, at least to me, given how Kara and Ruthye grow righteously angry in their take-no-prisoners determination to free these hostages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:75px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>3. Flying low?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As such, the low points of <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026 have less to do with Nogueira\u2019s screenplay than with Gillespie\u2019s directorial choices, whether so much lens flare that I would not be surprised to learn that J.J. Abrams stumbled onto the set and wrestled control from Gillespie at critical junctures or, just as objectionable, including so many too-cool-for-school rock songs that you get the same headache listening to the soundtrack as you would from a night of indiscriminate clubbing. David Rooney usefully summarizes these objections in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-reviews\/supergirl-review-milly-alcock-jason-momoa-dcu-1236629004\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">his <em>Hollywood Reporter<\/em> review<\/a> by noting that Gillespie \u201cbarrels through a pedestrian mainframe narrative that is basically <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=w4XxN1modZU\"><strong><em>True<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong><em> <\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aOHGKCle-aY\"><strong><em>Grit<\/em><\/strong><\/a> meets <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VHgIlstB2R8\"><strong><em>John Wick<\/em><\/strong><\/a> meets <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MonFNCgK4WE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mad Max: Fury Road<\/a><\/em> with the usual random assortment of needle drops,\u201d even if Rooney is wrong to declare that Gillespie fails \u201cto find emotional depth in the sisterhood of Kara and Ruthye. . . .\u201d<sup>1<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alcock and Ridley enjoy a spiky-yet-breezy chemistry that matures as <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026 unfolds, with Ridley, who was only 13 years old when principal photography began on 13 January 2025, offering a lovely and layered performance that meets every moment. Their gender-swapped <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oWVYkIX2pQQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Lone Wolf and Cub<\/a><\/em> act works well, especially when Kara cautions Ruthye against murdering Krem in cold-blooded revenge. Kara\u2019s increasing desperation to prevent Ruthye from burdening herself with the guilt and regret Kara knows the girl will feel if she kills Krem does not stop <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_n_v-OWELM0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kara from doing just that<\/a> to end the threat that Krem poses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>I would not be surprised to learn that J.J. Abrams stumbled onto the set and wrestled control from Gillespie at critical junctures or, just as objectionable, including so many too-cool-for-school rock songs that you get the same headache listening to the soundtrack as you would from a night of indiscriminate clubbing.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some viewers <a href=\"https:\/\/aiptcomics.com\/2026\/06\/26\/supergirl-kara-killing-krem-problem\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">have objected<\/a> to this narrative choice, but it not only obeys one of the revenge thriller\u2019s ironclad conventions (particularly thrillers fronted by male protagonists) but also spurs Kara to recognize that she must follow her own advice if she ever wishes to be the person that Kal-El knows she can be and that Kara fitfully recognizes she wishes to become.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This admittedly tried-and-true, Hollywoodized version of character growth may explain <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026\u2019s box-office woes (some reports say the film will lose DC between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/creative-content\/movies\/supergirl-to-lose-85-million\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">$85 million<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/2026\/06\/supergirl-bomb-boxoffice-1236970324\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">$125 million<\/a>).<sup>2<\/sup> Kara, after all, usurps characteristics normally reserved for male heroes. She is hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, and self-destructive, yet fundamentally decent and good-hearted in the end. Milly Alcock\u2019s troubled Kara Zor-El is a full pendulum swing away from Helen Slater\u2019s virtuous naif, which scrambles traditional expectations of the character just enough to make this new <em>Supergirl<\/em> slightly subversive despite how predictable the rest of it is, with the movie being, for me as for David Rooney when he first watched the 1984 film, \u201cperversely enjoyable.\u201d<sup>3<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Plus, <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026 includes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_bRykR00R3o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a flashback to Kara\u2019s youth in Argo City<\/a>\u2014a metropolis housed on a giant chunk of Krypton that Kara\u2019s father, Zor-El (David Krumholtz), salvages by activating a force field just before the doomed planet explodes\u2014that works as wonderfully as any sequence in any live-action <em>Superman\/Supergirl<\/em> movie thus far. With dialogue delivered entirely in Kryptonian, Alcock, Krumholtz, and Emily Beecham (as Kara\u2019s mother, Alura In-Ze) create a loving family painfully sundered after Zor-El realizes that Argo City shearing away from its mother planet exposes a mineral called Kryptonite (get it?) that slowly sickens most residents. Zor-El sends Kara and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LZgYvhH-8s8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">her dog, Krypto<\/a>, to Earth in a spacecraft that he cribs from his brother, Jor-El (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=33ok5w8vlzg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">played by Bradley Cooper<\/a> in <em>Superman<\/em> 2025), to escape the radiation poisoning that will befall their fellow citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Were the rest of the movie this good, perhaps its box-office profits would have improved, but perhaps not. The difficulties faced by some superhero films that center women\u20142004\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vFSLz4elnTE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Catwoman<\/em><\/a> (starring Halle Berry), 2005\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XGnADb5e0mc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Elektra<\/em><\/a> (starring Jennifer Garner), 2023\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wS_qbDztgVY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>The Marvels<\/em><\/a> (starring Brie Larson), 2024\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WAyzEOeeBZw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Madame Web<\/em><\/a> (starring Dakota Johnson), and, yes, 1984\u2019s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Fy74-EAR7JA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Supergirl<\/a><\/em>\u2014reveal at least as much about their mostly male creators\u2019 difficulties in constructing satisfying narratives for their protagonists as they do about backlash from some audience members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Call me paranoid, but <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026 bears so many similarities to James Gunn\u2019s Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=M70jhW6e34s\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=M70jhW6e34s\"><em>Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em><strong><em> <\/em><\/strong>trilogy<\/a>\u2014CGI spacescapes, planet-hopping jaunts across the cosmos, quippy dialogue, and, yes, relentless needle-drops\u2014that we could easily mistake it for that series\u2019 next volume. So striking are these parallels that Gunn may well have rewritten Ana Nogueira\u2019s script and shouldered Craig Gillespie aside to direct some scenes himself, or, just as likely, Nogueira and Gillespie so internalized Gunn\u2019s preferences that they gave their boss exactly what he wanted to see and hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>The difficulties faced by some superhero films that center women reveal at least as much about their mostly male creators\u2019 difficulties in constructing satisfying narratives for their protagonists as they do about backlash from some audience members.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If so, Gunn\u2019s reign over the DCU has already ossified into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gV_mbpei5Gw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the same narrative-by-checklist formula<\/a> infesting the MCU (<a href=\"https:\/\/mattgoldberg.substack.com\/p\/what-kevin-feige-doesnt-understand\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">thanks to Kevin Feige\u2019s storytelling predilections<\/a>). Still, my thoughts about <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026 mirror the feelings about <em>Superman<\/em> 2025 that conclude <a href=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/gunn-control\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">my <em>Common Reader<\/em> review of that movie<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All things considered, I liked it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Maybe not a lot, but more than some others, meaning that I liked <em>Supergirl<\/em> 2026 just fine, yes, just fine indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The online haters celebrating what they gleefully consider its downfall simplify the matter in the way such misogynists always do: \u201cSupergirl\u201d 2026, in their view, is simply a bad film. The problem with this perspective is that \u201cSupergirl\u201d 2026 is not a bad film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":71206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11665],"tags":[],"toc":[4],"class_list":["post-71196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-letters","toc-reviews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How Super Is \u201cSupergirl\u201d? - Common Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The online haters celebrating what they gleefully consider its downfall simplify the matter in the way such misogynists always do: \u201cSupergirl\u201d 2026, in their view, is simply a bad film. The problem with this perspective is that \u201cSupergirl\u201d 2026 is not a bad film.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/how-super-is-supergirl\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Super Is \u201cSupergirl\u201d? - Common Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The online haters celebrating what they gleefully consider its downfall simplify the matter in the way such misogynists always do: \u201cSupergirl\u201d 2026, in their view, is simply a bad film. 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Mahler directed his symphony\u2019s movement IV to be performed, among other ways, \u201c<em>Misterioso<\/em>.\u201d This concept would apply to the entire concert in which Mahler\u2019s 3rd was performed Sunday evening at St. Francis de Sales Oratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Four members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra\u2019s brass section performed alongside organist James Marck, music director at St. Francis. This was part of SLSO\u2019s inspired Symphony in Your Neighborhood series, in this case the city\u2019s old Germantown neighborhood on the near South Side, now known as Fox Park and no longer notably Teutonic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I walked into this massive, stunning Gothic revival structure\u2014in most American cities, it would be the most impressive Catholic church in town\u2014and found a seat in a pew near the front. A man in clerical attire climbed up to this little crow\u2019s nest of a pulpit and introduced himself as the Rev. Canon Benjamin Coggeshall, rector of this century-old Roman Catholic church. He welcomed us to his sanctuary, then climbed back down without giving us much clue about what to expect from the concert, which would enable the\u00a0<em>Misterioso<\/em>\u00a0vibe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the music started from behind us without any musician ever setting up a music stand on the altar in front of us, I realized I had not thought this thing through very far. A grand old Catholic cathedral like this would have some massive organ on a balcony at the back of the building, where the horn players would be set up with the organist. Although the overwhelming feeling, when you hear music performed behind you inside a church, is that a musical procession will be coming your way toward the altar, these musicians were not going anywhere. This entire concert would happen up in the air behind our backs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We had been promised an evening of German music in keeping with the neighborhood\u2019s&nbsp;Germantown roots. They opened with the first movement of a violin concerto by Antonio Vivaldi, who is about as German as tagliatelle with rag\u00f9. The Vivaldi concerto was arranged by Steven Franklin, SLSO trumpet player. With Marck arranging a Mozart church sonata and Thomas J\u00f6stlein, SLSO horn player, arranging the Mahler symphony that closed the show, fully half this program came with fresh arrangements by musicians on the gig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not that I could always tell who was playing what, which helped further develop the&nbsp;<em>Misterioso<\/em>&nbsp;atmosphere. St. Francis has an organ (I did my homework later) custom-built by the Canadian craftsman Karl Wilhelm that has 2,670 pipes. With 2,670 pipes warbling into the vast, echoey sanctuary, how could the ear pick out four distinct horns? (Franklin and J\u00f6stlein were joined by George Goad on trumpet and Jonathan Randazzo on trombone.) Without being able to see where any of this music was coming from, the horns sounded like so many more pipes on the organ, so many more melodies floating in the vast cathedral\u2019s echoes and overtones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Misterioso<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I noticed St\u00e9phane Den\u00e8ve, SLSO music director, seated a few pews ahead of me. Like the rest of us, he had resigned himself to doing the only thing we really could do, which was stare ahead at the empty altar. Even if you turned around and craned your neck, which was physically awkward and felt wrong in church, you could see much more balcony than musicians way up back there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My initial sense that we were left with nothing to look at gave way to the realization that there were actually all kinds of things to look at: painted wallpaper, painted walls, painted ceilings, stained glass, ornate architecture, art inset even in the swinging wooden gates that led into the sacramental space, and scads of statues. There were statues of Jesus and Mary, of course, but also statuary of random saints and angels galore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Peering around at all those angels in the dusky sanctuary as ghosts of echoey melodies sounded down on us from sources unseen, it was almost rational to hear the pipes and horns as the voices of the angels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Misterioso<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the course of an hour of this angelic music (including Prelude and Fugue in G minor by my go-to composer, Johannes Brahms, whose music I would want to hear in heaven if there were one), I stopped looking at anything. I closed my eyes. I tried to relax. I meditated, kind of. I must have been the last person in the cathedral to realize that this would be a pretty good opportunity to pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the music started from behind us without any musician ever setting up a music stand on the altar in front of us, I realized I had not thought this thing through very far. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":71302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11665],"tags":[],"toc":[11664],"class_list":["post-71298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-letters","toc-dispatches"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Misterioso Music in the Old Germantown Cathedral - Common Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When the music started from behind us without any musician ever setting up a music stand on the altar in front of us, I realized I had not thought this thing through very far.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/misterioso-music-in-the-old-germantown-cathedral\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Misterioso Music in the Old Germantown Cathedral - Common Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When the music started from behind us without any musician ever setting up a music stand on the altar in front of us, I realized I had not thought this thing through very far.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/misterioso-music-in-the-old-germantown-cathedral\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheCommonReader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-15T22:46:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-15T23:53:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/app\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_9128-scaled.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1922\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@TCRWUSTL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@TCRWUSTL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ben\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/misterioso-music-in-the-old-germantown-cathedral\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/misterioso-music-in-the-old-germantown-cathedral\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ben\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f11dca72d5c3ab94094cbafc8e1aa0a9\"},\"headline\":\"Misterioso Music in the Old Germantown Cathedral\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-15T22:46:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-15T23:53:16+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/misterioso-music-in-the-old-germantown-cathedral\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":787,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/misterioso-music-in-the-old-germantown-cathedral\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/IMG_9128-scaled.jpeg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Arts &amp; 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The summary of the <em>Ted Lasso <\/em>plot made me <em>sure <\/em>I would be disappointed. Folksy American brings the Brits down to earth. Unlikely hero transforms team. Revenge plot softens into a happy-family ensemble. <em>Really<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also we do not subscribe to Apple TV. Recently, though, I ran out of shows to watch and found <em>Ted Lasso <\/em>in our public library. And I cannot stop watching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yes, Ted is a folksy, chatty, na\u00efve, Pollyanna version of Dr. Pangloss. Yes, the plots are too good to be true. How did they recover when they all took the high road and called out their evil corporate sponsor? How can they afford not one but four coaches when they barely ever win? The characters are drawn with fat magic marker, caricatures lacking nuance and complexity. Even the catharsis that comes when we finally learn their backstory is not enough to catapult them out of conventional stereotype. We love them because we already know them and can predict how they will behave, not because they intrigue us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So why am I lapping this up? Because the show is honest and hopeful\u2014two qualities that seldom coincide. It understands pain\u2014and drinking or hurting others to relieve it. The healthier coping strategies it supplies can be silly, but in wonderful ways, like inventing a ritual to end a legendary haunting so a superstitious player can recover his mojo. Or taking a surly, snappish player who\u2019s putting too much pressure on himself to a neighborhood pickup game, so he can remember what pure fun football was when he was a kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Ted Lasso <\/em>is also honest about the ways people react to one another, and that chemistry blows the stereotypes open. The point is not any one character, but the relationships between them. And that, when you think about it, is true for all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Halfway through Season Two, one of the episodes lost me completely. The focus narrowed to a single character (Coach Beard), and the interaction fell away. Still, I requested Season Three, and while finishing Two, I thought about ways this show found to move us. Many sound trite in a list: easing someone\u2019s fear; humbling their arrogance; forgiving them so generously, we can forgive them too. Giving someone a hidden talent that makes them more appealing. Promoting the shy guy who is smarter than anyone realizes. Showing a nerd to be so enthusiastic, so fully himself, that he is almost cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The list goes on. Finding a clever way to convince a man that being vulnerable is sexy. Enduring an entire city\u2019s rage and scorn with grace until the boos turn into applause. Speaking unvarnished truth in public. Loving someone who is angry and hurt so wisely that you give them freedom to be themselves\u2014but do not honor the demand for space when they really need company. Bringing someone who loves their partner around to granting a divorce <em>because <\/em>he loves her. That character was Ted, and in a bitter coincidence, co-creator, writer, and star Jason Sudeikis endured the end of a decade-long relationship with the mother of <em>his <\/em>children in the middle of filming. His son was twelve, the same age as Lasso\u2019s son. The script had been written long before its real-life imitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The acting must have become painful, but he pulled it off. Just as, in the show, his character manages to hold a sports team together without pushing cutthroat competition. And just as the show, with its deliberately British slower pacing, lots of pauses and silent exchanged glances, manages to overcome the American rush for action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I love the way the guys finally open up, becoming a regular source of problem-solving and wisdom for one another\u2014a clich\u00e9 that cannot occur often enough. I love the angry, insecure Roy Kent\u2019s tenderness with his niece, and how, with Keeley\u2019s help, he lets her know that the stench a little boy teased her about is not her fault and they will fix it. They knock on doors in a fancy neighborhood on Christmas Eve until he finds a dentist, and then they find a creative way for her to both forgive the boy and demand an apology. (Sorry if this is a spoiler, I know that episode would have you in unbearable suspense, but everyone on the planet save me has already seen the show.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Season One won a 92 percent critic score on the venerable Rotten Tomatoes site, and its twenty nominations made Emmy history for a first-season comedy. The show took home seven trophies. When the cast visited the White House, Joe Biden hung a Believe sign. When success seemed too rosy, Sudeikis announced, \u201cWhat we\u2019re going to have to do now is kill a dog,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/tv\/tv-features\/ted-lasso-returns-jason-sudeikis-interview-season-four-1236653124\/\">recalls<\/a> cocreator Brendan Hunt, who plays Coach Beard. \u201cPartially to make sure that we weren\u2019t getting high on our own supply and partially to remind people, \u2018I\u2019m glad you think that we\u2019re a force of cultural good, but that\u2019s not what it says on the tin and it\u2019s never been our remit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Season Two, the Rotten Tomatoes score shot even higher, to 98 percent, and the show won another twenty nominations and four awards. But Season Three\u2014despite being the year\u2019s most watched streaming original, racking up 283 million viewing hours\u2014dropped to an 81 percent score, and the only Emmy was for a guest appearance. The early tension was over, critics pointed out, and the episodes were longer and felt clumsy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Those are obvious ways to fail. What I love are the ways the show has succeeded. Not because it is storybook happy, but because the audience response proves we are better than I thought we were. We hunger to hear a coach or boss tell us <em>winning isn\u2019t everything. <\/em>We thirst for integrity and principle, forgiveness and kindness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sudeikis had always planned on a three-season arc, ending when Ted goes home to Kansas City to bring up his son. Suggestions of a fourth episode were brushed away; he was not about to let the million or so he makes each episode color his decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis wasn\u2019t a negotiation tactic,\u201d he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/tv\/tv-features\/ted-lasso-returns-jason-sudeikis-interview-season-four-1236653124\/\">told<\/a> <em>Hollywood Reporter. <\/em>\u201cThe story was told. Ted went home to be with his son. I wasn\u2019t going to have Ted uproot their life to justify the money truck.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A year later, he changed his mind and agreed to write a fourth season. He missed the fun, the family of actors, and most of all, the chance to be Ted Lasso. \u201cIt is infectious to play a character who sees the best in people and isn\u2019t mad at the world for all its foibles and bullies and shadows\u2026. It was good to live in that\u2014to have that coursing through your brain and your body all day.\u201d He paused. \u201cIt still is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What I love are the ways the show has succeeded. Not because it is storybook happy, but because the audience response proves we are better than I thought we were. We hunger to hear a coach or boss tell us winning isn\u2019t everything. 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I am lousy at the pop-culture trivia show of sociable conversation. I lack a light touch. Lately, though, I have begun to stick my ground. These questions feel pretty basic to me; they boil down to: <em>How should I live? What sort of person should I be?<\/em> And always, <em>Why?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Why, why, why? As irritating as a four-year-old who asks them incessantly\u2014until society shuts her up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The love of wisdom triggers hostility worldwide. Arabic has a word, <em>mufalsaf, <\/em>to tease people who turn everyday conversations philosophical. For me, it would be <em>mufalsafah, <\/em>the feminine version. Ugh, too existential, the word implies. But do we not exist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If the amateur philosopher remains undaunted, someone might say brusquely, \u201c<em>Ma titfalsafi,<\/em>\u201d do not philosophize. Or, sarcastically, \u201c<em>Yo faylasuf<\/em>\u201d: You are a philosopher. Again, not meant as a compliment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In France, perhaps the most congenial climate, you will be lightly branded a <em>philosophe\u2014<\/em>and who <em>would not <\/em>want to be an eighteenth-century public intellectual? But Spaniards will sigh and say, \u201c<em>Ya est\u00e1s filosofando<\/em>,\u201d there you go philosophizing again. Or mock you as <em>un filosofillo, <\/em>a pejorative diminutive that means \u201clittle philosopher.\u201d Italians dismiss you with <em>filosofeggiare<\/em>. Germans use <em>Philosophiererei <\/em>for unnecessary, affected and pretentious philosophizing. My favorite comes from Iran: a colloquial Persian term, <em>falsafe-b\u0101fi<\/em>, that literally translates as \u201cphilosophy-weaving,\u201d and describes someone who is making overcomplicated, illogical, and most significantly, unsolicited arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In English, there is no good word, probably because the practice is discouraged from the get-go. The Cambridge Dictionary marks the word \u201cphilosophize\u201d as \u201cmainly disapproving.\u201d Even the verbs are telling: one \u201cwaxes philosophical\u201d or \u201cspouts philosophy,\u201d like a teakettle boiling over. And you might hear your ideas described as \u201cpseudo-philosophical\u201d (often a fair charge) or be told plainly, \u201cYou\u2019re overthinking this.\u201d This is, embarrassingly enough, a frequent phrase in my marriage. Andrew even bought me a T-shirt that read, \u201cWait, let me overthink this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Overthinking, yeah, is nervous and inefficient. But I <em>like <\/em>hearing people engage in wild speculation or extra complexity and nuance. Who the hell cares what actor played what part in what pop show fifteen years ago? We are dying here, people! Surely a little thinking is in order?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is said that Peter Maurin\u2014one of my heroes, cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement\u2014was once approached by a sex worker: \u201cWanna have a good time?\u201d she slung toward him, angling a hip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He volleyed back a question\u2014\u201cWhat <em>is <\/em>a good time?\u201d\u2014and took her for coffee to discuss it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nerdy and pedantic, sure. But imagine what that felt like to her, to have a young man with a soft French accent accord her mind such respect. To me, asking people what they think is exactly that, a sign of respect. Surely they do think and wonder, alone on a sleepless night or while driving past endless fields of wheat. But for some reason, sharing those thoughts feels, what? Too exposed? Intruded upon? Speculation should be kept private, perhaps. Thoughts about why and how will reveal too much that is personal. Or they will sound \u201cwrong,\u201d or the frustration is that there <em>is <\/em>no right answer. Or social conversation is expected to stay light and easy so you do not have to worry about expressing an interior self. Or a big question sounds like it will take all night to answer, and people are afraid they will not be able to extricate themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All valid objections. And there <em>is<\/em> another, truly annoying layer to \u201cphilosophizing\u201d\u2014one in which someone pontificates just to sound profound. Wonder should be humble. But attempts to capture meaning can slide so fast into pretentiousness that society has put up guard rails. Nearly every language\u2019s term for \u201cdoing philosophy\u201d has a secondary meaning that mocks the practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Which may be why there are so few philosophy majors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Journalism is the next best thing, but even there, the probing questions have waned. And when did you last hear precise, urgent follow-up questions? \u201cWhy do you say that?\u201d \u201cOn what do you base that?\u201d Even brash reporters have been rendered shallow and polite, scared to look beneath the surface and get yelled at or categorized or canceled or, in the case of corporate media, fired outright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Life is supposed to slide along, propelled by fact and superficial opinion but at the core, unexamined. That is how we survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cW<em>aarom moet je alles zo filosofisch maken<\/em>?\u201d ask the Dutch. \u201cWhy do you have to make everything so philosophical?\u201d \u201c<em>B\u00f6rja inte filosofera nu<\/em>,\u201d beg the Swedes. \u201cDon&#8217;t start philosophizing now.\u201d \u201c\u0425\u0432\u0430\u0442\u0438\u0442 \u0444\u0438\u043b\u043e\u0441\u043e\u0444\u0441\u0442\u0432\u043e\u0432\u0430\u0442\u044c,\u201d say the Russians. \u201cEnough with the philosophizing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Usually, the accusation is that such remarks \u201cbring down\u201d the mood. The Korean phrase <em>gapjagi jinjihada, <\/em>to suddenly become serious, captures this complaint. Digging for wisdom is, I guess, automatically serious (though I find it far more fun than rehashing old TV shows, and even exhilarating when people actually think a minute and come up with an answer). But what other field or type of conversation can instantly flip into an insult? Stop being mathematical? Stop being so literary? Philosophizing carries a heavier burden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anybody have any idea <em>why<\/em>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If the amateur philosopher remains undaunted, someone might say brusquely, \u201cMa titfalsafi,\u201d do not philosophize. Or, sarcastically, \u201cYo faylasuf\u201d: You are a philosopher. Again, not meant as a compliment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":71146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11667],"tags":[],"toc":[],"class_list":["post-71145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-and-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>\u201cMa Titfalsafi,\u201d or You Will Dull the Party - Common Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If the amateur philosopher remains undaunted, someone might say brusquely, \u201cMa titfalsafi,\u201d do not philosophize. 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Laughter of the Lamas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A theoretical <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DcL1nOgSZJM\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DcL1nOgSZJM\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">physicist<\/a> flogging his new book on a talk show uses the prop of a two-foot model of the Empire State Building to explain where we are in time. Every floor, he says, from bottom to top, is an era ten times longer than the one below it. Everything that has ever happened, from the Big Bang to this sentence, brings us to the tenth floor. (The Empire State is 102 main stories.) At the 11th floor (10 to the 11th power), the sun eats the Earth then flames out. On the 12th floor, the universe expands more rapidly than the speed of light, so everything else is \u201cbeyond the cosmic horizon,\u201d and we are left alone in darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the 30th floor, all stars \u201cspiral into the black hole at the center of most galaxies\u201d anyway, leaving only black holes as the \u201cremaining macroscopic structure in the universe.\u201d At the 50th floor, if a conscious being could exist it would fry in the \u201centropic waste\u201d of its last thought, because the universe will not be able to dissipate even the heat \u201cgenerated by the process of thought itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The physicist resorts in the end to paraphrasing Nabokov, as one does. \u201cWe live in a brief crack of light between two eternal stretches of darkness. How beautiful to exist in that brief crack of light,\u201d the physicist says. \u201cHow wonderful that there is that brief moment that we are now inhabiting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is true that if \u201c[a]ll the world\u2019s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,\u201d a case might be made that we should be joyous at every minute of the show, because we are lucky beyond statistics to be present for all there ever will be. (In a similar vein, an MD and \u201cHappiness Engineer\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/probability-being-born_b_877853\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/probability-being-born_b_877853\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">writing<\/a> at the <em>HuffPost<\/em> in 2011 tries to calculate the odds of any one of us being born: \u201cIt&#8217;s the probability of 2.5 million people getting together\u2014about the population of San Diego\u2014each to play a game of dice with trillion-sided dice. They each roll the dice\u2014and they all come up the exact same number\u2014say, 550,343,279,001.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I can feel the undertow of transcendence any time I get out into nature. I can work on better awareness, compassion, and trying to overcome my craving. But the hardest thing for me also has to do with time: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XHkSZhYpSBs\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XHkSZhYpSBs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the laughter of the lamas<\/a>, which they say results from relaxing into an acceptance that nothing lasts and that in fact there is nothing but change. I cannot seem to keep relaxed joyfulness in my body when a guy at the Circle K cuts me off to grab his Jumex Pineapple Coconut Hard Nectar Big Can out of the cooler for an early lunch in his car. Instead of laughing in delight at the show, I often struggle against it, like a dog trying to slip its collar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Interviewers try to pin down the lamas. \u201cBut what about suffering?\u201d they ask on our behalf. The lamas sober, straighten, acknowledge the terrible suffering that is life itself. They suggest we try mindfulness, it is a serious business, then back they go to laughing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They say the laughter of the lamas results from relaxing into an acceptance that nothing lasts and that in fact there is nothing but change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":71170,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11671],"tags":[],"toc":[11664],"class_list":["post-71166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-and-nature","toc-dispatches"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Laughter of the Lamas - Common Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"They say the laughter of the lamas results from relaxing into an acceptance that nothing lasts and that in fact there is nothing but change.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/the-laughter-of-the-lamas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Laughter of the Lamas - Common Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"They say the laughter of the lamas results from relaxing into an acceptance that nothing lasts and that in fact there is nothing but change.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/the-laughter-of-the-lamas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheCommonReader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-09-07T21:38:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-07T21:40:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/app\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Buddha-scaled.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ben\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@TCRWUSTL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@TCRWUSTL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ben\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-laughter-of-the-lamas\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-laughter-of-the-lamas\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ben\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f11dca72d5c3ab94094cbafc8e1aa0a9\"},\"headline\":\"The Laughter of the Lamas\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-09-07T21:38:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-07T21:40:35+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-laughter-of-the-lamas\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":533,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/the-laughter-of-the-lamas\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commonreader.wustl.edu\\\/app\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/Buddha-scaled.jpeg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Science &amp; 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Richard J. Powell has written a gorgeous book about Black artists and their use of color, and every page leaps up at you, jolting you into attention. A scholar of art and culture and the former editor-in-chief of <em>The Art Bulletin, <\/em>Powell gives each color its own chapter. You can soak in the coolness of the viridian, that intense, flat blue-green that Jacob Lawrence uses to calm and focus his bold, masterful canvases. The hot orange in Alma Thomas\u2019s work, the rich bronze William H. Johnson uses in <em>Jitterbugs<\/em>, the sex and blood and mischief of crimson, made proper in Charles Alston\u2019s <em>Girl in a Red Dress. <\/em>More examples, dozens. So many Black artists have been ignored that Powell could curate fresh excellence without breaking a sweat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He stays playful, appreciating, dipping into various associations. Writes us a letter from viridian; a warning note from a red crayon. I breathe in the art on these pages, noticing how the subjects\u2019 dark skin becomes a suggestion, permission, even an obligation to let the color glow bright. The palette is rarely pastel, never enervated or limp. I am reminded of the way stylish Black men dress, to my pale husband\u2019s eternal envy: they are unafraid of expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The book is a healthy reinterpretation of \u201ccolorstruck,\u201d a word <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/books\/edition\/Juba_to_Jive\/5BsmAQAAMAAJ?hl=en\">first used<\/a> in the early twentieth century to \u201crefer to a black person who prefers a light-skinned companion.\u201d During the Harlem Renaissance, the meaning expanded, Powell reminds us, \u201cto anyone inordinately preoccupied with race.\u201d Zora Neale Hurston wrote a short play in 1926 called <em>Color Struck, <\/em>in which she looked at all sorts of color discrimination within her own race. But it is color <em>mixing, <\/em>that old scared term, that is on my mind at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I just returned from Chicago. We stayed in Hyde Park, so we went to some cool restaurants on the South Side. One in an elegant boutique hotel, one with a Caribbean theme, one with food so exquisite I wanted to beg the chef for recipes. Eventually it dawned on me that in each restaurant, the ratio was about 70:30 Black to White.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So why do I never see that back home?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Where, in St. Louis, I demanded of my companions, can you find White people in any restaurant where they are not an automatic majority? Subtract soul food on a whim, BBQ for the aficionado. Maybe 50:50 now and then in a few places in North County, U. City, or the north side of the Central West End. But where else?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nobody could name a single place. The significance of that weighs on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I was reading Powell\u2019s book and researching its colors, I came upon a quote from Percival Everett\u2019s <em>So Much Blue<\/em>: \u201cRegardless that blue was so likeable, a color that so many loved or liked\u2014no one hated blues\u2014I could not use it. The color of trust, loyalty, a subject for philosophical discourse, the name of a musical form, blue was not mine\u2026for my disdain of the color. I knew it was important, that my dislike of it was a function of fear and that fear, like all fear, was a function of a lack of ken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What you do not know, in that familiar sense of \u201cken,\u201d you fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Color changes how we see. A mix of colors changes how we see one another. When we are all having fun, tables side by side, the food excellent, music fizzing in the background\u2026we stop being afraid of one another. Pale or dark tones are no longer triggers, reminders to be wary. We have laughed with our friends and heard other people laughing with their friends, and when we leave, stuffed and sleepy, all of us are intact. This sounds simple enough to be insulting, but St. Louis still needs such simple remedies. It was only sixty years ago, less than my lifetime, that our restaurants were finally desegregated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat\u2019s a big difference between St. Louis and similar cities,\u201d says Eric Mumford, the Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts. \u201cSt. Louis is unusual in that it\u2019s an industrial city that\u2019s kind of in the South.\u201d We call it \u201ca city of neighborhoods,\u201d which always sounds so friendly. We forget to tuck \u201csegregated\u201d before \u201cneighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Back when it was law, segregation chopped up the city. Fear and hate and habit made it easy to stay geographically segregated. Now affluent Blacks are scattered across West County, nowhere with enough critical mass to outnumber their White neighbors at a nearby restaurant. Mumford sums it up: \u201cThere is this parallel world here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The city fathers thought that best. They were wrong. St. Louisans remain divided and wary. Meanwhile, a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/socpro\/article-abstract\/71\/2\/412\/6623610\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">study<\/a> from Johns Hopkins found that a strong majority of people in the most diverse communities near D.C. really, really like where they live. On average, 71 percent, after surveying White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian residents. They are happy with the racial mix, happy with their neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you share parks, trails, libraries, and restaurants, you interact casually at pleasant, relaxed times. That builds trust. Could this be any more obvious? White people\u2014many of whom have felt extra nervous ever since it was announced that demographics were shifting and they were losing majority status\u2014could find out that being in the minority need not mean being mistreated. (Never mind what their own ancestors did to minorities, which may shadow the back of their minds.) A little more mixing, and surely they could chill the hell out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zora Neale Hurston once observed, writing about the opposite ratio that she was forced to experience whenever she left Harlem, \u201cI feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.\u201d She was not wrong. Leonardo da Vinci explained the physics: \u201cAmong other things of equal lightness, that seen against a background of greater whiteness will seem less light, while that placed in a darker space will appear whiter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Difference becomes contrast\u2014is <em>magnified, <\/em>perceived as separated\u2014whenever a background is noticeably lighter or darker. Segregate, and you polarize. Nothing blends. The extremes are set in opposition to one another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>He had me at the name. Richard J. Powell has written a gorgeous book about Black artists and their use of color, and every page leaps up at you, jolting you into attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":71140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11665],"tags":[],"toc":[11664],"class_list":["post-71138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-letters","toc-dispatches"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Colorstruck-in Segregated St. Louis - Common Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"He had me at the name. 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Vote Where Genocide Is Remembered"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Election day notices are the sort of mail most of us plunk on the kitchen table with lukewarm interest at the end of a working day. This year\u2019s Board of Election Commissioners mailer, printed for last month\u2019s August 4 election, had all the usual features\u2014instructions, sample ballot, <em>et al<\/em>\u2014but among the polling locations, one above all stood out: Association of Survivors of the Srebrenica Genocide, located at 5039 Gravois Ave in St. Louis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After years of voting in schools, libraries, and civic centers, who could resist the opportunity to vote at a location so off the beaten path? When a polling place lists a space dedicated to remembering the brutal slaughter of innocents, how could you contemplate voting anywhere else?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Walking through the doors of the Association of Survivors of the Srebrenica Genocide is a mostly nondescript experience\u2014until your conscience is shattered and your attention riveted. Then it becomes uniquely, upsettingly somber. An array of printed material, combining maps with documentary photography, lays out the facts of July 16, 1995, when more than 8,300 Bosniaks\u2014or Bosnian-Muslims\u2014were executed by Bosnian Serb forces in what remains the most horrific\u2014or, if you prefer more clinical terms, \u201clargest\u201d\u2014act of mass murder inside European borders since World War Two. Adorning the walls are photographs of mass graves exhumed and refugees in mourning, along with testimonies of atrocity, but also survival. A book by Ramiz Tiro perched atop a bookcase is titled <em>From Darkness to Dawn: A True Story of Perseverance in the \u201cHerzeg-Bosnia\u201d Concentration Camps<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To take your eyes off the Association\u2019s office walls to focus solely on voting for constitutional amendments and propositions on whether to \u201cmodernize language describing City departments\u201d seems wholly out of place. The choice between Cori Bush and Wesley Bell, and vice versa, became something of a non-issue. I was tossed about in a constellation of emotions, including, but not limited to, the gift of living in a relatively stable and free democracy, the blessing of living next to neighbors different from, but unafraid of, me. Mostly, I felt the dumb luck of never having to live through war or conflict. The gradual disintegration of Yugoslavia that upended life for millions of Bosniaks, Croatians, Serbs, and ethnic Albanians and Slovenes is more distant for us than even the Clinton years, Spice Girls, and <em>Seinfeld<\/em>, during which the disintegration of Yugoslavia occurred. The recent death, in prison, of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebsco.com\/research-starters\/military-history-and-science\/ratko-mladic\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ratko Mladi\u0107<\/a>, known for his prominent role in the massacre, might pull the years back, but just barely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before Croatia and Slovenia declared independence in June 1991, Yugoslavia was routinely referred to as the brightest and most liberal of the East European countries under Soviet domination. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.com\/reviews\/review-essay\/1995-07-01\/titos-last-secret\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Josip Broz Tito<\/a>, born to a Slovene mother and Croat father, was a minor celebrity when contrasted with the brutal leaders of other Soviet states. By 1993, two years before atrocities in Yugoslavia progressed and the Dayton Accords concluded, President Bill Clinton was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1999\/05\/22\/books\/the-dangers-of-letting-a-president-read.html\">turning the pages<\/a> of Robert D. Kaplan\u2019s <em>Balkan Ghosts<\/em>. My father\u2019s girlfriend hosted a teenage student named Jasna, born to a Serbian father and Croat mother, who wrote letters soon after returning to her home village, telling us that every young man she knew had enlisted in armies along ethnic-national lines. A Croatian secretary I knew while working a college internship stopped eating during lunch breaks. Instead, she listened in anger to BBC radio broadcasts about the widening Yugoslav war, cursing the Serbian army before returning to her desk. I remember the conversation I once struck up with a Serbian woman at an airport. \u201cWe remember history, and we should remember history,\u201d she said. \u201cBut what the war in my country has also taught me is that there is a time to let go of and even forget history. You have to let go of its most painful memories that feed conflict. You cannot let history make you bitter and hateful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That St. Louis is home to the largest population of Bosnians outside of Europe\u2014more than 70,000\u2014who fled their country between 1992 and 1995 is a source of civic pride. It is no small embarrassment to say that, short of visiting their wonderful restaurants, I still know little about this community. Last year\u2019s thirtieth commemoration of the Srebrenica massacre was my first attempt to break that indifference. <a href=\"https:\/\/neverforgetsrebrenica.org\/bosnian-journeys-a-musical-tribute-to-remembrance-and-resilience\/\"><em>Bosnian Journeys:<\/em><\/a><em> A Musical Tribute to Remembrance and Resilience<\/em> brought Bosnia\u2019s pain and beauty to St. Louis all over again. Bosnian folk music\u2014played by musicians from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra alongside recorded testimonies of war survivors\u2014can hardly be called \u201centertainment,\u201d but the glory of music is that it sets so many different lessons to heart. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What thundered in my head after this commemorative concert were the words of one Bosnian survivor, paraphrased and emphasized repeatedly by other survivors as well. No one had ever thought the horrors they witnessed, or the fear that surged through their bodies when they realized their neighbors were out to kill them, had even the most remote chance of happening. <em>We never thought it would happen to us<\/em> was the common refrain. In Yugoslavia of the early 1990s, it simply \u201cdid not matter\u201d who was Serbian, Bosnian, or Croatian, because everyone lived in the same cities and neighborhoods, intermarried, and worked together in the same offices, factories, and farms. Then, all of a sudden, to their shock and disbelief, these latent, long-dormant differences mattered in terrifying ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is clich\u00e9 to the point of numbness to point out that our political climate has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2023\/12\/30\/trump-poisoning-the-blood-racism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">vilified<\/a> immigrants, whether \u201cillegal\u201d or holding H-1B visas, for so long that even to raise the subject invites an eye-rolling exasperation or cool indifference. The reality of people living together despite their differences now seems so remote that we have forgotten the power and significance of believing in that reality at all. Social media teems with divisive, bigoted rhetoric serving up menus and lists of \u201cothers\u201d who are the problem. Ostracism and xenophobia have for years been the currency, if not the corrosive battery acid, of our nation\u2019s political dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We forget that words, spoken often enough and loudly enough, have an accreting, accumulating force. Repeat something often enough, say it long enough, and words climb to the peak of our thoughts where they scream to become manifest in policy and physical acts. But even as words pointing to \u201cothers\u201d gather force and momentum, we dismiss them as mere \u201cwords.\u201d Until, that is, we hear the words of Bosnians and others who survived the horrific disintegration of Yugoslavia, and the <em>final<\/em> words of those who did not: <em>We never thought it would happen to us.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The reality of people living together despite their differences now seems so remote that we have forgotten the power and significance of believing in that reality at all. Social media teems with divisive, bigoted rhetoric serving up menus and lists of \u201cothers\u201d who are the problem. Ostracism and xenophobia have for years been the currency, if not the corrosive battery acid, of our nation\u2019s political dialogue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":71163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11667],"tags":[],"toc":[11664],"class_list":["post-71148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-and-culture","toc-dispatches"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>To Vote Where Genocide Is Remembered - Common Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The reality of people living together despite their differences now seems so remote that we have forgotten the power and significance of believing in that reality at all. 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When the reporting was done, I browsed for a long time in a western-wear store before heading for the airport. Mind dulled, heart frozen in self-defense, I flipped idly through purses and found myself buying one. Not on sale. Not my style. Did not need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I wrote about a young woman who had been diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer early in her first pregnancy\u2014only to learn, after both breasts were sliced from her body, that the pathologist had misread the slide and she had a rare but benign growth instead\u2014her voice haunted me for days, saying through sobs how she had yearned to nurse her baby. That time, I bought perfume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The pattern did not even dawn on me at first, but after another grim story and frivolous consolation prize, it was obvious what I was doing. I felt guilty at my unconscious yet deliberate, near compulsive, juxtaposition of sorrow and silliness. Clearly I was doing this on purpose: reminding myself, whenever reality was a little too much to bear, that the world also held beauty and lightness and fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Frivolity, for me, was a defense. But frivolity can also use a little defending\u2014hence Jehanne Dubrow\u2019s new book: <a href=\"https:\/\/cup.columbia.edu\/book\/frivolity\/9780231216159\/\"><em>Frivolity: A Defense<\/em><\/a><em>. <\/em>She glides through fashion, romance, film, drama, poetry,&nbsp; and painting, dipping and dabbling, frivolous even in form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Much of the frivolity she analyzes is feminine in nature. She warns us of this at the outset, pointing out that \u201cmen\u2019s passions are taken seriously. The games they play as children become their weekend hobbies as adults, even if now they only watch a ball being hurled back and forth from the marshmallow cushions of their living rooms. Men are permitted to be fans. They can wear jerseys that hang to their knees, baggy shirts in primary colors, without censure. And <em>the game <\/em>(whatever that game might be) is never a frivolity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"211\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/frivolity-book-cover-211x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-71113\" srcset=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/frivolity-book-cover-211x300.jpg 211w, https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/frivolity-book-cover-721x1024.jpg 721w, https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/frivolity-book-cover-768x1091.jpg 768w, https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/frivolity-book-cover-1081x1536.jpg 1081w, https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/frivolity-book-cover-1442x2048.jpg 1442w, https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/frivolity-book-cover-scaled.jpg 1802w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 211px) 100vw, 211px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A woman who indulges in a vial of perfume, on the other hand, is forsaking gravitas. I felt it that way, and so did Dubrow, writing about her passion for scent in an earlier book by saying, \u201cIn a dark time, I am in love with something frivolous.\u201d In the new book<em>, <\/em>she invokes Emma Bovary as she falls in doomed love with a young man, both of them hungry for art that \u201craises up the soul and feeds a feeling of infinity.\u201d When he goes off to law school, Emma goes shopping. \u201cShe bought a Gothic <em>prie-dieu<\/em>, and in one month she spent fourteen francs on lemons for cleaning her nails; she wrote off to Rouen, to order a blue cashmere dress\u2026.\u201d She had no other way to feel free, to express herself, to soothe herself, to regain control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If anyone should understand this, it is I. Yet Emma is hard to love; she really does seem unbearably shallow, however you intellectualize it. I feel better when Dubrow quotes the French playwright and novelist Yasmina Reza: \u201cI find frivolousness to be very deep. The frivolous is the foam that floats over the depths. Human drama doesn\u2019t consist of big tragic incidents. Naturally, they happen in the course of a life\u2014but for the most part, it\u2019s full of small details, minor scrapes, wrinkles, micro-events, that together make up the struggle of being.\u201d Reza traces the ways \u201cthe fabric of a life wears out,\u201d using its trifles as signposts. \u201cI choose to pick at what seems most irrelevant, most superficial, most unfit to dig into, and I dig into it\u2014that\u2019s how I write.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reza\u2019s best known play is <em>God of Carnage, <\/em>and Ralph Fiennes had the lead. Hardly a trifle, then. Dubrow is still trying to convince herself that an entire book about frivolity can also have substance. Is her project inevitably shallow, she wonders. Even, perhaps, narcissistic? \u201cWe hate Narcissus for tumbling into his own watery reflection,\u201d she writes. \u201cBut\u2026a face that can\u2019t stop staring at itself is really searching for a way to fall asleep or melt into numbness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Slowly, she wakes, peeling back the feathers and fluff, showing how frivolity is intricately bound up with the serious. Think of the protesters in silly costumes, disarming power. \u201cPolitical speech as whoopee cushion,\u201d she calls it, levity for the public square. And we all have private frivolities, too: even the soberest of judges and sternest of clerics indulge <em>some<\/em> lightweight idiosyncrasy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By the book\u2019s end, Dubrow has realized that \u201cthe frivolous may summon us back to ourselves.\u201d Often it is what the body asks of us, and relishes. Often it is the mind\u2019s necessary escape. \u201cSome frivolities wear satin bows or ribbons to conceal their solemnity,\u201d and what seems feminine has always been dismissed as somehow less weighty. But always, she writes, \u201cthe frivolous asks us to examine what we find worthy and what we dismiss.\u201d And why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It feels, Dubrow concludes, \u201cincreasingly tired to pit frivolity against the serious.\u201d They shape each other. The serious grounds us, and frivolity lets us fly away for a bit, so we can come back with the wind in our hair and settle down to work again. Inhaling Shalimar as we face life\u2019s next grim assignment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the most gruesome, tough assignments&#8230;I went shopping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":71112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11665],"tags":[],"toc":[11664],"class_list":["post-71111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-letters","toc-dispatches"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is Frivolity Always Frivolous? - Common Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After the most gruesome, tough assignments... 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a Little Sprezzatura&#8230;."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/commonreader.wustl.edu\/app\/uploads\/2026\/08\/sprezzatura.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I came upon a word the other day, and when I learned its definition, my whole being ached. What I was reading had been written long ago. Was this word even possible anymore? In a studied sense, of course. But as I wanted it to mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The word was <em>sprezzatura. <\/em>Meaning a lightness, a nonchalance that makes whatever you say or do seem effortless. How can we drop the weight of today\u2019s headlines and the planet\u2019s tumult and the goddamned price of groceries? Life <em>should<\/em> have grown easier (my childish long-held assumption about modernity), yet it has grown harder instead. What passes for studied carelessness is handing your project over to AI. And what passes for nonchalance is often cruelty, perpetrated by the few who can still afford\u2014and wield enough power\u2014to live easily themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But sprezzatura! There is a grace to it, and a calm confidence. The word entered culture in 1528, in Baldassare Castiglione\u2019s <em>The Book of the Courtier. <\/em>Ambassador of the Holy See, Castiglione had decided that the consummate diplomat was a man free of affectation in every way possible. His eyes were not narrowed by scheming ambition. He made his considerable skills look <a href=\"https:\/\/engelsbergideas.com\/notebook\/what-is-sprezzatura\/\">effortless<\/a> and refused to strive for admiration or glory: \u201cIt seemed more honest to win authority through nothing more impressive than the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is a dark side to this bright ease, of course; it can be a slick fa\u00e7ade, lacquered to deceive. But if sincere? I long to move effortlessly through the world. And\u2014a happy thought, at last\u2014I wonder if increasing age might make it more possible. First, of course, you must subtract the world, letting its weight slip from your shoulders. But when you are left only with your own life, it is now possible to practice all you have learned and make it look easy. You no longer need have an agenda. There is no position you must jockey for or retain, no king to please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sprezzatura also exists, on occasion, in the young, where it reads as glamour or cool. In age, it reads wise\u2014because as Willa Cather knew, \u201cIt takes a great deal of experience to become natural.\u201d You need to be a little clumsy first, gathering knowledge and perspective, before you can you reach acceptance. You also need the confidence of mastery, of having seen or done much of what lies before you. Finally, you need a certain detachment from ego, and less and less need to worry about your own future, which frees you to delight in others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The catch is that it is hard (already a contradiction of sprezzatura) to be light, graceful, and effortless when your body stiffens and creaks, your senses dull, and you feel vulnerable and easily preyed upon by marketers, con artists, and politicians. When old people stiffen (intellectually, physically, emotionally), they turn scrappy or querulous, unable to trust themselves or those around them. In other cultures, age is a time to reap respect, take your ease, and delight in the young. We have ruined old age by not treasuring it, just as we have ruined youth by rushing kids through it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The young can have a sprezzatura of the body; as we age, we reach instead for the <em>spirit <\/em>of sprezzatura, its serene wisdom. The results are far superior to panicked brain exercises, chair yoga, and cosmetic magic that only lets you pretend. Ease does not come with GLP weight loss and a frozen face. It comes with relaxing, no longer desperate to please, finally able to be entirely oneself, casually wielding what one has learned but comfortable with flaws and mistakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But U.S. Americans are hard to convince. Past sixty, we are still pushing, still trying to prove ourselves, only now we are proving how much <em>fun <\/em>we still have, how active and relevant we still are, still in the mix, still players. Watching calmly from the sidelines looks to us like death. How could we <em>not<\/em> dread old age, given the way we treat the old?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In \u201cWith Light Hands,\u201d Italian essayist Cristina Campo suggests that sprezzatura comes naturally to true poets, who have a \u201cdeep-seated horror of easiness, prudery, euphemism, promiscuity, heaviness, undue haste.\u201d She sees the quality as moral as well as aesthetic, but here, in this Calvinist can-do country, hers seems an upside-down morality. It requires \u201can alert and amiable imperviousness\u201d\u2014elsewhere translated as \u201ca lively, gentle impenetrability\u201d\u2014to the violence and baseness of others.\u201d Also an indifference to worldly goods and an artless, spontaneous unselfconsciousness. No ego, no acquisitiveness, and somehow\u2014this is the trickiest part\u2014an ability to accept human nature at its worst without letting that complicate one\u2019s own mood or approach. Carefree, insouciant, blithe\u2014those words are all adjacent. They feel a little guilty; how can one refuse to care about the sins of the world, the meanness and folly that surround us? But that is the paradox: an absence of worry does not prevent knowledge or action. On the days I let myself take it easy, maybe after a night of not sleeping or a burst of hard work, I somehow get just as much done (to use the yardstick of our culture). Overthinking and trying too hard kill creativity; humor and play restore it. Carrying the world\u2019s burdens does not lift them from anyone else. Joy and ease do more to heal those around us than the kind of frustrated fury I used to allow to take over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Letting that frustrated fury go\u2026is not easy. But sprezzatura is not meant to be easy. It is meant to take what is hard-learned and oft-practiced and makes it <em>look <\/em>easy, thus relaxing everyone else. Sprezzatura listens calmly to an outpouring of panic from a teenager; the hysterical rage of a newlywed after a bitter fight; the latest political squabble and stupidity. It sees what can be done and does it without fuss or panic; it knows what cannot yet be fixed and slides into patience. It keeps a light touch and a light heart. How to do that without trivializing issues of grave harm? That takes a wisdom and deftness I have yet to achieve. I intend to practice until it looks easy.<em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What passes for nonchalance is often cruelty, perpetrated by the few who can still afford\u2014and wield enough power\u2014to live easily themselves. But sprezzatura! There is a grace to it, and a calm confidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":71102,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11665],"tags":[],"toc":[11664],"class_list":["post-71100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-letters","toc-dispatches"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Need a Little Sprezzatura.... - Common Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What passes for nonchalance is often cruelty, perpetrated by the few who can still afford\u2014and wield enough power\u2014to live easily themselves. 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