The Totality of Trees
We had no idea how much we would miss them in the wake of St. Louis’s May 16 tornado. At least, I did not.
Arts & Letters
Rich in Proportion to the Number of Things Let Alone
Crap transference is when people give you things they own, apparently with good intentions, except you do not need or want them, and in fact may not have known they existed.
When Words Become Sounds
Words need the company of other words, preferably lots of them, else they fall into a strange pit of meaningless, yet mind-altering sound. Like us, words are social when mingling in tantalizing combinations, and perilously, curiously lonely, but still attractive, by themselves.
Every Path Has Multiple Meanings
I could not tell if the old-timer meant that if I walked fast enough I would not be bitten by bugs, or that he wanted me to get the hell away from him.
Was St. Louis’s Hamlet to Be, or Not to Be?
After a string of near-disasters, Hamlet emerges unscathed.
Zora Neale Hurston Holds Up
"It’s so easy to make yo’self out God Almighty when you ain’t got nothin’ tuh strain against but women and chickens.”
New Documentary on the Artist Jealous of Pee-wee Herman
Paul Reubens, aka Pee-wee Herman, insists on camera that the documentary must not be of the “tears of a clown” variety. It is an admirable attitude, but Matt Wolf’s film, perhaps inevitably, emphasizes Reubens’s problems.
Beethoven’s Immoral, Tasteless Usurpers, and Then Some
What hurts so much about these depressing examples is that they reveal one of the world’s greatest composers to be little more than window dressing to our naïve hopes about enlightened hearts and human progress. How could an artist of such immortal genius be so powerless, almost helpless, when confronted by the darkness of the human heart? And if art as elevated as Beethoven cannot help save us from ourselves, who can?
Peck of Dirt Is Heard from Again
While watching Peck of Dirt, I was thinking about the inscrutable, somewhat self-defeating, but ultimately lovable and inspiring character of the St. Louis rock music scene.
What Makes Abraham Verghese Such a Great Storyteller?
Is it his cosmopolitan background? His stint at the Iowa Writers Workshop? His knowledge of human suffering?