Jerry Springer’s Opera Buffa
Jerry Springer deliberately performed a public service (an admittedly lucrative one) by reminding those of us he shocked that people behave in ways that make us cringe
Dispatches
Let Your Soul Catch Up to Your Body
We are creatures whose machines overpower them, and we want the machines’ clarity, information, and ease because we are soft-bellied, emotion-ridden creatures. The division is internal, not civil.
On the Draining of Swamps
Agree or disagree, there is literal truth in his quote. Our nation’s capital was built on swampland.
Joseph Heller at 100
In Joseph Heller’s writing no one games the system entirely, but in Catch-22, one unlikely person, by cunning, ingenuity, and hardship, wins a temporary stay.
I.E. Millstone’s Leap of Faith
For Millstone, an engineer of buildings, highways, intelligent communities, and equitable social policy, 102 did seem a reasonable cutoff.
Treasures of China
China sets are no longer valued as they used to be. Young people often do not have space to store things that will be rarely used, or do not like the ornateness or implied waste of resources.
The Killing Game
I have no problem with fictional deaths that are random, senseless, and perpetrated only for shock value. A lot of death is random, senseless, and shocking. The problem is how many directors are doing it just because they can.
Naming Trees
The more I learn about trees, the guiltier I feel to not know their names. So I press Stan Braude, professor of practice in biology and curator of the university arboretum, into making a few introductions.
Tax Season Rage
I have been under the impression that checks and forms only need to be postmarked by Tax Day, the day I used to tsk at all the people interviewed by news crews as they stood in line at the post office. Karma is now charging me for every smug second.
Madame X
I loved John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X the instant I saw it. The subject, I imagined as a coolly aristocratic Frenchwoman in her early thirties. The artist was a man half in love with her—and half in hate.