When a movie really does what it’s supposed to, when it makes you want to stay in the theater and think about, discuss and absorb what you just saw on the screen, it can be an experience like no other. This is not to say that it is better than reading an excellent book, discovering an extraordinary album, or seeing a breathtaking theatrical production, for each of these things can shake you to your core in their own unique ways. But when you witness the birth of a truly amazing film, when you sit in the dark and realize that what you are seeing has managed to do almost everything right, these moments are ones to be cherished, and Martin Scorsese has given the public more of them than any other American director of his generation.
Get the memo: Yeats isn’t just a poet, as is his overwhelming identity to the intellectual bourgeoisie. Just ask John Raimo ’08 or co-director Courtny Hopen about their Cuchulain Comforted, the name they’ll given for a selection of At the Hawk’s Well, On Baile’s Strand, and The Death of Cuchulain—three plays in a series of five Yeats wrote about the virile Irish mythical hero.
But, with the surge in oil prices and the resultant focus on the Middle East, Cairo and Egypt (along with pre-bombed Beirut) became virtual Meccas of Western culture. And, of course, with the Gucci and the McDonald’s came the fitness clubs. Appearing like empty candy wrappers after a night of THC-induced debauchery, these clubs came complete with ellipticals, aerobics classes and muscle-bound personal trainers. Catering to the Cairene elite, the gyms cover all the bases: massage parlors, multiple steam rooms, kickboxing and hip-hop classes and, of course, the smoothie bar
Halloween makes me sad now, too. It used to just be Christmas. Which at least makes sense because I’m Jewish. Halloween. I am walking around, checkbook in hand, begging doctors to see me. This is the Upper East Side: there … Read More
I began insisting that my first car would be very small, very fast and very Italian. That should have been the first indication of my impending age-related crisis. There would be no minivan for my children. Oh no. Only a … Read More
Cocksure I stand that this lesbian play has become the first theatrical hit to reach Princeton this school year.
How fine it is to go to the theater and find yourself in a proper Boston living room, replete with pomp and circumstance. But take this turn of the 20th century propriety and subvert it with the sexual lewdness of nowadays; mix in marital deceit and seduction of a young lass by a voluptuous lesbian, and you’ll get the formula for David Mamet’s Boston Marriage, the first play of the Theatre Intime season.
The Unknown As we know, There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know There are known unknowns. That is to say We know there are some things We do not know. But there are … Read More
James Taylor sucks. In a world of few certainties, that is one. “If I hear one more Jesus-walking-the-boys-and-girls-down-a-Carolina-path-while-the-dilemma-of-existence-crashes-like-a-slab-of-hod-on-James Taylor’s-shoulders song,” Lester Bangs once famously wrote, “I will drop everything and hop the first Greyhound to Carolina for the signal satisfaction … Read More
I was terrified, certain of my imminent and undignified demise – death by stampeding cows – which got me thinking about how I came to be standing atop the scenic, grassy slope that was once the site of Jane Austen’s … Read More
Heya Hippos! It’s a brand new week, and that means a brand new opportunity to eat less than you did last week. How much did you eat last week, anyway? It’s okay, you can tell us. I bet it was more than enough.
My students keep asking me why I am here. It is a good question. I am an anomaly at Greenville-Weston High School. I am white in a school where most teachers, and nearly all students, are black. My race fascinated my tenth graders for the first few days of school. One student asked if I found the term “white” offensive, and if I would prefer that he refer to me as “Caucasian.” Several students asked to touch my hair.
1. Natalee Holloway. 2. James Taylor, and the giant pussies who love James Taylor. 3. Wasps who give “spiels”. 4. My roommates using my Ann Coulter poster as a jizz-rag. 5. That one kid who finished Infinite Jest. 6. Vaguely … Read More