Alcoholism and addiction as metaphor and force of dehumanization, subsuming all human relations into a consumer fetishism of poisoned desires; the tyranny of history, a descent into madness and chaos, with a basketfull of lies, rages, jealousies, and a chorus of sins; the plays of Eugene O’Neil blend Tennesee Williams with Samuel Beckett and throw … Continue reading Eugene O’Neil , on his birthday October 16
Though he has received universal acclamation for his courageous and brilliant work challenging gender roles and identity, and for living the part with triumphant glamour and elegance, Oscar Wilde’s role as an anarchist and Irish rebel has been kept behind the curtain, so with his unique Existentialism and its influence on that of Sartre. His … Continue reading Oscar Wilde, on his birthday October 16
Nietzsche who awakens, Nietzsche who challenges, Nietzsche who illuminates and inspires; these are the three Nietzsches who have been my companions throughout life, my guides and muses, and whom I offer you as a Song of Orpheus and Ariadne’s Thread whereby to find your way through the labyrinth of life. Protean in his forms, … Continue reading Friedrich Nietzsche, on his birthday October 15
Dreams and fantasies of a Surrealist-Magical Realist inclination, with the language play and bizarre devices of Calvino and Perec; Milorad Pavic has given us immortal classics of literature, brilliantly conceived and gorgeously written. His works achieve an apex of narrative beauty, as unique as it is stunning, and also recapitulates and transforms our civilization’s history … Continue reading Milorad Pavic, on his birthday October 15
Ambiguities of meaning, experiments of form, fantasies and reimaginations of what it means to be human; our histories, political and cultural contexts, allegories and fables; Italo Calvino changes the structural elements of ourselves and our civilization to renew and reawaken us. Few of our liberators have transgressed and shifted our boundaries as rigorously as he … Continue reading Italo Calvino, on his birthday October 15
Comedies of dehumanization and existential dread, satires of power relations and the Sadeian-Freudian dynamics of sex and gender, a Nabokovian obsession with the illusions of self and memory, the tyranny of history and other people, a Camus-like defiance and revolt against authority and the tillting at windmills; Harold Pinter’s Absurdism comes direct from the protege … Continue reading Harold Pinter, on his birthday October 10
Satires, fantasies of Russian Surrealism and a bizarre pagan mythology, subversions of Soviet Realism; the works of Andrei Sinyavski, iconoclast and scholar of Pushkin and Gogol, resonate with the force of his dark visions. For his is an art forged in the hell of a Soviet gulag, and from within the set of puzzle … Continue reading Andrei Sinyavski, on his birthday October 8
Here is Plato’s Philosopher-King, a playwright whose stage is a nation; Vaclav Havel became a figure of the ideal human being and the unconquered spirit of man. His will to become, to defy tyrannical authority and hold fast to Truth, Justice, and Liberty regardless of the cost, to abandon not himself nor his people and … Continue reading Vaclav Havel, on his birthday October 5
At his best a visionary maestro and literary prankster of irrepressible humor and wit, Flann O’Brien could not sustain the heights of his unselfconscious debut, crushed by years of scorn and ridicule. With his will and belief in himself, his capacity of vision was broken. As must be true for countless writers, artists, musicians, and … Continue reading Flann O’Brien, on his birthday October 5
“I set about discovering the face of the infinite beneath the concrete forms which were escorting me, walking the length of the earth’s avenues.” Louis Aragon The dichotomous vision and juxtaposition of images of the Ideal and Real realms in which man is caught and must live have not only trapped us in a … Continue reading Louis Aragon, on his birthday Oct 3
Dollhouse Park Conservatory & Imaginarium 