Absurdist satires, humor, science fiction, and a brilliantly imagined portrayal of the human condition; Kurt Vonnegut speaks to us from a deeply empathetic view of our foibles and suffering, our joy and potential for greatness, like a modern Mark Twain. He shares with Dostoevsky an interest in schizophrenia as both a literal and metaphorical illness. … Continue reading Kurt Vonnegut , on his birthday November 11
In works which explore madness, faith, values, identity, history, the necessity of freedom and the limits of action, and all of this in the shadow of an Authority which rules the material world like a warden devil and must be resisted, Fyodor Dostoevsky has given us a key to balancing conservative and revolutionary forces and … Continue reading Fyodor Dostoevsky, on his birthday November 11
Surrealist-Absurdist narratives of Kafka-esque nightmares, the theatrical techniques of Brecht, Artaud, Ionesco, and Beckett, and a prose aesthetic developed from Genet, Robbe-Grillet, and Queneau, with a vast intellect and command of history and culture; Peter Weiss has created treasures of world literature and theatre whose power to motivate change and transform meaning will endure forever. … Continue reading Peter Weiss, on his birthday November 8
The works of Albert Camus have become foundational to our civilization, studied in every high school in America as core curriculum and by anyone else pursuing an education; these include the great novels The Stranger, The Fall, and The Plague, as well as the play Caligula, and the philosophical essays in The Myth of Sisyphus … Continue reading Albert Camus, on his birthday November 7
Fantasies of Absurdism with Surrealist imagery and the Existential doubt and anxiety of Sartre, a theatre of mythic America shadowed by the nihilistic terror of Beckett; Sam Shepard wrote, acted, and directed tragedies of social fragmentation and dysfunctional families with lyrical and unique beauty. Among his finest works are nightmare dreamscapes of dystopian Americana, a … Continue reading Sam Shepard, on his birthday November 5
Social responsibility and the project of becoming human, the interrogation and reformation of the American national character, goals, and ideals, family and nation, freedom and state terror; Arthur Miller seems newly relevant today. Death of a Salesman presents themes of memory, history, identity, truth and illusion; a play of family relationships and the Great American … Continue reading Arthur Miller, on his birthday October 17
Sensuous, gorgeous poetry and puzzles of strange symbols like a private language or obfuscating code, Wallace Stevens combined in his art English Romanticism and French Symbolism like the performance of a highwire act. His poetry is a stunning negotiation of balance between the forces of conservatism- here expressed as the literary tradition of Romantic Idealism … Continue reading Wallace Stevens, on his birthday October 2
Looking for something literary about the real Old Time Religion this Halloween, perhaps with a Maria Gimbutas Pan-European orientation? For a luminous and beautiful exploration of European paganism and the original Mother Goddess faith, backed by immense scholarship and a decades-long passion for the subject, one can do no better than Ted Hughes’ magnificent Shakespeare … Continue reading On Halloween and that Old Time Religion
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 Tennessee Williams with Samuel Beckett and throw … Continue reading Eugene O’Neil, on his birthday October 16
“To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream.” Sylvia Plath A fierce and brilliant poet, whose great book Ariel burns with supernal darkness like the Tiger of William Blake, Sylvia Plath stirs a cauldron of hate and love, fear and desire, madness, … Continue reading Sylvia Plath, on her birthday October 27
Dollhouse Park Conservatory & Imaginarium 