Vale Edward Albee
(12 March 1928 – 16 September 2016) “It’s just a quirk of the brain that makes one a playwright,” Albee said. Maybe so, and growing up, precocious, adopted and gay, he had plenty to think and write about. But only Albee had the discipline, perseverance and talent to write excoriating and personal dramas that broke social taboos, without (unlike much contemporary drama) descending to platitudinous speeches or moral grandstanding. The characters he adopted to his dramas were treated with respect and understanding, and yes, even love. Most of his plays were set amongst the bourgeoisie, but were never complacent nor reliant on…
Continue Reading →Self-Victimisation
We see it everywhere and who can lay blame? It signifies our times and times past, which we thought were dead, but were only coughing up yet more blood. Recently, we reviewed Pascal Bruckner’s The Tyranny of Guilt and in the present context, it is worth quoting from that eloquent, thoughtful and largely instinctive (rather than empirical) book, in the current context: But there is also the danger of transforming these groups’ suffering into a kind of sanctuary, if necessary by embodying it in a law, of making it an impenetrable bastion…We no longer create our own lives, we repeat…
Continue Reading →South Australia Venerates the Maestro
12 September 2016: Thirty Years of the Richard Wagner Society of SA Inc. 1986: what a year! South Australia’s 150th birthday. John Bannon was Premier – remember him? Ronnie Reagan was U.S. President; Bob Hawke was Prime Minister. Glenelg won a stirring Grand Final against the odds. And SA State Opera, eclectic as ever, staged Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, at Her Majesty’s Theatre, then the Opera Theatre, which inspired three men of letters, Professor Andrew McCredie, Malcolm Fox and Ralph Middenway (with spiritual father Brian Coghlin absent but there in spirit), to convene a hasty public meeting on 20 June 1986, in…
Continue Reading →Suspicious Minds
Songs in Our Heart # 47 Suspicious Minds (Elvis Presley version) (Written by Mark James; released April 1969) [A great unresolved-love-triangle song, brilliantly covered by Elvis in his fecund late 1960s comeback phase, with inspired slow/fast, vanish/reappear production touches. See and hear also the lovely segue performed by Elvis Costello in his Elvis in Memphis concert video, moving from Alison to Suspicious Minds.]
Continue Reading →Historical Mysteries
(Photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen)
(Edited by Ian Pindar) P loves Folio books but is allergic to outlaying big money for their gorgeous products, at least, too often.. L has no such malady fortunately, so we have shelves bulging with these strongboxes of literary treasure. The Folio Book of Historical Mysteries is one such treat, a sumptuous volume you can skip about to kill time, during an afternoon at the cricket, say, or while waiting for guests to arrive. Written by various historical experts, judiciously argued, properly footnoted with lists of suggested further reading, and filled with lovely illustrations, dare one say (?), it’s a “perfect…
Continue Reading →