Category Archives: Uncategorized

If the Republicans mug our government yet again, will the current Democratic leadership be able to to make the GOP accountable? I doubt it. Whereas the shutdowns of the 1990s worked to the GOP’s eventual electoral disadvantage, GOP shutdowns have … Continue reading →

When I identified the need for an Ina Claire biography earlier this month, little did I know that the Metropolitan Playhouse was reviving her 1922 Broadway success The Awful Truth, by Arthur Richman. It was master antique clock restorer John … Continue reading →

Carly Fiorina ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground, fired 30,000 employees, and had to be paid some humongous amount of severance–accounts vary, but it was at least $21 million–to go away. She stiffed her 2010 failed Senatorial campaign workers until she … Continue reading →

To anatomize domestic dysfunctionality, is there? I mean, where would Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf be without Strindberg’s Dance of Death? But Hasse Ekman’s 1948 film The Banquet, which I saw yesterday evening at the Museum of Modern Art, … Continue reading →

Peter Gelb’s admission to Michael Cooper in the The New York Times that he’s open to selling naming rights to the Met is appalling but not unexpected. But why doesn’t Gelb decide to make the oligarchs really pay? After all, … Continue reading →

As the used Bentley salesman’s henchpeople threaten massive funding cuts to public broadcasting, the BBC is apparently panicking: it  won’t identify Cameron as” right wing,” but invariably adjectifies Corbyn “left wing.” In 10 hours, 30,000 Britishers just signed a petition … Continue reading →

Presents  of cash or jewels should NOT be left by the mailboxes!

Along with harvest festivals and wine-making (I know a couple who do it every year on the roof of their townhouse and invite family and friends) it’s time for the fall issue of Ballet Review. This fall, read me on … Continue reading →

Driving up the Saw Mill River parkway I remember my father telling me what his father asked him when they drove up together a long time ago–when he was a child. “What do each of these bridges have in common?” … Continue reading →

August 26, 2002 was the day I heard Cheney on the car radio as he conducted his lying spree about Iraq’s WMD capabilities at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention. And I nearly coughed up my research. Not September 8, … Continue reading →