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Oct. 2nd, 2012
Grease Is the Word
Oct. 2nd, 2012 11:07 am
Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta are reuniting for a Christmas album?? Hey, I was actually a "Grease" fan all those decades ago, and I was enchanted enough by the romantic pair that I even went to see their second movie that just about everyone must have forgotten, "Twist of Fate", which once you got past the first ten, fifteen minutes was actually a little fun. But I cannot say I am feeling the thrill for this latest effort. I'm thinking it might even be a prank. Though, I am feeling some nostalgia for "Grease" and feeling the pain of that old wound - being a teenager in high school and sitting in the theater watching that show that was itself nostalgic for a 1950s that I never knew.
(Source: ONTD)
Grease Is the Word
Oct. 2nd, 2012 11:07 am
Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta are reuniting for a Christmas album?? Hey, I was actually a "Grease" fan all those decades ago, and I was enchanted enough by the romantic pair that I even went to see their second movie that just about everyone must have forgotten, "Twist of Fate", which once you got past the first ten, fifteen minutes was actually a little fun. But I cannot say I am feeling the thrill for this latest effort. I'm thinking it might even be a prank. Though, I am feeling some nostalgia for "Grease" and feeling the pain of that old wound - being a teenager in high school and sitting in the theater watching that show that was itself nostalgic for a 1950s that I never knew.
(Source: ONTD)
"Animal Farm"
Oct. 2nd, 2012 05:06 pmWe will get Ms. Gardner’s closing note on “Animal Farm”. I know I have yet to read it and not get misty-eyed.
_ _ _
It is this sharpness of visualization and the emotional resonance it creates that have ensured “Animal Farm” what seems likely to be a permanent place in literature. Mixing, as Bernard Crick as well expressed it, “serenity of tone” and “bitterness of content,” it is neither simple allegory nor simple animal fable. Graham Greene rightly noted in his review that we “become involved in the fate” of the animals. We care about them too much merely to translate events into their historical equivalent [i.e., the Bolshevist revolution.]. Reading the fables of Aesop and La Fontaine, we are sufficiently distant to be able to laugh at the dupe as well as to reprimand the trickster. There is no such possibility in “Animal Farm”, nor, by the end, can we escape the weight of the book’s sadness by thinking that these things have only happened to animals. We look from the oppressed animals in the book to the oppressed human beings outside and back again, and can see no difference.
-- Averil Gardner, “George Orwell”
_ _ _
It is this sharpness of visualization and the emotional resonance it creates that have ensured “Animal Farm” what seems likely to be a permanent place in literature. Mixing, as Bernard Crick as well expressed it, “serenity of tone” and “bitterness of content,” it is neither simple allegory nor simple animal fable. Graham Greene rightly noted in his review that we “become involved in the fate” of the animals. We care about them too much merely to translate events into their historical equivalent [i.e., the Bolshevist revolution.]. Reading the fables of Aesop and La Fontaine, we are sufficiently distant to be able to laugh at the dupe as well as to reprimand the trickster. There is no such possibility in “Animal Farm”, nor, by the end, can we escape the weight of the book’s sadness by thinking that these things have only happened to animals. We look from the oppressed animals in the book to the oppressed human beings outside and back again, and can see no difference.
-- Averil Gardner, “George Orwell”
"Animal Farm"
Oct. 2nd, 2012 05:06 pmWe will get Ms. Gardner’s closing note on “Animal Farm”. I know I have yet to read it and not get misty-eyed.
_ _ _
It is this sharpness of visualization and the emotional resonance it creates that have ensured “Animal Farm” what seems likely to be a permanent place in literature. Mixing, as Bernard Crick as well expressed it, “serenity of tone” and “bitterness of content,” it is neither simple allegory nor simple animal fable. Graham Greene rightly noted in his review that we “become involved in the fate” of the animals. We care about them too much merely to translate events into their historical equivalent [i.e., the Bolshevist revolution.]. Reading the fables of Aesop and La Fontaine, we are sufficiently distant to be able to laugh at the dupe as well as to reprimand the trickster. There is no such possibility in “Animal Farm”, nor, by the end, can we escape the weight of the book’s sadness by thinking that these things have only happened to animals. We look from the oppressed animals in the book to the oppressed human beings outside and back again, and can see no difference.
-- Averil Gardner, “George Orwell”
_ _ _
It is this sharpness of visualization and the emotional resonance it creates that have ensured “Animal Farm” what seems likely to be a permanent place in literature. Mixing, as Bernard Crick as well expressed it, “serenity of tone” and “bitterness of content,” it is neither simple allegory nor simple animal fable. Graham Greene rightly noted in his review that we “become involved in the fate” of the animals. We care about them too much merely to translate events into their historical equivalent [i.e., the Bolshevist revolution.]. Reading the fables of Aesop and La Fontaine, we are sufficiently distant to be able to laugh at the dupe as well as to reprimand the trickster. There is no such possibility in “Animal Farm”, nor, by the end, can we escape the weight of the book’s sadness by thinking that these things have only happened to animals. We look from the oppressed animals in the book to the oppressed human beings outside and back again, and can see no difference.
-- Averil Gardner, “George Orwell”
The Horse Race
Oct. 2nd, 2012 05:56 pmRon Brownstein goes through the polling data and discovers a key reason Obama is performing well in swing states, actually the key reason. It began with the contraception debate when the GOP came off as caring more about the Vatican than struggling working class women for whom birth control really is a medical necessity that they appreciate being insured. It continued through the Akin mess and the 47 percent moment. It's hard to see how this mega-rich Wall Streeter can relate to struggling women in this economy. And the Obama ads in the swing states have focused on this demographic relentlessly.
-- Sully's Dish
-- Sully's Dish
The Horse Race
Oct. 2nd, 2012 05:56 pmRon Brownstein goes through the polling data and discovers a key reason Obama is performing well in swing states, actually the key reason. It began with the contraception debate when the GOP came off as caring more about the Vatican than struggling working class women for whom birth control really is a medical necessity that they appreciate being insured. It continued through the Akin mess and the 47 percent moment. It's hard to see how this mega-rich Wall Streeter can relate to struggling women in this economy. And the Obama ads in the swing states have focused on this demographic relentlessly.
-- Sully's Dish
-- Sully's Dish
