Reviews and News:
Clive James reviews a very narrow History of Virility: “Real news would have been to tell us how any man, of whatever proclivities, got the urge to act gallantly towards women, or even care about them very much. The Greek conviction that true masculinity included a capacity for self-control is canvassed, but not extended into the surely crucial area where self-control might be exercised out of respect for other selves, and not just for immediate personal advantage. Pericles had a long loyalty to Aspasia. How did that happen, when he had so many affairs, thereby breaking the law that he himself had decreed? Where did gallantry come from, in this or any other context where men could do as they pleased? These questions are not dealt with (or even “addressed”) anywhere in the book. Later the omission will become more and more conspicuous, but it’s already pretty radiant early on, hinting powerfully at the possibility that the many writers concerned share the characteristic of not seeing intersexual affection as a pertinent reality. As Roger Scruton has said of all those Marxist thinkers who wasted thousands of square miles of print condemning the bourgeois family as a capitalist control mechanism, they left out love.”
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Tacky artworks, costing the Russian government around $3 million, have been installed in the center of Moscow to scare off hipsters: “By Friday, the entire center of the city was covered with sculptures and installations, most of them far larger than life size. These included a plastic reproduction of the classic Russian painting ‘Bogatyrs’ (featuring three Russian-superhero horsemen), the size of a two-story house; the head of a woman—also roughly the size of a house—in faux topiary, with a twisted hand growing out of the ground next to it; and a cartoon Soviet policeman, which was the height of a small apartment building. It was as if the city had been invaded by a horde of aliens with flamboyantly bad taste. The Moscow intelligentsia recoiled in horror. The aesthetic assault is a logical part of Moscow’s—and Russia’s—political progression. Until about a year or two ago, Moscow, at least its central part, had spent half a decade or so refashioning itself as a town of hipsters…the demographic on which Putin blamed the mass protests of 2011 and 2012. They have been swept out of city government and its cultural institutions.”
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Shakespeare among cowboys: “Shakespeare’s influence on the American mind and heart runs deeper than mere affection spawned by a common language. The American soul has been distinctly shaped by Shakespeare. In his cheerful vulgarity, his upstart vitality, his hatred of tyranny, and his love of freedom, we can see that he is ours and we are his.”
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Yale refuses to change name of undergraduate college named after John C. Calhoun.
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Michael Dirda recommends three volumes of “strange” stories.
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A stunning performance of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night: “It is only mid-day in the Tyrones’ living room, in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s new production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night at the American Airlines Theatre, but Mary Tyrone—powerfully incarnated by Jessica Lange—is already well on her way back to morphine addiction. She is prone to gauzy recollections and sudden bursts of fury and regret as she surreptitiously pursues the drug’s oblivion. Then, in a brief moment of clarity, she strains to overcome that lure, wishing she had faith enough to pray as she did as a young girl. She leans earnestly forward, her rocking chair tilting precariously on its runners. As she begins to haltingly speak—’Hail, Mary, full of grace . . .’—she tumbles, landing prone on the floor, still trying to recite the words. The fall—not called for in the playwright’s detailed stage instructions—inspired an audience gasp. Under less sure hands, it might have seemed too much too soon—there was still much morphine that Mary had to inject offstage, and still much whiskey to be downed by others before this long play’s journey into nocturnal melancholy could wind to its conclusion. But Jonathan Kent’s direction and Ms. Lange’s performance really did keep the character’s descent under choreographed control, the steepness of the incline measured by Ms. Lange’s restless hands, her mercurial temperament, her wraith-like presence.’
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Essay of the Day:
In Prospect, Lionel Shriver argues that transgendersim is entirely dependent on stereotypes:
“Gender is not about what you do, but about what you are…Yet consider: in order to construct this spectrum, it is necessary first firmly to establish what it means to be ‘man’ and ‘woman.’ Even if you are ‘genderqueer’—convinced that your gender identity does not conform to the social norms associated with your sex—alienation from social norms depends on the perpetuation of social norms. Thus if you are a gruff, muscular, assertive woman who has adopted the genderqueer label, girlishness must continue to be associated with garrulousness, weakness, and passivity for your identity to scan.
“In short, the spectrum depends on stereotypes.
“We are told that a trans woman may have been born a man, but ‘feels like’ a woman. I do not mean to be perverse here, but I have no idea what it ‘feels like’ to be a woman—and I am one. My having happened to be born female has always seemed a biological accident, mere luck (or lack thereof) of the genetic draw. Honestly, being female ‘feels like’ it has nothing to do with me. I respect that some people may feel alienated from their bodies (as I age, I’m as alienated as could be; the ‘real me’ does not have arthritic knees), and I realise I am getting myself into trouble here. Nevertheless, the whole trans movement does seem to have awfully to do with clothes. Especially in the male to female direction—and I am baffled why anyone would want to be female with any other option available—’feeling like’ a woman seems to imply feeling like wearing mascara, heels, hair extensions, and stockings.
“Be my guest. I don’t care what anyone wears. But I hate to break it to the converts to my sex: women who were born women schlep around most of the time in jeans and trainers. The version of femininity offered up by Caitlyn Jenner is foreign to me—exaggeratedly coiffed, buffed and corseted. It’s a parody of the female wholly composed of surfaces.”
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Image of the Day: The Red Baron
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Poem: Melissa Stein, “Playhouse”
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