Reviews and News:
Revisiting the accomplishment and failure of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. “It’s completely understandable why the 1960s movie star Rock Hudson stormed out of its Los Angeles premiere, asking, ‘Will somebody tell me what the hell this movie is about?'”
Happy Wednesday: “Nightmare bacteria”—pathogens resistant to almost every drug—have been found in hospitals across America.
The Phoenician fantasy: “The British, Irish and Lebanese have all claimed descent from the ancient Phoenicians.”
Eminent Shakespeare scholar in search of publisher: “When readers of the Times Literary Supplement open the latest issue, they’re due something of a surprise. There, alongside the advertisements for bursaries and farmhouses to rent, is a small notice from an eminent Shakespeare scholar. After a career spanning more than 50 years, during which he has published more than 40 books, Professor Sir Brian Vickers finds himself in search of a publisher. According to Vickers, a major reason he has not yet found a home for his complete edition of works by Thomas Kyd is that his ‘reputation as a scholar has been damaged by a string of hostile reviews by people associated with the New Oxford Shakespeare’.”
In praise of goats: “The world is divided, as we all know, between lovers of dogs and lovers of cats. Most of us prefer one or the other’s company; we lap up the canine’s devotion or take keen pleasure in the feline’s detached elegance. Dog lovers like parceling out rewards of affection and treats as they see fit. They love knowing better and knowing more, and what they often desire most in a dog is a sidekick. Cat lovers, by contrast, love being around an animal they never truly own, one they can’t quite control or manipulate or even really understand. Cat lovers are comfortable with the mysteries of nature in a way most dog lovers aren’t. So, where do you fall on a spectrum from crazy cat person to domineering German shepherd trainer? For the sake of self-knowledge, it’s a question we all might profitably ask ourselves. And to all who answer, like me, by saying they like both, I suggest there might be another, possibly more revealing, answer: ‘Goats…'”
Essay of the Day:
In the New York Times, Alex Vadukul tells the story of Saul Chandler. One of the most promising violin prodigies in the 1960s, Chandler quit at 16 and never performed again. Now 70, he spends his days at the City Island boatyard in New York:
“As the sun set and the tide started to rise around City Island, the seaside village off the eastern tip of the Bronx, Saul Chandler took his seat at a bar called the Snug. Mr. Chandler, 70, a small man who smokes cheap cigars and refuses Budweiser not in glass bottles, is one of the island’s waterfront eccentrics. He is a bar-stool fixture at the pub, known for telling bawdy jokes and paying the tabs of strangers before slipping into the night.
“He likes rambling about his boat, a two-masted schooner docked nearby. The shipyard was lonesome throughout winter, but he was usually in the hull of the schooner drinking beer and sawing wood by lamplight, classical music echoing from a radio in his cabin. He mostly tells stories: how he glued himself to a boat he was repairing and had to rip himself free and wander off in his underpants, how he nearly sank in the Bermuda Triangle, how he has named vessels after the Herman Melville novels Typee and Omoo.
“After a few beers, however, Mr. Chandler might tell a story that is not of the cheerful maritime sort: ‘I played Carnegie Hall twice before I was 13…I was known for my Bach…They turned me into a trained monkey…If I could forget about music I would.’
“When asked to say more, he shrugs, and the stories fade into the barroom haze. But this mysterious specter follows him to his boat. When music is playing on the radio, if a certain violin concerto comes on, he may get up and switch the station off. ‘The violin upsets me,’ he said. ‘It reminds me of terror.'”
Photo: Dart River
Poem: Linda Pastan, “Prologue”
Get Prufrock in your inbox every weekday morning. Subscribe here.
