Categories
2006-2010 Play Reviews

A Woman’s Gift is a Salesman’s Curse: Glengarry Glen Ross

Mamet has been accused of being anti-feminist at best and misogynist at worst. Yet certainly we can’t say that he wants us to admire the “world of men” in this real estate office, or to agree with the characters’ attitude toward women (or toward anyone outside their white male world).

What are we to make of the influence of women in the play? What of Mrs. Lingk, who ruins Roma’s deal and indirectly brings about Levene’s final fall? What of the “ex” Levene mentions early in the play, the one who “kicked out” of another deal? What of Levene’s “daughter? And what of Harriet Nyborg, even, who serves Levene store-bought crumb cake and, along with her husband, agrees to sign a contract for land she has no intention or means of purchasing?

How are we to deal with the presence/absence of women in Glengarry Glen Ross? How might you construct an interpretation of the play that takes these women into account?

Categories
2006-2010 Play Reviews

How Do You Love an Old Man?: Considering King Lear

Consider the following passages from an excellent essay on the play by Coppelia Kahn called “The Absent Mother in King Lear.” Kahn argues that Lear’s transformation over the course of the play involves his gradual understanding of–to put it bluntly–the woman in himself.

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2006-2010 Book Reviews

The Emulsion of Politics and Sentiment in Persepolis

At one point in the book Persepolis, Marji’s father tells her that “politics and sentiment don’t mix,” and yet much of the book’s power comes from precisely that combination–on the one hand, there are the horrible realities of the revolution and the war; and on the other hand, there is the example of Satrapi’s family, whose strength and love really do become a means of survival for Marji.
Taking into account both the book and the movie, how do you react to the father’s statement that “politics and sentiment don’t mix.” Do you think that Marji herself believes that? Do you think the women in her family–her mother and grandmother–would agree with the statement?

Categories
2006-2010 Book Reviews

The Malaise Inside Me: Thoughts on the Moviegoer

Throughout Percy Walker’s first novel The Moviegoer, narrator Jack “Binx” Bolling spends much of his time engaged in an intense inquest into the contents of his navel. He is a Walter Mitty wiling away his time (and the novel’s pages) with day-dreams, remembrances, and meditations on the mundane, movies, and the malaise.

Categories
2006-2010 Poems

“Blue Note”

A latex slip, ribbed for her pleasure, is pregnant
with half-babies vainly swimming
in an open-ended tunnel capped with a reservoir tip.
Her intimates, intermingling with his pink
Polo shirt, lie curled up in a ball,
freshly unfurled from her young frame.
Tendrils, chiseled in stone-colored smoke
borne from a Camel Light, swirl in the dusky
incandescence before fading from sight.
Coltrane, on wax, carves a space in sound with his sax;
“Giant Steps” walks the room and scores the scene
until “A Love Supreme” conquers all.