Virginia Wolfe’s Last Letter to her Husband
Virginia Woolf’s last letter to her husband, Leonard, reads:
Dearest,
I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness.
I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer.
I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.
V.
Continue ReadingLord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies is not entertainment in the popular sense of the word. It places high demands on the viewer. Think of it as going to a museum whose paintings are challenging for the senses; or going to the theater to see a modern piece like Waiting for Godod. A group of British children become stranded on a desert island without any adults there to supervise or guide them. I am not sure if there is a recorded case in history that would gives us any clues how a group of isolated children would actually organize their society. In the book by the same name, William Golding, imagines what kind of society the children would build for themselves. In his vision, the forces of savagery will appeal so strongly to the children’s mind that they will be hard to resist. Adult societies, of course, often struggle with the same forces. The 2nd part of the film explores this battle between the forces of savagery and civilization. If you want to know how it ends, find an evening when you are willing to sit through Peter Brooke’s film.
The King’s Speech
Think back to the terrifying moment when you gave your first public speech. You may be a great storyteller when surrounded but friends and family. But now you step onto the podium looking out to an audience of strangers who are all focused on you starting your speech. Your mouth is getting dry, your tongue is getting heavy. The audience is waiting for you to say something and you know you might not be able to pull this off well and be branded failure in full public view. Now imagine that you a have a stammer since childhood. This moment will be even more terrifying. Welcome the opening scene of The King’s Speech, which chronicles the ascent of George IV to the British thrown in 1936. During the first half of the film I was a bit unconformable because it seemed to me a rather overt promo for the Monarchy. While I don’t object that countries like Great Britain and Sweden continue to having a King or Queen, I don’t support the idea that a country like the U.S.A or Germany should bring in a monarchy. But later on the film becomes so good that I left the theatre content.
The Japanese People
I only spent a short time in Japan, but I noted in my travel blog how smitten I was by courteous way all Japanese seemed to behave. Nicholas Kristof confirms these observations in the NY Times and digs a lot deeper into psyche of the Japanese. I hope that Japan will be spared a deeper nuclear crisis.
The Japanese Could Teach Us a Thing or Two
When America is under stress, as is happening right now with debates about where to pare the budget, we sometimes trample the least powerful and most vulnerable among us.
So maybe we can learn something from Japan, where the earthquake, tsunami and radiation leaks haven’t caused society to come apart at the seams but to be knit together more tightly than ever. The selflessness, stoicism and discipline in Japan these days are epitomized by those workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, uncomplainingly and anonymously risking dangerous doses of radiation as they struggle to prevent a complete meltdown that would endanger their fellow citizens.
Continue ReadingOptical Illusion
The world is full of mysteries. I have no idea how this stationary picture appears to be moving.
Peggy Noonan executes Don Rumsfeld
I was impressed with Peggy Noonan when she—although a Republican partisan—called Sarah Palin’s nomination ridiculous. Her commitment to truth and integrity made her write this scathing review of Donald Rumsfeld memoirs in the WSJ.
The One That Got Away
Memoirist Rumsfeld seems to forget why we went to Afghanistan.
I like Donald Rumsfeld. I’ve always thought he was a hard-working, intelligent man. I respected his life in public service at the highest and most demanding levels. So it was with some surprise that I found myself flinging his book against a wall in hopes I would break its stupid little spine.
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The New Humanism
David Brooks continues to lay out in the NY Times his argument for a new humanism that tries to understand how human beings flourish collectively.
Over the course of my career, I’ve covered a number of policy failures. When the Soviet Union fell, we sent in teams of economists, oblivious to the lack of social trust that marred that society. While invading Iraq, the nation’s leaders were unprepared for the cultural complexities of the place and the psychological aftershocks of Saddam’s terror. We had a financial regime based on the notion that bankers are rational creatures who wouldn’t do anything stupid en masse. For the past 30 years we’ve tried many different ways to restructure our educational system—trying big schools and little schools, charters and vouchers—that, for years, skirted the core issue: the relationship between a teacher and a student.
Continue ReadingSex in America
Want to know what the average American is up to in terms of his or her sexual patterns, here you can find out.
David Brown reports in the Washington post on a new A sweeping survey of Americans’ sexual behavior
Evan Hughes provides a thoughtful review in TNR of Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying by Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker.
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