Reason #1: Because Anna Wintour is one of my obsessions, her father falls into that sphere.
Reason#2: I haven't posted anything about Tom Stoppard for about thirty minutes so I'm falling behind.
Perhaps it's all mythical, but there story goes like this. Young Mr. Stoppard was embarking on a career (short lived) in journalism and won an interview with one of the greatest publishers of the day, Charles Wintour. He was the editor of the Evening Standard and Sunday Express. --A considerable many who raised a considerable daughter.
Anyway,...
Mr. Stoppard, fresh from a tour of duty as a reporter in Bristol, takes a seat across the desk from Mr. Wintour CBE and the conversation goes something like this:
Stoppard began his career as a reporter in Bristol. On applying to
the London Evening Standard, he was interviewed by the then
editor, Charles Wintour, who says: "I gather you're interested in
politics. Who is the Home Secretary?"
"Look," Stoppard replied, "I said I was interested. Not obsessed."
It would be entirely inappropriate for me to not mention the passing of J. D. Salinger especially as he has an important influence on my own writing. But I'm an odd fan. Catcher in the Rye is my least favorite of the Salinger canon. Nine Stories, Raise High the Roofbeams... and Frannie and Zooey all appear on my list above Catcher in the Rye.
For me, Salinger captured the isolation and frustration of gifted people making their way through a world that didn't quite live up to their exceptions and hopes. In less capable hands, this friction between the world of the mind and the world of the real could come off as essentially elitist. But Salinger was able to present different ways people can deal with that friction, from something self-destructive as a bullet to the brain to simple mental breakdowns, to finding a way to pass in this world. Being smart, really smart wasn't necessarily an asset in Mr. Salinger's work.
My guess is that Salinger will become part of the Canon. My second daughter is taking her turn at Steinbeck's The Pearl. How that became part of the curriculum, I'll never know. I can hope that one day Steinbeck's seat will be vacated and Salinger can enjoy the view from he orchestra.
There's a fascinating account of a dinner with Tom Stoppard where Pinter
says that he doesn't plan his characters' lives and then asks his
fellow dramatist: "Don't you find they take you over sometimes?", to
which Stoppard firmly replies: "No." That says a lot. One reason that
The Homecoming is a great play is that Pinter allows the character of
Ruth, almost unconsciously, to take over and at the end achieve an
ambivalent dominance. For all Stoppard's many virtues – such as a
formidable intellect and a coruscating wit – he tends to keep his
characters on a much tighter, almost Shavian leash.
As all my dear friends know, I cast a rather wide net as I fish for notices about Tom Stoppard. I have discovered productions of Jumpers in far away provinces of Canada etc. Today the net dragged in a clipping from The London Evening Standard, not exactly in the first tier of the London press, but nevertheless, it's published in London so it published a notice about one Miss Lucy Prebble (excellent name!) who has written a musical about ... the decline and fall of Enron. I kid you not. Not only that, but it has sold out out its run in the Royal Court Theatre and it moving over to the West End's Noel Coward theatre and ... I'm breathless .... it will be opening on Broadway and is going to be made into a movie.
Bethatasitmay, our favorite, Mr. Tom Stoppard must have had a fine seat in the orchestra for one of the performances. (Perhaps he had forgotten to update his Netflicks wishlist.) Anyway, the story goes that Ms. Lucy Prebble received a note from Mr. Stoppard. Here's the relevant portion:
When I'm introduced, people say,' – adopts bored tone – “Oh, hi” and then when they know what I wrote, they turn round and say,' – adopts voice of gushing excitement – “Oh, hi!”' The other day, she received a card of congratulation from Tom Stoppard. I jumped up and down when I got it. He didn't need to do that. It was classy behaviour.'
Now, let's snick a peek at Ms. Prebbles:
Okay. It may have been "classy behaviour" on the part of Mr. Stoppard, but somehow, especially after seeing the snapshot long and tall drink of water, I'm not entirely convinced our Mr. Stoppard was solely impressed by her writing skills.
This morning, I had the pleasure of listening to one of my many favorite radio shows, Forum, on KQED-fm. The host of the show, Michael Krasny, was away and I can't recall who was sitting in for him but that's not the point. The guests today were John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation and co-author of "The Death and Life of American Journalism
" and Robert McChesney, professor of communication at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and is other half of the co-authoring team.
Here's to the segment.
As an engaged, professional witness to the mass slaughter of media and unsettling effects it has on some of the people I most admire, the topic interested me and during the interview, the authors repeatedly made the point that there is a four to one ratio of public relations people to journalists and the authors used this fact to leverage their point that journalism in the United States has a knife at its throat.
Excuse me, but as someone who attended the University of Missouri School of Journalism and practices and performs the Dark Arts of public relations for far too many years, I have come to know many journalists and many public relations .... people. So I was not impressed by this cited fact. In fact, it made me giggle when I thought "I wouldn't break a sweat until the ratio is something on the order of twenty to one." And I started to think about creating a series of jokes along the lines of "How many public relations people does it take to write a press release..."
Now, at this juncture, it is important for me to point out that I am not damning the entire population of my profession because I have met many very intelligent and creative and wonderful individuals along the winding way of my career and I treasure their friendship and they know who they are. Instead, I'm just pointing out that there is no one in my profession who deserves to be celebrated and honored such as I.F. Stone, R.W. Apple, Hunter S. Thompson, Morely Safer, Amy Goodman, Bob Woodward and the thousands of unknown scribes who cover car wrecks and write the words set in agate type on the sports page.
And it would behoove you to listen to the aforementioned interview as the authors express their astonishment that is was completely SRO @ Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon. One might think that the crowd suddenly appeared out of thin air instead of the work of some public relations person.
Please. Spare me.
I have a shaky confidence in the American people and their olfactory ability to sniff out bullshit even when it's served to them on the fine china of corporate.america. I have mixed opinions about this week's decision of our Supreme Court that corporate.america has the same right to speak as any individual. On the one hand, I believe that corporate.america has the right to pay me huge amounts of money to better express its point-of-view. On the other hand, my previously stated shaky confidence in the American people's ability to tease out the fact from fiction and opinion is exactly that, shaky. Afterall, this is the same public that eats up heaping helpings of entertainments that should surely insult our so-called intelligence. Perhaps the pursuit of Unobtanium in Avatar is a wake up call to us that coporate.america has pegged us as suckers. Money ≠ Speech.
Perhaps we will never get our fill of lurid and debased entertainments that do their level best to undermine our self-respect and civilization. As for me, I will remain optimistic about the uncontrollable internet as a medium so vast that is has room for perfectly positive expressions of our humanity, the Better Angels. In Elizabethan England, the choice of entertainments were bear-baiting and Shakespeare. And Jane Austen's day, the novel was still looked down and many Well-Respected people disparaged it as a waste of time and energy. From that point of view, the internet would make their minds quail, quiver and dissolve.
Perhaps Beckett puts it best: "I can't go on. I must go on." And we can also rely on the trusty, never rusty apothegm, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
In the meantime, Amazon has delivered to me The New York Review of Books edition of Edmund Wilson's history, To the Finland Station
with a foreword by Louis Menand and I will soldier on.
" and Robert McChesney, professor of communication at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and is other half of the co-authoring team. 
with a foreword by Louis Menand and I will soldier on.
