When Mike Nichols died in 2014, the news was met by such an enormous outpouring of grief that it’s surprising that, in the eighteen months since his passing, the director’s cinematic legacy mostly has been overlooked. As is the case with the late, great Robert Altman, it’s as if no one knows how to approach Nichols’s immensely varied – some might go so far as to say uneven – body of work. Continue Reading →
Archive | Theater Matters
Saint Franny at the Spring
First thing today I walk outside and stumble over my aging Italian neighbor feeding all the pigeons on our stoop. Grumpy to her husband (he’s a no-account Lothario, I’m not blaming her), kind to the birds: She’s a latter-day Saint Franny. My kitty watching from the window above is the Zooey in this equation, I guess; she loves those bewinged visitors and studies them with the ardent anxiety of a spurned suitor. Continue Reading →
A Few Notes from the Psychic Underground
Generally speaking, I don’t tell anyone I meet in person that I am an intuitive. I may talk about it more than I used to—I have an intuitive practice, after all—but I find that owning up to this skill means I have to contend with everyone’s feelings and theories about psychic phenomena, not to mention allow them to feel superior to me. Often people begin to testify about their own experiences that defy regular logic, as if they are throwing me a bone or sharing a dirty secret. Sometimes they actually ask, “If you’re so psychic, what am I thinking right now?” I try to be patient, I really do. But though these people may not mean any harm, what they are discussing in essence is whether I am full of shit and whether the very concept of psychic phenomena is also full of shit. Believe me or don’t, I want to say. It gives me more of an edge if you don’t. Continue Reading →