… has died. He was one of the more famous professors at Harvard when I was there, certainly among the most famous who actually taught undergraduate classes, but I just hated his class, which I was forced to take as part of the “core curriculum,” Harvard’s typically gussied up distribution requirement program. The “Core Curriculum” was not unlike the classic (probably now extinct) Chinese menus of legend… one from Column A, two from Column B, etc. The columns were Areas of Inquiry, and the one I put off until the last semester of my last year was the Social Sciences… the stuff including Econ and sociology, etc. Finally, with no choice, I signed up for Huntington’s survey course, which was basically a semester long introduction to his particular theories of Government and Civilization.
I remember very little about it, except this: he spoke in a very funny, nasal, sing-song voice. He read from prepared notes, following an elaborate, semester long outline, and he simply stopped — almost mid-sentence — at the end of the day’s lecture, and started again from the same point the next class. It struck me at the time that he was coming up with elaborate, sciency-sounding Theorems to explain the arbitrary facts of the world… one I remember (or probably mis-remember) was that Democracy was better suited to countries that were majority Christian, Jewish… or Shinto-Buddhist. Right… It turns out that I was not the only person to wonder whether or not his approach qualified as “science.”
That semester I was busy with finishing my honors thesis, directing a play on the Loeb Drama Center mainstage, and having a nervous breakdown, so Huntington’s class seemed like a low priority. I remember getting a C on the midterm, and managing the final by spending two days in a library with a friend in the same boat (Thanks, Malia!) with borrowed class notes.
But mainly I remember this: showing up for the lectures late, sitting down near the front (the last seats to fill) and ostentatiously reading the newspaper rather than paying attention to the professor. Because I had More Important Things to Think About. Good lord, I was an asshole then.
Harold Pinter is dead, and I realize that he, more than anyone, inspired my own play writing, even though I didn’t particularly care for any one of his plays (with the vast exception of “Betrayal,” which is just about perfect.) I never sat down to write something “Pinteresque,” but I always interested in the economy of scenes, the uses of rhythm and silence, and most of all, the possibility of deceit… the idea that something isn’t always what it seems, or what the characters say it is.
Here’s a true story about Pinter, told to me years ago by the great actor and director Alan Mandell, who directed the single best Pinter production I ever saw, “The Caretaker” at LATC in 1989 or so. Pinter was great friends with his mentor Samuel Beckett, and one day sent a note to Beckett in Paris asking if he could visit. Beckett assented and shortly thereafter the two were walking along the Seine. Beckett says, “What’s wrong, Harold?” Harold says, “Oh, Sam, I don’t know, everything’s rotten… my marriage, my writing… I’m so depressed!” Says Beckett: “Well, Harold you’re not as depressed as me.”
After the jump, a scene from one of my last full length plays, MALL AMERICA, in which a woman, Alison, is trying to cope with witnessing a mass shooting, and her husband is trying to comfort her. To me right now, this isn’t so much an homage to Pinter as a bad parody:
Inspired by his recent visit to our show, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time recently following the various exploits of John Hodgman… his blog, his latest Apple commercials, a charming performance by him on the ukelele. My favorite bit of Hodgmanalia, though, is this: a speech he gave at last years TED conference. The material herein presented is in his new book, and upon reading it, I said, “Heh.” Hearing it performed though, made me go “Ah.” See for yourself, and there’s some commentary after the gap.
– Joey Harrington, now back-up QB for the New Orleans Saints, remains one of the nicest and most personable guys in professional sports. He would be appalled if I wished anything bad on starter Drew Brees, so instead instead I shall wish something really good upon Brees– the birth of his child, being named Senator from the State of Illinois, a visitation from an angel — causing him to miss a game or two. Meanwhile — apologies to my Chicago homies — Go Saints!
– when you are called on your cellphone by the office of the Director of Central Intelligence, your Caller ID reads “Unknown.” General Hayden is our guest this week; tune in unless the show is mysteriously canceled.
– People sometimes ask me: “Why do people ever think they can get away with stuff like that?” And I always answer: “Why not? They’ve gotten away with it up until now. ” (PS: Obsessive Tribune columnist/blogger Eric Zorn makes an excellent point about a tired trope here.)
There should be a word — in German, of course, one of those compound nouns — for the kind of experience that you think is entirely personal and revelatory and profound and even moving, and unique to you, but of course is as common as dirt among us humans; things like falling in love and the birth of your first child. One of them — minor, perhaps, compared to those — must be attending your high school reunion, especially your 25th. I went last Friday. And, just like everybody else, I didn’t expect to enjoy it, and then I really enjoyed it, and left with remarkable feelings of warmth and kindness towards these people, almost all of whom I hadn’t seen since graduation.
I’ve been trying to figure why it was so wonderful. I think it has something to do with finding out that everybody was exactly the same… the cool kids were still cool, the kind ones still kind, ditto the obnoxious ones. And I of course was still exactly who I was, back then. Everybody has these fantasies that you’ll go back and somehow rewrite history; that the hot girls will confess they always had a crush on you, that the captain of the football team will tell you that he always looked up to you. (How do the football team captains and hot girls want to rewrite history? Anybody?) That doesn’t happen, of course, because you can’t fool them. They know who you are because they knew you then. “You were always so witty,” the once and forever hot girls said to me, and they seemed to enjoy that about me, so finally, I did too.
The musical part: one of my classmates, at the reunion, was Jill Santoriello, author of the music book and lyrics for the musical “A Tale of Two Cities.” It is her first musical. She first started writing it twenty years ago, and never gave up in the face of all the rejection and doubt that such things are heir to, and saw it open on Broadway in September. It closed two weeks ago, before I could see it, before the enthusiastic audiences could beat back the poor reviews. She is my hero.
I’ve got some posts coming on various adventures over the holiday, but first:
Readers of my book (now in paperback!) might remember the story I tell to begin the chapter on lying. Briefly, back in 1991, I was driving on an on-ramp in Los Angeles when I was waved over by a distraught woman who told me her car was broken down, that she had called a truck, but she had no money to pay for the tow and if she didn’t she would lose the car, oh please, would she help me, she’d give me her address, anything she had as collateral. I gave her money, and then spent the rest of the day — the rest of my life to this point, I guess — eating my guts out over being taken like that.
On the way into the office today — just a few hours ago — I was on the ramp between Congress St and Lower Wacker in Chicago, and a woman next to a stalled car (which I almost ran into) waved me over and told me was picking up her baby from Stroger Hospital, and had ran out of gas, and the truck was coming, with a single gallon of gas, but without money to buy gas she’d never get her baby home, and that she would tell me where she lived — Hoffman Estates — and she’d give me anything I wanted as collateral, her tool kit, etc.
Different decade, different city, same story. But I was older and wiser now, and I knew exactly what to do. I opened my wallet, gave her twenty bucks, waved off her thanks and her offer to find me and pay me back, wished her a Merry Christmas, and drove off.
