jenright

Peter, thank you, I feel blessed in return.

Cathy, I suppose I should add that Marsha and I had the pleasure of talking with your uncle on several occasions in the seventies, when he attended some public lectures with his wife. He was always friendly and charming.

Cathy, it is nice to meet you, too. I come from a big family, and I understand that it's easy not to know all your relatives. In the past few years we found some we didn't know about.

Michael and Kat are great people, but we live far south and they live way north, and Chicago is so darn long, so we only get to meet in the middle!

John

Cathy, hi. I hope people will excuse me for jumping in with a sort of unrelated question, but do you have a cousin named Kyle Carroll? She worked as an actress in Chicago, about a decade ago. I saw at least 2 plays she performed in. My wife and I had a conversation with her once in which she said, if I recall correctly, that she was a grand-niece of Frank O'Connor's. Also, I apologize if someone already brought this up.

Thank you, John Enright.

Great, Michael, I look forward to seeing you both!

We are getting a glowing review from my neighborhood paper, The Beverly Review. I got an advance blurb from Kathleen Tobin, the reviewer, who wrote: "A well written, intriguing plot with a contemporary flair and several layers of international and character complexity, suberbly realized by a thoroughly believable cast, 'Wild Flowers' is a little gem of a play that holds one's attention from start to finish."

And we got a positive blog review (with mild spoilers) from James at the Frugal Chariot blog here:

http://frugalchariot.blogspot.com/2011/07/day-of-theater-play-reading-in-morning.html

We're waiting on a forthcoming review from the Chicago Reader.

UPDATE - the review by Justin Hayford from the Chicago Reader is now online. I'm very happy. "The various story lines in John Enright's tricky plot collide and stall at first. But once everything's on the table, his quirky, lighthearted script bounces efficiently forward, spirited along by Giau Truong's appealing cast."

You can read the whole thing, with even more spoilers, here:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/wild-flowers/Event?oid=4207345

Thanks, Selene! My first full length play, 2 years ago, did pretty well as the Chicago fringe theater scene goes, so I'm hoping the audiences like this one too.

I know I've been an infrequent OL visitor lately, but I wanted to extend an invitation to come see my new play if you happen to be in Chicago during the next 3 weeks. It's about a young woman who is surprised to discover she wasn't born in the US, and who is about to be deported to Russia. She has 2 suitors offering to get her a green card, and a mother who wants to welcome her back to Russia. Yes, it's a comedy, with a wacky but logical plot, and strongwilled characters colliding in a small space. Particulars can be found at:

barelyconcealed.com

Discounted tickets can be found through Hottix and Goldstar

Thanks, John

Ralph, it's good to hear from you. I still love Until Now.

John Enright

A friend sent me this, which I hadn't seen before, saying it was O'Connor's as well.

It is.

--Brant

Brant, thanks for the confirmation!

John

A friend sent me this, which I hadn't seen before, saying it was O'Connor's as well.

Another O'Connor painting. Some think it his best.

One of Frank O'Connor's paintings is being auctioned on eBay. They have a nice color photo of the piece. I hadn't seen it in color before.

Chris, I can't recall if he had an Art Students League connection. He did have a connection of some kind to Joan Blumenthal, who may have recommended the painting to Frank O'C. I knew Hertle in the 70s when we both lived in New York, within walking distance of each other, but I haven't been in touch with him recently.

In the only web reference I could find, the late Stephen Speicher wrote: "...a magnificent young Objectivist artist, Ralph Hertle, who, sadly, gave up painting twenty-five years ago. His work, Until Now, is on my office wall (Ayn Rand had the original painting)..." From here.

As I recall, Hertle saw industrial design as his main profession.

Now I want to visit Brazil, to see what Michael is talking about. The geography of the painting also roughly resembles a view of downtown Chicago from the northern lakefront. Hertle had lived in Chicago at one time also, although I did not know him then.

This is from a reproduction, shot with my camera phone, but you'll get the idea. I'm sure the original was sharper and brighter - and bigger.

The artist is Ralph Hertle, and the name of the piece is "Until Now".

A great russian poet by the name of Anna Akhmatova wrote a poem called Crucifix on the same subject:

Anna A. always seemed to have her own take on things. I really like her poem on "Lot's Wife" too, in which she chooses to sympathize with someone God punished for *looking back.* I have wondered if it has anything to do with the Revolutionary Russian insistence on keeping eyes forward:

And the just man trailed God's shining agent,

over a black mountain, in his giant track,

while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:

"It's not too late, you can still look back

at the red towers of your native Sodom,

the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,

at the empty windows set in the tall house

where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."

A single glance: a sudden dart of pain

stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .

Her body flaked into transparent salt,

and her swift legs rooted to the ground.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem

too insignificant for our concern?

Yet in my heart I never will deny her,

who suffered death because she chose to turn.

"Now 'why a thing is itself' is a meaningless inquiry (for—to give meaning to the question 'why'—the fact or the existence of the thing must already be evident—e.g., that the moon is eclipsed—but the fact that a thing is itself is the single reason and the single cause to be given in answer to all such questions as why the man is man, or the musician musical, unless one were to answer, 'because each thing is inseparable from itself, and its being one just meant this.' This, however, is common to all things and is a short and easy way with the question.)"

—Metaphysics, Book VII, Part 17

Thanks for the great, very detailed report, and it was wonderful seeing you both!

I think the event went extremely well. I'd like to offer a big thank you to Ed Hudgins, and all of TAS, for organizing it!

I have a question for anyone who was there. As I recall, Ed Hudgins made a brief but interesting announcement about having talked with Yaron Brook. Does anyone else recall exactly what he said?

Thanks,

John

Do you mean Bernstein?

Chris, he means Andrew Bostom, who wrote The Legacy Of Jihad, and who was there for the NYU panel discussion.

John

ARI Bookstore is offering all the cassettes of Peter Schwartz at a very reduced rate. More than two-thirds in some cases.

I was once told by someone who attended ARI events that Schwartz was very unpopular at the ARI conferences. This maybe further confirmation of the fact.

Just for the record I would not get them even if they were free.

Has his unpopularity increased? I don't think he was a scheduled speaker at OCON 2007. I don't think he's on the ARI board or staff anymore either. I wonder what's going on with him.

Since Kant has been entered in the competition, he deserves his own rhyme:

A man named Immanuel Kant

Invented a realm he could haunt.

"My notations noumenal

Shall end by doomin' all!"

This was his last, fading taunt.

John; It is centrally an interesting question about why Hitler wins the "Evil" sweepstakes. I think that socialism is still is thought of as a noble ideal in many circles.

Yes, I too think that's the key.

Shawn Klein recently wrote an interesting piece about "The Evil Competition: Nazis and Communists"

Somehow, in my mind, that turned into a reality show:

I dreamed the Mr. Evil Competition

Was held in Hades. Hitler won again.

He seems to have a lock on the position.

Stalin complained. "Most evil of all men?

I spit upon you. I killed many more,

Yes, millions more than you. Why do I fail

To win the votes for evil that you score?

My gore-bespattered record makes yours pale."

Then Hitler replied: "It isn't just the count,

It turns out people hate the Master Race

Idea, and that runs up my vote amount.

I'm sorry, Joe, but you won't fall from grace

Completely until socialism's seen

As not just mistaken, but murderous and mean."

Line 2 and 4 of stanza 1 are "distress"/"happiness";

line 1 and 3 of stanza 3 are "happiness"/"distress."

Very blah to my ear. And it doesn't look like a similar repetition of rhyming words occurs in the Russian.

Not only infelicitous,

But borderline duplicitous.

Off on a tangent, I was thinking about these translations today and fondly remembered a peculiar but moving book that goes into poetry translation at philosophical depth. It's Le Ton beau de Marot, by Douglas Hoftstadter. It also contains about 50 translations of one old French poem, many of them by Hofstadter's wife, Carol. She died before the book was finished, and the book also meditates upon love and loss.