30 stories by "Jis1925@aol.com (john Simon)"
A curious item in The New York Times of December 28 gave me pause--actually more than a pause: theatrically speaking, a whole intermission.
It is New Year's Day 2011 and what thoughts does this generate in my 85- year-old head? Another tooth has broken and fallen out; it will have to be replaced, however expensively.
Above is a link to an Arts Beat blog post by Charles Isherwood which mentions the fact that I took issue with Jeremy Gerard covering Spiderman and noting that Jeremy has succeeded me at Bloo…
Under the title “List! List! O, List!” a quotation from "Hamlet" (as what isn't?), I checked in at New York magazine December 22, 1975, against Ten Best Lists, which I abhor.
Four rehearsals before the opening of the recent revival of the stage Dracula, director Paul Alexander fired leading actress Thora Birch. Four performances after opening, the revival of the …
This is a blog post about tennis. Please bear with me on the somewhat circuitous path leading to it.The aristocratic German nymphomaniac, Countess Franaziska von Reventlow, has in her charmi…
I read on the Internet that Anthony Weiner's (or Whiner's) troubles stem from a typo he committed on Tweeter: @ instead of D, turning a private misdemeanor into a public offense. Typos are p…
I just read about the arrest of Ratko Mladic, the Serbian ethnic cleanser, and my thoughts went back to Yugoslavia, the lost country of my childhood. Of course, everyone's childhood is a sor…
I have often wondered about graffiti, the spray-painted writs on walls I perceive from the windows of my computer train. What person or persons can be responsible for them? How do their perp…
Almost as old as the debate about which comes first, the words or the music, is the question of what music means. Otherwise put, is the music saying something specific that the listener can …
The current issue of Harvard Magazine contains the following quotations: "In any battle between the literati and the p…
Why Bertrand Tavernier is not considered up there with the world's greatest filmmakers is a mystery to me. It must have something to do with the vagaries of distribution, the absence of hype…
This week's sermon is chiefly about false analogy, one of the major ills that plague (not plagues"the subject is plural, ills) our once reasonably healthy English.Is anything more parlous th…
French Without Tears is the title of the charming playwright Terence Rattigan's first comedic hit. But this post is not a tribute to Rattigan's centenary now being celebrated wherever Englis…
Herewith some reflections on this year's Academy Awards from a longtime film critic currently not reviewing movies. Of course I watched the Oscars as I always do; they provide the kind of en…
If you ride an elevator often enough"especially to and from a high floor"you can turn this experience into a psychological study of your neighbors, both the two- and four-legged kind. Such c…
We know, of course, that the dog is man's best friend. But how reciprocal is this friendship? Is man also the dog's best friend? When I see Yor…
School days, school days! Something just reminded me of good old Perkiomen School in Pennsburg, Pa., where I put in a couple of turbid semester…
Far be it from me to put classical concertgoing above theatergoing, or vice versa. Both afford pleasure and have their important place in civilized life. But I must concede that concerts, ev…
Often I have been asked to write my memoir. My negative answer was always based on never having kept a diary, and not being anywhere near memorious enough. Example: What's the good of having…
Because the charming secretary of my primary physician is called Althea, I read her the last stanza of Richard Lovelace's "To Althea, from Prison." I quoted from the old Everyman Library's M…
I logged on this morning to write about the Spiderman delay--one last time--but before doing so, thought I'd read up on what some of my colleagues posted on the topic this week. We hav…
The road to hell is, as we know, paved with good intentions. But there is a less well-known road that also leads to hell, or some lesser hells.…
