The Weekend Special

Pieces are given up to three Ellises (for fiction), McClellands (for essays), or Whitakers (for random picks). As with restaurant stars, even one Ellis, McClelland, or Whitaker indicates a generally positive review.

⏰ Fiction

“Enough for Now” by Cassandra Neyenesch. Two Ellises. distance, dick, diary. An excellent, economical introduction to Neyenesch, who has apparently been writing fiction for decades without publishing it. This bears the marks of that history without feeling overworked. Martha, a backpacker, has a brief relationship with an enigmatic Dutch man; their lack of formal ties enables the relationship to act as a sort of testing ground for Martha’s ego and self-understanding. Gender trouble ensues. This is all very well done, but even better is the casual, unforced humor and detail of the story, none of which feels like an overdetermination of its themes. (“The police were feeding anise-flavored watermelon seeds to the peasant, who cracked them expertly between his teeth and spat the shells onto the floor.”) The piece manages to be critical of its characters without rendering judgement; Martha is a version of the writer’s younger self, but thankfully the story isn’t obsessed with pointing out her flaws, and Joost is misguided but also a searcher capable of profundity. The gender politics of China are only tangentially remarked upon, and apart from one raft-paddler until the last paragraph Martha is the only woman in the piece; this makes her claustrophobia more tangible, and cleverly suggests the places she isn’t looking: The sudden awareness of other women at the end literalizes the raising of consciousness. Potent stuff; I can’t wait for more from Neyenesch.

⏰ Weekend Essay

“My Childhood in the Weather Underground” by Zayd Ayers Dohrn. Two McClellands. rearview, reconstruction, revolution. My goodness, what a tale. The excision of this piece from Dohrn’s new book on the subject is extremely well done, elegantly uniting separate threads: Historical background, memories of childhood, re-interrogation of motives. Dohrn’s need to disclaim his parents’ methods verges on the performative; I’d have preferred he leave his tactical priorities out of this and focus on storytelling. The ties to One Battle provide an interesting hook, and surprisingly Dohrn’s struggles around care and absence do quite closely mirror those of that film’s child protagonist. Still, the really strong material here is more closely observational – scenes like the trip to turn Mom in to the FBI – because Dohrn tells them like what they are, family anecdote; decades later, he still has something of his child self’s casualness, announcing to strangers at McDonalds what’s happening. His parents were able to secure more normalcy for him than I would’ve thought possible, though still perhaps not enough. It would be interesting to compare Dohrn’s point of view to that of people whose parents were cops, served in the US Army, or took other, perhaps more culturally normative risks. Whose side of the family are you on?

⏰ Random Pick

“Time, Preminger, Time” (The Current Cinema) by John McCarten. (July 11, 1959). No Whitakers. delayed, defense, deal. Not sure how I haven’t done a McCarten piece yet; he was the film critic for a good stretch. This isn’t much of an effort; dismissing a film for taking too long to get going is an iffy critique, as a narrative film with a strong finish usually did more in the leadup to achieve its effect than might be immediately obvious. This is especially true when it’s Anatomy of a Murder, which I haven’t gotten around to but which is generally recognized as a classic, maybe Preminger’s best. (And he was prolific!) His dismissal of a lesser attempt at Sherlock Holmes is straining a bit to be pithy.

“A Reproach to Skeptics” (A Reporter at Large) by A.J. Liebling. (July 11, 1959). Two Whitakers. contradict, conviction, corner. I spun this first, but I’ve covered Liebling twice before, and even Liebling on boxing specifically. I still read it, and it’s just great, managing to render a looming event suspenseful even as he immediately tells us exactly what ended up happening. See a master at work. (Also, if for some reason you read that dire tennis thing from last week’s random picks, this is a great counterexample of how to make sports writing peppy, even for readers that don’t care about the sport at hand.)

⏰ Something Extra

Have seen six shows since last we spoke, and somehow my favorite is Dog Day Afternoon, which tries to turn the plot of the film into the skeleton around which to build a light Neil Simon comedy, observational, a bit stiff, with big pauses for laughs and nothing to upset the tourists. The second act darkens, but only to shades of Norman Lear. It ought not to work; clearly the critics mostly think it doesn’t, and for twenty minutes I was with them. Then I gave in and found myself strangely delighted by the Brechtian ridiculousness of it all – there’s even a sequence of direct address!

The Wild Party was engaging and took real risks but failed to coalesce; Night Side Songs was a bumpy ride and lacked a firm handle on its own tone, but its better moments, including a strong ending, made it hard to dislike. Also in the world of folk-rock grief shows: The cringily myopic My Joy is Heavy, which procrastinates until its starting point arrives and then ends, had me crawling out of my skin. At 70 minutes – such small portions!

I also caught the bloodless The Lost Boys, a musical which is early in previews but currently lacks a single memorable song, character, or moment, and expresses nothing but avoidance of creative risk. Every song is a ballad and they all sound like OneRepublic on benzodiazepines. The audience seemed into it, which made me depressed. I honestly did not think the “white mom rapping about how she needs to be kinder to herself” show would not even be the worst thing I saw this week.

I wrote up all my picks for the Lortel noms (those are the ones for off-broadway exclusively) but I’m saving them for next week, because I’m hoping to get the next one of these out in less than a week & thus won’t have too much additional theater to cover.

Sunday Song: