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Bob Dylan performing in Rotterdam on June 22, 1978. Photograph by Chris Hakkens.

'A Complete Unknown' and the vagaries of being a cultural symbol

March 16, 2025

Last night, I saw “A Complete Unknown,” based on Elijah Wald’s book “Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the Sixties,” and I found myself haunted not just by the music and the excellent evocation of Bob Dylan —from his 1961 arrival in Greenwich Village as a gifted but vulnerable folk music newbie to his imposition of rock’n’roll on the 1965 Newport Folk Festival as its legendary, disruptive closing act. — but by an idea.

And that idea, beautifully embodied in the film by Timothée Chalamet, is this: Why Dylan? Why not somebody else, or, for that matter, anybody else?

The Broadway cast of “Six.” From left, Najah Hetsberger as Catherine of Aragon; Gianna Yanelli as Anne Boleyn, Kelsie Watts as Jane Seymour, Krystal Hernandez as Anne of Cleves, Kay Sibal as Katherine Howard and Taylor Marie Daniel as Catherine Parr. Photograph by Georgette Gouveia.

Pawns to queens in a game of love and death

February 24, 2025

These are not the best of times to be a woman, to say nothing of any minority. The rise of bro culture and misogynistic incel culture, which helped propel President Donald J. Trump back into the White House; the demise of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in government and much of the workplace; and the curtailing of reproductive rights are among the challenges that have led women to consider the backlash to their hard-won gains.

Perhaps that’s why I found the marvelously mocking Broadway musical “Six” so moving. It’s the story of a sextet of queen consorts who for most of their history were famous, even infamous, for their marriages to an orange, scowling, bloated, diseased malignant narcissist — Henry VIII. As “Six” explores with delicious irony, Henry — no Alexander the Great in the leadership department — is today mostly famous for having been married to them.

Gala opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Sept. 8, 1971 with members of the Kennedy family in the presidential box. From left, Rose Kennedy and Sen. Edward M.Kennedy standing. Seated far right is his first wife, Joan Kennedy. Courtesy the U.S.News & World Report Collection of the Library of Congress.

King to pawn in Trump's cultural gambits

February 9, 2025

Fresh from his blitzkrieg of directives, President Donald J. Trump took a break to attend Super Bowl LIX, leaving the rest of us to consider what the past three weeks have meant.

Members of the National Transportation Safety Board on the scene Saturday, Feb. 1, of the mid-air collision between a Black Hawk helicopter and a an American Airlines jet over the Potomac River at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. *Courtesy NTSB.*

Losing my voice to find it in the Trump era

February 2, 2025

How are we to respond to the times in which we find ourselves? Should we retreat, understanding that they are beyond our control? Or should we, knowing they are beyond our control, respond Stoically — with courage and calm, understanding, in the words of Rev. Sydney Smith, that “it is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing, because you could only do a little.”

As I pondered this over the Christmas break and into January — the so-called “wellness month” — I got very sick and lost my voice, an apt metaphor for losing the inner voice that has always been my North Star.

In the end, I concluded that reticence — even when you cannot physically “speak” — is a kind of cowardice, and that it is incumbent upon us all to speak out.

Former President Jimmy Carter lying in state in the Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 7. *Photograph by Aaron Troutman/U.S. Army.*

A second Trump presidency -- the Jimmy Carter antithesis

January 12, 2025

Former President Jimmy Carter was buried on the day (Thursday, Jan. 9) that the United States Supreme Court refused to stay President-elect Donald J. Trump’s sentencing in his hush-money conviction.

Let that sink in. Here was on the one hand a humanitarian and on the other a man whose compassion for the Los Angeles wildfires was crystallized by his calling rival Gov. Gavin Newsom “Newscum.”

And yet, there are plenty of Americans who think Carter, though a great humanitarian, was a poor president, and many Americans who can’t wait to see Trump back in power on Monday, Jan. 20, which is coincidentally Martin Luther King Jr. Day as well as Inauguration Day.

Johann Christian Schröder’s “The Annunciation” (circa 1690) depicts Mary’s initially troubled reaction at the news from the angel Gabriel that she was to be the mother of the Son of God. Courtesy Slovenia’s Ptuj Ormož Regional Museum

Yielding -- and overcoming -- in a season of dark and light

December 22, 2024

Central to the feast of Christmas, which Christians —and let’s face it, many non-Christians — will celebrate Wednesday, Dec. 25, is the story of the angel Gabriel coming to the town of Nazareth to tell the Virgin Mary that she will miraculously conceive and bear Jesus, the Son of God.

Much has been written about Mary as the new, obedient Eve — the anti-Eve, as it were — acquiescing to become the mother of God, with all the suffering his Passion will entail for her as well as him. (Think Michelangelo’s poignant “Pièta.”) And just as much has been written about so-called sacrilegious interpretations of Mary doubting this calling, (see Netflix series “Mary”); and Jungian interpretations of Mary as yet another mother in the miraculous birth narratives of famous men (see the stories of the Buddha, Alexander the Great and Augustus).

All these interpretations miss the point of the original text.

Slaughter on Sixth Avenue: One of New York City’s ubiquitous security cameras captures the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brfan Thompson outside the New York Hilton in Manhattan Dec. 4.

State of denial: When a nation's moral compass is 'out of network'

December 8, 2024

By now we can assume that there are few people in the nation who are unaware of the Dec. 4 shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — on his way to an investors’ conference at the New York Hilton in Manhattan — and few people who are unaware that feelings are running about nine to one in favor of the shooter.