Song of a Reformed Headhunter

TLS March 4 2016 From Nick Groom's review of Oscar Wilde's Chatterton: Literary history, Romanticism and the art of forgery by Joseph Bristow and Rebecca Mitchell: But it was [Theodore] Watt's model of immersive and untrammelled creativity that appealed most to Wilde: "by the artist's yearning to represent", Watts wrote, "if perfect representation seemed to him to demand forgery, he needs must forge".  *  The "Chatterton" notebook is, then, a "crucible" in which Wilde explored the ideas that would shape his subsequent works and theory of the artist, serving as the epitome of the inextricability of life and work, and affirming the overriding important of Paterian "personality".... Among the first of Wilde's own comments is the claim that Chatterton's life and work are inseparable: "Without a full comprehension of his life the secret of his literature is not revealed". Wilde was attracted to Cha...

GH and I spent two glorious weeks in France (August 10 - 24), the first week in Paris and the second in Nice. This was my fourth trip to Paris (it was GH's first) but my first trip to the French Riviera. We rented an apartment in both cities. The one in Paris was a lovely studio on the top floor of an old building along Charles V, in the St. Paul neighborhood of the Marais. It had wooden beams in the ceiling. From its windows one can see the rooftops of Paris. The apartment in Nice was a modern duplex, located just a block away from the Mediterranean. Institute de Monde Arabe On our day of arrival, we took a walk along the right and left banks of the River Seine. We had a late lunch at a small restaurant called Le Petite Plateau on a street facing the river, a little distance away from the tourist crowd on the Isle de la Cite. We walked to the Institute de France on the left bank before turning around and walking up to the Institute du Monde Arabe. The latter building, design...

"The Importance of Being Earnest," as performed by the Pearl Theater Company last night, was hugely entertaining. One reason for its success was that the production did not try to update Wilde (he was, I was convinced last night, of his time, and so offered a period, and a period of, satisfaction), or radicalize him, or analyze him, and so the play remained funny throughout its three acts. The other reason was the strong ensemble acting, with the exception of Lady Bracknell played by Carol Schultz. Ali Ahn, as Cecily, delivered many of her lines with delicious timing, but also mashed many of her words in her rush to get them out. Rachel Botchan was Gwendolen with a spine, both in her character, and in her well trained, upper class carriage. Bradford Cover was convincing as the straight man, Jack. But the evening belonged to Sean McNall who played Algernon. As the Times review noted, he made the famous epigrams fresh, spoke them as if they were minted for the first time, in ...