Tom Murphy, arguably Ireland’s greatest living playwright, joins The Paris Review for an interview about his life, his influences, and his rage.
“I wanted to write about the feeling of life. Not life as an intellectual process, or a concept, but as a feeling.”
Appearing Elsewhere
My piece in memory of novelist and rapier-tongued pundit Gore Vidal, who died Tuesday, appears on Prospero, the online arts & culture publication of The Economist.
Some Good Stuff
Two great scoops were passed my way by the intrepid Brian, fresh from his European sojourn. The first is this so-wierd-it-has-to-be-true story about Newt Gingrich being an extremely prolific and friendly Amazon.com customer reviewer. Click here for the must-read gory details.While in Spain, Brian read Robert Hughes’ new book Barcelona: The Great Enchantress from the National Geographic Directions series and noticed on the back cover that Jon Lee Anderson, the New Yorker’s Baghdad correspondent extraordinaire, has a book for the series coming out. It will be about Andalucia. This will be a busy year for Anderson. In the fall, his fantastic Baghdad pieces will be collected in The Fall Of Baghdad and he will also release Guerrillas: Journeys in the Insurgent World, which ought to be quite good.
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New Murakami on the Way
Today is Haruki Murakami’s birthday, so what better day to announce the title of his next work, Kishidancho Goroshi (Killing Commendatore)? The novel, which is divided in two parts – Arawareru Idea (Emerging Idea) and Utsurou Metaphor (Moving Metaphor) – is slated for a late February release in Japan. As of this writing, very little is known about the novel’s plot.
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Financing Cloud Atlas
The multinational production of the (Millions favorite) Cloud Atlas movie, “in all its glorious confusion, also serves as a guidepost to the future of the film business.”
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Bert and Ernie’s Wedding Plans
Sesame Workshop has released an official statement to address calls for Bert and Ernie to marry each other.
Asterix Co-Creator Retires
Albert Uderzo, co-creator of Asterix, announced his retirement yesterday. Since 1977, Uderzo has been the sole author of the popular French comic books, which have sold over 350 million copies worldwide. His successor has yet to be named, though Uderzo said it will be an artist “who has been following us for a long time inside a studio I set up.”
I’m just gonna go ahead and assume you just don’t consider Martin McDonagh Irish.
Kati, your comment perfectly explains the need for the prescient “arguably” in Matt’s sentence — this coming from a man who laughed so heartily at The Lieutenant of Inishmore that I thought I’d be removed from the theatre.
I would debate the legitimacy of “arguably” in any case other than how you define McDonagh’s nationality. What a pugilistic adverb.