November | 2014

I am the government of your country

November 30, 2014 by William Eaton

George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara, which premiered in London in 1905, is shining once again in an excellent production at New York’s Pearl Theatre. The dominant personality, of a play that offers half a dozen or more strong characters, is Andrew Undershaft, an enormously successful weapons manufacturer—for anyone and everyone, without prejudice, throughout the world. As Undershaft himself puts it: To give arms to all men who offer an honest price for them, without respect of persons or principles: […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: capitalism, George Bernard Shaw, government, Major Barbara, theater, war

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For Sale, but Not for Purchase: The Terms of Sex in Sweden

November 29, 2014 by William Eaton

[email_link] [print_link] The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men but rather their conqueror, an outlaw who controls the sexual channel between nature and culture. CAMILLE PAGLIA, Vamps and Tramps We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution. VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables The question I am interested in exploring today, came neither […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: sex, women

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De Profundis — Wilde’s cry from the depths of prison

November 28, 2014 by William Eaton

[print_link][email_link] In May 1895, at the height of his literary career, the Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde was arrested and charged with ‘acts of gross indecency with other male persons’. Convicted at the Old Bailey, he became a bankrupt outcast overnight, and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labor. Before he was released from Reading prison, Wilde wrote a long letter to his former lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, which was later published as De Profundis. In it, […]

Categories: Catherine Vigier, ZiR • Tags: homosexuality, literature, love, poetry, politics

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The Unum in the American Pluribus

November 27, 2014 by William Eaton

What is the unum in the American pluribus? What is the “out of many, one,” those cultural values, attitudes, customs, historical heritage and other distinctions answering the question, “What holds us together?” In The Longest Road: Overland in Search of America from Key West to the Arctic Ocean, Philip Caputo asks this question of people he meets. Caputo begins “his long journey” in 2010 with wife, and two English Setters, truck and Airstream trailer at Key West, ending it months later […]

Categories: Tucker Cox, ZiR • Tags: travel

For the Holidays: The Phoenix of Xu Bing

November 27, 2014 by William Eaton

“One-of-a-kind,” “spectacular experience,” “magical,” and “dazzling” are some of the words used to describe the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. These words equally describe the Phoenix of Xu Bing now installed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street) until the end of 2014, and, I propose, a meaningful alternative to commercial holiday attractions in New York City. This is the second installation of the Phoenix Project in the U.S. From December 22, 2012 […]

Categories: Gayle Rodda Kurtz, ZiLL • Tags: art, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Phoenix, Xu Bing

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The Lincoln Tunnel to Ferguson

November 26, 2014 by William Eaton

I regrettably ended up with the more dysfunctional of the two ‘solidarity with Ferguson’ protests last night. I didn’t think marching to Times Square was desirable in the first place. Somewhere along the way, however, we went west, and half-an-hour later ended up at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. For those who are familiar with NYC geography, that is a considerable and complex diversion, not merely a wrong turn. I asked several people how/why we ended up there. The only person who […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: African-Americans, civil rights, crime, death, New York City, politics, race

You’re It

November 25, 2014 by Ana Maria Caballero

Since this is the last Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I wanted to share a poem with a spiritual dimension. But, as the piece I selected is particularly Californian in its brand of spirituality, it is playful, mystical and non-denominational. Indeed, it might even be considered hippie-ish. It is an easy poem to keep in one’s head while one travels with the crowds or dines with the relatives. The poem was written by poet and filmmaker James Broughton, pictured to the right, […]

Categories: Ana Maria Caballero, ZiR • Tags: books, poetry, religion, spirituality, writing

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Why we feel ambivalent

November 24, 2014 by Alexia Raynal

(Towards Migrants and Migration Acts) Many liberals and human rights advocates supported president Obama’s executive action on immigration last week. Many others, however, are ambivalent about their take on this act. Should we protect families even if parents are undocumented? While the response is obvious to me (yes), I take this ambivalence as a healthy sign of thoughtfulness and change. It also reveals a common social response to others and outsiders. Professor Jacqueline Bhabha discusses this issue in her new book Child Migration & Human Rights in a Global […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: children, civil rights, Harvard University Press, immigration, Jacqueline Bhabha, law, Obama's immigration act, otherness, politics

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A tumultuous privacy of storm

November 23, 2014 by William Eaton

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end. The sled and traveler stopped, the courier’s feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm. That is the first stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s two-stanza “The Snow-Storm.” […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: art, Emerson, poetry, snow, weather

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ZETEO

Zeteo (ζητέω): to challenge, question, dispute, explore the forgotten and ignored

Monthly Archives: November 2014

I am the government of your country

For Sale, but Not for Purchase: The Terms of Sex in Sweden

De Profundis — Wilde’s cry from the depths of prison

The Unum in the American Pluribus

For the Holidays: The Phoenix of Xu Bing

The Lincoln Tunnel to Ferguson

You’re It

Why we feel ambivalent

A tumultuous privacy of storm