No matter which side of which struggle we are on, we would do well to admit that about all we know is what we read in the papers (or see on TV, on the Web, NPR, etc.). We trust various sources because they seem to us reasonable, because their sources are people who look and sound like us, went to similar schools as us.
Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: advertising, Charlie Hebdo, Colin Powell, FBI, Iran, James Madison, lying, media, truth
This post juxtaposes brief notes with reproductions of five women-focused works at Chicago’s Art Institute. Readers are invited to make whatever connections they will and draw whatever conclusions they might between the art works, which seem to me unified only in their focus on women, in the genius of their making (by men, by the way), and by their co-existence in one Chicago institution. I would also note that these works are not unified even in their reproducibility. Three of these works are sculptures, […]
Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: art, Art Institute of Chicago, art museums, Balthus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Laura Mulvey, male gaze, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mirό, Roland Barthes, Willard Van Orman Quine, women
A favorite short speech from Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. A young prince, in love with a lovely, seeming shepherd girl (see photo above), is warned by his father’s right-hand man to take heed, “be advised.” The young man’s response echoes the human response to life in general. I am advised, he says— by my fancy: if my reason Will thereto be obedient, I have reason; If not, my senses, better pleased with madness, Do bid it welcome. The most unfortunate […]
Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: A Winter's Tale, cultural criticism, flowers, Internet, Shakespeare, theater
“Cineastas”, was one of the great productions that, in a long life of theater-going, I have had the good fortune to see. The play concerns the lives and projects of four moviemakers, and the lines between lives and projects, and between characters, actors, and “real people,” often tangle and blur. One might say quickly that this is the point.
Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: film, Hispanic, theater
Every time I return to the history of the Civil Rights Movement, and I return often, I am struck, as indeed many of us are, by the extraordinary courage of the people—of the rank-and-file and of the leaders—who participated in the movement. (And do we need to keep repeating the details so we can appreciate that there is another, more courageous and transcendent way of living?)
Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: Civil Rights Movement, courage, documentaries, Martin Luther King, New York Review of Books, Selma, speeches
The comedian, actor, songwriter, and playwright Oded Gross has done a marvelous (to include quite funny) job of updating Gogol’s classic satire of bad government: The Government Inspector. I will get right to the new text, near the beginning, when the officials of a small town realize that a government inspector is coming. ARTEMIS (The Director of Health): What does he want to inspect us for? ANTON (The Mayor): He’s traveling here to deem whether or not there’s any unnecessary […]
Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: corruption, Gogol, government, politics, The Bible, theater
This piece is excerpted from a longer essay: “Snowden, Jesus” (click for pdf). When faced with the canvas that Edward Snowden, his colleagues and others have—with not a little idealism and courage—painted for all eyes to see, it is possible to feel frightened, panicked even, and helpless. Most everything we are doing with the aid of electronic devices—the places we are going, the words we are using, the people we are contacting—all this is being constantly tracked. Not only have […]
Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: Citizenfour, Foucault, privacy
Imagine the challenge for Romain Duris! He has to follow a great piece of acting (Fabrice Luchini brilliantly pretending to be a bad actor and offering a horse, or horseness, that is itself a delight). Duris’s challenge is to surpass this. In a sense he fails, or could not succeed, because a great actor playing a bad actor will always trump a great actor simply playing a great actor.
Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: acting, Molière, movies, Shakespeare, theater
I fear this post will seem, or indeed be, advertising for a particular company: Forgotten Books and its Classic Reprint Series. They do seem to provide a useful service: selling on-demand copies of old books. My particular interest here, however, is in the look of these books, and hence this post’s inclusion in our nascent “Zeteo is Looking and Listening” series. The company states that it “utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of the historically important writings.” At least […]
Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: books
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