Tuesday To honor Doris Day’s memory, who died yesterday at 97, here’s a John Updike poem. When he wrote it at 76, Updike was having a hard time admitting that Day was 86. Our memories of movie stars remain forever young, even though time itself moves on. Oscar Levant once joked that he knew Day […]
Tag Archives: John Updike
R.I.P. Doris Day, America’s Sweetheart
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Her Coy Lover Sings Out", Doris Day, movie stars Comments closed
To Win Ohio, Read the Rabbit Books
Updike’s “Rabbit” novels hold a key to understanding the independent voter.
Where Are the Players of Yesteryear?
Sports Saturday Mais où sont les neiges d’antan? François Villon There’s not much going on in the sports world at the moment. Soccer’s World Cup now seems like a dream, the last major golf tournament has been played (with Tiger magic seemingly on indefinite hold), and football, basketball, hockey, and tennis’s U.S. Open await in […]
Churchgoing: Delightful and Unexpected
Spiritual Sunday Thanks to Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion for alerting me to this wonderful passage from John Updike’s “Churchgoing” (which appears in Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories, 1962): There was a time when I wondered why more people did not go to church. Taken purely as a human recreation, what could be more delightful, […]
Mr. Chips vs. Travis Bickle
Robert DeNiro as Travis Bickle I continue here my discussion of three works that just happened to come together during one evening last week: John Updike’s novel Terrorist, Martin Scorcese’s film Taxi Driver, and George Bernard Shaw’s play Arms and the Man. My question is whether Shaw’s humanism is a sufficient answer to the undercurrent […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Arms and the Man, George Bernard Shaw, Idealism, Martin Scorcese, Taxi Driver, Terrorism, Terrorist Comments closed
Updike’s Anatomy of a Terrorist
Last Thursday night I had an overbooked schedule. I was moderating a book club at the local public library on John Updike’s 2006 novel Terrorist (at 7 p.m.). I was in charge of a talkback following a college production of George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man (at 8 p.m.). And I was screening Martin Scorcese’s […]
