Three generations of American playwrights, each playwright considered by many to be the best of his generation, each writing prose for the page and not the stage. Here’s Arthur Miller on Fidel Castro, David Mamet on the power of names, Tony Kushner on Eugene O’Neill. How nice.

Any year that begins with Cuba’s incomparable jazz pianist Chucho Valdes at the Village Vanguard has to be an auspicious one. When Chucho also surrounds himself with three hand-picked New York musicians (especially the sensational Cuban drummer Dafnis Prieto) and then invites Mexican-American trombone great Steve Turre to sit in on several numbers, it’s more than […]

I see that Sharon Waxman, of The New York Times, and Foxnews.com’s Roger Friedman are feuding over stories they wrote about the influence of the Nation of Islam on Michael Jackson. The New York Post’s Page Six says Friedman is howling that Waxman ripped him off. She in turn accuses him of being inaccurate. What […]

Jazz critic Ben Ratliff made my day on New Year’s with a gorgeous, appreciative review of Chucho Valdes and his New York-based quartet at Manhattan’s Village Vanguard. “You can start to take the virtuosity of Cuban musicians for granted sometimes, especially when they’re playing material that binds itself in technique,” he began. “One example is […]

Code Purple: We interrupt the holiday to bring you another alert. Some writers use extra words, high-flown language or roundabout expressions for comic effect, i.e., “the car window shattered” vs. “the car window distributed itself over the front seat.” This morning, however, William Safire writes that his “mental tintinnabulation was exacerbated by the roar of unwelcome […]

It’s Code Orange. We’re told not to worry but to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. So we interrupt our vacation to bring you this report from the land of New York City. An observant correspondent writes: “Nobody believes me, but every single time we drive into the city along the West Side Highway […]

As long as we’ve interrupted our vacation, we might as well complete some unfinished Wal-Mart business. A few days ago it was reported that the nation’s largest retailer is cooperating with a federal probe of its employment practices. That’s so nice to know, especially when there’s so much to investigate. Maybe the feds will look […]

For people who like to send twee electronic Chistmas Cards, try this, and don’t forget to click on each of the reindeer. For those who prefer to send old-fashioned Christmas cards, try this. Also, here’s a card I call A Dog’s Christmas. Let’s not forget, though, Christmas is a girl’s best friend. The holiday season […]

After all the tears shed over the death of neocon ideologue Robert L. Bartley, because he was kind and gentle in his private life, at least < B>Dan Kennedy hasn’t forgotten exactly what we’d noted, too, that Bartley in his public role as the chief editorialist for the Wall Street Journal had been, in Kennedy’s fair […]

Reuters continued its winning ways this morning with a fine news lede that speaks volumes about the mood of the nation, maybe even the decline of the West: “President Bush may have defeated Saddam Hussein, but he lost to the socialite Paris Hilton in the television ratings on Tuesday night.” That was the night the 22-year-old […]

Nothing draws mail like a dismissal of pro wrestling as a form of artistic expression or a criticism of Wal-Mart. A reader writes: Jan, Jan, Jan — How can someone as bright as you fail to appreciate the cultural significance of professional wrestling? This head-in-the-sand attitude is what allowed Bush to be elected president. People […]

The Golden Globules are with us again, ushering in the new awards season this morning with nominations for movies and television. Here are the < FONT color=#003399>Globule nominees. Is there’s anything more to say except “so what?”

In his blog riley entry last Sunday on this site, “WHAT WOULD RANDY SHILTS HAVE SAID?,” esteemed author and critic Tim Riley nearly gagged on the hype for “Angels in America.” (So had I.) The reason for the hype, he maintained, is that Tony Kushner’s play “is simply too ‘politically correct’ to criticize,” which made it “much easier for […]

Is professional wrestling a legitimate vehicle for artistic expression? I don’t think so. Is it the future of sports entertainment in this country? I hope not. Nonetheless, I pass along a friend’s recommendation of Barry Blaustein’s documentary, “Beyond the Mat,” for what he calls “its excellent, objective view of the world of pro wrestling.” Why, […]

Purple prose is not the only way to sterilize the language. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, demonstrated a colorless, odorless, antiseptic method earlier this week when asked if Saddam Hussein was cooperating with interrogaters. “In my interfaces with him he has been talkative,” Sanchez said. Since the general is […]

From a member of the staff: “Most of us try to have a few bucks in walking-around money. Saddam had $750,000 in crawling-around money.” From Ryan McGee’s Wading in the Velvet Sea: “I flipped on the TV, and the first thing I see are images of the cubby hole. … I thought, Wow, all this […]

My staff of thousands finally came up with a bright idea: Issue a daily or, to make the job less demanding, sort of daily Purple Prose Alert. So here’s today’s, from the swiftly rising purplemeister David Brooks. He writes this morning that “Bush believes the U.S. has a unique role to play in [the] struggle […]