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Old Hats
I believe that any respectable dictionary must include as one of the definitions of “sui generis” the words “Nellie McKay”. Has anyone encountered anywhere another such being, so precocious, eccentric, old-timey, modern, sweet, caustic, irreverent, generous, unforgiving, feminine, feminist, brilliant, faux naïve, and Nellie-knows-how-many-other qualities that I can’t begin to put my finger on? Is…
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Heartless
In the mid-’80s I ventured to say in a published review of Sam Shepard’s True West that we were in a presence of a new dramatic genre, which I dubbed “the situation tragedy.” This notion was consistent, in retrospect, with a recognition on the part of Raymond Williams and others that circumstance had replaced action…