Stephen Sondheim, The Broadway Gift That Will Keep On Giving

The day after Thanksgiving this year is one I will never forget.

I was sitting in my law office, engaged in my work, when, suddenly, the voice of my wife broke the train of my thoughts.

"Oh, no!"

"What?"

"Stephen Sondheim died."

Those are words I never wanted to hear.  Over the years, I've mourned the death of a lot of celebrities I've admired or respected, with varying degrees of sadness.  None, however, have devastated me as much as those five words my wife uttered.  I'm sitting here more than three weeks later, and I'm still in something of a state of shock.  I feel the loss of Stephen Joshua Sondheim, the American theater's foremost composer-lyricist, as deeply as I would feel the loss of a family member, or a close friend.

I never had the pleasure of meeting him, or talking with him (although our lives did intersect once; more about that later).  Yet I can honestly say that I have felt his presence, in a variety of ways, at various points in my life.  Going all the way back to close to the beginning of it, in fact.

In writing previously about the passing of my mother, I mentioned the fact that she imbued me with a passionate love for theater.  I remember, as a young boy, sitting in the living room of our suburban Baltimore row house, where she would iron clothes and sing songs from Broadway shows.  One day, I crawled across the floor and started going through the records stacked neatly under our Magnavox stereo.  Among others, I found the original cast album for "West Side Story," read the names on the cover, and was delighted to discover that one of the authors of the show had my first name.

OK, I'll admit, a deeply narcissistic reaction.  In my defense, I was about five years old at the time.  Nevertheless, it launched me on a lifelong love of Sondheim's career and work.  That love really started to percolate in my adolescent and teenage years, as my own interest in theater translated into an interest in acting, including a high school production of "The Music Man," (ironically, the show that beat "West Side Story" for Best Musical at the Tony Awards).  It continued into my young adult years, when I got to see three of Sondheim's shows--"Pacific Overtures," "Sweeney Todd," and "Merrily We Roll Along"--prior to their official Broadway openings.  It picked up again in middle age, as I got involved in efforts to save a Broadway theater, while introducing my wife and stepchildren to my affinity to the history of theater and Sondheim's place in it.  And it has continue long after it became apparent  that Sondheim was unlikely to create new musicals, spending much of his time working on revivals of his existing works.

If you know little or nothing about him, here is a link to the obituary I knew I would have to read someday, and dreaded doing so.

The success story of his life is one that does not fit some popular measures of success.  None of his shows, in their original incarnations, ran as many as 1,000 performances.  And not all of those productions were financial successes, although they were often critical ones; many of them lost some, and in a few cases all, of their initial investments.  And his critics in the press, though they were in the minority, could be utterly brutal, even when they were forced to concede the ingenuity and insight of his lyrics.

The conventional critical rap on Sondheim is that he was the master of ambivalence, his work expressing a view of life as something without clear and painless paths or choices, with pain as an inevitability.  This perspective has been repeated to the point of cliché, albeit a cliché that obscures instead of underscoring (no pun intended) the value of his work.

Sondheim had, by all accounts (including his own), a childhood that was financially privileged yet emotionally scarred.  His parents' marriage ended when he was 10, and his childhood life thereafter was molested, emotionally if not literally, by his mother, who took all of her anger toward her ex-husband and directed it toward her son.  As he himself would admit, this fostered in him a general distrust of human relationships and their reliability.  However, it didn't diminish, and may have to some extent fostered, the analytical side of his thinking, which led in turn to a perspective on life that could honestly appraise all aspects of human experience.  This range of his appreciation for reality, its blessings and its curses, can be seen in the range of the source materials for his work.

And the range of his talent can be seen not only in his Broadway career, but also in his love of other forms of writing, especially puzzles.  Sondheim's Manhattan townhouse was decorated with antique puzzles and games, and was the inspiration for the setting of Anthony Shaffer's "Sleuth."  He enjoyed not only solving puzzles, but creating them as well, doing so for the readers of New York magazine before his work on "Company" got in the way.  As is explained in detail here, Sondheim introduced variations on the traditional crossword puzzle to New York's readers.  There's a quote of Sondheim's in the article that poignantly explains the appeal for him:  "One of the great things about crossword puzzles is, there's a solution.  And that's unfortunately not true of all the puzzles in life."

Happily, his passion for puzzles was something he shared not only with two of his creative colleagues, Leonard Bernstein and Burt Shevelove, but even earlier with the man who served as his professional mentor and surrogate father, Oscar Hammerstein.  That is appropriate, in a way, because it was his relationship with Hammerstein and Hammerstein's family, a by-product of his mother's post-divorce decision to move from New York to Pennsylvania, that began to give his life an emotional and professional grounding.

One of my favorite Sondheim stories from this period of his life is the one he told about the time, at the age of 15, when he wrote a musical and asked Hammerstein to evaluate it from the perspective of a professional producer.  Notwithstanding his personal regard for Sondheim, Hammerstein punctured his aspiring protege's dreams of being the first teenage songwriter on Broadway by telling him it was the worst thing he'd ever read--to which he quickly added "Now I didn't say it was untalented.  I merely said it was terrible.  And if you want to know why it's terrible, sit down and let me show you."

Those last seven words are perhaps the most fateful in the history of the American musical theater.  They were the beginning of a mentorship that would run through Sondheim's college days and into his work on his first Broadway hits.  And, as the quote above suggests, Hammerstein was an unsparing teacher.  A little bit of full disclosure here:  I myself, with the help of a musician friend, tried to write a musical during my high school years, without getting as far as Sondheim did.  I have no illusions that dreams of glory would have been ours had there been a Hammerstein in our lives.  But that experience, if nothing else, deepened my own appreciation for what it took to create at the level Sondheim achieved.

Despite the abuse Sondheim experienced at the hands of his mother, the younger songwriter was able to feel the love and respect his mentor showed him not only by holding him to the highest of standards but, simultaneously, ingraining in him the value of writing songs with his own voice, rather than someone else's.  Perhaps it helped to make him his own harshest critic as well, seeing in that harshness the discipline need to create art at the highest levels.

He did not believe his work, having once been produced, deserved to be preserved and admired on some sort of pedestal.  In revivals, he has frequently accepted the revisionist ideas of other, younger theater professionals, as is exemplified by the current Broadway revival of "Company."

And he repaid the debt he owed to Hammerstein handsomely, through his advice and mentorship to a large number of young theatrical professionals, most notably Jonathan Larson, the author of "Rent," and Lin-Manuel Miranda, the author of "Hamilton."  He paid them the same compliment Hammerstein paid to him, by not letting his personal regard for them get in the way of making sure that they did their best work.  In the cases of Larson and Miranda, among others, his mentorship was in-person; in the case of others, it was by way of correspondence (full disclosure, hinted at earlier:  I have one of those coveted hand-typed-and-hand-signed notes from him, in response to a letter I had sent him concerning my work in historic theater preservation).

In the process, he not only repaid his debt to Hammerstein, he perhaps illustrated Hammerstein's own point that a teacher is ultimately taught by his, her, or their students.  Perhaps he also came to understand the extent to which professional fulfillment can also be personal fulfillment as well.  I think, in this context, of Sondheim songs such as "Children Will Listen," and "No One Is Alone," from "Into The Woods."

I like to think that although our interactions were limited to that one exchange of correspondence, I'm one of his children, too.  Although my own interest in theater was nurtured by my parents, my interest in a theater career, notwithstanding my failed attempt to become a lyricist, was nurtured by Sondheim's career and by my desire to make some kind of contribution to theater--if not in his way, and at his level, then to whatever extent I could do it.

I don't think I could have helped form a movement on the Internet to save the Biltmore Theatre from becoming the lobby to a condo building if I didn't have a love for theater history that transcended the bounds of rationality.  (Ask my wife and stepchildren if you don't believe me.)  That crusade, along with my other artistic pursuits as a visual artist, an actor, and a producer, is driven as much as anything by something I think Sondheim and I shared:  a contempt for the mediocracy of modern culture.  For me, it's best summed up in the words of Madame Armfeldt, from "A Little Night Music":

Where is style?

Where is skill?

Where is forethought?

Where's discretion of the heart?

Where's passion in the art?

Where's craft?

No one can doubt that Sondheim valued art above money, a fact reflected in his working right up to the end of his lengthy life, even though he had no financial reason for doing so. It may be, in one sense, deeply premature to bring this up, but I can't help hoping that some of the material from this last incomplete show, "Square One," is performed and recorded.  As much Sondheim as we have, there can't be too much, even if satirists might think otherwise.

And, however adventurous and financially unprofitable some of Sondheim's musicals may have been, the sheer quality of his work found a way to break through and become a part of the larger culture outside not just of Broadway, but theater itself.  Nothing better illustrates that fact than the success of "Send In The Clowns" from "A Little Night Music," the very first Broadway musical that I actually saw on Broadway, during the last week of the original production's run.  Nothing I can say or write can describe the experience of listening to Glynis Johns singing it, or the ovation she received after doing so.

Perhaps, in our deeply divided times, one of Sondheim's greatest accomplishments was his appeal to people on both ends of the political spectrum.  He was not only admired by liberals (like me), but also by conservatives, including prominent media figures such as John Podhoretz and Cal Thomas.

On a related note (again, no pun intended), I think perhaps his greatest lesson to all of us lies in his willingness to adapt.  He started out at the end of the great Tin Pan Alley tradition of 32-bar, AABA melodies, and almost seamlessly transitioned the Broadway mainstream into what has become a long and still unfolding era of experimentation in musical theater.  In the process, he took an institution that was in danger of completely disappearing, and extended its life for at least decades beyond his own lifetime.

I remember what Broadway was like in the early 1970s, about the time that the Sondheim-Hal Prince collaboration emerged as a strong creative force, and my own interest in theater began to peak with my first visit to Broadway (Alan Bates in "Butley," at the now-departed Morosco Theatre) and the aforementioned appearance in my high school's production of "The Music Man."  Broadway, simply put, was dying.  Theaters were being torn down.  Fewer new authors and producers were emerging from the shows that did get on the boards.  In the fall of 1973, on my birthday, there were exactly 12 shows running on the allegedly Great White Way.  Today, even in this COVID-ravaged times, there are more than 40 active Broadway theaters, including historic houses brought back from the dead.  That would not have happened without a handful of dedicated theater professionals keeping Broadway on life support until a new generation could come along to embrace it.

Sondheim, as well as Prince and Joseph Papp, deserve enormous and undiluted credit for the fact that this happened.  And all of these individuals did it by understanding that the world around them was changing, and theater's survival depended on its ability to change with it.  Sondheim, in his relationships with Larson and Miranda, even found the ability to embrace rock and rap music, despite at one point having derided the former as being too dependent on rhythm for the range of emotional expression needed in drama. Perhaps he best expressed the need to survive by adapting here.  (Perhaps I should say "still here" instead.)

The key to the adaptation theater needed, for Sondheim as with many modern artists, lies in deconstructing reality, showing it from multiple perspectives, teaching us about its various facets by showing it from multiple perspectives and multiple points in time.  He could take fragments of one song and combine them with another, a technique he used to perfection in "Merrily We Roll Along," a show that operates with a reverse chronology.  Bits of one song at the show's beginning, or at the "end" of the story, would build to fuller versions later on, or toward the "end" of the story.  If you can find a copy of the original cast album, get it not only for its magnificent score, but also for Sondheim's liner notes, which explain in better detail than I can his thinking about how the music and lyrics are meant to work.

Perhaps its not surprising that one of his own later works, "Sunday In The Park With George," revolves around an Impressionist work of art; like Cezanne and other Impressionists, Sondheim was a master of deconstruction and reconstruction.  Yet it would be unfair to suggest that he did not develop a point of view in his work.  Despite his work's reputation for emotional ambivalence, time and again it would come back to the need for commitment as the only choice that each of us can ultimately make.  Commitment to art, to a person, to something.  The score of "Company" expresses this best for me, in songs like "Sorry-Grateful":

You're always sorry

You're always grateful

You're always wondering

What might have been

Then she walks in

Or, "Being Alive":

Somebody crowd me with love

Somebody force me to care

Somebody let me come through

I'll always be there

As frightened as you 

To help us survive

Being alive

Being alive

Being alive

We should all be not sorry, but deeply grateful, for the fact that in his career, and ultimately in his personal life, he found the ability to make that commitment, while still enjoying and exploring the complexity of life with a candor and commitment that has led some to compare him to Shakespeare.

Mandy Patinkin, who starred in the original production of "Sunday In The Park With George," made the same comparison, while hoping that Sondheim ultimately found the solace that was denied to him during his childhood, and added this:

Patinkin derives comfort from the knowledge that his friend is "the furthest thing from gone.  He left the heart and soul of his existence, his being, what he cared about, what he thought, what he wished for, wishes that he sometimes couldn't realize for himself--that will be here forever."

Perhaps Patinkin, along with the rest of us, can find solace in this evidence that Sondheim did find a measure of that peace, did in fact understand the value of what he would leave behind.  In a "60 Minutes" interview with Diane Sawyer back in the 1980s, in connection with his work on "Into The Woods," Sondheim expressed regret over not having children, but added, with a smile, that art can be a type of child.

Yes, art, as well as the people who follow your lead in creating it.  To me, this is the best way I can sum up my gratitude for the life and career of Stephen Sondheim.  He will continue to inspire creativity in others, through the legacy of his shows and the people he mentored and inspired to follow the trail he blazed.  As one small but powerful example of this, I leave you, thanking you for your indulgence if you've gotten this far in my musings, with a video based on one of my most favorite Sondheim songs from one of my most favorite of his scores, for "Merrily."  You will thank yourself for giving it a look and a listen, even if you are not as moved to the brink of tears as I was.  Among other things, it puts the lie to the accusation that his work was cold and unmelodic.  And it validates Patinkin's view that Sondheim's work gives us Sondheim forever.  It's what makes his loss, and the obituary I never wanted to read, bearable. It's what makes me, and should make all of us, deeply thankful for his life and work.

Thank you, Mr. Sondheim, indeed.  To paraphrase from another "Merrily" song, here's to you.  Who's like you?  Damn few?

Damn fewer than that.

Baruch dayan ha'emet.  And it will be.

A Nation Of Promoters Runs Out Of Things To Promote

This item from today's New York Times struck me as having implications that go far beyond the issue of who deserves credit for Monopoly, the Parker Brothers board game that allows each of us to embrace their inner 1% for the duration of the game (which, as anyone who has played it knows can go on forever).  Briefly, the article describes how the game was created not by Charles Darrow during the Depression, as is popularly believed, but by a woman named Elizabeth Magie Phillips many years earlier.  In her version of the game, there were two ways of playing:  an "anti-monopolistic" version, which taught the rewards of shared wealth, and a "monopolistic" version, which rewarded players who focused on their self-interest.  Darrow created his own take on the "monopolistic" version, and sold it to Parker Brothers, which also purchased the rights to Phillips' game as well to protect themselves from lawsuits.  In the end, however, her version of the game faded into obscurity, and Darrow's version went on to become a fixture in American households up to the present.

The relationship between Phillips and Darrow in the birthing of Monopoly is an example of a dynamic that reoccurs throughout American history--one person creates something new and valuable, and another person finds a way to sell it to the public.  This dynamic is what interested Stephen Sondheim so much in Addison and Wilson Mizner, the brothers whose role in the Florida land boom of the 1920s led Sondheim to work for decades on a musical version of their lives, one which finally made it to the stage first under the title "Bounce" and later as "Road Show."  Sondheim, as an artist himself, had more respect for Addison than Wilson, and the show (which I saw in its incarnation as "Bounce") very much reflects that respect.  One doesn't have to go back that far in our history, however, to find that dynamic:  Steve Jobs and Bill Gates embody it just as well.

The problem with this dynamic, however, is that it is typically the person who promotes, not the person who creates, who by virtue of their focus on money to the exclusion of everything else reaps the material rewards of the creation.  This was certainly the case in the creation of Monopoly; Darrow got a royalty agreement with Parker Brothers that made him a millionaire, while Phillips made next to nothing (and even less than that, if legal fees are counted). It's also significant that, although Phillips two-faced version of the game, with its emphasis on the pros and cons of pursuing wealth, had been around for decades before Darrow came along, it was Darrow's focus on the monopolistic side of the game that allowed him to sell it to Parker Brothers and made it a hit with the public.

The fact is that we are a nation of suckers, willing to be sold anything as long as we can be convinced it benefits each of us, and no one else.  We don't want to worship the people with talent, because talent is a kind of aristocracy.  You can't buy or make talent.  You can't even steal it.  But you can come close to it when you steal someone's idea, which surely is the case in Darrow and Parker Brothers' conduct toward Phillips.  They knew how to take what she had created and make it popular and profitable, even though Phillips had given birth to the idea as a kind of morality play.  Darrow and Parker Brothers, sadly, had a better understanding of Americans; they pay lip service to values, but prefer the kind that fold up in wallets and purses.

That is why the people we worship the most are not talented people, but salespeople.  To be sure, we pay lip service to talent, but the ones we really like are the ones that we think will help us make money.  This goes a long way toward explaining why the legend of Charles Darrow lives on, while Elizabeth Magie Phillips has faded into near obscurity.  As the Times article states:

Roughly 40 years have passed since the truth about Monopoly began to appear publicly, yet the Darrow myth persists as an inspirational parable of American innovation. It’s hard not to wonder how many other buried histories are still out there — stories belonging to lost Lizzie Magies who quietly chip away at creating pieces of the world, their contributions so seamless that few of us ever stop to think about the person or people behind the idea.

I find myself wondering whether this has something to do with the decline in creativity within our own country.  Why invent something, if someone else will reap all the rewards of its creation?  And especially why create now, at a time when the resources of our country are controlled by only a handful of people, who are in a position to demand all the rewards--in return for nothing.

As I said a moment ago, we are a nation of suckers, and the salespeople who service them.  Unless we can find ways to truly reward the innovators, unless we give the Elizabeth Magie Phillipses of the world a chance to shine, unless we can come to terms with the idea that talent is the only justifiable way in a democracy to have any aristocracy at all, we may not be much of a nation for very long.

In Praise Of Women

That title, as all Sondheim fans know, comes from the title of a song in "A Little Night Music," in which the song's lyrics offer praise undermined with wry commentary on the reasons for offering it.  But that's not my purpose today.  I write this to offer genuine praise for women, and specifically for three women, two of whom have had a profound effect in my life, and one who had a profound effect on the lives of all of us.

That may not, in and of itself, sound overly political.  But THR has never been strictly about politics, and especially not when it's appropriate for me to comment on the passing of someone who has had a major, special impact on my life, whether a public figure like Sondheim, or a private one like my mother.  Besides, historically, and up through the moments in which I'm typing this, to be a woman has been to be the relentless focus of all forms of politics.  And, right now, after more than sixty years in which women thought that they were making progress on leveling the gender playing field, they are finding themselves the subject and the object of political oppression.  Which makes it all the more important to tell the stories of women, and the impact that they have had in our lives.  And this burden should fall all the more heavily on men, who have for far too long had an interest in suppressing those stories.

And I'm happy to do my part.  So here we go.

The first woman is Melissa Borgerding, a new playwright with whom I'm working to produce a wonderful play she wrote, "Someone Close To You."  As I mentioned in closing out my blog for last year, I've formed a production company dedicated to producing the work of those whose voices are not heard often enough, culturally and otherwise.  I've selected Melissa's play as my first project and, last month, we had two readings of the play at Theatre West in Los Angeles, and both audiences responded enthusiastically to it.  As a result, we are now in the process of planning for a limited run of SCTY at a theater in Los Angeles, which will (if it happens) take place sometime this fall.

Like a lot of American dramas, Melissa's play is a family drama, one that depicts a couple in the middle of two challenges:  a pregnancy, and caring for a parent in declining health.  How they meet those challenges is something that I believe will challenge audiences.  In fact, when I first read the script, I found the ending to be at least a little bit challenging.  But, far more importantly, I found it to be real, poignant, and thought-provoking.  In other words, exactly the sort of theater that matters the most to me.  That's why I was not surprised by the success of our readings.  Not completely, anyway.  

I told Melissa that, no matter how well a script reads, you never know whether a script can become a play until it's up on its feet on stage.  But I had a good feeling about this one, based on decades of reading, seeing, and acting in plays, and our experience at Theater West validated that feeling.  In addition to being a talented writer, Melissa is a terrific collaborator, who has responded very well to feedback from our director, James A. Goins, and me.  Both of us look forward to working with her on the next stage (no pun intended) for this project.

Now, unfortunately, for a far sadder tribute.

In a former life, I worked for three years in New York City as a claims representative for the Social Security Administration, taking and approving or disapproving claims for Social Security benefits.  I tremendously enjoyed living in New York, and enjoyed (for the most part) the people I interviewed as well as the people I worked with.  But the system itself was and probably still is the most complicated system of legislation and regulation in our Federal system.  Even worse, in fact, than the laws and regulations of the Internal Revenue Service, with which I've also worked in my legal career.  

And, when I say I got along with my colleagues, that was not always the case when it came with the ones in management.  In fact, when the Republicans came into national power, those latter relationships got worse, as all of us came under greater pressure to deny claims and otherwise find ways to cut benefits.  This was my first career-type of position, and I was not prepared to deal with any of the stresses my job created, especially the Reagan-related stresses.

Fortunately, throughout all of this, I had one person I could turn to.

Her name was Julia Brandner.  

Like me, she was a claims representative, although she had been working long enough (unlike me) to no longer have conditional status, as my employment did.  Accordingly, she had a considerable amount of experience with both the technical knowledge of the work, as well as the politics of the office.  More importantly, we shared an affinity for the arts and show business, although her tastes ran more to television, and "Peter Gunn" in particular, than to Broadway (or, even worse for her, science fiction).  But, more importantly than anything else for me at that point, she was a kind and generous person, one who always organized office lunches at restaurants near our office, and who was always willing to listen when I had problems either with cases, or my immediate supervisor for most of my time there.  The less said about him, the better, except I understand that, when he left SSA, he worked for a bill collector, and one could not possibly imagine a better match between employer and employee than that one.

What astonished me about her friendship was the fact that it extended for so very long a time after I left New York in 1982.  Up until September of 2020, each year without fail, I would get both a birthday and Christmas greeting from her.  Thanks in no small part of this faithfulness on her part, I was able to keep up to date on what was going on with many of my former colleagues, and to be invited to her retirement party in 1999, which gave me the opportunity to see her and my colleagues one last time.  Her kindness and generosity at every step of the past four decades has meant more than I can say, both personally and professionally.

Julia, no one has a greater right to be called my friend than you did, and always will.  Baruch dayan ha'emess.

Finally, one more sad tribute for someone who added immeasurably to all of our lives.  If you are an American, and regardless of your sexual identification, you owe her gratitude, although she has not been a household name for decades.

Her name was Patricia Schroeder.  She was a congresswoman from Colorado, at a time when the House of Representatives was an almost entirely white, male political preserve.  That is has moved some distance away from that status, albeit not completely, is due in no small measure to the rare combination of perseverance and progressivism that she brought every day to her career in the House.

I have taken the liberty here of reprinting the following, from Daily Kos.  It is well worth your time to read it.

Former Colorado Rep. Pat Schroeder, a Democrat who was one of the most prominent voices for women’s rights in Congress during her service from 1973 to 1997, died Monday at the age of 82. Schroeder, who was just one of just 14 women in the House when she first arrived, was instrumental in passing legislation like the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act and Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. However, she acknowledged how much work still needed to be done in the title of her 1998 memoir, “24 Years of House Work … and the Place Is Still a Mess.”

Schroeder, who got her piloting license as a teenager, was one of only 15 women in her 1964 class of more than 500 at Harvard Law School. She recounted that, after the dean had told the small group, “Do you realize you have taken this position from a man?” another woman responded, “Well, I am only here because I could not get in at Yale.” Schroeder and her husband relocated to Denver after they both graduated, and at first it looked like Jim Schroeder would be the one who would have a political career.

In 1970 he campaigned for a seat in the state House and lost the general election by fewer than 50 votes. Pat Schroeder would recount decades later that legislators responded to that close call by drawing up a gerrymander that specifically placed their home in a new seat, boundaries that “didn't make any sense, except that's where Schroeder lived.” The future congresswoman, though, wrote in 1998, “But the law of unintended consequences bit the gerrymanderers―they kept Jim from running but they launched my political career!”

It was another 1970 election that would set in motion a chain of events that would help propel her to Congress two years later. Democratic Rep. Byron Rogers narrowly lost renomination after 10 terms to Craig Barnes, who emphasized his own opposition to the Vietnam War, but angry Rogers backers refused to support Barnes in the general election. That left an opening for Denver District Attorney Mike McKevitt, a Republican who had made headlines for shutting down screenings of the erotic film “I Am Curious (Yellow)” and who crusaded against restaurants with large hippie clienteles. McKevitt ended up winning the 1st Congressional District 52-45, which made him Denver’s first Republican House member in a quarter century.

Schroeder recounted that the original favorite for the Democratic nomination for 1972 was state Sen. Arch Decker, but her husband was one of many who wanted an alternative to someone they saw as “an elephant in donkey's clothing.” That proved to be a tough task, though, as few wanted to campaign in a year where they expected presidential nominee George McGovern to tank their chances. Schroeder, who taught law and had worked for the National Labor Relations Board, was therefore taken aback when Jim Schroeder relayed the news that local Democrats had mentioned her as a candidate.

She described her first reaction as, “Don't tease me, I'm tired. Why should I be the designated kamikaze?” Jim Schroeder agreed that she stood no chance of beating McKevitt and likely wouldn’t even be the nominee, but she wrote that he continued, “But if you don't get in the race and articulate the issues, they will not be discussed. You think the government's policies about Vietnam and the environment are wrongheaded, and you're always urging your students to get involved.”  

While Schroeder, who was still left “wonder[ing] what they served at this meeting,” still needed persuasion, she agreed to be “Dona Quixote” in a hopeless race: She’d remember, to her frustration, a newspaper summing up her announcement with the headline “Denver housewife runs for Congress.”

Schroeder had to quickly organize a campaign to beat Decker, who remained the favorite of the party establishment. She remembered that at the important state party convention she was granted only 30 seconds to speak by leaders who wanted to “muzzle me with their fast clock.” She used her limited time to declare her support for Cesar Chavez’s lettuce boycott, an issue that resounded “with the “large Chicano population of the city” and helped her win the convention.

Schroeder went on to beat Decker 55-45, and he did not respond well to that shock defeat. “He went into a massive pout,” Schroeder wrote in her 1998 book, “literally pulling down the blinds in his house and refusing to speak to the press.” But despite that upset win, she had an even tougher six-week battle ahead of her against McKevitt, “who thought he was going to waltz through a non-campaign to victory.”

The incumbent wasn’t the only one: Schroeder in a 2015 oral history interview with the House’s Office of the Historian said that the DCCC told her, “Well, we really have nothing to say to you; we can’t waste our money.” The Democrat, who ran on the slogan, “She wins, we win,” decided to wage an anti-war campaign that also emphasized her support for the children of migrant families and opposition to Denver hosting the 1976 Winter Olympics. (Colorado voters that fall would decisively back a referendum to withhold funding for the event, which ended up relocating to Austria.)  

Schroeder believed that, because establishment leaders didn’t help her, she benefited from running a nontraditional campaign that “seemed to penetrate the normal clutter and noise of politics.” She also said that Barnes, two years after his loss, transferred his “energized grassroots group to me.”

McKevitt, who demeaned his opponent as “Little Patsy,” continued to ignore Schroeder’s campaign, but the FBI didn’t. Schroeder said that her home was broken into “a couple of times” without anything obviously being stolen, but she didn’t think much of it at the time. She would learn a few years later, though, that the FBI suspected her slogan meant she was a communist, and that her husband’s barber was one of their informants. (“In hindsight it did seem rather odd how often he would show up in the middle of dinner,” she’d write.)

Schroeder ended up shocking everyone, including herself, by unseating McKevitt 52-47, a victory that made her the first woman to represent Colorado in Congress. That win came at the same time that, according to analyst Kiernan Park-Egan, President Richard Nixon was beating McGovern 55-45 in the district.

Schroeder soon found herself in the “guy gulag” that was D.C., and she immediately faced a hostile reception from a prominent Democrat after she became the first woman to ever serve on the House Armed Services Committee. Chairman Edward Hébert, a longtime supporter of segregation, made Schroeder share a seat with Black colleague Ron Dellums, with her remembering him saying, “The two of you are only worth half the normal member.” (It’s disputed whether he actually uttered those words.)

Schroeder, though, went on to become an influential member, and she quickly became entrenched at home. The congresswoman turned back state Rep. Frank Southworth 58-41 during the Democratic landslide of 1974, and she went on to beat another state representative, Don Friedman, 53-46 as Jimmy Carter was pulling off a tiny win in her constituency. This would be the last time Schroeder would fall below 59%: In 1982 she even fended off her old foe Decker, who had joined the GOP, 60-37. During the Reagan era, Schroeder also became known for dubbing the commander in chief the “Teflon president,” a label that ironically stuck.

Schroeder briefly formed a presidential exploratory committee in 1987 after former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart dropped out, but she failed to raise enough money. The congresswoman announced her decision to stay out of the race in a press conference where she fought back tears, something that drew scorn from several feminist leaders who argued she’d badly damaged the presidential hopes of future women. Schroeder later said, “I think it’s amazing that no one ever said that Joe Biden had ruined the future of men forever because people would think that they all plagiarized or that Gary Hart ruined the future of men forever because they all played around.”

Schroeder decided to retire the cycle after the 1994 Republican wave left her in the minority for the first time, and she went on to spend 11 years leading the Association of American Publishers. During her final month in the House she responded to a Los Angeles Times’ question about what advice she’d give women arriving in Congress, “I think women still should never kid themselves that they’re going to come here and be part of the team. And you ought to come here with a very clear definition of what it is you want to do, and that you will not be deterred.”

What an amazing combination of courage and cleverness she possessed!  The Democratic Party could use candidates with that same combination now more than ever!  Truly, all that I can add to the above is that now, more than ever, today's Democratic Party needs to run everywhere across the county, to find ways to communicate its progressive message in places where it may not be easy to do so.  It will entail risks.  

But, with a nation on the edge of civil war, it has never been more necessary.  My generation is particular has been able to grow up in an age of leisure, one that kindled indolence at the same time it inspired idealism.  We have generations ready to come after us, eager to build on the progress that has been made, and yet we have allowed our indolence to squander our idealism.  Shaking off the former to embrace the latter will entail facing risks greater than the ones Congresswoman Schroeder faced.  But, if she were still here with us, no one would insist harder that we face those risks without fear, without favor, without pause, and without pity for those who would be happy to reduce the words "freedom" and "democracy" to labels to be slapped on the face of their proposed tyranny.  Her example will always live with us.  Let us embrace it, build on it, and find true American greatest in the place where it has always lain.  In each other.

Three stories of three remarkable women.  All of whom deserve our praise and respect.  Let their stories be told again and again.  And let many other similar ones be added to them.

Lord & Taylor, Debt Forgiveness, And Cash Repatriation.

I was saddened to learn about the soon-to-be closing of Lord & Taylor, in part because it was one of my mother's favorite New York department stores, and in part because it joins a long list of other now-departed Fifth Avenue retailers (Bonwit Teller and B. Altman, to name but two) that represented what was left of a more stylish, and much more personalized form of retailing that began in the 19th century, endured for much of the 20th century, and now seems to be definitively winding down to a close in the 21st.  For us, the storied names of these shopping palaces are little more than nameplates.  But, once upon a time, there were actual people behind the nameplates, people whose tastes and marketing skills, along with a highly competitive marketplace, gave those nameplates the value that at least some of them have managed to retain long after their namesakes have vanished from our midst.

It's easy to blame the disappearance of Lord & Taylor (actually, downsizing the number of outlets) on the prevalence of shopping via the Internet, which gives shoppers an unlimited amount of range and convenience.  And there's no question that Internet shopping traffic has had a major adverse impact generally on traditional bricks-and-mortar retail outlets.  For me, as for others, it would be somewhat hypocritical to complain about this too much.  I lament the vanishing of traditional book stores, but I also buy books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  In many respects, the Internet is the proverbial better idea, and shopping is a major aspect of our lives that reflects that fact. 

But it's not hypocritical to note that, in the pursuit of convenience, we've lost an important part of our social lives as well.  Stores like Lord & Taylor used to be not just places to shop, but to spend time with family members and close friends.  Most of these stores had restaurants, which became places to extend the social aspect of shopping.  These days, you're lucky to find as much as a McDonald's in a Walmart (and "lucky" may depend on how you feel about fast food).

In any case, convenience plays a large role in the disappearance of the Lord & Taylor-type stores.  Physical elegance and social contact mean less to modern shoppers than they once did; getting goods quickly, and as cheaply as possible, are what matter most.  But there is another factor as well:  debt.  During the 1980s, when economic expansion was fueled not by tax cuts, as is commonly believed, but by massive amounts of public and private borrowing, the ownership of many former "carriage-trade" stores such as Lord & Taylor was consolidated through mergers that were funded by massive loans  These loans, unfortunately for everyone, proved to be so large that they stores themselves could not generate enough revenues to service the debt and generate profits for the new owners. 

This fact, combined with a reduction in the variety of merchandise available in each of the stores, slowly led to the closing of many of the individual stores, which by this point had become little more than nameplates.  Once upon a time, you could reasonably guess where an item had been bought just by looking at it.  But, as time passed, that was less and less true.  Macy's no longer needed to tell Gimbel's anything; they were both selling the same merchandise--and, as a result, only one of them has survived to this day.

The problem of debt strangling our economy is by no means limited to retail.  In addition to its other problems (climate change and the spread of autocracy), the world economy is forced to chow down on servicing a level of debt that now stands at $247 trillion.  A level of debt that has its roots in the go-go '80s--when, economically (to borrow a Stephen Sondheim lyric from "Follies) everything was possible and nothing made sense (then or now).  There is clearly no way out of this financial trap except debt forgiveness.  What is needed now is an international conference to work out the terms of this, on a global basis.  Perhaps that can actually happen, once everyone faces up to the need for it--and it may take a cataclysmic event for everyone to do so.

But what if we could do it?  And what if it could be combined with incentives to repatriate currencies that have fled their home countries, seeking tax shelters oversees?  (U.S. dollars, we're looking at you here.)

Maybe some of that forgiveness, combined with a little cash, could save what's left of the carriage-trade model, before it vanishes altogether.  Maybe some of that cash could help to not only provide the Lord & Taylors of the world with much-needed capital, but also with new, aspiring merchants to find ways to combine Internet-age convenience with old-school social experience.  Maybe, if we can liberate money from the tyranny of debt service, and get it to start moving at the same speed as the people who make, save, invest, and spend it, we really can bake a large enough economic pie for everyone.

Admittedly, this is just a dream.  But maybe necessity will make it a reality.  I hope it happens before we say goodbye to another Lord & Taylor.

Mitch McCONnell: The Only Thing That Matters Is The Game

The title of this post is taken from an early version of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Road Show," back when it was called "Bounce" and played at the Kennedy Center in Washington.  The show is about the Mizner brothers, Wilson and Addison, in the early 20th century; the latter an architect who designed the city of Boca Raton, Florida, the former a born con artist who sold much of the real estate his brother designed.  Coming from a song entitled, appropriately enough, "The Game," the song enables Wilson to let us know what really gets him out of bed in the morning:  the thrill of the con, the vicarious joy involved in getting away with "putting on over" on others, regardless of the cost to them.  And the artist?  By the time his or her victims have caught on to what's happened to them, he or she is off to the next con.  The game is essential.  The consequences for others aren't.

If you've been with me for a while, it should be no secret to you that I consider the current Senate majority leader to be a con artist.  This is why I refer to him routinely as Mitch McCONnell:  a not-so-subtle tribute to his essence.  The only truly interesting thing about him, as with all con artists, is the answer to an important question:  how far will one of them go in putting one over on others, regardless of the self-inflicted consequences.

In McCONnell's case, we can now put a more-or-less exact number on it:  one million.  That is the difference between the number of people who would lose health insurance under the House version of repealing and replacing Obamacare, and the Senate version of that bill cobbled together by McCONnell and a handle of senators (all Republicans, all male) in secret.  A big difference in one sense, but an inconsequential one to anyone with a heart for the millions of Americans who will lose health insurance if either version of the bill becomes the law of the land.

Beyond that number, we can add another number to it  100.  That is the percentage of McCONnell's brazenness when it comes to the gap between his words and his deeds.  McCONnell has been in the Senate for decades, but only become its majority leader after the 2014 election season.  Prior to that time, he had managed to convince a large number of chattering-class members that, considerations of partisanship aside, he deeply respected the legislative process as it has existed for decades in the so-called World's Greatest Deliberative Body.  In fact, during the 2014 election process, he made a point of complaining about how the then-Democratic majority had subverted that process, and that he would make a point of restoring it if the election flipped control of the chamber.

No one should have taken that viewpoint seriously, given what we know about McCONnell's unprecedented use of the filibuster rule, as minority leader, to deny then-President Obama not only a number of significant legislative accomplishments, but also a large number of judicial appointments to the Federal bench.  In hindsight, that should have been a sign of the shape of things as they would subsequently come.  Nevertheless, for a majority of voters and pundits, it wasn't.

And so, McCONnell as majority leader showed us exactly what he though of Senate traditions, and so-called "regular order" generally, by a long-shot gambit to keep a Supreme Court seat open for a year in the hope that a Republican president would be able to fill it.  He won.  "Regular order," due process, the right of Obama to offer a nomination to the Court, and perhaps constitutional government itself, all lost.

As bad as all of this was and is, the current debacle over repealing and replacing Obamacare is far worse.  To begin with, there was the decision to use the budget reconciliation process to move forward, thereby eliminating the threat of a Democratic filibuster.  Never mind the fact that conservatives had criticized Democrats for enacting the ACA in exactly the same way; it was now time for revenge, and revenge is sweetened by using the tactics of the enemy.  Besides, to break a filibuster, they would need to offer concessions to Democrats in exchange for cooperation, and President Chump's base would never accept that.

Next, there was the secretive process of drafting the Senate version of the bill, without public hearings or any opportunity for the media--and the public--to examine and debate it.  As previously noted, women were specifically excluded from this process, despite the impact it might ultimately have on the care of many of their female constituents.  Finally, there was the finished product itself, unveiled days before a snap-vote was scheduled to push it across the finish line.  Somehow, all of this was enough for Senate Democrats and the media to grow something resembling spines, and slow the process down long enough for people to discover what had been written in secret.

And boy, when they did, were they less than excited.  Less than 20% of the public supports this monstrosity.  Not even the ACA has ever polled that badly.  Has that stopped McCONnell?  Well, maybe a little bit, since the vote has now been delayed until after the Fourth of July.  But not really. Even now, he's wheeling and dealing to make the bill marginally less worse, or to at least find new and more exciting cosmetic ways to disguise its badness.  Anything, anything, to get those 50 votes (with Vice President Pence ready to break the tie).  Why, he's even raised the threat of--shudder!--cooperating with Democrats if he can't get those 50 votes!

Amazing.  Using the threat of the democratic process, so that you can accomplish your ultimate goal of subverting it.  And, in the meantime, the goal of serving the American people, like the rest of Republican thinking, has been reduced to little more than a bumper-sticker.

But, that's what happens when the only thing that matters is the game.

Fallen Heroes, Lasting Work

Deaths of celebrities, it is said, come in threes.  That was certainly the case this past month for me, as three famous people who made an impact in my life, as well as the lives of others, passed away.  Not prematurely, thankfully.  All of them lived very full lives and left behind legacies that, although complicated in certain ways, will have a lasting positive impact on many people, especially in the arts.

I'll begin my discussion of those legacies with the member of the group who, for me, has perhaps the most complicated legacy:  Stan Lee, the co-creator of the Marvel comic-book universe.  The complicated part is, in fact, summed up in that word "co-creator."

Lee was a tremendous story-teller and promoter, who worked for many years in the comics business when comic books were considered a medium strictly for kids, and one no self-respecting adult would confess to having as a source of pride, let alone as a source of employment.  In fact, Lee admitted that there was a time when he was ashamed of the industry that ultimately made him both rich and famous.  Bur those riches and fame began to accumulate in the 1960s, a time when Lee sensed (correctly) that cultural boundaries were shifting, especially the ones that defined "high" and "low" culture.  He felt that there might be room in the comics for stories that dealt with topical issues and with the struggles of heroes who, while having super powers thrust upon them in a variety of ways, were still very human, with very human flaws and disappointments.

And so those superheroes became, over the course of the '60s and the decades that followed, household names to millions of comic-book readers, and, ultimately, mass-cultural phenomena when the technology of film making made it possible to show the adventures of these heroes in films and on TV.  And Lee's talent for story-telling made all of that possible.  As well as his talent for promotion.  He was not just Stan Lee, editor and writer.  He was Stan Lee of "Stan's Soapbox" in every Marvel book, using the space to promote current issues--and I'm not just talking about the ones with superheroes.  He was willing to jump into politics, which helped him to expand the Marvel market from grade schools to college campuses and beyond.  This is without a doubt the best-known, and best-written example, and one cited frequently in the many obituaries of Lee.

He also used his Soapbox to promote "the Bullpen," the small army of creative talent whose contributions to Marvel were no less memorable than Lee's.  This was especially true of the artists, who created the "look" that defined a highly visual medium and continues to do so down to the present.  And this, sadly, is where the legacy becomes complicated.  As Lee became more of a celebrity and, in the process, more of an executive, he became less of a colleague and more of a boss, one who was not there for his creative team when some of its members badly needed him.  This was most egregiously the case with Jack "King" Kirby, the artist who did more to define the Marvel "look" than anyone else.  When Kirby's heirs attempted to claim the copyright (and related royalties) to much of Kirby's work for Marvel, Lee supported Marvel's assertions that Kirby was an "employee" of Marvel and therefore didn't own the rights to his art.  He did this despite an earlier statement in a deposition to the opposite effect.

Ironically, then, Lee, like many of his co-creations, was a flawed hero, one who, in the case of Kirby and by extension other Marvel artists, through his co-creators under the proverbial bus at a point when they could have used his help in a significant way.  Does it make his live not worth celebrating?  Frankly, I'm not in a position to say that.  If I do, I'm effectively denying not only the value of his writing, but the value of the art by the artists he injured as well.  Together, they created books that helped children like me, children who had trouble fitting in to the world around them, feel that, one day, the world might be a place in which "fitting in" was possible.  They gave me the patience, and the confidence, that one did not have to be "like everyone else" in order to matter.  Today, no matter how badly the Lee-Kirby relationship ended, I, along with millions of others, have the two of them to thank for that.

Less complicated, perhaps, are the legacies of Douglas Rain and William Goldman.  Rain had established a solid career as a Shakespearean actor in Canada when Stanley Kubrick made a last-minute decision to cast him in the rule of HAL, the computer that wasn't programmed to keep a secret and then was given one to keep, leading him quite logically to try killing off all of the astronauts on the spaceship he was designed to operate.  While he may have been a last-minute choice, he was an absolutely inspired one.  Rain managed to combine the tonal neutrality one would expect from a machine with the quiet intensity of an entity experiencing intense conflict.  Even lines as simple as "I'm sorry, Dave.  I'm afraid I can't do that" were charged with a sinister effect that was as effortless as it was effective.  Rain's accomplishment has informed my efforts to develop a career in acting, by reminding me that acting is an art that must seem effortless to work, and that, when it does, there truly are no small parts.

As for Goldman, his work as a screenwriter and as a novelist speaks for itself.  Alas, when it came to the stage, he did not enjoy the same level of success he attained in those other arenas.  He wrote two shows for Broadway with his brother, James, who would go on to write the libretto for the Stephen Sondheim musical "Follies," and neither of those shows was, to put it mildly, a hit.  But Goldman found Broadway success in a very different way, by writing "The Season," a show-by-show analysis of the 1967-68 season on the Great White Way that used each show to analyze a different aspect of American theater.  Despite being 50 years old this year, "The Season" does not feel dated in the least; if anything, Goldman was especially prescient in foreseeing (in the last chapter, "What Kind Of Day Has It Been?") the demise of the impresario model of producing in favor of corporate/not-for-profit producing.  Thus, from Goldman's experience, I learned the value of mining one's failures in order to find a different kind of success.

I miss all three men very much, especially Lee and Rain, whom I will now never meet.  I got to see Goldman speak in my student days, during which he talked about his experiences at Oberlin (my alma mater as well), and we had a very brief exchange as a result.  I'm grateful for that memory.  But I'm even more grateful for the work all three men left behind, and the value that work will continue to have long after I'm gone.  I would be thrilled if anything I managed to do before I die managed to be a fraction as valuable as what Lee, Rain, and Goldman accomplished.

But I would be even more thrilled if we as a nation can get past the current wretched moment, and build a world worthy of what they accomplished.

What's Happened In August?

Well, if you've been following the news, you know that quite a bit has happened lately.  I've written before about how August, the month when the world is on holiday, tends to be a month for mischief, with bad actors working behind the scenes to set up a fall full of political misery. This August, as you already know, has been a bit different, and I plan on discussing that fact as well as other recent events over the next couple of days.

I have been writing this blog for nearly 14 years and, in doing so, I've tried to keep a fairly consistent schedule when it comes to both frequency and length in posting.  My standards in both areas have shifted, in part because I've experimented with different approaches to see what readers respond to the most, and in part because of the demands of other areas of my life.  In addition to blogging, as noted on the Twitter account to which TRH connects, I have three occupational lives:  as an attorney, an actor, and a historic preservationist.  Lately, however, I have begun to add one more occupation that I have wanted to try for a long time, and I am very excited about taking the first steps toward doing so.

As a preservationist, my focus has primarily been on historic theaters, especially historic Broadway theaters in New York.  One of the earliest lessons I learned as I began to pursue this area of preservation came from Brendan Gill, the late Broadway critic for The New Yorker.  I wrote him a letter asking for advice about how I could help prevent theaters from being "adaptively reused," which is preservation-speak for taking an old structure and preserving most or sometimes just parts of it while giving it a function for which it was not originally designed.  Sometimes, this is inevitable, but not always.  Despite competition from a wide variety of other related media, the performing arts have always had a demand for space.  And, since that space is often very expensive to construct from scratch, why not take a building that has already been designed for that purpose, and reclaim it for that same purpose?  Especially in the age of the green economy, with the greenest buildings being the one that are already built?

At any rate, in my conversation with Gill, he pointed out to me a simple truth that subsequently--and successfully--guided my efforts to help save Broadway's Biltmore Theater, the home of the original production of "Hair" and now the home of the non-profit Manhattan Theatre Club.  In his view, the best way to keep a theater a theater, as opposed to a delicatessen or a disco (two potential fates for the Biltmore at one point) was simply to ensure the existence of a steady supply of productions.  Simple in one sense, of course, and not so simple in another.  Starting in the 1960s, and continuing well into the 1990s when my preservation efforts started in earnest, Broadway had anything but a steady supply of productions.  The physical and social deterioration of Times Square played a role in that, but there were two other forces that played a larger role:  the rising costs of productions, both in capital and operating expenses, and the changing cultural tastes of the public, especially the under-30 cohort.  Both of these  trends led to the growth of non-profit theater, where costs could be institutionalized and more experimental work could be attempted.  In fact, in the case of the Biltmore, "Hair" was initially launched off-Broadway by Joseph Papp at the Public Theater.  This would become a template for future Broadway shows, as not only off-Broadway in New York but regional and foreign theater companies began to move their productions to New York.  The result has been a perpetual booking jam on Broadway since the mid-1990s, interrupted only recently by the pandemic.  And part of that has come from several other non-profit off-Broadway companies taking over several Broadway theaters, as MTC has done.

Forgive the digression.  Back to me.

At the same time that I was getting into theatre preservation, I was also getting back into acting, first in community theater, and later in professional productions.  In the course of doing so, I became a reader for the Baltimore Playwrights Festival, which solicits, evaluates, and selectively produces works by professional and amateur authors.  A number of the plays I have read over the years, including several that were not selected for production, impressed me greatly, and I began to think about the possibility of being the person that found a way to get these potential shows in front of an audience.  Some of that thinking came out of my own experience as an actor:  aging has severely limited the range of roles for which I am plausible, and even the unions encourage self-producing as a means of breaking out of the unemployment rut.  (There was also a random encounter with a palm reader at a shopping mall one Christmas, but I think I'll save the details of that for any memoirs I might write.)

The upshot of all this?

Well, several things.  Two of the contacts I made during my save-the-Biltmore days, in addition to their regular work, are aspiring playwrights, and I have begun to work with both of them on what I expect will be co-producing efforts to get their shows up and running somewhere.  But I have also taken it upon myself  to form a production company, Flipping The Script Productions, that I am dedicating to the production of works by underproduced segments of the populations (e.g., women, LGBQT authors, Blacks, and people of color).  I have optioned for production a play that I read though the BPF about which I'm very excited, and have found a director who shares my excitement.  We expect to put together a series of readings, perhaps a festival presentation or two, and then, ultimately, a professional production, which hopefully will reach New York at some point.

What does all this mean for TRH, and its readership?

Well, frankly, it means change.  As you can probably tell, I've always lived a life in which I've enjoyed wearing multiple hats at once.  But I have also needed to recognize, from time to time, that in the course of wearing all of those hats, there's an upward limit, at which point one of those hats has to come off.  At least permanently, if not temporarily.

As I have gotten more and more involved in producing, with the expectation that the involvement will continue to grow, I have realized that something has to give in my schedule, or I will have to abandon eating, sleeping, and spending time with my family--in other words, things that I can't and won't sacrifice.

And I have decided that TRH is the thing that has give.  At least, to a degree.

I might have made this decision in any case.  I will be 66 in a matter of a few days.  And, while much of politics in this seventh decade of my life has been a cause for distress and even sleeplessness on my part, it has also had a series of inspirational moments.  From the first presidential campaign of Barack Obama, to the rise of a new generation of digital and street activism, I feel hopeful, if not 100% optimistic, that the American way of government, and life, will not only survive the current crisis, but thrive even after I am gone, for the benefit of my children, grandchildren, and later generations to come.  I am therefore ready to share the proverbial torch, if not completely pass it.  As one of the characters in Stephen Sondheim's adaptation of "Merrily We Roll Along," says:  "You know what true greatness is?  It's knowing when to get off!"  I'm not quite at that point.  But I can definitely see it, on the horizon.

I will continue to post here at least once a month, on politics and other issues.  But the posts will be fewer and shorter (I'm hoping the latter will, if nothing else, be an improvement).  I will be using the time freed up by doing so to work on producing the play I've optioned.  In fact, I expect to be setting up a Web site for my production company soon, and have as part of that Web site a blog that will keep people informed about what's going on with it.  When that happens, I will be sure to post about it here, and invite all of you to follow this new chapter in my life.

I thank all of you who read my posts, and welcome any comments at any time in response to what I write, or any comments about subjects you would like to see me cover.  That has always, and will always, be the case, so long as I am above ground and typing.

And now, onward to the events of the day ...