[Author’s Note: this year marks my 29th “anniversary.”] Until I saw the date, February 2, it hadn’t occurred to me that it was my “birthday” again. This birthday–which is more of an anniversary–marks for me the first day of uninterrupted sobriety 29 years ago. It hadn’t seemed like a very important day at the time; in fact, if anyone had asked then, I would have said it was the worst day of my life.  I was bloated and quaking. My eyes were yellow like a cat’s–from jaundice. And my store of courage was so low I had to be led around like a child. There’s no question that on that day, my second life began. It would help to note here that I am not

WHEN I SEE Christian Bale and Margot Robbie as leads in the cast, I am already smelling the popcorn, There are other  big names involved, including De Niro. It’s set after WWI, and in part based on real events. It’s light, funny at times, yet there’s an intrigue that builds; it takes a while to show up, but the action holds ones interest until it does. The director, David O. Russell (American Hustle, The Fighter, Sliver Linings Playbook), has a solid resume. Bale is the usual joy to watch, Margot Robbie keeps getting better (hard to imagine), and then you have John David Washington (Black Klansman), Rami Malek, Anya Tayler, and list of celeb cameos from, for one example, Taylor Swift. There’s not much else

  A Token of the Holly King By William Hecht Weekday afternoons at two o’clock, he began to look for her. Each time the little bell sounded to announce that the door to Ye Olde Coffee and Tea Shop had been opened, he would turn his head. As three o’clock grew near and brought with it the possibility that she wouldn’t arrive that day, he began to resent the other customers who instead appeared in the door at the sound of the bell. He imagined that she must have begun working at one of the neighborhood shops in mid-November, and that she probably arrived at work in late morning and took a break in the afternoons. Though it was nearly Christmas and she visited most

  LITERATURE AND SOCIETY dance a duet and take turns leading.  It isn’t always apparent that changes in Art are a response to changes in society and culture  or whether the order is reversed. Yet the very “ominous” poem, The Second Coming by Yeats was written just after WWI, the “war to end all wars” (https://www.moviesmarketsandmore.com/twilight-in-the-land-of-more/). And Orwell’s dystopian 1984 (published 1949) was a response to totalitarianism before, during, and after WWII (https://www.moviesmarketsandmore.com/orwells-1984-is-the-book-of-our-time-a-canticle-for-eric-blair/ ). In the Roaring Twenties, the male and privileged romanticism of Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald were the rage. By the end of the Depression, the mantle of social authority was transferred to the destitute masses in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath or the more haunted existences of the Deep South revealed in

The French Dispatch is another of Wes Anderson’s superb films.Before any consideration of the story, the film has to be considered an exceptional viewing experience for the unpredictability (that he always brings), the richness of characters, and the uber-esoteric settings—mostly amid a Sahara of dry humor. Not to mention that the cast consists of a blend of top comedic and dramatic talent (while I am sure the actors view it as work in High Art, they seem to be having the perfect mix of challenge and fun). Some new (to his films) “star” faces are evidence of the allure of this filmmaker. The structure is a little unusual because it’s broken into segments, but it all conforms within the context of a newspaper founded and operated