June 19th

 Happy Juneteenth...

"Good Night, and Good Luck."

On Saturday (from 7-9 p.m., Eastern time), CNN will be broadcasting--live, from Broadway--the drama Good Night, and Good Luck.

The play, which had its debut at the Winter Garden Theatre the first week of April, will have its final performance on Sunday.

The show stars George Clooney, as the legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow.  The play concerns Mr. Murrow's 1950s CBS television news/documentary program See it Now, and the 1954 episodes of the program which Mr. Murrow and producer Fred Friendly (played by Glenn Fleshler) aired about Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Good Night, and Good Luck originally appeared as a 2005 film--directed by Mr. Clooney, and co-written by Mr. Clooney and Grant Heslov.  The film starred David Strathairn, as Edward R. Murrow; Mr. Clooney portrayed Fred Friendly.

The play was written by Mr. Clooney and Mr. Heslov. Its director is David Cromer.

During television's live era, many Broadway performers appeared on dramatic programs on TV.  According to CNN, however, this is the first time a Broadway performance has been aired on live television.

Mr. Clooney has had prior experience with live television. During the time he was a star of the NBC medical drama ER (1994-2009), an episode of the show (the first episode of the 1997-1998 season) was performed live.

In 2000, as well, Mr. Clooney was an Executive Producer of the CBS live television special Fail Safe, the nuclear-oriented drama, which was a remake of the 1964 film directed by Sidney Lumet (which itself was based on the 1962 novel Fail Safe, by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler). Mr. Clooney also acted in the production.

On Saturday, from 6:30-7 p.m., CNN will air a pre-show special about the 7-9 p.m. telecast.

Memorial Day

Today, in a Washington Post piece about Memorial Day, the subject of language, regarding the observance of the holiday, was briefly addressed--specifically, the use of the phrase "Happy Memorial Day."

A link to the website of the Wounded Warrior Project was included in the Post story; the site has a page devoted to Memorial Day.

The page includes the following:

On Memorial Day, it's important to remember we are honoring our fallen. For many, this day is not a happy occasion but a solemn one. Here is some guidance on the appropriate messages to convey:

• Rather than “Happy Memorial Day,” say something like “Have a meaningful Memorial Day."
• It’s also not appropriate to thank a service member for their service on this day, as it is a day for remembering and honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
• Take a moment to recognize and remember. You can even say, “Today and always, I’m remembering [name]."  

The Wounded Warrior web page also includes this:

Memorial Day is a reminder of the brave men and women who served our country and gave their lives for our freedom.

It's not just a day off; it's a time to think about why we remember these heroes. For veterans, it's a chance to honor those who are no longer here.

Use this day to show how grateful we are for their bravery, and as a promise that we'll always remember their courage and sacrifice.

An American Tragedy

Remembering George Floyd, who died--so terribly, so cruelly--five years ago today.

Truth, in fiction

Novelist Anne Tyler released her 25th novel, Three Days in June, in February; it is published by Alfred A. Knopf.

https://www.amazon.com/Three-Days-June-Anne-Tyler-ebook/dp/B0D3Z7X54Y/ref

Elizabeth Egan, a writer and editor at the New York Times Book Review, interviewed Ms. Tyler at the time, for a Times article.

Ms. Egan wrote, of Ms. Tyler:

She quit writing reviews years ago. “That was my one foray into nonfiction,” Tyler said. “If I’m writing fiction and I get deep enough into it, all of a sudden it feels like I’m telling the truth. If I’m writing nonfiction, I write down something I absolutely believe, and it’ll look like a lie.” (bold type added above--as well as below)

Ms. Tyler's remarks put me in mind of an interview the novelist (and essayist) Cynthia Ozick gave to The Atlantic, in May of 2023; the interview was an adjunct to a short story she published in The Atlantic the same month.

She was interviewed by Oliver Munday, an associate creative director at The Atlantic.

Ozick: Writing for me is hard labor, no matter the length or the form. I start out in fear and doubt, and continue in this state of prolonged discontent and conscious forcing, until certain unpredictable moments of excitement take over, when the thing begins to know itself and its own trajectory. In the long-distance run of a novel, this can come as late as three-quarters of the way through. The short story at times knows what it intends to happen from the start, but is wholly perplexed as to how to get there. When the dam suddenly breaks, even the words find themselves...

Munday: Aside from short stories, what are you currently working on?

Ozick: How not to lie when writing make-believe.

"The Last Picture Show," by Larry McMurtry

The Last Picture Show was one of the best-known novels by the noted writer Larry McMurtry (1936-2021).  It was published by The Dial Press in 1966. 

Mr. McMurtry's 1985 novel, Lonesome Dove, published by Simon & Schuster, was awarded the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

The Last Picture Show, which takes place in a small Texas town in the early 1950s, was made into the much-admired 1971 film of the same name, directed by Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022); Mr. Bogdanovich and Mr. McMurtry wrote the film's screenplay.

Here are two paragraphs, from late in the novel.  One of the two characters referred to is Sonny, a teenager in the town.

After a while [Sonny] went over to the picture show and watched a funny movie with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.  The movie took his mind off things, but afterward, when he was buying a bag of popcorn from Old Lady Mosey, he got another disappointment.  She told him they were going to have to close the picture show sometime in October.

"We just can't make it, Sonny," she said. "There wasn't fifteen people here tonight, and a good picture like this, Jerry Lewis. It's kid baseball in the summer and school in the winter. Television all the time.  Nobody wants to come to shows no more."

Pope Francis

After his death, it seems to me, much inspiration can continue to be taken from Pope Francis--regardless of one's particular faith, and despite any differing points-of-view, differing philosophical stances, one might hold.

The Pope had, about him, a tremendous warmth, a sense of joy--and a distinct, and disarming, humility (I think it is fair to say that too often, in our time, humility is in short supply).  

There was his deep kindness, his deep feeling, toward those who are poor, and those who struggle in life.  

One also felt great admiration for Francis's frequent pleas that immigrants be treated with dignity, and care. 

And, there were his eloquent entreaties regarding the environment: that the world community should tend to "our common home," as he put it, with a far greater sense of responsibility, and urgency.

In a letter to America's Catholic bishops, in February of this year, the Pope discussed the issue of migrants.  Here are two sections (#4 and #5) from the letter. 

4. I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality. At the same time, one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival. That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.

5. This is not a minor issue: an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized. The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions — welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable. This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2025/documents/20250210-lettera-vescovi-usa.html

Here are four sections (#10 to #12, and #14) from the Pope's lengthy Encyclical Letter about the environment, from May of 2015, titled "On Care for Our Common Home." (I have left in place the footnotes which appear in three of the sections.)

10. I do not want to write this Encyclical without turning to that attractive and compelling figure, whose name I took as my guide and inspiration when I was elected Bishop of Rome. I believe that Saint Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically. He is the patron saint of all who study and work in the area of ecology, and he is also much loved by non-Christians. He was particularly concerned for God’s creation and for the poor and outcast. He loved, and was deeply loved for his joy, his generous self-giving, his openheartedness. He was a mystic and a pilgrim who lived in simplicity and in wonderful harmony with God, with others, with nature and with himself. He shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.

11. [Saint] Francis helps us to see that an integral ecology calls for openness to categories which transcend the language of mathematics and biology, and take us to the heart of what it is to be human. Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, he burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise. He communed with all creation, even preaching to the flowers, inviting them “to praise the Lord, just as if they were endowed with reason”.[19] His response to the world around him was so much more than intellectual appreciation or economic calculus, for to him each and every creature was a sister united to him by bonds of affection. That is why he felt called to care for all that exists. His disciple Saint Bonaventure tells us that, “from a reflection on the primary source of all things, filled with even more abundant piety, he would call creatures, no matter how small, by the name of ‘brother’ or ‘sister’”.[20] Such a conviction cannot be written off as naive romanticism, for it affects the choices which determine our behaviour. If we approach nature and the environment without this openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously. The poverty and austerity of Saint Francis were no mere veneer of asceticism, but something much more radical: a refusal to turn reality into an object simply to be used and controlled.

12. What is more, Saint Francis, faithful to Scripture, invites us to see nature as a magnificent book in which God speaks to us and grants us a glimpse of his infinite beauty and goodness. “Through the greatness and the beauty of creatures one comes to know by analogy their maker” (Wis 13:5); indeed, “his eternal power and divinity have been made known through his works since the creation of the world” (Rom 1:20). For this reason, Francis asked that part of the friary garden always be left untouched, so that wild flowers and herbs could grow there, and those who saw them could raise their minds to God, the Creator of such beauty.[21] Rather than a problem to be solved, the world is a joyful mystery to be contemplated with gladness and praise.

14. I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet. We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all. The worldwide ecological movement has already made considerable progress and led to the establishment of numerous organizations committed to raising awareness of these challenges. Regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective, not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest. Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity. As the bishops of Southern Africa have stated: “Everyone’s talents and involvement are needed to redress the damage caused by human abuse of God’s creation”. [22] All of us can cooperate as instruments of God for the care of creation, each according to his or her own culture, experience, involvements and talents.

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html