Tag Archives: Waiting for Godot

How Nobel Is Mr. Zimmerman?

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Bob Dylan, awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, has decided to ignore the honor. Wow! I mean, right!? Everybody Must Get Stoned! How Nobel Is Mr. Zimmerman?Bob Dylan excuse me, I mean Mr. Robert Zimmerman, is like a god! Literally so. The man just shrugs off what everyone else on this planet accepts, all of those pathetic dogs: Alice Munro, Jose Saramago, Gunter Grass, Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett. How Nobel Is Mr. Zimmerman?Come on, Robert Zimmerman is so much more gifted, right? Waiting for Godot? As if. Blindness? Huh? The Flounder? Come on! What are they going on about? All you have to do is listen to Robert:

She speaks with a stutter and she walks with a hop
I don’t know why I love her but I just can’t stop.

The great thing about all of this is that Robert is sticking it to those elitist royals in Sweden. Sticking it to them! He’s speaking out on behalf of his downtrodden American brethren – so many ignored over the years – leaving us in glorious silence to consider his lyrical awesomeness:

I know all about poison, I know all about fiery darts,
I don’t care how rough the road is, show me where it starts

Or maybe it’s actually bigger than that. Maybe Robert is gone. Hasn’t everyone else died this year? Maybe they’re covering that up until Robert can figure out how to reincarnate. I mean, if anyone can pull off the Lazarus gig, it’s Robert fuckin’ Dylan Zimmerman.

This Is Our Youth: Inert and Amusing

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“You think what you think and I think what I think and there’s no way we’re ever going to convince each other, so my suggestion is that we just drop it.” This Is Our Youth: Inert and AmusingThis is Our Youth, a play about spoiled Manhattan kids adrift in their inertia, opened on Broadway last week to some acclaim. Starring Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin and Tavi Gevinson, the story doesn’t go anywhere – something like Waiting for Godot but with more of an actual plot – but offers oddly astute and amusing moments. This Is Our Youth: Inert and AmusingCera’s deadpan delivery and Gevinson’s overwrought performance flesh out the writing of Kenneth Lonergan with an effect that is surprisingly both grating and thought-provoking. While the message isn’t a new one – bombastic youth pontificating on truth at each other – it does remind us of our own confused aspirations, something best paraphrased by King Oscar II of Sweden in 1923. This Is Our Youth: Inert and AmusingOne who has not been a socialist before 25 has no heart. If one remains one after 25, he has no head.