For 90 minutes Irwin grips the house by talking about Beckett, reading his prose, acting his plays - and yes, performing the good old clowning schticks. A fascinating performance at Washington Shakespeare company.
2/2
What can a clown say about Samuel Beckett?
Turns out, a lot. Both theater of absurd and clowning make us to look at the world as a strange new thing, and rethink our ideas about it.
The one man show 'On Beckett' by Bill Irwin is a great illustration of this.
1/2
Harold Meyerson notes that when such opportunist as Gavin Newsom says the A-word about Istael, the mood of Americans definitely has changed.
prospect.org/2026/03/04/g...
We are extremely lucky if in three years we are still having Washington monument and Lincoln memorial.
JD Vance chose very interesting words when talking about US economy, "You don't turn the Titanic around overnight".
Sigmund Freud taught us that word slips often reveal deep desires.
I suspect these guys want to crush US economy to build a fascist state on its ruins.
I nominate Donald Trump. He is going to claw the award anyway, so why don't we save the effort and give it him now?
And again Eccl 1:10 turns out to be right.
"In 1943, he [Knuth Hamsun] sent Germany's minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal as a gift."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_Ha...
Article I Section 8 of the US Constitution enumerates declaring a war among the exclusive powers of Congress.
A prediction for 2026.
Being offered the choice between Trump-Washington, District of Columbia and Washington, District of Trump-Columbia, the president will select Trump, District of Trump.
A major part of MAGA is the grievance of those imagined not being promoted because of DEI.
The cases of 'unredacted' DoJ files or 'unsuppressed' CBS screening show the real reason for these missed promotions.
2nd place. A statue of Stalin reading Pushkin's book.
And the winner:
A statue of Stalin reading Stalin's book.
2/2
The recent news reminded me of an old Soviet joke.
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the poet Alexander Pushkin a competition for the best statue was announced. Then prizes were awarded.
3rd place. A statue of Pushkin reading Stalin's book.
1/2
Words of Type has an article published in the latest TUBGOAT issue!
(Volume 46, No. 3, 2025)
tug.org/TUGboat/
Thank you @borisveytsman.bsky.social for the invitation to publish an article about Words of Type in this institutional magazine!
I wonder if there is an organization more corrupt than FIFA, not being a drug cartel?
Some turns in the play seem to be outlandish, but a quick check shows they are historically correct. This reminds of "The Death of Stalin" by Ianucci, where the most absurd details are the most accurate.
A great play for our times
4/4
Rajiv Joseph understood that the language of absurdist theater was the perfect one to explore this absurdity. His "Archduke" looks into the story of Gavrilo Princip. Brilliantly performed by @roundaboutnyc under Darko Tresnjak's direction, the play is very topical.
3/4
Well, there is nothing new under the sun (Ecc 1:9). More than a hundred years ago a similar situation upended the most prosperous world so far leading to millions senseless deaths and a complete change of the world, mostly to the worse.
2/4
One of the words coming to mind about the current politics is "absurd". Two hundred years of American democracy going awry because some young idiots cannot get laid, and some old farts are anxious about their statusβwhat can be more absurd than this?
1/4
Does Trump own a blue suit?
American exceptionalism. Under our fascists, the trains and the plains do not run on time.
Google translate is lowering barriers between people.
Our car has been transported over the continent. When the Uzbek truck driver sent me the delivery report, I answered, "Rahmat." He replied, "Π£ΠΊΡΠ°ΡΠ½Π° ΠΏΠ΅ΡΠ΅ΠΌΠΎΠΆΠ΅ Π±Π΅Π·ΡΠΌΠΎΠ²Π½ΠΎ."
Looks like the media is trying to use Zohran Mamdani's aunt in the same way they used Hillary's emails.
The Tsar liked them and ordered to put the letterforms in his Treasury. Thus, nobody could use them or even see them for the next 100+ years.
"A typical Russian story," noted Ruderman sadly.
He lives now in Riga, and his company is registered in Armenia & Georgia.
2/2
Ilya Ruderman from CSTM fonts told a funny story in his lecture about the history of Cyrillic.
Bodoni made beautiful Cyrillic typefaces (you can see the samples in his Manuale Typograficum). They were gifted to Alexander I during the short thaw between Russia and France
1/2
An article in NYT (www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/o...). A whiz kid who made millions in crypto has been kidnapped by his former friend, the de facto ruler of Georgia, beaten and forced to give away his crypto.
The techbros supporting Trump do not understand that this is their future as well.
A talented font artist from India Rajeesh KV added math to the beautiful typeface Arsenal by a Ukrainian artist Andrij Shevchenko: ctan.org/pkg/arsenal-...
A rare example of a sans serif font with the full math support.
#TeXLaTeX #fonts
Speaking of which, this play could be saved if the jokes were funny. I have heard this was the situation with the sitcom. Unfortunately, those in the play were rather saccharine and predictable.
Mercifully, the play was very short.
5/5
Even the bespectacled face of Kim was an exact copy of hundreds of bespectacled old workers in Soviet plays β of course, this character belonged to a petite bourgeoisie, which makes the situation funnier.
4/5
Likable but backward older people? Check. A new generation showing them the right way (in this case about interracial dating and marriage)? Check. A reformed criminal who found goodness in his soul? Check.
3/5
