Acting Citizen: No Matter Who You Are

By James Knudsen

Equality, or the lack of equality, or the prevalence of inequality, is a common topic lately. Eventually, as in before my Apple watch has marked the passage of another 24 hours, I’ll get around to considering this issue. Acting provides a good vantage point from which to consider inequality. Inequality is everywhere. Pay equity exists for union actors – acting for scale. But there are scores of actors who perform for free, and only a rarefied few who command seven-figure salaries for one film. Choice roles are distributed unequally, as is effective representation…and talent.

Correspondence: Tricker tweeter

Edited by Moristotle

A significant number of your staff seem to fear the possibility that Trumpet Mouth might be elected [“Do you have a fear for the future? What is it?”]. I really don’t think that’s a realistic fear, given the stark choice between a competent, accomplished, dedicated, tested public servant and the egomaniacal disaster that is Donald Trump, of whom a prominent New Yorker last week said he knows a con when he sees one.

Sunday Review: Doubt

In persona sororitas

By Bob Boldt

[Submitted to Bishop Emil Frank on November 13, in the year of our Lord 2013 by His obedient servant Sister James, Principal of The Sisters of Charity School of New York (Retired)]

Many years ago, an incident occurred that has weighed upon me ever since. I feel that I must reveal to you the personal conclusions I have arrived at, now that I am about to meet The Blessed Bridegroom.

Always on Sunday: The Iron Lady[: A love story]

Sundays feature a movie review. The column's title is a play on the title of Jules Dassin's 1960 film, Never on Sunday.

I first laid eyes on Christopher Hitchens's 2010 memoir, Hitch-22, in the Yankee Bookshop in Woodstock, Vermont, which beautiful town I remembered fondly in yesterday's post. I read the memoir last year, and one of the many passages that fascinated me was Hitchens's account of meeting Margaret Thatcher. It must have been in 1974 (when Hitchens was 25 years old), soon after she became the leader of the Conservative opposition: