Category: Commonplaces

  • Commonplaces: Nothing more to take away

    My first experience in this notion of “perfection in design” came as a cast member for a production of a Bertolt Brecht play produced by a highly regarded American repertory theater in the 1970’s. The director was a rising star in the West End in London and well known for his Marxist-progressive sympathies. The costume…

  • Commonplaces: “Gradually and then suddenly”

    I first made note of this quote from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises eight or ten years ago and I have noticed it cropping up on-line recently in different contexts. “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” This is a good example of Hemingway’s economy of speech…

  • Commonplaces

    I acquired journal #1 to jot down ideas for Kind of Plaid, my first novel. I commuted into Boston most weeks but also spent a good deal of time traveling from Boston on project business to places like Spokane and Cincinnati and Wausau, so I had plenty of time to let the “what if?” improvisation…