A quote from the translation of "The Cherry Orchard" that is playing in NYC right now.
Another quote: "You haven't had time to live with the consequences of your answers."
Transcriptions by my son John, who got into the sold-out show last night after waiting in line. (Don't everyone line up at once.) Here's Terry Teachout reviewing the play in the Wall Street Journal.
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Viewed from the porch of my dacha here in America it's not the peasant serfs that worry me, it's the twin pincers of the tsars' men and the turkmen.
Chekhov.
The one on the Enterprise was more bearable.
I always think of that quote (the "disease" one) in relation to the U.S. system of public education. It seems as though every decade or so, a new educational fad sweeps through K-12, promising that this time, really, no foolin', we're going to make the changes that work, that matter! ...and performance continues to suck.
Is there no cure, or do we simply refuse to make use of cures that are unpalatable?
It has occurred to me that the situation in America is getting more Chekhovian by the year. Is there some sort of Bolshevik-type "solution" in the near future? Because, you know, things Can't Get Any Worse.
Then we can look forward to a Pasternakian aftermath.
It seems as though every decade or so, a new educational fad sweeps through K-12, promising that this time, really, no foolin', we're going to make the changes that work, that matter! ...and performance continues to suck.
More than afew education professors live under the same "publish or perish" rules as other academics. They keep coming up with pseudo-scientific sounding theories on how to improve education using kids as guinea pigs. Few do any good except perhaps a little at the margins under carefully controlled conditions. All become the fodder for new grant money, speaking tours and additional education funding. By the time they've failed, it's time for a new fad. Lather, rinse and repeat until retirement.
Chekhov.
...and he borrowed that quote from some Greek guy, whose name escapes me at the moment.
Is that like a Union Dues Check-off?
That Russian Checkov guy was a talented writer. He was a favorite of GBS, which is enough for me.
If England had collapsed in a violent revolution, Jane Austen would be considered Chekhovian. The way James Dean's death framed his life, the Russian Revolution framed Chekhov and made his ennervated aristocrats seem more poignant.
I thought about taking up flat water kayaking many years ago. I was interested in long distance paddling/camping along the Lake Superior shoreline. I read a few books and they all had a chapter or chapters on "self-rescue", which is how to get back in the boat after you've fallen out. There were several different methods described. It slowly dawned on me that the reason there were several methods was because none of them could be relied upon to actually work.
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