Life Ass

The Equitable Life Assurance Building (1890)

Are you in the life assurance business or do you take an actuarial attitude towards your life in 5 yrs you're blah, in 15 with a "touch of the poet," "my name is might have been no more, too late, farewell." This "Alas, poor Yorick" stuff is touching, earnest and moribund at the same time. On the other hand, there's nothing more disconcerting than those gluttons for life who live forever at the expense and happiness of others. Sometimes it's good to close up shop and declare, to quote the poet, "it's curtains for me." Beckett said it even more eloquently in Endgame. "Nice day" is the observation.                                                  "It almost makes you want to live," is the reply. "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" because of the fact they possess consciousness.

Listen to Joan Baum's review of The Kafka Studies Department by Francis Levy on NPR

and read Mark Segal on Hallie Cohen's "Mi Ricordo: Roman Watercolors" show in The East Hampton Star