Der Zuschauer

A Journal of Essays and Reportage on Drama, History, and Literature

Notes on the Northeast Corrider Redux

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breasts-not-bombs2

Dear Readers, I was water-skiing along Somerville Avenue where the current swings along the hill in Union Square when our speed-boat, and then I and the editors, Klinger, Grabbe, and Degout, all collided with several barges bearing Volga Boatmen singing Gorky songs. I was in the hospital for 49 days. Others are still recovering. We all decided to read Jaroslav Hasek’s The Good Soldier Schweik, inside, and I can refute earlier reports of our demise either in Monogolia or tsunami-swept Guam Island. We are all, in our own way, trying to keep our knickers on, be they boxers, thongs, or bronze shields. I myself have left the sparrow-graced, squirrel-jumping haunts of Somerville’s Walnut Hill for a cozy and incendiary flat off Porter Square in Cambridge. We should all be back in full voice shortly. Our best wishes. A reading recomendation: The Soviet Writers’ Conference 1934. Zhandov, Radek, and Bukharin are all a laugh-riot, and Gorky is a bit on song as well. Keep the growling tractor between your thighs. We live in History.

Stanley Richardson

Written by herrdramaturg

October 15, 2009 at 2:09 pm

Grabbe Speaks Out

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pie93

Of late I have been reading: D. H. Lawrence’s Studies in Classic American Literature (a mad but brillant book), George Steiner’s little book on Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Tieck’s Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen, To Begin Where I am: Selected Essays by Czeslaw Milosz, And What Coleridge Thought by Owen Barfield, Witold Gombrowicz’s Polish Memories, and the St. Petersburg Dialogues of Joseph de Maistre.

I write to you from the South Island of New Zealand where the recent huge earthquake resulted in 4 kilometers being added to the South Island in the direction of Australia. From here I will also be reporting on India’s launch of its first nuclear submarine. Max Klinger is in the Marianas Trench. Ekaterina Degout is in Moscow trying to figure out what is going on in regard to historical writing about the Second World War, and also to see if Joseph Stalin actually receives the highest vote for greatest Russian of all time, Stalin being of course a Georgian.

Thomas Shadewell has remained on Guam Island and is ably keeping the lid on as well as closely watching developments in regard to North Korea and its nuclear fire-works.

My best regards,
Christian Grabbe
Der Zuschauer

Our Century, Your Century

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Wat

The great poet and jailbird: Alexsander Wat

Verbum sat est.

Written by herrdramaturg

July 23, 2009 at 10:53 am

Guam Island Battalions

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fightingcamels

Dear Reader,
This is a photograph of a recent editorial meeting of our dramaturgical staff. The discussion seems to be about the term realism.

Christian Grabbe

Written by herrdramaturg

July 23, 2009 at 10:32 am

We Lose Another Giant: Kolakowski

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kolakowski

It is with great sadness and all due respect that we note the translation of Leszek Kolakowski out of this material life.

Max Klinger et al.

Written by herrdramaturg

July 23, 2009 at 9:25 am

Intellectual Life on Cape Cod Summer 09

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an_g_011

Nude Volley Ball has suffered severe blows from all the rainstorms and thunder-clapping clouds of late, as have most nude beach activities, not to mention the US Open. Many established groups, such as the writer’s colony in Provincetown, Norman Mailer’s group, and the reconstituted Partisan group do their volley balling indoors in Truro, Wellfleet, etc., where all the talk is about Obama’s influence on the recent events in Tehran, or possible retaliation to a North Korean missile strike on Pearl Harbor. Super models continue to get knocked up, bait shops are open, and Critical Inquiry is still on sale at the bookstore in Vineyard Haven; thus you have to drive back to Oaks Bluff to get alcohol with your moralism, or is it the other way round? Savvy salty dogs have their TLS or NYRB delivered via post or internet. Your correspondent appreciates writing on the internet via this Journal for really big bucks, but I do not listen to Little Dorrit on an I-Pod or I-Phone, or try to read it online with any of the various new reading technologies now available. If you can’t get sand in it in the summertime why go to Marseille or Chatham in the first place. Of course the situation hasn’t changed that much. Reading a New Yorker after an Ivy League BA is held the height of casual awareness. There is much perfect storm discussion of the French airliner “disapeared” over the Atlantic. The usual blather about the Red Sox and the Yankees, spottings of Ayn Rand paperbacks continue, as well as the odd Decline of the West or Civilization and its Discontents. There always seem to be more French readers than German readers on Cape Cod and the Islands. Almost everyone now drinks Aussie Swill-Shiraz, which is the current dago red. John Ashbery seems set to live forever and one can’t help but think somewhat fewer Europeans will weep if he dies, than as they did for Lord Byron. My editors continue to remind me they are due articles on Icelandic economic reform and the Mongolian theatrical avant-garde. Max Klinger is in heavy debate with scientists over the presence of hotel resorts and spas in the Marinas Trench. C.D. Grabbe and Ekaterina Degout are no longer speaking to another.
Dear Reader, I write to you from the broad, sandy beaches which surround the hill-populations of Somerville, City of Trees and Dogshit. I travel to my local Brazilian Beer Store on an outboard-powered skiff. I have promised Herr Klinger more on this topic later, and some translations from the German poems of George Heym. My Best to you.
Stanley Richardson, Correspondent for Der Zuschauer
Northeast Corridor All Rights reserved Guam Battalions

beachball

Written by herrdramaturg

June 22, 2009 at 2:38 pm

Herr Doktor Berryman

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dr. berryman

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berrymandreamsong

Written by herrdramaturg

May 5, 2009 at 3:11 pm

All Our Best on May Day

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haymarket

mayday1

Written by herrdramaturg

May 1, 2009 at 11:53 am

Addison and Steele et al

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ayck460

We are pleased to announce that two substantive links been recently made. One, in German, is Ayckbourn, and the other is The Spectator of Addison and Steele.

laddison

Sirs, We would like to remind you of the vast number of plays available to you at our link to Elizabeth Inchbald’s British theatre.

inchbald

Max Klinger

cowley

Max Klingerr

Written by herrdramaturg

April 29, 2009 at 2:38 pm

Trotsky on Women

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pregoeggw

We are pleased to announce that a considerable section of Trotsky’s writing on women and the family has been added, along with a montage of ripened female intellectuals, to the It is I, Ekaterina Degot page, entitled Breeder Reactors, or, the Knocking Shop. We trust you will take due note. Our Best to you.

Degot, Grabbe, and Shadewell

prego_tattoo

Written by herrdramaturg

April 24, 2009 at 8:19 am