Book World: Fictional take on Salinger let s much of the mystery be
Mark Athitakis, The Washington Post
Dec. 31, 2020
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By Jerome Charyn
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In an alternate-universe version of 2020 - and who wouldn t want one of those? - we were talking a lot more about J.D. Salinger. By the end of the year we were supposed to have had new books featuring Holden Caulfield, the Glass clan and more, according to a 2013 oral history of the reclusive author. But no new books materialized. Perhaps we should have listened more closely to Salinger s son, Matthew, who in 2019 said that it could take at least a decade to publish what his father left behind after his death in 2010. So I guess we ll have to wait until 2029, if not longer, to hear more from one of America s best-loved - or most-assigned-in-class - authors.
Michael Riedel, the New York Post s mischief-making Broadway columnist for more than two decades, has chronicled with incendiary flamboyance the backstage dramas of megalomaniacal producers, peremptory divas and the cowering artists caught in the crossfire. His Walter Winchell radar is acutely attuned to upcoming flops, a prospect that never fails to get his tabloid juices flowing.
A British director on the receiving end of some unflattering ink once knocked Riedel to the floor at a popular Broadway watering hole. The news gleefully spread through the theater district, hastened by the question of how Riedel would take revenge in his next column.
Trump supporters are like ISIS fighters
By Christopher Harper
If anyone represents the disdain of the media for Trump supporters, CNN media maven Brian Stelter would be an excellent example.
Recently, Stelter compared Trump supporters to ISIS members who’d been brainwashed.
“The same pipeline that helps my children learn, helps you connect with your loved ones, also poisons some adults, and distorts their reality. The body of research about radicalization is very clear,” Stelter said. “The Internet creates more space for extremism, and the echo chamber effect accelerates the process. QAnon is one really clear recent example. But so is ‘Stop the Steal,’ and so are some corners of the anti-vaccination movement.
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Winnipeg Free Press
Opinion AN optimist is someone who gets treed by a lion but enjoys the scenery. Walter Winchell, broadcast journalist.
With the holiday season threatening to be a downer, even the optimists among us are challenged to find a silver lining in the pandemic cloud.
Humour may help. Perhaps the Manitoba government’s list of what is essential and non-essential should specify that humour is essential at such a bleak time.
Let’s start with the children: they’re not expecting gifts from Santa this year because they know households are restricted to immediate family and, being smarty-pants, the kids realize Santa is a responsible fellow who would never repeatedly come down the chimneys of houses and spread COVID-19.