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Vol. LXV, No. 43
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Wednesday, October 26, 2011
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Subscribe to our newsletter |
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Vol. LXV, No. 43
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Wednesday, October 26, 2011
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 (Photo by Emily Reeves)
BROWSER’S PARADISE: A calm moment in last weekend’s busy Friends of Princeton Public Library Book Sale. The event broke 2010’s record and will help make 2011 the most profitable year in the book sale’s history.
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At the Monday evening meeting, Township Committee approved a revised memorandum of understanding (MOU) detailing the creation of Princeton University’s proposed Arts, Education and Transit (AET) neighborhood in the Alexander Road/University Place corridor.
What was originally planned as a debate between Borough mayoral candidates Yina Moore and Jill Jachera became a question-and-answer session by Ms. Jachera Monday night, October 24, after Ms. Moore informed sponsors of the debate that she would not be able to participate. Ms. Moore, who debated Ms. Jachera at the Jewish Center of Princeton last month, attended a meeting of the Township Committee instead.
As election day approaches and citizens of Princeton Borough and Township prepare to vote on consolidation, the Town Topics mailbox is overflowing with letters from writers on both sides of the issue. This week’s Mailbox pages include as many as could be accommodated. Several which are not published in full, some of which come from elected officials, are excerpted here for their imaginative perspectives and illuminating details.
Those who swear by their daily mugs of java have welcomed the proliferation of coffee houses in Princeton. But while tea is always available at these cafes, the choices can be limited, making those who favor the leaf over the bean feel like second-class citizens.
While the Princeton Public Library’s two annual “wow” events — the evening fundraiser featuring a well-known guest speaker (like this year’s cartoonist Roz Chast), and the record-breaking weekend book sale — have garnered the lion’s share of attention lately, regular library operations continue apace.
Cotsen Children’s Library Head Andrea Immel’s reference to the “complexities of memory and childhood” provided an apt beginning to a free, half-day conference at Princeton University last week. The focus was on how World War II events dramatically altered the lives of a generation of children.
Bob Prier has hit the ground running since taking the helm of the Princeton University men’s ice hockey team this past May.
Alexis Mikaelian knows she is filling some big shoes as she moves to the head of the pack this season for the Princeton University women’s cross country team.
In 2010, the Princeton High boys’ soccer team had to fight for its life to slip past Notre Dame in the Mercer County Tournament semifinals.
As the first singles player for the Princeton High girls’ tennis team, Sarah Cen has no problem going it alone.
Emilia Lopez-Ona has proven to be a quick study when it comes to field hockey.
Fifty years ago this November 11, Simon and Schuster published Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 to wildly mixed reviews; sales were middling.
Sixty years ago in February of 1951, Scribners published James Jones’s From Here to Eternity to the sort of sales and reviews writers dream about.
The Catch
It makes some kind of senseless sense that when you put Catch-22 into the mix, things go a bit crazy. Yes, the publication date was November 11, but in Joseph Heller’s introduction to the 1994 edition of the novel, he says the New York Times reviews appeared two weeks after the publication date when in fact they actually appeared a month before, on October 22 and 23.The naming of the book has a quirky history all its own. Heller intended it to be Catch-18, and the first chapter appeared under that title in 1955 in the paperback anthology New World Writing. But in 1961, the similarity to a recent best-selling novel by Leon Uris (Mila 18) forced the author and his agent, Candida Donadio, to do a numerical version of musical chairs. Catch-11 was rejected because of the recent hit film, Oceans 11, and Catch-17 clashed with another high-profile film, Stalag 17. The ultimate and decisive advantage of Catch-22 was that snappy duplicate digit. In any case, the word would become, like Nabokov’s “nymphet,” a standard dictionary item, defined as “a situation in which a desired outcome or solution is impossible to attain because of a set of inherently illogical rules or conditions,” or “a situation or predicament characterized by absurdity or senselessness.”
Thought your family was dysfunctional? Phaedra Backwards, Irish playwright Marina Carr’s poetically crafted, stunningly designed new exploration of the tragic story of Phaedra, daughter of Minos and wife of Theseus, is guaranteed to make you thankful for even the most odious of your own relatives.
It’s a rich tale that provides Ms. Carr, previously represented at McCarter in productions of The Mai (1996) and Portia Coughlan (1999), with the inspiration to fill in the gaps, answer the unanswered questions, create the back story to this saga, embodied most prominently in plays by Euripides (Hippolytus, 428 B.C.), Seneca the Younger (first century A.D.) and Racine (1677).