Reading: It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis: an imagined fascist takeover of the U.S. This is not one of Lewis's acclaimed novels, but I read it at a tender age (perhaps 10), and it has often struck me how vividly I remembered pieces of it after six decades:  Berzelius (Buzz) Windrip, a Doremus Jessup can never die, steel fishing rods & castor ( Read more... )

Something reminded me of Thurber & Nugent's play (1940), which I saw a long time ago, and the movie made from it (1945), which I saw a few years ago; so I bought the latter.  It is part comedy (male vanity), part satire (academia), part farce, and part propaganda (academic freedom).  The movie was not as funny as I remembered the play being. A ( Read more... )