One small moment in time

When I was in college, I took a lecture course on modern drama. The professor was Robert Chapman. For reasons that had nothing to do with Chapman, the course was not an especially happy experience; and I never got to know Chapman, not being an English major or a student actor and feeling, predictably if perhaps stupidly, that I had no reason to go to his office hours.

One morning about halfway through the course, Chapman strode to the podium and announced, without preface or throat-clearing: "George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House is the greatest play written in English since Shakespeare." Wow, I thought. Nice opening line. Dramatic. Then a student who had actually been keeping up with the reading raised his or her hand and informed the professor that, according to the syllabus, the day's lecture was not supposed to be on Heartbreak House but on some other play. Chapman abruptly turned around, went back to his office, returned with a different set of notes, and proceeded to give the correct lecture. His lecture on Heartbreak House had been spoiled for that semester.

I knew virtually nothing about Robert Chapman when I sat in his course, and indeed it was only very recently, when I was prompted for some reason to find his obituary online, that I learned something about him. Among other things I learned that, although a tenured professor in Harvard's English department, he had no graduate degrees: he had a bachelor's degree from Princeton and that was it. Apparently he liked to boast that he and the famous critic and scholar Harry Levin were the only members of the department who lacked graduate credentials.

I remember little else about that week in 1976, or maybe that month; but I'll always remember the morning when Robert Chapman began his lecture on Shaw with that dramatic flourish, and then had to stop, turn around, and go back to his office. I think I might have felt a little bit angry at the student who informed him of his mistake. I still do.

Berlusconi breaks a rule

According to a small Wash. Post item today ("A Selfish Endorsement," p.A5), Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi endorsed John McCain for president in Rome yesterday, while standing next to President Bush. Berlusconi, 71, said: "I suppose I could express my own personal preference for one of the candidates, the Republican candidate. And this is for a very selfish reason, and that is that I would no longer be the oldest person at the upcoming G-8 because McCain is a month older than me."

In response to this serious breach of the norm that leaders do not inject themselves publicly into another country's domestic politics, Bush merely "chuckled," according to the article.

Comebacks (1)

This is a postscript to "Lost words," below.

The theater in question is in a formerly decrepit city neighborhood that in recent years has become somewhat chic. As we were in our seats waiting for the curtain, I turned to the friend I was with and said: "You know, walking around outside just now I saw some hot people. And I don't mean 'hot' as in 'hot and sweaty.'"

To which my friend replied: "You don't get out much, do you?"

Mistake on MacArthur Boulevard

We interrupt consideration of weighty issues for a little story with a moral.

Some days ago I happened to be walking along MacArthur Blvd. in northwest Washington, D.C. (not something I often have occasion to do, but anyway...). On upper MacArthur Blvd. (Chain Bridge Road/Arizona Ave. area, for those of you familiar with D.C.), I was stopped by a driver who wanted to know how to get to the intersection of MacArthur Blvd. and Cathedral Avenue (specifically, he was looking for the Palisades Community Church).

What I should have said to him was "sorry, I don't know how you get there." I didn't say that, however, because of the following thought that doubtless went through some part of my mind: "I was born in Washington, D.C. (and not yesterday either). I have lived in it or in its environs for most of my life. How can I possibly not know where MacArthur and Cathedral, two major streets in northwest D.C., intersect?"

So what I said (in relevant part) was: "I don't remember exactly where MacArthur and Cathedral intersect, but it's obviously [sic] that way" -- and I pointed "down" MacArthur, toward downtown (more specifically, toward Reservoir Road and Georgetown). Then I continued on my merry way walking "up" MacArthur toward where my car was parked. In a very short block or two, I walked past -- yes, you guessed it -- the intersection of MacArthur and Cathedral. True, it wasn't the main part of Cathedral, it was probably even a disconnected piece of Cathedral, but nonetheless it was the intersection of MacArthur and Cathedral, and there was even a sign for the Palisades Church, the driver's intended destination.

At that point, however, it was clearly too late to run back and tell him I'd been wrong.

Moral: If someone asks you for directions which you think you should know but don't, just say: "I'm sorry, I really don't have the slightest idea."