Saturday, February 12, 2011

How to Succeed

I got to see a live college production of How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Friday night, with reviewer Julie Kistler of the theatre blog, A Follow Spot.  You can read her charming review here.  It's always a thrill to see such talent in young people, and I wish them well in their careers.  At which I know they'll really try!

This is a musical that spoofs the business world in a good-natured way, showing how a window washer can rise to the top of a big American company, how easily incompetence can reign for a time, and how heads can roll!  Fortunately J. Pierpont, the get-ahead-fast window washer, has real gumption and will be headed for politics soon.  American politics, in a capitalist society.

And that brings me to a comment I got recently on my quitting-my-job blog entry, that I chose not to publish.  My first impulse was to publish it--why not?!--it was cleverly written and made its points well about bosses being kings and employees being peons, but it ended with an insult and was signed with a humorous but fake name.  That is, the commenter claims to have met me, but doesn't own up to a real identity.

I guess in my blog you can't get personal if you won't be a real person, or acknowledge common humanity.

And I guess that means I'm still queen here.

Ever since I read Shakespeare and Company, by bookstore proprietor Sylvia Beach, after reading two books about literary feuds, I've been wanting to quote this generous and tolerant comment: "Wars between writers blaze up frequently, but I have observed that they settle down eventually into smudges."

I'm sure this feud, too, will settle down into a smudge soon enough.

6 comments:

Sandy Longhorn said...

Kathleen, I agree completely that a person should use their real name when commenting. Good for you for not publishing it!

Maureen said...

Great quote by Beach.

JulieK said...

Thanks for being such good company at How to Succeed. What fun!

I also deleted a comment I felt was mean-spirited and "in disguisish." Yes, I made up the word "disguisish." I don't care! Shady, I guess, is what I mean. Trying to pretend to be something it clearly wasn't. And I felt, basically, IT'S GOOD TO BE QUEEN!

It's my blog and I can delete whatever comments I want, for whatever reason I want.

Kathleen said...

I got another one! With another cute pseudonym. And just as mean-spirited! Must be a real feud. And a real smudge.

seana graham said...

I can't speak to the current day mean-spiritedness, but I find it so interesting that Beach from her close view of such things found that they died down. I wouldn't have thought so, as some of those feuds are legendary. Perhaps it's often more of a performance piece?

Karen said...

“Anonymity is the enemy of civility.”

Seth Godin

(whose book my husband is currently reading)