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.