Clinton advanced the neoliberal Reagan Revolution (a graph of US income inequality tells the story), and "liberals" were fine with it. Shawn's earlier plays explored the allure of fascist cruelty and the impotence of privileged liberals; in my country, these themes have been converging for decades.

In 1996, millions of (mostly) white males listened daily to bullying, contemptuous "shock jocks" such as the loathsome Rush Limbaugh (few figures have more influenced our media & politics) vilify "liberals," feminists, "elites," immigrants, the poor, gays, etc. They sounded kinda like Shawn's Jack.

I demur: The Designated Mourner feels prophetic because 1990s America was NOT so different from America now. Key example: all we associate with today's online manosphere, toxic GOP rhetoric, Trump, etc. comes from the massively popular right wing talk shows that ruled American radio in the 90’s.

One might ask, "Why bother making real art?," were not the answer obvious: the artist knows it's real, knows not by the existence of the artifact but by the making of the artifact, and knows the value is in the making. AI can give you 'art' but not the deep experience of making - of doing.

I have! And seen it - and have the podcast version (about which you surely know) of the production (directed by Gregory and starring Shawn,Larry Pine, and Shawn's partner Deb Eisenberg). Then there's a subsequent Shawn/Gregory piece, Grasses of a Thousand Colors ....

Sorry. Highly trained craftspeople.

Nonsense. You artists are too sensitive.

In a false world, a world with no interest in distinguishing the false from the real, it's hard for real art to be recognized as real.

OK. You made me laugh.

These works augur Ronald Reagan. In '81 (I can report), Reagan was Trump & counterrevolution triumphant (like ... Thatcher). In MDWA and later plays, Shawn probes how society drifts into ‘fascism’ and the futility, even culpability of artists and intellectuals - of people like himself and Gregory.

I saw MDWA in ’81 in NYC; I learned much from this great PPF episode. But I feel y’all miss the US political context. Written in the 70’s, MDWA has a great ’70’s movie (Network, Being There, Godfather II, etc.) theme: the failure of the 60's 'revolutions' & the rise of right wing counterrevolution.

It's unusual for all the major possibilities of a new art form to emerge quickly, but it's not impossible in principle; art doesn't "progress" in the way scientific understanding does. And being first has advantages: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle endure because they got to the big questions first.

And/or that some contemporary folk have found the "old" artifact or motif exceptionally illuminating of the present (or their feelings in/about the present). Which is pretty great. It's one reason literacy is useful

No. "They" can only be read as referring to "the fish," hence there's no grammatical need to write "the fish should pay" rather than "they should pay." Not all taxes are tariffs. A fish importing goods subject to tariff needs to pay ... a tariff. But, yeah, fish should pay other taxes, too.

"Off the coast of Florida"! You say these are "Florida's fish," but how do you know? They could have come here from anywhere. And it doesn't matter if the fish are legal American fish, if they're 'importing' in foreign pharmaceuticals, they should pay a tariff.

And the fish are bringing drugs into the country. Why aren't there tariff's on these gilled traffickers?

Yeats believed Wilde was right to not flee, but I'm not aware he ever argued so to Wilde. And WBY wrongly assumed Wilde the artist would survive prison and "tragedy" would add "greater depth" to Wilde's writing. Had he fled, Wilde might have continued to write and even (as WBY would) write better.

Well, depends on what you're using them for, but mostly con. "Scary" kinda sums his feelings on the subject. It's the only part of his war experience he described so, which is odd considering the kind of things combat soldiers liberating places like Leyte and Luzon likely witnessed.

My dad spent a few WWII years island-hopping in New Guinea and the Philippines. He had some trenchant opinions about flame-throwers. You remain a good son - and you're keeping the New Deal faith.