Kitty's Back

"Kitty's Back," the third song on Bruce Springsteen's second album, 1973's "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" is one of my all-time favorite songs. I've listened to it a hundred times or more.

The recording is perfection.

However, there are live versions that are a welcome change up from that perfection, especially since Kitty is very jazzy and benefits from improvisation. In this live performance from 1978, it turns into a regular jazz odyssey in the middle. This performance is also good because it's in New Jersey, Springsteen's native turf.

   

There are other live versions available online, but mostly from this century. I wonder what people who only know Springsteen in his Captain America incarnation think of the musically complex Kitty's Back? Not much probably. But the E Street Band was never so musically exciting as with this song.

Fun fact: apparently the band got its name because they used to practice at the home of the mom of early member Dave Sancious and she lived on E street in Asbury Park. Sancious is a genius and I worship him - I've mentioned that before. 

Sancious left the group after this album and it was all downhill from there. 

I was excited to see that Sancious played with the band for the E Street Band induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.

The kids today...

...are great. And by the "kids today" I have in mind the first generation of YouTube creators. They're under 40 and so came of age along with Internet video content. All of their work is far more informative and fun than anything you could get back in the glory days of network television.

Ryan George is quickly becoming a phenomenon thanks to his comedy, lead by his Pitch Meetings series. Here is one of his best Pitch Meetings - for CATS.

Angela Collier is a physicist who covers a variety of science and technology subjects in her videos. I discovered her because someone recommended her incisive, funny and all-around great video "The Sham Legacy of Richard Feynman."

 

 

Andrew Rakich, better known by the name of his channel Atun-Shei Films. His best-known work is the funny and informative series Checkmate Lincolnites.

The other side of that wall

My fellow technical writer Earl Rich and I didn't always email each other about politics, literature and physics. Sometimes he would say something that made you feel understood. 

From January 23, 1995:

Nancy,

Sometimes I can envision you sitting on the other side of that wall, your overactive mind desperately searching for some outlet of creativity while forced to produce the mindless yet logical step-by-step instructions involved in Navigating a Dialog Box.

This is what really made him special, well beyond his physical beauty. Today is the 29th anniversary of his death, and I am thinking of him, on the other side of that final wall.

John Lennon and our hosts for this evening, The Bony Rolls

I finally tracked down the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus - it was filmed in 1968, released to the public in 1996, and it's been on YouTube for at least seven years -  but I didn't think to track it down.

I'm sorry it took so long because Lennon does "Yer Blues" with a bunch of other famous musicians, not in the Beatles, and it's great.

I've never heard anybody else remark on this, and maybe it's too obvious to point it out, but I think the entire Get Back project was strongly influenced by Rock and Roll Circus, with Lennon performing for the first time in public for an audience that wasn't all screaming adolescents. 

You can see the audience at the end of this performance, and while enthusiastic, it is much smaller and more subdued than anything the Beatles had experienced in the previous 5 years. Here is a comparable kind of venue three years earlier. It's amazing how different Lennon looks in only three years.

You can tell Lennon was thinking about it during Get Back because he mentions "our hosts the Rolling Stones" or some variation several times throughout the filming. 

I think the Beatles were hoping to capture that Rock and Roll Circus ambiance, with their various schemes to perform live, and the roof of Abbey Road Studio was the closest they could get. Which was still pretty good.

MURDERBOT 2 IS ON ITS WAY!!!

Apple TV announced it on social media with the hysterical tag line: "Oh, great. Even more stupid humans."

I am so psyched for Wanda Sykes!

Big news in Ponytown

The Mane Six, minus two

They have announced the new incarnation of the My Little Pony franchise, My Little Pony - Forever Friendship.

As I have discussed on this blog, I became a fan of My Little Pony because the episodes are available with French overdubs, which has been très utile pour moi for practicing la langue française.

The bronies are flipping out over this latest iteration of My Little Pony. And by bronies I mean people who made YouTube videos about the cartoon series My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic, (part of the Generation 4 -  G4 - iteration of MLP) during the run of the show and some continued to make those videos even after the last episode of the show was released in 2019.

After spending some time reviewing the responses from the bronyverse I do have to agree that it's not good to leave out two members of the original Mane Six, although word is that Applejack and Rarity will be in the series eventually.

The Main Six from G4, which includes
Rarity - purple mane on the left and Applejack,
in the cowboy hat on the right.

I was not impressed by the new theme song. MLP - Friendship is Magic included a lot of very good songs, so there is a high bar.

Also I'm not wild about the new art style - it's too mystical and washy for my taste. I don't think they could ever top the style from G4.

My Little Pony Friendship is Magic is a tough act to follow, which is why Generation 5 was not beloved. Also G5 has in my opinion one of the worst possible character animation designs.

Really if they wanted to make the massive G4 fan-base happy, they would just continue the story after Princess Twilight Sparkle becomes the ruler of all Equestria, following the retirement of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.

Also there are quite a few secondary characters that could easily carry story lines, including Pinky Pie's sister Maude, the great and powerful Trixie and her friendship with reformed villain Starlight Glimmer,  and Octavia and Vinyl Scratch (DJ Pon-3) - the latter have their own extensive fan fiction series.

But no matter whether Generation 6 is great or not, I expect there will be a French language version at some point, and not a moment too soon - I've listened to the French version of G4 to the point of boredom. Fresh storylines are welcome.

Let It Go - Broadway show-stopper

On my other blog's email list I just posted a weekly email featuring costume quick changes and there is none better than the costume change for Elsa while she's singing Let It Go in the staged musical version of "Frozen." In the email I included a YouTube video that shows a whole bunch of performances just at the moment of the costume change.

The song "Let It Go" was the break-out hit from the movie "Frozen" - the video on YouTube has been watched 423 million times. It's a very good song, sung by Broadway legend Idina Menzel. 

But the song has truly found a home as a show-stopping number in the stage musical version of Frozen. It is the perfect musical theater number, showing the moment when a main character decides to let go and fully experience her power, expressed through singing and staging, which not only features the quick gown-rip change, but also her glove and cloak fly away through the air - as they do in the animated version - and magical lighting effects. But except for the singing, the costume change is the star of the scene and you can hear the audience roar in approval when it happens. 

My favorite Elsa of all I've seen is Charissa Hogeland - a very unassuming-looking person when not in costume as you can see in her Instagram - but she nails the role of Elsa so hard - her acting is superb, showing Elsa's dawning realization that she can do just about anything now - this is why Elsa is really the big bad of the movie, in spite of that creepy prince guy. But I especially love Hogeland's criss-cross  hand gesture right before the costume tear-away - it really sells the whole thing. I don't know if that was her idea, or the director's, but no other Elsa does it, including Elsas from the same Broadway show period, so I think it was her own idea. She also does the best arm choreography after the change - I don't know if you can call it choreography, but whatever it is, all the Elsas do it, and Hogeland does it the best. You can see her entire performance of the song in the video above. Brava!

Scenes from the dyke march 2026

I was hoping that Mamdani would show up, but he only showed up for today's Pride March.

Moonrise behind the Kosciuszko Bridge

And now let's talk about Sgt. Pepper

Revolver was innovative and amazing, with, as I've noted, three songs that are masterpieces. So the Beatles were going to have to pull out all the stops to top it - and, somehow, they did.

There's a reason that Pepper was a huge musical-social phenomenon and Revolver, although much admired, was not.

I prefer the cover of Revolver, but Pepper not only had an amazing front cover - and a back cover with the lyrics all printed out - another innovation - but a gatefold with a photo of the Fabs looking like actors in a 1960s psychedelic concept production of "The Music Man"  stoned on orange sunshine.

GATEFOLD!

"Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" were recorded during the Pepper sessions and should have been on Pepper, but the record company wanted them on a single. If they had been on Pepper there would be absolutely no debate about whether Revolver was better than Pepper - Pepper would be the indisputable champion.

More about those songs soon.

Pepper was the second album I ever bought - McCartney's greatest solo career effort ,"Band on the Run," was the first. 

I listened to Pepper so much that every note and word is engraved in my soul. I could easily sing the entire album in order - even "Within You Without You" - and reproduce all the pauses and vocal inflections and pronunciations perfectly. You'd think the Beatles were there in the room.  Just try me: I sawr a film today, oh booooy. 

Even though, like with Revolver, there are some definite duds in Pepper. Let us review:

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - this track must have blown people's minds with the combo of audience sounds at the beginning, then the Beatles claiming to be another band, with blazing guitars. Hendrix played it on stage not long after the album was released. A

With A Little Help From My Friends - Ringo Starr's personal motto and a classic. A

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - Lennon went to his grave swearing he didn't consciously choose to name the song after LSD. Nevertheless it is a trippy song and and I love Lennon shouting "LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS!" especially when McCartney joins in. Plus the animated sequence for the song in the film "Yellow Submarine" (available on the Internet Archive) is one of my favorite parts of the movie.  A. (Take 5 on the Internet Archive.) 

Getting Better - the first dud. One of their "slog songs" as Ian Leslie discusses in his book. A lot of people, including Leslie really like it. I think it's musically uninteresting and the most interesting lyrical aspect is Lennon's confession: "I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved." D

Fixing a Hole - another dud. The music is slightly better than Getting Better, and it has a nice trippy feel, and I like the harpsichordy keyboard and nice rolling bass. But still... C+.

She's Leaving Home - ugh! The worst! So maudlin. And a boring tune and instrumentation, in spite of the harp. This song shows you how badly McCartney could have screwed up Eleanor Rigby if he had chosen to make it, too, sappy and pathetic. Then it tries to get philosophical with this lyric: "fun is the one thing that money can't buy." When I was a teenager I thought "Within You Without You" was the worst song on the album, but now I think it's this one. I can't stand listening to it. Emphatic F.

Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite - surprisingly decent considering Lennon and McCartney took the lyrics from a circus poster. The music is a rollicking good time - and it sounds especially good coming right after the soap opera of She's Leaving Home.  And you can imagine how extra cool this would sound if someone was tripping on acid while listening, which they definitely were in 1967. B.

Within You, Without You - the droning dreariness of the song is topped only by Harrison's idiotic idea to put a sit-com laugh track at the end: "The laughter at the end of the track was Harrison’s idea. While some listeners initially thought it was the sound of the other Beatles mocking his songwriting effort, it was in fact meant to lighten the mood after five minutes of sad, almost mournful, music." Five minutes of snooze music, you mean. Even so, the Indian instruments make it almost interesting. But lyrically it's another example of Harrison's tendency to express disapproval in his songs: "We were talking about the love that's gone so cold - and the people who gain the world and lose their soul - they don't know, they can't see, are you one of them?" Fuck you, religious fanatic. D-

When I'm Sixty Four - the best of Paul's rooty-toot songs. And as Ian Leslie notes, lyrically it was probably the most radical song the Beatles wrote - a song about getting old with someone. And McCartney wrote the original version as a teen-ager. Doing the garden, digging the weeds - who could ask for more? B+

Lovely Rita - so much fun - and very innovative subject-wise - about a meter maid - a term Paul picked up in the US. The piano solo in the middle is a banger and it's fun to sing: "sit-ting-on-a-so-fa-with-a-sis-ter-or-two."  A-

Good Morning, Good Morning - I didn't care for this very much, when I was a teenager, but it's grown on me. The brass is fun and of course it leads in to the Sgt. Pepper reprise in a very cool way with the chicken squawk that turns into a guitar. B+

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) - fun fun fun. A

A Day in the Life - what can you say about this one? It might be their supreme masterpiece. Even contemporary critics who didn't like the album liked the song. The interplay between the accoustic guitar, the piano and Lennon's vocals - solemn, tender and slightly sardonic all at the same time - are what push this into the stratosphere. The orchestral climax is just gravy. I will have more to say about this song when discussing Ian Leslie's commentary.  A+

So there we go - Revolver has three supreme masterpieces, Sgt. Pepper only one. But although Pepper has some duds - and even one song I rated an F - it has fewer duds and overall higher-rated duds than Revolver.

So what about "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane"? Coming soon!

Let's talk about Revolver

I was recently discussing Ian Leslie's interesting commentary about two Beatles songs: "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Eleanor Rigby." 

Before I move onto his commentary about songs from "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Magical Mystery Tour" I want to discuss the rest of "Revolver."

I've mentioned Revolver on this blog before - how great the Klaus Voormann cover is - and it's nice to have another reason to post it on this blog - and I've written about Eleanor Rigby several times. 

These days many consider Revolver a greater album than Sgt. Pepper's, which was long considered their crowning achievement. 

I don't know though, while the cover of "Revolver" is absolutely unbeatable, it's a tough call. I mean, Revolver has three Harrison songs, and I detest all three. At least Pepper only has one, "Within You, Without You." When I had the vinyl album, when I was a teenager, Within You was the first track on side two and I almost always put the record player needle down right after that song. 

But back to Revolver.

Taxman - rich guy and not-great songwriter complains about paying taxes. And Harrison doesn't even play the blazing guitar solo, that was McCartney. D-

Eleanor Rigby - amazing song. See above. A+

I'm Only Sleeping - meh, the music is OK but nothing really exciting. Funny description of the song by Peter Doggett: "Half acid dream, half latent Lennon laziness personified." It's a weaker version of "She Said, She Said." B-

Love You Too - a Harrison song, so forgettable that I was surprised to see it listed in the lineup because I had completely forgotten it ever existed, and looking at the lyrics now, I was surprised to see that one of the lines is "Love me while you can - Before I'm a dead old man." I guess the line always sounded garbled, and I never cared enough to track down the lyrics to find out what he's saying. D-

Here, There and Everywhere - I know people love this song but I think it's boring. Slow and musically tiresome. The backing vocals remind me of "Michelle" one of my least-favorite Beatles songs not written by Harrison. I give it a C-

Yellow Submarine - sui generis and one of their masterpieces. A+ (Ooh - Yellow Submarine demo tape at the Internet Archive.)

She Said, She Said - pretty cool, although the music isn't as interesting as the backstory, in that it was inspired by Jane Fonda's brother Peter. B+

Good Day Sunshine - I loved this one as a teenager, and asked my piano teacher to help me learn it, but I could never master the solo after "burns my feet as they touch the ground." But for all I know, George Martin, who played the solo, recorded it in half-time and then sped it up for the record (UPDATE - yes that is exactly what he did - no wonder I couldn't nail it at normal speed!) I don't like it as much now - and it's a portent of other songs by McCartney that expresses the rooty-toot side of his personality, which reached its nadir with "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time." B

And Your Bird Can Sing - one of their most underrated songs. I think it's a masterpiece. More about the song here. A+

For No One - Ian Leslie loves this one, and I guess I can appreciate the lyrics, intellectually, but I think  the music is boring and dreary. C-

Dr. Robert - a very 1960s commentary song, the music is just OK, but at least a nice brisk change of pace from For No One. B

I Want to Tell You - the third Harrison song. So boring. Completely forgettable. D-

Got to Get You Into My Life - McCartney's ode to marijuana, which I find more interesting than the music which is brassy to the point of cacophony. C-

Tomorrow Never Knows - I didn't like this as a teenager. Now I find it more interesting than enjoyable. But very interesting, so B+

So there you go. Five songs that I consider duds, but three masterpieces. Sgt. Pepper is going to have to work hard to beat that. I will write about Pepper next.

Murderbot - Platform Decay and Preservation

I admit I did not love the latest in the Murderbot Diaries series, Platform Decay for one very specific reason. See the spoilers section below.

But I am very excited to read, in a recent interview with author Martha Wells that the next Murderbot book will feature the Preservation system:

I had an idea for a long time of wanting to do a big story centered around Preservation, the planet, or in the Preservation system, with something happening there. I would like to be able to do that. Usually, I come up with ideas and think, ‘Oh, I’ll do this book,’ and then it barely touches on that or there’s just not enough room in the book to get everything done. But that’s really something I’m hoping to do in the next book, if I can come up with a good idea.

"Fugitive Telemetry" has come to be my favorite book in the whole series, largely because it is set on the Preservation planet and is about the problems Murderbot experiences with fitting into that society. Which causes Murderbot's friends from the Preservation Aux team to come in conflict with their own society, as in the excellent scene where the head of security on Preservation, Senior Indah, has a meeting with Murderbot, Mensah and Pin Lee, who is acting as Murderbot's lawyer. During the meeting Murderbot discovers that Pin Lee is building a legal case against Indah because Pin-Lee doesn't like Indah's attitude towards Murderbot.

This was also the last time we saw Pin-Lee, one of my favorite characters in the series. Which is now three books ago in the Murderbot Universe timeline. But that's one of my gripes with the series - Wells creates these great characters and then leaves them behind to write about new characters. I mean, what happened with Ratthi and Tarik? 

THE REST OF THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT PLATFORM DECAY

Tomorrow Never Knows

I mentioned a few months ago that Ian Leslie does a bang-up job in his book "John and Paul a Love Story in Songs" in analyzing not only the Lennon/McCartney relationship but also their music. I wrote that Leslie "has quite a few excellent essays on lots of their songs. I will be discussing those later."

Now it's later. 

Although Leslie has lots of interesting things to say about the Lennon/McCartney oeuvre, he really hits his stride with the album Revolver, particularly in his discussions of "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Eleanor Rigby." He points out that the two songs have a lot in common:

…both John and Paul came back from their break with songs about death written from a detached omniscient perspective. In “Tomorrow Never Knows,” John dispenses instruction from the mountain top. In two minutes, "Eleanor Rigby" captures the entire lives of two individuals in a series of stark images. Musically, both songs are stripped down to a few parts in order to distill and intensify some essence. 

 

"Eleanor Rigby" confines itself to a narrow melodic range and the song has minimal harmonic development. Like “Tomorrow Never Knows” it alternates between just two chords set in a minor key.  

 

Still it's hard to explain "Eleanor Rigby." Nobody had created a pop song like this before. Its cultural ubiquity has stopped us from noticing how strange it is, at least as radical in its way as "Tomorrow Never Knows,” which John came up with after hearing Paul play "Eleanor Rigby."

That last part resonates with me. I blogged about Eleanor Rigby almost ten years ago now, and I also commented on how surprising it is, especially since it was written by a 24-year-old pop star.

Leslie continues:

…Paul ends each line of "Eleanor Rigby" with a little commentary or question on what has preceded it: lives in a dream; who is it for; no one comes near. Similar to the gods-eye mode of Tomorrow Never Knows. 

 

The two songs speak to one another. In "Tomorrow Never Knows," however distant Lennon's voice sounds, the message is ultimately soothing. "Eleanor Rigby" offers no comfort. It turns an unflinching, even acerbic gaze on its characters: a woman picks up rice in a church tidying up after a wedding, oblivious to joy. She lives in a dream and wears a face that nobody sees. In the second verse we meet Father McKenzie writing his sermon for nobody. In the third and final verse, they are brought together without coming together: he buries her in a perfunctory ritual. Everything is concise. economical and devastating: no one was saved.

 

Around this time both John and Paul were dwelling on the decline of Christianity. In Cleave's interview, John contrasted it with the rise in popularity of The Beatles a relatively mild observation that came back to haunt him. But in "Eleanor Rigby," Paul slid a knife into the bone...

And I also liked this description of "Tomorrow Never Knows."

...The finished track feels like standing in a full-force gale as the rubble of history blows by us. Lennon's voice surfs serenely above an unearthly concatenation of noises and Ringo's stuttering,  pulverising drum beat. John commands the chaos and subdues its terrors, inviting us to consider the meaning of within and to play the game to the end of the beginning, a phrase that John Winston Lennon borrowed not from (Timothy) Leary, but from Churchill, who had died the year before. What they were now calling "The Void" was by far the strangest sounding track that The Beatles or any pop group had ever recorded. There was no girl or boy, no verse or chorus, just a continuous flow that loops around toggling between two chords and fades out on the word beginning. It brought together McCartney's experiments in sound with Lennon's desire to communicate truths about the meaning of life. It blended Indian music with Stockhausen;  psychedelic philosophy with English poetry and comedy...

Leslie has a similar commentary for "Strawberry Fields Forever" which I will talk about soon.

He also talks about the origin of the title "Tomrrow Never Knows:"

Lennon decided that "The Void" as a title was too heavy. During a televised press conference in 1964, Ringo had expressed the unpredictability of the group's career by saying "tomorrow never knows." In the footage you can see Lennon cracking up behind him...

The Beatles, like Shakespeare, preferred to avoid portentousness. 

And thanks to YouTube, we can see exactly what Leslie is talking about:

The TALLEY'S FOLLY jihad continues

And I have enlisted the aid of the Claude chatbot in my one-person campaign against TALLEY'S FOLLY, which has been going on for over a decade:

ME

Hello Claude.

Would you say that the Matt character in the play "TALLEY'S FOLLY" is a stalker and even abusive towards Sally?

CLAUDE

This is a genuinely interesting question that touches on how we read romantic persistence in literature — and it's worth taking seriously rather than dismissing.

The case that Matt's behavior looks troubling by modern standards:

Despite writing to her daily for a year, Sally's only response was to ask him to stop. He nevertheless traveled to Lebanon to propose to her in person. eNotes By contemporary understanding of consent and boundaries, this is concerning — she told him to stop, and he escalated instead. In the old Talley boathouse, Sally denies her love for Matt, but he remains persistent eNotes, and undaunted by Sally's rejection and demands that he return home, Matt refuses to leave. EBSCO A pattern of ignoring "no," traveling to someone after being told to stop writing, and refusing to leave when asked to go home does fit behaviors we'd now flag as stalking.

The case for the play's intended romantic reading:

Wilson clearly frames this as a love story, not a thriller. Several contextual factors complicate a straightforward "stalker" label:

• Sally suspected Matt would be waiting for her at the boathouse eNotes — suggesting she was not genuinely surprised or frightened, and chose to engage.
• Sally's rejection of Matt's advances stems from her own internalized insecurities and a deep-seated belief that her worth is tied to motherhood EBSCO — Wilson frames her resistance as internal self-sabotage rather than genuine unwillingness to be with Matt.
• Matt's persistence is written as coming from a place of genuine love and the belief that Sally is suppressing her true feelings, which the play ultimately validates — they do find each other.

The honest literary assessment:

The play belongs to a long tradition of romantic narratives where male persistence in the face of female refusal is coded as devotion rather than harassment. Wilson clearly intends Matt sympathetically. But a modern audience is right to notice the tension: the structure of "he kept pushing until she admitted her real feelings" can normalize the idea that "no" is just an obstacle to overcome, rather than a boundary to respect.

There's no physical abuse in the play, but the dynamic does involve a degree of emotional pressure — Matt essentially traps Sally in a conversation she's tried to avoid, and refuses to leave until she opens up. Whether that reads as romantic or coercive likely depends a great deal on the production and the audience's own lens.

It's a fair and thoughtful critique to raise, even if Wilson didn't intend it that way.

ME

Are you sure there's no physical abuse? At one point he blocks her exit from the boathouse, puts his hand over her mouth when she tries to call her brothers for help. and grabs her twice when she tries to escape.

                            CLAUDE 

You are absolutely right, and I should not have stated so confidently that there was no physical abuse. Thank you for the correction.

Those actions — blocking her exit, covering her mouth to prevent her from calling for help, and grabbing her twice when she tries to leave — are genuinely physically coercive behaviors. Regardless of the romantic framing Wilson gives the play, those are not ambiguous gestures. Preventing someone from leaving, silencing them when they try to seek help, and physically grabbing them are textbook examples of physical coercion and controlling behavior.

When you layer those actions on top of what we already discussed — the year of unwanted letters, ignoring her request to stop, showing up anyway, and refusing to leave when asked — the cumulative picture is quite troubling. Matt systematically removes every avenue Sally has to say no or escape the situation: he ignores her written rejections, he won't leave verbally, he blocks her physical exit, and he silences her attempt to get outside help. That's a pattern, not a series of isolated romantic gestures.

The play's framing asks the audience to see all of this as proof of how much he loves her, and the "reward" of Sally opening up and accepting him is meant to retroactively justify his tactics. But that framing is itself part of the problem — it's a narrative that says the ends (she finally admitted she loves him!) justify the means (coercing her into the conversation by any method necessary).

So to directly answer your original question: yes, there is a strong case that Matt behaves as both a stalker and as someone who is physically coercive toward Sally. The fact that the play won the Pulitzer Prize and is considered a romantic classic doesn't erase that reading — if anything, it's worth examining why those behaviors were so readily romanticized.

ME

Thank you, this has been very helpful.

CLAUDE

You're welcome! It was a genuinely thought-provoking discussion. You clearly know the play well — your correction about the physical actions was important, and it strengthened the overall analysis considerably. Those specific details from the text made the case much more concrete than just debating the tone of romantic persistence.

It's the kind of close reading that's valuable to apply to celebrated works, since a Pulitzer Prize and a reputation as a romantic classic can sometimes cause audiences and critics to overlook dynamics that deserve scrutiny. Good luck with whatever you're working on with the play!

OK so Claude got sycophantic there - and Claude is ranked as one of the less-sycophantic chatbots as of this writing, believe it or not. Not gonna lie - I very much enjoyed the affirmation.

At least the leading male character of TALLEY'S FOLLY does not outright rape the leading female character, as is the case of THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES (a comedy, in case you couldn't tell) so it could definitely be worse. 

On the other hand, I think TALLEY'S FOLLY is still performed much more often than The House of Blue Rape Culture. So the jihad continues.