Why Are There Poor Americans?

Why are there poor Americans, who live in the richest nation in the history of humanity? Why are there food pantries, patronized by Americans who have jobs? Why are Americans with jobs living in homeless shelters? In America, the richest nation on Earth, there should be no hungry Americans and no homeless Americans.

Charity and philanthropy are good, but are band-aids that don't change the system. "The poor ye have always with you," says the Bible, and thousands of years of charity and philanthropy haven't changed that. It's the same old same old, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, millennium after millennium.

The only way to change the eternal pattern is to raise living standards for *all* Americans. America has the wealth to do that. And America knows the way to do that.

Systemic change *begins* with strengthening labor unions, the #1 proven way historically to put more money in the pockets of Americans for the long term. Not charity. Not philanthropy. Not welfare and food stamps. LABOR UNIONS!

There's a reason "labor unions" are such dirty words in America:

BECAUSE THEY WORK! THEY ACTUALLY CHANGE THE SYSTEM. THEY PUT AN END TO FOOD PANTRIES AND HOMELESS SHELTERS.

A Visit to the Twilight Zone

In early May, 2004, I stepped into the Twilight Zone. Actually, I drove to Binghamton, in upstate New York, just over the Pennsylvania line. For my wife the attraction was the Roberson Museum and Science Center, home of the world's largest and most eclectic collection of vintage carousel horses. Additionally, the town hosts six additional wood-carved antique carousels at local parks, making it (as it likes to boast) "The Carousel Capital of the World." All six are listed on both the New York State Historic Register and the National Register of Historic Places.

For myself, however, the attraction was the fact that Binghamton was the boyhood home of Rod Serling, the creator of the pathbreaking early TV show, "The Twilight Zone." We drove by the Binghamton Central High School, close to the downtown business district, from which Serling graduated in the war year of 1943. A historical marker stands on the tree-studded campus of the old school, noting its most famous graduate. The main building looks like a small private New England women's college, although there is an annex, built in the 1970s, which no doubt houses the "Rod Serling School of the Arts," of which we were told.

Not far from Serling's high school is the Forum Theater for the Performing Arts, on Water Street, which houses "Day of a Playwright," a permanent exhibit of Serling memorabilia. (If you visit and wish to view the photos and items in this exhibit, call 607-778-2480 first and ascertain hours of operation.)

However, like so many Rust Belt cities, Binghamton is a declining industrial town. Once a thriving shoe manufacturing center at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers, it lured tens of thousands of Southern and Eastern European immigrants around the turn of the twentieth century. They came to work in the Endicott-Johnson shoe factory, founded by George F. Johnson (1857-1948). Today that ethnic heritage is celebrated in festivals and with foods. But Binghamton no longer attracts workers, as it seems to have little work, the shoe factory having long since folded. On a Saturday morning we wandered around the downtown business district and had difficulty finding an open store, while there were many boarded up storefronts.

The cheek-by-jowl suburb of Endicott is the birthplace and home of a very different type of business, IBM, which began there in 1889 as the Bundy Company. The suburbs also boast an institution of higher learning, Binghamton University, where SF author Joanna Russ once taught in the English Department. She moved on some years back, but Johnny Hart, creator of the newspaper cartoon "B.C.,"who died in 2007, still lived in the suburbs and his drawings can be found on civic buildings all over Broome County, in which Binghamton is located.

However, we weren't there for ethnic or industrial heritage or for the university or for cartoons. We were there for Rod Serling and the carousels. The Roberson Museum's carousel exhibit has an example of every conceivable type of carousel animal. Horses, of course, predominate, both plain and elegant, but other "jumpers" and "prancers" include such farm animals as pigs, dogs, and giant roosters, as well as camels, elephants, gorillas pulling chariots, and fantastical mythological beasts of every description.

In addition to the Roberson, there are six still-working antique carousels in the "Triple Cities" (as the locals call Binghamton, Endicott, and nearby Johnson City). Between 1920 and 1934, shoe magnate Johnson donated these carousels to local parks. To this day the six still offer free rides to all. Johnson came from a poor background and was only rarely able to afford rides on merry-go-rounds while growing up. Remembering his youth when he yearned for, but could not ride, the carousels, he mandated that the municipalities to which he donated the carousels never charge money for rides. Instead, the Triple Cities charge a fee of "one piece of litter." This has to be one of the biggest entertainment bargains in America -- certainly better than the $55 daily admission fee Disney World currently charges.

The six Triple Cities carousels (though not all the ones in the Roberson Museum) were manufactured by the Allan Herschell Companies of North Tonawanda, New York, in the "country fair" style comprising barnyard animals, as well as the traditional horses. Two of the park carousels (including the one in Serling's neighborhood) still provide calliope music from the original Wurlitzer Band Organs.

The oldest of the park carousels is located in Binghamton's Ross Park. Installed in 1920, it features 60 jumping horses, four-abreast; two chariots (one pulled by monkeys); and the original 51-key Wurlitzer Military Band Organ. The park also features the fifth-oldest zoo in America and a Carousel Exhibit only slightly smaller than the one in the Roberson Museum.

The next-oldest is the one in C. Fred Johnson Park in next door Johnson City. Installed in 1923, it is the largest of the six, featuring 72 figures, four-abreast. The original scenic panels remain and it is situated inside a large pagoda-style carousel house. (All of the carousels are enclosed in their original houses, making it possible to protect them from the elements in winter.) This carousel is located in the old Endicott-Johnson shoe factory and was a recreation area for Johnson's workers (who seems to have been that rara avis, an enlightened boss who actually cared about his workers).

The last of the carousels to be installed was the one in George F. Johnson Park in Endicott. Dating from 1934, it was historically renovated in 1994 and a glass enclosure was added in 1999. Still in its original carousel pavilion, it has 36 horses, three-abreast, with two chariots.

But, the carousel which interested me the most was the one in Binghamton's George F. Johnson Recreation Park on Beethoven Street (many of the surrounding streets are also named after classical composers). Installed in 1925, it includes 60 jumping horses, four-abreast; chariots; and the original two-roll Wurlitzer Military Band Organ -- with bells! The original carousel house cupola has recently been restored.

Recreation Park itself is large, with copses of mature trees and small ground undulations here and there, perfect for small boys to roll down. It also has a baseball field, an original swimming pool with a bathhouse, a small reflecting pool for toddlers, tennis courts, a small Greco-style bandshell, and a statue of benefactor George F. Johnson. It is surrounded on all sides by well-kept, solidly middle-class homes, with nicely-manicured lawns and yuppies walking their dogs. And it is also Rod Serling's neighborhood park, in which he played most nights as a boy, weather permitting, and where he rode the then-new carousel for free -- providing he brought a piece of litter.

Rodman Serling (b. 1924) was raised just a short walk away from this park at 67 Bennett Street. His father was a wholesale butcher, which means he did not stand behind a counter in a bloody apron chopping single steaks for local matrons. Rather, he sold large quantities of meat to schools, hospitals, and other such local institutions. Consequently, he did very well financially, thank you, even during the Great Depression of the Thirties. Perhaps this was one reason Rod Serling remembered his childhood as one of "warmth, comfort and well-being."

Certainly the old Serling home still looks warm and comfortable. It sits on a quiet, middle-class, tree-lined residential street. In May the trees were just in blossom and their brilliant blooms made me think of the suburban neighborhood from the "Twilight Zone" episode, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," which Serling wrote for the first season of his TV series. The house is white, wood-frame, two-storied with a front cupola for a room in the attic. There is an enclosed entry way topped by a widow's walk. The house is two spacious rooms wide and seems to be three rooms deep, for a total of at least 12 rooms, not counting the attic room or rooms and the basement. There is a one-story garage which seems to have been recently tacked onto the side of the house. The front yard had several trees in bloom and handrail-lined steps led up to a small front porch containing stacked white chairs. Unfortunately, no one answered the doorbell, which I was gauche enough to ring, so I have no idea what the interior of the house looks like.

While I was taking pictures of the house and street, the next door neighbor came out to investigate. When I told her why I was there, she said I was part of the tradition. When her family first moved onto the street, they had no idea they were living next door to Serling's boyhood home. They wondered why there was a fairly regular stream of cars gliding slowly past the house, with cameras clicking. Sometimes people would get out and walk around, taking pictures. That's how they discovered they'd moved into the Twilight Zone.

But, it doesn't bother her or her family. They enjoy the brush with fame. Her teenage daughter had never heard of the Rod Serling or the "Twilight Zone" when they moved in, but has since done extensive research on the man and the show and has written a paper on both for one of her high school classes.

I asked about the family that lived there now. They seem pleasant enough, she said, but she doesn't really know them. They keep to themselves. It sounded like modern suburbia. Perhaps it was different in Serling's day.

Back at the park we spent some time at the carousel and the bandshell. The latter resembles a large Greek gazebo, with Doric columns supporting a domed roof. Think of a smaller version of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. In the middle of the gazebo's floor, in place of a statue of Thomas Jefferson, is a circular bronze plate flush with the concrete in which it is embedded. Carved onto the plate is: "Rod Serling, Creator of The Twilight Zone, 'Walking Distance.'"

The latter is a reference to the 1959 first season "Twilight Zone" episode of the same name, which starred Gig Young and which was inspired by this park, this carousel, and this gazebo. In the story (this is all from decades-old memory, so I may have the details wrong), Gig Young is a typically-frazzled businessman on a commuter train which breaks down in a rural area. He is told it will take some hours to make repairs. He asks the conductor where they are and is told that they are only a mile or so from his own hometown! It is certainly within "walking distance," so he decides to walk down the road apiece.

Our Hero finds his hometown all as he remembers it, including the boys playing in the park just as he played in the park as a kid. He finds the familiar old gazebo where he remembers, as a boy, carving his initials into one of the pillars, and he looks for them. (So did I. According to local lore, Rod Serling carved his initials into the gazebo as a boy, just as Our Hero did.) The initials are not where Our Hero remembered them to be. (Nor was I able to find the initials "RS" anywhere on the gazebo.)

Our Hero then walks a few blocks down the street to his boyhood home. It looks much the same. On impulse, he rings the doorbell. And, of course, his long-dead father, looking just as remembered, comes to the door. It seems the frazzled businessman has walked into his past.

Our Hero excitedly tells his father that he is the son, grown up. The father (and mother) think the adult stranger at their door is a lunatic and drive him away with threats to call the police.

It is now twilight and Our Hero dejectedly returns to the park. He notices one of the boys playing in the park woods. The boy approachs the gazebo and begins to carve his initials into one of the pillars. Our Hero goes nearer and sees that the boy is carving Our Hero's initials into the post. The boy is Our Hero at a younger age!

Our Hero accosts his younger self, frantic to tell him the most important discovery he has learned in all the years since he carved his initials into the park gazebo: These are the best years of your life! Treasure them! Don't be in a hurry to grow up!

The boy thinks the old man is a dangerous loon and runs away. In sadness Our Hero returns through the gloom to his boyhood home, not knowing what else to do. His father is sitting on the front porch smoking a pipe. The old man notices Our Hero and motions him to approach. Our Hero had blurted out such intimate details in their previous encounter that no stranger could have known them. Perhaps, through some miracle, the stranger really is the old man's son, all grown up.

They talk. They share intimacies. The old man declines to ask about the future. But he tells Our Hero that he doesn't belong in "this time." He should return to his own time, knowing what he now knows, and let his younger self grow up in his own way, making his own mistakes.

Our Hero realizes the wisdom of his father's advice and they part, having reached a sort of understanding. Our Hero returns to his commuter train, now repaired and ready, and looks wistfully back down the road to his past, sadder but wiser. His hometown may be within "walking distance," but his past no longer is. That is the way of the world. And he accepts it.

There is so much about this story which comes directly out of Serling's life: the neighborhood, the house, the park, the carousel, the gazebo with the initials carved on it. It is tempting, therefore, to think that the emotions and attitudes also came out of Serling's life.

After graduating from Binghamton's Central High School in 1943, Serling joined the army. He became a paratrooper in the Pacific Theater, preparing to jump into Japan in the Big Invasion which was cancelled after Nagasaki. Not long after he returned from the war, he moved to New York City to try to make it as a writer. He scuffled along writing for radio shows and then the nascent medium of television. He worked hard, wrote a lot, and soon began to have some success. He won six Emmies for such teleplays as "Patterns" (1955), "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (1956), and "The Comedian" (1957). And in 1959 he launched a new TV anthology series he'd dreamed up, "The Twilight Zone," for which he was contractually obligated to write the bulk of the stories.

He began churning out stories. And the fifth of the stories he wrote for that first season was "Walking Distance," in which Our Hero slips 30 years back into his own fondly-remembered childhood in order to tell his younger self not to be in a hurry to grow up.

Serling had gone very far in a very short time. He was only 35-years-old and only 16 years out of high school. But, he was already a veteran of a world war. And he was a success at the profession he had thereafter pursued with much passion. He was an award-winning writer and was honored with his own TV show, which he also hosted. He was at the beginning of his greatest fame, writing stories for millions of viewers each week and for which he would soon win three Hugos between 1960-62.

But was this young man, not that far out of his twenties, also already nostalgic for his "warm and comfortable" boyhood, which he remembered as a time of such "well-being"? Given the autobiographical details of "Walking Distance," it is hard not to consider this possibility.

Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

"May You Live in Interesting Times"

“May You Live in Interesting Times”

Supposedly, the above is an ancient Chinese curse.  Seems it’s a modern Brit invention, instead. 

I was perusing The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When,” by Ralph Keyes, St. Martin Griffin, 2006.  According to the entry on this quote, Robert F. Kennedy “put this mini-curse in modern play” when he used it in a 1966 speech in South Africa.  Journalists, especially Bennett Cerf, hopped onto it and spread it all over.

However, say the Quote Sleuths in this book, “nobody has ever been able to confirm its Chinese roots.”  Nobody has ever found a Chinese source for it, nor are Chinese natives familiar with it.  The first time they heard of it was when they came to America, and they then heard it in English as attributed to ancient China.

“Dr. Torrey Whitman,” the entry continues, “president of New York’s China Institute and a specialist in Chinese proverbs, has concluded that ‘May you live in interesting times’ did not originate in China.  Whitman thinks the saying was created by a Westerner, probably an American, who called the saying ‘Chinese’ to enhance its mystique.”

Then the entry tells the reader that, “Professor Stephen DeLong of the State University of New York has doggedly explored this saying’s provenance.  The earliest use DeLong has discovered is a 1950 story in Astounding Science Fiction that included this line: ‘For centuries the Chinese used an ancient curse: “May you live in interesting times.”’”

And that’s it, no author, title, or even month of issue follows.  A bit of shoddy scholarship, that.

So, I did the work that Ralph Keyes should have done.  He could have simply asked Dr. DeLong for more particulars.  I turned to Pulp Meister Arthur Lortie, of Taunton, Mass.  Arthur told me the story in question was “U-Turn,” by Duncan H. Munro, in the April, 1950 Astounding.  “Duncan H.Munro,” in turn, was a pseudonym for Eric Frank Russell, a British writer.  Professor DeLong probably wouldn’t have known that.

So there you have it.  Unless further research by the Quote Sleuths can turn up an earlier citation, it seems we have Brit Eric Frank Russell, mid-20th century, to thank for this “ancient Chinese curse”, which has so proliferated in the English language.

No Dangerous Visions: The Failure of Fantasy Fiction

In the interest of full disclosure, let me say at the outset that I love fantasy!  Perhaps the first "Science Fiction" I read was the planetary romances of Edgar Rice Burroughs, particularly his Barsoom stories.  I was so enthralled with them I almost believed they were real!  I certainly hoped they were real!  I fell in love with Dejah Thoris and still think that's one of the most beautiful names in literature.  That's a testimony to the power of imprinting upon a young mind.

But, how does John Carter, the hero of the Barsoom novels, get to Mars in the first place?  By astral projection!  By wishing it were so -- and he wakes up on Mars!  Pure fantasy, all of it, from the dead sea bottoms of Barsoom to the hollow Earth of Pellucidar.  Yet, I still think the first three novels in his Barsoom series -- A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars, and A Warlord of Mars -- are the best things Burroughs ever wrote and I treasure my first edition copies of these novels.

I also love Robert E. Howard, whom some consider the founder of the Sword & Sorcery sub-genre of fantasy.  I have every Conan story he wrote -- including the fragments completed by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter, Bjorn Nyberg, and others.  I have all the paperback editions published by the long-defunct Lancer Books, with their wonderful covers by Frank Frazetta.  I treasure my Gnome Press editions, which first published Conan in hardcover back in the Fifties.  I have a complete run of the classic Conan comic book first published by Marvel in the '70s.  I published my own pseudo-scholarly contribution to the Conan Canon -- a study of literature in the Hyborian Age -- in the journal Niekas several years ago.

And when I first tried to write fiction of my own, I emulated my heroes.  I wrote blatant imitations of Burroughs and Howard.  Even as a kid, however, I knew there was something lacking in these stories I wrote.  They replicated too faithfully the basic formula of all Burroughs novels, which is simply one chase scene after another, on and on, forever.  I knew that wasn't good enough.  So I went into a vacant field near my home, tore my stories up into little pieces, scooped them into a pile of fragments, and put a match to them so that no one could ever ever read such drivel.

Which brings us to the crux of this lovers' quarrel I have with so much fantasy, then and now.  We like to say SF is a literature of ideas, and at its best it is -- but how often is it, really?  We like to say fantasy is a literature of the imagination, and at its best it is -- but how often is it, really?  All too often it is reactionary and retrograde.  It is trivial.  In a word, it is junk. 

Before I tell you why I think so much of it is junk, though, perhaps some background and definitions are in order so we know what we're talking about. 

Up to the Scientific Revolution, virtually all Western literature was "fantasy," according to our current world view.  In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first story humans ever recorded, the hero Gilgamesh literally goes to Hell.  In Homer's The Iliad the gods mingle and battle with humans.  In The Odyssey the hero confronts a witch, monsters, & battles the gods themselves to return home.  In Vergil's The Aeneid, the hero once more goes to Hell.  In the first English language story, Beowulf, the hero confronts and slays monsters.

Perhaps such stories weren't seen as "fantasy" by the ancient societies which told these stories.  In their world, gods and magic was reality.  Among the Iroquois, for example, the "dream world" was as much a real world as the waking world.  What happened in dreams really happened.  Perhaps stories of fantastic adventures, therefore, were the "mundane" stories of their time, stories of reality. 

"Fantasy," as we know it today, began to take shape at the end of the 18th century, an off-shoot of the Romantic Movement.  And what was this "fantasy" which began to emerge.  What is it today?  Is it Sword & Sorcery?  Planetary romances?  Weird fiction?  Scientific fantasy?  Dark fantasy?  High fantasy?  Heroic fantasy?  Epic fantasy?  Horror?  Ghost stories?  Fairy tales?  Allegory?  Satire?  Surrealism?  Magic realism?  There's really no consensus among critics as to what "fantasy" is.  It's all those labels I just mentioned and more.  So, I'll attempt only the most amorphous definition. 

Science Fiction is a type of fantasy in that it's not about the mundane world we see all around us.  But not all fantasy is science fiction.  At its most simplistic level, science fiction is about what could happen, based upon what we currently know about the natural laws of the Universe.  Or, as Samuel Delaney put it, based upon what is "known to be known."  But fantasy could never happen.  It's the basic difference between the possible and the impossible.

Even so, sometimes it's ambiguous which is which.  Fantasy & SF are almost inextricably mixed up with each other.  As we currently understand the laws of the Universe, for example, faster than light travel is impossible.  Time travel (one of my favorite concepts) is also impossible.  According to what is known to be known about the Universe, both are fantasy. 

Now, Star Trek & Star Wars are ostensibly Science Fiction, but faster than light travel is commonplace to both and time travel is a favorite Star Trek plot device. Are they Science Fiction or are they Memorex?

So, perhaps fantasy can't so usefully be defined by any rigid definitions, but instead by pointing to significant examples which we instinctively recognize as fantasy.  There's an old definition of Science Fiction as being that which I'm pointing at when I say the words, "Science Fiction."  Perhaps that's the best definition of fantasy, also.  "Fantasy" is what I'm pointing at when I say the word, "fantasy."

Some critics have denigrated fantasy as "escapist" literature.  It's trivial, they say, because it takes us away from the "real world."  But that's a small-minded view, not only of fantasy, but of all literature, even great literature, and fantasy, at its best, is great literature.  J.R.R. Tolkien, whose Lord of the Rings is the touchstone of all that fantasy can be at its best, -- but which has also spawned many pale imitations -- argued that one of the virtues of fantasy is that it does enable us to escape -- to "escape from the prison" of the mundane world, just as a Prisoner Of War escapes from his POW camp.  It is an escape from the "reality" which doesn't teach us the truth, a mundane reality which conspires to blind us and befuddle us.  It is an escape from such mundane reality to essential reality, the metaphysical reality of the universe.  It is an escape to the reality of the human soul, be it found in an orc, a dragon, or a wizard; escape to the more real reality of hope and tragedy, morality and evil.

Which brings us to the metaphysical function of fantasy, indeed, of all literature, indeed, of all art.  Metaphysics deals with "...speculation [about] the first principles of things...being, substance, essence, time, space, cause, identity," and so on.  Metaphysics deals with the true nature of the universe, of human nature, of the human condition.  And it is the function of art to explore that metaphysical reality and return to our mundane reality with the "Truth" about the way things really are.

And, "what is Truth?" to quote Pontius Pilate.  The truth is that life is contingent, open-ended, and sometimes the good guys lose.  The truth is that nothing is certain, that all things must pass, the only constant is change, and humanity lives in a possibly arbitrary universe whose patterns, if they exist at all, may be only those imposed upon it by human beings.  The truth is that evil is real.  The truth is that human suffering cannot be easily alleviated and the human condition cannot be glibly transcended.  The truth is that bad things happen to good people -- and we don't know why.

Art -- and fantasy when it is art -- asks you to face these metaphysical truths and, by doing so, become fully human.  Art calls you to be all you can be.  It scares you and makes you cry and makes you laugh and shout for joy. 

Now, fantasy tropes can be used by good writers to tell such hard truths about our mundane world -- but usually this is not the case.  All too often the escape is not from mundane reality to metaphysical reality, but escape into a warm, cozy, simple world where bad things happen only to bad people and human suffering can be easily alleviated.  All too often the imaginary worlds of fantasy tend to be conceptually static rather than dynamic, cyclical rather than evolutionary; the narrative form is usually a quest and characters are symbols, usually of good & evil.  The protagonists live in a determinist world, not a world of free will, they merely fulfill their destiny, something imposed upon them from elsewhere.

E. R. Eddison's classic fantasy "The Worm Ouroboros," published in 1922, is the template for such changeless adventure.  Once the battle is won, the cycle of threat, quest, and battle begins anew.  There is no aging in the book, there is no change, there is merely the eternal present, destined to recur forever.

In the main, Sword & Sorcery heroes, such as Eddison's hero, have no desire to change the social order and, indeed, nothing really changes in their static societies.  True, there's an ostensible change over time in, say, the Conan Saga.  He goes from thief, to outlaw chieftain, to mercenary, to king.  But, basically, his story is the same in all incarnations.  A lone Conan enters, stage right.  He fights demons or witches or gods or sorcerers or outlaw hordes and wins the girl and the treasure and rides off into the sunset. 

In the very next story, however, he's lost the girl and the treasure and has to win them all over again.  And, except for Belit in the story, "Queen of the Black Coast," we never do find out why Conan never seems to be able to hang on to a woman.  They just disappear.  So, the names change, but the story remains the same.  We claim fantasy is a literature of imagination, but this is really a failure to imagine. 

And, when fantasy tells us this story, it lies.  It's junk.  It may be as tasty and pleasurable as junk food, but it's reactionary and retrograde. It is autistic, as it insulates and isolates us from metaphysical reality.  Great myth and legend lead us toward the metaphysical truth of the human condition.  Junk food fiction leads us away from the metaphysical truth to a denial of the human condition.  Such fantasy is almost anti-fantasy, at least the kind of fantasy Tolkien praised and defended.  It is a cozy retelling of comfortable and well-worn narratives about elves and dragons, wizards and unicorns, ugly ducklings, dark lords, and mystic portals between worlds.  "Here there be no tygers."  Here there are no dangerous visions.

I repeat: The purpose of literature is to tell the metaphysical truth about the human condition.  Out of a thousand possibilities, I'll give you one example of great literature which tells such a truth.  Arthur Miller's play, "The Death of a Salesman," debuted on Broadway in 1949 and was quickly recognized as one of the great plays of the American theater.  Half a century later, in 1999, it was revived for another Broadway run.  I have no doubt that when yet another half century has gone by, "The Death of a Salesman" will still be enacted on American stages.

Why is that?  What is it about "The Death of a Salesman" which resonates in the human psyche?  What metaphysical truth does it tell us?  The truth it tells us is this.  Arthur Miller's protagonist, Willy Loman, wants to be great -- but he is not great, which he eventually comes to recognize, to his tragedy. He is literally a "low-man." That simple insight is what the play is about.  But the reason the play resonates so much is because each and every one of us wants to be great.  The metaphysical reality of the human condition, however, is that each and every one of us is not great.  That is one truth of the human condition that great literature teaches us.

Such metaphysical truth is movement from darkness into light, from sleep into wakefulness, from ignorance to knowledge -- knowledge of one's own true nature and the world's true nature.  The basic plot of all fantasy is "liberation" -- Tolkien's "escape from the prison."  But sometimes the slaves aren't liberated.  Sometimes the deal is rotten.  Sometimes the dice are loaded and the fight is fixed.  Sometimes the boat is sinking and the captain lies.  Sometimes the Salesman can never attain greatness, no matter how much he desires it.

But the metaphysical truth is also that the future is an open door -- a thousand open doors -- and we have the power to choose which ones we'll walk through.  Nothing is written in stone.  It's an open universe.  And the patterns of it are the ones we create.  The question is not, "What is the purpose of life?"  The question is, "What is your purpose in life?"  That purpose is the one you create in the midst of pain and suffering and injustice.

The world and the future are both horrible and hopeful.  And only when we know the horror, the horror, can we know the hope.  That is the truth of the human condition -- and the truth of all great fantasy.