I don’t read the New York Post. But I found my way to its story about a selfie:
A self-described “socialist socialite” is getting mocked mercilessly online for failing to recognize legendary actor Wallace Shawn’s most famous roles — after meeting him to campaign for Zohran Mamdani.The eighteen-year-old “socialist socialite” knows about Shawn from Young Sheldon. The article cites Shawn’s better known roles in Clueless, Manhattan, The Princess Bride, and Toy Story (a voice role).
But — good grief — the article fails to mention My Dinner with André .
As I always told my students, we come to things when we come to them.
Somewhat related posts
André Gregory tells a story : Med beds and the Middle Ages : Powders, pencils, mountains, cigars : “Traces of ourselves”
[And he is playing a role in My Dinner with André : “Wally,” an exaggerated version of himself.]
comments: 8
When confronting a student who frequently missed class, did you say, "we come to things when we come to them"?
Ha! In my later years of teaching, my syllabus had a line I saw on a syllabus of Ted Berrigan’s: “You should attend class at least as often I do.” And as I added, I would be there all the time. People who missed many classes almost always just disappeared.
My community college, on the semester system, had an attendance policy. For my 30-person poetry class (so symbolism or themes) we had, say, two homework portfolios to hand in. (We also had to do a class presentation about a poet—I did Alden Nolan) A stranger tried to hand in his portfolio on homework day and the teacher immediately said, "Who are you? I won't take it, see me after class." The guy had got the assignments off a fellow student, but... he was failed. I thought: Serves him right.
For most of my years of teaching, I gave super-short quizzes at the start of class — piece of cake if you’d done the reading, impossible if you hadn’t (they were Cliffs- and Spark-proof). They counted for a good chunk of the semester grade. And it’s really hard to pass a class if you have a grade of, say, 10 for 30% of your semester grade. I was happy to pay students, so to speak, to do the reading, and I almost always had genuinely engaged students, with the other kind drifting away.
There’s a lot to be said for the value of showing up.
I don't remember Shawn from Manhattan, but he did have an amusing cameo in Radio Days. Our favorite Shawn role, though, is from Taxi, where he played a character who was overly eager to be liked by the children of the woman he was dating. Our favorite line was simply "Money!"
In Manhattan he’s a former partner of Diane Keaton’s character who shows up in a chance meeting somewhere. I remember Radio Days — the Masked Avenger. The Taxi appearance sounds like fun — I’ll seek it out.
Or as the Nagus on Deep Space Nine!
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