Final Edition

by Wallace Shawn

Final Edition is a one - issue - only political magazine written by people who are aesthetes and literary writers and edited by Wallace Shawn, who seriously believes that part of our national problem is that the people who run the country have a crude and minimal imaginative life and are too little acquainted with the quartets of Beethoven. The issue consists of five pieces; Before the Election - Fragments from a Diary 2004'' by Wallace Shawn The diarist broods on the analogy between the addiction to pornography and nationalistic obsessions, and he wonders whether a collection of people who vote in a kind of sleepwalking ignorance can ever be called a democracy. Invitation to a Degraded World'' by Jonathan Schell In this essay, Schell meditates on the comic book/disaster movie view of life, in which bin Laden and George Bush are both immersed, and discusses the standing army'' stationed in all of our homes, the media. The Webern Variations'' by Mark Strand Strand's hauntingly delicious poem explores what is most poignantly beautiful, while exploring the themes of darkness, descent, decline, and nothingness.

Genres: Politics, Essays

112 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2004

About the author

Wallace Shawn, sometimes credited as Wally Shawn, is an American actor and playwright. Regularly seen on film and television, where he is usually cast as a comic character actor, he has pursued a parallel career as a playwright whose work is often dark, politically charged and controversial. He is widely known for his high-pitched nasal voice and slight lisp.