Every night on TV, as this presidential campaign draws to a blessed close, the news station flashes to a section called Fact Checking. Here they take all of the speeches of the day and put them up against what another group calls the “facts.” I am not sure how well this works, because the facts sound about as credible as the inferences.
Anyway – I was sitting at my desk preparing to deliver the annual speech on Andre Antoine and the Independent Theatre movement in France. I was jotting all of the names, places, dates, and important ideas on a clean sheet of paper as is my habit for a new day of lectures. I was almost ready to tuck this sheet into my lecture folder and I thought, “should I do some fact checking?” I mean I have been using my lecture knowledge right off of the top of my head for 26 years of delivering these lectures. Could it be possible that I have gotten some of my days or facts wrong? Could I have been poisoning young pre-college minds with WRONG information? Could my wrong information in my lecture be holding them back from a success in the performing arts? How many young lives might I have damaged? How do I make reparations to 26 graduating classes? How, dear God, how?
Andre Antoine died in 1943 – – right? right? With trepidation I reached for the ol’ college text and thumbed through the index. (I realize I could have just Googled the damn name – – but I didn’t learn it originally with Google – I used a book – and, by God, a book is good enough for me! Page 142 . . Page 142 . Page 142 and there it is. He DID die in 1943. I have not the children down!
I wasn’t about the push the issue. Verifying one fact per lecture is good enough for now.