Neil On Mary

Mary Poppins has hit Broadway big time, and as I type this I'm staring at the parrot-headed umbrella owned by P.L. Travers that was donated to my library. No really. It's (points finger) right there. Not that anyone who's a Poppins fan would necessarily know about its being here. We should do a tie-in with the musical or something.

I mention this because Neil Gaiman had a great series of responses to some recent articles about the play/books. He takes on a variety of ill-written critiques. In reference to a recent New Yorker piece, for example, he says:

At the point where the writer complains that At no point does this Mary Poppins get her hands dirty in a sinkful of Dickensian dishwater, I found myself wondering exactly what the critic in question thinks that Edwardian nannies or governesses actually did. They weren't servants. They were of the family yet not part of it. That was sort of the point.

Anywho, well worth checking out.