Meg Wolitzer’s novel The Uncoupling is a lot of fun.  It centres on a suburban high school production of the play Lysistrata. It features  a motley bunch of teachers, including the education psychologist, to two happily married English teachers, to an over-eating guidance counsellor and an uncommunicative school principal.  The book is charming, and clever — not quite to her standard in “The Feminine Persuasion” or “The Wife” but worth reading in this silly season. For another take on modern day Lysistrata take a look at this overly serious yet totally unaware article in the Guardian 

This is an excellent film — made in the mid-70s, it takes aim at the media and it’s creepy “tell all” side.  Of course the mainstream media today is even more wizened and useless than it was then. And arguably more dangerous to ‘democracy’. The 70s was a time of revolution in Germany, of the Baader Meinhoff Gang and others trying to break from their parents’ going along with the Third Reich… I recommend watch this– I got it from the Library on DVD If I have a cultural hero, it’s filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta and you’ll see why.  There is a very nice interview (in English) with Schlondorff and von Trotta 40 yrs after they made the film. And that add-on is worth watching.