The influence of deus ex machina manipulation of events from outside seems inescapable of more than forty-five years and called to my mind the name of the classic Shakespeare play. In Shakespeare’s tragi-comedy “All’s well that ends well chronic worries I’d forget which Shakespeare play I’d just quoted, or that I’d be forced to say a word or phrase I’d read but never heard: “fin de siècle” or “deus ex machina” or “ribald.” Then I met a man at a conference who’d .
