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May 18, 2006
TT: Elsewhere
It's been far too long since I've trolled the 'sphere, so here goes:- Firstly, let me introduce you to Ms. Culturegrrl, the most interesting new blogger to come along in ages. Mr. Modern Art Notes calls her blog "an automatic, daily must read." I agree.
- Mr. Playgoer compared the Tony and Obie nominations:
Within 12 hours of each other, the alternate (not even parallel) universes of B'way and "theatre" announced their season's honors. Granted the Tony "awards" proper are still to come. But Obies thankfully don't bother with the two-stage process, so their multiple nominations are in fact their awards.
To compare these lists is (as it is every year) an object lesson in the incredible gulf between theatre as experienced by those who practice and follow it devotedly, and those for whom it is well... tourism, frankly. Or hobby, or industry.
Read the whole thing. It's very tough, and very smart.
- The Mumpsimus speaks words of wisdom:
Theatre audiences and critics have been conditioned to expect plays to deliver messages, and many good playwrights have mangled their art by bowing down to this condition. One of the problems with the messages delivered by most contemporary plays is that they're predictable and shallow--war is bad, love is good, people should be nice to other people who aren't exactly the same as they are, etc. One of the results of ticket prices being so phenomenally expensive is that audiences expect what they see to give them either a lot of spectacle or some sort of education, though if you've just paid $85 for a seat, what you probably most want is a reinforcing of your current ideas under the guise of education, so that way even if you aren't entertained, at least you feel smart and righteous. (Yes, I'm generalizing horribly.)
- I really, really wish I'd written this:
Finishing a great novel is one of those voluminous experiences; your heart races as the pages thin, you struggle to move your eyes faster, to soak it all up more quickly. It's the final lap, and the object is to finish without a drop of energy left. When the last page nears, the temptation to skip sentences, paragraphs, entire pages, pulls like some watery undertow. The final page comes in a rush, the last words arrive like a trampling stampede, there and gone before you can comprehend what's happened. Unlike the end of a movie or a television series, novel time is fluid; you can repeat sentences, skip around on the page. So maybe you read the last line several times, or read it first and then go back and read the paragraph leading up to it. But at some point it hits you: This thing you've lived with for a day, a week, a month--these people and places and words you've submitted yourself to--they're over. There's nothing left to tell....
- Recognize this?
When Saunière pulled down the Caravaggio, the iron gate slammed down and the alarm began to ring. He turned and looked back. The albino was already there, on the other side of the barricade, gun in hand.
It has a Starkly familiar ring, no?
- If you don't read anything else about the publishing business this week, make a point of reading this.
- Speaking of blind items about interesting art-related statistics, take a look at these, please.
- Who is this guy, anyway? He's smart:
Happy endings are not all alike. In fact, they're not always happy. People have many strange ideas about Hollywood movies, and it's not always clear what folks mean by the term. "Hollywood" often seems to mean any movie in English, not the product of a certain system in a certain factory town. Also "Hollywood" is often pejorative, a shorthand for whatever criticism one cares to imply without examining it.
But one of the strangest cliches to plague us is that Hollywood movies have happy endings. This idea leads to contempt, derision and satire. I recall one witty article that imagined Hollywood remakes of classic stories, such as having a centurion ride up to Calvary and announce that Jesus has been pardoned. He and Mary embrace.
There are probably more happy endings today than in the past, and it's because studio executives live under the burden of this false idea--that Hollywood purveys happy endings. Let's disprove this notion once and for all....
- For those who wonder why I'm always raving about Budd Boetticher's Westerns, go here for confirmation of my good taste.
- Speaking of good taste, Mr. Girish pays tribute to one of my all-time favorite movies:
The Fabulous Baker Boys changed my life. Sounds like a hoary old cliché, no? But it's true. I saw it three times the week it opened in 1989, and without ever having touched middle C, walked into a music store and signed up for piano lessons. The piano has been an integral part of my life since; I can't imagine living without it....
I may have said it before, but if so I'll say it again: The Fabulous Baker Boys is the only film I've ever seen that is true to my own experience of playing music (except that I never got to sleep with anybody who looked even slightly like Michelle Pfeiffer).
- In case you've been wondering what Whit Stillman's been up to since The Last Days of Disco, here's the answer--in his own inimitable words.
- Courtesy of Mr. Something Old, Nothing New, here's a fascinating interview with one of the people who puts together DVD box sets of TV shows. Yes, he sounds like a bit of a geekazoid, but so, too, do I....
- Speaking of geekazoidishness, this terrific Washington Post feature story is the absolute last word on stage blood and its makers.
- Ms. Althouse has been listening to Bob Dylan's new satellite-radio show, and thinks it brilliant. I can't wait to rent a car and hear for myself.
- Ms. twang twang twang plays her harp for a brainy audience of Oxfordians, and has an epiphany:
A very clever woman shows it in her face, usually more than a powerfully-minded man. The portraits that line the walls of LMH daily impress this on the students walking by; the first seven minds to penetrate nine hundred years of dreaming ivory towers. Playing the Britten Suite to many such faces today, I suddenly thought, I spend half my life being told to be light, crowd-pleasing, easy on the eye, reassuringly familiar. This is all right (there's a time for everything), but I am never going to apologise for attempting to use the mind I'm lucky enough to have had well-educated, again.
- Mr. Alicublog holds forth on the splendors of demotic speech:
I had a North Carolina girlfriend once, and her mother had no end of lovely expressions. She once referred to spoiled fish as smelling "right boo-booey." Could that be from the French "boue," somehow? In any case I consider myself improved by having heard it. Also by hearing my old Italian landlady say of meeting her husband, "He look at me anna I fell like a pear." And, Texican this, "he got a wild hare," variously "wild hair up his ass"--or "wild hare" up same--never have got that straight....
Me, neither.
- Lastly, I thought you might enjoy seeing a picture of my brother. We look nothing alike, nor are we at all similar, but he's way cool anyway.
Posted May 18, 2006 12:00 PM
