Archives for April 16, 2004

– I just got back from the Village Vanguard, where I heard the Bill Charlap Trio play a good-sized chunk of Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein, their new CD (my Washington Post review is here), along with such Charlap-type standards as Gerry Mulligan’s “Rocker” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Uptown/Downtown.”

I showed up early enough to grab a seat five feet from Kenny Washington’s end of the bandstand. I can’t think of many jazz drummers to whom I’d care to sit that close, but Washington is the man, and he was in stupendously good form. In fact, I’ve never heard a drummer swing as hard as he did on “Nobody’s Heart” (and who else but Charlap would have had the wit to turn that fragile Rodgers-Hart ballad into a medium-tempo swinger?). Right now I feel like sitting down and knocking out a dissertation entitled “The Use of the Hi-Hat in Kenny Washington’s Drumming.” If they asked me, I could write a book, though I’d rather wait until I’ve recovered from writing the last one….

– My personal Barbara Pym celebration is drawing to a close: I started rereading her last novel, A Few Green Leaves, over a plateful of pre-Vanguard sushi.

– Earlier today (or, to be exact, yesterday), I watched an hour-long interview with James Garner, an episode of Turner Classic Movies’ Private Screenings series that was repeated earlier this week in honor of the network’s tenth anniversary. As I mentioned
a few months ago, I’m a huge Garner fan, but I’d never seen an interview with him–it seems he doesn’t like giving them. I can’t imagine why, since he’s charming, articulate, and pretty much just like the character he plays in most of his films and TV shows. If I had any steam left, I’d watch one right now, but the loft beckons.

– Now playing on iTunes: Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro, as performed by the Hollywood String Quartet. I’m hoping that it’ll ease me dreamward.

And yes, I know I promised a bunch of choice links yesterday, but my unexpected houseguest threw me slightly off course. Maybe this afternoon, maybe tomorrow. Either way, I haven’t forgotten you!

One more reminder before the Thing Itself: I’ll be appearing this weekend on Studio 360, talking to Kurt Andersen about the art and/or craft of criticism. In New York, the program airs Saturday at ten a.m. on WNYC-FM (93.9) and Sunday at seven p.m. on WNYC-AM (820).

For more information, including links for out-of-town and Web-based listeners, go here.

It’s Friday, so I’m in The Wall Street Journal with a review of Sixteen Wounded, which opened last night. I didn’t much care for it:

Whenever I hear anyone call a Broadway show “controversial,” I know there’s sucker bait dangling at the end of the line. Take “Sixteen Wounded,” in which Eliam Kraiem, a young Jewish playwright from California, makes his Broadway debut at the Walter Kerr Theatre with the story of a Palestinian refugee who invites a Jewish baker to become the godfather of his illegitimate son. Yes, there’s a sting in the tail, since the refugee in question previously blew up an Israeli bus and killed three children. But Mr. Kraiem’s stalwart attempt to humanize the face of terrorism is just the sort of thing guaranteed to please Manhattan playgoers, who like nothing better than poking smugly at the limits of their tolerance. If Satan himself were to materialize in Times Square at high noon tomorrow, you can bet that by 12:05 the streets would be crammed with Upper West Siders eager to hear his side of the story, so long as he promised to check into the Betty Ford Clinic the next day….

If “Sixteen Wounded” were about something other than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I’d be rather more inclined to praise its carefully balanced ambiguities. But, then, that’s the trouble with political plays: No matter how artful they are, most people usually end up judging them in part by whether they agree with the author’s conclusions. Theatrically speaking, Tim Robbins’s “Embedded” is a piece of trash, but it obviously charmed large numbers of viewers who cared more about its heart-on-sleeve politics than its inept craftsmanship. “Sixteen Wounded,” by contrast, frames a serious issue–the permissibility of terrorism–in slickly theatrical terms, and thus ends up seeming evasive, even shifty.

No link (but you knew that, right?). Skip your morning doughnut and buy a Journal instead. Admiring e-mail will be read with pleasure. The other kind will be…read.

I haven’t plugged A Terry Teachout Reader recently (well, not that recently) because I was waiting for the perfect moment to make this staggering revelation: the book contains a hidden clue to the secret identity of Our Girl in Chicago. Some purchasers have already guessed correctly! How can you possibly resist? Click here and order a copy.

The truth is out there.

“Opportunism is something for which intellectuals have especial talents because of their aptitude for managing vocabulary at the expense of thought.”

John Lukacs, Confessions of an Original Sinner