Archives for April 2004

“I was repining at the thought of my slow progress–how few new ideas I had or picked up–when it occurred to me to think of the total of life and how the greater part was wholly absorbed in living and continuing life–victuals–procreation–rest and eternal terror. And I bid myself accept the common lot; an adequate vitality would say daily, ‘God, what a good sleep I’ve had,’ ‘My eye, that was dinner,’ ‘Now for a fine rattling walk’–in short, life as an end in itself.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., letter to Frederick Pollock,
August 21, 1919

– I looked at two gallery shows, “Jane Freilicher: Recent Work” at Tibor de Nagy (it was just as good the second time)
and “Everyday Mysteries: Modern and Contemporary Still Life” at DC Moore, which included gorgeous paintings by William Bailey, Fairfield Porter, and Jane Wilson. (Both shows close April 24.)

– I saw a new play on Friday, Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel, which I’ll be reviewing in next week’s Wall Street Journal. Yesterday I finally caught up with Good Bye, Lenin!, which I loved, even though it took me by surprise–I had the mistaken notion that it would be less poignant and more broadly comic.

– I’ve been reading Aljean Harmetz’s Round Up the Usual Suspects and James Mann’s Rise of the Vulcans.

– Now playing on iTunes: David Cantor’s “Slow Boat to China” (no, it’s not the song you know, unless you’re v., v. cool), recorded by Mary Foster Conklin on Crazy Eyes.

Once more with feeling: if you live in or near New York City, you can listen to a repeat broadcast of my Studio 360 interview at seven p.m. tonight night on WNYC-AM (820). In addition, Studio 360 is carried by NPR affiliates across the country. For a list of local stations and air dates, go here.

You can also download the show or listen to it via streaming audio at Studio 360‘s audio archive.

I listened to Studio 360 this morning, then went out for brunch with a friend. By the time I got back, I already had a deskful of e-mail and phone messages, plus a link from Maud (whose blog I plugged on the air, along with some others that ended up on the cutting-room floor). This was my first hearing of the edited version, and I was hugely impressed by the skill with which Kurt Andersen and his superb producers compressed and tightened up our lengthy conversation about criticism without distorting its sense in any way. It’s not for me to say whether the final product was worth hearing, but I enjoyed listening to it, and I hope you do, too.

If you live in or near New York City, you can listen to a repeat broadcast at seven p.m. Sunday night on WNYC-AM (820). In addition, Studio 360 is carried by NPR affiliates across the country. For a complete list of local stations and air dates, go here. You can also download the show or listen to it via streaming audio by visiting Studio 360‘s audio archive.

“When I was a kid, I wanted a five-dollar watch, then a ten-dollar watch, then a hundred-dollar watch. When I made money, I wanted a Rolex, then a Patek-Philippe. Now I realize that the real luxury is not to know the time.”

Jack Straus, quoted in A. Alvarez, The Biggest Game in Town

– 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.