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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for June 8, 2004

TT: Almanac

June 8, 2004 by Terry Teachout

“Before interviewing Gamelin I knew that I would have to document myself on his views, his past, and enough of his technical background and jargon to make him feel that I knew what he was talking about. The preparation is the same whether you are going to interview a diplomat, a jockey, or an ichthyologist. From the man’s past you learn what questions are likely to stimulate a response; after he gets going you say just enough to let him know you appreciate what he is saying and to make him want to talk more. Everybody with any sense talks a kind of shorthand; if you make a man stop to explain everything he will soon quit on you, like a horse that you alternately spur and curb. It is all in one of Sam Langford’s principles of prize fighting: ‘Make him lead.’ Only instead of countering to your subject’s chin you keep him leading. Once I asked Sam what he did when the other man wouldn’t lead, and he said, ‘I run him out of the ring.’ This is a recourse not open to the interviewer.”


A.J. Liebling, The Road Back to Paris

OGIC: Once in a lifetime

June 8, 2004 by Terry Teachout

After all of my foaming at the mouth a few months ago about Shirley Hazzard’s amazing novel named after the phenomenon, it would be downright churlish of me not to note today’s nonfictional Transit of Venus.

OGIC: Best-laid plans

June 8, 2004 by Terry Teachout

Sigh. Just as I was getting ready to dive back into blogging last week, I was felled by an evil bug not unlike the one that took Terry out a couple of weeks ago. I spent the entire weekend trying to sleep it off, missing out on brunch, damn it all, with The Elegant Variation, who was in town doing a bang-up job covering Book Expo. The bug is still hanging around. Posting from my corner will resume this week, but I’ll be easing myself back in one toe at a time [hack, cough].

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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