Archives for June 2004

“She was thirty-two but she looked like a woman of forty so well-preserved she could pass for thirty-two.”

Dawn Powell, A Time to Be Born

At the risk of inspiring God of the Machine to further parody, I checked a little while ago and saw that “About Last Night” was being read in fourteen different time zones. I believe that’s an all-time record for worldwide ubiquity. Hello, everybody!

(I know, I know–what’s the deal with the other ten?)

I didn’t realize it until after the fact, but I spent ten straight hours writing yesterday–first my Commentary essay on the life and music of Sir Edward Elgar, then my “Second City” column for this Sunday’s Washington Post. I’d say I’m healthy again, wouldn’t you?

– When it was all over, I needed a change of pace, so I tottered out to find myself a leisurely evening meal, a copy of the bound galleys of Just Enough Liebling (a new A.J. Liebling anthology forthcoming this September from North Point Press) tucked under my arm for dinnertime reading. No comment–I’ll probably review it–but Liebling has long been one of my favorite authors, which is no secret. (The very first magazine piece I ever published, way back in 1981, was a review of a Liebling biography.)

– After dinner, I decided to watch an unchallenging movie to cool off my brain, and settled on The Longest Day, a Darryl Zanuck film about D-Day that I’d previously seen only in disconnected fragments. It turned out not to be very good, so since I’d stored it on my DVR, I found myself doing a little personal editing, in the process chopping at least a half-hour off the overly protracted running time. Dull, dull, dull, but at least it helped ease me out of the mental tunnel vision produced by Tuesday’s writing marathon, my first since I got sick last week.

– I listened to Benjamin Britten’s marvelously intense 1971 recording of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius (currently out of print in the U.S., alas) while writing my Commentary piece. In addition, I was inadvertently exposed over dinner to Norah Jones’ first CD, which has been taken up with a vengenace by Upper West Side restaurants, sigh.

Today’s workload shouldn’t be nearly so burdensome: I’ll be finishing up my drama column for Friday’s Wall Street Journal, then hauling myself across town for a doctor’s appintment. No show tonight, thank God–I’ll spend an hour or so back at my desk figuring out what plays I’ll be seeing over the weekend, followed by TCM’s Cary Grant special, which I recorded last night. Further blogging is possible, but not certain.

Till whenever.

“Cynicism is often the shamefaced product of inexperience.”

A.J. Liebling, “Quest for Mollie”

In case you didn’t drop by yesterday, I’m back from the dead, and I blogged a lot. Take a look!

If you already did, I don’t think I’ll have much time to blog today. I have a piece-and-a-half to write, and I’m only hitting on about five-and-a-quarter cylinders. As soon as I have some spare time, though, I’ll be right back at you.

Yesterday’s only consumable, by the way, was the Criterion Collection DVD of Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve, starring Barbara Stanwyck (mmm), Henry Fonda, and a whole bunch of terrific supporting players. I think it’s probably the best of Sturges’ films, though not my personal favorite (that would be Sullivan’s Travels). At any rate, I watched it in ten-minute chunks in between working on yesterday’s piece, and loved every second of it.

Later.

“I know that there are many people–and very intelligent people, too–who love this kind of fast-action movie, who say that this is what movies do best and that this is what they really want when they go to a movie. Probably many of them would agree with everything I’ve said but will still love the movie. Well, it’s not what I want, and the fact that Friedkin has done a sensational job of direction just makes that clearer. It’s not what I want not because it fails (it doesn’t fail) but because of what it is. It is, I think, what we once feared mass entertainment might become: jolts for jocks. There’s nothing in the movie that you enjoy thinking over afterward–nothing especially clever except the timing of the subway-door-and-umbrella sequence. Every other effect in the movie–even the climactic car-versus-runaway-elevated-train chase–is achieved by noise, speed, and brutality.”

Pauline Kael, “Urban Gothic” (a review of The French Connection), 1971

I wish to announce that I wrote and delivered Pieces Nos. 2 and 3 today! One more and I’m out of the barrel.

I plan to celebrate by (1) doing no more work until tomorrow and (2) listening to a brand-new Fats Waller anthology about whose merits I’ll report to you in due course…but not tonight.

Did somebody say Now turn that iBook off, pal? No? Well, why not?