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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: Consumables

June 2, 2004 by Terry Teachout

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.

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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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