Archives for 2004

A reader was amused by my suppressed longing to strangle a noisy dancegoer:

A critic’s work is never done — without a few weapons in his pocket.

You haven’t lived until you’ve attended theater in Fresno, California, which is certainly the worst place on earth for public events (except, perhaps sporting events where rowdy is expected).

I have — I am not making this up, as Dave Barry would say — had a woman sitting next to me singing all of the lyrics loudly. When I politely asked her to refrain, she stood, shrieked at me and everyone in the vicinity that she’d paid for her ticket and she’d damn well sing. It stopped the music. When it started again, she sang.

I have watched standing ovations at intermission for unwatchable performances — I think they are required for everything here. It won’t be long before the audience is staggering to its feet to applaud the curtain opening.

I once had a woman reading her grocery list into her cell phone and explaining what shelf the things would be found on. This was during a very funny and hyperactive performance of Pirates of Penzance, something that should have kept her attention.

But the one bright spot is that most of the offenders are old. Children sit transfixed. Maybe when the geezers die (except me, who will always be too young to be a geezer, of course), we’ll get our public space back. We rarely go out any more. I have little doubt that I’d be the one arrested for murder when, obviously, murder is necessary.

All of which reminds me of the last paragraph of one of my Daily News reviews of the New York Philharmonic: “As for the audience, suffice it to say that concertgoers who cough with open mouths should in my opinion have them closed by a passing usher, preferably with a baseball bat.”

Sorry to be so slow with this, but Sarah has cracked Washington Post Book World:

In the current climate of book publishing, during which controversies rage over the distinction between literary and commercial fiction, and chaos and uncertainty rule the day, one is grateful for signs of professionalism. That is, an author skilled enough over years of practice in taking the fundamental elements of a good story — plot, character, pace, setting, historical detail — and creating a mixture that delivers on nearly all counts. A professional learns from her earlier mistakes and strives to create a better result the next time around; the book may not be transcendent or wholly unique, but a well-crafted work that’s enjoyable, entertaining and occasionally educational is more than enough to satisfy most picky readers….

What’s more, here’s her author bio–or what we in the newspaper business call her “shirttail”: Sarah Weinman writes about crime and mystery fiction at sarahweinman.blogspot.com. I guess that’s the only credential she needs, so far as Book World is concerned. Good for them, and her. Seems like blogs are here to stay.

Here’s an e-mail I just got from Maria Schneider, the jazz composer and bandleader, about whom I’ve had much to say
on this site:

We are playing the Kaye Playhouse again this Thursday, March 18th at 8:00 p.m.

The Kaye Playhouse is located at 695 Park Ave. (that’s actually 68th between Lex and Park on the north side of the street).

If you can’t come, or don’t live in NY, please forward this to anyone whom you think might like to come.

To order tickets:

Phone 212-772-4448

Fax 212-650-3661

Also, I’d like to mention that we just finished the recording stage of our newest album. I’m so happy with the result.

Please visit mariaschneider.com
to find out how you can witness some of the process of making this recording.

Hope to see you this Thursday!

Go thou and do likewise.

Do check out Marshall Sokoloff’s gorgeous photographs of sugar-hauling ships at The Morning News. Jim Coudal comments:

It seems fitting somehow that the hulls of ships carrying raw sugar from the tropics, north through the Atlantic to the Jarvis Quay in Toronto, should be bright and cheerful. That, like those products that will be produced from their cargo, they should be the color of jawbreakers and soda cans, candy wrappers, and the sprinkles that dress the top of cupcakes. It’s also appropriate that they show signs of decay.

My favorites are nos. 2 and 4, which look like abstract landscapes. Some others look like the ships they are, some just look abstract. Where they appear, the ships’ ropes and markings add an element of collage. I want one.

Recommendation: Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. (Pardon my Cinetrixism.)

As a first-day-of-spring baby, I can assure everyone that this week’s weather is far from exceptional. The day I was born, there was a massive snowstorm, seeming to herald no good. I have vivid memories of sharp disappointment one year when the power got knocked out and we had to cancel my kiddie party, even though this left all the prizes and cake for me (which only seemed just; I always did regard birthdays as one of the great excuses for petty tyranny). When I lived in New York I hosted a joint birthday party with a friend on a night in early spring when you could just about measure the snow in feet and the wind mph in scores. All day long, making hors d’oeuvres and sugar syrup, we listened to the alarmists on the radio urging everyone to STAY IN YOUR HOUSE and tried to think of countermeasures. In the end, twenty hardy or foolhardy souls made their way to the Bowery, and most of them stayed for breakfast.

Aw, this is nothin’.

As of this moment, we’re being read in ten time zones around the world.

(Now, what about those other fourteen?)

It seems that A Terry Teachout Reader has already started to show up in bookstores, at least on the West Coast. I’ve gotten two e-mails in the past two days from readers who’ve bought copies over the counter. Considering that I just got my copy yesterday, this is pretty amazing. (The official date of publication is May 6.)

Drop me an e-mail if you should happen to see the Teachout Reader in a bookstore, would you? And if you think of it, let me know where and how it was shelved.

Many thanks.

I went to see Paul Taylor again, wrote two pieces (a book review for the Baltimore Sun and a record review for the Wall Street Journal), and had a Portuguese brunch with Chicha, who is visiting New York this weekend and turns out to be v. cool. I showed her a photo of Our Girl but didn’t disclose my shockingly beautiful co-blogger’s name, meaning that the Chicha lives to blog another day.

I thought that would do me, but the urge to blog proved irresistible, so here I am. Briefly. Tomorrow I’ll be spending the entire day and evening working on You-Know-What.

In the meantime, here are some interesting letters I’ve been meaning to post:

– “A note on subtitles: I recently purchased the DVD of Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, a beloved favorite film (curious, because I really don’t like any of his other films–my other personal favorites–Ikiru, Vertigo, Rules of the Game, Citizen Kane, Double Indemnity–are by directors that have many films to their credit that I like). While viewing the other night, I noticed that there was a new translation in the subtitles. Some dialog and interior monologues, untranslated in the VHS, were now translated. And some translations had been altered–sometimes for the better–sometimes not, I thought. But what really got me was that some lines, including one of the great lines, are now untranslated in the new version. Marian, the trapeze artist, is musing at a rock club and Bruno Ganz, the angel infatuated with her, is nearby. She thinks about how good she feels and speculates that (this is from my rough memory of the VHS) that