Archives for June 2005

“Until Abstract Expressionism, you had to have something to paint about, some kind of subject matter. Even though Kandinsky and Arthur Dove were improvising earlier, it didn’t take. They had to have symbols, suggested natural images or geometry, which was something real structurally. That gave them something to paint about. What was new was the idea that something you looked at could be like something you heard.”

Kenneth Noland (quoted in Karen Wilkin, Kenneth Noland)

For those of you who were waiting with bated breath, my home phone is now functional once more. You may call with impunity. I might even answer!

Memo to anyone who was thinking of calling me: my telephone is out of order. You can leave a message for me on my voice mail and I can collect it after the fact, but I won’t hear the phone ring when you do.

The good guys are coming on Tuesday morning. Until then and/or until further notice, send me an e-mail if you need to get in touch with me.

First, an announcement: Adam Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza, which was originally set to close on June 12, then September 4, will now run through January 1, 2006, thanks to the fact that it received six Tony Awards, not to mention a whole lot of passionate plugging from well-placed enthusiasts like me. Ha!

Go, if you haven’t. If you have, go again. And if you can’t go, listen to the CD. I can’t tell you how many friends of mine have fallen in love with this show. (To read excerpts from my Wall Street Journal review, go here.)

For those who asked, I haven’t quite shaken off the bug that bit me last week, but I’m mending nicely, thanks. So as to increase the chances of my getting well sooner and staying well longer, I spent a good-sized chunk of the weekend staying indoors and working on the blog. Look in the right-hand column, for instance, and you’ll find a fresh set of Top Fives. In addition, “Sites to See” has been updated with a hatful of new or newly discovered blogs and Web sites (each of which is marked with an asterisk), all worth a visit.

That’s it for now. Enjoy.

– I write fast. It takes me, for example, two and a half hours to knock out a thousand-word Wall Street Journal drama column (except when I’m sick). This isn’t exactly freakish, but it’s quick enough to stagger many of my friends and colleagues. I can’t explain my facility, so I joke about it, but the fact is that I, too, find it mystifying, though it’s not the speed that puzzles me–it’s that I don’t really know where all those words come from in the first place. On occasion I may spend a few minutes tinkering with a punch line until I hear it go click, and of course I edit and polish the surfaces of my pieces as painstakingly as time permits, but beyond that I have next to no insight into the thought processes that cause them to pour out of my fingers.

It occurs to me that this seeming incomprehension may have something to do with the fact that I am (or was) as much a musician as a writer. Music, after all, is a non-verbal art form, and the only descriptions of the creative experience that ring true to my ear are those of composers. “I am the vessel through which Le Sacre passed,” Igor Stravinsky said of the writing of The Rite of Spring. When I first ran across that remark I thought, That’s exactly how it feels when I write a piece–it passes through me.

I also felt a responding echo when I read Harold Shapero’s account of his studies with Paul Hindemith, who was notorious for his facility and was capable of writing finished pieces of music on the spot in class. One day Shapero told Hindemith how impressive he found this ability. “Well, you know,” Hindemith replied, “it’s taken me a long time to come to the point where there’s no time lost between my head, elbow, and arm.” I know how that feels, too.

Nothing in my writing life puzzles me more than what happens when I go to a performance that I’ll be reviewing the next morning. As the lights go down, I empty my mind of received ideas and become entirely receptive to the events on stage. Sooner or later, though, the review starts taking shape in my head involuntarily, and by the time the curtain comes down, I don’t have to think through what I want to say: it’s all there, waiting to be cloaked in words.

After nearly three decades as a professional writer, I still find this process uncanny. It’s as if my reviews happen to me, in the same way that a performance happens to me. I am the vessel through which my opinions pass.

– I watched a good friend of mine fall asleep the other day. We’d spent the morning together at a museum in Brooklyn, then made our slow way back to Manhattan by subway. She had a couple of hours to kill before her next appointment, so she asked if she could spend them at my place. When we arrived, I put on a piece of music she didn’t know, Debussy’s Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp, and she curled up on the couch to listen. I could see that the sound of Debussy’s fragile traceries was relaxing her, almost against her will. Suspecting that she hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before, I then put on Benjamin Britten’s Nocturnal, after John Dowland, a set of variations for solo guitar that depict the sensations of sleep. “Let go,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you up on time.”

I sat quietly as the music unfolded. Without warning, my friend’s body jerked once, then relaxed. A few minutes later, the fingers of her cupped hand twitched, and I knew she was dreaming. She looked tranquil and beautiful.

When Nocturnal was over, I tiptoed to the CD player and put on Samuel Barber’s Summer Music. Midway through the piece, just before she had asked me to wake her, her eyes opened.

“I saw you fall asleep,” I said. “You were dreaming.”

“How could you tell?”

“Your body jerked, and then your fingers started twitching. Cats do that when they’re dreaming.”

“Oh, God, that’s embarrassing!” she said. “You really watched me all that time? You must have been totally bored.” She paused. “You know what I’ve always wanted to do? Set up a camera and shoot a video of myself sleeping. I’d love to know what it looks like.”

She blushed. Then we laughed, and I sent her on her way.

A biographer-friend writes to suggest a parlor game:

What great artists (or famous people) could, and couldn’t, say the sentence “I am ridiculous”? Washington no, Lincoln yes. Milton no, Shakespeare yes.

I am going to venture into your territory, based on little knowledge, but why not? Stuart Davis, yes. Jackson Pollack, no. Eakins, no. Picasso, to his credit, yes. Bonnard, much as I dislike him, probably yes. Edward Hopper, no.

You know my methods, Watson. Apply them.

I like this game very much, in part because it doesn’t always sort along obvious lines of personal taste (at least not if you play it honestly). To wit:

Sherlock Holmes no, Nero Wolfe yes (sorry, Watson)

Jerome Robbins no, George Balanchine yes

Stravinsky no, Auden yes

Miles Davis no, Louis Armstrong yes

Sinatra no, Nat Cole yes

Tolstoy no, Dostoevsky yes

John Marin no, Milton Avery yes

Arthur Miller no, Tennessee Williams yes

Willa Cather no, Flannery O’Connor yes

FDR no, Churchill yes

Beethoven no, Haydn yes

Hemingway no, Fitzgerald yes

Vuillard no, Bonnard yes (my friend is half right)

Richard Rodgers no, Cole Porter yes

Henry James no, Dr. Johnson yes

Here’s some of what I’ve been reading on line of late:

– Supermaud (who gives good lunch) has taken an interest in Peter De Vries, several of whose novels, including the exquisite and haunting The Blood of the Lamb, are back in print. About damn time.

– The Little Professor on Trollope:

Of the major Victorian novelists, Anthony Trollope is by far the most deliberative. He usually isn’t interested in the questions of perception, representation, and subjectivity that tend to plague George Eliot, but prefers instead to devote his energies to decision-making. Many of Trollope’s novels fixate on some difficult decision to be made, whether involving a marriage, a will, or a question of honor; the “action” often consists of the characters worrying this decision one way and another. While Trollope can certainly write a good action scene–the hunt in The Eustace Diamonds, for example–he prefers to locate his most important upheavals in the recesses of a character’s consciousness….

– DevraDoWrite, new to the blogosphere, confesses to an obsessive compulsion:

Do you finish reading every book you start? I have trouble giving up on a book, especially if I spent money to buy it. Sometimes, if I “can’t get into it,” I put it aside for awhile and try again later. Sometimes it’s just my mood, or level of concentration that makes reading difficult.
Sometimes, however, a book is simply not very good, or not meant for my tastes, and I should just give up. But all too often, a combination of guilt and the fear that I will miss something keeps me going….

This compulsion has a highly distinguished pedigree. Justice Holmes shared it, as Edmund Wilson reminds us in Patriotic Gore:

His reading is dominated by a sense of duty and a Puritanical fear of idleness. He feels that he must grapple with certain works, quite apart from any pleasure they give him, and, once having begun a book, no matter how dull or verbose it is, he must read every word to the end. He is always imagining–this is humorous, of course, but it shows a habit of mind–that God, at the Judgment Day, will ask him to report on the books which he ought to have read but hasn’t.

– Also new to the blogroll is Mr. Quiet Bubble, who reports that the common culture isn’t quite dead yet:

It turns out that the great racial equalizer of the South is barbecue. Everyone eats it here. Few people don’t take it seriously. Vigorous debates can be instigated just by asking “Do you like your sandwich wet or dry?” or by requesting a pulled pork sandwich (standard in Mississippi) at a Texas barbecue joint, where beef reigns supreme. It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, or otherwise–chances are, if you’re from the South, you’ve enjoyed smoky, slow-cooked meat and steaming, grease-slathered vegetables on at least one occasion. Even if you’re vegan.

I myself can’t get enough of the stuff, about which I first got serious when I lived in Kansas City, where I patronized Arthur Bryant’s BBQ as often as humanly possible. Wet or dry, beef or pork (and what about ham, buddy?), I’m for it. Living in New York has been a cruel disappointment to me in only one major respect, which is that you can’t get any honest-to-God barbecue here–open pits are illegal. (The ‘cue at Blue Smoke is surprisingly serviceable, though, especially when consumed downstairs at the Jazz Standard while listening to great music.)

Incidentally, I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I travel so frequently to Raleigh, North Carolina, for any reason other than to see Carolina Ballet, but I won’t deny that I do seek out the local barbecue whenever I’m in town.

– Speaking of dance, Ms. Killin’ Time Being Lazy pays a visit to the ballet and casts a sidelong glance at certain all-too-recognizable types in the audience:

2. Proud Parent/Grandparent. At last, the years of watching their darling suffer for their craft will be rewarded. If the child hasn’t received a contract from a Good Ballet Company by now, clearly people just don’t understand how good The Artiste is. Conversely, this is a way to wind up Their Darling’s ballet career, as The Dancer morphs into The College Student (with luck, on their way to a good, paying career)….

– Mr. Parabasis, who isn’t fond of most drama critics (I’m with him!), bellies up to the bar:

I promised sometime last week that I would attempt to put my money where my mouth was and write a review of a show that I strongly disliked while still keeping to the recommendations I made for theater reviewers. And maybe, just maybe, it would also be interesting to read. What you are about to read (if you click on the jump) represents my attempt to do so, reviewing Drama of Works’ Warhol at PS122 ….

Nice work.

– A performer-blogger recalls that which the likes of me should never be allowed to forget:

Good reviews elate me for a day or two, and then I forget about them. Bad reviews (which, I hasten to add, are thankfully outnumbered by the good ones), linger in my consciousness for years. Even if I quickly scan the article once and then throw the paper away, they are nevertheless immediately and involuntarily burned verbatim into my memory banks, where they fester and inevitably resurface on days when my confidence is at its lowest ebb.

I aspire to someday not give a crap about reviews, good or bad. (To that end, I generally ask those around me not to tell me about reviews, and a few years ago I gave up the pointlessly narcissistic habit of self-Googling). Most of the artists I know who are much further along in their careers than me claim to have achieved this transcendent state….

(My own approach to this problem, by the way, is never to read any bad reviews of my books.)

– Ms. twang twang twang reflects on T.S. Eliot, Benjamin Britten, and life itself:

Each time you take up a piece again, your interpretation shifts: it is the same score, but always different, and as you come to new ideas, you necessarily kill off old ones. Thus “every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,/Every poem an epitaph.”

As in life, it is also in music that you cannot force real understanding; you have to be ready. Perhaps I have a younger musician friend, still learning what I have learnt: that we never stop working, practicing, altering; what is today’s perfect performance is not tomorrow’s; and to be depressed by the continual labour misunderstands the work, because as musicians that is part of who we are. I have learnt that by studying for longer than my friend….

– Alex Ross asked a hard question the other day in The New Yorker:

For music to remain vital, recordings have to exist in balance with live performance, and, these days, live performance is by far the smaller part of the equation. Perhaps we tell ourselves that we listen to CDs in order to get to know the music better, or to supplement what we get from concerts and shows. But, honestly, a lot of us don’t go to hear live music that often. Work leaves us depleted. Tickets are too expensive. Concert halls are stultifying. Rock clubs are full of kids who make us feel ancient. It’s just so much easier to curl up in the comfy chair with a Beethoven quartet or Billie Holiday. But would Beethoven or Billie ever have existed if people had always listened to music the way we listen now?…

As it happens, I also wrote about this same subject several years ago in Fi, the now-defunct audio magazine, and posted the column here last year. You might want to revisit my more modest effort in conjunction with Alex’s very good and (I think) important essay.

– For those of you who still go to concerts, Mr. Sandow offers this reality check:

I went to an orchestra concert. The Baltimore Symphony at Carnegie Hall. My first reaction? “My God, why are they dressed like that?” Now of course this isn’t a criticism of the Baltimore Symphony. Any orchestra on that stage would have been dressed the same way. And this wasn’t a considered reaction. It came right from my gut, and took me by surprise….

– Speaking of recordings, here’s a great list…

– …and here’s Thelonious Monk, of all people, playing the Chopin “Military” Polonaise (scroll down to find the link). Believe me, you don’t want to miss this.

– More on pianists: Think Denk, himself no mean tickler of the ivories, pays tribute to one of my all-time favorite classical pianists, Ignaz Friedman. As usual, he gets it just right:

A very famous pianist (and irreproachable artist) of my acquaintance disparaged Friedman for being too crass. I know he is wrong. Or, maybe, I think he is right but I don’t care; when he says it it passes into one ear, one lobe of my brain, and I smile an empty smile; the other lobe recalls all my favorite Friedman moments and adores them internally while I pretend to agree. Am I a hypocrite?…

I know what it is: Friedman’s playing is not limited by a Beethovenian “es muss sein” (it must be)…it has a place for the arbitrary and the accidental. Sometimes he seems motivated by rhythmic/musical forces from another planet, and there is no way to know what he is thinking, and why he is thinking it. This makes me happy; I puzzle over his rhythms with pleasure.

– Warner Home Video is censoring Tom and Jerry, and lying about it, sort of. Mr. Something Old, Nothing New, on whom nothing is missed, is on the case.

– This is really funny–especially if you’ve ever killed any time leafing through the Catalogues of Miscellaneous Stuff stashed in the pockets on the backs of airplane seats.

– Finally, I don’t quite agree with Lileks, but I know whereof he speaks:

There’s something false and seductive about being a modern-day Sinatra fan, and by “fan” I mean someone who thinks they can get a few photons of reflected coolness by conspicuously immersing himself in the Capitol oeuvre, with all its world-wearing romantic rue and barroom charm. It’s close to Tony Soprano Syndrome, where middle-aged guys think that if the opportunity arose, Tone might give them a casual how-ya-doin’ or nod brisk approval across a restaurant. The same old Mafia Chic. And I say this as a big Sopranos fan who loves the show and has substantial investment in the characters…

The Rat Pack Myth works best from a distance, preferably 1500 miles and 30 years; you don’t see them feel up the hat check girl, kick the waiter (or have him kicked), or stare with vacant eyes from the bottom of whatever well of drunkenness they toppled into that night. We cut them slack because they wore cool suits and had short hair and smoked a lot and one of them spoke ever-so-cultured, and because they either slept with a Kennedy or pimped for one. Mafia Chic requires the same removal from the scene. The Sopranos is better than most depictions of that thing of theirs, but we’re still required to care about Carmela’s moral quandaries, which occupy the same moral plane as Eva Braun’s bunions.

I wonder if this might possibly explain why I gave up on The Sopranos three seasons ago. I still love Sinatra, though….

“Gervas Leat rose, turning on a light. ‘Bonnard,’ he said reflectively: ‘the last Frenchman who gives me pleasure.'”

“‘Who gives me pleasure,’ Richard thought–that was simple, that was final, that was enough. Enough, certainly, for Gervas Leat. Nothing of theory here, nothing of judgement. Great painters, lesser painters, painters of significance. Moral and social values and the inner eye. Critical aesthetics….Whoof! But Gervas Leat liked Bonnards and could afford to own one.”

William Haggard, Venetian Blind