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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for August 22, 2005

TT: Eleven things I’ve learned while sick

August 22, 2005 by Terry Teachout

(1) The computer is the worst enemy of a workaholic with a chest cold.


(2) The iPod is his best friend (especially if he sleeps in a loft).


(3) Don’t watch Red Rock West when you have a fever.


(4) Good movies for invalids: Barbershop, Clueless, Defending Your Life, Speed. (Did you realize that Clueless is now ten years old? Wow.) Also good: Nero Wolfe, Patrick O’Brian, twice- and thrice-read theatrical biographies.


(5) Soup gets tiresome.


(6) Insofar as possible, don’t let unwashed dishes pile up in the sink. The resulting spectacle is depressing and inhibits recovery.


(7) If you have to choose between staying dirty and taking a cold shower, take the shower.


(8) There is no truer friend than the one who offers to run errands for you.


(9) When buying groceries under the influence of antihistamines, don’t just look at the pictures–read the labels.


(10) All cabbies are sadistic psychopaths. Show no weakness!


(11) Yours is not the only blog in the ‘sphere.

TT: Inside tracks

August 22, 2005 by Terry Teachout

– Gene Bertoncini, who plays for happy eaters on Sundays and Mondays at Le Madeleine, is appearing this Thursday at the Jazz Standard in a “celebration” of the release of Quiet Now, his second CD of unaccompanied solos for acoustic guitar. As I wrote in the liner notes for its predecessor, Body and Soul, Gene is

one of those musicians whom I seek out, no matter where they’re working. That’s the nice thing about living in New York–you can really keep up with great artists like Gene–and that’s why I can say with certainty that his playing has gotten better with every passing year. The emotions grow steadily deeper, the harmonies richer and more oblique, the textures more eloquently spare. He was never one to throw around his technique, but now he doesn’t waste any notes at all: every one rings true….

For more information, go here.


– Last Dance, Mirra Bank‘s 2002 cinema-verit

TT: Number, please

August 22, 2005 by Terry Teachout

– Weekly salary paid to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1937 for screenwriting duties in Hollywood: $1,000


– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $13,334.87


(Source: Steve Chagollan, “F. Scott Fitzgerald Gets a Second Act After All,” New York Times, Aug. 21, 2005)

TT: Number, please

August 22, 2005 by Terry Teachout

– Weekly salary paid to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1937 for screenwriting duties in Hollywood: $1,000


– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $13,334.87


(Source: Steve Chagollan, “F. Scott Fitzgerald Gets a Second Act After All,” New York Times, Aug. 21, 2005)

TT: Almanac

August 22, 2005 by Terry Teachout

“To have no pride as an actor is fatal. To have the right amount is almost impossible. It gets in the way of good work; the lack of it prevents your taking chances, daring to go further than you have before, risking whatever reputation you have–not with the public, but with your director or playwright. You need to know they will allow you to rehearse awkwardly, embarrassingly, in your search for certain elements in the play. Not carelessly, but with the kind of abandon that only comes with real love.


“Our happiest theatre memories are those when that love exists in equal measures for the actors and the audience. When the play is received as love is received, with trust, unquestioningly. Because it is being given with confidence and truth and, yes, pride. Beautiful pride.”


Marian Seldes, The Bright Lights: A Theatre Life

TT: Almanac

August 22, 2005 by Terry Teachout

“To have no pride as an actor is fatal. To have the right amount is almost impossible. It gets in the way of good work; the lack of it prevents your taking chances, daring to go further than you have before, risking whatever reputation you have–not with the public, but with your director or playwright. You need to know they will allow you to rehearse awkwardly, embarrassingly, in your search for certain elements in the play. Not carelessly, but with the kind of abandon that only comes with real love.


“Our happiest theatre memories are those when that love exists in equal measures for the actors and the audience. When the play is received as love is received, with trust, unquestioningly. Because it is being given with confidence and truth and, yes, pride. Beautiful pride.”


Marian Seldes, The Bright Lights: A Theatre Life

OGIC: White rabbit

August 22, 2005 by Terry Teachout

I’m late, I’m late, for a very important post…I promised you reader movie rants, and they are forthcoming–just not this weekend, which is now last weekend, alas. And I still have a long night ahead of me before I can rest up for next week, which has insidiously but surely turned into this week, right under my insufficiently efficient nose. Wow: I am really, really bad at Sundays. I’ll be back during the week with the goods. Have a nicer Monday than my Sunday, please.

OGIC: White rabbit

August 22, 2005 by Terry Teachout

I’m late, I’m late, for a very important post…I promised you reader movie rants, and they are forthcoming–just not this weekend, which is now last weekend, alas. And I still have a long night ahead of me before I can rest up for next week, which has insidiously but surely turned into this week, right under my insufficiently efficient nose. Wow: I am really, really bad at Sundays. I’ll be back during the week with the goods. Have a nicer Monday than my Sunday, please.

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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