Archives for August 2005

You have to live in Manhattan to know how hot it gets here in the middle of August. The only film I can think of that conveys the sheer awfulness of the kind of heat wave that now has us in a tight, slimy stranglehold is Rear Window, whose noirish subject matter puts me in mind of one of my favorite Raymond Chandler quotes: “It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks.” Alas, there was nothing dry about the heat in New York this weekend. No sooner did you step outside than it smacked you in the face like a steamy towel wielded by a sadistic barber. (See? Heat waves make everyone Chandleresque, or at least me.)

Saturday, the weather bureau warned us, would be especially brutal. Fortunately, mid-August is the slackest part of the theatrical year, and I had no press previews scheduled, nor was there anything else pressing on my calendar. I’d set the whole day aside for a friend of mine who’s moving back to California next week. I slept late and was awakened by a phone call from her. Something urgent, it seemed, had come up at the last minute. Could we possibly reschedule our farewells for later in the week? I said sure and hung up. Then it hit me: I had the rest of the day off.

Being a recovering workaholic, my natural impulse was to sit down and start writing, or at least call a few friends in the hope of filling the empty hours ahead with activity. Instead, I went downstairs to collect the day’s mail and found in it a postcard signed with a totally illegible scrawl. It read: What have you been up to? I have not seen much of your stuff recently. Hope all is well. The comical notion of my not having been up to much lately snapped me back to my senses. What better way to spend a sickeningly hot Saturday than to stay inside and do nothing? My refrigerator was full, my DVR backed up with half a dozen unwatched movies, my desk stacked high with piles of unheard CDs, my walls covered with art that longed to be looked at. “The hell with it,” I said. “I’m staying home.” And so I did.

What did I do all day? I caught up on my e-mail and took a nap. I watched Young Man With a Horn, a deliciously absurd film about a Bix Beiderbecke-like jazz trumpeter that features a lovely piece of acting by Bix’s real-life friend Hoagy Carmichael, and Colorado Territory, Raoul Walsh’s 1949 scene-by-scene remake of High Sierra, in which the middle-aged gangster originally played by Humphrey Bogart is turned into a black-hatted Western bandit played by Joel McCrea (believe it or not, it’s better than the original). I listened to an advance copy of a gorgeous new CD by Trio da Paz that comes out next month, and finished reading the pre-publication galleys of Tunes for ‘Toons,
a fascinating new book about music in animated cartoons.

The hours flew by unregretted, and at length it was eight-thirty, time for dinner. I ventured outdoors in the still-startling heat, strolled over to Good Enough to Eat, and treated myself to the special, Cajun pork tenderloin with peach chutney. Carrie, the owner, came by my table as I was savoring the last morsel. “What on earth are you doing here on a night like this?” she asked. “Did you know today is the restaurant’s twenty-fourth birthday? I’m so glad you came!” Then she signed my check and told the waitress not to take my money. On the way home I looked up and saw an orange half-moon glowing comfortingly in the warm black sky.

In the morning I headed down to the Village to brunch on apricot-and-banana pancakes cooked by a very nice intercontinental businesscouple with an arty streak (he plays bassoon, she violin). Afterward I stepped into the waiting elevator and was joined on the next floor by a gaunt, black-clad woman holding a small robot in the shape of a dog. She cooed at the robot and stroked it tenderly, and it made affectionate-sounding noises in return. “Very convincing,” I told her as we got off and walked through the lobby. She glared at me and stalked away. Laughing, I hailed an unairconditioned cab driven by an unwashed sociopath who unceremoniously whisked me back to the world.

You have to live in Manhattan to know how hot it gets here in the middle of August. The only film I can think of that conveys the sheer awfulness of the kind of heat wave that now has us in a tight, slimy stranglehold is Rear Window, whose noirish subject matter puts me in mind of one of my favorite Raymond Chandler quotes: “It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks.” Alas, there was nothing dry about the heat in New York this weekend. No sooner did you step outside than it smacked you in the face like a steamy towel wielded by a sadistic barber. (See? Heat waves make everyone Chandleresque, or at least me.)

Saturday, the weather bureau warned us, would be especially brutal. Fortunately, mid-August is the slackest part of the theatrical year, and I had no press previews scheduled, nor was there anything else pressing on my calendar. I’d set the whole day aside for a friend of mine who’s moving back to California next week. I slept late and was awakened by a phone call from her. Something urgent, it seemed, had come up at the last minute. Could we possibly reschedule our farewells for later in the week? I said sure and hung up. Then it hit me: I had the rest of the day off.

Being a recovering workaholic, my natural impulse was to sit down and start writing, or at least call a few friends in the hope of filling the empty hours ahead with activity. Instead, I went downstairs to collect the day’s mail and found in it a postcard signed with a totally illegible scrawl. It read: What have you been up to? I have not seen much of your stuff recently. Hope all is well. The comical notion of my not having been up to much lately snapped me back to my senses. What better way to spend a sickeningly hot Saturday than to stay inside and do nothing? My refrigerator was full, my DVR backed up with half a dozen unwatched movies, my desk stacked high with piles of unheard CDs, my walls covered with art that longed to be looked at. “The hell with it,” I said. “I’m staying home.” And so I did.

What did I do all day? I caught up on my e-mail and took a nap. I watched Young Man With a Horn, a deliciously absurd film about a Bix Beiderbecke-like jazz trumpeter that features a lovely piece of acting by Bix’s real-life friend Hoagy Carmichael, and Colorado Territory, Raoul Walsh’s 1949 scene-by-scene remake of High Sierra, in which the middle-aged gangster originally played by Humphrey Bogart is turned into a black-hatted Western bandit played by Joel McCrea (believe it or not, it’s better than the original). I listened to an advance copy of a gorgeous new CD by Trio da Paz that comes out next month, and finished reading the pre-publication galleys of Tunes for ‘Toons,
a fascinating new book about music in animated cartoons.

The hours flew by unregretted, and at length it was eight-thirty, time for dinner. I ventured outdoors in the still-startling heat, strolled over to Good Enough to Eat, and treated myself to the special, Cajun pork tenderloin with peach chutney. Carrie, the owner, came by my table as I was savoring the last morsel. “What on earth are you doing here on a night like this?” she asked. “Did you know today is the restaurant’s twenty-fourth birthday? I’m so glad you came!” Then she signed my check and told the waitress not to take my money. On the way home I looked up and saw an orange half-moon glowing comfortingly in the warm black sky.

In the morning I headed down to the Village to brunch on apricot-and-banana pancakes cooked by a very nice intercontinental businesscouple with an arty streak (he plays bassoon, she violin). Afterward I stepped into the waiting elevator and was joined on the next floor by a gaunt, black-clad woman holding a small robot in the shape of a dog. She cooed at the robot and stroked it tenderly, and it made affectionate-sounding noises in return. “Very convincing,” I told her as we got off and walked through the lobby. She glared at me and stalked away. Laughing, I hailed an unairconditioned cab driven by an unwashed sociopath who unceremoniously whisked me back to the world.

Last Thursday “About Last Night” launched a new weekly feature, “So You Want to See A Show?” It’s a list of recommended shows on and off Broadway, based on my Wall Street Journal theater reviews. In the listing for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, I described the show as “family-friendly.”

Later that day a colleague sent me this e-mail:

I have to dissent, I’m afraid, from your description of the “Spelling Bee” as family-friendly–at least if one’s family includes pre-teens. When I saw the show, I remember thinking that the “My Unfortunate Erection” song was itself a bit unfortunate, in that the show would have been great for even eight- or 10-year-olds were it not for that out-of-place piece of bawdy. But with it in the show, I’d say that a sort of PG-13 rating is the best one could give it. And even then, I think parents of 13- and 14-year-old daughters might find themselves awfully uncomfortable.

I don’t think I’m being priggish here. It’s just that with a “family-friendly” endorsement, no small number of folks with pre-teens might take their kids, and those kids will come away with a lot of, er, questions for their parents.

It’s funny how having daughters (mine are six and four) hones one’s attentions to such issues.

I think my colleague (who is a big-city blue-stater, by the way) has it mostly right, and I think I know why. Not only am I childless, but I haven’t spent any considerable amount of time around children since I was one myself. Moreover, it didn’t occur to me that most parents would even consider taking pre-teens to The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, or any other show not specifically intended for children. As a general rule I don’t think youngsters belong in Broadway or off-Broadway theaters, and when I described Putnam County as “family-friendly,” I had teenagers in mind. Hence I didn’t consider the possibility that a song whose title is euphemistically listed in the program as “M.U.E.” would be a problem for pre-teen children, since I didn’t envision them being there. Now I know better.

Where I part company with my colleague–up to a point–is his assumption that “parents of 13- and 14-year-old daughters might find themselves awfully uncomfortable” were they to take them to Putnam County. Indeed they might, but I wonder: how many of their daughters would share their discomfort? In order to answer this question, I sought the counsel of several of my women friends, all of whom were in agreement that no teenage girl of their acquaintance would be surprised, much less discomfited, by any part of the show, specifically including “M.U.E.”

To be sure, my women friends are for the most part New Yorkers, whereas the people who see Broadway shows mainly come from elsewhere. As I mulled over this fact, I recalled a letter I received a few months ago from an out-of-town reader of The Wall Street Journal who wanted to know whether it would be all right for him to take his teenagers to see Putnam County. He’d heard that one of the characters was a young girl who was being raised by two gay men, and that one of the scenes treated the Crucifixion humorously. If these things were true, he wrote, he’d be uncomfortable letting his kids see the show.

I gave a lot of careful thought to his letter before replying. I considered pointing out, for instance, that the gay men in question are portrayed as bad parents–though not because they’re gay–and that the advice Jesus gives from the cross in Putnam County is both serious and correct. (Interestingly, the character who portrays Jesus is no longer shown on the cross in the restaging of the show now playing on Broadway.)

In the end, though, I decided it would serve no useful purpose for me to make such excuses. It would be understating the case to say that I’m not a moral relativist, but different people do have different standards, and they aren’t always predictable. One of the people I took to see Putnam County, for instance, is a devout, impeccably chaste young lady of my acquaintance who asked to go along with me and loved every minute of it, including “M.U.E.” As for me, I left no doubt in my original review that I approved of Putnam County, which I described as “that rarity of rarities, a super-smart show that is also a bonafide crowd-pleaser….a musical that is not merely funny, but wise.” Still, my correspondent had made clear the standards by which he would judge the show were he to see it, and it seemed no less clear to me that it was my duty as a journalist, as well as a matter of common courtesy, to be as helpful to him as possible–to tell him, in other words, what he wanted to know, not what I thought he should think. So I replied that I was pretty sure he wouldn’t feel comfortable taking his children to Putnam County, and left it at that.

All these things went through my mind as I mulled over my casual decision to describe Putnam County as “family-friendly.” Whatever my suspicions about the sexual sophistication of the average teenage girl, the purpose of “So You Want to See a Show?” is to offer aid and comfort to the readers of “About Last Night,” many of whom have children and live in places other than New York City. At the same time, I don’t want to compromise my own standards, or sound like a stuffed shirt. Hence I’ve decided to add to each listing a movie-style rating, followed by a brief description of any potentially troublesome aspects of the show. In the case of Putnam County, for example, this Thursday’s listing will read as follows:

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection).

Perfect? Probably not. I doubt this particular circle can be squared perfectly–but I’ll do my best.

Last Thursday “About Last Night” launched a new weekly feature, “So You Want to See A Show?” It’s a list of recommended shows on and off Broadway, based on my Wall Street Journal theater reviews. In the listing for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, I described the show as “family-friendly.”

Later that day a colleague sent me this e-mail:

I have to dissent, I’m afraid, from your description of the “Spelling Bee” as family-friendly–at least if one’s family includes pre-teens. When I saw the show, I remember thinking that the “My Unfortunate Erection” song was itself a bit unfortunate, in that the show would have been great for even eight- or 10-year-olds were it not for that out-of-place piece of bawdy. But with it in the show, I’d say that a sort of PG-13 rating is the best one could give it. And even then, I think parents of 13- and 14-year-old daughters might find themselves awfully uncomfortable.

I don’t think I’m being priggish here. It’s just that with a “family-friendly” endorsement, no small number of folks with pre-teens might take their kids, and those kids will come away with a lot of, er, questions for their parents.

It’s funny how having daughters (mine are six and four) hones one’s attentions to such issues.

I think my colleague (who is a big-city blue-stater, by the way) has it mostly right, and I think I know why. Not only am I childless, but I haven’t spent any considerable amount of time around children since I was one myself. Moreover, it didn’t occur to me that most parents would even consider taking pre-teens to The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, or any other show not specifically intended for children. As a general rule I don’t think youngsters belong in Broadway or off-Broadway theaters, and when I described Putnam County as “family-friendly,” I had teenagers in mind. Hence I didn’t consider the possibility that a song whose title is euphemistically listed in the program as “M.U.E.” would be a problem for pre-teen children, since I didn’t envision them being there. Now I know better.

Where I part company with my colleague–up to a point–is his assumption that “parents of 13- and 14-year-old daughters might find themselves awfully uncomfortable” were they to take them to Putnam County. Indeed they might, but I wonder: how many of their daughters would share their discomfort? In order to answer this question, I sought the counsel of several of my women friends, all of whom were in agreement that no teenage girl of their acquaintance would be surprised, much less discomfited, by any part of the show, specifically including “M.U.E.”

To be sure, my women friends are for the most part New Yorkers, whereas the people who see Broadway shows mainly come from elsewhere. As I mulled over this fact, I recalled a letter I received a few months ago from an out-of-town reader of The Wall Street Journal who wanted to know whether it would be all right for him to take his teenagers to see Putnam County. He’d heard that one of the characters was a young girl who was being raised by two gay men, and that one of the scenes treated the Crucifixion humorously. If these things were true, he wrote, he’d be uncomfortable letting his kids see the show.

I gave a lot of careful thought to his letter before replying. I considered pointing out, for instance, that the gay men in question are portrayed as bad parents–though not because they’re gay–and that the advice Jesus gives from the cross in Putnam County is both serious and correct. (Interestingly, the character who portrays Jesus is no longer shown on the cross in the restaging of the show now playing on Broadway.)

In the end, though, I decided it would serve no useful purpose for me to make such excuses. It would be understating the case to say that I’m not a moral relativist, but different people do have different standards, and they aren’t always predictable. One of the people I took to see Putnam County, for instance, is a devout, impeccably chaste young lady of my acquaintance who asked to go along with me and loved every minute of it, including “M.U.E.” As for me, I left no doubt in my original review that I approved of Putnam County, which I described as “that rarity of rarities, a super-smart show that is also a bonafide crowd-pleaser….a musical that is not merely funny, but wise.” Still, my correspondent had made clear the standards by which he would judge the show were he to see it, and it seemed no less clear to me that it was my duty as a journalist, as well as a matter of common courtesy, to be as helpful to him as possible–to tell him, in other words, what he wanted to know, not what I thought he should think. So I replied that I was pretty sure he wouldn’t feel comfortable taking his children to Putnam County, and left it at that.

All these things went through my mind as I mulled over my casual decision to describe Putnam County as “family-friendly.” Whatever my suspicions about the sexual sophistication of the average teenage girl, the purpose of “So You Want to See a Show?” is to offer aid and comfort to the readers of “About Last Night,” many of whom have children and live in places other than New York City. At the same time, I don’t want to compromise my own standards, or sound like a stuffed shirt. Hence I’ve decided to add to each listing a movie-style rating, followed by a brief description of any potentially troublesome aspects of the show. In the case of Putnam County, for example, this Thursday’s listing will read as follows:

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection).

Perfect? Probably not. I doubt this particular circle can be squared perfectly–but I’ll do my best.

Sides: The Fear Is Real… reopens off Broadway this Thursday at the Culture Project. Here’s what I wrote about it last April in The Wall Street Journal:

“Sides: The Fear Is Real” is an object lesson in how to put together a tightly knit evening of comic sketches. Collectively written by the six terrific Asian-American performers who make up Mr. Miyagi’s Theatre Company, “Sides” is a zany catalogue of everything that can possibly go wrong at an audition. Pretentious playwrights, sexually omnivorous casting directors, fresh-out-of-school actors caught in the chokehold of stage fright: all are portrayed with such demented gusto that you barely stop laughing long enough to catch your breath. Pay no attention to the inside-baseball title, which refers to the script handouts given to actors who try out for a role in a play, TV show or film. Civilians will find “Sides” fully intelligible–and rib-crackingly funny….

For more information, go here.

Sides: The Fear Is Real… reopens off Broadway this Thursday at the Culture Project. Here’s what I wrote about it last April in The Wall Street Journal:

“Sides: The Fear Is Real” is an object lesson in how to put together a tightly knit evening of comic sketches. Collectively written by the six terrific Asian-American performers who make up Mr. Miyagi’s Theatre Company, “Sides” is a zany catalogue of everything that can possibly go wrong at an audition. Pretentious playwrights, sexually omnivorous casting directors, fresh-out-of-school actors caught in the chokehold of stage fright: all are portrayed with such demented gusto that you barely stop laughing long enough to catch your breath. Pay no attention to the inside-baseball title, which refers to the script handouts given to actors who try out for a role in a play, TV show or film. Civilians will find “Sides” fully intelligible–and rib-crackingly funny….

For more information, go here.

Shirley Horn, the great jazz singer-pianist, suffers from diabetes. She lost one of her legs a few years ago as a result of her illness, and now she’s on dialysis in a Washington nursing home. I’m told that she’d greatly appreciate “flowers, cards, prayers, etc.” If you’re one of the many people who has been touched by her music and feel like giving something back in return, here’s where she’s staying:

Shirley Horn

Gladys Spellman Specialty Hospital and Nursing Center

2900 Mercy Lane

Cheverly, MD 20785

If you don’t know Shirley Horn’s music, I commend to your attention this fourteen-track sampler drawn from her Verve catalogue. It’s a beautiful tribute to a unique and irreplaceable artist.

Shirley Horn, the great jazz singer-pianist, suffers from diabetes. She lost one of her legs a few years ago as a result of her illness, and now she’s on dialysis in a Washington nursing home. I’m told that she’d greatly appreciate “flowers, cards, prayers, etc.” If you’re one of the many people who has been touched by her music and feel like giving something back in return, here’s where she’s staying:

Shirley Horn

Gladys Spellman Specialty Hospital and Nursing Center

2900 Mercy Lane

Cheverly, MD 20785

If you don’t know Shirley Horn’s music, I commend to your attention this fourteen-track sampler drawn from her Verve catalogue. It’s a beautiful tribute to a unique and irreplaceable artist.