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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

OGIC: Down at heels

September 27, 2005 by Terry Teachout

Monday was a pretty bad day. First I had to send Terry off, to return who knows when, and then, in my excitement for one of our first truly autumnal days, I unwittingly donned what soon revealed themselves to be cruel shoes. It was a small catastrophe. I’ve just redressed the backs of my heels and am headed to bed, pausing only to share with you a blog entry that actually managed to make me laugh through some of the pain. The first line is a grabber:

Ah, to be young enough that it is still possible to lose one’s shoe in a tree.

Today seemed to be the day for precocious kids on the web. This also appeared, in the Slate diary of writer-director Judd Apatow, who will always be held in esteem around these parts for having executive-produced Freaks and Geeks:

My daughter Maude was 5 when she realized that Barney had only one expression. She couldn’t stop laughing when she noticed this. She ran around the living room with this psychotic Barney smile which never changed, and then started saying, “I’m happy. I’m sad.” She laughed some more and then screamed, “Help me! I don’t know how to feel.”

Stop being so knowing and adorable, children. You’re making your elders feel prematurely obsolete.

Filed Under: main

OGIC: Down at heels

September 27, 2005 by Terry Teachout

Monday was a pretty bad day. First I had to send Terry off, to return who knows when, and then, in my excitement for one of our first truly autumnal days, I unwittingly donned what soon revealed themselves to be cruel shoes. It was a small catastrophe. I’ve just redressed the backs of my heels and am headed to bed, pausing only to share with you a blog entry that actually managed to make me laugh through some of the pain. The first line is a grabber:

Ah, to be young enough that it is still possible to lose one’s shoe in a tree.

Today seemed to be the day for precocious kids on the web. This also appeared, in the Slate diary of writer-director Judd Apatow, who will always be held in esteem around these parts for having executive-produced Freaks and Geeks:

My daughter Maude was 5 when she realized that Barney had only one expression. She couldn’t stop laughing when she noticed this. She ran around the living room with this psychotic Barney smile which never changed, and then started saying, “I’m happy. I’m sad.” She laughed some more and then screamed, “Help me! I don’t know how to feel.”

Stop being so knowing and adorable, children. You’re making your elders feel prematurely obsolete.

Filed Under: main

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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