Archives for October 1, 2008

As I look back on the past few weeks, it’s a wonder that I didn’t get sick sooner. The climax came when I hopped on a plane and flew to Raleigh to see Carolina Ballet, returned to New York two days later to see Equus and write five pieces in a row, then hopped on another plane and flew to Chicago to see two shows. Not surprisingly, a fuse blew toward the end of this nine-day gallop, and by the time I got back to New York on Sunday afternoon, I was sneezing, coughing, and generally feeling awful.
I was already planning to take Monday and Tuesday off, during which I’d meant to go see the Metropolitan Museum’s Morandi retrospective. Instead I stayed home, sat on the couch, watched John Wayne movies, drank all the fluids I could choke down, and tinkered more or less effectually with the manuscript of my Louis Armstrong biography, on which I’m about to put the final touches.
I feel better today than I did two days ago–not all the way back to par, but better. It helps that this week’s schedule is somewhat more reasonable: I have three Broadway shows to see, one piece to write, and a video review to tape. (Yes, I’m now reviewing Broadway openings on video for The Wall Street Journal‘s Web site. To see what I said about Equus last week, go here.)
On Sunday morning Mrs. T and I depart for Cleveland, where we’ll be seeing shows at the Cleveland Play House and the Great Lakes Theater Festival, visiting the Cleveland Museum of Art, and spending four nights in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Penfield House, about which much more next week.
Busy but not crazy, in other words, and I’ll try to work in some blogging while I’m at it. In the meantime, I appreciate your forbearance. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, and sometimes he’s gotta take a nap!

Lotte Lenya sings Kurt Weill’s “Surabaya Johnny” in 1962:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday–or are supposed to, anyway. Sorry about last week. I forgot!)

“Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.”
Bertolt Brecht, “A Short Organum for the Theatre”