Archives for February 12, 2009

I’ve resisted doing this list as it pretty much exhausts all my cocktail party ammo — but for the sake of unity I’ll follow Terry and OGIC into the breech. Forgive me if any of this duplicates anything I already have nattered on to you about online or in person.
1. I once rode an elevator with W.S. Merwin after a reading. I was supposed to try to get an interview with him. Choked.
2. My taste in music is an ongoing source of embarrassment to me — and my stepkids.
3. I love reading in the bath.
4. I like to eat out and before I go to sleep I often lie in bed and re-play really great meals I’ve had. (My stepdaughter does this too.)
5. My mother is named after the French painter LeBrun.
6. I recently learned that both my (half) sister and I share an affection for the word “haberdashery” and both associate it with our dad.
7. I wish there was a game show devoted to questions about Jane Eyre. Not only because I think I’d do well, but also because it’d be a pleasure to meet all the other contestants.
8. I’m easily agitated by movie violence, especially if there are guns waving around even if they’re only there for comic effect (e.g., Return of the Pink Panther). It’s a ridiculous and (thus far) un-masterable fear …
9. … I do, however, really enjoy well-choreographed fight scenes. A few favorite cinematic/tv ones are Jackie Chan with the wooden shoes in Who Am I?, the T. Rex v. King Kong fight in Peter Jackson’s King Kong remake, and the fight between Buffy and Angel at the end of “Becoming” part 2.
10. I was diagnosed as dyslexic as a kid. So was my sister. As adults, we both fetish-ize books and reading. I don’t think it’s unrelated.
11. My dyslexia was caught early and I became a reading maniac. My favorite way to read as a kid was hanging upside down from the furniture around the house, like a bat. It hurts my back to think about this now.
12. I’ve flown on the Concorde.
13. My mom is dog crazy. One Christmas a family friend gave her the Christopher Guest movie Best In Show, i.e., the definitive film about dog craziness, as a present. Later, the friend asked my mom what she thought of the movie. My mom answered, “Those were some beautiful dogs.”
14. I have trouble with depression and trot around outside a lot to keep it in check. Sometimes this makes me feel like a melancholic dog that needs a lot of walking or gives way to molt.
15. I’m a member of the Unitarian Church in Asheville. My husband Lowell isn’t. When I’m behind on my tithing and we have to write a big check to catch up, he says it’s like “paying off a bad gambling debt.”
16. The minister who married us conducted Carl Sandburg’s funeral service in 1967.
17. The first sports event I remember watching with any interest was the 1992 Kentucky-Duke game that ended with the Laettner bucket.
18. I always seem to live in places that start with “A”: Appleton, Amherst, Austin, Atlanta, Asheville.
19. Our household’s favorite baseball player is Julio Franco, who retired last year. You know those Little League pitchers who are secretly 26 years old? When he was last playing, Julio’s age was officially 49 but you knew if they cut him open and counted the rings it’d turn out to be more like 80. I love him for that and for never, ever swinging at a first pitch. It made me sad that there wasn’t more hoopla when he retired.
20. When I visit a new city, I like to walk the entire length of — or as far as I can go — either north-south or east-west. Not into the suburbs, just to the edges of whatever map I have. Really prolonged, non-destination-oriented walking. Some of my best travel experiences have happened walking this way (Boston, Santiago, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Minneapolis).
21. I love libraries and can get pretty wound up talking about their importance. Short version: God bless librarians and God bless the right to knowledge and beauty.
22. One of my earliest report cards said, “Carrie enjoys talking to [best friend] too much during class time.” True — all through school. Through work. Through life. A terrible habit, but I’ve been exceptionally fortunate in the friends I’ve made along the way.
23. I think a lot of life is like an awkward scene out of a Barbara Pym novel. Instance: In college I was going somewhere off-campus and ended up walking beside a guy — very elegant, fine-boned, blond — who I often sat next to in Nabokov seminar and who was headed to the same destination. Felt very Cossack-y jostling along beside him. Said, “So, I see you keep falling asleep in class — HA HA!” and he looked at me, very embarrassed, and said he couldn’t help it, he had a condition.
24. Lowell’s and my current big, quixotic plan is to figure out how we can live in a bigger city (preferably abroad) for one to three months a year. Preferred spots to start: Boston, Edinburgh or Antwerp.
25. If I played roller derby, my roller derby name would be Steph N. Wolf.

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:

• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, suitable for bright children, reviewed here)

• August: Osage County (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here)

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• The Little Mermaid (musical, G, entirely suitable for children, reviewed here)

• South Pacific * (musical, G/PG-13, some sexual content, brilliantly staged but unsuitable for viewers acutely allergic to preachiness, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• The Cherry Orchard (elegiac comedy, G, not suitable for children or immature adults, closes Mar. 8, reviewed here)

• The Cripple of Inishmaan (black comedy, PG-13, extended through Mar. 15, reviewed here)

• Enter Laughing (musical, PG-13, closes Mar. 8, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

IN CHICAGO:

• The Little Foxes (drama, PG-13, adult subject matter, closes Mar. 8, reviewed here)

• Macbeth (tragedy, PG-13/R, nudity and graphic violence, closes Mar. 8, reviewed here)

IN LENOX, MASS:

• Bad Dates (comedy, PG-13, closes Mar. 8, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:

• Speed-the-Plow (serious comedy, PG-13/R, closes Feb. 22, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK IN CHICAGO:

• The Seafarer (drama, PG-13, closes Feb. 22, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN KANSAS CITY:

• The Glass Menagerie (drama, G, unsuitable for children, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN SAN DIEGO:

• Six Degrees of Separation (serious comedy, R, nudity and adult subject matter, reviewed here)

“Two thousand dear ladies. All very careful and diplomatic with one another. Ever so sweet and catty, you know. I can hear that sweet-and-catty sound through the curtain while the house lights are still on. They all applaud with their gloves on, never too hard or too much. They’re busier watching each other than the show.”
Cyril Ritchard (quoted in Holiday, Sept. 1960)