Archives for April 2009

“‘Marriage’: this I call the will that moves two to create the one which is more than those who created it.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The page proofs of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong will be sent to me on April 24. At that point I’ll have a month to make my final corrections. Then I’ll be done–really, really done. It can’t happen soon enough. I’ve read through the manuscript so many times that I’ve lost my ability to see what’s there, save on a word-by-word basis. Sometimes I reread Pops and hug myself with delight, sure that I’ve penned a masterpiece. Just as often, though, my heart sinks to my shoes and I feel equally sure that I dropped the ball somewhere along the way.
The good news, such as it is, is that I’ve been a professional author long enough to know that both reactions are predictable, and that neither is meaningful. Manic depression is an inevitable stage in the publication of a book, and I’m there with a vengeance. The only reason why it isn’t worse is because I have the July 25 premiere of The Letter to distract me, which is sort of like being distracted from your impending execution by voluntarily submitting to root-canal therapy.
In my saner moments I feel fairly confident that Pops is a solid piece of work, maybe even the best thing that I’ve done. But Louis Armstrong was a great man, and such birds of paradise deserve far more than the best that a biographer has in him. As I acknowledged in this space a couple of months ago, “there’s no such thing as a definitive biography of a great man. There can’t be. A great man (or woman) is too big to cram into a book-sized box.” On my bad days I look at Pops and see only the things that I wish were better about it, of which there are plenty. On other days I rub my hands together like Wile E. Coyote in “Operation: Rabbit” and imagine myself to be a biographical super-genius:

I read through the manuscript for the umpteenth time on Sunday morning and am once again feeling like Mr. Coyote. Alas, we all know what happened to him…

“The same thing has happened in recent history: the French Revolution liberated people from the power of the aristocrats. But the bourgeoisie that took over represented the exploitation of man by man and had to be destroyed–as in the Russian Revolution, which then degenerated into totalitarianism, Stalinism, and genocide. The more you make revolutions, the worse it gets. Man is driven by evil instincts that are often stronger than moral laws.”
Eugène Ionesco, interview, The Paris Review, 1984

Paul Moravec and I gave our first public presentation on The Letter last Wednesday night at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, where my operatic collaborator is wrapping up a two-year term as artist-in-residence. It was a multi-media extravaganza: we played a synthesized version of the first part of the opening scene, having previously kicked things off by showing the trailer for William Wyler’s 1940 film of The Letter:

In the second half of the program, Paul accompanied the wonderful mezzo-soprano Rosalie Sullivan in an aria from The Letter, then demonstrated the opera’s harmonic language by playing and analyzing excerpts from the score on the piano. For my part, I gave a blow-by-blow synopsis of the action, explaining along the way how we’d changed the Somerset Maugham play on which The Letter is based, and described how I wrote the text of the aria that Rose sang. We then spent a half-hour answering smart questions from the audience.
Many of the people with whom we chatted after the show said that they were surprised by how smoothly Paul and I interacted on stage. They were even more surprised when we told them that our presentation was almost entirely improvised. Truth to tell, I was a bit surprised myself by how easily things went–I prefer to speak from a written-out text–but Paul and I have appeared together so many times that we know how to give an impromptu joint performance that sounds as though it had been rehearsed. Needless to say, it also helps that we’ve spent countless hours talking to one another about The Letter in the past three years. At any rate, our maiden voyage went off without any visible hitches, and we’re looking forward to doing it several more times between now and July 25, when The Letter opens in Santa Fe.
Only one thing went wrong, but it came close to being a show-stopper. Rose and I met at Penn Station that afternoon to catch a train to Princeton Junction. As soon as we sat down, I heard a faint sound that I unwisely ignored. A half-hour later I crossed my legs, felt a draft, looked down, and saw to my horror that I’d somehow contrived to split the inseam of my left trouser leg all the way from knee to crotch, in the process exposing part of a pair of maroon-colored underwear that Mrs. T bought for me last year. Rose, bless her, was kind enough to avert her gaze and refrain from laughing for the rest of the ride.
Not at all to my surprise, Paul was less tactful when he picked Rose and me up at the train station. He hooted all the way to the laundry where I got my pants sewed up, taking care to point out that my mishap reminded him of the following scene from The Pink Panther Strikes Again:

On the other hand, he did know where to get my pants fixed, so I forgave him.

Lots of new stuff in the right-hand column. Take a peek.

Why must the show go on?

The rule is surely not immutable,

It might be wiser and more suitable

Just to close

If you are in the throes

Of personal grief and private woes.

Why stifle a sob

While doing your job

When, if you use your head,

You’d go out and grab

A comfortable cab

And go right home to bed?

Because you’re not giving us much fun,

This “Laugh Clown Laugh” routine’s been overdone,

Hats off to Show Folks

For smiling when they’re blue

But more comme-il-faut folks

Are sick of smiling through,

And if you’re out cold,

Too old,

And most of your teeth have gone,

Why must the show go on?

Noël Coward, “Why Must the Show Go On?”