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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for January 16, 2012

TT: Going nowhere

January 16, 2012 by Terry Teachout

Sanibel_Island_Sunset_from_the_Beach.jpgMrs. T and I are holed up on Sanibel Island, off the coast of south Florida. I’m getting over a lingering cold, so we did as little as possible last week. I did contrive to see and review a play on the mainland, but mostly we slept late, walked on the beach, read books, and watched movies, taking time out each evening to see the sun set. I spent several blissful hours revisiting two beloved novels by William Maxwell, They Came Like Swallows and The Folded Leaf. Mrs. T cooked, I shopped and did the dishes, and a good time was had by all.

It wasn’t until a few years ago that I started taking vacations for the first time in my life. I suspect it’s no coincidence that I’d never seen the sun set until then. Like so many things discovered in adulthood, sunsets remain a novelty to me, one that is permanently fresh and self-renewing. Each one is different, sometimes subtly and sometimes outrageously, and I never tire of standing beside Mrs. T and watching the golden ball slide out of sight, thinking as its brilliant light dies away of the lovely little poem by Charles Cotton that Benjamin Britten set in his Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings: The day’s grown old; the fainting sun/Has but a little way to run,/And yet his steeds, with all his skill,/Scarce lug the chariot down the hill.

I have quite a bit more on my plate this week than last. In addition to Friday’s Wall Street Journal drama column, I’ll be writing essays about Louis Jordan and Morten Lauridsen, a juxtaposition that promises to keep me hopping. But at least I’ll be doing my hopping here, which makes all the difference. We can see the Gulf of Mexico from the living room of our little cottage, and both of us regard that view as the purest of luxuries. Rain or shine, it’s the most beautiful sight and sound imaginable. Yes, I have to sing for my supper, for this is, after all, a working vacation (I rarely take any other kind). Still, I don’t know when I’ve been happier, nor can I imagine a time that will be better than this.

* * *

Philip Langridge sings the “Pastoral” from Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, accompanied by Frank Lloyd, Steuart Bedford, and the English Chamber Orchestra:

TT: Just because

January 16, 2012 by Terry Teachout

Charles Laughton and Deanna Durbin do the conga in It Started With Eve:

(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday and Wednesday.)

TT: Almanac

January 16, 2012 by Terry Teachout

“All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream.”
T.K. Whipple, Study Out the Land

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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