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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for May 23, 2012

TT: Heads in the clouds

May 23, 2012 by Terry Teachout

Ragged_Point_View_North-00.jpgHaving grown up in one of the flattest parts of America, I now spend as much time as I can gazing at oceans and mountains. Accordingly, Mrs. T and I passed Sunday and Monday in close proximity to both, staying at Ragged Point Inn, a rustic retreat perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and dining at Nepenthe, a similarly situated Big Sur restaurant. Ragged Point Inn and Nepenthe were designed by architects who, like us, favored the style of Frank Lloyd Wright and so took infinite care to ensure that both places were in perfect harmony with the spectacular sites upon which they were built.

Though Ragged Point Inn is beautiful in and of itself, you stay there in order to look at that which surrounds you. Fog rolls in each morning and rolls out by midday, meaning that you can walk through the clouds to breakfast, then retreat to your terrace and spend as much time as you want reveling in the view.

0521121808.jpgAs for our dinner at Nepenthe, which we ate on the outdoor deck, it was as good as it could possibly have been, not just because of the food (which was superb) but because of the setting. To eat a simple but well-prepared meal under such gorgeous circumstances is a profoundly pleasurable experience, and it was further enhanced–for once–by the background music played by the management. Midway through the meal, I realized that we were listening to a track from Louis Armstrong Plays W.C. Handy.

I gleefully nudged Mrs. T. “Hear that?” I said. “It’s a definite omen.”

“Maybe,” she replied. “Maybe it is.”

We smiled happily at one another and went back to our meal, knowing that we’d remember this day for a long time to come.

TT: Snapshot

May 23, 2012 by Terry Teachout

The 1962 BBC telecast of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, directed by Michael Elliott and starring Peggy Ashcroft, Judi Dench, and John Gielgud:

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

TT: Almanac

May 23, 2012 by Terry Teachout

“All women are stimulated by the news that any wife has left any husband.”
Anthony Powell, The Acceptance World

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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