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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: Lights out

December 30, 2013 by Terry Teachout

Taking down the Christmas tree is the saddest of chores, inescapable and depressing, and so I did the hard part while Mrs. T slept. I got up, tiptoed into the living room, and carefully stripped off the lights and tinsel and ornaments. Mere hours before, they’d glittered joyously in the winter night. Now all that remained was a dried-up bundle of branches that I unceremoniously hauled across the road into the woods.
christmastree624x416.JPGI wouldn’t have been so quick to do my yearly duty were it not for the fact that we’ll be departing Connecticut first thing tomorrow morning, not to return for some time to come. Otherwise I would gladly have left our beautiful tree unmolested, for I know no spectacle so heartening. Mrs. T and I have only had three Christmas trees in our eight years as a couple, and last year’s was our first in a long time. Hence we were determined to put up two in a row, and it filled me with joy when we plugged this one into the wall a couple of weeks ago and beheld the blaze of its old-fashioned lights.
Today it’s gone, and tomorrow we’ll be gone, too. I miss it already–but I’m looking forward to its successor, a shining symbol of the love that is the best part of my life.

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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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