Archives for July 9, 2015

This morning I fly from New York to St. Louis, where I’ll pick up a rental car and meet a friend for lunch, then drive south from there to Smalltown, U.S.A. My brother and his wife are hosting a weekend reunion of the surviving members of my late mother’s side of the family—the first one we’ve had in many, many years. I return to New York on Monday.

I expect to have something to say in due course about what happens in between, but for now the main thing is to get there, preferably in one piece. What with one thing and another, it’ll be an all-day trip, so wish me luck and watch this space for further details.

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The Statler Brothers sing “Carry Me Back” on The Statler Brothers Show in 1991:

• I recently read a very funny piece about tiny houses in which the author speculated that the ever-so-trendy residents of these miniaturized abodes might not be quite as content with their miniaturized lives as they like to suggest.

While the whole piece is a riot, this particular passage jumped out at me:

I know your house isn’t that clean all of the time. In your pictures, it looks like you only own a tiny sofa, several throw blankets & pillow, one cooking pan, one antique book and one framed photo of you laughing in front of your tiny house.

My own perspective on tiny houses is shaped by the fact that I spent the better part of a decade living in a very small Upper West Side apartment—small enough that I had to sleep in a loft—whose walls were covered with fine-art prints. Being a just-so kind of person, I fussed endlessly over the floor plan and furnishings, and at length I succeeded in turning my little home into a Machine for Living, one in which absolutely everything had its place. I kept my oversized art books in the fake fireplace.

I loved my little mousehole (as I called it) immoderately, but it posed a problem, which was that because it was so full of art, I felt guilty whenever things got messy. It was as though Milton Avery and Helen Frankenthaler were somehow judging me for not hanging March at a Table and Grey Fireworks in an immaculately orderly space. Yes, I knew I was being silly, but think about it: would you leave your dirty underwear on the floor of an art gallery?

The predictable consequence of my anxiety was that I became even more neat and tidy than before, enough so that when I was stricken ten years ago with congestive heart failure, I went so far as to straighten up the apartment before calling 911. That’s obsessive.

It was then that I met the woman who became Mrs. T, and my Machine for Living broke down. Aside from the fact that the mousehole was simply too small to hold two normal people and their stuff, one person’s commonsense discipline is another person’s lunatic fussiness. It soon became clear that I either had to (A) find a larger apartment and (B) tolerate a reasonable amount of random untidiness therein, or bid farewell to the love of my life.

Rarely has so important a choice been so easy to make. We’ve been together ever since, and I pick up after her, at least when we’re in New York. In Connecticut, though, all bets are off. That which falls on the floor stays on the floor—and you know what? It hasn’t killed me. Yet.

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.

BROADWAY:
• An American in Paris (musical, G, too complex for small children, virtually all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Fun Home (serious musical, PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder (musical, PG-13, nearly all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hand to God (black comedy, X, absolutely not for children or prudish adults, reviewed here)
• The King and I (musical, G, perfect for children with well-developed attention spans, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Matilda (musical, G, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Les Misérables (musical, G, too long and complicated for young children, reviewed here)
• On the Town (musical, G, contains double entendres that will not be intelligible to children, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:
• Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (comedy, G, ideal for bright children, remounting of Broadway production, original production reviewed here)
• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)
• The Flick (serious comedy, PG-13, too long for young people with limited attention spans, closes Aug. 30, reviewed here)
• Shows for Days (comedy, PG-13, sexual situations, closes Aug. 23, reviewed here)

IN GARRISON, N.Y.:
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare, PG-13, closes Aug. 28, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON IN GLENCOE, ILL.:
• Doubt (drama, PG-13, closes Aug. 2, reviewed here)

CLOSING NEXT WEEK ON BROADWAY:
• On the Twentieth Century (musical, G/PG-13, virtually all performances sold out last week, closes July 19, contains very mild sexual content, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN PETERBOROUGH, N.H.:
• Intimate Exchanges: A Garden Fête (serious comedy, PG-13, reviewed here)

“What was once thought can never be unthought.”

Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Physicists (trans. James Kirkup)