Archives for May 4, 2016

Seeing as how I’m in the process of making my professional debut as a stage director—and that the play I’m directing also happens to be the first one I’ve written—I thought it might be amusing to post a list of ten things that I’ve still yet to do.

As of today, I’ve never:

• Taken a selfie

• Worn flip-flops

• Successfully learned a foreign language (though I tried three times)

• Seen the Grand Canyon in person

• Changed a diaper

• Cooked a full-scale meal without assistance

• Read Bleak House, whether complete or abridged

• Gone camping alone in the wild, even for a single night

• Driven in excess of a hundred miles an hour

• Set foot on a cruise ship or in a casino

Hey, you never know!

* * *

UPDATE: I forgot that I posted a similar list in 2007. (Only one item appears on both lists.) Alas, I’ve done one of those things since then.

Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra perform Sy Oliver’s “Well, Git It!” in Du Barry Was a Lady, directed by Roy Del Ruth and released in 1943. Buddy Rich is the drummer and the trumpet solos are played by Ziggy Elman and Jimmy Zito. Dorsey is the trombonist:

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

“‘How do men get to be dictators, that’s what I want to know?’ Aunt Flora looked round disgruntledly but with an air as if soliciting approbation for her dissatisfaction.

‘Oh, the formula is simple,’ Walter said. ‘You gather around you all the ‘have-nots.’ You keep on the right side of the law, speaking, denouncing, promising, till, with all the natural discontent which exists in human nature poured out in your support, you carry the elections and are swung into the saddle. Just when your closest supporters become troublesome and the Army a little restive, you embrace the old order of nationalists and allay all their grievances and anxieties. With yourself now firmly in the saddle, the Army your obedient instrument, you shoot your erstwhile supporters as traitors to the national cause and become an out-and-out patriot. Bravo! bis! bis! But when the old order dutifully asks permission to decorate you for your patriotic services with one of their most ancient orders of nobility, you say, No. You are a simple man in a mackintosh, with a simple heart. Ostentation is foreign to your nature. Besides, aren’t you a revolutionary? But, above all, a patriot. Bravo! bis! bis!’”

William Gerhardie, Of Mortal Love