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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for June 17, 2019

The story of Mrs. T and me—in a hundred words

June 17, 2019 by Terry Teachout

I’ve been following with interest a series of pieces that the New York Times describes as “Modern Love in miniature, featuring reader-submitted stories of no more than 100 words.” As my beloved Mrs. T urgently awaits a fresh pair of lungs at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, I thought I’d try to sum up the wildly improbable but nonetheless true story of our courtship and marriage in one hundred carefully chosen words.

For those who read this posting the other day without knowing anything about us, here is the miracle (no lesser word is strong enough) that happened to Mrs. T and me a decade and a half ago:

We met at a dinner party and fell in love at first sight. Then I learned that she had an incurable disease with a life expectancy of two years. Then I was stricken with congestive heart failure mere days before what was supposed to be our first date. I called her from the emergency room to break the date. Unfazed, she came to the hospital. We’ve been together ever since. Instead of dying on schedule, she fooled the doctors and lived. Now she needs a life-saving double lung transplant—and we’re counting on our luck to hold one more time.

Oh, yes, one more thing—we were both forty-nine years old at the time. Let that be a lesson to you!

Just because: “A Conversation with Robert Frost”

June 17, 2019 by Terry Teachout

“A Conversation with Robert Frost,” an episode of NBC’s Wisdom originally telecast on November 23, 1952. The poet is interviewed by Bela Kornitzer:

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

Almanac: Cyril Connolly on the artist’s need for love

June 17, 2019 by Terry Teachout

“It is after creation, in the elation of success, or the gloom of failure, that love becomes essential.”

Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise

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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