• Home
  • About
    • About Last Night
    • Terry Teachout
    • Contact
  • AJBlogCentral
  • ArtsJournal

About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

Rear-view mirror

December 31, 2020 by Terry Teachout

A year ago today, my beloved Hilary was in an intensive-care unit at New York-Presbyterian, fighting for her life as she awaited a double-lung transplant. She had no idea that worse awaited her—as it did the whole world. I lost her three months later, and my life since then has been lonely and blue, though relieved by friendships that I treasure. Even so, there are very few parts of 2020 that I would willingly live over again. For me as for most people, it has been, literally, a frightful year.

Such being the case, allow me to quote Ogden Nash, as is my longstanding custom on the last day of the year:

Come, children, gather round my knee;
Something is about to be.

Tonight’s December Thirty-First,
Something is about to burst.

The clock is crouching, dark and small,
Like a time bomb in the hall.

Hark! It’s midnight, children dear.
Duck! Here comes another year.

If, like me, you have come to the conclusion that chance is in the saddle and rides mankind, then I hope the year to come treats you not unkindly and that your lives will be warmed by hope and filled with love—and if you feel otherwise, then I wish for you the very same thing. No one should have to be unloved on New Year’s Eve.

*  *  *

The Miles Davis Quintet plays Thelonious Monk’s “Round Midnight” on Swedish TV in 1967. Wayne Shorter is the tenor saxophonist, Herbie Hancock the pianist, Ron Carter the bassist, and Tony Williams the drummer:

Filed Under: main

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...]

Follow Us on TwitterFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on E-mail

@Terryteachout1

Tweets by TerryTeachout1

Archives

December 2020
M T W T F S S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28293031  
« Nov   Jan »

An ArtsJournal Blog

Recent Posts

  • Terry Teachout, 65
  • Gripping musical melodrama
  • Replay: Somerset Maugham in 1965
  • Almanac: Somerset Maugham on sentimentality
  • Snapshot: Richard Strauss conducts Till Eulenspiegel

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in