About Last Night

“As soon as I detest something I ask myself why I like it.”

Hans Keller, Essays on Music

I went to The Producers last Friday to see the new leads, Lewis J. Stadlen and Don Stephenson. I’ll leave their performances for my drama column in this Friday’s Wall Street Journal, but what struck me most forcibly about the show is how old-fashioned, even quaint it seemed, from the slam-bam-zowie overture to the billion-decibel acting to–above all–the corny rim-shot jokes.

It stands to reason that The Producers should be old-fashioned, Mel Brooks having been born in 1926, but it occurred to me that what I was seeing on stage at the St. James Theatre was not so much a hit musical as the last gasp of a dying comic language. Strip away the four-letter words and self-consciously outrageous production numbers and The Producers is nothing more (or less) than a virtuoso homage to the lapel-grabbing, absolutely-anything-for-a-laugh schtickery on which so much of the stand-up comedy of my childhood was based. That kind of comedy was for the most part explicitly Jewish, as is The Producers itself, in which Yiddish slang is forever popping up, even in Brooks’ lyrics (which, if I heard right, go so far as to rhyme “caressing you” with “fressing you,” a couplet that would have made Lenny Bruce giggle).

It is this aspect of The Producers that I found…well, poignant. Back when I was a small-town Missouri boy, Jewish humor still had the crisp tang of the unfamiliar, which was part of why it was so funny. But Jewish comics assimilated a long time ago, as was proved beyond doubt by the colossal success of Seinfeld, that least overtly Jewish of Jewish sitcoms. Jerry and his friends shed their parents’ accents and became cool and ironic and put the past behind them–and now it’s gone, never to return.

To see The Producers is to be immersed one final time in that older style of pressure-cooker comedy, and for those of us who were born before 1960 or so, the experience is as sweetly nostalgic as a trip to the state fair, which I rather doubt is what Mel Brooks had in mind. My guess is that he still thinks it’s titillating, even shocking, to put swishy Nazis on stage. It’s no accident that he hasn’t made a movie for years and years: Broadway is the last place in America where he could possibly draw a crowd with that kind of humor, and it’s not an especially young crowd, either.

“It is a great danger for everyone when what is shocking changes,” says a character in Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana. It can also be sad–and even touching.

A reader writes, apropos of last week’s postings about Giorgio Morandi:

Morandi looks a bit like our local Sacramento Wayne Thiebaud–rather creamy unfocused objects.

Ask yourself–is this really beautiful? Exquisite? As good as Leo Da Vinci’s Madonna of the Rocks (London version)?

I submit it is not. If it is not as beautiful, why should I care about it? Why is it worth my time or eyesight?

I only care about the Good, the True, the Beautiful. Not the sort of good etc. So why should anyone care about the sort of?

I never know quite what to say to people like this, other than what Stephen Maturin says in Treason’s Harbour to a slickster who tries to sell him on the idea that Napoleon was actually a great guy: “Sure, it is a point of view.” But I’ll give it another try.

To begin with, I don’t think Morandi is “sort of” good. I think he’s great, as do many other people who take art seriously and know far more about it than I, among them Karen Wilkin, the author of the eloquent monograph about Morandi I cited in my original posting. Yes, we could all be wrong, just like those 50 million Frenchmen, but as a college teacher of mine once gently informed me in response to my declaration that I didn’t think much of the music of Robert Schumann, “That may say more about you than it does about Schumann.”

I like “Leo Da Vinci,” too, but I also like lots of other painters, many of whom were alive in the 20th century and some of whom are at work right now, whereas there are more than a few people out there–including, I fear, my correspondent–who don’t like any modern art, and are proud not to. Such a lack of receptivity makes no sense to me, if only because there is a vast amount of modern art which is both deeply rooted in tradition and completely accessible to the open-minded traditionalist. Nobody’s asking you to fall in love with green women with two noses, or listen to symphonies with no tunes. If you like (say) Chardin, Brahms, Trollope, and Swan Lake, I can’t think of any earthly reason why you shouldn’t like (say) Morandi, Vaughan Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and George Balanchine.

And if you don’t? Well, you don’t. De gustibus and all that. But what sort of person doesn’t even want to try to engage with the art of his own day, much less the comparatively recent past? That’s like a six-year-old who refuses to taste anything he doesn’t already like. I spend a lot of time–most of my time, really–engaging with art of all kinds, and I’m here to tell you that there are people out there right now who are busy creating “really beautiful” works of art that will make sense to even the most conservative viewer, reader, or listener, so long as he has sufficient curiosity to give them a try. Once again, I’m not talking about bisected pigs and dried bull dung–I mean this. Or this.

If neither of these things strikes you as “really beautiful,” all I can say is that you may have come to the wrong blog. Fair enough?

“I am resolutely opposed to all innovation, all change, but I am determined to understand what’s happening, because I don’t choose just to sit and let the juggernaut roll over me.”

Marshall McLuhan, “This Hour Has Seven Days”

I reviewed the Public Theater‘s Shakespeare in the Park production of Henry V, directed by Mark Wing-Davey and starring Liev Schreiber (who is really, really good), in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. Here’s the money graf:

“Up until the war scenes proper, all the energy of this production is comic, with Mr. Schreiber the only straight face on stage. Everybody else is trying to get laughs by any means necessary. Even the low comedians are painted with a too-wide brush: Bronson Pinchot’s Pistol is a pompadoured idiot with a Tony Curtis-type Lawng Oyland accent whom we find amusing himself in a latrine, a girlie magazine in his free hand. The fact that so much of the slapstick is clever (though not that particular bit) only makes matters worse. By the time intermission rolled around, I felt as if I’d been watching an old friend skinned alive by a stand-up comedian who told really funny jokes as he wielded the knife.”

No link, alas, but the “Weekend Journal” section of the Friday Journal is definitely worth a buck, with or without me.

This exchange with Paul Johnson, author of Modern Times, was posted yesterday on National Review Online’s “The Corner.” (Several writers, myself included, were recently invited to supply questions for Johnson to be asked on a PBS show called Uncommon Knowledge. This is from the transcript–the show hasn’t aired yet.)

Q. Terry Teachout asks–

A. I know Terry Teachout. He’s a wonderful writer, especially on music.

Q. Terry would like to know if Paul Johnson has a favorite painting by Norman Rockwell.

A (after a long silence while he thinks). The one of the barbershop. All of his paintings are interesting and good and a lot of them are funny. But that is one which clearly has the right to be called a considerable work of work. The actual structure of the painting is marvelous.

The painting in question, by the way, is “Shuffleton’s Barber Shop,” and I agree.

A reader writes:

How does one go about discovering gems like your new Marin etching? I am just starting out and would like to replace my college-era posters with something more enduring, but I have absolutely no clue how or where to look for such things. I have contemplated purchasing several pieces in the past, but I find art galleries imposing and a little bit scary. How does one learn how to buy art? And how does one know if the prices are inflated? Sorry to burden you with such an odd request, but I can’t be the only one who is afraid to embark on this enterprise.

Nothing odd about it. I felt the same way when I first started going to galleries, though I think in my case it arose from a fear of looking dumb, coupled with the reflexive embarrassment that Midwestern WASPs feel at the thought of discussing money with strangers. But as Anthony Powell wrote in A Question of Upbringing, “Later in life, I learnt that many things one may require have to be weighed against one’s dignity, which can be an insuperable barrier against advancement in almost any direction.” The first step in the process of smashing through that barrier is screwing up your courage and saying to the ominous-looking person in charge, “Uh, what does that pretty purple-and-blue one cost?” Once you do this, you will have lost your virginity and can proceed at will. It only hurts the first time. Very often–though not always–you will quickly discover that the folks who run galleries are nice, helpful human beings who wouldn’t dream of embarrassing a potential customer. (Many galleries, by the way, have printed price lists of the works on display at the front desk. Ask.)

Are the prices inflated? Sometimes. How do you know? You don’t. That’s why God made computers. The Internet is without question the most valuable educational tool available to budding young art buyers, especially if you’re looking (as you should be) for “multiples,” meaning works of art which exist in multiple copies, i.e., etchings, woodcuts, or signed limited-edition lithographs and screenprints. Galleries dealing in multiples can be found in most major cities, and many of them also have Web sites. A good Web site features thumbnail images of the pieces in a gallery’s inventory (which can usually be enlarged). Most of the time it also includes prices, and if it doesn’t, all you have to do is send the gallery an e-mail asking for the price of a specific piece, which is less anxiety-inducing than asking in person. Once you’ve spent a few Web-browsing sessions engaged in competitive shopping, you’ll start to get a feel for whose prices are inflated and whose aren’t. Generally speaking, the Web has helped to bring on-line prices into broad accord, but I was looking for a particular Helen Frankenthaler screenprint last month and discovered that there was a $3,000 difference in price between the least and most expensive copies. (Guess which one I bought?)

Don’t buy art until you’ve looked at quite a bit of it, both off and on line, and know which artists speak to you most persuasively. The trick is to reconcile your tastes with your budget. I’m interested in American art, not only because I like it but because much of it is still affordable (also, there are a whole lot of phony European art prints out there). Many fine 19th- and 20th-century American artists have made prints of various kinds. Start looking, and see what you like best. Read art books. Use Google, searching for both the artist and the medium that interests you. I found my Marin etching by searching for “John Marin” and “etching.” Another useful code phrase is “fine prints,” which often (but not always) appears on the Web sites of galleries. Remember that inventories turn over, so don’t assume that just because you can’t find what you’re looking for this week, you’ll never be able to find it. Be patient.

What about eBay, you ask? Well, I’ve bought a couple of lovely pieces there, but I can’t recommend it to the novice buyer, simply because you don’t yet know enough to know whether you’re getting (A) an amazing bargain or (B) screwed. I came away clean both times, but I already knew a lot about the artists in question (Nell Blaine and Neil Welliver). Much better to stick to galleries until you find your footing.

Buying art on line isn’t nearly as risky as it sounds. Reputable dealers typically belong to the International Fine Print Dealers Association (whose Web site is a good place to start learning about prints) and advertise that fact on their sites. The more extensive and well-designed the site, the more likely the dealer in question has been around for a while. If you really want to play it safe, which is perfectly all right, the Metropolitan Museum of Art publishes and sells signed limited-edition prints on its Web site. I bought my first piece from them. You should also look at Crown Point Press, a much-admired publisher of prints by a wide assortment of American artists. Both of these sites are completely up front about pricing. Visit them and you’ll start to learn what things cost. In recent months, I’ve also bought from Jane Allinson, Rona Schneider, Flanders Contemporary Art , and K Kimpton , all of whom have good Web sites and are a pleasure to deal with. Tell them I sent you.

Tyler Green writes:

There is a whole room of Morandi up at Washington’s Hirshhorn Museum right now as part of their permanent collection show, “Gyroscope.” It’s a large, cavernous, dark room with no natural light. Each wall is about 20-25 feet long…and has just one tiny, precious, divine Morandi on it. It’s a heckuva installation.

I’m there, baby. What time does the next Metroliner leave?

P.S. Jazz singer Kendra Shank writes to say that she liked Karen Wilkin’s quote about Morandi: “For anyone who pays attention, the microcosm of Morandi’s tabletop world becomes vast, the space between objects immense, pregnant, and expressive.” She adds that “the same could be said about Shirley Horn‘s singing.” Could it ever….