Archives for October 2003

Once upon a time I read the book proposal for The Last of the Duchess, and felt the frisson generated by Lady Caroline Blackwood’s worldly, aggressive wit right down to my parochial midwestern bones. The book tells her story of trying to complete a newspaper assignment to interview the Duchess of Windsor but being blocked at every turn by Simpson’s perversely, intrepidly protective 80-something lawyer–sort of

I love the tech guys. They fixed my iBook with the greatest of ease yesterday (which may just mean I’m a ninny) and sent me home with a lollipop. Okay, not really, but it does strike me that whenever they see me I’m in the state of elevated panic you’d expect from a hypochondriac in a doctor’s office. The hushed tones, the urgent appeals, the excessive display of gratitude and relief when they make everything better… did I say “love”? I meant “worship the ground they tread.”

I see Terry’s been no slouch while I’ve been gone. In case you missed it and aren’t feeling inclined to scroll, this post on the ubiquity of Kind of Blue was a highlight.

Thanks to those who have sent me email. It has been trickling in this week from Terry. I’ll answer it over the next few days, whether in email or right here. And now for some blogging.

Terry posted here yesterday about Kevin Pollak’s silent impression of Robert DeNiro. I couldn’t let the opportunity pass without mentioning another great wordless impersonation, the comedian-actor Richard Belzer’s shambling full-body rendition of Ronald Reagan.

I only wish I had a link; but if you ever catch Belzer on a late-night talk show, he’s likely to be pressed by the host into doing it. (His Mick Jagger employs the same m.o., but isn’t half as uncanny.)

A reader writes with further observations on the Observer 100:

I’m no expert on the contents but I would note the language barrier protecting this list: Of the 100 “greatest novels of all time,” I believe that 15 were not written in English. There are but two in Russian–meaning that On the Road, which did make the list, is “greater” than all the other output of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and the rest. Note also that there is apparently only one Spanish author as good as Kerouac (Cervantes), and none who’s ever written in any Asian language. Point would be not that anyone should attempt a list of “the world’s greatest,” since that would be nearly impossible for a number of reasons. Rather, couldn’t the editors of the Observer have come up with a slightly less grandiose header for their efforts?

Indeed. The Observer has now published reader reaction, including some comments from readers of note. They have also added the 50 books shaken in their faces must huffily by irate readers. This may be more interesting than the original list.

Meanwhile, Roger L. Simon’s list of his 20 greatest movies–er, make that 23–is more satisfying. It sure is easy to tell the difference between a list compiled by committee and one put together by a single, discerning organizing intelligence. I also like the way his commenters goaded him into adding Jean Vigo’s madly exuberant Zero for Conduct, which in an ideal world would be a hell of a lot easier to see. Maybe one of Chicago’s many fine art movie houses could be persuaded to show it sometime soon.

In case you haven’t heard, Book Magazine, for which I used to write regularly and with pleasure, is closing down.

Sure, Book had its problems, and its relationship with Barnes & Noble was inevitably tricky, but the bottom line is this: Yet another publication devoted to books and authors has bitten the dust.

All of which strongly suggests (once again, and at least to me) that the future of high-culture journalism is on the Web.

“The question of capital punishment arising in connection with In Cold Blood, he says, ‘At least in England they don’t keep them waiting about for five or ten years.’ I point out that in the Christie case they should have and ask whether he thinks the death sentence is ever justifiable. ‘Well, there have been people on whom I can picture it being carried out. [Bertolt] Brecht, for one. In fact I can imagine doing it to him myself. It might even have been rather enjoyable, when the time came, to have been able to say to him, “Now let’s step outside.” I’d have given him a good last meal, of course. Still, you must admire the logic of a man who lives in a Communist country, takes out Austrian citizenship, does his banking in Switzerland, and, like a gambler hedging his bets, sends for the pastor at the end in case there could be something in that, too.'”

W.H. Auden, in conversation with Robert Craft (quoted in Craft’s Stravinsky: Chronicle of a Friendship)

A reader writes:

I appreciated Monteux’s comments on audiences. Interestingly enough, my experience is almost always otherwise here in Houston. Audiences applaud when they feel like it, and are quite enthusiastic (if I were writing for the Eastern media, perhaps the obligatory comment about “cowboys” goes here…). Houston is quite friendly and rather friendly to the arts. Our symphony and ballet are in the black the last time I checked. Ditto theater. We’re second tier in the arts world, but an honest second.

Some years ago my wife noted the transformation, over his tenure, of conductor Sergiu Comissiona as he slowly went from “tolerating” the not-at-the-end-of-the-piece applause … to welcoming and appreciating it. We aren’t boors, we just enjoy what we like and are here to have a good time.

Actually, I’ve always thought Houston was a terrific arts town–good orchestra, good ballet company, close enough to Fort Worth that you can zip over and see the Kimbell Art Museum, which ranks right up there with the Cleveland and the Nelson-Atkins in Kansas City in my cool-museums-from-elsewhere book. So I’m more than pleased to hear that the citizenry of Houston is enlightened when it comes to having a good time in the concert hall.

Not to be obvious, but maybe it isn’t so obvious: The first responsibility of art is to give pleasure. If it doesn’t, I’m out of there, or wish I were. (Alas, being the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal means never getting to say, “Wow, this really blows, want to leave at intermission?”)

I occasionally find in my blogmailbox a teasing note from a reader who feels the need to point out that this blog is supposed to be about the arts in New York City. And so it was, three months ago, and so it usually is today, but in my own mind I now render the subtitle of “About Last Night” as follows: “Terry Teachout in New York City on the arts (with additional dialogue by Our Girl in Chicago).” It’s true that New York is the arts capital of America, and maybe even the whole world, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t important and interesting things constantly happening all over the place. Sometimes I note these IAITs from afar, and sometimes I get on a plane (shudder) and go see for myself. Earlier this month, for instance, I paid visits to Raleigh, N.C., and St. Louis, Mo., about which I’ve been meaning to tell you, so now I will.

As regular readers know, I take a serious interest in the activities of Carolina Ballet, America’s youngest ballet company, and since it won’t come to me, I go to it. On my last visit (which took place, you may recall, mere hours after the Great Hard-Drive Crash of 2003), I saw two different programs of new and recent ballets. Robert Weiss, the artistic director, did himself proud with a pair of dances accompanied by string quartet. The first, Grosse Fuge, seemed on paper like a terrible mistake, or at least a high-risk proposition. Why would anybody in his right mind dare to make a dance accompanied by Beethoven’s knottiest, most rebarbative string quartet, 16 minutes of ultra-fraught counterpoint? Well, Weiss did, and it’s something to see.

Though he’s a disciple of George Balanchine, Weiss rarely makes plotless pure-dance ballets in the manner of the master, and when he does, they tend to have a poetic overlay or subtext. Grosse Fuge, for instance, interweaves two corps of dancers, one dressed in white and the other in black, making simultaneous reference to the Black Swan/White Swan dichotomy of Swan Lake and to the famous M.C. Escher drawing in which a flock of birds seems to change color in mid-flight. The result is a complex, richly watchable ballet (I’ve seen it three times) that has the same kind of emotional resonance as Balanchine’s Serenade, another nominally “plotless” ballet which is actually full of mysterious events and encounters.

On the same bill was Des Images, choreographed by Weiss to the Ravel String Quartet (which is, by the way, an absolutely perfect piece of music–I can’t imagine why it hasn’t been previously used by a major choreographer). Here, the poetic content is explicit: Des Images is a ballet about the making of a ballet, with costumes and lighting by Jeff A.R. Jones and Ross Kolman inspired by the dance-themed paintings and pastels of Edgar Degas. If any of this sounds obvious to you, rest assured that the results are completely involving, a Robbins-like theatrical concept realized in Balanchine-like movement to wholly personal effect. No set, but the hot, high-keyed colors of Kolman’s lighting plunge you into the world of late Degas so effectively that you don’t feel the absence of a backdrop.

As for Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s Lost and Found, I wrote about it in the Journal two weeks ago in connection with the 9/11 plays currently afflicting New York theatergoers. If you didn’t see that piece, here’s what I said:

I flew down to North Carolina in between “Omnium Gatherum” and “Recent Tragic Events,” where I saw Carolina Ballet dance the premiere of Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s “Lost and Found,” a remarkably poetic dance about–you guessed it–9/11. Ms. Taylor-Corbett has taken some of the postures and gestures of grief she saw in New York City two years ago and woven them into an abstract ballet (set to Schumann’s “Symphonic Etudes”) that scrupulously shuns melodrama and portentousness and is all the more poignant for it. I mention “Lost and Found” because it reminded me of a remark made by the great dance critic Edwin Denby: “Ballet is the one form of theater where nobody speaks a foolish word all evening–nobody on the stage at least. That’s why it becomes so popular in any civilized country during a war.” Need I say more?

Here in New York, we occasionally use the word “provincial” to describe artistic events taking place in medium-sized cities–sometimes invidiously, sometimes not. I suppose you could call Raleigh a “provincial” city, but there was nothing even remotely provincial about these new dances, or about Carolina Ballet. The only problem is that you have to go to Raleigh to see the company (which I don’t consider a problem–I like Raleigh–but it does entail my getting on a plane). In a better-regulated universe, Carolina Ballet would dance for a week each season in New York and Washington, and the critics in those benighted cities would say, Gee, look what we’ve been missing! All I can say is, I’m glad I’m not missing it.

Time’s up, so I’ll write about the St. Louis Art Museum’s “German Art Now” exhibit tomorrow, or maybe the next day. Still, you get the idea, right? New York’s just fine, I wouldn’t live anywhere else, but it doesn’t have a monopoly on anything worth having. Remember that the next time you wish you lived here.