Archives for December 3, 2003

I spent yesterday afternoon hanging out in a recording studio in midtown Manhattan, watching a friend of mine, a jazz singer from Brazil, record her next album. She was in the vocal booth when I arrived, so I slipped discreetly into the control room and took a seat in front of the board. As soon as she was finished, she burst out of the booth, ran into the control room, gave me a hug and said, “Guess what? I took my citizenship test this morning. I passed!“

A little background: my friend is as Brazilian as it’s possible to be, but she’s lived here for many years and decided some time ago to become an American citizen. It touched me to the heart when she told me of her plans. Not only do I have a special love for American art (the pieces collected in A Terry Teachout Reader are all about American art and artists, and except for a lone Bonnard, my collection of works on paper is all-American), but jazz has always seemed to me uniquely emblematic of the American national character. Somehow this made my friend’s decision all the more moving.

I knew she was taking the test that day, and I had every reason to assume she’d pass it with flying colors, so I was ready for her news. I opened my shoulder bag and took out a neatly wrapped present (neatly wrapped by somebody else, needless to say!). The card was a reproduction of a John Marin watercolor, and the gift was three albums of music by Aaron Copland: Quiet City, the Third Symphony, Old American Songs, Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, and a two-CD set of the complete piano music. I couldn’t think of a better way to welcome my beloved friend to my beloved country. Neither could she.

“The price of purity is purists.”

Calvin Trillin, American Fried: Adventures of a Happy Eater

I got up this morning, turned on the computer, tried to check my e-mail, and nothing happened. Neither was I able to get on the Web. I figured it was a transient problem with my high-speed connection, so I spent a pleasant morning not doing e-mail, surfing the Web, or posting to the blog. Come lunchtime, though, I began to suspect a problem. A call to a neighbor established that her high-speed service was just fine, so I called up the cable company, negotiated the thicket of automated possibilities, made contact with a live human being, and told him what was wrong. He suggested I make sure the power cord on the modem was plugged in securely. It wasn’t. Apparently I’d knocked it part way out of the wall. And did I feel dumb? You bet.

Anyway, that’s why I didn’t post anything this morning. (I did, however, enjoy watching some of the hitherto-unviewed TV shows I recorded on my Magic Digital Cable Box in recent days.) And now I have to get ready for a Mencken-related radio phoner to Chicago, so it may be a while before I write anything substantial.

Two things, briefly: (1) Welcome back, OGIC! (2) I just saw a dummy of the dust jacket for A Terry Teachout Reader, complete with Fairfield Porter lithograph. It looks way cool.

Now I’ll see if anything else is unplugged, arrgh….

As of now, Our Girl in Chicago has a separate “About Last Night” mailbox. Look in the top module of the right-hand column under WRITE US and you’ll see it.

Click on tteachout@artsjournal.com to write directly to Terry. Click on ogic@artsjournal.com to write directly to Our Girl.

We know we promised this a couple of weeks ago, so thanks for being patient.

Here’s a trayful of food for thought from the Blogosphere Cafeteria.

From Eve Tushnet:

Anyone who is or feels herself radically opposed to the currents of the day is liable to feel that her own account of her life is “unrealistic.” Her perspective is not realist. Her perspective is fantastic, outside, genre.

“Realism” only works for people whose worldviews are already accepted as realistic. The rest of us must make do with genre.

From BuzzMachine:

In this age of transparency — of constant cable news and C-Span’s unblinking eye and instant online wire reports and mobile alerts and full transcripts online and more video here and weblog links to coverage everywhere and automated Google news searches and, in sum, the commoditization of news — the role of the newsman has utterly changed … but that news hasn’t caught up to the newsmen yet.

It used to be, we depended on them to tell us what is happening (and some prided themselves on doing it better than others). Those days are over. Toast. “What happened” is the commodity; we can find out what happened anywhere anytime….

We can all see all the news and judge for ourselves what’s news and what isn’t, what’s real and what isn’t, what’s important and what isn’t, and often what’s true and what isn’t.

Do reporters and editors still have a role in the news we can all see (as opposed to the news they dig up)? Don’t know yet, do we?

From Household Opera:

I finished grading a round of papers only to discover a documentable plagiarism case. I hate having to deal with that kind of thing. I hate having to give the stern “You’re looking at an F on the assignment, a very unpleasant meeting with the dean of students, and academic probation” lecture. Even more than that, I hate it when these cases disrupt my usual working assumption that we’re all adults and I don’t have to yell at anyone for intellectual dishonesty….

From Mixolydian Mode:

I hate most familiar Christmas music. Some of the carols are very good, but when there’s no escape from them they cease to be a pleasure. Other tunes aren’t so good; has there ever been a more Orwellian song than “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”?

God bless us, every one.

Fellow blogger Sarah Weinman writes:

Don’t know why it took me so long to read your piece about The Producers, but I agree wholeheartedly, and I enjoyed it immensely when I saw the original cast
back in June of 2001, I think, or at least 2 months after opening night, when Lane/Broderick et al were still relatively fresh in the roles.

I love musicals, and have ever since I was a child. I grew up on the stuff. But I’m decidedly uninterested in those made after about, oh, 1970 or so (and that includes most of Sondheim’s works), because so much
has been sacrificed in the name of glitzy production values, “Broadway voices” that aren’t even based on the style of old, and good, solid songwriting instead of this over-the-top stuff that Lloyd Webber and his
followers seem to specialize in. And that’s not bringing up the Disney adaptations or the rock-opera productions.

So I’m a complete reactionary and I’m proud of it, which was why I enjoyed THE PRODUCERS–it’s a throwback to those earlier days, when the jokes were broad, the sensibility all over the place, and the pace
absolutely madcap. Would it hold up if it had opened, say, in the 1950s? I doubt it. Compared to the way things are now, it’s wonderful. Compared to even some of the failures and flops of decades past, it probably would have been killed by the critics. Context is everything.

I always thought THE PRODUCERS was an anomaly. Was very glad it was a hit, but I didn’t see it inspiring a return to old-fashioned type musicals. It’s just too expensive to put such things on. So I’ll be sorry to see the show go, but I’m glad I saw it near the beginning, when there was much enthusiasm in the air.

Thanks, Sarah. Well said.