– No show Monday. In addition, I spent most of the afternoon and evening playing catch-up–answering accumulated e-mail, working on my calendar, running long-deferred errands–and thus wasn’t able to spend much time consuming art. Fortunately, I did have time to start watching John Huston’s The Misfits, which I’d never seen, and I liked the first half-hour a lot better than I’d expected. (I normally can’t stand Arthur Miller, but his dialogue sounds rather more plausible when spoken by Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe.) More as it happens.
UPDATE: It got awful, alas.
– I read most of Sam Staggs’ Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream over lunch and while waiting for an appointment. Alas, it’s too campy and not nearly as detailed as Aljean Harmetz’s Round Up the Usual Suspects, but I liked it well enough.
– Now playing on iTunes: Teddy Wilson’s “Jungle Love,” featuring Bobby Hackett on cornet and Johnny Hodges on alto sax, available on this two-CD set of great Wilson sides from the Thirties and Forties. Talk about suave! Fred Astaire would have approved.