You know whose sex scenes always advance the plot and deepen our knowledge of the characters? John Sayles.
UPDATE: A reader writes: “Who else’s sex scenes always advance the plot–Jane Austen.”
Archives for December 2004
TT: Turn your radio on
I’ll be on WNYC’s Soundcheck this afternoon, talking about George Balanchine’s version of The Nutcracker, which figures prominently (big surprise) in All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine.
If you live in the New York City area and expect to be near a radio at two p.m. EST, tune in 93.9 FM and give a listen.
If not, go to the Soundcheck Web page, where you can listen to the program from anywhere in the world on your computer, either via live streaming audio or by accessing the Soundcheck online archive.
See you on the radio, as Charles Osgood says. (At least I think it’s him.)
UPDATE: It’s all done, and it was great fun. (I always love doing Soundcheck.) If you didn’t hear me live, check out the archived broadcast.
TT: Extra-special bonus quote
It can’t be a full-fledged almanac entry unless I can source it precisely (please keep this in mind when sending in quotations), but Patrick Wahl e-mailed me an undated excerpt from a USA Today story about the new U2 album, and I liked it so much that I had to pass it along anyway:
Dismantling [How to Dismantle an Atomic] Bomb‘s origins, Bono recalls an early
version of “Vertigo” that was massaged, hammered,
tweaked and lubed before it sailed through two mixes
and got U2’s unanimous stamp of “very good,” which
meant not good enough.
“Very good,” Bono says, “is the enemy of great. You
think great is right next door. It’s not. It’s in
another country.”
Well said, Mr. Bono, sir.
TT: A little list
Last month I asked you
you to recommend a book or two for me to read, specifying that it be “short, intelligent, amusing, reasonably easy to find, and no more than modestly demanding.” Here are the recommendations I received in return:
– The Beginning of Spring, by Penelope Fitzgerald
– Berlin Noir, a trilogy by Phillip Kerr
– Billie Dyer, by William Maxwell
– The Birth of the Modern, by Paul Johnson
– The Book Against God, by James Wood
– A Chance Meeting, by Rachel Cohen
– The Collected Stories of Peter Taylor
– The Dalkey Archive, by Flann O’Brien
– The Diary of Helena Morley (translated by Elizabeth Bishop)
– Dwarf Rapes Nun; Flees in UFO, by Arnold Sawislak
– Evenings with the Orchestra, by Hector Berlioz
– The Feud, by Thomas Berger
– Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig
– Hooking Up, by Tom Wolfe
– Journey to the Land of the Flies, by Aldo Buzzi
– Love and War in the Appenines, by Eric Newby
– Georges Simenon’s Maigret novels
– A New Life, by Bernard Malamud
– O, My America!, by Johanna Kaplan
– The Old Man at the Railroad Crossing, by William Maxwell
– An Old Man’s Love, by Anthony Trollope
– An Open Book, by Michael Dirda
– The Provincial Lady in Soviet Russia, by E.M. Delafield
– The Pushcart War, by Jean Merrill
– Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation, by William Gass
– The Rebbetzin, by Chaim Grade
– The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, by Gary Shteyngart
– A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, by Eric Newby
– Tempest Tost, by Robertson Davies
– Thursday Next, a series of novels by Jasper Fforde
– The Total View of Taftly, by Scott Morris
– The Tunnel, by William H. Gass
– Wakefield, by Andrei Codrescu
– What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, by Daniel Pool
For the record, one of the books on this list is an all-time personal favorite, and I’m mentioned at length (not favorably, either!) in another one. The really great thing about the list, though, is that I’ve only read six of the books on it, if you count the dozen-odd Maigret novels I’ve read over the years as one superbook. I’m amazed and delighted (if not surprised) by the wide-ranging taste of the readers of “About Last Night,” and I plan to take advantage of it in the coming weeks and months. Thanks to you all.
P.S. To the comedian who recommended The Birth of the Modern, I ask, what’s your idea of a long book?
TT: Almanac
“Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool–good luck.”
George Sanders, suicide note (1972)
TT: Prize packages
Nobody in the business takes the classical-music Grammies seriously, even when deserving albums are nominated (which happens more often than you might think). The jazz Grammies are different, even when undeserving albums are nominated (which also happens more often than you might think), for a timely nomination can give a significant boost to an artist’s career. Thus it’s with the greatest of pleasure that I take note of the fact that several “About Last Night” faves got the nod last week:
– For best large jazz ensemble album, Bob Brookmeyer‘s Get Well Soon and Maria Schneider‘s Concert in the Garden.
– For best instrumental composition, Schneider’s “Buler
TT: Randomizer
– Reflections in D Minor, one of the art-and-life blogs I read regularly, distributed its First Annual Me Too Weblog Awards the other day. I won one: “The Professional Journalist Who Actually Gets Blogging Award.” This pleased me no end, in part because I remember the fuss I kicked up by posting my notes on blogging several months ago (and yes, it was presumptuous of me!).
A steadily growing number of professional journalists have waded into the blogosphere since Our Girl and I set up shop in this space, some of whom clearly get it and some of whom just as clearly don’t. It’s not for me to say to which category I belong, but one thing I do know is that I’ve tried to get it–that is, to approach blogging on its own distinctive terms. I’m glad to see that Reflections in D Minor agrees.
If I were handing out my own set of awards, by the way, I’d give a similar one to Alex Ross, whose page started out as a boring old links-to-my-print-media-stuff billboard but evolved with impressive and gratifying speed into a bonafide blog. Alex gets it, too.
– A great conductor died the other day, but hardly anybody noticed, and I doubt that many readers of this blog would have known his name. Yet Frederick Fennell was one of the most gifted and individual conductors of the century just past. The reason why he failed to make a significant impression on the listening public-at-large was that he spent virtually the whole of his career conducting concert bands. What John Philip Sousa started, Fennell finished by founding the Eastman Wind Ensemble in 1952. Together with that peerless group, he made a long series of band recordings for Mercury whose vigor, precision, and technical finesse have never been equaled, much less surpassed. One of them, Percy Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy, is in my opinion one of the greatest recordings of the 20th century–and note that I didn’t say “greatest band recordings,” either.
The New York Times published a too-short obituary of Fennell that ends with this anecdote, circulated via e-mail by Cathy Martensen, Fennell’s daughter:
Ms. Martensen recounted that on his deathbed Mr. Fennell said, “I cannot die without a drummer.” She added that his last words were: “I hear him. I’m O.K. now.”
I hope I have the presence of mind to say something half so appropriate when the Distinguished Thing pays me a call.
– A reader wrote to ask if I’d post a list of my favorite Christmas albums and/or songs. Truth to tell, I’m not fond of very many pop-music Christmas albums, most of which run to the cheesy (this one being an obvious exception). I do, however, have a favorite Christmas song, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” It’s a simple, graceful ballad that just happens to be about Christmas, and it rarely fails to move me to tears. Though it’s been recorded hundreds of times, I still think Judy Garland’s first version is the best. (That’s how you can tell I’m straight, all superficial cultural indications to the contrary: I prefer Garland’s early recordings.)
As for classical-style albums, I have two particular favorites, Robert Shaw’s elegantly sung Songs of Angels: Christmas Hymns and Carols and the King’s College Choir’s recording of Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, a modern masterpiece that, like “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” just happens to be about Christmas.
– Speaking of A Ceremony of Carols, which is one of every self-respecting harpist’s top five bread-and-butter pieces (it’s scored for boys’ choir and harp), I’ve been meaning for weeks now to plug one of the smartest blogs in the ‘sphere, Helen Radice’s twang twang twang. Radice is a professional harpist who lives in England and blogs about her everyday life as a working musician, not infrequently pausing to make amplifying remarks that have a way of sticking in my mind:
It is hard to play classical music if you bottle up what you feel. Traditionally it is not concerned with spectacle and focuses instead on the emotional, the spiritual, and so on. But when you go on stage you put on a show, acting confident when you don’t feel confident. And despite the adage that courage is acting bravely no matter how scared you really are, because in music you cannot lie, it is not the same. I love show business, but it is not the same.
I don’t know a thing about Radice other than what she posts on her blog, but I sure wish she’d move to Manhattan and start hanging with all the other New York-based bloggers. I bet she’d fit right in.
– A lot of music on the blog this morning, huh? (Even the almanac entry is about an imaginary composer.) Don’t ask me how I got so preoccupied, though it could have something to do with the fact that I just made a megacool new friend who is, like Helen Radice, a working musician. That might explain why my mind has been running in musical circles for the past few days. No doubt a better balance will reassert itself as the week wears on…
– …or not. I have three or four print-media pieces to write this week before heading for Smalltown, U.S.A, on Saturday morning (I’m thinking of trying to wheedle a week’s grace out of one of my more susceptible editors), so I don’t expect to post with my usual demoralizing regularity. I’ll do my best to at least keep my hand in, though, and I’ll also be bringing my iBook home for the holidays, so don’t worry about going cold turkey. I’ll be around.
Now excuse the hell out of me while I go make some money….
TT: Almanac
“He began to laugh uncontrollably, quite in the old manner. Then, with an effort, he stopped. He was almost breathless, coughing hard. At the end of this near paroxysm he looked less ill, more exhausted. The information had greatly cheered him.
“‘No, really, that’s too much. Am I to be suffocated by nostalgia? Will that be my end? I should not be at all surprised. I can see the headline:
MUSICIAN DIES OF NOSTALGIA
“‘They’d put someone like Gossage on to the obit. “Mr. Hugh Moreland–probably just Hugh Moreland these days–(writes our Music Critic), at a fashionable gathering last night–I’m sure Gossage still talks about fashionable gatherings–succumbed to an acute attack of nostalgia, a malady to which he had been a martyr for years. His best-known works, etc., etc….”‘”
Anthony Powell, Temporary Kings