Overheard at lunch: “When it comes to dating, we’re all Dorothy Parkers under the skin.”
Here’s the scary part: the person I overheard saying it was me….
Archives for May 2005
TT: Off the aisle
From Playbill:
John Simon, who has been theatre critic at New York magazine for newly 40 years, has been dismissed from that position, the critic told Playbill.com.
“I expected it,” he said May 10, when asked if New York editor Adam Moss’ decision took him by surprise. “Then again, my birthday is coming up, so I didn’t think it was a very good birthday present.”
Jeremy McCarter, theatre critic for the New York Sun, was named as Simon’s replacement. McCarter’s first review for New York will appear June 1.
Simon is known equally for his considerable erudition, his longevity as a critic (he is 79) and his vituperative style. His stinging reviews–particularly his sometimes vicious appraisals of performers’ physical appearances–have periodically raised calls in the theatre community for his removal.
The timing of the firing is somewhat ironic. This fall, Applause Books will publish three volumes of Simon’s collected works: one on his theatre writing, one on music, one on film.
Simon also said he’s not ready to lay down the pen. “I still feel quite chipper. I don’t feel my writing has somehow faded. If I felt tired, I’d stop, but I don’t feel that way.”
Read the whole thing here.
I’m sorry to see this happen. As the saying goes, John Simon has forgotten more about theater than I’ll ever know. For all the controversies he stirred up over the years, he was and is a critic of the very first rank, not least because of his ability to place what he sees on stage in so wide and deeply informed a cultural context. Even when I disagree with him, I take no one else’s opinions as seriously.
Simon’s departure from New York will be news. It should be.
OGIC:
I know it is far more fashionable these days to bash the ipod than to praise it. But I love mine, and I don’t use it in any of the ways that seem to be so obnoxious to people. The earbuds drive me crazy, and I find it unsettling in any case to walk down the street less than fully aware of my surroundings (I was never big on the Walkman either). So for the first year and a half of my pod ownership, I basically used it only in the car with an FM transmitter. This doesn’t work in the city, meaning that the only times I used my bauble were on road trips to Detroit, when, on top of playing my favorite music, it drowned out the whining of the cat in the box in the back. Then last Christmas I requested and received a neat little speaker system, thereby increasing my ipod use probably tenfold.
Until today, these were the only two ways I used the ipod with any regularity. Today, however, I found a third good use for it: to help me get through an unpleasant visit to the dentist on the occasion of my first filling in twenty years. In this context, I was well pleased with my toy. But my experience does raise the question: what’s the best music to have a tooth filled by?
I adopted a strategy of trial and error: I set the ipod to shuffle, positioned my thumb near the forward button, and resolved to skip or not skip songs according to the principle of utter impulsiveness. And I skipped almost everything, which may just have been nervous energy. But out of all the songs the shuffler served up, what most pleased me was music from Sufjan Stevens’s Greetings from Michigan, the Great Lakes State (thanks, Cinetrix). It soothed without stultifying, and was just the thing. Turns out, however, that today’s dental drills put their 1985 counterparts to shame, and the whole ordeal lasted barely long enough to be called an ordeal at all, or even to necessitate the services of the itranquilizer. Still good to know that Stevens does the trick, though.
TT: Entries from an unkept diary
– I was channel-surfing the other night and ran across Auto Focus, Paul Schrader’s biopic about the unsolved murder of Bob Crane, the star of Hogan’s Heroes. I didn’t see it when it came out in 2002, so I watched the first part out of curiosity. At first I was struck by the concept–a straight-arrow radio host stumbles into sitcom stardom, learns that he can have pretty much anything he wants for the asking, and turns into a full-fledged sex addict–but within a half-hour or so I found myself growing bored. The problem, as is so often the case with fictionalized biography, is that life and art aren’t the same thing. No matter how many liberties you take with the life of Bob Crane, you’re still stuck in the end with a man who was either dull or ultimately unknowable, neither of which makes for an engrossing narrative.
One of the best examples I know of a work of narrative art based on a real-life model is Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, a novel about a southern politician who at first glance closely resembles Huey Long. What sets All the King’s Men apart from lesser works in the same genre is that Willie Stark isn’t Huey Long, but a made-up character based on Huey Long. For the most part, his life, both interior and exterior, has been imagined, not adapted, which is one of the reasons why All the King’s Men is a great novel, not a clever roman
TT: Mailbag
I upended the mailbag yesterday, and here’s some of what fell out:
– “I get my news from the Internet exclusively now. I graze, I move from site to site, follow links to interesting stories, etc. And I haven’t watched a major network news show in 15 years–when the Dan Rather flapdoodle about the forged memo hit the net and I got to see some pix of Dan, I was shocked–Jesus, he looks old and ugly. Then I realized, I hadn’t seen his mug since 1990. Yeah, it is a revolution, and I am glad to see it. But I do miss the act of picking up a paper every day and reading it on the train to work.”
– “I’d appreciate help completing the following sentence: ‘If you like Duke Ellington’s Never No Lament
and Count Basie’s The Atomic Mr. Basie, you’ll love —– .’ Also, what are the quintessential Louis Armstrong recordings to get my nascent jazz collection moving in that direction?”
The second question is easy. If you don’t have any Armstrong, start with Sony’s The Essential Louis Armstrong, a two-CD set containing 37 tracks, most of which are in fact either essential Armstrong or close to it.
As for the first question, I know where my correspondent is coming from, but I’m not sure where–or how far–he wants to go. That being the case, I’ll point in opposite directions. For a taste of one of the classic big bands of the Thirties at its hottest, try Benny Goodman’s On the Air (1937-1938). For a taste of state-of-the-art big-band music circa right this minute, try Bob Brookmeyer’s Get Well Soon. No promises, but both CDs are personal favorites of mine.
– “I am too lazy to go back to your post to find the exact wording, but if memory serves me even reasonably well, you wrote
that recently you had a difficult time enjoying breakfast because a rather harsh voice was distracting you in the extreme. Years ago I met a man who was introducing me to the gustatory joys of sushi. Up until that time I guess I had a preconceived notion that I wouldn’t enjoy the food. He then said rather wisely, at least I thought it wise, ‘Don’t let your head get in the way of your stomach.’ The words hit me over the head like a jackhammer through concrete….So, Mr. Teachout, keep writing your wonderful blog, and don’t let your ears get in the way of your stomach.”
That’s good advice, and like all good advice, it’s easier heard than taken. Nevertheless, I’ll do my damnedest.
– “I have quite recently become enamored of your blog, but when today you mentioned
having been in New York for twenty years (thus allowing me to extrapolate your actual age), I was puzzled despite myself. I know you’re not in your twenties anymore, but somehow I cannot shake the feeling that I’m reading the reflections of a young man-about-town in his native New York. I will attribute this to the freshness and vitality of your observations and commentary even after years spent critiquing the arts. Kudos to you and Our Girl for an enlightening blog that still manages to be far from a chore to read. It’s a rare find in the arts world.”
– “Consider this quote: ‘No matter how long you have been here, you are a New Yorker the first time you say, That used to be Munsey’s, or That used to be the Tic Toc Lounge…when what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now’ (Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York: A City in Thirteen
Parts). And congratulations on your remarkable career!”
– “I am on the cusp of sixty and can advise you that the nostalgia attacks continue unexpected and acute.”
Thanks to you all for the kind words–and the warning.
TT: Almanac
“I think there would be something wrong with an elderly man who could enjoy Firbank.”
Evelyn Waugh, Paris Review interview (1963)
TT: After a fashion
I’m back, sort of, almost.
I spent Friday and Saturday at a rustic resort in the Catskills, totally out of touch with the world (no cell phone, no computer). On Saturday I read a Shakespeare sonnet at a wedding that took place in a green meadow by a running brook, then partied the night away with a queen-sized gaggle of musicians led by the Lascivious Biddies (one of whom was the bride in question, the other three serving as her bridesmaids). I’m not sure refreshed is the exact word for the way I felt come Sunday morning, but I sure was happy.
As always, life intrudes on such finite interludes of bliss, so I arose, breakfasted with a bunch of equally happy, equally bleary-eyed people, hopped in my rented car, drove back to Manhattan, and went straight to a revival of She Stoops to Conquer, about which more Friday. Then I had dinner, returned home, unpacked my bag, chatted on the phone with Our Girl in Chicago, and realized that I was still suffering from the aftereffects of recently having written close to 20,000 words. I prescribed for myself a good night’s sleep, followed by a day of very moderate literary endeavor, i.e., none. I might even take a walk!
Full-scale activities resume on Tuesday and continue through the week: deadlines (one compulsory, one self-imposed), performances (four plays, one night at the ballet), appointments of various kinds, yet another trip to Washington, and, as always, blogging. Even when I’m gone, you’re not forgotten.
See you Tuesday.
TT: Tell me more
Laurette Taylor’s performance as Amanda Wingfield in the original 1945 production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie is the most vividly remembered piece of acting ever to have taken place on an American stage. Yet nothing remains of it but memories and a few still photographs–some of which can be seen here–since Taylor made no sound films save for the brief screen test included in Broadway: The Golden Age (a documentary you’ve absolutely got to see, assuming you haven’t already). The greatness of her acting is thus like the greatness of Nijinsky’s dancing: all who saw her agree on it, but the rest of us must take it on faith.
Or…must we?
After reading that Times story, I did a bit of fugitive Googling, and found something that sent my jaw dropping floorward. It’s from the Web site of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, which is where Taylor’s private papers ended up. I was looking at the HRCRC’s description of its Taylor collection when I stumbled onto this statement:
A number of published works and recordings were transferred to the HRHRC book collection….Taylor’s recordings, mostly 78 RPM, include The Glass Menagerie (1945); a 1939 WJZ radio broadcast of Peg O’ My Heart; Among My Souvenirs (1943); a segment of We The People (1945); a Rudy Vallee radio program (1939); and a very early 1913 voice recording trial done of Laurette Taylor in New York.
Excuse me? Am I the last to learn that that there is a sound recording of some portion of Taylor’s legendary performance in The Glass Menagerie? Or is its existence not widely known to scholars of American theater in general and Tennessee Williams’ work in particular?
If anybody out there in the blogosphere knows anything at all about this recording, starting with whether or not it really exists, I’d like to hear from you. And if you happen to live in Austin and have access to it (assuming it does in fact exist), I’d really like to hear from you.