Archives for August 2006

“I have never thought that painting a picture has anything to do with self-expression. It is a communication about the world to someone else. After the world is convinced about this communication, it changes. The world was never the same after Picasso or Mir

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway and off-Broadway shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows strongly favorable reviews in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

Warning: Broadway shows marked with an asterisk were sold out, or nearly so, last week.

BROADWAY:

– Avenue Q* (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

– The Drowsy Chaperone (musical, G/PG-13, mild sexual content and a profusion of double entendres, reviewed here)

– The Lieutenant of Inishmore (black comedy, R, adult subject matter and extremely graphic violence, reviewed here)

– Sweeney Todd (musical, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes Sept. 3)

– The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee* (musical, PG-13, mostly family-friendly but contains a smattering of strong language and a production number about an unwanted erection, reviewed here)

– The Wedding Singer (musical, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

– Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris (musical revue, R, adult subject matter and sexual content, reviewed here)

– Pig Farm (comedy, PG-13, some sexual content, reviewed here, closes Sept. 3)

– Slava’s Snowshow (performance art, G, child-friendly, reviewed here)

CLOSING SOON:

– Faith Healer* (drama, R, adult subject matter, reviewed here, closes Aug. 13)

CLOSING SUNDAY:

– Bridge & Tunnel* (solo show, PG-13, some adult subject matter, reviewed here)

“Andrew had never had any first-hand experience of the majestic frivolity of the law; and his attitude towards it was rather more that of the man in the street than might have been expected in a person of his intelligence. He believed that lawyers everywhere were a pack of rogues, but that once a cause was delivered into their hands, somehow or other the Right must inevitably triumph. At the same time, the mere thought of becoming involved in its processes filled him with horror. The sight of even the most innocent legal document would induce in him a melancholy frame of mind.”

Honor Tracy, The Straight and Narrow Path

Tomorrow is the one hundred and fifth anniversary of the birth of Louis Armstrong, so Michael J. Bandler of the U.S. State Department interviewed me about Satchmo’s life and work (and about Hotter Than That, my biography-in-progress) for U.S. Life and Culture, one of the many Web pages produced by the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs.

To read a transcript of our conversation, go here.

“We dare more when striving for superfluities than for necessities. Often when we renounce superfluities we end up lacking in necessities.”

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

I’m still in Connecticut, hiding out from the heat wave and working on my Journal columns and, appropriately enough, Hotter Than That. It’s hot here, too, believe me, but not like it is in Manhattan!

I’ll continue to blog with reasonable regularity, but not always at my regular times, so watch this space and see what happens.

Later (but not too much later).

UPDATE: I just posted a couple of new Top Fives.

From Stephen Holden, my favorite New York Times critic:

A quintessential Tony Bennett moment comes at the end of “It’s a Wonderful World,” the tender duet he recorded with K. D. Lang for their 2002 Louis Armstrong tribute album, “A Wonderful World.” After they swap greeting-card doggerel celebrating “trees of green,” “skies of blue” and “clouds of white,” Mr. Bennett remarks with a boyish enthusiasm, “Don’t you think Satchmo was right?”

Ms. Lang responds by crooning a final, dreamy “what a wonderful world,” whereupon her partner, speaking in the quiet, choked-up voice of a man visiting the grave of a beloved father figure, declares, “You were right, Pops.”

This gentle burst of affirmation melts your heart and reminds you that sincerity, a mode of expression that has been twisted, trampled, co-opted and corrupted in countless ways by the false intimacy of television, still exists in American popular culture. It can even salvage “trees of green,” “skies of blue” and “clouds of white” from the junk heap of pop inanity….

Read the whole thing here.

It reminded me, by the way, of a paragraph I read earlier today in Elmore Leonard’s Cat Chaser:

How many people did she know who spoke or looked at anything with genuine feeling? Without being cynical, on stage, trying to entertain. Without puffing up or putting down. She wanted to know what he felt and, if possible, share the feeling.

That’s the way I’d like my writing to make people feel.

Courtesy of the increasingly invaluable Kate’s Book Blog, here’s a “one-book meme” that tickled my fancy:

– One book that changed your life. W. Jackson Bate’s Samuel Johnson. It showed me how to write a biography, and opened my eyes to the possibility that I might someday want to do such a thing.

– One book that you’ve read more than once. I read every book I really like more than once–usually several times. I suppose, though, that the book I’ve read most often, unlikely as it may sound, is Flannery O’Connor’s The Habit of Being.

– One book you’d want on a desert island. Montaigne’s Essays, which by contrast I haven’t read nearly often enough.

– One book that made you laugh. Kingsley Amis’ Girl, 20.

– One book that made you cry. Books almost never make me cry, even those that move me deeply. I’m much more likely to cry in the theater or while listening to music. I’m sure there’s an exception, but I can’t recall one off the top of my head. (If I think of one, I’ll let you know.)

– One book that you wish had been written. Paul Desmond’s How Many of You Are There in the Quartet? He claimed to be working on it for years and years, but all he ever published (except for a half-dozen liner notes) was a lone autobiographical essay for Punch about the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s worst gig ever. It’s reprinted in Doug Ramsey’s wonderful Desmond biography.

– One book that you wish had never been written. I was going to say Mein Kampf, but on further reflection I realized it was probably good for the world that Hitler set down his plans for world conquest in so unguarded a way. (Oh, that mine adversary had written a book!) This being the case, I’ll opt instead for sheer pissiness and pick Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel, which I read in high school and found so time-consumingly awful that I swore I’d never read another word of Wolfe again. Nor have I.

– One book you’re currently reading. Honor Tracy’s The Straight and Narrow Path. It’s a total hoot.

– One book you’ve been meaning to read. Brace yourself: Anna Karenina. If Oprah can do it, so can I.

As always, I tag OGIC. Go for it, Girl!