Archives for January 2007

“Growing up, as he came to understand after he had gotten safely through it, was essentially the process of learning not to care.”

Allen Drury, Advise and Consent

“Separation penetrates the disappearing person like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance.”

Walter Benjamin, One-Way Street

If you haven’t anything better to do, or even if you have, check out the right-hand column, where you’ll find several new Top Five and “Out of the Past” picks and a link to my latest Commentary essay.

Pardon my unscheduled return, but I forgot to blog about two imminent events to which I wanted to draw your attention:

– I’m a great fan of Farah Alvin, a smart singer-songwriter who doubles as a stage performer with pipes to burn. The last time I heard her live was in I Love You Because, an off-Broadway musical about which I raved last year in The Wall Street Journal, making special mention of Alvin, whom I called “the best young musical-comedy singer to come along in years.”

Alvin rarely performs in New York nightclubs, but she’s doing a one-nighter on Thursday at the New Leaf Caf

“Much of the Pain and Pleasure of mankind arises from the conjectures which every one makes of the thoughts of others; we all enjoy praise which we do not hear, and resent contempt which we do not see.”

Samuel Johnson, The Idler, No. 103 (Apr. 5, 1760)

I don’t feel like looking back today–I’ve been doing more than enough of that in recent postings. Suffice it to say that 2006 was scary and happy in like proportions, with the latter finally edging out the former.

This year, like last year, will be busy, and since I haven’t any shows to see until Sunday, I’ve decided to vanish into the woods of Connecticut to catch up on my writing. Except for the daily almanac and the usual theater-related postings on Thursday and Friday, I don’t plan to blog for the rest of the week. (If I change my mind, kindly give me hell.) I don’t know what Our Girl has in mind, but I’ll leave it to her.

Have a nice week, and a nice year.

– To finish Hotter Than That: A Life of Louis Armstrong. (The contract will help!)

– To see fewer plays–and write more thoughtfully about the ones I do see.

– To spend more time listening to music, not in the background or on the fly, but with the total concentration and involvement that it deserves.

– To read Bleak House and War and Peace at long last, and report on my progress in this space.

– To go to the gym four days a week, every week.

– To take more time off.

– To visit the Grand Canyon.

Come, children, gather round my knee;

Something is about to be.

Tonight’s December Thirty-First,

Something is about to burst.

The clock is crouching, dark and small,

Like a time bomb in the hall.

Hark! It’s midnight, children dear.

Duck! Here comes another year.

Ogden Nash, “Good Riddance, but Now What?”