Neil Young, Live at Massey Hall 1971 (Reprise). The oft-bootlegged 1971 concert, now available legitimately and in excellent sound. No band, just the man himself singing seventeen of his best early songs, including “Cowgirl in the Sand,” “Don’t Let It Bring You Down,” “Helpless,” “I Am a Child,” and “On the Way Home.” I’m not especially nostalgic about the late Sixties or early Seventies, but Young’s shivery voice and uncomplicated acoustic-guitar playing remain as mysteriously involving today as they were all those years ago (TT).
Archives for 2007
CD
BOOK
H.L. Mencken, A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources. Published in 1942 and still in print, this million-word behemoth, organized by topic instead of author, is wrongly remembered for its eccentricities, including a suspiciously extensive selection of nasty remarks about Jews and an assortment of anonymous “proverbs” that sound as though they came straight from the mouth of the editor himself. In fact, Mencken’s New Dictionary contains a vast number of well-chosen, precisely attributed quotations on every imaginable subject, ranging widely among both familiar and obscure sources. It’s that rarity of rarities, a reference book with a personality, and the passage of time has done little to diminish its usefulness–or charm (TT).
CD
Béla Bartók, Concerto for Orchestra/Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta (BMG). Virtuosic, incisive, commandingly shaped performances by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony of Bartók’s two orchestral masterpieces, digitally remastered so immaculately that no apologies of any kind need be made for the superlative early-stereo sound. If you find the great Hungarian modernist intimidating, this desert-island CD is likely to change your mind (TT).
THE JOAN DIDION SHOW
“I found it hard to shake off the disquieting sensation that Ms. Didion, for all the obvious sincerity of her grief, was nonetheless functioning partly as a grieving widow and partly as a celebrity journalist who had chosen to treat the death of John Gregory Dunne as yet another piece of grist for her literary mill…”
COMPOSER WITH A HARMONICA
“If film music is the invisible art form, then Ennio Morricone is one of its least visible giants. To be sure, no one familiar with his work is in the slightest doubt of his immense stature. But Morricone, like most film composers, is not nearly so well known in America as is his music…”
TT: You’re probably wondering…
…why Our Girl and I vanished from cyberspace last week, and why “About Last Night” looks so different today. The reason is that our old publishing platform has gone kaplooie. In recent weeks, ArtsJournal.com, our host, has been switching over to a new platform called Movable Type. OGIC and I were planning to make the transition in nice, easy installments, but instead we’ve had to jump ship early, and we’re still finding our way around the control room of our new vessel.
The bad news is that this unexpected transition is taking place at a moment when I’m up to my ears in work. I’ve learned the basics of the new operating system, but OGIC doesn’t know them yet, and it’ll be a couple of days before I have time to fill her in. I didn’t have time to code and post last week’s drama-column teaser, either, so it won’t be going up until some time tomorrow. I’m still tweaking the design of our new page, which doesn’t look as nice as we’d hoped, though most of our archives have already been transferred to Movable Type, while the rest should be available later this week.
The good news is that normal posting, or something like it, will resume on Tuesday. Don’t be surprised if things go wrong along the way, but Doug McLennan, the tutelary spirit and presiding genius of ArtsJournal.com, assures me that Movable Type is infinitely better than our old system. Once OGIC and I get the hang of it, all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well. In the meantime, please be patient–we’ll get everything fixed sooner or later!
In case you’re wondering, the URL of “About Last Night” remains the same, and all our old links remain fully operational. You don’t have to do anything different to keep on visiting us every day, just like always.
See you tomorrow.
TT: Almanac
“Every change in the place where you grew up is an insult, a run in the homespun fabric of recollection.”
Terry Teachout, City Limits: Memories of a Small-Town Boy
TT: Almanac
“No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.”
Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic