Read the whole thing here.As I read “Rabbit’s Blues,” I thought: Why aren’t there lots of books like this? Biographies have been growing longer and longer for decades now, and even when they’re about deserving subjects, they’re still likely to be far too clotted with hour-by-hour detail to suit the needs of the general reader. What I’d like to see, by contrast, are brief lives of artists about whom it would be pointless to publish what we now think of as a full-length book—the supporting players of art, so to speak….
Archives for September 2019
Almanac: Samuel Fuller on war movies
Samuel Fuller, A Third Face
Snapshot: Mabel Mercer performs in 1976
Mabel Mercer and Jimmy Lyon appear on The Mark of Jazz, hosted by Sid Mark and originally telecast on WHYY-TV in 1976:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
Almanac: S.N. Behrman on vanity in the theater
“Jed Harris, in the full tide of success, could not imagine that anything he would do would fail; this is a form of imagination that must be acquired early by anyone who consigns his life to the theater.”
S.N. Behrman, People in a Diary: A Memoir
Lookback: things I miss
From 2009:
Read the whole thing here.• Rooftop TV antennas. I don’t miss the lamentably fuzzy reception that they provided, or the fact that my family could only pick up three channels in Smalltown, U.S.A. (I never saw a public-TV program until I went off to college in 1974.) On the other hand, I loved being able to climb onto the roof of our house via the antenna pole. To do so was a hanging offense at 713 Hickory Drive, mainly because it terrified my mother, who was sure–not without reason–that her hopelessly clumsy son would fall off the roof and break his neck….
Almanac: S.N. Behrman on novelists and playwrights
“The author of a well-received novel never knows whether his book, even if it sells, is also read. Nor does he know where his reader yawns, at what page he may have decided that he wants no more of it and throws it away in disgust. The novelist’s audience is invisible; the playwright’s right there with him. With a successful play the author is reviewed every night and the playwright can tell what kind of review he’s getting.”
S.N. Behrman, People in a Diary: A Memoir
Just because: Jimmy Durante sings “This Is All I Ask”
Jimmy Durante sings Gordon Jenkins’ “This Is All I Ask” on Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters Hour. This episode was originally telecast by ABC on October 31, 1969:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
Almanac: S.N. Behrman on contentment
“What strikes me as I look back is that I have known few contented people. I have known very busy ones, rich ones, triumphant ones, but few who have been contented.”
S.N. Behrman, People in a Diary: A Memoir