About Last Night

“I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man.”

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 85

“When I was writing three-act plays, a producer told me the curtain should always come down on the beginning of the fourth act. A play should never really come to an end.”

Neil Simon, interview with James Lipton (Paris Review, Winter 1992)

Bill Evans plays “My Foolish Heart” on British TV in 1965, with Chuck Israels on bass and Larry Bunker on drums:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.”

Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

From 2006:

When I was young, everybody I knew watched The Andy Griffith Show. Today there are no TV shows that “everybody” watches, and no movies that everyone has seen. Indeed, the American film industry is about to devote its annual prime-time infomercial to celebrating five movies that most Americans haven’t seen, don’t plan to see, and couldn’t even if they wanted to (at least not until they come out on DVD)….

Read the whole thing here.

February makes a bridge, and
March breaks it.

George Herbert, “Jacula Prudentum”

The Miles Davis Quintet plays “My Funny Valentine” on Italian TV in 1964:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Raymond Carver, “Late Fragment”