“None of us will live forever” said Her Majesty the Queen (that's England not the guy who always turns up at Broadway openings...) this week commenting on climate change and our need to do something. You know she is 95! And Sir David Attenborough is 95! Go figure. Is anyone else feeling that enormous wee wee pathetic? Nothing more than an amoeba complaining about getting old when we are young enough to be Murdoch’s love child:) Probably not that fault or the other. Always wanted to make a joke about Murdoch. Wasn’t never young enough until now! (He's only 70 if you believe Fox News;)
Has anyone googled discovering some of the amazingly irritatingly fit 90 year-olds on the planet putting us all to shame?
Florence Hodges, 93, of Dothan, Alabama (Johnny Carson's Tonight Show (Sep 27 1989)
Couldn’t find a link to the 90 year-old black belt Lucille Thompson (Johnny Carson's Tonight Show March 27, 1986) demonstrating her skills (there’s an ol’ boxed set when Winter proves too much) but researching fleas found this:
Ellen DeGeneres' first TV appearance on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in Nov 28, 1986. Guess President Biden might have been 'channeling' this the other week.
Speaking of the naughty '90's, Stephen Sondheim is 91. Company previews begin Nov 15 with an opening Dec 9 on Broadway.
Guess no stray cats at a Sondheim show no more! Kinda irony there, n'est pas?
Funny…
Another hundred kittens just got off of the train….[why do I feel a Doja Cat video comin’ on …one poor kitten crushed in the mob to the subway stairs, clinging to her CatSpade handbag, now all scratched and soiled. Another, whose PradaKat Paw-Ons so prized, now crumpled, sallied but being Prada beyond not aspere. Und so weiter…..] It’s a city of stray-gers some come to work some to play…
Children under 12 and people with a medical condition or closely held religious belief that prevents vaccination may show proof of a negative COVID-19 test.
PHOTO ID: Guests ages 18 and older must present a valid government-issued ID. Guests under 18 may also show a school ID, birth certificate or social security card (Photo is not required). Guests under 12 must be accompanied by an adult who meets the above requirements.
Very pleased ticket holders to Company have the choice of a negative COVID-19 text. Very fair minded policy.
First pill to treat Covid gets approval in UK.
The thing about Company is that it has never dated (no pun…). Still one of the greatest stars in the musical theater firmament . As is/was Pippin though ever so slightly more mercurial yet exactly the same planet. Company, however, is right in your face. Still. Will 20-somethings get what Company is all about? Perhaps the message for them, now, is: never assume, never conform, and never consume preparing to grow old. Life is a compromise little less so if one goes ‘off grid’. It’s no use smashing the glass windows of corporates who only will grow another insurance skin. Protesting, yes, still an incredible irritant. Perhaps no more yet enough? Debate.
Theater. Art! Should disturb. Creatively not destructively. Some may mock Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals and his fortune and the ‘bridge and tunnel’ crowd they attract. But aren’t they entertaining and disturbing in their own right? Ain't exactly 42nd Street!
There’s almost, perhaps no, Stephen Sondheim song that doesn’t have a life outside its context. Even Sweeney Todd’s Not While I’m Around (sung with utter sad duplicity in the show) yet enabling beauty beyond.
Can't think of quite how to continue....so, a little pauws.....whilst I join the cocktail ‘corporates’, loveable rodents and the amazing jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli who has tirelessly given a Thursday ‘jazz fest love in’ ever since lock-down. Even now when he’s back on tour dates.
Disturbing ....healing…been thinking about this:
Does one needs be disturbed to be healed? Huge question. Watched-
Your Authenticity Is The Only Option - Billy Porter Shares The Wisdom He's Gained In Recent Years
Ok, not all artists disturb: Matisse doesn’t, nor Chagall but Picasso does? Whistler doesn’t but Turner does or did? Mondrian? Bridget Riley? Jeff Koons disturbs making shit loads of money from it and anyone who buys it. Damien Hirst? Banksy, another ? Rothko has been endlessly discussed on this issue.
German dramatist Bertolt Brecht with Life of Galileo came to an apotheosis. If Brecht were born today, he may well have emerged as a stand-up comedian. Not dissimilar to cognitive behavioral therapy. Confronting one’s personal problems is disturbing. Equally be very comedic. And, as with Brecht, catharsis is a cop out. To disturb is to release. But to annul those repressed feelings is nothing more than returning to the beginning of the circle. And there is an interesting new sub-set of mental health practitioners who believe that acknowledging one's 'voices' is the beginning not the end of wellness.
Segue? Well if anyone knows how to do that with taste it’s world renowned opera singer Stephanie Blythe. Bit late to mention, I know, forgot. Sorry. Tonight (Sat Nov 6) she’s upstate NY at Bard Fisher Center with French cabaret songs. So maybe there are some nearby stray ‘cats’ who are grateful for this reminder. Natalie Dessay thought she had the ‘goods’ on dégueulasse. Well: along comes Stephanie Blythe to make even ‘fluffer’ acceptable in the concert hall.
Kinda cheating, ‘cause I’m lazy and didn’t want to write a thousand words on Art: Disturb/Heal/Or. And nor would you want to read that here;)!
And: One of the funniest music crits ever, Alastair Macaulay (former NY Times Dance Critic and formerly a critic of almost everything else) on Richard Strauss’ Four Last Songs.
Although I love their sensuous and expressive effects – there are several affecting moments in each song when sudden harmonic effects register like quiet epiphanies -.their overall excess generally makes me feel I’m hearing Rhinemaidens endlessly going down the drain.
Never again will I be able to brush my teeth in the morning, (let alone the evening, like whom will I ever impress) now, : without….Now don’t you go ruining Ariadne for us as well Alastair! We’ll kill you!
Ibsen House directed by Simon Stone.
You can’t ignore the past you must own it.
Actor Dean Stockwell’s BBC obit. We all mis-spell but Coppola? That’s a bit mystifying. Sure, Steve Carell, maybe (one ‘r’, two ‘l’s and a mustache over the ‘e’ -his exotic ancestry;) but…Everyone has seen Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas right?
Elegiac America.
There I was feeling good about myself this beautiful autumn day (perhaps the last) blowin’ my leaves, climbing ladders to waterproof, askin’ squirrels for a dance. Well, my distant friend did advise me never turn down possible opportunites. Won’t finish that sentence. Then the no daylight saving light hits like a hammer. So kinda still feeling’ good watching a Zoom lecture on a new show at the Vassar Loeb Art Gallery- Maria Sibylla Merian who was drawing these incredible natural metamorphoses in the late 1600’s. And yet kinda sad as I can never remember who screwed up who in mythology. Can’t even remember plant names. What hope?
Then it got even more, whatever, hearing Quentin Tarantino talk. Bet I can one-up him on European cinema, though. One out of ten mightn’t be bad….always in awe of his brilliance. Amoeba complex tide sweeping in. Fellini. Sand through my fingers. Ahhh: John Carpenter never made a movie not worth watching. [many times!] A true independent makin’ some money. Then Sarah Silverman promoting her new thing Santa Inc. No, no, no. Can’t possibly watch this until after writing my Christmas. [ I had Meghan Markle as Santa long before …Cassie my lame deer. Pain in the ‘me too’. I write Fellini (wish) and you write (Seth Rogan, wish somemore) Or rather avoiding. Just say no! No more words until someone says…
Maybe just stop watching talk shows and go back to…what: creativity! Binge watching series in December when all hope appears vanished. ..Excited, depressed, exited, bemused, exited……And some, many, well most people lead happy, normal lives. Imagine that! Or a Tae Kwon Do black belt at 90. Or David Attenborough saving an endangered species. Life doesn’t get any better. Does it?
So yous think the ‘squirrel dance’ is crazy?! Well: the furry creature moi pulled out of ‘art tarp’ haplessly burying his/her nut last autumn. Stroked ‘it’ like a cat. Totally motionless. Wondering at those tiny motionless paws becoming Paul Newman Formula 1 round a tree trunk. What happened next? They’ll never believe me, they’ll….
This Spring, lying upon my recliner, this squirrel came so close (nut in mouth) to be not a co-incidence. Stray cats venture never that close (and I am the savior of tiny kittens. Beyond that. On your own. . Let alone…) Lookin’ at me. What are you? What..? Unafraid. You’re that ‘thing’ who. Then there was the ‘baby’ squirrel who’d fallen from its nest. Started hopping after my little shopping cart. Who’s ever heard of….
Only in …..only in….
Great to hear Mahler happy, sad, happy, und so heimlich…..und….vielleicht…If there’s curiosity why is this included (the German is mine own pathos yet perhaps…ein bisschen…), then check the historical context and this interview with Sir Roger Norrington (he is about to retire from conducting publicly, hopefully not from life itself too soon, that would be a great loss and the greatest gain to heaven). Although Mahler asks “very slowly” he also asks for something faster than adagio. And “soulful”. When you think about it there is, ironically, very little of Death in Venice in Mahler (except, of course, Kindertotenlieder). The rest of Mahler may indeed make one cry. But for the wonder of it all. Not the sadness, the beginning of something…
Is it a fair analogy to compare the woes of the earth created by human greed and consumption to a composer’s score markings? Difference, of course, being that one conductor or performer cannot destroy a composition. Yet if one follows the composer’s directions you will discover what he or she intended. Bliss. Well, at least happiness. Was vibrato the modern classical ‘bling’? Thanksgiving almost upon us, worth remembering whence the food came. Are corporations/multi-nationals no more than ego-driven conductors and musicians trying to impress (the financial model not dissimilar) when they should have humbled (hate that word but true here) themselves to a composer’s legacy? I forgive all and anything of Leonard Bernstein given the great composer that he was. Was it a Mahler 9 of his with the Vienna Phil that just stopped me in my tracks even on a ‘tinny’ little radio? Who is this, I asked myself? “Of his” a phrase one could use with enduring pride. If only that were so for the many.
So when hunkering down to that glorious Thanksgiving meal this year, be thankful it isn’t fancified ground-up bones ‘dog food’. It could happen when our food no longer is able to grow and another ‘corporation’ sees profit over and with people. Soylent Green.
Not wanting to sound the Scrooge of Thanksgiving, or is that the Poochge of….amassing all those bones in the trashcan…uh oh, feel a song coming’ on. :Maybe his Christmas jokes are better: ….this James Corden Show segment was very mouthwatering. Is there also a main dish rather than the side with the bourbon and cranberries? Maybe if I threw in some wheatgrass there to regain credibility!
