t.b.c*
The great
ROBERT DUVALL
I’m Still Here: A Celebration of the Billy Rose Theatre Division at 90
A charity auction for the above. Neil Simon’s desk clearly has some interest. Bit embarrassing if Laura Linney doesn’t get a date;) !Let alone…
Not a huge fan of self-help internet babble. But THIS struck a cord. There are more to come. We all know it’s not such a nice world out there! Particularly for artist and creatives who just don’t wanna ‘play the game’ and believe in an alternative world. An alternative ME. And YOU. And it’s sure a fine line between self-delusion and self-belief. Then comes Covid and isolation. ! How unlucky could one be?
Unthinkable that this can still happen to anyone let alone an international opera star.
Pretty Yende strip searched by French border police.
Was it all just a ‘storm in a teacup’? To some, maybe, given the horrendous things that can and do still happen nowadays. But I have never been a believer of the adage ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. Being denied your liberty when you’ve done nothing wrong isn’t something you forget. Even for three hours. As Stephen Colbert says to his Late Show guests, “Keep it light” as they stray into the darkness. But the darkness is real. No illusion there. I know that from bitter experience. And there certainly would be no opera repertoire without it!
Meanwhile, speaking of courage…
Isn’t Billie Eilish the most impressive little singing critter on the planet?! I have it on good repute that creatures much prefer you to Lizzo or ‘Reptile Rapper’:) Must be a ‘horse whisperer’ thing.
(Btw- think ‘Reppie R.’ Is a sweet gay lizard who prefers Frank Sinatra. But if you’ve got the tail and the scales a rockin’ as a gimmick…go the ‘Liberace of lizards’.)
Talk | Celebrating Serge Gainsbourg with Jane Birkin, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Rebecca Marder
And now for something completely different, or maybe not so, if you’ve been one of the show business professionals that have been ‘saved from drowning’ by The Actors Fund’s $21 million help during Covid. An extraordinary achievement contribution from Stars in the House who’ve grass-roots donation raised over $1 million. If that’s not a 10minute standing ovation then what is!
Who’d have thought lyrics of burgers turned on a BBQ by Richard Nixon would make one weep?
It’s the final act of the extraordinary sublime opera collaboration Nixon in China (The Met Opera’s daily stream from its archives) this 4th of July weekend. (Not available on demand but on DVD). Sadness wells not for Nixon, per se, but the oft thwarted for many, American Dream. Chou En-Lai asks, “How much of what we did was good?/Everything seems to move beyond/Our remedy.”
Not just an American Dream but one shared universally. Even to have a dream when life seems always against. Then to embrace, sing how lucky one is to even take a first rung. Then the thrill and danger of wanting more. Climbing the mountain when there at least seemed safe harbor.
Ironic, that the weekend’s other Met offering was The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. A somewhat forgotten now director John Dexter’s masterful 1979 staging among many seminal for The Met.
But President Biden seems utterly committed to, if not exactly building a new nation, then certainly maintaining the infrastructure of what’s been achieved with the trillion dollar package. Tragic that need proved palpable when the Miami beachfront co-op collapsed. A trillion dollars seems a lot. And is. Yet when you think the President of the co-op board tried almost 4 years ago to raise, was it $16 million, when serious cracks appeared in the basement garage. At least someone is now listening. Doing.
“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
