Smash – Opening Night – Now Sucking Slightly Less

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Ezra Pound????? The musical? Was that supposed to be an inside joke between Julia and Tom, and maybe the deadpan delivery got in the way? Or, is this show really being written by idiots who just filled in Ezra Pound having no idea about all the crazy fascist stuff?

This is my first post on the show in about 3 weeks because while I was still continuing my vigil, there was not much new to report. Generally, the level of terribleness has lessened. That doesn’t mean it’s good. A season highlight came a couple of weeks back with the perfect song, Let’s Start Tomorrow Tonight, which sounded like a classic from some late studio-era musical, but then they ruined the aftermath, arguing that it didn’t belong in the show and used it for the whole predictable Tom-is-now-losing-his-humanity storyline. You’ve got a song like that, you either find a place for it i Continue reading Smash – Opening Night – Now Sucking Slightly Less →

Your Saturday Book Review: The Mirage by Matt Ruff

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Matt Ruff’s novel, The Mirage, certainly owes a debt to Philip K Dick’s classic The Man in the High Castle, then again who doesn’t owe a debt to Dick?

Rather than trying to recount the plot myself, here’s this from the Amazon book blurb:

1/9/2001: Christian fundamentalists hijack four jetliners. They fly two into the Tigris & Euphrates World Trade Towers in Baghdad, and a third into the Arab Defense Ministry in Riyadh. The fourth plane, believed to be bound for Mecca, is brought down by its passengers. The United Arab States declares a War on Terror. Arabian and Persian troops invade the Eastern Seaboard and establish a Green Zone in Washington, D.C. . . .

Summer, 2009: Arab Homeland Security agent Mustafa al Baghdadi interrogates a captured suicide bomber. The prisoner claims that the world they are living in is a mirage—in the real world, America is a superpower, and the Arab states are just a collection of “backward third-world countries.”

If the above doesn’t sound intriguing, stop reading the review and move on. If it does, the question is, “Does Ruff pull it off?” The answer is Continue reading Your Saturday Book Review: The Mirage by Matt Ruff →

Letter From America: Most of us are not insane.

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For whatever reasons, this blog tends to get around 50% of its “hits” from outside the US. A large number of these are within the UK, so I sometimes feel obliged to “explain” the US to others, especially when it looks to the world like we must be a nation of idiots or lunatics.

Two big things have been big news here – one is the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Not much to explain here. Most people acted heroically, rushing towards the danger to help others, reaching out to families of victims, vowing to train and run in next year’s marathon (although realistically that’s unlikely as Boston has qualifying time and a rule that you have to have another marathon within the previous 18 months.) Yet, some idiots have already started saying the government did it. The “false-flag” nonsense originates with a professional conspiracy mongerer I won’t name here, as the bastard doesn’t need more hits, and Continue reading Letter From America: Most of us are not insane. →

Further Adventures of Idiots at the Opera: They did WHAT to boys? Giulio Cesare 4/12/13

Idiots at the Opera,

We decided to see Giulio Cesare because we liked the publicity photo of Natalie Dessay with the Louise Brooks’ bob. Despite our misgivings about the Vegas Rigoletto, the Bollywood Cesare looked like fun.

It was around this time last year we saw Dessay in La Traviata, and fell in love with opera. More recently, I learned we’d been lucky to actually see her, as she’d missed a few performances, so when I read about her triumphant opening night as Cleopatra, I could only cross my fingers. Then she missed Tuesday’s performance, but had been replaced by Danielle DeNiese who’d sung the role in the same production when it was first presented in 2005. DeNiese was still standing by. It sounded like it would be a win in either case.

We’d never seen an 18th century, baroque opera, so I did a little research. The title role had been written to be sung by a castrato. Since we don’t cut off boy’s testicles anymore, nowadays they use a countertenor. Huh? Countertenor? I’d heard of them, but wasn’t sure if they were only a rumor. Not only is the title role a countertenor, but so are two other important ones.

Friday night we had our ritual pre-opera dinner at Nice-Matin. It’s not right next to the Met, but not too long a walk. As 5:15 is a bit early, the waitress asked us if we had some event to get to later. This being New York, she turned out to be a singer, knew it was even money on whether or not we’d be seeing Dessay or DeNiese,, and had even met David Daniels. We joked about cheap seats, rush tickets and standing room not being a great choice for the vertically challenged. We left happy to have had another great only-in-New York-moment.

There were no announcements, which meant Dessay would be singing. Yay!!!!

The verdict? Continue reading Further Adventures of Idiots at the Opera: They did WHAT to boys? Giulio Cesare 4/12/13 →

Your Saturday Book Review: The Strain and The Night Eternal Trilogy

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The fact that The Strain was co-written by director Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan caught my attention. I have seen few of Del Toro’s films, but his first full-length work as a director and writer, Cronos, was a highly original take on the vampire myth. It’s not so much I remember the movie, as that images from it continue to pop into my mind, like bits of a not quite forgotten nightmare, some form of post-cinematic-stress-syndrome.

So, even though “vampire” is a genre done past death when I saw The Strain at $1.99 on Kindle, it seemed at least worth checking out the sample.

The story opens with a prologue and the words “Once upon a time…” These words are being spoken by a grandmother telling a “bubbeh meiser” or “grandmother’s tale” to her grandson. The setting as established quickly by details like the borscht being served in a wooden bowl. We’re in Poland before the Holocaust, “once upon a time” indeed. Continue reading Your Saturday Book Review: The Strain and The Night Eternal Trilogy →