Two show recommendations for the holidays: Druid Theatre's production of Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan at the Atlantic and Keen Company's production of Beasley's Christmas Party, based on a Booth Tarkington story, at the Acorn.
About Inishmaan, the TONY review isn't out yet so I'll only say that McDonagh's storytelling sense is absolutely crackling, director Garry Hynes continues to impress, and the ensemble on the Atlantic stage (mostly imported from the Galway production) is one of the finest you can see in New York right now. Special mention to Kerry Conlon, whose rambunctious Helen is often hilarious, but also quite poignant in her final scenes.
I tend to enjoy Keen shows for the same reason I enjoy Mint shows: While the big nonprofits are perfectly happy doing Hedda Gabler or The Seagull for the umpteenth time, these two scrappy companies excavate long-forgotten plays and put them up in productions ranging from honorable to topnotch. Beasley's Christmas Party fits the end of the company's mission statement, which reads "Keen Company seeks to create a culture of artists, technicians, administrators and audiences who share a desire to invigorate the theater with productions that connect us through humor, heart and hope." Beasley's has all three elements in spades. It's a small (three actors), compact (70 minutes) show, yet it wonderfully upholds the old tradition of theater as storytelling. The cynic among us would call it quaint; I'd rather call it timeless.
By the way, if you only pay attention to the byline of the Times' chief drama critic, Ben Brantley, you won't know companies such as Mint and Keen are working here, or that the downtown stage is alive and well. His top ten continues to make a preposterous amalgam between New York theater and Broadway, as if one was synonymous with the other. There are only two non-Broadway shows on his list, Blasted and Hair, and the latter is actually scheduled to transfer to Broadway in 2009.
Showing posts with label in print. Show all posts
Showing posts with label in print. Show all posts
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Let down by Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli's show at the Palace has been hailed with a storm of overheated praise but two voices have dared to say it's not all that. One is my colleague Adam Feldman in TONY ("Most of the show is not like watching a car crash, as some have feared; it is more like watching traffic") and the other is John Lahr at The New Yorker. Lahr had more wordage at his disposal than Adam and he was able to zero in on some of the aspects that bugged me the most about the evening: Minnelli's egotistical manipulations.
The Sheila remarked that I'm uneasy with older women on stage, which isn't true at all—I'd gladly pay to see Marian Seldes or Angela Lansbury read the phone book. What I'm uneasy with is the misguidedness of Minnelli's show (it's way too big for her current vocal abilities), her constant reminders of where she came from (few outside of the Kennedy family have so shamelessly milked their bloodlines) and the morbid sycophancy of her fans, for whom the fact that Liza isn't keeling over on stage is enough to warrant a standing o. Fine then, I am a Grinch!
"She is all chutzpah and calculation. Although she has vast amounts of energy and an overwhelming desire to please, she has, strange to say, very little sense of fun. Instead of taking you on a journey with her renditions, she continually brings you back to her, to the legend of her collapse—the divorces, the drinking, the depressions—and to her theatrical pedigree, which includes her godparents, Ira Gershwin and Kay Thompson, who more or less take care of the second act. (…) In one song, written especially for the show, Minnelli promises her audience, “I would never leave you”—a truly terrifying piece of show-biz flimflammery. In fact, what she means to say is the opposite: Please, don’t leave me."I felt like a Grinch at the Palace considering the Sheila, sitting next to me, was enjoying herself. But there it is: I was bored out of my skull by Liza's frantic neediness, her attempts at being coy (playing her breathlessness and need to rest for a joke when in fact she was breathless and needed to rest) and her often misguided choices—you don't attempt a song as fast and loaded with rhyming puns as Comden & Green's "If You Hadn't (But You Did)" ("If I had not seen you pen sexy letters to Gwen in your own hieroglyph/If you had not left me home when you had two seats for South Pacif") when your diction and breathing aren't up to snuff.
The Sheila remarked that I'm uneasy with older women on stage, which isn't true at all—I'd gladly pay to see Marian Seldes or Angela Lansbury read the phone book. What I'm uneasy with is the misguidedness of Minnelli's show (it's way too big for her current vocal abilities), her constant reminders of where she came from (few outside of the Kennedy family have so shamelessly milked their bloodlines) and the morbid sycophancy of her fans, for whom the fact that Liza isn't keeling over on stage is enough to warrant a standing o. Fine then, I am a Grinch!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Rating the rating
The best part of A.O. Scott's review of Wendy and Lucy in today's Times isn't technically part of the review. It's the note about the rating tagged at the end, and it reads like this:
“Wendy and Lucy” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has some swearing, a little drug use and a brief implication of violence, but no nudity, sex or murder. The rating seems to reflect, above all, an impulse to protect children from learning that people are lonely and that life can be hard.
Beautiful.
Monday, October 27, 2008
All about Godard
The September issue of Harper's (yes, I'm way behind) is a particularly good vintage. The centerpiece is Paul Reyes's matter-of-factly depressing "Bleak Houses," about cleaning up foreclosed homes in Florida.
J. Hoberman also has "Godard the Obscure," the kind of essay that makes the death spiral of the Village Voice, where he is a film critic, even more painful; where are people like him going to write as more and more publications go down the drain? Hoberman knows his stuff: You have to in order to write something like "Rimbaud abandoned poetry to run guns. So, too, Godard, although in his case it was as though he had abandoned poetry for the idea of running the idea of guns." In a short sentence, Hoberman encapsulates Godard's immediate post-Weekend work.
That said, it bothers me a bit that the essay is announced as discussing Richard Brody's Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard, because Hoberman doesn't actually engage with the book. He mentions it a few times but that's it. This approach bugs me about the New Yorker's book reviews too: The vast majority of them just use a recent publication as a convenient peg from which to hang a coat one had been wanting to trot out for a while. Hoberman's piece is a smart take on Godard's evolution as a filmmaker, but after finishing it, I have no idea what Hoberman thought of Brody's own take.
J. Hoberman also has "Godard the Obscure," the kind of essay that makes the death spiral of the Village Voice, where he is a film critic, even more painful; where are people like him going to write as more and more publications go down the drain? Hoberman knows his stuff: You have to in order to write something like "Rimbaud abandoned poetry to run guns. So, too, Godard, although in his case it was as though he had abandoned poetry for the idea of running the idea of guns." In a short sentence, Hoberman encapsulates Godard's immediate post-Weekend work.
That said, it bothers me a bit that the essay is announced as discussing Richard Brody's Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard, because Hoberman doesn't actually engage with the book. He mentions it a few times but that's it. This approach bugs me about the New Yorker's book reviews too: The vast majority of them just use a recent publication as a convenient peg from which to hang a coat one had been wanting to trot out for a while. Hoberman's piece is a smart take on Godard's evolution as a filmmaker, but after finishing it, I have no idea what Hoberman thought of Brody's own take.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Broaden your mind
This post on popular lesbian site After Ellen really riled me. The author wonders if dudes can write lesbian comic-book characters as complex as those created by lesbians. Jeezus, why are we still having this debate?!?
First of all, Love & Rockets' Hopey, created by Jaime Hernandez, is a character with as much depth and shades as any I can think of in contemporary fiction. Setting Hernandez up against Alison Bechdel or Paige Braddock is creating a strawman.
Second, following this line of inquiry, should we infer that gay and lesbian authors can't create good straight characters? The arts would be in a sorry state if people only wrote about what they personally know. I find this prospect utterly depressing.
And third, let's expand this reasoning to acting. Should gay characters be played by gay actors? (Think of the hoopla as to which of the L Word actresses actually are gay.) Does it ring false when Cherry Jones play a straight woman? Give me a break!
First of all, Love & Rockets' Hopey, created by Jaime Hernandez, is a character with as much depth and shades as any I can think of in contemporary fiction. Setting Hernandez up against Alison Bechdel or Paige Braddock is creating a strawman.
Second, following this line of inquiry, should we infer that gay and lesbian authors can't create good straight characters? The arts would be in a sorry state if people only wrote about what they personally know. I find this prospect utterly depressing.
And third, let's expand this reasoning to acting. Should gay characters be played by gay actors? (Think of the hoopla as to which of the L Word actresses actually are gay.) Does it ring false when Cherry Jones play a straight woman? Give me a break!
Friday, October 03, 2008
Welcome to the lazy comet
I'm totally psyched that my pal Mike Wolf has finally started a blog, Lazy Comet. I've always been envious of Mike's writing skills, and when he casually whips out sentences like "you can tell Ms. Low Bar is sustaining just enough hull-integrity that the conservative blowhardati and other Kool-Aid salesmen will try and declare a draw" (about last night's VP debate), well, I just hope this comet won't be too lazy and cross our skies frequently.
Check out his review of the new Dead C album in this week's Village Voice as well: It boasts the best first sentence I've seen in a long time.
Check out his review of the new Dead C album in this week's Village Voice as well: It boasts the best first sentence I've seen in a long time.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Trees died for this?
Lurking in the mail pile waiting for me at work were two tomes: The Amazing Book of Useless Information and Disgusting Things: A Miscellany. The former is a follow-up to The Book of Useless Information and is subtitled "More Things You Didn't Need to Know But Are About to Find Out," while the latter is basically a Garbage Pail Kids version. I realize there's a lot of more offending books, but for some reason those particularly irk me.
For all this I blame Ben Schott and his Miscellanies, which at least display decent wit. The copycats are just unbearable: "Antarctic means 'opposite the Arctic'," The Amazing Book tells us. "American and Russian spaceflights have always included chocolate." "The most popular gift in Eastern Europe is a bottle of vodka." Jeezus, these guys just google stuff randomly and call it a book! Disgusting Things, meanwhile, answers pressing questions such as "Why do dog farts smell so bad?" and "Do some women create artwork with their placentas?" What a colossal waste.
For all this I blame Ben Schott and his Miscellanies, which at least display decent wit. The copycats are just unbearable: "Antarctic means 'opposite the Arctic'," The Amazing Book tells us. "American and Russian spaceflights have always included chocolate." "The most popular gift in Eastern Europe is a bottle of vodka." Jeezus, these guys just google stuff randomly and call it a book! Disgusting Things, meanwhile, answers pressing questions such as "Why do dog farts smell so bad?" and "Do some women create artwork with their placentas?" What a colossal waste.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Raging fires
Predictably, Die Soldaten is dividing people. Obviously I stand on the pro side, and very much so, but others didn't care for the show. Anne Midgette's reaction in the Washington Post is interesting.
I won't comment on the specifically musical criticism, not being equipped to do so, so I'll focus on the content and staging. First, she's wrong right off the bat when she says "This is a work that is ready to rebel, even if it is not quite sure against what." Alois Bernd Zimmermann knows exactly what he's criticizing and rebelling against, and he often explicitly states it: the abuse of women by men.
"The exorbitant outlay for the movable seats proved a tremendously expensive gimmick: Pountney could not think of anything more creative to do than move the audience to a different part of the runway for each scene," Midgette writes. Actually, I found the device tremendously effective, and used very well (the seats don't move "for each scene," as she writes). It allows Pountney to play on both space and time, providing a sense of depth as we watch several actions happening either at once or at different moments down the 260-foot length of the runway. It also allows him to explore both a sense of crushing grandeur and intimacy; in that way, the moving seats function like a camera, zooming in and out of particular scenes.
Midgette also says that having Marie raped by men in Santa Claus suits is too obvious an image—but if this stuff was that obvious and easy to come up with, we'd see it (or something similar) more often on our stages. And we just don't. (I'm surprised she doesn't mention the stunning, utterly terrifing pig masks. Obvious, perhaps, but very, very effective—they really scared me.) Those images may look obvious because they are in such adequation with the music and themes, but they really are not that simple. A good director surprises you but also makes you think that what he does is inevitable—which for some may look obvious. Achieving both at the same time is very very difficult, but that's what Pountney did.
That rape scene, in fact, seems to be a problem for many. But it is as horrible as it needs to be. It is nauseating, but not in a way that made me despise the creative team. Unlike torture porn in contemporary horror movies, which makes me find the directors abhorrent, that scene made me despise what the characters did, not what the director did. My esteemed colleague Steve Smith pointed out that the scene doesn't exist in the original, or rather that it happens offstage. Well, it does exist then—Pountney just chose to make us see it. Yes, it is a deliberate decision to hit the audience over the head, to push our collective face into a pit of abjection, but I'd argue that as an audience, we need to go there, we need to descend into stomach-churning hell.
Finally, that Die Soldaten has provoked such arguments is the final proof, if needed, that it has fulfilled its purpose as a piece of art. If you want lukewarm, you can have it any day on any stage in New York. And me, I hate lukewarm.
I won't comment on the specifically musical criticism, not being equipped to do so, so I'll focus on the content and staging. First, she's wrong right off the bat when she says "This is a work that is ready to rebel, even if it is not quite sure against what." Alois Bernd Zimmermann knows exactly what he's criticizing and rebelling against, and he often explicitly states it: the abuse of women by men.
"The exorbitant outlay for the movable seats proved a tremendously expensive gimmick: Pountney could not think of anything more creative to do than move the audience to a different part of the runway for each scene," Midgette writes. Actually, I found the device tremendously effective, and used very well (the seats don't move "for each scene," as she writes). It allows Pountney to play on both space and time, providing a sense of depth as we watch several actions happening either at once or at different moments down the 260-foot length of the runway. It also allows him to explore both a sense of crushing grandeur and intimacy; in that way, the moving seats function like a camera, zooming in and out of particular scenes.
Midgette also says that having Marie raped by men in Santa Claus suits is too obvious an image—but if this stuff was that obvious and easy to come up with, we'd see it (or something similar) more often on our stages. And we just don't. (I'm surprised she doesn't mention the stunning, utterly terrifing pig masks. Obvious, perhaps, but very, very effective—they really scared me.) Those images may look obvious because they are in such adequation with the music and themes, but they really are not that simple. A good director surprises you but also makes you think that what he does is inevitable—which for some may look obvious. Achieving both at the same time is very very difficult, but that's what Pountney did.
That rape scene, in fact, seems to be a problem for many. But it is as horrible as it needs to be. It is nauseating, but not in a way that made me despise the creative team. Unlike torture porn in contemporary horror movies, which makes me find the directors abhorrent, that scene made me despise what the characters did, not what the director did. My esteemed colleague Steve Smith pointed out that the scene doesn't exist in the original, or rather that it happens offstage. Well, it does exist then—Pountney just chose to make us see it. Yes, it is a deliberate decision to hit the audience over the head, to push our collective face into a pit of abjection, but I'd argue that as an audience, we need to go there, we need to descend into stomach-churning hell.
Finally, that Die Soldaten has provoked such arguments is the final proof, if needed, that it has fulfilled its purpose as a piece of art. If you want lukewarm, you can have it any day on any stage in New York. And me, I hate lukewarm.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Bitter truths
Charles P. Pierce's essay in Esquire about the Obama candidacy is one of the finest I've read so far. Of course, it helps that I share Pierce's take on Obama's discourse, and the fact that it's basically giving Americans a free-pass card (change without sacrifice, easy charisma over bitter pill). My main qualm is that Pierce's rhetorical gimmicks get a bit grating after a while, but it's easy enough to overlook them and focus on the ideas themselves.
What I like best about this piece is the rage and disappointment that run through it—not at Obama or other politicians, which would be too easy, but at the American people themselves. For despite all the talk about freedom and democracy, Americans do no exercise their most basic rights and do not fulfill their most basic duties as citizens, including voting and holding their elected representatives accountable. But hey, freedom is being able to drive your big-ass car wherever and whenever you want, right?
Pierce comes down harshly on Obama for feeding us bromides about the country's greatness: "The cynic will admit that it’s all great politics. Tell America that it is a great country that simply has lost its way for a spell. Tell the American people that they are a great people who are better than those hucksters who come to divide us. It has a marvelous anesthetic appeal. Swirl down through the clouds of memory and forget that the country allowed itself to follow George Bush over the cliff not merely because it was shocked by the attacks of September 11, 2001, but because it was too pissing-down-the-shoes scared to do anything else. Forget about how eagerly the American people cheered the brutish and the nasty, how simple it was to sell raw animal vengeance dressed up as geopolitical wisdom, and how dumbly everyone followed until well after it was revealed that the people selling it didn’t know enough about the world to throw to a cat. This was the era of complicity. Can Obama end it, thought the cynic, without admitting it ever existed?"
"Why would anyone have faith in America, which is not tough but fearful, not smart but stupid, and not shrewd but willing to fall for almost anything as long it comes wrapped in a flag? Why would anyone have faith in Americans? Barack Obama says that he has that faith because of his own life, because he was able to rise to the point where he can be thought of as president of the United States. He is the country’s walking absolution. That’s his reason, the cynic thinks, but it’s not mine. There has to be confession. There has to be penance. Being Barack Obama is not enough. Not damn close to enough."
What I like best about this piece is the rage and disappointment that run through it—not at Obama or other politicians, which would be too easy, but at the American people themselves. For despite all the talk about freedom and democracy, Americans do no exercise their most basic rights and do not fulfill their most basic duties as citizens, including voting and holding their elected representatives accountable. But hey, freedom is being able to drive your big-ass car wherever and whenever you want, right?
Pierce comes down harshly on Obama for feeding us bromides about the country's greatness: "The cynic will admit that it’s all great politics. Tell America that it is a great country that simply has lost its way for a spell. Tell the American people that they are a great people who are better than those hucksters who come to divide us. It has a marvelous anesthetic appeal. Swirl down through the clouds of memory and forget that the country allowed itself to follow George Bush over the cliff not merely because it was shocked by the attacks of September 11, 2001, but because it was too pissing-down-the-shoes scared to do anything else. Forget about how eagerly the American people cheered the brutish and the nasty, how simple it was to sell raw animal vengeance dressed up as geopolitical wisdom, and how dumbly everyone followed until well after it was revealed that the people selling it didn’t know enough about the world to throw to a cat. This was the era of complicity. Can Obama end it, thought the cynic, without admitting it ever existed?"
"Why would anyone have faith in America, which is not tough but fearful, not smart but stupid, and not shrewd but willing to fall for almost anything as long it comes wrapped in a flag? Why would anyone have faith in Americans? Barack Obama says that he has that faith because of his own life, because he was able to rise to the point where he can be thought of as president of the United States. He is the country’s walking absolution. That’s his reason, the cynic thinks, but it’s not mine. There has to be confession. There has to be penance. Being Barack Obama is not enough. Not damn close to enough."
Monday, June 23, 2008
Why should the Times bother with European theater?
There's an expression in French that literally translates as "to call a cat a cat," meaning to not be afraid to call things by their name. I thought of it reading the end of Charles Isherwood's review of Macbeth in today's Times:
"It will surely thrill audiences who get a charge from flashy innovation for its own sake. Others will probably view it as the quintessence of — well, I was hoping to get through this review without using the glib derogatory term for Continental experimentation. You probably know the epithet in question. Begins with a capital E and rhymes with succotash."
You know, if that's what you think of Grzegorz Jarzyna's production, you should have the guts to use the full wording: Eurotrash. The coy phrasing only brings even more attention to the wishy-washy use of a condescending cliché.
I don't dispute Isherwood's critical take on the production, which I haven't seen yet. It's just hard not to get frustrated once again by the desultory tone that creeps in every time a non-naturalistic European import lands in New York. It would help if the Times' two main theater critics didn't come across as so uninterested in what's going on across the Atlantic—and I don't mean in the UK. Why trot out Jerzy Grotowski's 40-year-old "poor theater" when Jarzyna should be talked about in conjunction with his contemporary, Krzysztof Warlikowski? (TONY's own Helen Shaw did just that in her preview of Macbeth.)
I know I sound like a broken record, but at this point I'm actually beyond anger and into disillusion; it just saddens me to see critics with such a huge influence being so disproportionately disinterested in the art form they're supposed to cover. Just like last year, for instance, the newspaper's chief critic, Ben Brantley, is off to a month in London. (I'm sure local producers will read his dispatches with baited breath to see what they can safely import.)
But the Avignon festival is at roughtly the same time, and personally I'd kill to go. To mention just some of the names familiar to New York audiences, in the coming month you could see Romeo Castellucci's trilogy based on Dante's Divine Comedy, Thomas Ostermeier's Hamlet, Ivo van Hove's "Roman Tragedies" (Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra), Jan Fabre's Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day (a solo for dancer Ivana Jovic, with the title taken from a line in Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billy Joe"!), Heiner Goebbels' Stifters Dinge, the Brothers Quay's film installation Night Nursery, plus new pieces by Philippe Quesne and Superamas, who've both been to NY as part of Under the Radar. And then there's the ones familiar mostly to French audiences, like directors Stanislas Nordey and Arthur Nauzyciel, actress Valérie Dreville, choreographer Mathilde Monnier… What an incredible feast! In my spare time, I'd go to panels such as "The spectator's place: What's his responsibility" or "Which return to spirituality?" (Talk amongst yourself…) Ah well, maybe next year.
"It will surely thrill audiences who get a charge from flashy innovation for its own sake. Others will probably view it as the quintessence of — well, I was hoping to get through this review without using the glib derogatory term for Continental experimentation. You probably know the epithet in question. Begins with a capital E and rhymes with succotash."
You know, if that's what you think of Grzegorz Jarzyna's production, you should have the guts to use the full wording: Eurotrash. The coy phrasing only brings even more attention to the wishy-washy use of a condescending cliché.
I don't dispute Isherwood's critical take on the production, which I haven't seen yet. It's just hard not to get frustrated once again by the desultory tone that creeps in every time a non-naturalistic European import lands in New York. It would help if the Times' two main theater critics didn't come across as so uninterested in what's going on across the Atlantic—and I don't mean in the UK. Why trot out Jerzy Grotowski's 40-year-old "poor theater" when Jarzyna should be talked about in conjunction with his contemporary, Krzysztof Warlikowski? (TONY's own Helen Shaw did just that in her preview of Macbeth.)
I know I sound like a broken record, but at this point I'm actually beyond anger and into disillusion; it just saddens me to see critics with such a huge influence being so disproportionately disinterested in the art form they're supposed to cover. Just like last year, for instance, the newspaper's chief critic, Ben Brantley, is off to a month in London. (I'm sure local producers will read his dispatches with baited breath to see what they can safely import.)
But the Avignon festival is at roughtly the same time, and personally I'd kill to go. To mention just some of the names familiar to New York audiences, in the coming month you could see Romeo Castellucci's trilogy based on Dante's Divine Comedy, Thomas Ostermeier's Hamlet, Ivo van Hove's "Roman Tragedies" (Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra), Jan Fabre's Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day (a solo for dancer Ivana Jovic, with the title taken from a line in Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billy Joe"!), Heiner Goebbels' Stifters Dinge, the Brothers Quay's film installation Night Nursery, plus new pieces by Philippe Quesne and Superamas, who've both been to NY as part of Under the Radar. And then there's the ones familiar mostly to French audiences, like directors Stanislas Nordey and Arthur Nauzyciel, actress Valérie Dreville, choreographer Mathilde Monnier… What an incredible feast! In my spare time, I'd go to panels such as "The spectator's place: What's his responsibility" or "Which return to spirituality?" (Talk amongst yourself…) Ah well, maybe next year.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Jeanette Winterson likes French disco-house
Jeez I'm a lazy bum. A week without posts. And it's not like there's nothing going on but, er, I got this new HD television set, you see, and I wasted way too much time not watching it, no, but trying to figure out how to hook up the DVD player and cleaning up the sudden abundance of extra channels—all over the air since we don't have cable (this HD business is going to be bad news for cable companies, weeding out at least the customers who subscribe mostly for the improved reception). Pathetic, I know.
I did manage to go back to Passing Strange, and was struck again by how smart, how moving that show is, and how good Stew's songs are. If you insist on spending some of your dollars on Broadway, go see it. Well, that and Gypsy for old-school pizzazz.
Elsewhere, Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, AM Homes and Jackie Kay illustrate the Musketeers' motto (at least according to Dumas) of "one for all, all for one"by collaborating on a 52, a novel in installments for the Guardian. This is scheduled to go on for a year, as the title suggests, with the four authors taking turns writing chapters—but not revealing who wrote what. A paragraph like "Merrie England in the month of May: Cuckoo, cowslips, the sun early and shallow-rimmed as it rises, the deep dew at dawn, as though the planet were still damp from its making." reads very Wintersonesque to me. Or like one of the other three poking fun at the style of Winterson, who initiated the idea. (In any case, do read Winterson's monthly column on her website, it's a hoot.)
And finally, my current musical obsession, and a perfect illustration of how the right remix can turn lead into gold. Actually the Whitest Boy Alive's "Golden Cage" isn't quite lead because its frontman is Erland Øye, whom I actually like. But that song's just blah limp funk, an indie version of Liquid Liquid. It ambles along with an utter lack of a point as Øye sings his prettily wistful and fairly unremarkable lyrics.
But a few weeks ago—and a couple of years after "Golden Cage" was released—Fred Falke (often working with Alan Braxe but here operating on his own) released a remix that turns the track into a fantabulous disco-house summer hit. First of all, the overall vibe feels springier and more energetic without losing a certain melancholy undertow. Second, Falke's treated Øye's vocals, adding a faint echo that makes them feel more distant (and provides the aforementioned melancholy). Third, he's added at least a trio of distinct killer synth hooks; I mean, most songs would be happy to have just one, but Falke's thrown them all into the pot. Fourth, the occasional vocoder effect is not so much electroclash as weirdly 70s proggy, as if suddenly a bit from Alan Parsons Project or late ELO had been imported in.
Compare and contrast:
The Whitest Boy Alive: "Golden Cage"
The Whitest Boy Alive: "Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix)"
I did manage to go back to Passing Strange, and was struck again by how smart, how moving that show is, and how good Stew's songs are. If you insist on spending some of your dollars on Broadway, go see it. Well, that and Gypsy for old-school pizzazz.
Elsewhere, Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, AM Homes and Jackie Kay illustrate the Musketeers' motto (at least according to Dumas) of "one for all, all for one"by collaborating on a 52, a novel in installments for the Guardian. This is scheduled to go on for a year, as the title suggests, with the four authors taking turns writing chapters—but not revealing who wrote what. A paragraph like "Merrie England in the month of May: Cuckoo, cowslips, the sun early and shallow-rimmed as it rises, the deep dew at dawn, as though the planet were still damp from its making." reads very Wintersonesque to me. Or like one of the other three poking fun at the style of Winterson, who initiated the idea. (In any case, do read Winterson's monthly column on her website, it's a hoot.)
And finally, my current musical obsession, and a perfect illustration of how the right remix can turn lead into gold. Actually the Whitest Boy Alive's "Golden Cage" isn't quite lead because its frontman is Erland Øye, whom I actually like. But that song's just blah limp funk, an indie version of Liquid Liquid. It ambles along with an utter lack of a point as Øye sings his prettily wistful and fairly unremarkable lyrics.
But a few weeks ago—and a couple of years after "Golden Cage" was released—Fred Falke (often working with Alan Braxe but here operating on his own) released a remix that turns the track into a fantabulous disco-house summer hit. First of all, the overall vibe feels springier and more energetic without losing a certain melancholy undertow. Second, Falke's treated Øye's vocals, adding a faint echo that makes them feel more distant (and provides the aforementioned melancholy). Third, he's added at least a trio of distinct killer synth hooks; I mean, most songs would be happy to have just one, but Falke's thrown them all into the pot. Fourth, the occasional vocoder effect is not so much electroclash as weirdly 70s proggy, as if suddenly a bit from Alan Parsons Project or late ELO had been imported in.
Compare and contrast:
The Whitest Boy Alive: "Golden Cage"
The Whitest Boy Alive: "Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix)"
Friday, May 23, 2008
Turn off the idiot box
Turn off the idiot box! No, dear readers, this isn't aimed at you—you can watch as much as you want. And it isn't aimed at myself either, for that matter, as I'm looking forward to catch up with a pair of Morris Engel movies and season 1 of Jericho this weekend.
The person who really should turn off her TV and start paying attention to the world outside is New York Times television critic Alessandra Stanley. Now I realize Stanley is actually paid to watch TV but today's review of HBO's Recount, about the Florida debacle during the 2000 presidential election, indicates a baffling lack of understanding of that pesky reality-based world we live in, and the relative importance of events.
Stanley has often been mocked for accumulating corrections, mostly due to stupid but relatively minor mistakes. That I can live with, sort of, because as an editor and writer I know how easy it is to get details wrong. But there's a bigger problem at work today.
The review starts by saying the recount "was historic and historically awful, until the Sept. 11 attacks wiped away much of the anguish and slapstick. For a while, at least, the Florida vote count seemed as trivial and irrelevant as the results of the Henley Regatta after August 1914."
Let's see: A rigged voting procedure in Florida led to a rigged count; that in turn led to an abuse of power by the Supreme Court, which put in office a dangerously inept president who in a few years' time would wreck the American economy and turn into a criminal of war (which is what people including the Hague tribunal call those who knowingly flaunt the Geneva Convention). Of course that bit of "slapstick" was "trivial and irrelevant"! Stanley's reaction truly boggles the mind.
Our ace critic then proceeds to imply that the recount would have remained some kind of cute footnote until HBO's "deliciously engrossing" film reminded us of the hoopla. Reading this in the subway this morning, I had to put down the paper for a minute; I wanted to see what Stanley would come up with next but needed to collect myself, not throw the Times out the window.
Good thing I kept reading, because I got the pleasure of choking on carefree asides like "Life is unfair, especially when retold in dramatizations of recent history." How easily does blithe sarcasm seep out through the walls of privilege… Sometimes the unbearable glibness of being a Times critic is just too much for us readers—and citizens—to withstand.
The person who really should turn off her TV and start paying attention to the world outside is New York Times television critic Alessandra Stanley. Now I realize Stanley is actually paid to watch TV but today's review of HBO's Recount, about the Florida debacle during the 2000 presidential election, indicates a baffling lack of understanding of that pesky reality-based world we live in, and the relative importance of events.
Stanley has often been mocked for accumulating corrections, mostly due to stupid but relatively minor mistakes. That I can live with, sort of, because as an editor and writer I know how easy it is to get details wrong. But there's a bigger problem at work today.
The review starts by saying the recount "was historic and historically awful, until the Sept. 11 attacks wiped away much of the anguish and slapstick. For a while, at least, the Florida vote count seemed as trivial and irrelevant as the results of the Henley Regatta after August 1914."
Let's see: A rigged voting procedure in Florida led to a rigged count; that in turn led to an abuse of power by the Supreme Court, which put in office a dangerously inept president who in a few years' time would wreck the American economy and turn into a criminal of war (which is what people including the Hague tribunal call those who knowingly flaunt the Geneva Convention). Of course that bit of "slapstick" was "trivial and irrelevant"! Stanley's reaction truly boggles the mind.
Our ace critic then proceeds to imply that the recount would have remained some kind of cute footnote until HBO's "deliciously engrossing" film reminded us of the hoopla. Reading this in the subway this morning, I had to put down the paper for a minute; I wanted to see what Stanley would come up with next but needed to collect myself, not throw the Times out the window.
Good thing I kept reading, because I got the pleasure of choking on carefree asides like "Life is unfair, especially when retold in dramatizations of recent history." How easily does blithe sarcasm seep out through the walls of privilege… Sometimes the unbearable glibness of being a Times critic is just too much for us readers—and citizens—to withstand.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The Second Life of Chris Marker
For his latest exhibit, at a museum in Zurich, artist and filmmaker Chris Marker (La Jetée) has created a retrospective of his work that you can visit on Second Life. French weekly mag Les Inrockuptibles even interviewed him there and offered this guided tour to the virtual showroom. This is particularly apt for Marker, film's equivalent of Thomas Pynchon in terms of mystery (he doesn't let himself be photographed and his name is a pseudonym). His Second Life name: Sergei Murasaki. You can see his avatar, which is of course his famous cat Guillaume, in the interview.
Les Inrocks offers some good music videos on its website, including some of artists playing unplugged in what looks like the office's conference room. Check out the ever-lovely Barbara Carlotti performing the title track from her new album, L'Idéal, and also covering Madness.
Les Inrocks offers some good music videos on its website, including some of artists playing unplugged in what looks like the office's conference room. Check out the ever-lovely Barbara Carlotti performing the title track from her new album, L'Idéal, and also covering Madness.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Getting in touch with middle America
New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd and David Brooks can be counted on to bang out something superficial and self-satisfied on a regular basis, but they've outdone themselves this week, both on the topic of Obama's supposed elitism. (I've been clear about my preferring Hillary but this is getting too much even for me.)
First, having NYT columnists bray about elitism is always a bit rich—like Brooks and Dowd are in touch with working-class America, whose opinion about Obama they pretend to channel. They may want to move to Dubuque and file their stories from there; until then, they should stop putting words in the mouths of people they know nothing about and shut their trap about elitism.
Brooks, for instance, wrote "When Obama goes to a church infused with James Cone-style liberation theology, when he makes ill-informed comments about working-class voters, when he bowls a 37 for crying out loud, voters are going to wonder if he’s one of them."
WTF? I'd venture to say that Brooks knows no more, and likely less, than Obama about working-class voters, and bringing up Obama's bowling score is downright insane. America is plunging into a recession, it is embroiled in the Iraqi quagmire—it has legalized torture, for god's sake!—and Brooks tut-tuts about Obama's bowling score?!? I for one am glad Obama has better things to do than worry about gutter balls. There's a good chance Bush is better at bowling, and look where it got us.
As for Dowd, she just dropped a few doozies in her latest column. Referring to Obama: "There’s no doubt the cat is cool. [Jeezus, Maureen, this is an election, not Saturday night at Blue Note] It’s easy to imagine the wild reception many parts of the world would give a President Obama as he loped down the stairs of Air Force One in his aviator glasses, the chic and chiseled Michelle on his arm."
Because that's what we girls care about: a president who looks cool, and that Hillary is a sad old bag anyway.
Oh, and how about this: "Obama has to prove to Americans that, despite his exotic background and multicultural looks, he shares or at least respects their values."
Isn't there an editor at the Times with the guts to tell Dowd that she sounds completely ridiculous and she may consider re-reading her own prose out loud before letting it go to press? She might have a flash of sanity and realize how utterly dumb and downright provincial she sounds. His exotic background and multicultural looks—where is Dowd living? One of those Mormon compounds? We're in America, where half the population is somehow "exotic" and "multicultural," and the way her sentence is phrased, it looks as if true Americans aren't multiculti.
And besides, isn't Bush a good ol' boy with a down-home background and white-bread looks? Yeah, let's order another one of those!
First, having NYT columnists bray about elitism is always a bit rich—like Brooks and Dowd are in touch with working-class America, whose opinion about Obama they pretend to channel. They may want to move to Dubuque and file their stories from there; until then, they should stop putting words in the mouths of people they know nothing about and shut their trap about elitism.
Brooks, for instance, wrote "When Obama goes to a church infused with James Cone-style liberation theology, when he makes ill-informed comments about working-class voters, when he bowls a 37 for crying out loud, voters are going to wonder if he’s one of them."
WTF? I'd venture to say that Brooks knows no more, and likely less, than Obama about working-class voters, and bringing up Obama's bowling score is downright insane. America is plunging into a recession, it is embroiled in the Iraqi quagmire—it has legalized torture, for god's sake!—and Brooks tut-tuts about Obama's bowling score?!? I for one am glad Obama has better things to do than worry about gutter balls. There's a good chance Bush is better at bowling, and look where it got us.
As for Dowd, she just dropped a few doozies in her latest column. Referring to Obama: "There’s no doubt the cat is cool. [Jeezus, Maureen, this is an election, not Saturday night at Blue Note] It’s easy to imagine the wild reception many parts of the world would give a President Obama as he loped down the stairs of Air Force One in his aviator glasses, the chic and chiseled Michelle on his arm."
Because that's what we girls care about: a president who looks cool, and that Hillary is a sad old bag anyway.
Oh, and how about this: "Obama has to prove to Americans that, despite his exotic background and multicultural looks, he shares or at least respects their values."
Isn't there an editor at the Times with the guts to tell Dowd that she sounds completely ridiculous and she may consider re-reading her own prose out loud before letting it go to press? She might have a flash of sanity and realize how utterly dumb and downright provincial she sounds. His exotic background and multicultural looks—where is Dowd living? One of those Mormon compounds? We're in America, where half the population is somehow "exotic" and "multicultural," and the way her sentence is phrased, it looks as if true Americans aren't multiculti.
And besides, isn't Bush a good ol' boy with a down-home background and white-bread looks? Yeah, let's order another one of those!
Monday, April 14, 2008
Cup o' George
I'm surprised Ian Parker's fawning profile of George Clooney in The New Yorker makes only a passing mention to the Cloon' best roles in ages—in European commercials for Nespresso. They're so popular in France that a friend once asked me if I wanted a "Clooney coffee."
The first one ("What else?") is from 2006 and perfectly shows off Clooney's jokey self-deprecation, while "George Who?", from 2007, costars Camilla Belle.
And there's so much more! Check out Clooney in this pair of early ’00s Spanish ads for Emidio Tucci, or shilling for Martini Bianco, or hawking Toyotas. After all that, I don't want to hear anybody questioning his range!
While I actually do love Clooney—one of the very few exemplars of adult masculinity among American movie stars—it would have been nice to see Parker analyze that lucrative and most image-sensitive sideline. He writes about "Clooney’s assured trade in the commodity of fame," but it's hard not to wonder about the actor's trade in the fame of commodities as well.
The first one ("What else?") is from 2006 and perfectly shows off Clooney's jokey self-deprecation, while "George Who?", from 2007, costars Camilla Belle.
And there's so much more! Check out Clooney in this pair of early ’00s Spanish ads for Emidio Tucci, or shilling for Martini Bianco, or hawking Toyotas. After all that, I don't want to hear anybody questioning his range!
While I actually do love Clooney—one of the very few exemplars of adult masculinity among American movie stars—it would have been nice to see Parker analyze that lucrative and most image-sensitive sideline. He writes about "Clooney’s assured trade in the commodity of fame," but it's hard not to wonder about the actor's trade in the fame of commodities as well.
Monday, March 24, 2008
learning by example
Reviewing Gerald Graff's Professing Literature (a history of English departments in American universities) in The Nation, William Deresiewicz mentions that scanning the postings on the Modern Language Association Job Information List is a good way to see where English departments are headed.
"The most striking fact about this year's list is that the lion's share of positions is in rhetoric and composition. That is, not in a field of literature at all but in the teaching of expository writing, the 'service' component of an English department's role within the university. Add communications and professional and technical writing, and you've got more than a third of the list. Another large fraction of openings, perhaps 15 percent, is in creative writing. Apparently, kids may not want to read anymore, but they all want to write. And watch. Forward-thinking English departments long ago decided to grab film studies before it got away, and the list continues to reflect that bit of subterfuge."
Ah yes, that things about kids wanting to write, not read. And I'd actually extend that comment to people in general. Writing, writing everywhere, and no one to read all those words! I'm not sure there's anything an MFA program could teach that could not be learned by reading intensely. And I mean reading fiction, not essays or memoirs. That applies no matter what you want to write, whether it is journalism or a novel. When I'm in a position to interview people for writing or editing positions, I always ask them about their favorite authors. It's not meant to be a trick question, but appallingly many applicants treat it as such.
It's simple: If you don't read enough, you won't realize that what you write is banal garbage.
While trying to mend a ligament a couple of weeks ago, I engaged in chit-chat with the physical therapist. Upon hearing that my job involves trying to fix other people's sentences despite the fact that English is not my first language, he asked me how I learned it. "School at first, but also listening to music in English, watching films with subtitles very early on but especially reading—lots and lots of reading." He acted surprised, as if reading was an odd choice. The real surprise is why this would come as a surprise.
"The most striking fact about this year's list is that the lion's share of positions is in rhetoric and composition. That is, not in a field of literature at all but in the teaching of expository writing, the 'service' component of an English department's role within the university. Add communications and professional and technical writing, and you've got more than a third of the list. Another large fraction of openings, perhaps 15 percent, is in creative writing. Apparently, kids may not want to read anymore, but they all want to write. And watch. Forward-thinking English departments long ago decided to grab film studies before it got away, and the list continues to reflect that bit of subterfuge."
Ah yes, that things about kids wanting to write, not read. And I'd actually extend that comment to people in general. Writing, writing everywhere, and no one to read all those words! I'm not sure there's anything an MFA program could teach that could not be learned by reading intensely. And I mean reading fiction, not essays or memoirs. That applies no matter what you want to write, whether it is journalism or a novel. When I'm in a position to interview people for writing or editing positions, I always ask them about their favorite authors. It's not meant to be a trick question, but appallingly many applicants treat it as such.
It's simple: If you don't read enough, you won't realize that what you write is banal garbage.
While trying to mend a ligament a couple of weeks ago, I engaged in chit-chat with the physical therapist. Upon hearing that my job involves trying to fix other people's sentences despite the fact that English is not my first language, he asked me how I learned it. "School at first, but also listening to music in English, watching films with subtitles very early on but especially reading—lots and lots of reading." He acted surprised, as if reading was an odd choice. The real surprise is why this would come as a surprise.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
The Price is right
My interview with Richard Price is up on the TONY site. You can check out the original piece as it appeared in print, as well as "director's cut" with deleted scenes—Price had a lot to say.
Ironically, my first question to him was about the fact that while reviewers praise the accuracy of his ear, it's doubtful said critics know what they're talking about: How can Michiko Kakutani, the NY Times' lead reviewer, know how drug dealers really talk and whether or not Price's dispatches from the projects have the ring of authenticity? (By the way, I included myself in this: It all sounds "authentic" to me, but how would I know? I have to watch The Wire with subtitles!) His response, in brief: He makes stuff up—as well he should, I might add.
Next thing I know, Kakutani's review of Price's latest, Lush Life, starts thus: "No one writes better dialogue than Richard Price — not Elmore Leonard, not David Mamet, not even David Chase. Not only does Mr. Price have perfect pitch for the lingo, the rhythms and the inflections of how people talk, but he also knows how to use a line or two or even a single phrase to conjure a character’s history and emotional vibe."
I can dig the remark about conjuring a history or a vibe, but unless she's been holdin' it down in Queensbridge (and not with Maureen Dowd), how would Kakutani know if Price has perfect pitch for the lingo of the homies and cops who make up a large percentage of his characters? Her info would have to come from books and films or TV. Simulacrum feeding on itself. How Barthesian.
Ironically, my first question to him was about the fact that while reviewers praise the accuracy of his ear, it's doubtful said critics know what they're talking about: How can Michiko Kakutani, the NY Times' lead reviewer, know how drug dealers really talk and whether or not Price's dispatches from the projects have the ring of authenticity? (By the way, I included myself in this: It all sounds "authentic" to me, but how would I know? I have to watch The Wire with subtitles!) His response, in brief: He makes stuff up—as well he should, I might add.
Next thing I know, Kakutani's review of Price's latest, Lush Life, starts thus: "No one writes better dialogue than Richard Price — not Elmore Leonard, not David Mamet, not even David Chase. Not only does Mr. Price have perfect pitch for the lingo, the rhythms and the inflections of how people talk, but he also knows how to use a line or two or even a single phrase to conjure a character’s history and emotional vibe."
I can dig the remark about conjuring a history or a vibe, but unless she's been holdin' it down in Queensbridge (and not with Maureen Dowd), how would Kakutani know if Price has perfect pitch for the lingo of the homies and cops who make up a large percentage of his characters? Her info would have to come from books and films or TV. Simulacrum feeding on itself. How Barthesian.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Hogwash Island
The current issue of The New Yorker has a small portfolio on Coney Island in winter, with an intro by Mark Singer. As so often happens in that magazine, the text looks perfectly fine at first, until you let it sink in and realize it's just suburban and sentimental.
Let's take for instance, the following innocuous-looking sentence: "If you're in a the mood for a trifecta, you can still buy lunch at Nathan's and lose it, in installments, aboard the Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone."
Whaaaa?!?
First of all, Singer leaves no cliché unturned: mentioning hot-dog emporium Nathan's is utterly expected, especially when you can get better material from the Russian places in nearby Brighton Beach or the new taco stands, or Totonno's on Neptune Avenue if you really want another long-running institution.
But even worse is that neither Singer nor his editor seems to have spent any actual time at Coney Island in winter: Both the Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone close during the cold months, reopening only mid-March. Guys, this is a basic fact of NYC life!
Nathan's, the Cyclone, Weegee…can we at least get less moldy banalities? Something about Stephon Marbury growing in the Coney projects, for instance, or the yellow submarine marooned offshore.
Coincidentally, the Sheila and I went to Coney last Sunday and yep, the Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone were boarded up. We also strolled on the boardwalk; it looks empty and ghostly in The New Yorker pics, whereas we saw a hopping place, packed with families (the vast majority of them Russian-speaking) getting some fresh air. And I've been to Coney enough times in winter to know this was not a freak occurrence. The back alleys of the amusement park itself are, indeed, deserted, but the boardwalk is jumping even in February.
Let's take for instance, the following innocuous-looking sentence: "If you're in a the mood for a trifecta, you can still buy lunch at Nathan's and lose it, in installments, aboard the Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone."
Whaaaa?!?
First of all, Singer leaves no cliché unturned: mentioning hot-dog emporium Nathan's is utterly expected, especially when you can get better material from the Russian places in nearby Brighton Beach or the new taco stands, or Totonno's on Neptune Avenue if you really want another long-running institution.
But even worse is that neither Singer nor his editor seems to have spent any actual time at Coney Island in winter: Both the Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone close during the cold months, reopening only mid-March. Guys, this is a basic fact of NYC life!
Nathan's, the Cyclone, Weegee…can we at least get less moldy banalities? Something about Stephon Marbury growing in the Coney projects, for instance, or the yellow submarine marooned offshore.
Coincidentally, the Sheila and I went to Coney last Sunday and yep, the Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone were boarded up. We also strolled on the boardwalk; it looks empty and ghostly in The New Yorker pics, whereas we saw a hopping place, packed with families (the vast majority of them Russian-speaking) getting some fresh air. And I've been to Coney enough times in winter to know this was not a freak occurrence. The back alleys of the amusement park itself are, indeed, deserted, but the boardwalk is jumping even in February.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Elegant sleuthing
I love crime fiction, so it's no wonder that some of my favorite long-form non-fiction involves the meticulous dissection of a sham. The New Yorker has published two such pieces recently, one about counterfeit olive oil and one about counterfeit classical recordings. Tom Mueller's "Slippery Business" turned out to be rather frustrating—like most of the food-themed issue it was part of, actually—and I started skimming halfway through. Mueller just couldn't get me interested in the topic, perhaps because while he had a good villain in the shrewd, literally oleaginous Domenico Ribatti, his point just kept getting diluted, just like the oil he was writing about. (A nice coda the following week, however, when another Tom Mueller, ironically an exec in an American olive-oil company, wrote to complain that the journalist should have included a disclaimer that the two men are not related!)
The main themes of Mark Singer's "Fantasia for Piano," about the Joyce Hatto scandal, are similar to the one in Mueller's piece: The elaborate lengths to which some people go to deceive others, and how hardcore fans and professional critics can be fooled by the "product" (olive oil, piano recordings) they so passionately obsess over. This is compounded by the fact that in both cases said product is a symbol of sophisticated taste—though olive oil's become so commonplace that, like chocolate, coffee or tea, the challenge is now to make it re-"elitize" again by focusing on vintages and areas of origin. (This is why it's so fun reading about those deceptions: What's at stake usually is punctured ego rather than, say, the entire life savings of the poor, uneducated victim of a scam artist. But then The New Yorker isn't really interested in the grittier issues affecting the little people.)
Anyway, the Hatto scam is wonderful: In the ’00s, some dedicated fans of piano music became entranced by a British interpreter who, in her seventies, had started cranking out exceptional recordings on a label run by her husband, the wonderfully monickered William Barrington-Coupe ("Barry"). Long story short: Turns out Hatto didn't play on those albums—her husband just recycled relatively obscure recordings by other, better pianists and pass them on as his wife's.
A striking element in the story is that while Joyce Hatto was interviewed by various classical-music outlets, nobody checked with the people she supposedly played with. On some of her recordings, she was backed by a seemingly non-existent orchestra, but nobody—nobody!—looked into it. And this was in the mid- to late ’00s, when everything already was only a Google search away. No basic reporting was done, and there were no corroborating secondary sources in any of the Hatto profiles other than Barry.
Another great bit is that the switcheroo was first exposed by a New Yorker who in February 2007 put his newly purchased Hatto CDs in his iTunes, and another performer's name popped up from the Gracenotes database. Does this mean that no Hatto fan before that one had listened to her on a computer?!? It boggles the mind.
The main themes of Mark Singer's "Fantasia for Piano," about the Joyce Hatto scandal, are similar to the one in Mueller's piece: The elaborate lengths to which some people go to deceive others, and how hardcore fans and professional critics can be fooled by the "product" (olive oil, piano recordings) they so passionately obsess over. This is compounded by the fact that in both cases said product is a symbol of sophisticated taste—though olive oil's become so commonplace that, like chocolate, coffee or tea, the challenge is now to make it re-"elitize" again by focusing on vintages and areas of origin. (This is why it's so fun reading about those deceptions: What's at stake usually is punctured ego rather than, say, the entire life savings of the poor, uneducated victim of a scam artist. But then The New Yorker isn't really interested in the grittier issues affecting the little people.)
Anyway, the Hatto scam is wonderful: In the ’00s, some dedicated fans of piano music became entranced by a British interpreter who, in her seventies, had started cranking out exceptional recordings on a label run by her husband, the wonderfully monickered William Barrington-Coupe ("Barry"). Long story short: Turns out Hatto didn't play on those albums—her husband just recycled relatively obscure recordings by other, better pianists and pass them on as his wife's.
A striking element in the story is that while Joyce Hatto was interviewed by various classical-music outlets, nobody checked with the people she supposedly played with. On some of her recordings, she was backed by a seemingly non-existent orchestra, but nobody—nobody!—looked into it. And this was in the mid- to late ’00s, when everything already was only a Google search away. No basic reporting was done, and there were no corroborating secondary sources in any of the Hatto profiles other than Barry.
Another great bit is that the switcheroo was first exposed by a New Yorker who in February 2007 put his newly purchased Hatto CDs in his iTunes, and another performer's name popped up from the Gracenotes database. Does this mean that no Hatto fan before that one had listened to her on a computer?!? It boggles the mind.
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