Not only does my friend, Mat, have an encyclopedic knowledge of music, fine art and drama (from consumption, folks, not book learnin’), he’s also an artist himself. For several years now, he has created tiny puppet people of all types just because. They’re insanely detailed, especially considering how small they are: most fit in my [...]
December 2004
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Mini-me
I’ll admit, I went into Spanglish not wanting to like it. I was one of three people who didn’t like As Good As It Gets but my loathing was deep and pure enough for three million. My particular creative bugaboo has always been Wasted Potential, and believe you me, if you’d read Mark Andrus’s brilliant, [...]
I have often said that I am just smart enough to realize how smart I’m not. This is never more in evidence than when I sit down to read Susan Sontag, which I have to do slowly, in a good, sturdy chair with plenty of sleep under my belt. Christopher Hitchens writes a beautiful eulogy [...]
With the latest death count from the earthquake/tsunami passing 52,000, even a normally ethnocentric cocooner like me can’t help but be moved to action. Maybe it’s the sheer magnitude of the devastation. Maybe it’s my embarrassment by the shamefully inadequate response by both our news sources (the lead story on the radio news just now [...]
Yes, I had a good time in Chicago. Yes, it was great seeing my peeps and scarfing down my chicken Kalamata and seeing the Christmas decorations in the windows of Field’s Macy’s on State Street (brought to you, like everything else, by Target). Despite my fears going into it, I also had a good time [...]
Just in time for Christmas, the dazzling Hugh MacLeod has posted an outline for the book he’s proposing. If you’re one of the three people who read me who haven’t read Hugh, it’s a nice introduction to his work. Of course, so is this. Or this. Merry Christmas! xxxc
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Closer to Python: My Mike Nichols Day, Part II
As I’m currently in the process of converting a play with music into a musical play, I’m newly fascinated by musical theater, especially the newer forms cropping up today: Avenue Q, Caroline or Change, all of Ken Roht‘s work, the Ramayana 2K4, which I guess better start calling itself R2K5 so it doesn’t sign its [...]
The old McClurg Theatres are gone. It’s kind of sad, among many other films, I remember seeing Lawrence of Arabia there (the re-release, sonny) as well as walking out of Ishtar. However, my disappointment was short-lived because they have been replaced a block away by the River East Theatres, a 20-count-’em-20, state-of-the-art theater complex with [...]
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Tale of two cities
It is freezing in Chicago. No, literally: the temperature is freezing here in Chicago and should drop down to about 7, that’s s-e-v-e-n, degrees Fahrenheit by Christmas. Without the wind chill. This is a beautiful city, and never more so than around the holidays. The air is clear (a good wind will do that) and [...]
