Sometimes it’s only when you help a dear friend carry a heavy, noisy, shell-rimmed floor lamp five blocks in the rain at 10:30 on a Thursday night that you remember you’re on CENTRAL PARK WEST (which was the name of a short-lived soapy TV drama, remember?) and realize you’re actually AT HOME.
This is as big as I ever dared to dream, Internet people, and it’s right here. Right now! Right here.
Looks like the “Today” show’s “got the right stuff.”
All five original New Kids on the Block members - Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Wood and brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight - will appear together in the NBC morning show’s courtyard Friday, a source tells People magazine.
After months of speculation, People confirmed in January that the band is reuniting - in time for the 20th anniversary of the release of its megahit album, “Hangin’ Tough.” The group also recently updated its Web site, nkotb.com.
I went to see Joey (excuse me, Joe) McIntyre with her at the House of Blues once, because that’s what friends do. Of course I can’t remember what she had to do for me in return, but I’m pretty sure it involved Stephen Sondheim. She and I are very consistent with our passions.
Although I suppose an even better friend would go down to the Today show and report back to her from the front lines.
P.S. It’s a million degrees humid today, so my head looks like it’s wearing the hair of two Brillo pads. Oops, make that three. Spring! I love you!
This video is exactly what it would be like to be stuck in a phone booth with Ravinia Bob, SarahB, and Noah for five minutes and twenty seconds. Which is the highest tribute I can pay.
You know? I yawned a lot.
Oh, it’s a topnotch production, and an A+ to Kelli O’Hara for breathing such life into such a creaky show. She’s everything you could ask for, everything we saw in “My Fair Lady” last year. A joy. She just needs a better musical than this. The piece itself—fundamentally, I mean, as a whole—is dull. Competent, dated, dull, with a gorgeous score. The staging was incredible, and a brilliant use of the space, with the Vivian Beaumont high on my list of favorite theaters. (Yes I am a fan of the thrust stage; I’m thinking of building one right here in my studio apartment. Construction starts Sunday, with tryouts the following weekend. We’ll open with “Bye Bye Birdie.” Bring your tap shoes! You’ll have approximately three square feet of space in which to create your art.)
Anyway. Paulo Szot has a beautiful voice, but either he (or maybe the character) was missing that *something,* that whatchama-what, and if there was a spark between him and cute l’il Kelli I must have been blinking while it happened. (It took me at least 20 minutes to realize he was playing a lead, although this perhaps says more about my powers of observation than it does about his performance.) Special note that Matthew Morrison (Fabrizio!) should have “shirtless” written into every contract.
Highlights: “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” “A Wonderful Guy,” and “There’s Nothin’ Like a Dame.” For those numbers alone it’s worth it. So what’s my beef? you ask. “Medium rare,” I reply (it’s late, I’m tired). But here: I’m not sure it could be done better than this — and ultimately that’s the problem.
You’ll have to wait a week, though, to find out what Terry thought. Ooh! Cliffhanger…
Yes, it was fabulous. Yes, Patti got down on her hands and knees and then stretched herself out prostrate on the stage during the curtain call — a lifetime dream fulfilled finally, finally. And again Stephen Sondheim stopping the applause to ask for a hand for Jule Styne.
Then — at the bar afterwards? You can’t see him, really, but he was there. Close enough. Oh, close enough to make my hands start shaking. Happy birthday, I could’ve said, or a thousand things. Just thank you, I suppose.
Is it tasteless to post this? My “invasion of privacy meter” was flashing bright red, and is still, and I do so only because you can glimpse the neon marquee sign in the mirror above, with the man below. This man who — and I will say it with a straight face — is the reason I made it here in the first place.
Outside, later, stage doors. There was rain; it was quiet. But I’ve waited an awfully long time for this, too.
+ My friend Terry Teachout loved it.
The production of “Gypsy” that opened on Broadway last night is the same one that I reviewed when it ran for three weeks last July at City Center, so I needn’t say much beyond this: No matter how long you live, you’ll never see a more exciting or effective revival of a golden-age musical. Everything you’ve heard about Patti LuPone’s performance as Mama Rose, the stage mother from hell, is true — she’s so ferociously compelling that you’ll have to remind yourself to breathe between songs — but part of what makes this production so special is that the rest of the cast is just as memorable. I doubt there’s been a better Louise than Laura Benanti, who starts out as Rose’s mousy little daughter, then turns herself before your astonished eyes into Gypsy Rose Lee, the world’s most glamorous stripper. Boyd Gaines is no less fine in the ungratefully self-effacing role of Herbie, Mama Rose’s lover, while Leigh Ann Larkin brings off the even more challenging task of making a strong impression as June, Louise’s sister.
And we read Ben Brantley’s review aloud at the table.
When Ms. LuPone delivers “Rose’s Turn,” she’s building a bridge for an audience to walk right into one woman’s nervous breakdown. There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be. This “Gypsy” spends much of its time in such intoxicating air.
Brilliant night, yo.
Dear Universe,
You seem to have come into my rooms late at night while I was sleeping and stolen my very worn, very much loved copy of The Stories of John Cheever. And what do you expect me to do without it? is what I would like to know. It’s possible I am staring right at it as I stare at my shelves, but really? I don’t think so. It’s a big book; I would’ve tripped over it by now. What I think is someone’s playing fast and loose with my heart, and my heart can’t take it. This is madness!
Love (but conditionally),
Kari
My friend Lisa told me on Sunday, in regards to my future life plans, “don’t be such a Capricorn.” Meaning I have a habit of talking myself out of anything that looks riskier than it’s worth. And then I found this test at chi POM POm pom: What Sign Should You Be?
And guess what?
You Should Be A Capricorn |
 What’s good about you: hard working and ambitious, you’re practically a guaranteed success What’s bad about you: you can be unforgiving toward people who fail youIn love: you’re very picky, but extremely devoted to the one you choose In friendship, you’re: likely to be a good friend but expect a lot in return Your ideal job: rock climber, sculptor, or practitioner of black magic Your sense of fashion: preppy and put together You like to pig out on: meat and potatoes |
Back April 4! SciFi Channel marathon next week! Eeeeeeeeee……. Here’s a recap of EVERYTHING you missed so far.
From the Simon Pulse Blogfest: From March 14 to March 27, 2008, Simon & Schuster is launching our first annual Pulse Blogfest — a two-week event where more than 120 of our top teen authors and all of their fans will come together to share ideas on one single blog.
Karol Ann Hoeffner on friends/family reading my work
Kaleena asks “Have you ever written something that you feel uncomfortable writing, knowing that your family and friends will probably end up reading it?”
I have always been very conscious of the fact that that as a writer, I not only take from my own life to use in my books and movies but that I steal bits and pieces from the lives of people I know. When my first screenplay was produced, I worried about the reactions of my friends, afraid that they would see parts of themselves in the movie and be offended. I was doubly nervous about how my parents would react, especially to the sex scenes.
But I am so over it. I’ve come to realize that a writer cannot edit themselves by worrying about what others think. I would never be intentionally mean or betray a confidence, but as an author, I have a bigger obligation to tell the truth about what I know, the way I know it. And I can’t let what others might think influence what I have to say.
So now when my daughter barges into my office, book in hand, and says only half-teasing, “You stole this from my life,” I just shrug and quote one of my favorite authors, the famous novelist/screenwriter Joan Didion, who said, “Never tell a writer anything.”
God, I loved this, and god I thought I would hate it. I went in thinking “Melville” for some reason, with a heavy helping of “The Shipping News” on top and don’t ask me where my brain gets its information backed up by zero advance research. Next I’ll be telling myself “The Marriage of Figaro” is based on candy bars and “Rigoletto” is all about leprechauns.
Anthony Dean Griffey was extraordinary, both vocally and actorly—so gruff, so tender, such hope leveled by such self-loathing (”Who can turn the skies back, and begin again?”)—and Patricia Racette was everything I was told she would be (all goods). And the chorus! And the orchestra! And the music! A complete effort, amazing all.
Once again though I don’t get where people are so troubled by the set. This did what it needed to do: invoke a small, ingrown community overcome by mob mentality. The facade bears down, yes? There’s no room to move and hardly any to breathe. The doors and windows open like eyes, everybody watches everything. The walls part but they roll back in again, like the wind, constant, inescapable, nowhere to go except out to sea. Or am I misreading things? That happens.
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