cultural commentary from the desk of Don Shewey
NEED
Only those who can take care of themselves are free from the two main obstacles to adult relating: being needy or care-taking others. “I will come to you, my friend, when I no longer need you. Then you will find a palace, not an almshouse,” Thoreau once said.
— David Richo
“Only a Girl,” Randy Newman
“Once I Was,” Cowboy Junkies
“Heart’s Desire,” Jessica Molaskey
“Free Ride,” Embrace (Permanent Midnight OST)
“How Sweet It Is,” Joan Osborne
“Your Own Worst Enemy,” Bruce Springstein
“Home,” Brian Eno & David Byrne
“Don’t Have to Be So Sad,” Yo Lo Tengo
“Every Drop of Rain,” David Byrne & Fatboy Slim featuring Candie Payne & St. Vincent (Here Lies Love)
“Shadow of Love,” Celine Dion
“Naked As We Came,” Iron & Wine
“Moonswept,” the Roches
“Horchata,” Vampire Weekend
“Entre amigos,” Stan Getz
“Babyfather,” Sade
“Listen to Me,” Liza Minnelli
“Radio Baghdad,” Patti Smith
“High Horses,” the Swell Season
“Into the Mystic,” Michael McDonald
“Ramona,” Beck (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World OST)
“Perfect White Girl,” Patty Griffin
“Born at the Right Time,” Paul Simon
“I Can Let Go Now,” Michael McDonald
“All We Ask,” Grizzly Bear
“Farewell to Tarwathie,” Judy Collins
“I Don’t Give Up,” Nancy Griffin
Aside from the cheeky and up-to-the-minute cover image by Barry Blitt (above), I was most intrigued with Kelefa Sanneh’s Critic-at-Large essay, ostensibly a review of Jay-Z’s book Decoded, which betrayed an extreme familiarity with every scrap and tittle of Jay-Z’s music and discusses it with the detailed obsessiveness that Stephen Sondheim fans apply to every new item from the master. And then Sanneh goes on to review Sondheim’s memoir Finishing the Hat. A rare cultural critic whose sphere of reference spans hip-hop and Sondheim, innit? Go, Kelefa!
Speaking of cross-cultural stretch and the New Yorker, I was intrigued to read in New York magazine that the New Yorker‘s rapacious pop music critic Sasha Frere-Jones has been hired as culture editor of The Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s new iPad-aimed digital newspaper.
What else? I was also fascinated to read Gay Talese’s almost breathlessly starstruck account of traveling with the young opera star Marina Poplavskaya, currently appearing at the Metropolitan Opera in Don Carlo. She sounds like a terrific singer — can’t wait to hear her in person.
In my theater pantheon, John Guare looms large. Along with Richard Foreman‘s Rhoda in Potatoland, Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls…, Robert Patrick‘s The Haunted Host (starring Harvey Fierstein), and the Wooster Group‘s Nayatt School, the original production at the Public Theater of Landscape of the Body was one of a handful of productions that smashed my young playgoing brain into pieces. I’ve followed his work closely ever since.
I’ve been eagerly awaiting Guare’s new play A Free Man of Color for years, since it was first put on the schedule at the Public, under the direction of George C. Wolfe. It got scratched from the Public, supposedly for financial reasons but really — we learned from the New York Times a few weeks ago — over artistic differences with Oscar Eustis. Happily, Lincoln Center Theater picked it up and has spared no expense putting up this extravagant piece of work.
My review has just been posted on CultureVulture.net, saying in part:
Jeffrey Wright in "A Free Man of Color"
“Few of his works have ever shied away from wildly imagined multiple narratives sprawling in time, space, and dimension. Still, Guare has outdone himself with A Free Man of Color. Here he plays theater nerd as hip-hop DJ, mashing up big swatches of classic dramas (William Wycherley’s The Country Wife and Ben Jonson’s Volpone, The Merchant of Venice and Don Giovanni, to name only the most obvious), in order to tell the story of New Orleans circa 1801 as a unique crossroads of freedom and slavery, geography and imagination, race and racism, American history and American dreams, Europe and Africa, perched halfway between the Caribbean Islands and the Mississippi River.”
You can read the complete review online here.
This is my friend Max rada dada -- artist, performer, magician, trickster. Sometimes he appears in Boy Scout uniform. Tonight he's favoring a look Andy calls "Rip Taylor meets Salvador Dali."
This is Max's partner, Tim, a special education teacher. They've been peripatetic in recent years -- after meeting in Hawaii, they've lived in West Virginia and New Orleans, driven back and forth across the country, and now they've landed in New York City.
They've just taken occupancy of a tiny garden apartment in a Harlem brownstone. So they hosted the first of several housewarming salons, showcasing a small sample of Max's artwork, which includes 20X24 Polaroids, sculptures, collages, and conceptual pieces.
He loves to use money as material.
He loves to collect unusual commercial products.
He loves to write on things or have people autograph them as an ongoing Warholian documentary of his/their/our life.
His latest passion is for "Unexceptional Tricks." Most of all, he likes to meet people, to entertain, and to encourage playfulness. He's the person who first designated me a Pleasure Activist, an identity I cherish.
another eye opens 