What Sondheim Makes Blush

Maybe the best lesson about good lyric writing for a musical character I owe to Stephen Sondheim. One of his greatest lyrics keeps embarrassing him. As almost everyone knows by heart, Maria sings in "West Side Story": "I feel charming, oh, so charming, it's alarming how charming I feel...". Sondheim realized too late that those words and clever rhymes might not belong in the mouth of a simple teenage girl. Criticizing himself he judged that such a play with words draws attention to the lyric writer rather than the character. He rewrote the lyric to make it simpler and more in keeping with the way Maria expressed herself in the rest of the score, but Leonard Bernstein would have none of it. He liked it the way it was. As millions did who saw the show or the movie. Nevertheless still today Sondheim says: "I blush every time I hear the song."

Venice, Another Rap Musical

Here's an interesting article I found in the latest Village Voice. It's about a new musical called "Venice". Composer-lyricist Matt Sax loves hip-hop. He also loves Shakespeare. These enthusiasms unite—not always smoothly—in this rap and pop musical loosely tied to the tragedy of Othello, but more concerned with post-9/11 America. A terrorist attack 20 years ago has thrust the citizens of Venice (which does not seem remotely Italian) into an era of corporate-sponsored martial law and a strict demarcation between the safe zone, where the elites live, and the city, where the underclass survives. Now a proletarian leader, also named Venice (Haaz Sleiman), has plans for civic reunification and a romantic reunion with his childhood sweetheart, Willow (Jennifer Damiano). Unfortunately, his scheming half-brother, Markos (the ever-excellent Leslie Odom Jr. in ultrasleaze mode), has other ideas. Sax has scripted a plum part for himself as narrator, the Clown MC. Under Eric Rosen's direction, the shifts between the Clown's expository narrative, the dialogue, and the songs are sometimes awkward, the recourse to Shakespeare's plot unilluminating. (And the character of Venice, the Othello stand-in, remains an unfortunate cipher.) But the songs are never less than propulsive, the performances committed, and the overall energy infectious. And all this without a single gondola.

Eggs Can't Fly

"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad."

C. S. Lewis 

Change

Here's what Jon Krakauer, a writer I highly respect ("Into The Wild"), writes about change: “So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” However, change is not easy. Staying the same feels safer, even if you are suffering. At least the pain is familiar. You are afraid that some worse pain might be waiting for you out there. That's why you prefer the status quo. It takes courage to change. But, as Bette Davis coined it, no guts, no glory.

Don't Beat A Dead Horse!

Last week R., one of the best international sound engineers and record producers, wrote to me. We had not touched base for some years, and I was saddened by the tone of R.'s letter. It sounded depressed, almost desperate. That was absolutely not like him. After all he used to be a winner. Now he told me that he was out of work and short of options. Two songs were attached to his letter which I was asked to rate. Beautiful songs with emotional lyrics, both clearly without any chance to make its way to the charts. Times have changed, the music industry we knew belongs to the past, to say the least. R. had built his career on studio work, and there was never a better musical producer than him. Unfortunately even first class studio pros struggle to survive nowadays. First I did not know how to react. Should I console him, praise the quality of the songs he had sent me and give him false hope? I couldn't do that. I decided to tell him the truth. Even the best rider can't advance on a dead horse. No use beating it. He must dismount and look for another way to move on. A man (as well as a woman) who's talented, smart and active must change direction if he finds himself trapped in a dead end street. I want R. to do something totally different. I know he can, and I'm sure he will succeed if he forgets what used to be his recipe for success. He  will ask me what exactly I think he should do. I'll answer: Burying your dead horse would be a good start.

Ten Simple Tricks

Since many years I regularly read David Pogue's computer column in the New York Times. He knows how to explain complicated things in a clear and often funny way. In this short video he names ten simple computer tricks to use when surfing the internet. After using my Apple Macintosh for almost a quarter century, I thought I knew everything I needed to know. I didn't.

The Excitement Of Writing Plays

Maybe the strangest experience I sometimes have as a writer is to see the characters I have invented get independent. "You do have a leash," described Harold Pinter that experience. "You're holding a dog. You let the dog run about. You're in control. But the great excitement is to see what happens if you let the whole thing go. And the dog or the character really runs about, bites everyone in sight, jumps up trees, falls into lakes, gets wet, and you let that happen. That's the excitement of writing plays--to allow the thing to be free but still hold the final leash."

Justice?

In the US, there are 2,270 prisoners who were sentenced as children to life without parole. They will die behind bars. On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared in Philadelphia, Miss. Their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later. Eight members of the Ku Klux Klan went to prison on federal conspiracy charges; none served more than six years.

What You Always Wanted To Know...

It's common knowledge that reading books makes you wiser. I read a lot of books, but there are obviously a lot of things I didn't know. Especially about sex. I had to read the latest NYT Book Review to learn that Galen of Pergamum, the great physician and medical researcher of antiquity, was one of many learned men of his time who believed that women had to have an orgasm during sexual intercourse for conception to occur. For 1,500 years this was the scientific consensus. And today it is still generally believed that women are naturally less libidinous than men. True or not? According to Daniel Bergner (What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire. Ecco/HarperCollins Publishers) it depends where you meet. In the 1970s, a psychologist and neuro­endocrinologist named Kim Wallen noticed that the sexual behavior of rhesus monkeys was affected by the size of their cages. In close quarters the monkeys went at it like mad, and the male seemed to initiate sexual activity, which in turn seemed to confirm the prevailing idea that female monkeys were entirely sexually passive. But in larger cages, as in the wild, the females were the ones who chose their partners and initiated sex by following the males around and touching them demonstratively. The small cages, with their forced proximity, reduced monkey sex life to intercourse, obviating all the mating rituals in which female lust was the essential factor that set sex in motion. After Wallen’s observations, primatologists started seeing evidence that many kinds of female primates initiated sex, while their male counterparts pretty much sat around waiting for the ladies to take an interest in their erections. Amazing, isn't it. You never stop learning.

Good Writing Means Cutting

“I’m not sure I’m quoting Somerset Maugham’s rule absolutely correctly, but I think it is, ‘If it should occur to cut, do so.’ That’s the first basic rule of cutting. If your reading through something and it bothers you, then it’s bad. Cut it…It’s purifying. It’s refining. Making it precise…My own rules are very simple rules. First, cut all the wisdom; then cut all the adjectives. I’ve cut some of my favorite stuff. I have no compassion when it comes to cutting. No pity. No symphathy…Cutting leads to economy, precision, and to a vastly improved script.”

Paddy Chayefsky