“I didn't have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let's say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
A new production of Rent opened in Havana, Cuba, on Christmas Eve. The Broadway musical is the first to open in Cuba in decades. Rent is a rock musical with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson[1] loosely based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème. It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in New York City's East Village in the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. Three years ago the Cuban Ministry of Culture invited NWE (a veteran American entertainment business and prolific Broadway producer) – to "explore what was happening creatively in Havana". Nederlander responded by bringing Broadway Ambassadors – a revue of Broadway hits sung by Broadway actors – to the 14th Annual Havana Theatre Festival, and the reaction was so positive that he was encouraged to return with something more ambitious: Rent.
Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.
Last October Jerry Seinfeld received a Clio award for co-staring with Bill Gates in commercials for Microsoft, writing the ads for Acura cars and promoting American Express. The Clio is a well-respected international advertising award. Seinfeld’s acceptance speech was a comic masterpiece. “I love advertising, because I love lying,” Seinfeld told his audience of of advertisment bosses: “We know the product is going to stink. We know that.”
Tam Mutu, the West End leading man known for his roles in Les Misérables, Love Never Dies and the upcoming Donmar Warehouse production of City of Angels, was supposed to play Maxim in the Broadway production of Rebecca that was cancelled due to financing problems. He had to wait for more than two years to get another chance to present himself on Broadway. Now he's got it. He will star in the new musical Dr. Zhivago, playing the title role. The show will also feature Barrett (Wicked, Rock of Ages) as Lara Guishar, Tony Award nominee Hewitt (Rocky Horror Show, Dracula) as Viktor Komarovsky, Nolan (Once, Jesus Christ Superstar) as Pasha Antipov and Josh Canfield as Liberius. The musical Dr. Zhivago features the work of bookwriter Michael Weller (Moonchildren, Loose Ends), composer Lucy Simon (The Secret Garden) and lyricists Michael Korie (Grey Gardens) and Amy Powers (Lizzie Borden). It will begin performances March 27, 2015, at the Broadway Theatre.
“I’ve decided that gratitude – rather, gratefulness – is the essence of joy, the basic emotion, what we feel when we hear music we love, or look at our loved ones, or simply breathe; and growing old means only losing that emotion. The retention of gratefulness is the guarantee of continued youth.”
"One ought to be accustomed, by now, to Pynchon’s leaving his mysteries unresolved, or at least prepared to give him credit for having done so on purpose. Incompleteness is the inherent vice of paranoid theories of history, the limitation of such theories that Pynchon has always freely acknowledged. Criticism of Pynchon’s “shaggy dog” or sloppy plotting neglects the emphasis that he has always laid on the dual meaning of the word plot. From V. forward, nearly all his novels have been founded on a bedrock of detective fiction and underlayed with science fiction, boy’s adventure, westerns, spy fiction, and other genres that rely, like conspiracy theories, on plotting. His broken plots expose the epistemological brokenness of paranoid systems, which are, after all, nothing but attempts, grander but no less doomed to failure than anyone’s, to make sense of a broken world."
Since 2012, when the European Union passed a revised copyright law, extending the copyright on recordings from 50 years to 70 – but only if the recording was published during its first 50 years – record companies have been exploring their vaults for potentially marketable material in danger of losing its copyright protection if it is not released. That first year, Motown released a series of albums packed with outtakes by some of its major acts, and Sony released a limited-edition collection of 1962 outtakes by Bob Dylan, with the surprisingly frank title, “The Copyright Extension Collection, Vol. I.” In 2013, Sony released a second Dylan set, devoted to previously unreleased 1963 recordings. Similar recordings by the Beatles and the Beach Boys followed. For collectors, these sets are a boon, and they are becoming increasingly plentiful as the 50th anniversary of each year of the 1960s rolls around, moving deeper into the rock era. Record labels, however, have complied with the publication requirement reluctantly, releasing the sets in small quantities, or making them available only as digital downloads. This year’s trawl is starting to shape up. Sony has told European retailers that it will release a nine-LP set of 1964 recordings by Mr. Dylan, possibly as early as next week. Only 1,000 copies will be available, but if past years are any guide, collectors who obtain copies are likely to make copies available online before the year is out.
The Library Of America has just released a boxed set of two volumes featuring the complete books and lyrics of 16 Broadway classics, such as Show Boat, As Thousands Cheer, Oklahoma!, On the Town, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Gypsy, Fiddler on the Roof and Cabaret. Each of these classic musicals has evolved over time, receiving many important revivals and new productions. This Library of America boxed set offers readers unprecedented insight into this living history with a selection of hard-to-find or previously unpublished supplementary items, including lyrics of songs dropped out-of-town or added in later revivals. Lavishly illustrated with photographs and other images drawn from the original productions, the set also contains biographical sketches of the book writers and lyricists; cast lists and other information about the shows’ Broadway openings; and detailed accounts of the path each show took on the road to Broadway. As a special feature, the box includes 16 full-color postcards reproducing the original show posters.
Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.
John Rando, who won a Tony Award for “Urinetown” and directed the ill-fated Broadway production of the mutilated "Dance Of The Vampires", has turned down the offer to sign on as director of the new big-budget musical “King Kong”. He had been in advanced negotiations for the job and spent several days last month with the musical’s producer and artists in Australia, where the show – and its 20-foot-tall Kong puppet – was developed and had a world-premiere run in 2013 that altogether cost a reported $30 million, a far higher sum than most Broadway shows.
Martin Luther was condemned for heresy and excommunicated in 1521 by Pope Leo X, who had initially dismissed him as “a drunken German” and predicted he would “change his mind when sober”. Luther never intended to split Christianity but only to purge the Church of corrupt practices. Nevertheless he came very close to being burned alive.
Gore Vidal's State of the Union: Nation Essays, 1958–2005 is now available in paperback and digital format for tablets, smartphones and computers. Gore Vidal was the pre-eminent essayist of his generation, and he wrote for The Nation over a span of forty-seven years, becoming a contributing editor in 1981. That same year, The Nation published his explosive first essay for editor Victor Navasky, "Some Jews and the Gays," which is included here. This collection also exemplifies the best of his critical vision with other great essays like "Requiem for the American Empire," "Monotheism and Its Discontents," "Notes on Our Patriarchal State" and "The Birds and the Bees"—and its Monica Lewinsky–era sequel, "The Birds and the Bees and Clinton." Editor Richard Lingeman's advice: "Prepare to have your preconceptions challenged. Prepare also to smile or laugh out loud."
The soul singer Jimmy Ruffin had a Top 10 hit in 1966 called “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted”. Other hits were I've Passed This Way Before, Gonna Give Her All the Love I Got and Hold On To My Love. Jimmy Ruffin was not one of the biggest stars in the Motown stable of the 1960s and ’70s, which also included, among many others, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Four Tops, the Jackson 5 and the Temptations — whose million-selling 1965 single “My Girl” featured his brother David as lead singer. This younger brother David, one of the early members of the Temptations, died in 1991 of a drug overdose, prompting his sibling to become an anti-drug campaigner. Aged 78, Jimmy Ruffin died on Monday in a Las Vegas hospital.
Fame, that much-coveted goddes, has many faces, and fame comes in many sorts and sizes - from the one-week notoriety of the cover story to the splendor of an everlasting name. Posthumus fame is one of fame's rarer and least desired articles, although it is less arbitrary and often more solid than the other sorts, since it is seldom bestowed upon mere merchandise. The one who stood most to profit is dead and hence it is not for sale.
Clif Bar, a maker of nutrition bar with a climber on its logo, used to be a major sponsor of extreme sports such as base jumping and free soloing. Now the company has canceled all contracts. “We concluded that these forms of the sport are pushing boundaries and taking the element of risk to a place where we as a company are no longer willing to go,” Clif Bar wrote in an open letter to the climbing community. “We understand that some climbers feel these forms of climbing are pushing the sport to new frontiers. But we no longer feel good about benefiting from the amount of risk certain athletes are taking in areas of the sport where there is no margin for error; where there is no safety net.” Among those whose contracts were withdrawn were Alex Honnold and Dean Potter, each widely credited with pushing the boundaries of the sport in recent years. How far they are pushing the boundaries can be seen in a new documentary about the evolution of rock climbing in Yosemite National Park that was just released ("Valley Uprising"). The film shows both of them climbing precarious routes barehanded and without ropes and Dean Potter walking across a rope suspended between towering rock formations.
There is an imperial German historiography, indeed, I fear, an anti-Semitic one, — there is a court historiography, and Mr von Treitschke knows no shame… recently an idiotic judgment in historical matters, a sentence by the Swabian esthete Vischer, now fortunately faded from the scene, made its rounds in the German newspapers as a “truth” which every German should recognize: “The Renaissance and the Reformation must be joined together to make a whole—the esthetic rebirth and the moral rebirth.” – I lose patience when I hear such sentences, and I feel a desire, indeed, a duty, to tell the Germans all the things they have on their conscience! All the great cultural crimes of four centuries are on their conscience!… And always for the same reason, because of their internalized cowardice in the face of reality, which is also a cowardice in the face of the truth, which they have made into their instinctive untruth, from “idealism.”
Sting's first musical The Last Ship, opened a week ago on Broadway. The reviews were mixed. Newsday's Linda Winer, wrote: “If sincerity and noble intentions were enough to make a good musical, The Last Ship would be a smash. If haunting folk-tinged melodies and choruses of rousing determination could float this boat, Sting’s heartfelt debut musical would justify the years he devoted to the $14 million epic about a depressed English shipbuilding town very much like the one where he grew up…Alas, The Last Ship is a ravishing concert with passionate singers buried in a monotonous, improbable story and surrounded by dark rusted metal with grim industrial scaffolds (by David Zinn)…Unlike many other pop stars who try Broadway but only sound like themselves, Sting creates different voices for different characters. We hope he tries again.” Other reviews were quite positive, but the ticket sales are low. The musical has been running at a loss since its first previews six weeks ago. Weekly operating costs are
around $600,000, and the musical is losing just under $100,000
a week. So Sting is considering joining the cast to save The Last Ship from troubled waters. If he steps in, he likely would replace the star, Jimmy Nail, in January—a month when Broadway ticket sales tend to flag. It's an admirable decision, worthy of this outstanding artist. "I've never wanted to fall off the lowest rung of any ladder I ever started to climb," Sting said in a tv interview a few days ago. "I'm here to take risks. Nothing of value is without risk. And I'm only risking my reputation." Hats off! 
There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so had I my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest.
According to Patrick Healy of The New York Times the Australian musical “King Kong” will soon come to Broadway. I will be directed by John Rando, who earned critical acclaim last month for staging the Broadway revival of “On the Town”. Mr. Rando is in Australia right now for several days of discussions with the producer about overhauling the show for New York.
The film studio Lionsgate has announced plans for a stage version of The Hunger Games, the bestselling books that have become an equally successful franchise of films. The studio is teaming up with entertainment companies in the US and the Netherlands to create a live version of the series about a dystopian world in which teenagers are forced to fight to the death. Lionsgate, Dutch media company Imagine Nation and US-based Triangular Entertainment said on Friday that the stage version featuring “innovative and immersive staging techniques” will open in 2016 at a new venue beside Wembley Stadium in London. Producers include Robin de Levita, who created a rotating auditorium for the Dutch musical Soldier of Orange and a rotating set for the Anne Frank play Anne. Mockingjay – Part I, the third film based on the novels by Suzanne Collins, opens this month. Jennifer Lawrence returns to the lead role as the character Katniss Everdeen.
The Marshmallow Test, created by Mischel in the 1960s, was at the heart of an investigation of the ability of young children to delay gratification. A marshmallow was placed in front of them as they sat alone in a plain room. The child could choose to eat the one treat — or wait about 15 minutes to receive two treats. More monumental findings followed: The psychologist observed that the children who waited for the second treat did better at school, and formal research confirmed this. Those who waited enjoyed better health too. These discoveries prompted further investigation into where the ability to control oneself comes from. This book, a compendium of his life's research, is Mischel's attempt to demonstrate that self-control can be learned. It is published by Little Brown & Co. The book is somewhat light on practical, usable advice. Author Charles Duhigg's 2012 book, "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business," is perhaps more useful in this regard.
The worst mistake that a fledgling musical book writer can make is to remain absolutely faithful to the movie or whatever he or she is attempting to turn into a musical, for the Broadway musical is a unique genre of its own, and the original work, like Shaw's Pygmalion, has to be completely taken apart, rethought and utterly transformed in order to be turned into a singularly shimmering and brilliant musical like My Fair Lady.
The London Guardian writes today: "According to criminologist James Tully, the author of Jane Eyre was not the secluded, intellectual spinster we imagine, but a violently envious and lustful murderess. All was peaceful in the Brontë household, Tully says, until the 1845 appearance of a (debatably) handsome and wily curate named Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls. Tully claims that Nicholls encouraged Charlotte’s already envious disposition, and together they poisoned each one of her siblings. Emily and Branwell (who another theory says wrote Emily’s Wuthering Heights) died in 1848 at ages 30 and 31 respectively. Anne died in 1849 at 29. The common conception is that they all contracted tuberculosis or cholera, but Tully, who is also an expert in 19th-century poison, is convinced that they were murdered. A few years later Charlotte’s father “angrily chased” Nicholls from their estate. Soon after that, Charlotte eloped with Nicholls, only to die a year later. Tully claims that it was Nicholls’s plan all along to inherit the Brontë estate, and thus Charlotte met the same bleak fate as her siblings. Tully originally wrote his theory as non-fiction, but was unable to find a publisher; so he retold the story as fiction from the point of view of real-life maid Martha Brown. His book, The Crimes of Charlotte Brontë, gained some recognition, but was generally rejected by Brontë enthusiasts."
Don't aim for success if you want it; just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally.
