Author Archives: weinberg

poetry, quotes

when I think, I am very apt to do it in rhyme

This quote is from the letters of the poet William Cowper, which I’ve been enjoying reading despite the fact that I’m not very familiar with this poetry. The man writes some good letters, though. So good that I find myself recognizing passages from them, like this one, and realizing that they must have been quoted elsewhere. Here, he is apologizing for his work on account of the season in which he wrote it.

“My labours are principally the production of the last winter; all indeed, except a few of the minor pieces. When I can find no other occupation, I think, and when I think, I am very apt to do it in rhyme. Hence it comes to pass that the season of the year which generally pinches off the flowers of poetry, unfolds mine, such as they are, and crowns me with a winter garland. […] This must be my apology to you for whatever want of fire and animation you may observe in what you will shortly have the perusal of. As to the public, if they like me not, there is no remedy. […] …it would be in vain to tell them, that I wrote my verses in January, for they would immediately reply, ‘Why did not you write them in May?’ A question that might puzzle a wiser head than we poets are generally blessed with.”

– William Cowper, letter XXX, to Joseph Hill, 9 May 1780, from The Centenary Letters, a selection ed. by Simon Malpas, Great Britain, Carcanet: 2000 (40-41)

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Baltimore, the chorus

sunny day:

very, very sunny. Wandering around Guilford taking pictures for incoming writers.

Parallel Octave improvising chorus meeting this Saturday, at 2 pm. More info here. Texts: Blake’s “London” and A.E. Housman’s “When I Watch The Living Meet.” Today, I’m going to get trained on one of the better sound recording systems that the DMC checks out, so we can use it for that session. Its name sounds a lot like “Moranis,” which I can’t help but confuse with the recently-reported-to-me news that there’s going to be a Ghostbusters 3.

This evening, it’s the 20th anniversary of Normal’s Books and Records here in Charles Village, and there’s a party at the 14K Cabaret.

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Baltimore, F&F, Poland, the chorus

word for word

(1) There is nothing like a dishwasher full of wine glasses to remind you that last night was good. Yesterday, we had a party for the return of C and D from their recent marriage.

(2) I was in DC today, meeting up with JK. Haven’t seen her since Wroclaw last year. We had breakfast in the mall by the Pentagon City Ritz Carlton, surrounded by hundreds of American star-striped banners, and then I spent some time in her hotel room reading various theatrical papers she had — an introduction to an anthology of new Turkish plays, an advertisement for the Polish Theatre Perspectives journal, a prospectus for a dance festival in Poznan and elsewhere.

The materials she had with her were so pertinent to my current chorus interests that, at one point, I stopped and copied out an entire article, word for word, in my journal. I’m not certain what part of it is actually the most important, or what I will need to go back to, but I didn’t want to miss reading a word of it.

I must go back to Wroclaw soon.

(3) (Bloomsday readings from Ulysses at the James Joyce this evening.)

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books, quotes

as telescoped and important as “Montaigne”

“Recalling the urgency I felt about my Work as a young sprat makes me laugh inwardly, a long, low, mocking guffaw that would curdle the blood of anyone who heard it. My Work! I still have it all somewhere, all the reprehensibly impish doggerel, the self-serious philosophical grandiosities. The arrogance of youth–those poems I wrote stank like soiled diapers in the sun, the essays were so snot-nosed they might as well have been written with colored chalk on a sidewalk in a hopscotch pattern. […] I cringe to think of the way I used to whisper aloud my own name, Hugo Whittier, the smarmy thrill I would feel at my breathless intimations, soon-to-be renowned. . . .As I recall, I intended that it would be shortened, in seminars and in conferences, to a crisp ‘Whittier,’ as telescoped and important as ‘Montaigne,’ or (the happy young Hugo inside me whispers urgently) ‘Shakespeare.’ ”

– Kate Christensen. The Epicure’s Lament. Doubleday: 2004. (204.)

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politics

until the law catches up to the culture

“Dramatically enough, “Glee” generated an unexpected real-life story last weekend to match its fictional plots. The Times’s Sunday wedding pages chronicled the Massachusetts same-sex marriage of Jane Lynch, the actress who steals the show as Sue Sylvester, the cheerleading coach who is the students’ comic nemesis. It’s a sunny article until you read that Lynch’s spouse, a clinical psychologist named Lara Embry, had to fight a legal battle to gain visitation rights with her 10-year-old adoptive daughter from a previous relationship. That battle, which Dr. Embry ultimately won, was required by Florida’s draconian laws against gay adoption — laws that were enacted during Anita Bryant’s homophobic crusades of the 1970s and more recently defended in court, for an expert witness fee of $120,000, by the Rev. Rekers of Rentboy.com renown.

We’ve come a long way in a short time, but as the Embry case exemplifies, glee for gay people in America still does not match “Glee” on Fox. Until the law catches up to the culture, the collective American soul should find even June’s wedding Champagne a bit flat.”

– Frank Rich in the NYT

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musicals, theater

scrounging under the couch cushions

“The Tony nominating committee had to go scrounging under the couch cushions to fill out the important category of original score this year, resorting to the rare tactic of including music from two straight plays among the four entries. ”

– Christopher Isherwood, “The Musical Has Lost Its Voice,” NYT. Via AJ.

His take comes in contrast to David Kamp, also in the NYT this week, who is more sanguine about the “Glee Generation,” the new audience for musicals, and the new writers and lyricists of musicals:

“The Broadway babies are not the passive, bused-in tourist young people of yore who went to see “The Phantom of the Opera” or “A Chorus Line” simply because it was what one did when visiting New York. They’re true believers for whom love of musicals brings happiness, transcendence, and, strangely enough, social acceptance. “

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Baltimore, music, the chorus, theater

keep your knickers on, it’s only a bloody play

Good, good ||8ve session yesterday: we worked on Dylan Thomas and revisited some Donne and Stevens. Piano and soprano saxophone. The energy of the group, yesterday, was much more about having the text function as one musical element in a sea of musical elements–a direction I don’t always go in, myself, but it was good to be pushed there. I think the results were wonderful. I left the session feeling really exhilarated.

After, went to JoeSquared on North Avenue and saw Second N8ture, a funk group (wonderful slow-paced cover of “Let’s Get It On”), and a horn-driven ensemble called the Chris Pumphrey Sextet. Their warmup reminded me of the experimental horn music Beth and I saw in Chicago, once upon a time — the three clarinetists in an art gallery, with everyone sitting around intently listening, and run after run after run of notes blurring together. But the actual set, once it started, was more traditional and programmatic — is that the right word? It had a lot of narrative elements, to my ear.. I liked them both. It’s good to be hearing more music.

Second N8ture plays at JoeSquared every second Saturday.

I also reread THE REAL THING (Stoppard) yesterday, which is what the title’s from. It’s Annie screaming at her producer into the phone, from a scene I directed for a class in high school. Scene 11. The first scene, I believe, I ever directed. With ED. I’m pretty sure. There are funny notes in my script, blocking and pacing notes. On the first page, someone has written (+ William Shakespeare) under the author’s name, (I think that was ED) and on the last page, “Kronk and Zadok Memorial Day,” after the oddly-named soldiers that Annie’s playwright lover is writing a bad television show about. (That was F.) The book is wrinkled and beat-up with weeks of rehearsal. It looks like what it is.

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