Surely I cannot be the only one reading Facebook fights this week about health care. I’ve even participated in one of them—with the Friend of a Friend.
Which led me to wonder all over again why the hell I am in touch with people who I let go of decades ago. Was not that a natural progression, to say farewell more or less forever to the people who just happened to be in my second- and third-grade class? What made me think I was wrong to have let the past slide into the past? Why do we need to pretend to be pals with people who were never really our pals to begin with?
Facebook sure as hell makes me wonder about these things. And more.
Sure, I hate the Friends of my Friends. Everybody does. Oh, maybe that’s an overstatement, but you know what I mean. After I finish reading the political views of my supposed Friends, I question whether I even want to be in touch with some of them. Especially this week, when the hardcore Republicans have come to define bad sportsmanship. They like to lose in the meanest way possible.
I’m grouchy, I know. But I’m also serious. There are things about Facebook that I really like. I don’t think the whole thing is a fake community or always a waste of time. I recognize that this may be the way we communicate with large numbers of people, even if I’m put off by the sonograms and the obituaries and all the news that I used to get via a phone call, which did seem a tad more intimate.
Not long ago I had a boss who used the word “friend” in a wildly ridiculous fashion, saying “my friend Kevin” or “my friend” this or that. The people who worked for him were aware that these people were in no way his friend. He wasn’t. It was sad. If anybody had actually liked the guy, they might have told him just how sad.
Now I wonder if we are all like that. We will be in big trouble, won’t we, when we are unable to delineate even a rough definition of the word “friend?" And sometimes I feel like we are headed that way.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Movies: ‘Steal’ Stacks the Deck
Finally got around to seeing “The Art of the Steal.” Which tells the tale of the decision to move the Barnes Foundation from outside of Philadelphia to inside Philadelphia. It’s a complicated, historical and eventually hysterical tale, which the filmmakers tell using bad-guy music (mostly by Philip Glass, cause this is a high-class affair) to tell us which side to be on—namely against the move to the Parkway downtown.
The movie is entertaining enough, at least until it has about three different endings. I thought the story of Dr. Albert Barnes was compelling and interesting. How he chose to exhibit his art and how he fought the Philadelphia establishment, which now seems very much to have the upper hand. Barnes made a mistake we all win: he died. And his will, which he evidently was iron-clad about keeping the art where it is today, did not foresee a whole host of political maneuvers that were to come after his death. I thought Barnes probably made some mistakes along the way, maybe because he let his anti-establishment venom define his decision-making.
I have not been to the Barnes, but the movie makes me want to go before the move. The morning after the movie I chatted with my mom, who mostly remembered from her Barnes visit a lot of trouble parking and rooms that were too small for her taste. “Whoever’s going to move it,” she said, “I think that’s a big plus.”
The movie is entertaining enough, at least until it has about three different endings. I thought the story of Dr. Albert Barnes was compelling and interesting. How he chose to exhibit his art and how he fought the Philadelphia establishment, which now seems very much to have the upper hand. Barnes made a mistake we all win: he died. And his will, which he evidently was iron-clad about keeping the art where it is today, did not foresee a whole host of political maneuvers that were to come after his death. I thought Barnes probably made some mistakes along the way, maybe because he let his anti-establishment venom define his decision-making.
I have not been to the Barnes, but the movie makes me want to go before the move. The morning after the movie I chatted with my mom, who mostly remembered from her Barnes visit a lot of trouble parking and rooms that were too small for her taste. “Whoever’s going to move it,” she said, “I think that’s a big plus.”
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Theater: Rhoda Gone Wild
It’s the joy of attending a preview performance: you can enjoy the theatrical experience without knowing how much The New York Times hates the show you are seeing.
I experienced this last Friday night at “Looped,” the new Broadway-based bio-play, about Tallulah Bankhead. This one stars Valerie Harper, which pretty much describes why it’s worth seeing. Ostensibly the play is about how the theater legend had to “loop” or re-record a line of dialogue on the last film she ever did. Since she’s drunk and high and generally high-strung, that turns out not to be an easy assignment. Although the basic idea is rooted in truth, a New York Post critic charged Monday that at least one plot point is way off base, historically speaking.
Some of us, though, were there more for Valerie than for Tallulah. Having grown up with Mary and Rhoda, I am a pretty big Harper fan. She delivers in this stage turn, as she has in others. I once saw her turn a play about the writer Pearl Buck into a worthwhile endeavor, so she sure as hell is not going to have a problem making Tallulah interesting. There’s no mistaking that behind the sitcom legend exists an actual actress. Harper’s comic timing was never in question, but she’s a startlingly good physical performer. She knows how to use her body, whether she’s reaching or slumping or commanding the stage, which she does right from her entrance.
Playing Bankhead in full-diva mode, Harper’s aforementioned comic timing gets quite a workout. The script by Matthew Lombardo is not necessarily more than the sum of its parts. But the parts are funny, some of the laugh-out-loud variety. In places it’s predictable or hoary or, since this is the famously promiscuous theater legend we are talking about, whore-y. But I found myself laughing out loud at the jokes about sex, drugs and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. So sue me.
I was hardly alone. This was an audience of Harper fans. “She’ll always be Rhoda to me,” said the woman who bought tickets in front of me at the box office a few weeks ago. Now Harper will always be Tallulah too, but the Times, in the person of Charles Isherwood, expressed a general sense of disappointment about the play once the review came yesterday morning. Isherwood has a point, but I think anyone who has a sense of theater history or appreciates larger-than-life performance might want to catch “Looped.” There are laughs to be had and moments to be savored.
I experienced this last Friday night at “Looped,” the new Broadway-based bio-play, about Tallulah Bankhead. This one stars Valerie Harper, which pretty much describes why it’s worth seeing. Ostensibly the play is about how the theater legend had to “loop” or re-record a line of dialogue on the last film she ever did. Since she’s drunk and high and generally high-strung, that turns out not to be an easy assignment. Although the basic idea is rooted in truth, a New York Post critic charged Monday that at least one plot point is way off base, historically speaking.
Some of us, though, were there more for Valerie than for Tallulah. Having grown up with Mary and Rhoda, I am a pretty big Harper fan. She delivers in this stage turn, as she has in others. I once saw her turn a play about the writer Pearl Buck into a worthwhile endeavor, so she sure as hell is not going to have a problem making Tallulah interesting. There’s no mistaking that behind the sitcom legend exists an actual actress. Harper’s comic timing was never in question, but she’s a startlingly good physical performer. She knows how to use her body, whether she’s reaching or slumping or commanding the stage, which she does right from her entrance.
Playing Bankhead in full-diva mode, Harper’s aforementioned comic timing gets quite a workout. The script by Matthew Lombardo is not necessarily more than the sum of its parts. But the parts are funny, some of the laugh-out-loud variety. In places it’s predictable or hoary or, since this is the famously promiscuous theater legend we are talking about, whore-y. But I found myself laughing out loud at the jokes about sex, drugs and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. So sue me.
I was hardly alone. This was an audience of Harper fans. “She’ll always be Rhoda to me,” said the woman who bought tickets in front of me at the box office a few weeks ago. Now Harper will always be Tallulah too, but the Times, in the person of Charles Isherwood, expressed a general sense of disappointment about the play once the review came yesterday morning. Isherwood has a point, but I think anyone who has a sense of theater history or appreciates larger-than-life performance might want to catch “Looped.” There are laughs to be had and moments to be savored.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
TV: Goodbye, Oscar, ’til Next Year
One woman tells another, standing last night at a newsstand on the Upper West Side, that this year’s Oscar telecast was a good show. Earlier the same day, Cindy Adams reports on a party in Hollywood where the post-Oscar crowd pretty much agreed the show was “boring. Boring. Bo-ring.”
So which is it?I guess I’d go with the folks who thought it was less than the sum of its parts. There was a pacing problem from the start. Don’t get me wrong. I like Neil Patrick Harris. I’m thinking of naming my pillow after him. He’s adorable, and he was great on the Tonys and…then didn’t he even show up on the Emmys? But the Oscars? I thought he was oddly out of place, as was that musical number. By my count, the show started three different times.
The hosts should have been allowed to host. They needed a bit more air time, and I think I know where to get it—cut the God-awful, poorly choreographed salutes to the musical scores and lose the horror movie retrospective. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin could have used a bit more time…and we could have used one or the other, probably. I’m not sure they worked particularly well as a team. But it was worth a shot.
In the end, I’m not sure this show can be saved. It’s just so looooooooooooong. More people watched this year, which is good news for ABC. But the direction seems to be done in some sort of defensive crouch, as if the people behind the telecast do not want to offend anyone. So they wind up entertaining us less than they might.
Still, my unhealthy relationship with Oscar is likely to continue. I cannot quite say the show matters to me the way it once did. But I find it very hard to give up on it altogether.
So which is it?I guess I’d go with the folks who thought it was less than the sum of its parts. There was a pacing problem from the start. Don’t get me wrong. I like Neil Patrick Harris. I’m thinking of naming my pillow after him. He’s adorable, and he was great on the Tonys and…then didn’t he even show up on the Emmys? But the Oscars? I thought he was oddly out of place, as was that musical number. By my count, the show started three different times.
The hosts should have been allowed to host. They needed a bit more air time, and I think I know where to get it—cut the God-awful, poorly choreographed salutes to the musical scores and lose the horror movie retrospective. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin could have used a bit more time…and we could have used one or the other, probably. I’m not sure they worked particularly well as a team. But it was worth a shot.
In the end, I’m not sure this show can be saved. It’s just so looooooooooooong. More people watched this year, which is good news for ABC. But the direction seems to be done in some sort of defensive crouch, as if the people behind the telecast do not want to offend anyone. So they wind up entertaining us less than they might.
Still, my unhealthy relationship with Oscar is likely to continue. I cannot quite say the show matters to me the way it once did. But I find it very hard to give up on it altogether.
Monday, March 1, 2010
We (Mostly) Survived February
Ah, March.
I like March. It never really decides what it wants to do, in which season it belongs. There are hints—especially when it comes to the light—of spring. Outside my window right now there is a spring light bouncing off the buildings across the way. It’s spring.
Except of course it’s not. It’s still very much winter, with snow on the ground. But March does at least hint at the spring that’s on its way.
People want it to come. Yesterday I heard a woman tell a fellow who was taking her picture that she is through with winter. I keep reading this on Facebook, too, the new town hall. Where people share their deepest passion. And from what I read the passion is clear and nearly universal: enough with winter. We have had some record-breaking snowfall. I think I heard during the hysteria last week about the weather that we had survived the snowiest February ever in New York City.
The upside to unemployment: I did not have to commute to the office. But I did have freelance tasks and the regular business of errand-going. Maybe the snow is prettier here on the Upper West Side than in Midtown, but my memory of this snowy winter is mostly a positive one. Almost every time I was tempted to complain I found myself, at almost at exactly the moment of frustration, looking up and out and seeing the most stunning presentations of snow. They were like works of art. But they were real life.
I like March. It never really decides what it wants to do, in which season it belongs. There are hints—especially when it comes to the light—of spring. Outside my window right now there is a spring light bouncing off the buildings across the way. It’s spring.
Except of course it’s not. It’s still very much winter, with snow on the ground. But March does at least hint at the spring that’s on its way.
People want it to come. Yesterday I heard a woman tell a fellow who was taking her picture that she is through with winter. I keep reading this on Facebook, too, the new town hall. Where people share their deepest passion. And from what I read the passion is clear and nearly universal: enough with winter. We have had some record-breaking snowfall. I think I heard during the hysteria last week about the weather that we had survived the snowiest February ever in New York City.
The upside to unemployment: I did not have to commute to the office. But I did have freelance tasks and the regular business of errand-going. Maybe the snow is prettier here on the Upper West Side than in Midtown, but my memory of this snowy winter is mostly a positive one. Almost every time I was tempted to complain I found myself, at almost at exactly the moment of frustration, looking up and out and seeing the most stunning presentations of snow. They were like works of art. But they were real life.
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