Records Are Falling Everywhere

The Phantom of the Opera has just become the longest running Broadway musical ever, having just edged out Cats. The musical has run for 7,486 consecutive performances since 1988. The British composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber created both the old and the new champion. That record pales along side of producer, Sir Cameron Mackintosh who now has produced all three of the longest running musicals on Broadway by also being the “money man” for Les Miserables. Nothing suceeds like success. Unless it is the announcement that Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code has just become the best selling fiction book of all time.

With Apologies to Garrison Keillor

One of our garage door openers went on the blink last week. The experience of actually having to get out of the car and open the door manually reminded me of just how many “enabling” conveniences have entered the world of driving since I got my magic passport at the age of sixteen. I’m really not old enough to appreciate the replacement of the crank with the electric starter, but I did learn to drive using a manual transmission and our old Ford had a manual choke. I even remember when you used a handle to raise and lower the windows and actually had to turn a key to lock or unlock your vehicle. That sure was a lot of heavy pushing and pulling and rotating. Hard to see how we had enough energy to go anywhere after all that exercise. I suspect that Index Finger Arthritis will soon be joining Blackberry Thumb as a cachet affliction. From what I can gather even the button pressing finger and the twist of the wrist are showing signs of obsolescence. Keyless start has even made it unnecessary to start the motor manually. Automatic sensors now dim your lights automatically for approaching vehicles, tell you if you are low on gas, turn on your windshield wipers when it rains, engage your washers when your windshield becomes dirty, recognize you when you sit down, orally welcome you to the driving experience, and ask you where you are going and if you need directions. Meanwhile the computers are adjusting the driver’s seat to your preferred configuration, setting the climate system to your preferred temperature, and of course warning you if you start backing into an obstruction or are following another car too closely.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some conveniences this Luddite does not wish to disparage. I remember the cold rim of the chamber pot in the winter as well as any man. There is no desire to return to the so called golden days of yore, but I do wonder a bit what my grandchildren will tell their children about the hardships they had to put up with when they were young. Perhaps they’ll talk about a horrible day when their garage door opener failed.

Can you read this?

Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs. I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in wahtoredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the fristand lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and youcan sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on !!

Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of Geisha

Went to see this film yesterday with high hopes and was mightily disappointed. In spite of the fact that the Geion District of Kyoto was determined to be too modern looking and was passed by for a reconstruction in California and that the three main female actresses were Chinese not Japanese, the film was still strikingly beautiful. Then the delight ended.

There was no doubt as to why the heroine was sold by her poor family, but from there on the motivations seemed opaque and the narrative jumpy and incomplete. The initial separation from her sister was a matter of “I’ll take this one and not that one. No visual persona or action jumps out that would make her and not her sister or fifty other dirty kids the choice for geishadom. This motivational insufficiency continues to haunt the screenplay. As our heroine ages, we get too little explanation for the infighting and backbiting that tries to drive the action and we get too little of her training struggle in comparison to others in training. How can we accept that she is the best there is unless she is shown to have exceeded others in the stable. And I do not choose the word "stable" lightly. The women are indeed treated as if they were in one though horses would probably not be treated as cruelly. In another narrative non-sequitar, a nasty fire is set by her nemesis in the house. As she spreads lamp fuel around the wood and paper house it would appear as if the characters, the house, indeed the whole district will go up in flames. Cut. One to another scene and we never know how anyone got out or survived.

Mostly the film seems to concentrate on how a Japanese woman survives a life that is defined by continued arbitrary removal of all that she loves or would seek to love. WW II arrives by air in a glorious surprising image that is always a part of the advertising trailers. It surprises because for the first two hours the film strives mightily to obscure any possible attachment to a historical event. The world of the geisha is or was one with no context whatsoever. The participants seem to have had no knowledge of anything outside of their own cocoon. We have no more intrusion by the invasion of Korea or China than we do of instruction in what will happen after your virginity has been auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Over-all the film is over-pretty, over-long, and under plotted. What did you think?

OFTA Hears Esther White on Art of Storytelling

OFTA (Old Friends Talk Arts) opens its fourth year with a program titled “The Art of Storytelling” by Monmouth College Professor Emerita, Esther White on Wednesday, January 11th at 10:00 AM at the Buchanan Center for the Arts on the square in downtown Monmouth, IL.

Ms. White had a long and distinguished career in the public schools of Iowa. She then taught in the Education Department at Monmouth College from 1974 to 1988. One of her many retirement interests has been several consecutive years of attendance at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. The Festival, which was started in 1973, now attracts more than 100,000 visitors every October. Storytellers come from around the country and the world to share the local tales and ancient myths of their homelands. Visitors can wander through the festival tents and listen to everything from cowboy poetry to creation stories.

Ms. White will be developing a case for storytelling as an engrossing, entertaining, and serious art form for people of all ages. We invite you to come and listen to her experiences and hear a tale or two.

OFTA is a special “seniors” program of the Buchanan Center for the Arts, but its second Wednesday of the month meetings from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM are open to all members of the public free of charge. Refreshments are served.

If you have an arts topic you would like to talk about or an arts event you would like to promote in 2006, contact Jim De Young at 734-5529 or e-mail him at jdeyoung@maplecity.com.

The Buchanan Center for the Arts is open weekdays from 9-5 and Saturdays from 10-2 and is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state Agency. The upcoming gallery exhibit (January 7-February 4) will feature work by Galesburg photographer, Tom Foley.

Will Full Again

Two items linked by the Bard hit me today.

Last night on public TV an underadvertised special on Shakespeare showed us a first time director recruiting a multi-age and ethnic group of neophyte thespians from a north London suburb to produce Romeo and Juliet. The young director was given long distance assistance (and I assume financial support) from Baz Luhrmann glitzy director of his own rap and rock
R & J in 1996 that starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Clare Danes.

All the PBS web site gives you is: "My Shakespeare: 'Romeo and Juliet' with Baz Lurhman TV> MARC> Middle / High SchoolSunday, January 1, 20069:30 - 11:00 pmTwenty non-actors from Harlesden, a predominantly Afro-Caribbean area of London, stage a production of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." The raw experience of the novice actors revitalizes an ancient classic and the enduring message of the play has strikingly unexpected resonance with the cast. (CC, Stereo)" This former director, who worked with inexperienced actors for over forty years, found it engrossing and instructive. I believe it will be available on DVD shortly.


Amanda Mabillard’s About.com Shakespeare site is a bit short on scholarship and long on advertising, but does have enough occasionally interesting tidbits to be worth a spot on your Favorites listing. This week’s issue focuses on the Shakespeare apocrypha and has a number of forward links that will enable you to get a handle on those maybe Shakespeare classics "Cardenio" or "Edward III". The photo that heads this entry is of the Shakespeare Memorial in Southwark Cathedral in London. For more information on it and other Shakespeare sites in London you can consult my London Theatre Walks.

Berghoff Bites the Dust

One of the aspects of aging is the sensing of the loss of permanence. The people, the places, the landmarks that have always been a part of your life begin to slowly disappear or evolve into forms no longer recognizable. In February the Berghoff, a Chicago restaurant and landmark will close. The Chicago Tribute can do a better job on the overall history, but our connection went unmentioned in the larger media story. Perhaps it was because we arrived late in historical terms for our first Berghoff meal. It was on Dec. 20, 1959. It may seem odd to be able to fix the date of a meal taken forty-six years ago, but we had been married on December 19th and worked our way into a snowy Chicago for our brief honeymoon on the morning of Dec. 20th. Tickets had been secured that evening for the touring New York production of West Side Story starring Larry Kert and Carol Lawrence at the Shubert Theatre. A dinner location was needed and not far away we discovered The Berghoff. Our own love affair has been intertwined with the restaurant ever since. Over the years we have made it a point to return to that gorgeous high ceilinged old world dining room on almost every visit to the Windy City. Draining a frosty mug of "dark" while nibbling on dark rye with real butter is a sense memory so strong that I can almost taste it now as I write this. it. The Berghoff cannot be planned. No reservations are taken, but table turnover is the name of the game. You'll get in fairly soon as long as the line doesn't twist outside the door too far. The white haired hostess at the door is imperious. The waiters, in black and white, are brusque but efficient. Your main course arrives speedily. Nothing truly exotic on the menu--some pork, some sauerbraten, some fish--good hearty German fare served hot and fast. Finish it off with a Black Forest Torte and a cup of hot coffee. There is no finer place for a meal in Chicago! I don't suspect that they will miss us, but we are sure going to miss them.