Random Thoughts

Ransom and I saw War Horse yesterday, the Tony winner in June for best play. It was a remarkable experience. I don't think it's a great play, but the showmanship with which the tale unfolds is breathtaking. The "horses" -- huge puppets actually, each operated by three actors -- are so lifelike that I fought hard to keep from sobbing out loud near play's end. We enjoyed it thoroughly.

It's a testament to how our lives and preferences have changed that, instead of going out to some fancy, expensive New York restaurant, we drove home to CT and ate an acceptable, not great, meal at a new Asian buffet we hadn't tried. The days of spending half a month's grocery budget on one dinner are past.

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I heard a bit of NPR's coverage of this week's Republican debate. Rick Perry talked about how sacred life is. Isn't this the same Rick Perry who is the governor of Texas? And isn't Texas the state that executes more people than any other state, more than just about every other country on the planet? Am I missing something here? 

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Tickets to Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark have been appearing lately on the TDF website. TDF, the Theatre Development Fund, of course runs the discount TKTS booths in New York but they also offer members a chance to buy even more discounted tickets, in advance, to Broadway, Off-Broadway and even Off-Off-Broadway shows, as well as to dance, opera and musical performances. The top hit shows are almost never on this list. Lion King and Wicked, for example, have never been there, to my knowledge. But Spidey is. That's good news for people like me who are aghast that anyone ever thought of making a Broadway show out of a comic book. I'd say its web has been nearly spun out.

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I'm breaking one of my rules this week. I'm going to hear the Yale Philharmonia, along with the Yale Camerata and Yale Glee Club, perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. No, I don't have a rule against hearing great music. I do try though to never attend a concert in Woolsey Hall, the acoustically-challenged, creature-comfortless barn of a building that is Yale's only space for large orchestral concerts. It is nothing less than a scandal, say I, that Yale University, which in many ways is among the finest learning institutions in the world has not one world-class performing arts space. Not one! Woolsey's acoustics are so bad that I should really say I'm going to "hear" the Ninth, or "some of the Ninth," or "an approximation of the Ninth."

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A final random thought; from today’s New York Times comes this exciting bit of commentary, about the relationship of the Irish people to the Catholic Church: “the awe, respect and fear the Vatican once commanded have given way to something new — rage, disgust and defiance — after a long series of horrific revelations about decades of abuse of children entrusted to the church’s care by a reverential populace.” You can read the whole article here. I take heart that even the Irish, who so long embraced this evil institution, are throwing off their shackles and facing it for what it really is.

Yep, it’s a good day in the neighborhood.