(5) There's some general interest, in my inbox, regarding Adele (see essay: "On Being Gay"). What surprised me is that Adele did *not* win universal adoration. However, Annie Lennox did. There's a swelling of voices who demand that Annie Lennox have her own half-time show. And why not? If Bruce Springsteen had one? Think of the catalogue we're dealing with. "Broken Glass," "Why," "No More I LOVE YOUs," "Little Bird," "Waiting in Vain," "Whiter Shade of Pale, "Can't Get Next to You," "Money Can't Buy It," "I Put a Spell on You," and then all the Eurythmics hits. The people have spoken.
Still, I'm fond of the Adele idea. We haven't even talked about "Make You Feel My Love" and "One and Only." I know that football is an evil institution, and that the players get permanently, physically damaged, and that their brains are forever altered, and then they murder their wives, or ex-wives. So maybe Adele and Annie Lennox could just go on tour together? Why not?
(4) One of my favorite pieces of prose is "Going Long," by Phillip Lopate. Here, Lopate, an august figure at Columbia, discusses, bluntly, his inability to put off an orgasm (any orgasm). He surveys his female friends about what they really want, in terms of duration. He expresses dismay when he hears pop songs (there are many) about "lasting all night": The idea seems absurd to him. The humor in the piece comes from Lopate's blank-faced unwillingness to acknowledge that the thing he's discussing is embarrassing and silly. Take this sentence: "Fornicating is like parenting: no matter how you do it, you have the guilty sense that somewhere other people are doing it more correctly." It's an absurd--and fully correct--observation. To link fornication with parenting (or, say, teaching, or visiting the elderly): What a stroke of genius. Because Lopate examines himself with brutal honesty, you're entranced; you're left feeling a bit less alone.
(3) Ditto for Janet Malcolm. I suppose I love both Malcolm and Lopate because they're so contrarian. Lopate asks: "Why must everyone love novels? People are often more relaxed, and charming, when they write personal essays." He asks: "Why is the personal essay collection such a vilified kind of publication?" He says: "You know what isn't fun? Taking your small child to Tea at the Plaza." Again, and again, he gleefully punctures silly myths--myths we've all simply accepted, because we don't think that much. And look at Malcolm. She isn't content to be a true crime writer. She can't just follow the conventional dramatic arc of a trial; she has to observe, continuously, how ridiculous and artificial the language of the courtroom can be. Her skepticism becomes its own engine-of-plot; it's another, fully fascinating character, skating along on the page.
Presumably, people have said, "Write a memoir!" So Malcolm has tried, and tried, and eventually she unearthed from this struggle a small bit of precious ore: "Thoughts on Autobiography from an Abandoned Autobiography." In that great essay, she concludes she simply isn't interested enough in the events of her own life to narrate those events. But the essay is more than that: It's a meditation on pre-packaged expectations, on the gap between what we envision and what life actually plans for us. (Malcolm did something like this, again, with "Forty-One False Starts." Unable to write a profile, she simply presented all the aborted efforts at opening paragraphs she'd accumulated. So the story became its own weird pseudo-profile, as well as an examination of failure, mystery, un-know-ability.)
Both Malcolm and Lopate are iconoclasts. They enlarge your notion of what can be thought, and what can be written. How different the world would be if these two hadn't done their work.
(2) Should you see the new edition of "Halloween"? Yes, indeed. Adam Goldman complained that the first person killed off is a child, "coded gay." But I want to argue with this. The kid says to his father, "I don't want to go off shooting with you. I would rather focus on dance class." It's not at all clear that he's gay, because actually dance sometimes appeals to straight boys. And, regardless, this kid is presented as enterprising and brave and intelligent. So, even if he is gay, is that really, automatically, objectionable?
(1) Lea Salonga will be back on tour soon. Do you know what my actual number one ideal Half-Time Show would be? Salonga--joined, briefly, by Judy Kuhn. Battle of the Disney Princesses. Only moderate use of "belting" allowed. There could be some excerpts from "Les Miserables." Why are people so reluctant to think outside of the box?
Still, I'm fond of the Adele idea. We haven't even talked about "Make You Feel My Love" and "One and Only." I know that football is an evil institution, and that the players get permanently, physically damaged, and that their brains are forever altered, and then they murder their wives, or ex-wives. So maybe Adele and Annie Lennox could just go on tour together? Why not?
(4) One of my favorite pieces of prose is "Going Long," by Phillip Lopate. Here, Lopate, an august figure at Columbia, discusses, bluntly, his inability to put off an orgasm (any orgasm). He surveys his female friends about what they really want, in terms of duration. He expresses dismay when he hears pop songs (there are many) about "lasting all night": The idea seems absurd to him. The humor in the piece comes from Lopate's blank-faced unwillingness to acknowledge that the thing he's discussing is embarrassing and silly. Take this sentence: "Fornicating is like parenting: no matter how you do it, you have the guilty sense that somewhere other people are doing it more correctly." It's an absurd--and fully correct--observation. To link fornication with parenting (or, say, teaching, or visiting the elderly): What a stroke of genius. Because Lopate examines himself with brutal honesty, you're entranced; you're left feeling a bit less alone.
(3) Ditto for Janet Malcolm. I suppose I love both Malcolm and Lopate because they're so contrarian. Lopate asks: "Why must everyone love novels? People are often more relaxed, and charming, when they write personal essays." He asks: "Why is the personal essay collection such a vilified kind of publication?" He says: "You know what isn't fun? Taking your small child to Tea at the Plaza." Again, and again, he gleefully punctures silly myths--myths we've all simply accepted, because we don't think that much. And look at Malcolm. She isn't content to be a true crime writer. She can't just follow the conventional dramatic arc of a trial; she has to observe, continuously, how ridiculous and artificial the language of the courtroom can be. Her skepticism becomes its own engine-of-plot; it's another, fully fascinating character, skating along on the page.
Presumably, people have said, "Write a memoir!" So Malcolm has tried, and tried, and eventually she unearthed from this struggle a small bit of precious ore: "Thoughts on Autobiography from an Abandoned Autobiography." In that great essay, she concludes she simply isn't interested enough in the events of her own life to narrate those events. But the essay is more than that: It's a meditation on pre-packaged expectations, on the gap between what we envision and what life actually plans for us. (Malcolm did something like this, again, with "Forty-One False Starts." Unable to write a profile, she simply presented all the aborted efforts at opening paragraphs she'd accumulated. So the story became its own weird pseudo-profile, as well as an examination of failure, mystery, un-know-ability.)
Both Malcolm and Lopate are iconoclasts. They enlarge your notion of what can be thought, and what can be written. How different the world would be if these two hadn't done their work.
(2) Should you see the new edition of "Halloween"? Yes, indeed. Adam Goldman complained that the first person killed off is a child, "coded gay." But I want to argue with this. The kid says to his father, "I don't want to go off shooting with you. I would rather focus on dance class." It's not at all clear that he's gay, because actually dance sometimes appeals to straight boys. And, regardless, this kid is presented as enterprising and brave and intelligent. So, even if he is gay, is that really, automatically, objectionable?
(1) Lea Salonga will be back on tour soon. Do you know what my actual number one ideal Half-Time Show would be? Salonga--joined, briefly, by Judy Kuhn. Battle of the Disney Princesses. Only moderate use of "belting" allowed. There could be some excerpts from "Les Miserables." Why are people so reluctant to think outside of the box?
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