Silverlake Blvd.

Falstaff @ Dorothy Chandler

 

A tragedy without great tragedians can still be abstractly impressive, but a comedy without comedians is nothing, and that’s what we got at Dorothy Chandler Wednesday night.

 

Which is absurd. Of all Shakespeare’s characters, Falstaff is probably the most familiar to present-day Angelenos. Everybody’s phone contains the number of two or three men and women who refuse to grow old gracefully, have no interest in appearing dignified, and party—or try to—like they’re teenagers. Like Falstaff these people are both amusing and disturbing, attractive and repulsive. Clever Shakespeare extracted maximum dramatic and comedic value from his shameless old drunk in the Henry plays, where we could experience not only the fun, but the disgraceful end.

 

Verdi, being clever along the same lines, recognized a good thing, and knew how to make the most of it. The music is amazingly forward-sounding. It points towards not only Rosenkavalier, Pelleas and Mahler, but Carl Stalling's Looney Tunes soundtracks.

 

We got glimpses, but not a whole meal. Hopefully next time ...

Killing the Messenger @ Echo Park Film Center

 

 

Last night a screening of Killing the Messenger at the Echo Park Film Center. Tricia Todd & Eric Matthies present representative case histories of the current war against journalists, journalism, and public expression. A lot of the footage is harrowing, but its not exploited as gore-porn. The movie provides a welcome correction to the myth that we live in a time when information circulates effortlessly, without cost.

Mothers Day?

 

There’s something in the air. This month saw the release of Linda Leavell’s new biography of Marianne Moore, and Martyn Hesford’s drama about L.S. Lowry. They both tell the story of essential modernist visionaries who managed to create their work because/despite of living with mothers who would have crushed anybody else. Producing work that is, if not lighthearted, deeply humane and optimistic. The stories about Moore are especially painful (“one year they had leftover sardines for Thanksgiving dinner”) since in her letters she comes off as not only sane but a delightful person. Victory, I suppose.

 

[Images: Crispin Eurich's 1962 photo of Lowry; Cecil Beaton's photograph of Moore with her mother, 260 Cumberland Street, Brooklyn]

Writing vs PR

 

I don't get W.S. Di Piero's own work, but in the February issue of Poetry magazine he has this unbeatable explanation of why, in the age of media, writing matters:

 

One of the offices of poetry: to use shapely speech to express the radicals of existence in all their ambiguity. To answer idiosyncratically, privately, to a public world given over to falsehood, fake facts, scuzzy rumor, casual murderousness, comedic denials, manic impromptu wind-tunnel ideologies.

 

This issue also has a tribute to Joan Mitchell--whose mom was editor of the magazine for years--that's funny and beautiful.

 

[Image: Blackberry branch by Leonardo da Vinci]