NYCweboy

I'll Be There

And now for one of those lighter notes...

As a something of a Theater Queen (mostly amateur - I know the shows, and most big names, but I'm no Sondheim devotee, or some weird Off Off Broadway type), I do keep up on the comings and goings of popular theater gossip.  So in addition to the recent feud between Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel during Wicked, there was the similarly timed drama of Donna Murphy missing performances at Wonderful Town, a revival of a fifties era musical that had helped establish Rosalind Russell as an extremely versatile leading lady of stage and screen.

Wicked rolls on, but Wonderful Town closed after Brooke Shields(!) replaced Murphy.  But Murphy is now back on Broadway, and today's New York Times featured her mea culpa for the lost performances: seems she'd been struggling with a hemorrhaged vocal cord, and was seesawing back and forth between feeling vocally up to it, and being advised by doctors to skip at various times. 

Murphy's illness was highly frustrating to theater devotees, especially those who had christened her the biggest thing in like ever after her performance in Sondheim's rather dismal Passion.  Murphy is the real thing - a solid actress and a powerful singer with great stage presence.  I had the lucky break of actually seeing her in Wonderful Town (I think it was one of the birthday things Mom and I did), and she was marvelous.  But after seeing her, I could rather understand her missing shows.  Rail thin and glowing Murphy was sensational in a role that is a big starring part, carrying an otherwise slender story on sheer personality.  Such a role was tailor made for Russell's strengths, mainly as a comedienne.  Murphy's got those skills, but the role didn't showcase her voice as well as it might have (the songs are soap bubbles - I can only recall "Ohio"), and the personality effort looked draining, with conga numbers and elaborate fantasy sequences.

So I'm torn - I'm not unsympathetic to Murphy's story, and it's telling, as the writer notes, that the people who hired her for Wonderful Town are either working with her now (in The Kurt Weill bio musical LoveMusik) or looking to work with her in the near future (in another revival of Sondheim's also dismal Follies). But professional is professional and missed shows are not something to be proud of. Over time, Murphy may well erase much of the bad will, but I suspect some of the "diva" aspect that came out during Wonderful Town are not isolated or not part of a full picture.  Still, leading ladies are entitled to their diva qualities when they deliver the goods.  Here's hoping Murphy continues to deliver... the alternative, after all, is worse.

2008: The Front Runners (Democrats)

I’ve broken the Democrats into two sets, dealing with the big ones first – conventional wisdom has already picked the frontrunners on the Dem side (the Republican situation, I think, is more fluid, not necessarily in a good way), and it’s pointless to deny it. 

Off the bat, I have to say, I’m not thrilled with any of them – although, as you’ll see, people are growing on me.  And, like may, I think the question is whether anyone can stop the inevitability of Hillary Clinton.  But rather than start there, I’d like to start with my descending level of interest and expectation:

• Joe Biden.  I start with Biden because he's just been on Meet The Press, and my impression there was also my impression from South Carolina: with little to lose, Biden is taking this seriously and giving it his best shot.  Yes, he's got issues, and his "Obama is well spoken" comment underlined some dicey questions about Biden and race.  But that said, Biden has made foreign policy his bailiwick for years now, and he has the issues down cold.  That was only underscored in South Carolina when after a tentative, boilerplate answer from Obama on current risks in the world, Biden managed a concise, knowledgeable assessment of the situation in sixty seconds, and reminding it's not just the obvious (like Iran) but the things we are not watching closely (Putin's anti-Democratic maneuvers in Russia, and the threats they pose to Europe).  Moreover, he was the one who had a good answer for improving mental health care in the wake of Virginia Tech, something Hillary Clinton didn't - more on her in a moment.  I've always sort of lukewarm liked Biden.  I'm not sure he can pull this off - indeed, he's not seen so far in the front of the pack. Call my choice a hunch, but no one at this point seems to sound better on the "I get it" questions of America's role in the world. That matters.

2008: The Time Is Now

I know I've tried to stave this off as long as I can, but I think it's time to put a stake in the ground about the Presidential candidates.  It's not the debate last Thursday in South Carolina that did it for me - I think these things are still pretty useless - but it was the story, and the responses to, the Edwards haircut story that did it for me.  I know a thing or two about haircuts. And thinking about what Edwards needs to do to get past these stories, and the other candidates, made me realize that I've really started investing time in looking at them.

It’s hard to understate what’s at stake – for Democrats, for Republicans, for the nation – in next year’s election.  I think if we’d known in 2000 what we know now, that election might have been a mush more serious affair, but it wasn’t and we got George Bush and now here we are. The next President will have to deal with the mess in Iraq, a wider mess in the Middle East, a breakdown in nuclear deterrence, and superpowers old (Russia) and new (China, India). On the domestic front, the President will need to address our curious economic climate, where so much good seems to matter so little; take on, in some way, reforming our healthcare systems, mop up from our previous disasters, like Katrina; and help repair a fractured sense that we’re all in this together, regardless of party or politics.

In the best circumstance, this would be a tall order, but these are not the best circumstances, when George Bush has undermined not just his own credibility, but the credibility of every institution he’s touched, and our standing in the world.  So why I am I focused on haircuts and bloggers, the two Edwards stories of the past few months? Well, partly to remind you, and me, of how the big things get hung up on trivialities… but also to point out that what seems trivial can also be illuminating.

And She's Still Big Red!

Speaking of a certain Red Star... Leigh has spent the past month chronicling her one year anniversary as a blogger, roughly coinciding with my six month anniversary.  And she's done it with a lively, amusing series of "RedStar Perspective History Month" tidbits, reminding me of those solemn moments during Black History Month when CBS - the one I most remember from childhood - would have Walter Cronkite sonorously inform us of, say, the amazing role of Sojourner Truth in our history. I think he may have singlehandedly killed America's interest in history, by making it seem so serious and so dull.

Happily, that won't happen with Red, often irreverent, and even at her most serious, always concerned with not overburdening her audience with too much down stuff.

I never dreamed that the cheerful, occasional aggressive, always interesting, wicked smart redhead I met at one hellacious bad work experience would become such a close friend, a political compatriot, and a force for change in my life.  I am utterly biased in favor of the woman I plan to serve when she becomes President, so perhaps my endless recommendations need a serious grain of salt.  But I am so proud of the RedStar, I can't help it - so proud I have her link listed twice on the right sidebar. She's that good.  If I haven't convinced you yet that you should always click over and read her (especially when I seem to be not around), well, boy are you missing out.

Bon Anniversaire, Red. My own Meredith Grey and Nancy Pelosi, rolled into one.

Oh No No No, Baby, Oh No No No, Don't Lie

I was hoping that RedStar would pick this up first - since she's at MIT and probably can fill in some blanks, but she's on executive holiday, and seems to be out of pocket, as they say.

Myself, I thought the front page play given to the firing of Marilee Jones, the Admissions Dean of MIT was fascinating for the way it caught people off guard.  You could almost see, in the way the news stories told it, that no one necessarily wanted to fire her... but no one can just look the other way when a lie like this is exposed. Jones lied on her resume 28 years ago, claiming degrees from different schools (notably RPI), none of which turned out to be true.

It might be interesting, as Ezra tries, to make this discussion about something other than lying - there's clearly something in this tale about the pressures on women wanting to be in the workforce, having the skills for a job, but not the piece of paper that some people - surely MIT people - think you should have to prove some point. That's all nice; unfortunately, that's not the discussion to be having around the case of Jones, when lying becomes the central focus.

Look, I'm no angel; I don't claim to be better, or holier, than thou.  But some things are clear: don't lie.  If you lie, and you get caught, expect to pay the consequences.  And lying on a resume, about a degree, is pretty bad. And as Jones shows, one lie like that can fester for years and when it's exposed it can undo a lifetime of useful service. Which makes it much easier just to not lie in the first place.

The View From Up Here

The scariest part, ultimately, was that first look from the bottom of the ladder to the spot I would be painting 25 feet above.  What possessed me to say I was comfortable climbing a ladder and painting the top floor of a two story house has everything to do with being a guy about danger, and about actually facing one's fears. Like Ellyn in thirtysomething, I had found myself, in these middle years, fearing things as I never had before; I didn't used to be afraid of heights, and here I was having weird vertigo moments, even watching The Amazing Race when some poor (often lady) shlub would freak out in fear having to scale the heights, usually of a skyscraper in some foreign city.

What I learned, quickly, was that the old adage is true: don't look down.  I also figured out that to get a handle on working so high up, one has to respect the basic forces: gravity, the length of one's reach, the time it takes to cover a wall adequately. My inclination to rush was beaten back.  I had to respect the ladder, what it allowed me to do, and what it made difficult (such as clmbing with a heavy pail of paint in one hand, throwing off my balance).  And as I did it, it got easier.  To the point where I comfortably hauled myself, paint and all, up the ladder without a backward glance or butterflies in my tummy, and to the point where I was genuinely sad when others came in to finish up and touch up spots that had been missed (not, incidentally, in the large swath of wall I had painted, but rather on the edges).

Showing Some Zipcah Love

So there we were, S40 Southie and I, waiting for the light to change, when Southie spotted Mazda 3 Millie ahead of us at the light. 

And you know how it is, he started talking her up, trying to get some play, telling her all about how his friends Mini Mikey and BMW Bobby thought he was the awesome one who could get all the girls, and hey you're a fine looking red car there, how about, you know, we hang out, maybe hit the bars, hang out with the other cars, go parking... I couldn't listen after that - it was all so fahfetched...

Millie, of course, was having none of it.  Like a nice girl from Back Bay, she sent us on our way and turned down Washington Street.

But Southie doesn't mind.  He's always ready to show some Zipcar love. :)

Don't Judge A Fashion Mag By It's Cover... Oh Wait...

Sure, fashion is superficial - in my mind, I am still Patsy and I Am Thin And Gorgeous - but disrespecting it doesn't make you a genius, which brings me to this terrible piece of social (mis)observation by Caroline Weber over at The New Republic.  This thing has so much that's just ludicrous, I just have to "fisk" it.  So here we go:

...The writing, I am pleased to note, has been on the wall ever since September 2006, when Spain banned underweight models (as determined by body-mass index) from appearing in Fashion Week. Italy, Brazil, and India soon followed suit, and prominent designers-- notwithstanding their reputation, wickedly parodied in the movie Zoolander, as chief culprits in the conspiracy against female plumpness-- came out in support of the decision.

Oh where to begin... how about the fact that, as Weber notes, Paris fashion week issued no weight or health guidelines at all? But how about also mentioning that 7th on 6th, the organizers of New York Fashion Week, issued no rules either, only guidelines (orchestrated by - bear with me here - Anna Wintour) that, for instance, perhaps it would be better not to serve so much liquor at parties. 

Giorgio Armani declared it the fashion industry's duty to "work together against anorexia," while his compatriot, Valentino Garavani, denounced the ascendancy of size-zero mannequins in even harsher terms. "I think enough is enough with thin model," Valentino proclaimed after his most recent show in Paris. "Recently we have not been watching women on the catwalk, but a parade of skeletons." And although French industry leaders refused to regulate the weight or health of the women walking the Paris shows, Valentino emphasized that he had already taken matters into his own hands: "The models I used were far fleshier, more like normal women."

The models Valentino used... were essentially the models he always uses, and most of them - still - are probably 2s and 4s, maybe a 6.  "Like normal women"?  The average American woman is a size 12. Also, it's worth pointing out that designers are mostly giving lip service to this stuff - Armani's against anorexia, not in favor of fat people. And Valentino's ingenuous claim aside, if all he saw was a "parade of skeletons" it might be worth asking just whose parade that was.  But never mind, Weber's only just begun.

Rosie's Turn

First off, a brief explanation, as usual - long day yesterday, longer day today, and early tomorrow make me a dull weboy.

I'm also between really compelling topics - so if you have ideas or questions, please let me know.

But today Rosie O'Donnell confirmed what's been in the wind for a while - that she's leaving The View in June, after coming in, making a mess, and leaving everyone a little shellshocked.

For those who don't follow daytime TV (and what sane person would), you may not completely appreciate the daily nervous breakdown that is The View.

Everything (in NYC)'s Gone Green

Just in time for Earth Day, I finally found something environmental I could sign on to: Mayor Bloomberg's extensive Earth Day proposals for New York City.

Since he was elected (and re-elected), I've found little to complain about with the Mayor.  I know others complain about Bloomberg and smoking, Bloomberg and trans-fats, the "nanny state" nonsense and all of that.  I'm sorry - smoke free is nice, trans fats are bad for you, and people could use a little taking care of, if you ask me.

So leave it to Bloomberg to promote the kind of environmentalism I like: incremental, realistic looks at some things that would improve the city and make a difference - like building housing over the BQE, and cleaning up brownfields across the city for redevelopment.  Increasing and improving park space, and charging extra for cars going into Manhattan, as they have had much success with in Central London.

Some cry that Albany will stand in the way; I'm sure they will, but bravo to the Mayor for starting the discussion.  Almost everyone, right, left and center was pretty much amazed that Bloomberg was focused, looked at what was possible, but offered a plan with real vision.  I say, when you go from working class to billionaire, you probably know a little about how to manage and grow things. But then, I'm private sector liberal like that. At least these proposals seem more meaningful to me then the current "go green" fad among the Hollywood and Park Avenue elite, or all that "carbon offset" discussion from An Inconvenient Truth (one word on carbon emissions: China). A nicer city with more parks and more affordable housing, done in ways that improve the environment?  That sounds like a plan.  Sign me up.