The Family came to town last night for their annual press preview at Radio City (which I did not attend) and for a more intimate thematic gathering at the small museum where I toil.As the series itself is facing its final hour (or final eight episode hours) we gathered together “whacked” Sopranos—those actors whose character had been killed off—along with master creator David Chase and Terry Winter,...
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Update: 30th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
And the winner is, Tyler Hinman, the kid, now a 3-time winnder. Al Sanders came in second--I don't even want to now how close he came. Maybe we need a second documentary just focusing on him. Here are the 10 ten winners in category A from the official website:Congratulations! 1. Tyler Hinman 2. Al Sanders 3. Francis Heaney 4. Trip Payne 5. Patrick Jordan 6. Ellen Ripstein 7. Kiran Kedlaya...
Friday, March 23, 2007
Travels with Cadfael: Love and Death in Prague
''A land of spires and toy palaces and golden painted gates and bridges with sad-eyed statues peering out over misty black water, a village of cobblestones and stained glass unlicked by cannon, and that fairy-tale castle floating above it, hovering unanchored by anything at all, a city where surely anything will be possible.''Arthur Phillips’s perfect snapshot of the actual Prague, from the end of...
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Q.Q.F. File: The Strange Case of the Missing Corpse
No, it’s not a newly discovered Sherlock Holmes or Nancy Drew. It’s from the Merry Quips Department from the people who brought us The Avengers.Filmed on the set of the episode Honey for the Prince, the last of the black & white Emma Peel episodes, it was a three-minute promotion for the American market announcing that the next season would be in color.It was only seen as still photographs in...
Monday, March 19, 2007
The New Nico
Steed’s brother Osbert and I enjoyed an imaginative concert Friday night at Zankel Hall, Carnegie’s smaller venue programmed for the more adventurous parts of the classical music world. The snow-sleet had accumulated by the evening, giving the night a beautiful whiteness, charged with crisp, clean cold air as I walked over to 57th street.The concert was programmed by John Adams as part of his farewell...
Monday, March 12, 2007
Travels with Cadfael: Entr'Acte, Vienna to Prague
Our Viennese time. We did the tourist things, like the Hofburg and Schoenbrunn—and some traveler things, like taking the underground out to St. Mark’s Cemetery to where they think Mozart’s body was actually interred after being thrown into a bag of lime. I learned much about the Austro-Hungarian empire, particularly the cult of SiSi. She was Franz Josef’s consort, the Empress of Austria, Queen of...
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Travels with Cadfael: Shirley Horn Trumps The Talented Mr. Ripley
“Hello.”“I will meet you anywhere in the world.”It was the warm voice of my friend Cadfael. He was between semesters again, and I had vacation time I hadn’t used. We decided on Vienna, Prague, and Budapest. Cad would be spending the summer in Vienna learning German, and he was very familiar with Budapest through the great Benedictine Archabbey at Pannonhalma. So we were on the road again. Except...
Monday, March 5, 2007
The Greater Pequa Ethos
I come from suburbia (don’t be judgmental), from a magical town. Maybe it’s something in the water, I don’t know. Long Island is a suburb of New York City. It is known for many things: the alcoholic blitz of a drink dubbed iced tea; pronouncing letters that should be silent, as in Lawn Guyland; the Hamptons, that coveted playground of the rich and famous; Billy Joel (Hicksville); Fitzgerald’s East...
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Sources Considered
Terry Teachout mused the other day that his contribution to humanity’s happiness is that he provides reliable sources for his almanac posts, and I quite agree. I paticularly enjoy the randomness of his snips from great literature of all kinds. His further comment that “Cyberspace is cluttered with millions of pithy quotations, most of which are unsourced and thus unreliable” met up with something...
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