Literary Death Match #1: Papa vs. Joni

Ernest Hemingway, from "Soldier's Home" (Our Time, 1925):

Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on his plate.

or

Joni Mitchell, from "Coyote" (Hejira, 1976)

He's staring a hole in his scrambled eggs.

THE SECRET OF (acro)NYM

The new Board of Regents for the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities have come up with the following acronym:

ConnSCU (pronounced "Conn-Skew," I assume)

Brilliant, eh?

May I humbly suggest two more appropriate and easily pronounceable options:  

CoSTCUt

or

CutSCoUnt

Media notes...

1. Who writes the descriptions of MSNBC television shows that appear on the screen when the INFO button is pushed?  "The forever-wired host Chris Matthews..." and "Analysis by the quick-witted host (Lawrence O'Donnell)"... Really?

2.  When did "prideful" replace "proud" as the adjective of choice in sports to describe people who believe in themselves?

3.  Does anybody actually have the home phone number of their banker, as shown in those Webster Bank ads?
and

4.  On The Food Network's Chopped, NEVER talk back to the judges.

Two very talented actors working very, very hard...

...while making it look quite easy, in a well directed show, with a fairly funny script: That's The Mystery of Irma Vep at Playhouse on Park.

The actors, Rich Hollman and Sean Harris, play all the characters in this spoof of every horror film and murder mystery anyone has ever seen.  Even in this most unsubtle of comedies, the two display deft touches of timing and chacterization each time they (re)appear on stage -- no matter the costume, the accent, the gender, or even the incredibly short time in which they have to make such changes!  As directed by Peter James Cook, the actors give their all but, even granting the limitations of the spoof form, the script, I feel, doesn't carry its part of the load.   

I learned (at the always engaging talkback after last Sunday's performance) that the play's been around for more than two decades and began at the playwright Charles Ludlum's own company and was first performed by the Ludlum and his partner for their friends.  That history explains to me why, while an enjoyable romp, the play isn't as tightly constructed and, as a result, not as exhilarating a theatrical event as, say, The Complet Wks of Willm Shakes (Abridged), which POP produced with these two performers previously.

Oh, I quibble.  The performances are indeed remarkable, and the show certainly enjoyable, and, since an evening of laughter is never something to sneeze at, you should take advantage of the kind of quality night out that we've all come to expect at Playhouse on Park.

The play runs through 29 January.

I saw "Macbeth 1969" last night...

...at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, which is an adaptation of the Shakespearean tragedy into a six-person ensemble  -- always with the Bard's words -- set in a veterans' hospital in middle America during the Vietnam War.  Macbeth and Banquo are wounded soldiers, Macduff a draft dodger, and the three witches, Ladies Macbeth and Macduff, and various other characters (like the Porter), all rolled into a trio of nurses.

While a fascinating, and fairly compact evening of theatre (less than two-hours no intermission), I'm not sure that, as a whole that the play really makes sense.  Under what circumstances (tied to career/personal advancement), would a vet kill a political figure in an American VA hospital?  I just don't get it. 

That said, the play works best quite often when the nurses converse, while doing their nurse-ly duties...or in phone conversations, etc...THEN, the juxtaposition of the familiar with the Shakespearean really illuminates both the language and the actions.  Unfortunately that didn't happen enough for me.  The actor who achieved this synergy most frequently by far throughout was Jackie Chung, the "pregnant Nurse/Lady Macduff/Porter."  A wonderful performance: at times controlled, manic, funny, casual...excellent.

Two (perhaps very nitpicky/idiosyncratic) things popped into my head as the evening progressed:

1) The rant by Sally Kellerman's Hot Lips to Col. Henry Blake (in the wake of the shower incident) from the film M*A*S*H: "This isn't a hospital; it's an insane asylum!"

and

2) A skill the nurses need to practice more, given that they are asked to make up a hospital bed or two throughout the play is how to do hospital corners!  It's 1969 in a VA hospital; I think good crisp hospital corners would be mandatory.    

While I respect tremendously Rep. Gabbie Giffords' decision...

...to resign, I'm pretty sure that I'd vote for her right now over any of my current representatives or senators.

Gutsy and willing to do the right thing -- even when it's inconvenient? 

That's pretty much a trait most of our current elected officials haven't demonstrated in the least.



   

My syllabus for a...

...biblical business course would include, among other topics:

Using bad weather conditions to corner the animal market

Hardball negotiating tactics:  When are frogs and locusts enough? 

The profit you and your brothers should expect if you band together and sell the youngest

and

Resource growth: How to satisfy EVERYBODY and walk away with more than your initial investment of loaves and fishes