Category Archives: Entertainment

Noises Off ’99 & ’20

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It’s been two years since I’ve been to the theater. In February 2020, just before I went to California late that month, I took Ann to see Noises Off at the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights, where we go periodically. Logistically, it’s more convenient than theaters in Chicago, though of course that didn’t stop us from going into the city in ’19 a number of times.

Noises Off is a British farce first staged in London in 1982. It was at the Savoy until 1987, but I wasn’t fortunate enough to see it during my ’83 visit. Rather, my friends and I went to see The Real Thing at the Strand, a Tom Stoppard play also from 1982, which I remember being amusing.

Noises Off is really amusing. I didn’t see it until ca. 1999 in Chicago, and it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen on stage. Actually, it still is. Laugh out loud funny, along with the rest of the audience.

The 2020 staging was also funny, but not quite as much as the first time around. Maybe because I was older; or the cast wasn’t quite as good (though they were good); or that I knew what to expect. Still, Ann seemed to enjoy it, and I certainly did, even if it didn’t quite have the same punch as my memory of it.

It occurs to me now that I need to start going to the theater again. Health concerns haven’t been stopping me for a while now. It’s just that I got out of the habit. So I’ll soon do my bit to support regional theater, as part of that pent-up demand.

Things in the Mail

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Got a circular in the mail recently — another bit of paper, in this supposed digital age — advertising live shows at a metro Chicago theater I’ve been to exactly once, maybe five or six years ago. The theater has never forgotten that, on the off chance that I’d be willing to put in the miles (and it’s quite a few) to see another show there.

Topmost act on the ad? Grand Funk Railroad. It’s a nostalgia-oriented theater, and that name does take me back to adolescent days, or rather nights, of listening to my cheap bedside radio.

The band itself doesn’t have a lot of nostalgia value for me, though. They were fine. Had a few hits. Such as a decent version of “The Loco-Motion,” of all things. They were part of the astonishing variety that was commercial radio in the 1970s, which wasn’t that astonishing until the radio business decided to silo itself in unimaginative ways in later decades.

I was curious enough to look at the band web site, learning the following (all caps sic):

“Grand Funk Railroad is extremely excited to be touring in 2022 marking a 53 year milestone. After playing to millions of fans on the band’s tours from 1996 to 2021, Grand Funk’s 2022 SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL TOUR will continue to reach both new and long-time fans.”

I didn’t know they were originally from Flint, Michigan. Learn something every day. Forget just as much every day as well, probably.

I checked the ticket prices at the theater web site. For seats far away from the stage, $60. Most seats are north of $100, and if you want a seat in the loge right or left, that will run you at least $248. This doesn’t encourage me to see Grand Funk Railroad.

Also in the mail lately.

My name, unusual as it is, is gender ambiguous. I’ve been getting things addressed to Miss and Ms (and maybe Mrs, not sure) for as long as I’ve been getting circulars and other solicitations. That and, of course, a variety of misspellings, including of my last name, which is perfectly phonetic.

Our gas bills, which come all too regularly in the mail, offer up data on the price of natural gas. This isn’t good.

December 2020: 29 cents/therm. December 2021: 68 cents/therm. Good thing the most recent December was warmer than a year earlier, but I’m afraid January isn’t turning out that way.

I had to refresh my memory that a therm = 100,000 Btu. I’ve always liked that name, the British thermal unit. A Btu is the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of liquid water by 1 degree Fahrenheit at the temperature that water has its greatest density (at about 39 degrees Fahrenheit). If that’s not a legacy of Victorian scientists, I don’t know what is. Sure enough, it is.

I’d read that natural prices were on the rise, and sure enough, there it is in my bill. “What’s Up with Natural Gas Prices?” this American Petroleum Institute article asks, as if Andy Rooney were asking. The short answer: the market fluctuates, and be glad you aren’t in Europe, where prices are astronomical, rather than merely steep.

50 Riel, Cambodia

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Text from a recent fortune cookie: What does the future hodl?

I can overlook the typo. We’ve all done those. But is it right for fortune cookies to ask questions, rather than offer fortune-cookie wisdom?

Besides, the answer to that particular question is simple enough: death. Sooner or later, probably one at a time for all of us humans, but possibly all going together when we go, every Hottentot and every Eskimo, though I suppose that should be revised to Khoikhoi and Inuit and Yupik.

I heard about Dwayne Hickman this morning, and my reaction was, he was still alive? The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis had its charms, and the episodes that I’ve seen tended to be funny. As for Bob Saget, my reaction was, sorry to hear about a 65-year-old passing suddenly, but the episodes I’ve seen of Full House were not funny. What happened to sitcoms in the ’80s anyway?

The other day, I hauled out my envelope of cheap banknotes for a look, as I sometimes do. We might be on the way to excising banknotes from our lives in this country — a great mistake, if so — but I take some comfort in thinking that they will linger quite a while longer in parts of the world not so hep on digital infrastructure.

A nice-looking note, if a little orange.50 riel, Cambodia

50 riel, Cambodia

Cambodia, 2002. 50 riel. Still valid currency, with this note worth about 1.25 U.S. cents these days.

Here’s info from wiki to make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck: “There have been two distinct riel, the first issued between 1953 and May 1975. Between 1975 and 1980, the country had no monetary system.”

On the note’s obverse is Banteay Srei, a 10th-century Cambodian temple and relic of the Khmer Empire. The reverse has a dam on it, likely supposed to be a symbol of modern progress.

Looking into the history of the temple, I came across an oddity.

“It was 1923 when [Andre] Malraux, then 22, arrived in Cambodia with his wife Clara,” journalist Poppy McPherson writes in a publication called The Diplomat. “Newly broke Parisian intellectuals, they had a scheme to steal statues from the Angkor temples to sell in the West. It failed, and they were both arrested in December of that year. The legal wrangle that ensued, ending in a one-year suspended sentence for Malraux and nothing for his wife, meant he spent more than a year stuck in Phnom Penh and, later, Saigon.”

First Thursday of the Year Musings

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Little wind today, which made the outdoors marginally better to experience. But not much. Tonight will be really cold, an illustration of the superiority of the Fahrenheit scale for everyday use, with 0 degrees being really cold and 100 degrees really hot.

I can’t remember exactly when I read it, but years ago there was an item in Mad magazine lampooning the midcentury notion — the quaint notion, as it turned out — that Americans were going to have a surfeit of leisure time in the future, including a vast expansion of the number of holidays. Millard Fillmore’s birthday was a suggested holiday.

Well, that’s tomorrow, and I have to work. That idea about leisure time didn’t pan out anyway. But I will acknowledge the 13th president’s birthday, because why not. Besides, I paid my respects to President Fillmore in person recently.

Today’s also a good day to acknowledge the expansion, ever so slow, of the public domain, eking out growth despite the rapacious efforts of certain media oligopolists whose mascot is a rodent. Works published in 1926 are now in the public domain.

I’m happy to report that The Sun Also Rises is one of those works, to cite one of the better-known novels of 1926. I could have quoted it previously, and in fact I have, relying on notions of fair use. Now all the words are freely available, no questions asked.

“Here’s a taxidermist’s,” Bill said. “Want to buy anything? Nice stuffed dog?”

“Come on,” I said. “You’re pie-eyed.”

“Pretty nice stuffed dogs,” Bill said. “Certainly brighten up your flat.”

“Come on.”

“Just one stuffed dog. I can take ’em or leave ’em alone. But listen, Jake. Just one stuffed dog.”

“Come on.”

“Mean everything in the world to you after you bought it. Simple exchange of values. You give them money. They give you a stuffed dog.”

“We’ll get one on the way back.”

“All right. Have it your own way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault.”

Speaking of life between the wars…

If that song doesn’t make you smile, what will?

In the Dustbin of Entertainment History

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A few weeks ago, I oversaw the Great VHS Purge. Tapes unused for years were either donated to a resale shop — I still see them for sale there, so someone must buy and use them — or thrown away, in the case of those I was sure no one would want. Home recorded stuff, mainly.

A few tapes survived the purge, mainly because they were not in the main stash, formerly in a cabinet in the laundry room. I found one today, tucked away elsewhere: Bugs Bunny’s Greatest Hits, a 38-minute tape with a copyright date of 1990.

Stuck on the body of the cassette is a yellow sticker that says:

Please rewind or pay rewind fee of $2.00. Blockbuster Video.

That tells me that I bought the tape used at a Blockbuster at some forgotten moment in the very late 20th century or very early 21st. It also reminds me why exactly no one, except maybe stockholders, mourned the passing of Blockbuster Video and its ilk.

Carpe Diem Songs

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The first serious cold wave of the season came with yesterday’s wind, putting temps as low as 13 degrees F. by the wee hours this morning. Of course, those kinds of lows will be a regular thing by January, with plenty of days even colder, but the first one of the season always seems particularly bitter.

One remarkable thing about YouTube is that it allows me to have a slightly informed opinion about different versions of mostly forgotten songs. Also, I can discover whole subgenres — or maybe sub-subgenres — such as songs whose theme is carpe diem.

Not long ago, the bots suggested the recording of “Enjoy Yourself (It’s Later Than You Think)” by Guy Lombardo (1949). If I’d heard it before, and I probably had, I’d forgotten about it. Charming little song, definitely with a carpe diem message. Music by Carl Sigman, lyrics by Herb Magidson, though as other versions were recorded, all sorts of new lyrics appeared.

That got me looking around and I spent a while listening to other recordings, of which there are a fair number. Pretty soon I had a favorite. None other than Louis Prima’s.

Hard to go wrong with Louis Prima, who brings that Louis Prima je ne sais quoi to just about anything.

Interesting that the alternative to having an enjoyable life, in the song, is the constant effort to make money. So you might call it a postwar boom song. Ten or 15 years earlier, that sentiment might not have flown quite as well. After all, 1933 was the year that gave us “We’re in the Money.”

Anyway, I like Prima’s version a little better than Lombardo’s, and a lot better than Tommy Dorsey’s, which I didn’t much like, or the borderline novelty by Bing and Bob Crosby, which is worth a listen only about once.

Among more recent versions, ska-man Prince Buster did a version with a somewhat different message, as did The Specials, and I especially like Jools Holland’s New Year’s version as captured in the mid-2010s (with Pauline Black and Tom Jones too!).

There are, of course, other carpe diem songs. More, probably, than I’d want to look up, but when I meditated on the subject, I thought of a couple immediately. Including Howard Tate’s “Get It While You Can,” by Janis Joplin, who brought a remarkable energy to this 1970 television performance, a few months before her death.

Finally, an old favorite of mine with similar title, “You Better Get It While You Can,” by Steve Goodman (d. 1984).

Glad I got to see Goodman. It was entirely by chance. I went to see Steve Martin on stage in 1979, and Goodman — whom I’d never heard of — was the opening act. I was lucky to see him, since all too soon, he was gone. Sometimes serendipity and carpe diem go hand-in-hand.

Most of the Thoughts I’m Ever Likely To Have on Pickleball

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Strong winds last night and into the morning. Strong enough that when I got up, I noticed that our sizable trash and recycle containers were both on their sides. I’d left them upright, ready for collection, the night before. I put on my coat and went out to stand them upright. An hour later, I noticed they were on their sides again. I set them up again and then quit watching.

Strong winds ushering in subfreezing temps, I should add. But no ice on the ground. That’s about all I ask from winter.

Received the following in an email today: “The Margaritaville USA Pickleball National Championships presented by Pickleball Central is USA Pickleball’s premiere event and features about 2,500 of the nation’s best pickleball athletes, including top players Tyson McGuffin, Matt Wright, Lucy Kovalova, Anna Leigh Waters and more…

“If you are interested in attending Media Day on Wednesday, or getting in touch with us for a future story, please see below.”

I wouldn’t mind writing about pickleball, at least occasionally, though I’m afraid it isn’t on my beat. Also, I wouldn’t mind being in Indian Wells, California, site of the event, about now. I didn’t know that anyone keeps track of the nation’s best pickleball athletes, but I do now. The thought of Media Day at the pickleball championships is also intriguing. Wonder how many journalists cover pickleball, even part time?

Kabuki

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The cover of a 12-page program, from among the debris of previous years. Such items accumulate if you let them, and we do, to remind ourselves of previous years.

Except I can’t say I have anything more than a vague memory of attending the Year-End Grand Kabuki Kaomise show in November 1993. There were actors in wildly colorful costumes and makeup, pursuing their exaggerated movements, as you’d expect. The dialect, Yuriko said, was sometimes hard for her to understand. I only picked up a word here and there sometimes.

“Kabuki theatre has been the most popular indigenous theatre form in Japan since the late 17th century,” explains the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (of all places). “Accompanied by music, the all-male group of actors perform a rich combination of dialogue, song and dance that even encompasses acrobatics, action-packed heroic tales, tragic love stories and burlesque comedies.

“By the 19th century, the best-loved actors and scenes from the most successful plays had quickly become part of an elaborate marketing system that was in part fueled by the proliferation of affordable woodcut prints which drew on the cult status of the stars they depicted.

“One of the high points in the theatre calendar was the wave of premières marking the season’s opening, held annually in the eleventh month of the moon [sic] calendar, during which it was customary for a theatre’s entire ensemble to present a play to the fans. This event is known as ‘kaomise,’ which literally means ‘the showing of faces’ and took its name from the fact that all stars employed for the coming season presented themselves to the public.”

I’d say the Japanese have seen a vast expansion of entertainment forms since the 19th century, just like everyone else, rendering kabuki a niche interest. I’m glad I went, but never felt the urge to go again.

Skulls & Bones & Things

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Back to posting around Halloween. Speaking of which, this two-story skeleton can be found about a mile from my house. I’m not planning to get one for my yard.

Also, I’m not planning to watch or care about The Squid Game. Or is it The Octopus Meet? Hard to keep track of all the fashionable shows.

Thursday Adds

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RIP, Laura Ford, mother of two friends of mine in high school, Catherine and Melanie. I remember her fondly from the times we hung out at Catherine’s house in the late ’70s. She’s pictured here in May 1979.

More recently, she would comment occasionally on something I’d posted on Facebook — she really liked pictures of our dog — though I can’t remember the last time we met in person.

I didn’t know her exact age until I read the obituary, and was slightly startled to realize that when I met her, she wasn’t even 40 yet. Of course, from the vantage of high school, that seemed vastly old. Now, not so much.

One more pic from Normal, Illinois, last weekend.
Normal, Illinois

As we drove toward Normal, Yuriko asked what kind of bird the ISU mascot was supposed to be — a cardinal? I told her I didn’t think it was supposed to be any particular species, though it does look something like an angry cardinal.

Later Ann said she thought “redbird” was picked since too many other places used cardinals. The dictionary definition of redbird (Merriam-Webster) is straightforward enough: “Any of several birds (such as a cardinal or scarlet tanager) with predominantly red plumage.”

I had to look further into scarlet tanagers. Only some of them are actually scarlet, it seems. Not sure that would be such a hot mascot name anyway. If you want an unusual bird mascot name, I’d go with the Andean cock-of-the-rock. Funny name, funny-looking bird.

I noticed that Dick Cavett had a small part in Beetlejuice. I don’t think I’d ever seen him in a movie in which he didn’t play himself, such as in Annie Hall or Apollo 13, which was a TV clip of him joking about sending a bachelor astronaut to the Moon.

In Beetlejuice, he played Delia’s agent, attending a dinner party she held. Delia was the story’s cartoonish antagonist, and among other things an artist who produces bad sculpture. Leaving the party, Cavett’s character got in a good parting shot:

“Delia, you are a flake. You have always been a flake. If you insist on frightening people, do it with your sculpture.”