every day is like sunday
Saw Equus at the Riverside last night. The production hit a fever pitch early on and never quite backed down, which might have squandered some of the play's dynamic range. But the staging was phenomenal. They set it up as a Greek amphitheater and had audience members onstage at the back (though I understand this latter innovation is specified in Shaffer's script). The horses first emerge, wholly unexpectedly, from holes in the benches under people's feet and it's downright eerie. Their choreography throughout is excellent, particularly during the climactic scenes at the end of both acts. And the young man who played Alan hit enough lines dead-on to be memorable.
Overheard during intermission from a guy whose clothes screamed "I'm artsy!": "With all that shouting, I'm surprised the actors aren't hoarse." (snigger)
New book about Le Corbusier, the architect who could write in a Christmas card to his parents: "The misery of living makes man! And the disdain of this misery of living is incarnated in the soul of the GRAND CONDOR."
A touchy diatribe on why Americans don't read poetry which makes some true if familiar points (and incidentally questions the relevance of graduate creative writing programs), but doesn't offer any useful direction. One paragraph was amusing in a savage way:
One measure of the general irrelevance of anything is an official month designated in its honor. In The Republic, Plato famously concluded that poets, by virtue of most effectively shaking up the status quo through their work, would have to be excluded from his ideal society. We would do no such thing, of course; instead, we've made them inconsequential. We created National Poetry Month.
Our President makes Earth Day remarks. These are funny.
