PUGGY'S HILL

Mark O'Connor is just about the most amazing fiddler (all trad styles) we've got in this country - and an interstitial kinda guy who also composes & plays w/classical musicians . . . He's got 2 hot dates coming up in NYC: Friday Jan. 23 at Symphony Space with one of my fave classical guitarists, Sharon Isbin ("each performing a solo set and then, together, premiering O'Connor's new work for guitar and violin, Strings and Threads), and April 28 at Merkin Hall: LINGUA APPALACHIA: AN EVENING WITH STRINGS (MARK O'CONNOR, ANI KAVAFIAN, PAUL NEUBAUER and MATT HAIMOWITZ). Discount tix available to TDF members. (He's got other dates in Virginia, Colorado, Illinois, etc.) And if you share my love for trad/classical fusion - there's also Anoushka Shankar w/Orpheus Chamber Orch (they are great!!) at Carnegie Hall on Sat., Jan. 31, 8 pm. Also TDF. We've got tix for 1/23, and we'll see about the rest....

Tuesday we saw PAL JOEY (also TDF), and I don't see what the critics were being so snippy about. The score is fantastic - hot tunes, and an underscoring that uses them as themes almost classically, very well-played - the staging is inventive & exciting, the dancing lively, and I thought Stockard Channing's performance as the society lady who picks up our anti-hero was nuanced and riveting. I love the fact that she's not really a singer, but can she deliver a song! "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered" becomes incredibly grotty in context. And who knew Martha Plympton had such a hot alto? There are small things you can find to complain about, but nothing that ruined it for me, which I count a success. The word I kept using was Crisp: the dancing, the staging, the performanes..... A big relief, when there's so much Sloppy around. As for the story - maybe I'm just a sucker for Amoral. Whaddaya think?

It is a wonder that we made it all the way to the theatre. Tues morning found Delia revising an essay & putting the finishing touches on the The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen copyedited ms., both due the next day. I went to yoga, brought back Vietnamese lunch for the teeming masses, which by then included Matt K., come to minister to the computers, and our assistant, R, who bustled about filing things & giving moral support. Computers worked. Computers didn't work. Maybe they worked. Problems fixed; others arose. Matt is my Hero. He went to Radioshack to get them to give us the right plug. Delia put the ms. in envelope & gave to R. to take to Viking. General rejoicing. R left, Matt left, R came back for sweater, made her drink more soup for her cold. Iga turned up to clean. We got dressed, went to the theatre, met Veronica there, and had mojitos at Cuban place nearby to celebrate D's novel. At last.

Wow, everyone - so glad you enjoyed my live blogging of the debate! I'm loving all the comments/discussion.

But LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT MY BROADWAY PLAY, shall we?

Here's more about Vital Theatre. They are really great folks, and they are having a benefit for the adult theater this weekend (Oct. 3, 4 & 5) of the one-woman show MY LEFT BREAST, for which student discount tix are also available. I think Delia & I are going on Sunday night.

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Artist Craig Hamilton is having a Fire Sale to raise money to keep from being evicted. He's selling off pretty much everything. Some pretty amazing stuff, there, especially his Neverland series. I first met Craig when a friend commissioned a Richard & Alec drawing from him - but as far as I know, it's not up on his site . . . yet.

Our beloved pal Doselle Young (and friends) are signing The Darker Mask ("a collection of original prose stories recalling the derring-do of the beings we call Superheroes...[but in] a literary universe outside of what has been predominantly white... and male...") in LA this Saturday 8/23, 3-5 pm.