Oh, and by the way, if you missed it:
You may have noticed that many people are saying Moldova was robbed. This might help you so you know what they mean.
Or not.
What is it with hats at the moment, anyway?
Category Archives: bagatelles
hatiquette continued
Locatiom, location, location! Context is everything. Note that Lady Gaga wasn’t even invited to the royal wedding. Had she been, she might not have gone as Drusilla, but I think it unlikely she would have chosen that occasion to appear as Salvador Dali’s dinner.
Anyway, as a control, can I just say I think this one is a lot better. It is of course ridiculous, but in a good way. It’s interesting, it’s graceful, it works with the shape of her face, it has more precedents in hatwear than in funerary stonewear. And it goes with her look. I quite like the hair, too; like those happy childhood afternoons with the dolls, and the paints…
While the steam runs out on the famous other one, news is that it’s to be auctioned. One wag asked: who will want it? But I think the answer is, plenty of people. Judging from the evidence.
The final ignominy
Filed under bagatelles, clothes, the Line on Beauty
May the 4th be with you
On May the 4th, Princess Leia spies Popeye coming out of the shower
You begin to see the point of John Ashbery more and more.
It’s an age thing, maybe. The more of these May the 4ths you see, the more the fourth is with you. It’s a paradox.
“It may be a paradox; but when you wake up in the morning, madam, you will still be an oxymoron.”
This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.Look at it talking to you. You look out a windowOr pretend to fidget. You have it but you don’t have it.You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other.…The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot.What’s a plain level? It is that and other things,Bringing a system of them into play. Play?Well, actually, yes, but I consider play to beA deeper outside thing, a dreamed role-pattern…
from Paradoxes and Oxymorons, by John Ashbery. Read the whole thing; and note that the last typewriter factory in the world closed its doors last week. Also see “Star Wars: the Greatest Postmodern Art Film Ever,” by Aidan Wasley, Slate magazine
(Following, as it does, the cartoon-horror death of Osama bin Laden, and the royal wedding, this is casting cartoonishness everywhere, like a mirror ball. Had you noticed? And now, back to work.)
Filed under bagatelles, the movies
A dramatic reading of ‘My Father’s Daughter’, by Gwyneth Paltrow
Via Kottke: “As my friend Adriana said, ‘to explain this would be to spoil it’.”
And also via the estimable Lucy Goode on Facebook. She finds these things so the rest of us don’t have to. And yet, and yet, I have found this dramatic visioning strangely moving… Longstanding Baroque readers may remember the pleasure Gwyneth Paltrow has given us over the years with her charming homespun ways.
I wonder if her book has a recipe for Applesauce…
Filed under bagatelles, Shakespeare
Poets, actors, they’re all the same.
Introducing Richard James: the actor, the bard, the cigarette...
Here’s how I thought my career would go when I left drama school:
i) Graduate
ii) Go to Stratford
iii) Play Richard IIIStrangely, it hasn’t worked out that way, and apparently my time as the Nicorette Cigarette counts for nothing.
For some time I’ve thought it would be amusing to share with you the blog of a very clever actor I happen to know, called Richard James. (Of course he’s clever. If he weren’t it wouldn’t be amusing to share his blog. I wouldn’t do that to you.) It charts the ups and downs of his life as a jobbing actor, the ignominies and defeats and little triumphs, as well as the stark realisations one is forced to come to in daily life… (We have these things in office life, too, and as bin men, of course, and if you find a good bin man’s blog, please send it to me.)
As well as being a world-famous cigarette impersonator, Richard’s a guy who has exploited a real gap in the market, and is making his name in exactly the same way Shakespeare did. Yes – he is writing what the public wants! Richard is a playwright who caters for the amateur dramatics sector. He writes to fit their resources: the characters they’re likely to have the actors to play, the props they’re likely to be able to get (i.e., maybe not a sinking Titanic, though you never know), cast sizes, etc. He’s written 22 of these plays so far, and they sell like absolute hot cakes. I think there’s a lot to be learned by all of us here.
In fact, they’re the real thing we always hear about, from the olden days: potboilers. Yes! You can’t just wait for that ethereal ping in your inbox, guys. You have to find the hole and then plug it.That’s how we got genre fiction and comic verse, so it can’t be a bad thing.
As well as publishing a new e-book called Professional Tips for the Amateur Stage, Richard’s recently been preparing for a workshop on Shakespeare (“things can only go from bard to verse”) and has been good enough to share some of his thoughts as he went along. Here’s his post about Richard III, Getting the hump.
Read the whole thing – the ending is a thing of beauty.
Filed under bagatelles, Living With Words, Shakespeare
Baroque in Hackney 