#$&%@*!!!

Ah, Guardian blogs! Letting me down, at last! Today's batch featured this just-plain-insane entry from a man whose last name is "Pulver," which puts me in mind of a verb describing what I'd gladly do to him if I saw him onl the street. (Alright, not really, but please. Pulver? There's a divorce lawyer near Erin's apt. whose name is"Tracey Bloodsaw." How can that be her real name?! Every time I walk by the sign, I say to myself "Blooooodsawww" in a Vincent Price voice.)

Anyway, here are some key sentences from the entry entitled : 'Should Tim Burton Have Cut Sweeney Todd's Songs?'

"It wasn't what I was expecting. I'm no Sondheim maven, nor am I much of a fan of musicals in general. In fact, the only Sondheim tune I know I've heard is Send in the Clowns. But I really wasn't prepared for the cavalcade of horribleness that was the Sweeney Todd music. (I'm presuming, rightly or wrongly, that it's been lifted pretty much intact from the stage show.) Sweeney Todd the film pretty much grinds to a halt whenever the music starts swelling; the plodding melodies and uninspiring lyrics seeing to that."

"Personally speaking, I still enjoyed Sweeney Todd the movie a great deal. Edit out the songs and there's plenty to get excited about."

And finally...

"The Todd story is colourful and gory enough, you'd have thought, without the need for such pedestrian warbling. (Once again, I stress this is not the fault of the performers, who acquit themselves perfectly well. It's the songs themselves.)"


Oh, dear.


In happier news, I leave today for the Keystone Convention in Christiana, PA! (My mom said "At least it's an appropriately-named town.") Jesse, Lauren, Rachel and I are leaving at prime rush-hour-out-of-NYC and who knows when we'll arrive at our destination. (We've got all four parts in the car. Dorks dork dorks!)

Speaking of dorks, Lauren summed up the theme of the Time Mag article in this succinct statement: "Jesus Christ is a Superstar. He got that way thanks to punks, Jews, Buddhists, freaks....and geeks." You have to say it in a Poindexter voice for it to work. (I use that word at least once a day. My cousin used to have a cat named Poindexter-- they called it 'Pointy.')

The downside of Keystone is that I have to wear clothing there, and since it's a convention, #1, it theoretically should be nice clothing, AND , since it's a convention, #2, I have to have two DAYS worth. I don't really own any nice clothing, per se, so I spent the better part of an hour last night ripping everything out of my closet and throwing it around the room. Then trying it on. I settled on a dour, dour black skirt and shirt outfit which I'll pair with black stocking. But so no one mistakes me for a witch (it's literally what I wore for my "Halloween costume" at temp-work this year, minus the striped knee-socks) or a Quaker I'll wear red high heels. And I'll smile.

Anyway, I'm so excited to go away and to see my friends and to eat very-unhealthy Sacred Harp food and see people from everywhere else. And sleep in a a farmhouse basement. And be inappropriately dressed. And try out three of the four parts. And get anxious about what song I'm gonna call. Etc etc etc. Fun and games.

Finally: a guy who works here brought in some junk from his apt. that he's welcoming people to pick over. One of the things is a beautifully-embossed book from teh late 1800s called "Conscience Tales," or "Flemish Life: Four Stories." It's by a man who is going by the name "Hendrick Conscience." Certainly not one of MY forbears!
Non sequiturs galore!

God, that's good!

I saw Sweeney Todd last night. It was a big night for me. I've been looking forward to it in a way I've never looked forward to anything before....with the exception of meeting Brian Stokes Mitchell. So there was a lot at stake.

I'm extremely happy to be able to say: I loved it! I had a great time and I thought it was wonderful. So many great details and things from the show as I know it...and a lot of really inventive, creative, beautiful new stuff, too. And the blood-oh, the blood!

The Times gave it a really nice review-- the nicest movie review I've read in a long time, I think. Here's a link.

Flavorpill, on the other hand, turns up the snark dial ten 90 degrees and comes out with this:

Even if you don't care for the self-important saccharine of composer Stephen Sondheim; even if you claim a chemical aversion to the movie-musical genre; even if you profess disdain for the indulgences of director Tim Burton; and even if (and this is the biggest caveat of them all) you experience that rare immunity to the great beauty of Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd cannot be dismissed out of hand. The film adaptation of the now-legendary Broadway production about a barber (Depp) out to avenge his wife and child by, uh, making meat pies out of wrongdoers with his accomplice Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) is great, oddly not-guilty fun.

– Lisa Rosman

Sorry...do you know who Sondheim is? People call him a lot of things, but I doubt the word "saccharine" has EVER been applied to ANYTHING he's ever written. Lisa Rosman...who are you? Yeah, great.

Anyway....it's wonderful and I really look forward to seeing it again.

He wouldn't want us to give it away.

Ahh! In the New York Times, for all to see, Jesse Green reveals what we've all been thinking:

"FOR months now, in anticipation of the Dec. 21 release of Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” theater buffs have been worrying themselves sick about what would happen to “their” masterpiece when it was remade as a film. Would it still be alive despite drastic cutting? Would it still sing, despite the casting of stars not known for their voices? Or would commercial pressures and Hollywood habit leave it just another corpse on the heap of butchered theatrical translations?"

I like that in one paragraph he manages to both potentially alienate the "theatre buffs" who consider Sweeney "their" show (sure, "we" think that, but if you say it like *that*, "we" look like snobs, man!) AND hook them. Or at least me. Alright, just me.

But I do love that he chose to use the phrase "worrying themselves sick." And of course, I screamed when I saw the article online. Dear god.

I want to say that right now, Aldo's listening to Bing Crosby crooning "White Christmas" and I'm listening to Sweeney.

Nitz gave me a fabulous book for my birthday called "How I Became Stupid." It's about a guy who's so unhappy being intelligent that he decides becoming stupid will make his life easier. He writes a manifesto and this is part of it that made me laugh:

"Nothing anoys me more than those stories where, at the end, the hero is in the same situation as the beginning but he's gained something. He's taken risks, survived adventures but, in the end, lands back on his feet. I don't want to be a part of that lie: pretending I don't already know how all this will end. I know full well that this journey into stupidity is going to turn into a hymn to intelligence. It will be my own personal little Odyssey-- after my share of trials and dangerous adventures I will end up back in Ithaca. I can already smell the ouzo and the stuffed grape leaves."

Today-- Bread and Puppet with Nitz. Tomorrow-- not working. Excellent.

This is Halloween

So, I ventured to the Village Halloween Parade last night. I knew a bunch of people going, but I couldn't seem to meet up with any of them-- probably because it was UTTER INSANITY on the streets.

I waited almost an hour for it to begin, and I was getting annoyed, but it was pretty work it. There were some beautiful large-scale puppets in the beginning-- skeletons that were operated from backpack-type apparatus', a GIANT skeleton that cast the coolest shadow on the buildings around it, shoes with wings that would run in place, and a whole group of appliances with wings that lit up- clocks, lightbulbs, and toasters! They were obviously my favorite.

Bands were few and far between, and most of them were a combination of a bass drum and 4-5 doleful-sounding horns. Which was fine with me...I love that crap. There weren't a ton ton of floats either....the one that sent me over the edge (in a good AND bad way) was a big flatbed that had a huge cage in the middle, a bunch of gears in front of it, and a huge armchair in the back. In the cage were lots of girls dressed up in sort of sexy zombie outfits, grinding and zombie-dancing, grimly, to a recording of Doris Day singing Que Sera Sera. I just don't know. I just don't know. I got to see the much talked-about zombie "Thriller" dance group, and they were pretty awesome. Lots of people on stilts....which I could sort of do without.

And the costumes! In the "Sexy" category, my award goes to "Sexy Fridge." A duo did an improvement on my Psycho costume by actually having a shower...I was impressed. I saw a Hester Prynne with a giant A on her chest, which made me laugh. There were about 45 dick-in-box guys, every sort of slut imaginable, a Santa Claus (which struck me as odd), drag queens of all shapes, colors, sizes, and costumes....and....A SWEENEY TODD! But his costume choices obviously had taken a cue from the movie trailers, and as a purist, I sort of turn my nose up at that. Plus he had no Mrs. Lovett....though he had a wicked-lookign razor.

It was fun...but to go again I'd either have to be drunk and with friends, or be in it. And I don't know which I'd rather do. Aie.

Then I went home and watched 4/5ths of the original Omen. I was initially disappointed because the Netflix sleeve promised me that there was going to be a hari-kiri death....but there just isn't! Unless they're using it in a super-broad sense to mean 'suicide.' I don't know. Netflix....setting me up for disappointment. But it's great and scary enough that I couldn't manage to get out of bed to turn the light off in the other room before falling asleep. And Gregory Peck is dreamy.

Today and then one more day of work here....though I need the money, I will not pretend to be too sad. I think I'll give myself Monday off, maybe, and then start working immediately, if I can. I am tired.

Never Forgive. Never Forget. (Plus stamps.)

So, something of GREAT importance has been brought to my attention. And that something is...The Sweeney Todd Trailer! (AHHH!) I awoke to find that multiple good friends had posted a link on my facebook wall. They knew.

I watched it, and even though the quality was sort of crappy and I couldn't really hear that much (thanks, computer, thanks, construction), I got super excited. I just can't wait. Liam and Meghan and I have talked a lot about the jealousy/protectiveness/I-liked-it-first feelings that are more than likely to surface around the time of the movie's release. And I know it'll happen, just like when Rufus started getting really popular, and I felt like I had some ownership over him. Or, like, how I feel compelled to say that Seth Rogen was always my favorite on Undeclared, which in my mind somehow means that I like him more or that I am cooler than you because you just like Knocked Up. (Which is stupid because I didn't even watch Freaks and Geeks until after Undeclared was already off the air, so I can't actually say shit! He WAS my favorite, but, please. Come on.)

Meghan said that when we go we'll be like Kristen Wiig's Penelope character on SNL, just walking around the movie theatre saying things like "I guess all I have to say is I wrote Sweeney Todd, it's not a big deal, I wrote the music and the lyrics...I'm in it too, I play Sweeney Todd....um, Sweeney Todd was my real dad, this is actually about me and my family..."Things like that.

Here's the trailer for anyone who wants to think for themselves.

Another interesting item for today is that Mauritius has opened on Broadway. Theresa Rebeck is the only female playwright with a new play on Broadway this season. Isn't that terrible? I think that's just insane. The NY Times review was mostly nice, I guess, though it said that the formula was a little tired and that her characters have almost all been written before, and in most cases, have been written better before. There are a lot of comparisons to David Mamet and specifically American Buffalo, which happened when the play was at the Hunt in Boston. Honestly, I don't remember a lot of my specific opinions about the show. (I mostly remember how Tasia and Craig and I were in the balcony of the Wimberly and it was freezing up there...and how on the way, we got to go into the weird church in Copley Sqaure and listened to some men singing with high voices...until the church Nazi intimidated us into leaving.)

Anyway, Alison Pill is in the show here, and man, do I envy her. This, and before this, she was in Blackbird, which everyone blew up about though I think it's one of the stupidest plays I've ever seen, and before that Lieutenant of Inishmore (at which she frowned at curtain call, so I'll always have a little bit of a grudge against her), and she's also got a big old movie with Steve Carrell coming out (Sondre did the soundtrack!)....and she's oh, um, I think, 22 years old. Must be nice.

I liked this part of the NYT review: "Mr. Baker and Mr. Abraham never quite dispel the impression that you have met more vividly drawn versions of their characters before. Mr. Abraham appears to be doing a mild variation on Ben Kingsley’s attention-getting portrait of a sadistic crime boss in the movie “Sexy Beast.” Aiie! Here's the review.

That's all the pretentious reportage (bahhh) I can handle this morning.