The crack that runs all the way down the stone statue. Hughie and Krapp’s Last Tape, Goodman Theater, Chicago, 02/20/10

“The drunken truth at midnight Proves false before the dawn When you wonder where she is tonight And what dress she might have on. Don’t try driving by her house, son, You’ll find her bedroom light still on. They say, ‘Man, does it hurt?’ ‘No, it don’t faze me.’ Lying is the mother tongue On the other side of crazy.” -Tom Russell, “The Other Side of Crazy” Once in a while you see someone who feels like they were born to interpret a particular writer’s work; William H. Macy doing Mamet comes to mind.  I saw that...

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The Romantic in shards, modernism slouching toward Bethlehem; Peter Brotzmann: Wood and Water, Corbett V. Dempsey, Troy Richards – The Perfect View, Thomas Robertello

“The day it snowed on the statues and the light whispered of coming to grips with the problem, of a thaw when the sun lit the mounts, the sky grew blue as its burden fell in drops and over my shoulder a new atmosphere of comprehension, of desire, of yearning…” -Barbara Guest, “Biography: Two” Made it to two gallery shows in Chicago this past weekend (as well as the MCA, which will be its own post if my thoughts start about that start to cohere). ...

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Punch Brothers, Lincoln Theater, 02/13/10

“I wanted to salvage something from my life, to fix some truth beyond all change, the way photographers of war, miles from the front, lift print after print into the light, each one further cropped and amplified, pruning whatever baffles or obscures, until the small figures are restored as young men sleeping.” -Ellen Bryant Voight, “The Last Class” Steve Earle said once, while explaining his decision to make a bluegrass album (The Mountain) that he was looking for immortality, because so few new bluegrass songs were written compared to...

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Merce Cunningham Company Legacy Tour, Wexner Center, 02/12/10

“If I kiss you please Remember with your shoes off You’re so beautiful like A lifted umbrella orange And white we may never Discover the blue over- Coat maybe never never O blind With this (love) let’s walk Into the first Rivers of morning as you are seen To be bathed in a light white light Come on” -Kenneth Koch, “Spring” Hoping the Koch works as an incantation to bring an early thaw as the snow turns to grey back pain and temporary depression.  Plus, one of my favorite love poems and I’m typing this on...

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