Author: David Gorsline

He wrote the book

A belated memorial to Paul Samuelson, who died on 13 December at the age of 94. From The Economist‘s obituary:

“To understand economics you need to know not only fundamentals but also its nuances,” Mr Samuelson would explain. “When someone preaches ‘Economics in one lesson’ I advise: Go back for the second lesson.”

I learned the fundamentals of macroeconomics from Robert Eisner lecturing out of the 9th edition of Samuelson’s Economics (today’s edition, co-authored by William Nordhaus, is the 19th). Maybe the best thing about the book was its endpapers: the IBC gave a family tree of economic thought, from Aristotle and Aquinas to the post-Keynesian synthesis; while the IFC charted real per capita GNP on a log scale over the period 1870-1973 for six countries: the U.S., Germany, Great Britain, Japan (fourth overall but with the steepest growth), the Soviet Union, and (way down at the bottom of the chart) India (and notice we were talking about national product and not domestic product back then).

Slow melt

day afterbobcatThe sun did indeed come out again. In fact, I’m waiting on it to work on a stubborn icy patch on the sidewalk between the townhouse rows; this is the place where the northwest wind whips through from Saskatchewan. At the middle school behind the cluster, a maintenance guy was hard at it with a Bobcat clearing the fall.

August: Osage County

Tracy Letts is working here on a larger canvas than his earlier Killer Joe and Bug, but he has not left behind his signature deadpan violence, both verbal and physical. The tour of August: Osage County brings the darkly comic story of the crumbling of a small-town semi-patrician Oklahoma extended family, extended sufficiently that we are happy for the headshot-enhanced family tree in the program (the sort of thing that helps us through Shakespeare and Chekhov). Events of the play are sparked by the disappearance of the father, poet and professor Beverly Weston (the superb John DeVries, showing us some of the salt and grandeur of Robert Ryan in his day). Yes, there are shocking reveals and pandemonium, but the work’s theme is in the running down; as one character remarks in the third act, “Dissipation is much worse than cataclysm.”

With such an expansive script, every actor has a moment or a monologue in which to shine, chief among them the headliner Estelle Parsons as Violet Weston, the barbiturate-fogged wife of Beverly. Paradoxically, it’s her dinner table explosion of invective (fueled by drugs and decades of resentment) that sets up her even more effective quiet scenes later. Shannon Cochran also comes on strong as eldest daughter Barbara, who tries and fails to keep the shards of this house together.

The huge three-level set, the Weston homestead with the front wall sliced off (“a dollhouse for nasty people,” as one of us may have said), is impressive, but Violet’s final climb to the top takes so long that the beat seems to lose momentum. For a piece that depends on physical violence, the design and execution of the fight choreography is disappointing. But we liked the subtle flickering light effects that stand in for the television unit set in the fourth wall. And the subtle and nearly flawless sound amplification means that actors can sit on both sides of the dinner table and we can still hear everyone.

  • August: Osage County, by Tracy Letts, directed by Anna D. Shapiro, Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater, Washington

TMLMTBGB: 3

The most effective pieces in this year’s offerings (seen on December 8) don’t have much to do with one another. Some depend on Eliza Burmeister’s goofy gymnasticism, like “Zen and the Art of Flight,” or the politically charged “Dear NRA suggestion box: I would prefer not to be shot in the head.” Like comedy’s threes, it’s the third repetition of the final image of this piece, run in slow motion, that is the visceral payoff. Others are more ensemble pieces, like “Windsprints.” Bilal Dardai’s self-referential multi-layered sound soup “With All the Time I’ve Wasted Browsing the Wikipedia…” is another winner. And then there’s Mary Fons’s exuberant performance art “‘Crush’ (with Potato Stamp Stars)” to bring us back to the creative nexus of second grade art class.

Memo to front-row ticket holders: wear something waterproof.

  • Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, created by Greg Allen, written, directed, and performed by The Neo-Futurists, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Washington

Late-arriving post card from New York

Leta and I visited her cousin and various family in New York for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a trip of initialisms: Sam explained all about TBIs; we rode the new R-160s, which are running on the Broadway line under a pilot program, which line Leta has taken to calling the NRBQ line. We found a nifty organic eatery in Brooklyn Heights called Siggy’s (Aliens eat free!); brunch with Dennis at Junior’s.

sunny daychecking the tea thingsMuseum stops for the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and the new Rubin Museum of Art in Chelsea: works of art performed for the removal of physical or mental obstacles.

fadera world of pupsVarious gawping at the streetscape.

Catoctin Mountain Park

I turned in my research report on Catoctin Mountain Park for my geology class last week. Unfortunately, I chose an area to write about that doesn’t have a full geologic map at the 15-minute level in print, so my coverage of the geologic structures is a little thin. And I really didn’t have time to get out to a library to check what resources were available. But I like the snapshots that I was able to incorporate into the report.

The recipe project: 2

For our family Thanksgiving dinner, I was asked to bring my spicy cranberry chutney. I’m not sure whether this is because it’s about the only holiday dish I know how to make, or because it’s the only one that my friends trust me with. At any rate, I follow this recipe from an old number of Gourmet (November 1987), which rests on the top of a short stack of similar magazines in my kitchen. It’s on the same page as a recipe for tasty cranberries in chocolate sauce that I haven’t made since my Susan days. The chutney doesn’t take too much time to make, especially if you are like me and you skimp on the chopping. I like big chunks of fruit in my chutney. Below, my paraphrase of the recipe:

Cranberry Chutney
  • 1 lemon
  • 1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped as fine as you care to
  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1 12-ounce bag of fresh cranberries, rinsed and picked over
  • 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and diced (1/4 inch or so)
  • 1/4 cup crystallized ginger (to be found probably somewhere in the produce section at your supermarket), chopped
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes

Grate the lemon rind to make about 1 teaspoon. Squeeze the lemon to make about 1/4 cup of juice.

In a saucepan combine the apricots, the brown sugar, the raisins, and 1 cup water. Bring the liquid to a boil, stirring, and simmer the mixture for 5 minutes. Add the cranberries, the apple, and the lemon rind, simmer the mixture until most but not all of the cranberries have popped, about 15 or 20 minutes. Stir in the lemon juice, the ginger, and the red pepper flakes.

Serve at room temperature or chilled. Makes about 3 cups.

This last time out, I was unsure of the state of my spice rack, so I was inclined to add more pepper. But Leta took a quick taste test and assured me that half a teaspoon of pepper is good.

Inspiring

Quiet, shush, something mysterious is happening, here before us is a fifty-year-old author, on his knees at the altar of art, creating, thinking about his masterpiece, about its harmony, precision, and beauty, about its spirit and how to overcome its difficulties, and there is the expert thoroughly studying the author’s material, whereupon the masterpiece goes out into the world and to the reader, and what was conceived in utter and absolute agony is now received piecemeal, between a telephone call and a hamburger.

—Witold Gombrowicz, Ferdydurke, ch. 4, “Preface to ‘The Child Runs Deep in Filidor'”

Ferber decoded: 4

I came across the following turn of phrase in Chapter 13 of So Big. Dirk has matriculated at Midwest University (one of the few Chicago places that Ferber fictionalizes in the novel, it being an amalgam of Northwestern and the U of Chicago), and has befriended an Unclassified student, a woman in her thirties. The U catalogue describes them:

Persons at least twenty-one years of age, not seeking a degree, may be admitted through the office of the University Examiner to the courses of instruction offered by the University, as unclassified students. They shall present evidence of successful experience as a teacher or other valuable educative experience in practical life… They are ineligible for public appearance… [emphasis in original]

Aha, an early reference to what we would now call academic eligibility. But we’re not necessarily talking about playing football. A number of the Chicago Alumni Magazine from 1907 describes what a public appearance can entail:

Public appearance is defined as any inter-collegiate contest, or participation (1), in an oratorical, dramatic or musical exhibition; (2), in the official management of any other exhibition; or (3), in official service on any publication under the University name, in connection with which any admission or subscription fees are charged.

In another passage, we witness the evolution of pronunciation. Goethe Street in Chicago is pronounced in any number of ways by the locals (including something approximating the original German), GOE-thee being popular, but I’ve never heard this one:

Mrs. Emery was interested in the correct pronunciation of Chicago street names.

“It’s terrible,” she said. “I think there ought to be a Movement for the proper pronunciation. The people ought to be taught; and the children in the schools. They call Goethe Street ‘Gerty’; and pronounce all the s’s in Des Plaines. Even Illinois they call ‘Illinoise.'” (ch. 15)

The Royal Family

Not even a minor technical derailment in the third act can hinder the momentum of this venerable piece of American theater, which first appeared in 1927. This light comedy still has the power to summon chuckles, albeit not guffaws. The first act’s biggest line can perhaps only be played for applause instead of a laugh, as it is in MTC’s production. Kaufman’s gift for mayhem blends well with Ferber’s deep-rooted sense of family tradition—whether she’s writing about Midwestern farmers or here, the Cavendishes, a slightly veiled stand-in for the talented and mercurial Barrymore family of actors at the top of the American twentieth century. It is a play that calls up W-words to describe it: waspish, wistful, wacky.

Director Doug Hughes spins up the tempo to near-farce levels, overlapping as much expository dialogue as he can and more. A booming sound effect for the front door (about which I am ambivalent) sets a bass drum rhythm that keeps the show on pace to stay under the three-hour mark.

Jan Maxwell as Julie, flinging herself about the stage in the first act like the colt she once was, is nicely balanced by Ana Gasteyer as the grasping, talent-free Kitty. In early scenes of bickering with her husband Herbert (John Glover as a graying leading man), Gasteyer’s elastic mug looks like she’s just gulped a glass of vinegar. However, as the frenzy spirals up in the second act, both of the ladies’ performances skate on the edge of caricature.

Reg Rogers brings the swash and buckle as rakish Tony (the would-be John Barrymore), especially in a very good fencing sequence at the top of Act 2 with Rufus Collins.

A meticulous, beautiful two-and-a-half level set by John Lee Beatty is lit by Kenneth Posner (who places countless practicals in this grand New York apartment).

  • The Royal Family, by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, directed by Doug Hughes, Manhattan Theatre Club, Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, New York

Fela!

The set (panels of corrugated tin) for Bill T. Jones and his collaborators’ new production spills out into the auditorium of the Eugene O’Neill Theatre (even as far as the exit doors), promising to break the boundaries between performance and viewer. As we enter, the ten-piece band, led by Aaron Johnson, is already rocking. Yes, there will be dancing in the aisles.

What the evening delivers is not quite so revolutionary, but entertaining nonetheless. This review of songs drawn from the work of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Nigerian musician and activist, is brought off with high energetic athleticism, heart and soul, and fiery politcal rage. The book for the musical, however, is inconsequential and choppy: Fela is haunted by the ghost of his mother Funmilayo, who apparently died in the course of a government raid on Fela’s compound. It is his mother, we can only conclude, who actually accomplished more towards reform in West Africa in the 1970s. Fela takes a spirit journey (admirably realized with fancy light effects, video projections, and lasers) to reconcile with her, and then the show’s over. (Alas, some of those lighting effects tend to blind us in row Q.)

Jones’s production doesn’t put a face on the corruption against which Fela (on this evening, the charismatically muscular Sahr Ngaujah) militates; there’s no dramatic arc to the work. As an audience member, one always feels vaguely manipulated when asked to stand and perform a bump-along of hip-shaking dance moves. And the jokey passage about crap and marijuana should be cut.

The unseen (but not unheard) star of this show is Stuart Bogie on tenor and percussion, who ghosts the wailing sax played by Fela.

(Disclosure: I saw this production thanks to the generosity of one of the technicians on the production staff.)

  • Fela!, conceived by Bill T. Jones, Jim Lewis, and Stephen Hendel, music and lyrics by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, directed and choreographed by Bill T. Jones, Eugene O’Neill Theatre, New York