Anything Goes!

Last night we saw the Cole Porter musical "Anything Goes"  in an elaborate Broadway production.  Wonderful music, of course, and razzle-dazzle choreography.   Since I rarely go to musicals, it is, needless to say, quite a contrast to our Wagnerian experience of the week before.  But in both cases, words matter.  Some of Porter's elaborate lyrics are lost in the singers amped and miked sound, all of which sounds a bit canned.   But overall, the performers were great, including the eighty year old Joel Grey, who can still tap with the rest of them.   And the crazy humor of the plot is a delight.

We got the tickets at half price from something called BroadwayBox.com, which saves you the standing in line for TKCTS in Times Square.


I also did something a little strange yesterday, and visited Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, which is a national historic site.  I have a memory of hearing that my grandfather was buried there, but there is no one left to confirm that, so I went to see if I could find his grave.   I didn't, but found my great-grandfather's grave.   The cemetery is huge; I expected it to be crowded like the Parisian ones, but it is actually full of open space.   Besides the beautiful old trees, though, it is not really very interesting.

And then there was the largest laundromat I have ever seen, with cool colors. (not in the cemetery)

Today Vera is at an all day symposium in honor of our musicologist friend Richard, and there will be a party tonight, as well.  (I go to parties, but not symposia.)

I saw an interesting exhibit at a gallery today of works by Andre Masson.  Three large rooms of paintings from 1925 to 1945, very colorful, in the Surrealist tradition, and eventually heading towards some kind of abstraction.   I was alone in the exhibition the entire time, and enjoyed the work immensely.  Next stop was the Whitney Biennial, which I hated.   The only parts I liked were the appropriated images from other artists.  It is all about concepts and ideas.  Even the one painter whose work I liked was accompanied by a blurb which admitted the need to conceptually justify the existence of painting, hence some little bit about the paintings being arranged so as to contextualize the architecture of the museum, or something like that.    End of rant.....

Tomorrow, our friends Krin and Paula are coming for dinner, and we have to get ready to fly to Helsinki on Sunday.