boo, pretentious theater critic! hooray, beer!
wait, what . . . oh, gosh, i'm sorry. here, let me try that again:
*mmherm* hooray, modern poetry!
yes. much better. now, allow me to explain.
i was quite proud of myself when i read the word "crepuscular" in john lahr's review of brian friel's faith healer (the new yorker, may 15, 2006, p. 80) and thought immediately, and correctly, of wallace stevens, whose work i devoured in high school and college but haven't glanced at since. the pride stemmed not only from my brain's charming, if somewhat rain-man-y, eagerness to match a word with the first place i saw it, in this case stevens's "the comedian as the letter c," but also its ability to focus on any one word in lahr's rococo prose, so ornate it's practically gilded and reeking of trumpet lilies. for a moment i was grateful to lahr for bringing stevens to mind, as i do adore him but frequently forget it, and then i was annoyed with him for using so magnificent a word as "crepuscular" to describe something like a low-lit stage set. a rather out-of-place adjective, is what i thought to myself. i read on to the next paragraph, where lahr describes ralph fiennes as "gaunt and thin," and decided i was filing him firmly under h for hack. and then i got to the second-to-last paragraph and decided that was far too good for him. here are the last two sentences of that paragraph:
"the emperor of ice cream": "call the roller of big cigars, / the muscular one, and bid him whip / in kitchen cups concupiscent curds." this one i'd know anywhere, as it's the first wallace stevens poem i ever read and was the spark that ignited the raging blaze of my (to date) undying love. i read it on a family vacation in maine when i was thirteen; it was the introduction to a chapter in stephen king's salem's lot. i have read it over and over and over since then (unlike salem's lot, which presumably played its full role that first time around) and could recite it from memory to any one of you with both hands tied behind my back. i read "bantam in pine-woods" in an undergraduate poetry course and have not forgotten it, or the entirety of "the man on the dump," which i memorized for a performance-art class and which doesn't really pertain to this conversation except in making me slightly more believable as an expert witness when i make my assertion that john lahr is a despicable fraud, which i shall do without further delay:
john lahr is a despicable fraud. and wallace stevens would never have been his scrabble buddy. i repeat: boo!
*mmherm* hooray, modern poetry!
yes. much better. now, allow me to explain.
i was quite proud of myself when i read the word "crepuscular" in john lahr's review of brian friel's faith healer (the new yorker, may 15, 2006, p. 80) and thought immediately, and correctly, of wallace stevens, whose work i devoured in high school and college but haven't glanced at since. the pride stemmed not only from my brain's charming, if somewhat rain-man-y, eagerness to match a word with the first place i saw it, in this case stevens's "the comedian as the letter c," but also its ability to focus on any one word in lahr's rococo prose, so ornate it's practically gilded and reeking of trumpet lilies. for a moment i was grateful to lahr for bringing stevens to mind, as i do adore him but frequently forget it, and then i was annoyed with him for using so magnificent a word as "crepuscular" to describe something like a low-lit stage set. a rather out-of-place adjective, is what i thought to myself. i read on to the next paragraph, where lahr describes ralph fiennes as "gaunt and thin," and decided i was filing him firmly under h for hack. and then i got to the second-to-last paragraph and decided that was far too good for him. here are the last two sentences of that paragraph:
this gleeful stuff is matched by a first-rate cast of players, especially danny burstein, who turns the transparently gay latin lover adolpho into a whirlwind of bogus macho concupiscence. he ricochets around the stage, with the silver streak in his black pompadour ruffling like a bantam rooster's comb.
"the emperor of ice cream": "call the roller of big cigars, / the muscular one, and bid him whip / in kitchen cups concupiscent curds." this one i'd know anywhere, as it's the first wallace stevens poem i ever read and was the spark that ignited the raging blaze of my (to date) undying love. i read it on a family vacation in maine when i was thirteen; it was the introduction to a chapter in stephen king's salem's lot. i have read it over and over and over since then (unlike salem's lot, which presumably played its full role that first time around) and could recite it from memory to any one of you with both hands tied behind my back. i read "bantam in pine-woods" in an undergraduate poetry course and have not forgotten it, or the entirety of "the man on the dump," which i memorized for a performance-art class and which doesn't really pertain to this conversation except in making me slightly more believable as an expert witness when i make my assertion that john lahr is a despicable fraud, which i shall do without further delay:
john lahr is a despicable fraud. and wallace stevens would never have been his scrabble buddy. i repeat: boo!
Labels: new yorker, red pen
posted by juniper pearl @ 1:09 PM
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