November 21, 2005
Neglected 2
Remiss, remiss, remiss. Nor, for the most part do I have much of an excuse, other than general mehness and lack of inspiration. So, what have you missed? Saw the Wallace and Gromit flick, which was lots of fun in a slightly Carry On sort of way; and DV8's latest work at the National Theatre, Just For Show, which was quite entertaining but also pretty vacuous. A vague critique of shallow empty glossiness, it mainly managed to be thoroughly shallow, empty and glossy in its own right -- a misguidedly literal approach, I'd say, but more fun than most of director Lloyd Newson's misanthropic oeuvre. It was relentlessly gimmicky, as if to make up for the lack of withering ire, but leading lady Tanja Liedtke was quite brilliant and gymnastic dancer Paul White very fetching. Was off ill a few days last week, taking the opportunity finally to read Guy Gavriel Kay's A Song for Arbonne, which I liked a great deal, followed by Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, which was long, overblown and ultimately quite annoying. Tsk. The weekend brought some emotional turbulence at home, hopefully now past, and also some wretchedly cold weather, apparently set to worsen in the coming days; it's also dark rather a lot of the time. On the other hand, Mars has been prettily prominent in the clear, chilly skies, which is nice to see. Erm, that's it, really. See why I didn't bother blogging about it?Posted by matt at November 21, 2005 10:09 PM
Comments
hurrah, a new blog entry from matt!
i believe i directed you to 'a song for arbonne' so i'm glad you enjoyed it. i adored 'w&g: curse of the were-rabbit'; just writing the title makes me giggle.
as i've said, i always love your dance reviews. as much dance as i see, i've managed to miss dv8 as well as cie c de la b. i'm more likely to catch their next new york visits after reading your thoughts.
do you ever see mark morris dance group? (i believe they're just wrapping up a u.k. tour.)
people have widely varying responses to morris' work, but it's certainly never glossy. and it's always to wonderful music, wonderfully performed live. i'm a huge fan.
next summer, english national opera will present morris' new production to purcell's 'king arthur', and i'd be there in a second if i lived in london. his two previous dances to purcell ('dido and aeneas', and a duet called 'one charming night') were nothing short of genius.
anyway, so great to see another entry from you. best from patrick in ny.
Posted by: patrick in ny at November 23, 2005 03:12 AM
Still, it's nice to read.
Posted by: Ed at November 23, 2005 06:56 PM
[patrick] Yes, A Song for Arbonne was on your recommendation. That makes five GGK's (if we count The Fionavar Tapestry as 3) in the last 6 months or so, and still a few others to track down. Thanks once again for pointing me that way.
I've seen Mark Morris quite a few times and absolute love some of his work, especially Dido and Aeneas and L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (the latter is discussed briefly in this entry); on the basis of which I'll certainly go to King Arthur.
However, the last few programmes his company has done on their visits here have been pretty uninspiring duds, as a result of which I -- for the first time in years -- didn't make the effort to see their most recent one. Which was a mistake, or so I've been told :(
Posted by: matt at November 24, 2005 06:28 PM
I've never read Gavriel Kay's work; is it good? I'd always see book 2 or 3 of the Fionavar Tapestry at the (only English-language) book market in Karachi, but never bothered to pick it up (for a variety of reasons). But if yo8u think it's worth a read...
Posted by: Sin at November 30, 2005 07:51 PM
Comments for this post are now closed, but feel free to email me if you have something interesting to say.
