Rebel Prince

A new special-edition DVD set of West Side Story will be available starting 1 April 2003. And an eight-city Sing-A-Long tour starts 27 March in San Francisco (at the Castro Theatre, where else?). Grr, no stop in D.C. planned.

Letter from Russia. A great bit of imagery from Gary Shteyngart’s lively article on post-Soviet Russian youth, “Teen Spirit,” in last week’s New Yorker:

Still, the best part of the New Russia is the fact that you can leave it. You clutch your exit visa, a precarious document stamped silly with hotel-registration and airport stamps. Preparing to board your plane in Petersburg’s modest airport—its size is more appropriate for Syracuse that for a city of close to five million—you feel like a character in a Russian novel drowning in a sea of exclamation points and question marks, of extreme emotions and uncertainties. How beautiful! How awful! Such a flattering man! Such an enchanting woman! Do I have hepatitis? Where’s my wallet?

The Homo erectus jokes are too easy. Last night I had IMed the following bit of news with my commentary to Stephen, and he recommended I post it here. So it shall be done.

Oldest human footprints found on volcano
New Scientist
“Three primitive humans who scrambled down a volcano’s slopes more than 325,000 years ago left their footprints fossilised in volcanic ash. If the ages of the trails are confirmed, they could be the earliest known footprints of our Homo ancestors.”

Hm. I say, okay, but our “homo” Homo ancestors would’ve known better than to track volcanic ash into the cave and all over the fabulous bear rug, and would’ve at least wiped their comfortably clad feet on the welcome mat.

I’m just saying.

I.

This morning, on the up escalator at the Bethesda metro, I stood a few steps behind a man who was carrying what seemed to be a violin case. Interesting, I thought. Spotting a large tag on the case, I stepped up closer, curious. In large type it read, “David Basch / Violist” with an address beneath. Ah, the viola, so I was mistaken. We arrived at street level on East-West Highway. He went west. I went east.

I arrived at my office and ran a Google search. Details are sketchy, but from what I gather, Mr. Basch has played in the National Chamber Orchestra (based in Rockville, Md.) at some point. Yeah, that was all. Just strangers on a train. (Not quite like Hitchcock, but I’m also reminded of a film I’ve only heard about, Following, created by Insomnia and Memento director Chris Nolan.)

II.

Last week I started tracking my website traffic with Site Meter, and now I’m obsessed with all the statistics, like the referrals, which identify where the site is linked. Rebel Prince gets visits from search engines now and then, and people out there are finding this site by way of some interesting (to put it mildly) search terms. You can’t make this stuff up, folks. The most academic one had to do with Othello; it was practically an entire thesis statement. Someone out there writing a paper? I looked at the Google summary, and yes, I had posted an entry a while back about cleaning my room and finding old high-school English papers, including one on Othello and Iago.

There’ve been a few hits from searches about the SAG Awards, and one for Tintin and The Left Bank (a favorite local boutique), which I appreciate. But the one that takes the cake is an Altavista image search for the words “cumming cock.” Let’s take a moment for dramatic effect. […] Okay, I’ve written here about Alan Cumming, but when have I ever used the word “cock”? (Yikes, other than just now?) Oh, wait, I have. Once, on 20 June 2002. And it was damn funny too.

By the way, Site Meter doesn’t give me complete IP addresses, so don’t worry, I don’t know who you cheeky monkeys are.

We (i.e., I) at the Rebel Prince offices (i.e., my apartment) are buzzing with Oscar excitement, but let’s not forget the Screen Actors Guild Awards, which were handed out last night. In the movie categories, the individual recipients are Daniel Day-Lewis, Renée Zellweger, Christopher Walken, and Catherine Zeta-Jones; and the ensemble cast award goes to Chicago. On the TV side, congrats to two of my favorite shows, Will & Grace (best comedy actors Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally, again!) and Six Feet Under (best drama ensemble). Complete SAG Award list here.

If you’re keeping score, for your reference or amusement, you may wish to review some other nominees and winners. Watch me get link-happy: New York Film Critics Circle (16 December 2002), L.A. Film Critics Association (15 January 2003), Golden Globe Awards (19 January), and British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs, 23 February). I won’t stoop so low as to link to the People’s Choice Awards. Democracy has its limitations.

This is director Stephen Daldry (The Hours, Billy Elliot) in his Greenwich Village apartment. I’m somewhat glad to see that even Academy Award nominees are not immune to clutter. The photo, by Brigitte Lacombe, is part of a Times Magazine piece on rising, independent directors, “Camera Ready.”

Caffeine dreams. I can’t recall all the details of my dream(s) last night, but one part went like this: my parents and I go have coffee at Starbucks. Then we get in a car and drive to another Starbucks — yes, they’re setting up shop even in my subconscious — where my dad tries to order a screwdriver. Ha. Analyze that.

Talking heads. The Clinton/Dole bit on 60 Minutes was a “blink and you’ll miss it” blur. They talked a bit about tax cuts, but it was so quick and scripted, like watching dueling campaign ads. I was hoping for a more spontaneous discussion, but oh well.

New stuff. This afternoon I re-vamped parts of the ol’ website. There’s a new “About the author” page and colophon, linked under “Contents” in the sidebar. And most exciting of all, I present the Rebel Prince Oscar contest. Check it out! Win fabulous prizes! Tell a friend!

Today was a series of naps, with interspersed by short breaks of wakefulness. This is the most slothful I’ve been in a while, but I’m glad to bring down my steady accumulation of sleep debt.

Grr. Would spring please get here already?

From the Times travel section, an essay on a couple of my favorite things, a map and the open road.

The town of Amboy, Calif. is up for auction on eBay. No kidding. Current bid as of this writing: $995,300.

GLBTQ, “an encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture,” went online this week. Very cool.

I love PBS. But I hate pledge breaks. I’ve had enough of the well-meaning, but overzealous Suze Orman.

No shortage of guest stars on Will & Grace, no sir. The latest: Justin Timberlake, of whom I wrote just yesterday. He’ll play a “scheming gay gigolo who steals the heart of flamboyant Sean Hayes’s character Jack, and swindles him out of money” (as reported by WENN). No word yet on the episode’s air date. By the way, the resolution of the “Fagmalion” story arc comes this Thursday 13 March, with another appearance by Dan Futterman.

More TV notes: Queen Latifah hosts SNL tonight; and tomorrow on CBS, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole square off in a new “point/counterpoint” segment on 60 Minutes. Later that night the network airs Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt.

Lastly, an audio presentation:

Testing: 1, 2, 3

Last night I went to the Corcoran for a lecture on the Oscars. It was really great. Richard Brown covered the Best Picture nominees, showing us a special reel with clips and behind-the-scenes footage. Yes, the Awards are a popularity contest, Academy members vote for their friends, and the list of excellent people and movies that were never nominated grows longer every year. Once you recognize and accept that, the whole thing seems superfluous, but in essence the Oscar, with all its prestige, is one form of validation for what amounts to an unpredictable career: show business. Critical accolades are few and far between, fleeting but significant.

He also talked a bit about film history and the technical aspects of filmmaking, which I’m starting to learn more about. Directors’ audio commentaries on DVDs vary widely, but I like the ones that get into the nuts and bolts of how shots are composed and so forth. When they’re good, it’s like getting a whole class in film studies. (For example, listen to Sam Mendes’ commentary for American Beauty.) They train your eye to watch for certain techniques and appreciate the whole enterprise more fully, and next time at the movie theater, you think things like, “Ah yes, interesting establishing shot” or “I wonder if they looped the sound in this scene.” I’m well on my way to full-fledged film snobbery. Heh.

By the way, Anthony Tommasini covers music in “The Great Film Score: Catch It If You Can.” I’m not as hard as he is on Philip Glass’ music for The Hours, but I admit that a more conventional score might have been appropriate and evocative.

I’m still formulating my little pick-the-winners contest. Hopefully I’ll have time and energy to set it up this weekend.

Trailerspotting. I’ve come to think of movie trailers as a creative genre unto itself, more closely related to things like music video and commercial advertising. Their forte is in the work of a good editor, and so they’re not necessarily indicative as a whole of the movie it attempts to preview. A while back I posted a link to an interesting Times article on the making of trailers, and here it is again, in case you missed it: “The 150-Second Sell, Take 34.”

Bringing Down the House, with Steve Martin and Queen Latifah, is most likely dreck, but the trailer, with perennially dorky character actor Eugene Levy tossing hip-hop props to Queen, is hilarious: “I’d like to dip you in cheese and spread you over a cracker.” She smiles, “Boy, you are some kind of freaky.” Without missing a beat, he comes back, “You got me straight trippin’, Boo.” Ha.

And due in theaters 21 March, Boat Trip, where Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Horatio Sanz play a couple of straight guys who inadvertently find themselves on a gay cruise… yikes. Cuba, you’re an Academy Award winner. Get a new agent. Still, have we all seen the trailer? He makes a damn good-looking drag queen.

How do you solve a problem like Saddam? (Everyone sing along… ) On the way to the Corcoran last night I walked through Lafayette Park and past the White House, where I saw the media camped out for the President’s news conference. I watched it on tape when I got back home.

Mr. Bush says he doesn’t want to go to war, and fine, I believe that. Saddam Hussein is a threat, and I believe that too. But I take issue with the “war or nothing” portrayal of the issue, advanced not only by the President, but popular media as well:

I meant what I said, this is the last phase of diplomacy. A little bit more time? Saddam Hussein has had 12 years to disarm… The risk of doing nothing, the risk of hoping that Saddam Hussein changes his mind and becomes a gentle soul, the risk that somehow — that inaction will make the world safer, is a risk I’m not willing to take for the American people.

Isn’t that disingenuous? As if anything short of militarily enforced disarmament is “nothing.” I highly doubt the war-opposers advocate sitting and waiting and hoping. Hardly. (Jonathan Larson wrote, “The opposite of war isn’t peace. It’s creation.”)

We always knew forcible disarmament and regime change were theoretical possibilities, but to hear the President outline them as clear objectives was chilling.

State of the arts. The Kennedy Center just announced its 2003-04 season. I’m most excited about the Tennessee Williams festival. I’ve read a few of his plays, but have never seen them performed (the movie version of Streetcar notwithstanding). Also as usual, the upcoming season boasts a lot of great ballet.

Currently, the annual AmericArtes festival is underway, celebrating the arts of Latin America. Lots of cool events.

Justin time. All snarking aside, it’s like I turn away for one second, and Justin Timberlake suddenly gets all hot and manly. Am I right? Note the 23 January 2003 cover of Rolling Stone, photo by Herb Ritts. Ah, our boy’s all grown up. (Rolling Stone cover archive here.)

Okay, I have a few days worth of Queer As Folk episodes on DVD to watch. Have a great weekend, kids.

It’s actually warm here in D.C.! Compared to the otherwise chilly weather, the current temperature of 62°F is sizzling.

The paper pile-up. I’m about to renew my New Yorker subscription, which ends next month, and I find this: “Unread magazines: When ignorance is bliss.” So very true, though until I completely run out of space, I am determined to keep all my back issues, at least of The New Yorker and The Atlantic. Yes, I will read them. Eventually. (Link found at the Bookslut blog. Oh, man. If anyone is reviewing my web traffic at work, there’ll be a whole bunch of hits with the word “slut” in the URL. Heh.)

Definite articles. March’s Atlantic has a great article by Jonathan Rauch — I always enjoy his work — titled “Caring for Your Introvert.” I know it’s made the rounds among various blogs, but being a self-identified introvert myself, I think it deserves to be widely read. An excerpt:

How can I let the introvert in my life know that I support him and respect his choice? First, recognize that it’s not a choice. It’s not a lifestyle. It’s an orientation.

Ha. When I was a kid, I was told with remonstrance — sometimes gently, othertimes, not so — that I was too “quiet” or “serious,” which I hated. I’m glad to read a sincere and light-hearted take on the matter.

This week’s The New Yorker has a new essay by David Sedaris, “Who’s the Chef.” Good stuff. He takes to the road next month on a new speaking tour. Go see him.

Road warriors. On the back cover of said issue is an ad for the Hummer H2, and above a picture of the bright yellow monster, the copy reads, “Perfect for rugby moms.” Oh, god. I always naively thought that the consumer segment of wealthy, suburban, non-off-roaders was only quietly acknowledged by SUV makers, but with a wink and a nudge they are courted directly. Where does it end? Last Sunday’s 60 Minutes had an interesting piece on the psychological appeal of the SUV, and noted that at the recent Detroit auto show, among the concept vehicles was the Army’s missile launcher-equipped SmarTruck II, for military duty, of course. But let’s remember: the Hummer started out as a military vehicle, too.

TV notes. Nothing of note on the tube tonight. And even Dawson’s Creek is a re-run. I have to say, even though I stuck by the show for a good while, I’m glad it’s ending this season. Actually, they should’ve pulled the plug a few seasons ago when it was marginally better, but yes, end the misery already. And the nonstop I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! finally screeches to a halt tonight with a two-hour finale. Thank goodness.

Tomorrow, Live with Regis and Kelly (with guest co-host Jane Krakowski) welcomes Eric McCormack and Tori Amos. (W&G will be a re-run, though.) For upcoming guests on the major talk shows, listed by show or date, visit the Late Night TV page at interbridge.com.

Waiting for Oscar. I’m going to try to attend this talk at the Corcoran tomorrow night. Sounds interesting:

Just a couple of weeks before the Academy Awards, the charismatic film guru, Richard Brown, presents an insider’s view of how the Oscar selections really work. The program begins with a special reel produced for this evening’s event, featuring key scenes from the five Best Picture Nominees of 2002 and including a private behind-the-scenes peek. Brown ventures to foretell who will win as well as how and why. Brown, Professor, NYU, is called “America’s Number One Film Educator.” He built his career over the past 32 years delicately negotiating the gray areas between the staid academic world and razzle-dazzle of movie business. His remarkable insights and passion for film have informed and inspired tens of thousands of New York filmgoers.

I heard about this weeks ago from Ticketplace, but somehow forgot about it until just now, just in time.

Whoa, it’s March. And Mardi Gras!

Love is in the air. The Tibet House concert last Friday at Carnegie Hall was great: an fun evening of music and peace and love. Rufus sang “Grey Gardens” (from Poses) and one of many unreleased compositions, “Agnus Dei,” which he hopes to work into a complete classical Mass at some point. The concert had quite a line-up: David Bowie, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Angelique Kidjo, et al.

I met up with fellow message board members, old and new (please indulge my Romper Room-like interlude): Tom and his friend Mary, Corinne, Doug, Lou, Lauren, Gail and her husband, and Micah and his mom. A number of us stayed at the Park Central Hotel, and our restaurant of choice was Cafe Europa, both just a block from Carnegie Hall.

Artful dodging. On Saturday morning, Tom, Mary, and I went for a walk into still slightly snow-covered Central Park and strolled about Strawberry Fields. Continuing on, we stopped at the New York Historical Society and spent some time with the masterworks collection of 19th-century paintings.

About mid-day, we parted ways and I went off to meet Stefanie. Our plan to see the Matisse Picasso exhibit at the MoMA was foiled by the need for advance tickets, so we decided instead to go gallery hopping in Chelsea. I had so much fun feeding my mind, which had been starved for art. Here are some of my favorite exhibits:

Alex Kanevsky at J. Cacciola Gallery. Impressionistic hints of Degas, and yet very clean and modern. Lots of pale blues and rich, dark browns.

Simon Periton‘s “Premonitions” at Gorney Bravin + Lee. Large, highly intricate paper cutouts.

Catherine Sullivan‘s “Five Economies (big hunt/little hunt)” at Metro Pictures. A two-part work involving staged photographs and video.

Al Souza (amazing work with intricate jigsaw puzzles) and Christina Ray (integration of photographs and glass into larger somewhat surreal images) at Charles Cowles Gallery.

The highlight of the afternoon was a celeb sighting at the Gagosian Gallery. I glanced towards the doorway and saw a dog, so I looked up, and who should be holding the leash but actor extraordinaire Alan Cumming! Stef and I stared from afar for a bit, and then, not wanting to interrupt his conversation, scooted past him. My brush with greatness was literal–I maneuvered closely and with seeming insouciance my coat grazed the sleeve and back of his fur-trim-hooded parka. Stef and I wandered to another room which held an admittedly interesting video exhibit, but unable to contain our starstruck glee, we returned to where Mr. Cumming stood and spied upon him from behind a large, pink Franz West sculpture as if it were a tree. Fabulous.

Winding down. Stef and I capped the afternoon with a bite to eat at a nearby cafe, where I had a wonderful quiche lorraine, and we went our separate ways. Left to my own devices, I made my usual pilgrimage to the H&M on Fifth Avenue, though I didn’t end up buying anything, and then checked out the MoMA Design Store, which has lots of cool and quirky stuff. I had deliberated over taking in a show, but by now, though I was deliriously content, I was also sleepy and my feet were killing me. At about 6 p.m., I headed down to Penn Station, and took the next train home. The end.