Sunday, May 23, 2004

Recommended Reading

For about two weeks, the Internet has been full of "reviews" of Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. Some have praised it. Others have dismissed it as inaccurate tripe. A surprising percentage of folks in both camps have not seen the movie but they know what they think of George W. Bush and/or Michael Moore. Because of that, they are able to not only formulate opinions of the film but to set them in concrete.

We are now starting to get articles by people who seem to have actually viewed the film, if not before deciding what they think of it then at least before writing about it. Here's Frank Rich on what he thinks of the film. I think he saw it. I think he generally likes it. I think I am not going to go see it and unlike so many, I'm actually going to let that little omission stop me from expressing my view of it.

• Posted at 11:41 PM · LINK

Face Front!

A number of folks have asked questions about the stage configuration at the play I saw last night, and the questions have convinced me I didn't explain it very well. So I drew the above diagram. Got it now, everyone?

• Posted at 10:31 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Eric Alterman discusses how many hawkish Republicans have big problems with how the Bush administration has handled things in Iraq.

In the meantime, National Review has offered up a four-part article by two military men who make the case that the situation over there can be turned into a smashing success. Here's part one, here's part two, here's part three and here's part four.

• Posted at 10:05 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

The New York Times ran an editorial the other day that essentially lambasted the Bush administration for believing the Iraq-related info and predictions of Ahmad Chalabi. The editorial is probably on-target except for one teensy detail. Nowhere in it is there some line like...

We know that Bush was taken in by Chalabi because so were we. A spectacular amount of disinformation on Iraq has appeared in the Times because Chalabi fed stories to our reporters and we foolishly printed them. This is not the first time we've fallen for leaks from a supposed insider. We allowed ourselves to be planted with our Whitewater coverage, which was filled to overflowing with bogus "facts" from Clinton's enemies. We did it again with our coverage of the wrongly-accused "spy," Wen Ho Lee. And now we've again let someone eager to feed false information to the world use the Times as his conduit. Remember when we used to stand for something?

Aside from that little omission, it's fine.

• Posted at 10:53 AM · LINK

Lalo

Some call Lalo Guerrero the King of Chicano music...or at least, the King of funny Chicano music. He's written and recorded some wonderful serious songs but a lot of us first knew him for his parodies and comedy tunes. He pressed his first record in '39 and followed it with hundreds more. I am not as schooled on his career as I'd like to be, but it seems like at one time or another, he recorded every kind of song he could think of, proving himself a master at all kinds of music. (If you'd like to learn more about him from someone who really does know about his career, try this article by his son Mark, who is following in his father's footsteps, occupation-wise.) Lalo has produced an astounding body of work and it has recently served as the basis for a new musical.

Last evening, my friend Carolyn and I attended a "workshop production" of Lalo, which was described as a work-in-progress. There are still some rough edges but it would not surprise me at all if the folks behind it can file them off, mount a full production and have themselves a genuine hit. Lalo's songs — most of them in English — are wovenly skillfully through the story of his life and the struggle to find his identity and success as a musician. A lot of that involved bridging the cultural divide between races, and a number of his early successes spun that problem to great advantage by burlesquing Mexican stereotypes.

This production was one of the first things to be staged in the new Ricardo Montalbán Theater, which is the old James Doolittle Theater in Hollywood. (And before that, it was the Huntington Hartford and before that, it was the CBS Radio Theater and so on...) It is now in the custody of a group that has renamed it for Señor Montalbán and which intends to mount theatrical productions for and by the Hispanic community. This is a much better use than the building has been put to for some time.

I have to mention something interesting about the set-up of the theater. A few years ago, there were a couple of plays like Noises Off and Footlight Frenzy that showed you backstage activities as seen from backstage. The back wall of the set in both those productions was a tableau of an audience and the actors often faced them so you were seeing their backs, as if you were on stage looking out at the seats. The current configuration at the Montalbán is that for real. They aren't using the 1100 theater-style seats in the house. The aisles have ramps that take you onto the actual stage, which is both the performing and seating area. You sit in folding chairs set on staggered risers that surround the performers on three sides. (I'm explaining this badly so try and imagine this: The actors are facing away from the fixed seats and the audience has been moved onto stage in front of them.) It's a very odd but intimate way to watch a small musical and I think it added to our enjoyment. The shows being mounted there are certainly too small for the whole, traditional stage...though I'm confident that, as the company flourishes, that will change.

• Posted at 12:45 AM · LINK