A Recap of the Paft Several Days
Being in Reduced Form a Summation of Events Having Come to Pafs Since This Paft Sunday, The Tyme at Which the Sturtle Had Composed His Moft Recent Entry to This Journale
The Goode
1. I had a delightful date with the Boyfriend Tuesday eve.
2. Upon the delightful date in question, the Boyfriend and I saw Moulin Rouge, which I enjoyed for three very specific reasons:
2a. The film’s art direction was thorough and unique; it was so very over the top that it became quite literally fantastic. In contrast, consider some other recent, dismal, celluloid crap like Boogie Nights, which was also driven by its art direction, but haphazardly; the art director kept waffling between camp (note the abundance of Farrah/Bruce Lee posters) and realism (note the cocaine and the buckets of prop blood).
2b. Moulin Rouge serves as a magnificent harbinger of post-camp–possibly post-irony, or at least a new sort of not-so-cynical irony. All those magnificently silly love songs could have been camped up to the high heavens, but with the possible exception of the “Like a Virgin” number, they were done earnestly, very straightforward–no wink at the audience, no backing away from the emotional weight of the text. Perhaps it’s okay to have feelings again…
2c. They inserted a joke about Ewan McGregor’s legendarily “huge talent”.
3. Hedwig sounds great. Our band rocks.
4. We’ve got recently acquired a number of new cabaret performers.
5. I spent a wee bit of time with Ralph, whom I’ve otherwise neglected.
The Badd
1. Too much rehearsal and not enough sleep makes Sturtle a cranky boy. In the immortal words of Jim Backus, I need a vacation.
2. I’m experiencing a serious case of writer’s block on this one piece I’m penning for the cabaret. I guess I’m just not inspired. If any of you have a short, say, five minute comic sketch that might be appropriate for a cabaret set in Paris during the Roaring Twenties, send it on. (FYI, the piece I’m working on now is between a wisecracking flapper girl with swell gams and a skirt-chasing rube.)
3. I don’t have the opportunity to read as much as I’d like.
4. I was never–nor will I ever be–a professional golfer (can’t take it seriously), gymnast (too uncoordinated), or pianist (stubby fingers). Tennis, however, isn’t entirely out of the question.
5. The future’s very bright, but I’ve lost my cheap shades.
sturtle [dot] com 