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[Dan (the Man)]

Bringing over last nights subject that JRand53 started...

EBAY score:

471 @ 100% positive

590 positive feedback left by 471 members

About 4 or 5 years ago I was selling on Ebay and did fairly well...JRand53 was one of my best customers!

I am a piker compared to everyone here:  my eBay score is only:

 Feedback Score:  108  
 Positive Feedback:  99.1%  
 
 Members who left a positive:  109  
 Members who left a negative:  1  
 
 All positive feedback received:  132  

I think I might have bought a CD from DR JRand53 once.

I've been on an eBay spree this week.  Someone was auctioning off a lot of Broadway window cards.  I got myself Sweeney Todd, SITPWG, On the 20th Century, the 74 Candide and the London Follies revival (I will be trying in the next few minutes to also win the poster for Platinum, if the price doesn't go much higher than it currently is.)  I also picked up an LP set of The Rose Tattoo with Maureen Stapleton--can't wait for that to arrive!

[Matt H.]

Just pre-ordered my Deana Durbin Sweetheart Collection which will be released next week. It contains:

THREE SMART GIRLS - her first feature but one of my least favorites. I like her much better as a grown up young lady

FIRST LOVE - my favorite with her as a teen and the one in which Robert Stack gives her her first kiss.

IT STARTED WITH EVE - judged by most her best film (I like HIS BUTLER'S SISTER best) and features GREAT chemistry with Charles Laughton

CAN'T HELP SINGING - her only Technicolor film with a lovely Jerome Kern score. She looks overly made up for the color cameras and has gone blonde for this and the next one (not a flattering color for her), also looks a trifle overweight. But it doesn't matter. She's great.

LADY ON A TRAIN - her wonderful murder mystery film. Has always been one of my favorites.

100 MEN AND A GIRL - there is some question on various internet sights that Universal has replaced this earilier film with one of her last movies, SOMETHING IN THE WIND. Actually, I'd rather have WIND even if 100 MEN features Leopold Stokowski. I just prefer the mature Durbin to the little girl.

[Dan (the Man)]

The Page Deux Dance--it is dangerous, no?

[Matt H.]

I guess everyone is aware that Disney is releasing the jaunty and delightful DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE next week in a full frame release. I know, it was probably shot in England at 1.66:1, but I'd still rather have an anamorphic transfer. I guess I'll just pass this one by. Waiting for THE ABSENT MINDED PROFESSOR paid off. Maybe they'll reconsider this one at a later date, and do it right.

[Ron Pulliam]

Yesterday, TomovOz said:

The "Amish" in reality TV - sounds like a reason for them having to leave their community as a result of such involvement.

One of the great unknown things about the Amish is that there comes a time in each of their lives when they are permitted to go "wilding":  This is usually as early as age 16.  Each Amish youth is free to pursue whatever paths/indulgences/etc., he or she wishes.  The end result is for them to either choose Amish beliefs/way of life and return to the fold -- WITHOUT censure for the wilding period -- or to pursue an alternate path and be shunned from Amish society.

These Amish youth may very well fall under the "wilding" codes.

[Dan (the Man)]

I didn't even bother to bid on the Platinum window card--someone jumped in and anted up the bid to $57.  Too high for me...

[bk]

Oh, now I remember - we did sandwiches on May 18th, not so long ago.  Still, one can't have enough sandwiches.  I should just realize we've probably done all foodstuffs but I do love hearing about food so I keep forgetting we've probably done all foodstuffs.

Here's another topic du jour:  What do you do when you're afraid of something?  Do you hold your head erect?  Whistle a happy tune?  How do you stand up to your fears or conquer them?

[Ron Pulliam]

I just received a w indow card that is the single "best" value I've gotten at eBay, IMO:

I found an original cast window card in mint condition for "La Cage Aux Folles" and bought it for $10.49.  The same seller had an original cast "Dreamgirls" on the block, too, and it went for a few dollars more.  

The latter card has gone for well over $100 in past auctions.  And I've never even seen one for "La Cage..." until recently.   It's gorgeous!

[Stuart]

I have made my DVD selection for today - TWILIGHT OF THE GOLDS. Can you believe I have never seen this all the way through.

Having seen the Broadway production of this, yes, I can.

[Matt H.]

I thought I remembered writing about club sandwiches no too long ago. Still reading about them does make my mouth water.

[DERBRUCER]

Today's LA Times offers something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.

SOMETHING OLD

SCREENING ROOM

Charlie Chaplin, Marie Dressler, center, and Mabel Normand star in “Tillie’s Punctured Romance.”
(UCLA Film and Television Archive)

Legendary Sennett comedy all aglow

UCLA's Festival of Preservation screens an early Chaplin classic.
By Kevin Thomas
Times Staff Writer

Jul 29 2004

KEYSTONE KOPS never looked so good.

A painstakingly restored version of Mack Sennett's "Tillie's Punctured Romance" — which featured Marie Dressler, Charlie Chaplin and a cast of comic Sennett legends — screens tonight as part of UCLA Film Archive's 12th Festival of Preservation.

An 82-minute six-reeler based on the play "Tillie's Nightmare," it is regarded as the first feature-length comedy and is still hilarious. Most familiar for early Metro talkies, Dressler in 1914 was a hefty 46-year-old stage star who, in her screen debut, throws herself into the slapstick and pratfalls that were the staples of Keystone Studios.

Dressler's Tillie Banks is a farmer's daughter who is persuaded by Chaplin's city slicker to steal her father's savings and run off with him. When Charlie runs through Tillie's money, he ditches her for his regular girl and partner in crime (Mabel Normand). But when Tillie becomes a multimillionaire heiress, Charlie is determined to walk up the aisle with her. Sennett mines every comic twist imaginable from this simple plot.

There will be live musical accompaniment performed by Tillie's Nightmare, a five-piece ensemble featuring Ken Winokur of the Alloy Orchestra, renowned for its original scores for silents.
...

der Brucer (wondering if this is a new restoration or a showing of the Image Enteraiment 1999 release)

[DERBRUCER]

SOMETHING NEW

Extracts from the LATimes CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK:

A computer rendering of “Collar and Bow” by Pop artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. The sculpture is now being fabricated and will be installed in front of Walt Disney Concert Hall next summer.
(Composite by Mathieu Pung)

The hall mark
Does Gehry’s grand edifice need a punny sculptural greeting card?
By Christopher Knight
Times Staff Writer

Jul 28 2004

Do you know about the Dept. of Redundancy Dept.? It's the official (if fictional) place to go to accomplish something needless, and to get it done double-time. The Dept. of Redundancy Dept. is good at glut, superb at superfluity. Excessive duplication is a specialty.

Surely the department is behind the commission to erect a monumental sculpture at the corner of 1st Street and Grand Avenue, at the entrance to the splendid new Walt Disney Concert Hall. At that specific spot in our otherwise beleaguered civic landscape, the glorious view of Frank Gehry's critically acclaimed building is so drop-dead impressive that putting an enormous sculpture out front to mimic the instant-landmark's buoyant curves can only augment the magnificence. Don't you think?

And look at the subject! A white wing collar and black bow tie, tossed to the wind! Carefree audacity, in fiberglass and steel.

The sculpture is being fabricated now, and it won't be installed until next summer. But based on a digitally fabricated picture of the sculpture on-site, it works like the giant Carpeteria genie or Michelin Man outside a rug shop or tire store — sculpture that functions as a sign. In less than a year, Disney Hall has become perhaps the most famous building in Los Angeles, which means one of the most famous in the nation. You wouldn't think it needs a sign.

The stainless steel concert hall is a wild abstraction, which wraps the most genteel and tradition-bound of all the performing arts within the computer-plotted cloak of radically progressive architecture. The sculpture is a parody of that distinctly modern tension, rendered in representational terms. Never mind that the conventional sartorial requirement for a philharmonic orchestra is white tie, not the black tie that this sculpture proposes to cast aside. Amy Vanderbilt is dead, and pedantry is a bore. The Dept. of Redundancy Dept. knows what it's doing, and furthermore is doing what it knows.

It knows that a Pop sculpture by the New York husband-and-wife team of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen — the OldenBruggens, to simplify — is practically a requirement for a Gehry building in L.A. This will be the third example.

"Collar and Bow" joins the giant pair of binoculars at the former Chiat/Day Building in Venice (one of the famous duo's best works) and the toppling stepladder and spilling paint can at Loyola Law School near downtown (among their worst). Gehry recommended the OldenBruggens for all three projects.

Since 1976, they've erected more than two dozen Pop sculptures in urban settings across the United States and Europe, as well as in Tokyo, and of those I've seen, misses have outnumbered hits. Manhattan, where the artists live, cannot boast a single large-scale, permanent, site-specific work by the team. Maybe that's just because New York can't seem to get a major building erected by the most important American architect of our time.

L.A. might be overrun with major artists, including sculptors of colossal talent who have worked here for decades and built international reputations of the first rank but who haven't had an opportunity to erect a major sculpture on prime local real estate. But safety counts when redundancy matters: Do not take chances, especially on culture.

Stick with the predictable. Certified out-of-town art celebrities are a warm security blanket, because you don't have to put your own taste on the line and then defend it. Yes, there is irony here. Gehry was in an identical position when he got the coveted 1988 commission to design Disney Hall — local genius, ignored by cultural pooh-bahs locally. His hiring was a miracle that set the town giddily on its ear. Apparently that out-of-character artistic event hasn't had long-term consequences for civic self-confidence over at the Music Center.

Plus, "Collar and Bow" is safe because partly pretested. The sculpture is a variation on a dull 1994 piece, commissioned for a sidewalk outside a major bank in Frankfurt, Germany. (Banks take no more chances than music centers do.) That corporate sculpture did to a man's traditional business attire — dress shirt collar and striped tie — what the Disney sculpture plans to do for masculine formal wear: toss it aside.

...
Voluptuous breasts, engorged phalluses and other bodily allusions abound in the OldenBruggen's most vivid work, and a 65-foot-tall sex act on the corner of 1st and Grand would sure stop traffic. Yet the blandly veiled "Collar and Bow" is unlikely to scare the horses.

Thing plus person, inanimate but vital, art object and sex act — double entendres are a trademark of their approach. Oldenburg's earlier, pre-Van Bruggen sculptures were often small articles (electric plug, clothespin, pool balls) made huge, or hard things (telephone, toilet, typewriter) made soft. Linguistically a double entendre is an indelicate pun, in which a single word can suggest multiple meanings. Pop art is a punster's paradise.

At Disney Concert Hall, a bow might describe a necktie, but it's also the name of the wooden stick that musicians drag across violin strings. Pronounced another way, bow is what conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and company do at the end of a performance. The bow is also the forward part of a sailing ship, and billowing sails and jibs are Gehry's stated inspiration for the design of his curvaceous building.

Last and probably least, a collar is a band — like the philharmonic. "Collar and Bow" makes a chic wisecrack. Regrettably, gigantic tonnages of steel and fiberglass make bubbly witticisms elephantine.

Groaning is not encouraged by the Dept. of Redundancy Dept., but an aura of mystery is. The undisclosed cost of the big, privately funded joke out on a public sidewalk is apparently a state secret, ranking right up there with who leaked Valerie Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative.
...
As a corny sculptural sign for an iconic building that has no need for one, the lackluster "Collar and Bow" proposal is a classic gambit of the Dept. of Redundancy Dept. But that's not its only failing. It's also a monumental sign of an intractably timid, clubby state of mind.

I bet there'll be comments about:

"Manhattan, where the artists live, cannot boast a single large-scale, permanent, site-specific work by the team. Maybe that's just because New York can't seem to get a major building erected by the most important American architect of our time."

der Brucer (noticing that the HHW "No Groaning Allowed" campaign is catching on)

[bk]

I do hope that's not the ENTIRE article - as we should not be posting entire articles.  Extracts, however, are fine as long as they're attributed.

No one has fears they face?  No one has faces they fear?

[Panni]

What I do when I'm afraid.... I'm rarely afraid - really. Nor for myself anyway. (I was shot at, in a fire, lost a parent, lost my homeland, walked across borders was captured, was in jail, etc. etc - all before age 8 - so what's to be afraid of?). I get startled very easily, but that's more of a reflex, than an emotion.
Anyway, if I AM for some reason afraid, I get very very calm. Everything is in slow motion and I just think about how to deal with it. I gues what that means is that I turn it from an emotion into an intellectual exercise. That's what I do, DRs.

I will be E&T for much of this morning and early afternoon dealing with a medical matter (not mine) that I would like some REALLY good vibes for. Thanking you in advance, DRs.

[DERBRUCER]

SOMETHING BORROWED

Extracts from the LA Times STAGE

Tami Tappan Damiano, left, Teri Ralston and Davis Gaines do justice to Stephen Sondheim’s creativity.
(Ed Krieger)

Depth and talent: 'Gimmicks' work
 ...
Polished singing and performances make the cast of "Side by Side by Sondheim" a formidable double threat.
By Philip Brandes, Special to The Times

Jul 28 2004

The revue has become a staple of budget-conscious producers seduced by its minimal staging requirements (three per-formers, one narrator and two pianos). In reality, the lack of props and dramatic context makes it harder to do justice to the songs' complexity and sophistication. Unlike many popular show tunes, Sondheim compositions are not "plug-and-play"; they remain defiantly specific to the story and characters for which they were created.

Director Nick DeGruccio is no stranger to the intricacies of a Sondheim revue (having staged the West Coast premiere of "Putting It Together") and has met the challenge here with interpretations that delve deep into the psychological and emotional nuances of the material.

Igniting the cast's agreeable chemistry is Teri Ralston, a veteran of the original Broadway productions of Sondheim's "Company" and "A Little Night Music," who brings penetrating insight and authority to the show's haunting sadder-but-wiser meditations: "In Buddy's Eyes," "Broadway Baby," "Send in the Clowns" and "I'm Still Here."

Handling the male characters of all ages with deceptive ease is Davis Gaines, who pokes fun at his long-running lead stints in L.A. productions of "Phantom of the Opera" by brandishing a phantom mask at the "cunning disguises" line in "Comedy Tonight." Davis' melodic inflections bring clarity and impact to some of the show's more obscure numbers: "Remember," "Marry Me a Little" and "Anyone Can Whistle."

From the giddy rush of big-city newcomers ("Another Hundred People") to the depths of romantic anguish ("Losing My Mind"), the younger female perspectives are pitch-perfect and beautifully acted by Tami Tappan Damiano, her seventh month of pregnancy notwithstanding. (Her condition slyly incorporated with a belly rub during "Love Is in the Air" and a hilariously modified gladiator breastplate for "You Gotta Have a Gimmick").

Speaking of gimmicks, this production sports a lineup of guest narrators, changing weekly. Opening week's Henry Polic II got the show off to a breezy, avuncular start; Betty Garrett, Richard Kline and Donna McKechnie will follow.
...
The period conceit is wittily accentuated in Alex Jaeger's gaudy post-psychedelic polyester costumes for the "informal" first act. Lee Martino's choreography is more concerned with character embellishment than with taxing physicality. Even so, polished singing and performances make this cast a formidable double threat.

Dates, times, and ticket data for all three venues available on-line (or PM me).

der Brucer

[Dan-in-Toronto]

Positive feedback score - 100% (from 77 sellers, among them DR Michael Shayne (Valmouth CD); 103 transactions)

I had to do some fast talking during my early buying days. I was using a US chequing account from a Canadian bank. Some of the sellers in small communities had major difficulties convincing their bankers that the currency really was US. Life became easier with PayPal.

I too hope to start selling - one of these days.

I made one friendship with a fellow buyer, and have enjoyed some nice e-mail exchanges with sellers.

[Stuart]

A computer rendering of “Collar and Bow” by Pop artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

How about the fact that no (OK, few) self-respecting male concertgoers who would think of donning formal wear for a Phil concert would even dream of wearing a pre-tied bowtie!

[Dan-in-Toronto]

Really good VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVibes (yes, they are vibes, not wibes) heading DR Panni's way.

[Stuart]

yes......Good vibes, DR Panni.

[bk]

"Director Nick DeGruccio is no stranger to the intricacies of a Sondheim revue (having staged the West Coast premiere of "Putting It Together") and has met the challenge here with interpretations that delve deep into the psychological and emotional nuances of the material"

The West Coast Premiere of Putting it Together was hardly staged by Nick de Gruccio.  Maybe the WAIVER theater premiere, but the actual West Coast Premiere was, in fact, directed by that fellow who runs the Signature.  The actual West Coast Premiere starred Carol Burnett, Susan Egan, John Barrowman, and others.  It was done at the Mark Taper Forum.

[Dan-in-Toronto]

This request came in from one of my other online groups (actually, it's my only other online group). I know there are several DRs in this area (Oregon), and if anyone has a suggestion please send me a PM.

Thanks.

"Does anyone know of a Movement Disorder neurologist in the Salem area? This would incluide Corvallis, Albany, even Portland."

[Jennifer]

So did anybody watch the Amish show last night?

[Jennifer]

Good vibes to DR Panni ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!!!!

[Jennifer]

I love smoked meat sandwiches!

[DERBRUCER]

I do hope that's not the ENTIRE article - as we should not be posting entire articles.  Extracts, however, are fine as long as they're attributed.

No one has fears they face?  No one has faces they fear?

All are extracts, all are attributed, with particular care to pick up the picture attributions.

der Brucer

[Stuart]

So did anybody watch the Amish show last night?

OK, I admit it......

[Jrand73]

Good vibes to DRPANNI.

And I hope DRDANISE is feeling better today as well.

Yes, I try to face my fears...and go ahead and just do it.  Riding a roller coaster, auditioning at a new venue, driving someplace alone - these are all things I have been afraid to do, until I did them once.  And so one at a time, I am conquering my fears.

I remember that I used the lyrics of Whistle a Happy Tune, when I had to walk up the bleachers - the kind that were open underneath.  That was the scariest thing I had to do when I was in the second grade....and I did it.  Thanks Rodgers & Hammerstein.

[William E. Lurie]

I did NOT watch the Amish show because it was a made-for-television setup.  I did see the film it was based on since it was a real documentary where they followed around some of these Amish youth and interviewed them.  Other than one person dominating the film so much that it became a film about him rather than a variety of youth it was quite interesting.  What blew my mind was that after living in the real world, 90% of the youth return to the church.  However none of them was set up in a Hollywood apartment with a group of modern non-Amish youth.

Following in the footsteps of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Sarah Brightman, it was announced today that Frank Wildehorn and Linda Eder have split up.

[Panni]

Thanks for the good vibes. See you later!

[DERBRUCER]

"Director Nick DeGruccio is no stranger to the intricacies of a Sondheim revue (having staged the West Coast premiere of "Putting It Together") and has met the challenge here with interpretations that delve deep into the psychological and emotional nuances of the material"

The West Coast Premiere of Putting it Together was hardly staged by Nick de Gruccio.  Maybe the WAIVER theater premiere, but the actual West Coast Premiere was, in fact, directed by that fellow who runs the Signature.  The actual West Coast Premiere starred Carol Burnett, Susan Egan, John Barrowman, and others.  It was done at the Mark Taper Forum.

Director: Eric D. Schaeffer
Musical Staging: Bob Avian
Others: John McCook, Bronson Pinchot

der Brucer (Woody and I had seats right in front of Barrowman's parents who had flown in just for the show)