Ben Brantley Reviews Au Revoir Parapluie

What he wrote:

Inspired by the myth of the wife-losing Orpheus, “Au Revoir Parapluie” conjures a tragicomic universe that thwarts, mocks and dissolves human pretensions, ambitions and illusions of permanence. The title, which translates as “Farewell, Umbrella,” is a nod to the futility of seeking shelter from life’s storms.

What it means in English:

Inspired by my total inability to comprehend intellectually why I was having so much fun, my review of “Au Revoir Parapluie” will contain CriticBuzz© like "tragicomic universe," "dissolves human pretensions," and "illusions of permanence." After which I will suck all the poetry out of the title and tell you its literal meaning, followed by the kind of symbolic explanation which got even me all A's in English.

Au Revoir, Parapluie

Ever wonder what Buster Keaton would have created if he'd been a choreographer?

Then go see Au Revoir, Parapluie at BAM before it closes on December 16th.

And yes, it's heretical to mention Keaton because choreographer/star James Thiérrée is actually the grandson of Charlie Chaplin. But watching him force his feet to walk or try to put on a jacket (okay, the jacket bit is pure WC Fields) is like watching an outtake from The General or Sherlock Junior.

Everyone in this piece is fantastic, the mood switches from slapstick to tenderness at the drop of a shuttlecock, and at times the visuals make you think you're watching the live-action version of a Miyazaki movie.

Seriously, I can't recommend this highly enough, and will probably try to see it again before it closes.

Tequila, noun. The devil.

Weekend update

I've got a leaf taped over my hoo hah. After mulled cider and taco salad Chez Ben Bradshaw, went to Southpaw to catch the end of the Novemberfest burlesque show and see The Woggles at midnight--which turned into 1 AM when the burlesquers, uhm, kept coming on late. Got home at 3 AM, woke up at 8, and started working on --

Deadline City, Part 1. -- Three Dead Slaves. Back in October my friend DJ gave me a deadline of December 3 to finish the next section of the Roman mystery novel, and as of Friday I have a complete Book Two. Except that the ending limps. It still needs another chapter, so I start working on it at 8:30 and by 11:30 I've drafted the first third of it. I type up what I've written, print it out, go to a coffee shop, and finish the second third, before taking a 90-minute nap and heading into Hoboken to see --

The band that never fails to deliver. -- The Woggles at Maxwell's. It's cold as a landlord's heart as I walk down Washington Street, but as warm as a Cratchit Christmas when I get to the club. Saw The Ribeye Brothers (very good), The Hi-Risers (my new favorite band), The Black Hollies (pretentious and boring, but they packed the biggest audience so go figure), and The Woggles, kicking ass as usual but this time as the closing band, which meant a full hour of great music from them. Home again at 3 AM, slept in till 9 AM, and started working on --

Deadline City, Part 2. -- the final third of the final chapter, which I finished at 11:57 AM in the Au Bon Pain downtown, while singing Ragged But Right (a Woggles song) to myself. Called DJ and reported in, then typed up the changes, and printed out a copy while downloading pictures from Friday and Saturday and --

I wish I had a river I could skate away on. -- finishing the third and final version of this year's Christmas CD, replacing one long song with three small tunes I found online. Then I took the printed copy to --

Thank you, Newcastle Brown Ale. -- Cornelia Street, where I parked myself in front of Madeline the bartender, had three Newcastles and a steak dinner, made continuity edits to Book Two, and plotted out the rest of the novel based on what I'd just finished, said plotting including answers to three major questions which have been bugging me quite literally for years about the plot. Went home at 9ish, typed in the edit changes, fell asleep on the couch while watching Paprika, and went to bed at 1.

microsoft is everywhere/but doesn't work well in times square

This Week in Human Stupidity

Darwin publisher may be tried for attack on "sacred values" Putting the Turkey in Turkey, the publisher of Dawkins' book “The God Delusion” is in the hot seat for opening Turkish eyes to the existence of Godless British atheists. In response, Dawkins is suing Turkish publishers of the Koran for attacking “atheist values”, and Christopher Hitchens is planning to stand in the middle of Istanbul and shout “Armenia!” until someone arrests him. Which should take about ten seconds. Meanwhile, by just making a joke about the Koran? There's now a fatwa against me.

If Warren Zevon was alive, he'd be singing "Mohammed's Teddy Bear" (And there’d be a fatwa out on him, too.) Rumor has it that, in response to the possible flogging of British teacher Gillian Gibbons because her students named a teddy bear Muhammad, Fox News is advocating that everyone in the United States name their teddy bears Muhammad. In the words of Roger Ailes: “I mean they want to kill us all anyway, right? So what the hey. And if that doesn't cheese them off, guess what we're going to name our toilets?"

Lies, damned lies, statistics, and whatever Karl Rove says out loud Did you hear? Bush didn't want to go to war in 2002--CONGRESS did, and Bush gave in, so it's all their fault we're in this Middle East mess. I swear to Jebus, this is the kind of thing that makes you wish the fecking Hollywood writer's strike was over so you could see John Stewart make this egg-sucking toad look like the smug smirking liar he is with two minutes of aptly-chosen film clips.

This reminds me of a joke. And speaking of egg-sucking toads: The morning Henry Hyde died, Gloria Steinem called his home and asked, "Can I speak to Henry?" "I'm sorry," his wife Judy said, "but he died this morning." "He did?" said Gloria, and hung up. Twenty minutes later the phone rings and it's Gloria Steinem again, asking "Can I speak to Henry, please?" "Like I just told you," his wife says, "he's dead." And she hangs up on her. Ten minutes later, phone rings again, and there's Gloria Steinem asking, "Can I speak to Henry?" And his wife yells: "Will you stop calling here? What the hell do you think you're doing? You've called twice already, and I've told you both times, he's dead, all right? He's dead. Why do you keep calling back when you know he's dead?" And Gloria says: "Because I just love hearing it."

Harlan Ellison on Paying The Writer

You call him DOCTA Jones, lady!

I don't know; I think he kinda looks like Steve Martin . . .

"Do Your Early Stuff!"

I'm Not There. I've asked five other Matthews to help me review this movie. Here's what we think.

CRAZYLEGS MATT: When it's not the movie version of a tribute album, it's the film version of a bunch of Greil Marcus footnotes.

LIBRARIAN BOY: It's a movie for anybody who's ever looked at Bob Dylan's life and wondered "What if he died after that motorcycle accident?" (Cate Blanchett supplies the answer, and it ain't a pretty one, but man does she nail the Tarantula Dylan--complete with tarantulas.)

NINETEEN FOREVER: The best Beatles cameo ever. An unrecognizable Michelle Williams as Edie Sedgwick with Madonna's survival instinct. Love Julianne Moore's Baez avatar calling Christan Bale's troubadour a little toad. Adore archival footage of the Village bleeding seamlessly into recreated footage of the Village. And that's really Allen Ginsberg up there, don't let anyone tell you any different.

THE RANDOLPH KID: Will somebody tell me why you hear Kristofferson in the opening voice-over, but you don't see him playing Billy The Kid?!? How. Cool. Would THAT have been.

THE PLAYWRIGHT: The only real question is, will Cate Blanchett win for Best Actress or Best Actor?

MATTHEW: A totally refreshing antidote to every musician biopic ever made, it's a movie that does to Dylan's legend what Dylan does to a song when he's performing it live--attacks it from the side, does a riff on the melody, garbles this and growls that, and forces you to see and hear something you not only didn't expect, but couldn't expect, and can't get out of your head.

Putting the Turkey in Turkey Day

Thanks to The Gourmet Peasant and her primo connections, I spent Thanksgiving at Chez Lola in Brooklyn, where 30 non-blood family members gathered round for a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat -- and piñata bashing! The best kind of piñata bashing -- political piñata bashing!

Many were the heroes who stepped up to the plate . . .

. . . but all whiffed and swung wild . . .

. . . until the Mighty Abe let loose with a turkey-butt-smashing blow . . .


. . . that gave us all a fistful of goodies!

And in true Thanksgiving fashion, this is the piñata we spared: