make the moments fly

How good does it ever really get?! Lady Gaga singing hits from The Sound of Music at the Oscars thence to be embraced by…oh..yes: that is REALLY Julie Andrews. OK- we could have done with a little more Edelweiss but heck: that’s a man’s song…frickknn equality and all that…but you can’t sing Matthew McConaughey! Bejsssica yes yes you can…freaky how talented everyone is at those awards…

Little quiz: if you put 6 great composers/lyricists ‘whatever’ you know in a room and made them represent the last 6 decades…wouldn’t this guy be one? Or wasn’t my high school math just not so great?

What about CitizenFour and and.. 'they' cry: There's a waiting line please Ms Poitras and Mr Snowden? This is America: it certainly ain't 'just' but arguably it is 'fair'. Oh- sorry it's London. Different 'kettle of micro-fish'.

So Mr Snowden: you were saying about the collusion between the world's greatest banks and the world's greatest democracy...please continue...

Yes: I totally understand that you would rather watch a documentary about a totally unknown nanny who 'snapped' ordinary folk whilst perambulating the 'kinder' whilst surrounding herself with newspapers by dint as opposed to pixels. Or that you'd rather reminisce about the Wim Wenders days {addendum: Mr Wenders stated at a MoMA Q&A that Sebastião Salgado (Curzon Film World-July 3) was his FAVORITE photographer (just tryin' to keep it real...;):.....wait a minute no you wouldn't! We would though! ....You're not 'Ed'! 

For a night upon London town where 1664 meets 2014, the totally immersive theatricality of English National Opera's co-production (with Teatro Real Madrid) of Purcell's unfinished opera The Indian Queen is hard to beat. Director Peter Sellars talks here with the Russian co-producers. And on the BBC Feb 25. Change we can believe in? Forever slow and forever painful. Ever thus.

T.S. ELIOT 
:

Innocence is a kind of insanity

Advice for the red carpet field of combat: If you’re going to be dressing in civilian clothes, don’t forget pumps. Apparently for Madonna’s after-party you’re not allowed a ‘plus one’. Isn’t that spookily akin to Philip K Dick’s The Adjustment Bureau where our brightest and best are kept from straying left-field lest they meet a love of their life who, just might love them?

Hey: if you missed an Oscar invite there is always The Tony Awards around the corner. (Now I've drawn attention to it, hope some Sergeant-Major doesn't force down that link in the face of little green backed men.) Who knows: you too may go from a Neil Patrick Harris eating sushi onstage to making your own out of an audience. Lots of truth seeking in this year’s Documentary Feature nominations…

Over the decades yours truly has sat (willingly though often restlessly) through enough foreign films to feed a favela for a lifetime. Many, alas, have no retinal flashbacks. Ida (a Foreign Film nominee) isn’t just mellifluously directed (Pawel Pawlikowski) but carved out of onyx by writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz.

He who dares not offend cannot be honest.

Speaking of la Vérité: anyone seen the UK TV series Black Mirror (Robert Downey Jr optioned an episode) produced and mostly written (co or all) by a coruscating TV critic- about well…: you’ll work it all out. 

If that’s not ‘eerie’ enough for you, go back in history and watch The Narcotic Farm. Does the end ever justify the means? 

Everybody's Got The Right

It's just a musical...a cabaret old chum...

time out- it's my show

the dearly departed of Oscar night is always a strange somewhat maudlin affair. So let's just get it put out of the way now:

firstly an advertisement free rendition of last year's swan song The Wind Beneath My Wings:

Old Friend

I Don't Want to Know (YouTube took down this link- it was a great performance, Ms Lansbury- even though not yours;) I shall not replace it. 

as Bernadette Peters once said in a concert: it’s my show so I’ll sing what I like!

So if I want Betty Buckley to sing everything in my post...;) did you know she was in the original stage version of Pippin…

a. beginning

Round and round
The burning circle
All the seasons
One, two and three
Autumn leaves
And then the winter
Spring is born
And world is free
 

once upon a...

                                                 

  x² + y² = z²

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