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The New Yorker, 2006-05-08
Aug. 23rd, 2008 06:19 pm"Life Imitates Dept: Choke Artist" / Lauren Collins
__ Patinkin had spent weeks researching asphyxiation scenarios, and they were now turning into real life, like some kind of reverse-Method nightmare. The others at the table had no idea about the nature of Patinkin’s latest role or the correct first-aid procedure. “We’ve been in therapy,” Grody explained, “and we don’t talk about work at home.”
__ Elizabeth Taylor, it turns out, actually belongs in both categories. Twenty-two years before choking on a chicken bone, she saved Montgomery Clift from swallowing his own teeth.
"The Old Ways: Still Kicking'" / Nick Paumgarten
__ “I’ve never jogged, never been to a gym, never been on a machine,” Winnie said. “I do five minutes of stretching a day. I do splits, back bends, and then run around my head.” (Don’t ask.) “My body is a wonderful house that I live in.”
"Handel Time" / Alex Ross
__ There is nothing in music more unstoppably beautiful than a Handel aria moving in slow, regal splendor. It is like a godly machine, crushing all ugliness and plainness in its path.
"The Theatre: Less Than Earnest" / Hilton Als
__ She is a woman for whom practical considerations are unobscured by emotional filigree.
LADY BRACKNELL: Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.
ALGERNON: I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.
LADY BRACKNELL: That’s not quite the same thing. In fact, the two things rarely go together.
Here, as elsewhere, the point is made as an afterthought. Lady Bracknell’s “in fact” is the linguistic bridge she must cross to deliver the punch line. In fact, Lady Bracknell possesses few facts, only criticisms—the solipsist’s version of the truth.
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__ Patinkin had spent weeks researching asphyxiation scenarios, and they were now turning into real life, like some kind of reverse-Method nightmare. The others at the table had no idea about the nature of Patinkin’s latest role or the correct first-aid procedure. “We’ve been in therapy,” Grody explained, “and we don’t talk about work at home.”
__ Elizabeth Taylor, it turns out, actually belongs in both categories. Twenty-two years before choking on a chicken bone, she saved Montgomery Clift from swallowing his own teeth.
"The Old Ways: Still Kicking'" / Nick Paumgarten
__ “I’ve never jogged, never been to a gym, never been on a machine,” Winnie said. “I do five minutes of stretching a day. I do splits, back bends, and then run around my head.” (Don’t ask.) “My body is a wonderful house that I live in.”
"Handel Time" / Alex Ross
__ There is nothing in music more unstoppably beautiful than a Handel aria moving in slow, regal splendor. It is like a godly machine, crushing all ugliness and plainness in its path.
"The Theatre: Less Than Earnest" / Hilton Als
__ She is a woman for whom practical considerations are unobscured by emotional filigree.
LADY BRACKNELL: Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.
ALGERNON: I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.
LADY BRACKNELL: That’s not quite the same thing. In fact, the two things rarely go together.
Here, as elsewhere, the point is made as an afterthought. Lady Bracknell’s “in fact” is the linguistic bridge she must cross to deliver the punch line. In fact, Lady Bracknell possesses few facts, only criticisms—the solipsist’s version of the truth.
<<
