Updating My Lists

I am a maker of lists, and I have not updated my lists since July of last year.

I last updated the list of theater performances Andrew and I have attended together on July 7, 2009.

Since that time, we have attended another eighteen theater performances, bringing to seventy-nine the number of theater performances Andrew and I have attended since February 2006.

Theater performances over the last twelve months are listed below, in the order we attended them.

________________________________________________


J. B. Priestley’s “When We Are Married”, at The Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

George Bernard Shaw’s “The Devil’s Disciple”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

Garson Kanin’s “Born Yesterday”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

Eugene O’Neill’s “A Moon For The Misbegotten”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

The Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine Musical, “Sunday In The Park With George”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

George Bernard Shaw’s “In Good King Charles’s Golden Days”, at The Shaw Festival, Niagara-On-The-Lake

Thomas Heggen’s And Joshua Logan’s “Mister Roberts”, at New Repertory Theater Company, Watertown

The Cole Porter-Samuel And Bella Spewack Musical, “Kiss Me, Kate”, at The Lyric Stage Company, Boston

Evan Smith’s “The Savannah Disputation”, at SpeakEasy Stage Company, Boston

Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker”, at Central Square Theater, Cambridge

Conor McPherson’s “The Seafarer”, at Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Lowell

Gerald Sibleyras’s And Tom Stoppard’s “Heroes”, at Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Lowell

The Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler Musical, “A Little Night Music”, at The Walter Kerr Theatre, New York

Noel Coward’s “Present Laughter”, at American Airlines Theatre, New York

Arthur Miller’s “A View From The Bridge”, at The Cort Theatre, New York

Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons”, at The Huntington Theatre Company, Boston

Doug Wright’s “I Am My Own Wife”, at Signature Theatre, Arlington

Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit”, at The Lyric Stage Company, Boston

________________________________________________


Nothing we saw during the last year was particularly good. We were especially disappointed in the quality of performance on display at The Shaw Festival. Prior to our visit to Niagara-On-The-Lake, we had assumed—wrongly—that the quality of performance at the storied Canadian venue would be at the highest standard.

Zell Am See

The narrow inner streets of beautiful Zell Am See, which we visited last August 7 (and we were to have lunch at the outdoor cafe on the right).

As Painlessly As Possible

Andrew and I spent a long Independence Day Weekend in Oklahoma.

On our way to and from Oklahoma, we flew through Dallas-Fort Worth both times. We did so in order that we travel on the same flights to and from Oklahoma City as my aunt and uncle living in Dallas, who joined my family for the long weekend. Booking the same flights saved my parents from having to make two trips to the Oklahoma City airport on Friday and again yesterday.

We did not do much all weekend. Oklahoma was hot and dry, as it often is in July, and we stayed home, visiting, except on Sunday, when we went to Norman for a cookout with numerous family members.

Andrew and I had not seen my family since Thanksgiving, when we had all gathered in Dallas, and it was good to see everyone again. No one was in possession of extraordinary news—we are, on the whole, a rather boring group—but at least we were able to catch up on each other’s minutiae.

My parents and my brother and sister are still talking about our trip last summer to Bavaria and Austria, which they enjoyed very much. They want to go somewhere next summer, too, the excuse being a celebration of my graduation from law school. Paris seems to be the destination of choice.

I hope I don’t flunk out, and spoil things for everyone!

Andrew and I have two long months ahead of us before Labor Day Weekend, when we will travel to Minnesota. We will try to get through the rest of a long Boston summer as painlessly as possible.

Monet's "Water Lilies" In Cleveland

While Andrew and I were in Cleveland over Memorial Day Weekend, we encountered Claude Monet’s giant “Water Lilies” at the Cleveland Museum Of Art.


In the last decade of his life, Monet painted three massive water lily canvases depicting the vista from his own gardens at Giverny. The paintings were intended as a triptych, and the Cleveland canvas—intended to be the left panel of the triptych—is the most famous and is generally considered to be the finest of the three water lily paintings.

All three canvases reside in American museums. The other two are in collections in Missouri: at the Saint Louis Museum Of Art and at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City.

The three paintings were last displayed as a triptych in 1979, when they were gathered first in Kansas City and later in Saint Louis and Cleveland.

All three canvases will once again be joined beginning next year, to be displayed first in Kansas City and afterward in Saint Louis and Cleveland.

________________________________________________




Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Water Lilies (Agapanthus)
1920-1926
Cleveland Museum Of Art

Oil On Canvas
79 1/4 Inches By 169 7/16 Inches

As I Am Learning In My Summer Associate Job . . .

Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Marching II

Berlin, June 1931: Ceremony Honoring The Prussian Dead From The Great War.

Quiet Time

Since my exams ended, Andrew and I have been enjoying quiet time.

For the last two weeks, I have been home by myself on weekdays. I have used that time to read and perform household chores, relieving Andrew of responsibilities and allowing both of us to enjoy our evenings and weekends.

We caught a ballet performance last weekend. This weekend we suffered through a tired production of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit”. Next weekend we will travel to Cleveland to hear the Cleveland Orchestra and to visit the Cleveland Museum Of Art.

Next week I will begin my summer job.

A year from now, we will be back home.

Marching

The Seventh Regiment marching on Fifth Avenue on November 28, 1916.

America was to enter the war on April 6, 1917.

And This Is Being Kind . . .

At the end, the manner of his parting spoke volumes about this most paradoxical of men. For Gordon Brown was a man of massive contradictions: a Christian idealist who was also a political street fighter capable of the most venal behavior.

________________________________________________


This ugly side of Gordon Brown's character has been an open secret at Westminster for years.

Brown bore grudges, and sustained them across decades. He brooded. Driven half-mad by ambition, he would automatically seek to destroy anyone he viewed, however remotely, as a rival.

And some of the means he used demeaned both him and the office he held.

Indeed, Gordon Brown tolerated in his inner circle some of the nastiest political operators in recent Westminster history.

________________________________________________


It is wholly in character that over the past few days Gordon Brown has been unable to utter a single generous word about David Cameron's electoral achievement last Thursday, or publicly acknowledge that he himself has been defeated.

________________________________________________


Thirteen years ago, when Brown arrived at the Treasury [as Chancellor Of The Exchequer], government spending accounted for 37 per cent of the gross national product. This year, it will account for a massive 52 per cent: a transfer of wealth and power from the private sector to central government that is unprecedented in peacetime.

For Brown the socialist, that may be a huge achievement. Ultimately, however, he did great damage to the British economy, creating a vast and debilitating client state of public sector workers, and a terrifying culture of welfare dependency among the feckless and unemployed.

________________________________________________


The most lethal charge against Gordon Brown is that at no point did he set aside money to guard Britain against the inevitable economic downturn—meaning that the nation was caught unawares when recession finally struck in 2007.

He genuinely seemed to believe that Britain's relative prosperity under his Chancellorship was down entirely to his shrewd management. Repeatedly he would claim the sole personal credit for the powerful performance of this economy, and he will long be ridiculed for his claim to have abolished boom and bust.

But the moment when the downturn came, Prime Minister Brown refused—as always—to accept any of the blame, saying that international financial markets alone were at fault.

________________________________________________


The great tragedy for Brown is that, despite a lifelong ambition for the top job, he was not a natural leader, and never quite up to being Prime Minister.


Peter Oborne
11 May 2010

Two-Thirds Through

I am now two-thirds completed with law school.

Second-year exams wrapped up last week, and I am free until the beginning of June, when I will start a summer job.

I think I will do some non-legal reading for the rest of the month of May. It will be welcome to take a break from casebooks and read from European history.

Andrew and I have been busy trying to organize our summer, attempting to find time for weekend trips to Oklahoma and Minnesota. As of today, it looks like we will spend Memorial Day Weekend in Cleveland, Independence Day Weekend in Oklahoma, and Labor Day Weekend in Minnesota.

Because of my summer job, there will be no summer vacation for us this year.