Is Richard Maxwell a genius?

Good Samaritans, which just closed at St. Ann's Warehouse, is a very good play, written with an unspairing understanding of everyday speech and everyday pathos, delivered through deliberately stilted acting performances (one of the two leads is a nurse by profession) that denaturalize stage convention and thereby leave the bodies of the performers, (or is it the characters?), exposed, unprotected, and vulnerable in a way I was unprepared for and utterly convinced by.

The Downtown Plays, a series of short and often humorous vignettes that is playing as part of the Tribeca Theatre Festival, has some winners. David Henry Hwang's Trying To Find Chinatown explored the gap between race and culture to convincing effect. My Beautiful Goddamn City by Jon Robin Baitz went on just a little too long, but was otherwise poignant in its evocation of that thought that haunts many of us: the thought of leaving New York. I didn't care for the Paul Rudnick or Wendy Wasserstein slapstick.

Yes I think that bandanna looks nice on you

The sublimely fey Sufjan Stevens played NYU last night. Am I too old to be having a crush on a pop musician?

Dressed in a mock Michigan Militia outfit, complete with a U.S flag bandanna around his neck, Stevens' set started with a quaver in his voice as he hunched over his keyboard, appearing for all the world like he was nervous, which seemed odd since the crowd was clearly adoring.

The band didn't quite click for me on the first two songs, which were orchestral compositions of the ambition of a Brian Wilson. The idea that the music was a recording studio creation that wouldn't thrive in live performance started to occur to me. But that sinking feeling quickly gave way as the de rigeur slacker energy of the Michigan Militia finally gathered into a kind of shambolic swing, and the music sounded as fine as it had on the albums.

By the time Stevens picked up a guitar for one of his quiter songs, it was clear the quaver was just part of his delivery. He sang a lot of my favorites, but the second song from "Seven Swans," "Yes I think that dress looks nice on you" stands out in my memory.

I could say something about Stevens' post-ironic irony, a certain dry sincerity which might pass as British but which, as we from Michigan know, is actually mid-Western. Like the moment he announced the beginning of the religious portion of the evening, and then actually sang one of his Jesus Christ songs. Atheist that I am, I couldn't help but think, this is so much more worth listening to then the warm-up singer-songwriter warble creepily about romantic obsessions. (Not that Stevens doesn't turn out a wonderful romantic ballad as well).

By the time the band returned from a costume break and name change (they came out in versions of the fetching feather-dusted white shirt Sufjan wore for a recent profile in the NY Times, which he, criminally, did not himself wear this time) they were in fine form, and in fact were hitting a stride with some new songs from his next project on the State of Illinois when a fire alarm was tripped and the gaggle of hipsters who had congregated to see him drug themselves unwillingly out Kimmel Center's doors.

When Comedians Attack

I'm going into recovery for my political news addiction after this election, and I've already reduced my consumption of the stuff to The Daily Show and random postings on friends' blogs, but I thought this excerpt of Jon Stewart on CNN's Crossfire was worth the download.

This episode has been spun as Stewart attaching Tucker Carlson, but actually he is attacking the show in its entirety. Like Michael Moore, Stewart's left populism goes over the heads of hacks who can only see the world in red and blue.

The best thing about this appearance is that, just when the news media was assimilating Stewart as its resident court jester, he goes all Old Testament on them and delivers a real denunciation. With this appearance Stewart has re-signified his irreverence: his comedy serves not to mock serious political discussion, but rather the utter shallowness that passes as serious debate these days.

The problem with Stewart's trick is that you can only get away with it once. Why waste it on Crossfire?

Explication de Derrida

"Virtually every area of humanistic scholarship and artistic activity in the latter part of the 20th century felt the influence of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida ..."

The first sentence of the best overview of Derrida's life and work I've come across in the English languagep press, infinitely more careful than the hack job the New York Times offered. I defy anyone to read it and still claim deconstruction is inexplicable nonsense, or that Derrida was some kind of charlatan.

The legacy of deconstruction

"Those people who felt they stood on shaky foundations suddenly had a home for their native anti-foundationalism. They too could become theorists. Think of it as a job creation program for all intellectual nerds, outcasts and misfits, people whose kind of intelligence meant that they weren�t even comfortable around most other intelligent people."

The above excerpt is from Marco Roth's thoughts on the death of Jacques Derrida.

Who says sports can't be queer?

My friend Jose sent me this absolutely riveting video by track and field legend Carl Lewis.

The most hilarious thing? It is proudly displayed on Lewis' own website! I always knew he wanted to be a pop star, but I had no idea that the pop star he wanted to be was Olivia Newton John!

Go out and see this

Early on in Jonathan Caouette's new autobiographical documentary, Tarnation we learn that due to a drug-related incident when he was an adolescent, he suffers from a psychological disorder that causes him to experience himself as if he were a character in a movie.

I, on the other hand, suffer from a psychological disorder which causes me to be inordinately fascinated with people whose belief they are characters in a movie leads to expose themselves on camera in a way I would never do.

Needless to say, Tarnation is my favorite new film since Games People Play. Comparing a tawdry sexploitation reality-tv movie to a gorgeously crafted 20 year labor of love may seem unfair, but keep in mind that in both cases we are sitting down in the dark to entertain ourselves with other people's traumas. Keep in mind also that Caouette's film caught the eye of Executive Producer Jonathan Cameron Mitchell when Caouette sent him a video tape audition for Mitchell's new film which included footage of Caouette and his boyfriend having sex.

Caouette's film is genuinely moving, particularly his relationship with his mother, and watching someone grow up on camera is always an unnerving, surreal experience, like those time-release films of a seed germinating. Tarnation worth it alone for the chilling footage of an 11-year old Caouette's performing an abused wife; the frame of a fictional character is already his instinctive vehicle for dealing with his own pain which would otherwise overwhelm him.

It is telling that, towards the end of the film, the adult Caouette tries but cannot repeat the confession performance. In this age when we are all performances of ourselves, an age Caouette seems to have been prepared and preparing for his whole life, there is no fictional frame left to seek refuge in.