I've always collected errors in diction, things people mis-hear, like "windshield factor" and "the next store neighbors." Years ago, one of my students wrote an essay in which she described the world as being harsh and cruel, "a doggy-dog world." I've since come to think she may have been more astute and accurate than those who describe it in the usual way. My Stories - Mobridge Memories -
Friday, March 22
Buddy Holly & Jack the Giant Slayer
The Buddy Holly Story at ABT was surprisingly good. I was surprised because I went there knowing I was going to, not hate exactly, dislike the music. I’m just not a fan of Rock ‘n Roll, or as I called it recently, Retch ‘n Regurgitate. But the young man, Jared Mancuso, who played Buddy won me over. What a great performance. In fact, nearly all the main players were great. They all played various instruments as well as sang—drums, bass fiddle, two guitars, and piano. The story was weak but the music was alive. After all, how much story can there be in the 18-month meteoric rise of young Buddy Holly and his brand of R ‘n R? He began in a small studio in Lubbock, Texas, singing country but wanting the other. Then on to Nashville where he his three buddies form “The Crickets” and record “That’ll Be the Day,’ which shoots to number one on the charts. Just over a year later, after breaking with the group, meeting and marrying Maria Elena Santiago, we see him playing a winter gig in Iowa with Richie Valens (“La Bamba”) and The Big Bopper J. P. Richardson (“Chantilly Lace”), after which he and the other two die in a small plane crash on their way to Minnesota. Short, tragic story. But I don’t really thing it marked the “day the music died” as suggested in “American Pie.” The final act in Iowa was played with house lights up, and we, the audience, becoming the Iowa audience, with repartee between us and the actors, even with some of them coming off-stage to jitterbug with some of us. Lots of fun, lots of great musical performances.
And speaking of fun, that’s what marked Jack, the Giant Slayer. Not much of a movie except it was a lot of fun, especially in the encounters of Jack and others with the grubbiest set of giants one could imagine. This was a movie I’ll forget in a few weeks, but I enjoyed it as I saw it. Since we chose the non-3D version, I can only imagine what it was like in 3D—toppling bean stalks crashing into the audience, flaming arrows coming at us, giants throwing tiny human bodies at us. Such fun. And the giant cook plucking a huge booger from his nose and then eating it. Such fun. At least, all the booger-eating children in the audience thought it was hilarious.
And speaking of fun, that’s what marked Jack, the Giant Slayer. Not much of a movie except it was a lot of fun, especially in the encounters of Jack and others with the grubbiest set of giants one could imagine. This was a movie I’ll forget in a few weeks, but I enjoyed it as I saw it. Since we chose the non-3D version, I can only imagine what it was like in 3D—toppling bean stalks crashing into the audience, flaming arrows coming at us, giants throwing tiny human bodies at us. Such fun. And the giant cook plucking a huge booger from his nose and then eating it. Such fun. At least, all the booger-eating children in the audience thought it was hilarious.
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