March 2005 Archives

I owe a large, massive, huge, site-consuming, tremendous, long, big-ass report of the 12 hours I spent at Wall to Wall Sondheim with Cheryl and Ginny on Saturday - not only because I know a lot of people who come here are also Sondheim fans but because things like this need to be recorded. Events like this must be put down. People must know. When you go to things like this - when you are part of things like this - when your memory is lucky enough to hold a thin shadow of the essence of something like this - it must be told.

This is the event I talked about here, which Arjuna made me aware of in one breathless voice mail. Arjuna couldn't come in from Cali, but I called him several times throughout to gush. More than 100 of the best performers in the world...12 hours of Sondheim. TWELVE HOURS.

Yes, all 12 hours. We were part of the crowd that made it impossible for everyone else to get in, we were Sondheim hogs, yes, yes, yes, guilty as charged. Sorry, those of you who lined up three times around the city block and couldn't take our seats because we wouldn't vacate them. I bought a subscription to get us priority admission and we still waited over an hour in the chilly morning, completely oblivious that we had forgotten to bring food and soon would be trapped in the theater under the threat that if we got up we could not get back in, because even the line for members was 150 people long. Look, I'm 25 and got into musical theater too late to have seen all these shows in their original incarnations - I claim being vitally deprived as my reasoning for moving about three millimeters to my left and right over a course of twelve hours.

Twelve hours. Have you ever tried to go 12 hours without food? Even if it's for Sondheim, by the 11th hour (ha ha ) we were really questioning our loyalty. Ginny had a doughnut which we split half of three ways once, and then half of three ways again, at the four and eight hour marks, as a feast of a celebration we had made it that far. Cheryl brought water, which we doled out very sparingly because the effort of bowling through our aisle to get to the bathroom was not worth it. I did not have my glasses, and so squinted most of the time. I had a wedding the night before and had only slept 3 hours - I think I did nod off during a couple of the numbers, particularly the one that was like Sondheim on the Prairie. When the show ended we staggered out and took a huge swig of cool night air, then stumbled into a deli so we could buy food to devour on our way to a diner, where we could order more substantial food. We were faint and weak and battered by the amazingness that had just taken place before our eyes. One of us got very ill on the way home.

But was it worth it? Every last food-deprived, gonna-eat-my-hand, numb-butt, hot-theater, my-neighbor-is-starting-to-smell, I'm-starting-to-smell, hey-wait-we-all-smell-now, bright-lighted, guilt-tripped minute.

Angela Lansbury doing "A Little Priest." Neil Patrick Harris on "Finishing the Hat." Michael Cerveris on EVERYTHING. Judy Kuhn reprising Passion. Jason Danieley reprising "Agony." Donna Murphy: "Losing my Mind." And the genius who thought to put Joss Whedon, Frank Rich, Andrew Lippa and Stephen Sondheim on a stage together and make them talk. I want to kiss these people. All of them. Long and wet.

More soon, that's a promise.

Update to the pics page coming soon, but first, since Milly came and took all these pictures of my house, my neighborhood, my street, my work, my favorite hangout spots, that I've been meaing to take FOREVER, here are some of those. First, pics of the inside of my house I took in December and never put up:



This is our dining room, which doubles as an office until our office is ready - do NOT be fooled by the cleanliness in this photo. It usually looks like a storage room in there.

Our kitchen, and Mike in it. Mike is a photographer, and so hates having his photo taken...this is one of the only pics I could get where he didn't sneak his middle finger into the shot, or wasn't wearing a bizarre Halloween costume. I sneaked this photo, so shh, don't tell him I've put it online. He loves to cook - LOVES TO COOK - so this is him in his element. I'm so spoiled...he cooks for me as often as possible.

Our living room around Christmas. That's the tree that fell almost on my head. That couch? The comfiest couch in the world. I cannot sit on it without falling asleep, and so Mike will not let me sit there when we watch a movie.

More of the living room at Christmas. These pillars that are in the foreground are the reason Mike bought the house; he walked in, saw that archictecture and was sold.

View 1 of my room. I love my room because it is the first room that is 100% MINE, that I designed top to bottom, from the paint (which is darker on one wall) to the trim, to the accented purple (though the big pillow in the next photo was mom's idea). I found the furniture in JC Penney, and instantly fell for the sleigh bed, and the wrought iron-plus-wood feel; to my huge delight it was on a big sale, affordable even on a reporter's salary.

View 2! The comforter is CKlein but don't get big ideas - I fell in love with it and it was WAY too expensive so I hit eBay. I forever love eBay. Each time I slip under that soft, wonderful, thick, cozy comforter, I reaffirm my love to eBay. My mom and I hung the soft hangings, which I love because when only my desk lamp (which I found myself, thank you, and it matches perfectly!) is lit, the light gently rebounds off the ivory chiffon and gives a truly warm, ambient feel to the room. Perfect reading atmosphere. There's a big bookshelf also, behind the door, that I got for like $40 at staples. And, again, do not be fooled by the cleanliness. This is an anomaly.

And now for the great pics Milly took while she was here - I love them, and that's a lot to say considering one is of the back of me, and when I see photos like that I usually pounce on the photographer and demand to have the photo destroyed. Enjoy!

Our house, in the middle of our street... It was snowing so hard it was like we had Edward Scissorhands in our attic

Our porch after heavy snow

Me on my way to work

Part of our backyard

Vida, a wonderful restaurant around the corner from me

The Muddy Cup, the coffee shop I've talked about here a few times; right around the corner from me and perfectly cozy and friendly

More Muddy Cup

My newspaper, the Staten Island Advance

My charming, tree-lined block!

More from the block

Thanks again, Milly!

And it's up! A whole gallery of the William DeLong. If this isn't enough go look at the videos BK posted, because the dollbaby cannot be contained to still frames.

The ones below are only a few; either open one and keep hitting "next," or go to the link under them for the full thumbnail gallery.

 

 

 

Use this link for the full gallery; the link below is dead because something is wrong with my setup.

I started using (here, and on several other sites) the phrase from Millay, "I am not big enough to love things the way I do!" a few weeks ago and tonight was one of those nights that the meaning came in full force, for no real or heralded reason.

I'm sitting here working on the Chris Rankin interview for Leaky which I HOPE will be done tomorrow to go up in time for his play thingamajiga. And as there's a lot of formatting, I found myself zoning out, thoughts going fullspeed as usual.

I am [insert appropriately emphatic curse here] lucky. I'm sitting here and Milly - who runs the Floo Network's galleries and is visiting, and is a complete darling - is chatting with my roommate about Macs and iPods and everything, he cooked her dinner and they have just been babbling for two days straight. (Actually, now they are using photoshop to manip a picture of Milly so that she looks like Mick Jagger Milly, as I call it - or McMilly, as Mike calls it.)

At work today I got a voice mail from Arjuna, who lives in California now, about this huge Sondheim event in NYC - the message went "Wongggbajblahblahblahblah - STEPHEN SONDHEIM FRANK RICH JOSS WHEDON wonggongwblahblablabhblah," so I called him back and said, "I couldn't hear most of your message, but what I could hear translated into WE'RE GOING!" He called a few hours later and we had one of our old school screaming-about-theater sessions, the kind where we're cutting each other off with our ebullient ramblings, topping each other's enthusiasm over and over until we got to a point where the conversation had so much joy in it I think it drained the battery from his cell phone.

Even earlier, I woke up to an e-mail from Cheryl, to whom I wrote an entirely bitchy email last night because I was in a MOOD after a long day at work; it wasn't bitchy to her as much as it was bitchy in tone, bitching about everything under the sun. She and I have both been working crazy hours and so the email full of sympathy and funnies made me smile and I started the day in the absolute correct way.

Lately David and I have been passing back emails the size of small novels, because it's fun, and because it's a nice way to unwind without the stress of talking on damn cell phones (and in his case over the loud winds of New Haven as he rushes from class to class). So, I've just sent one off and I've got one from him to look forward to, and it's like waiting for a good chapter in a serial.

Back and forth today and all week are emails with Nancy and Christy, with whom I'll be presenting at a career day on Friday at a high school here; N and C are friends from...well...ever. I've known them longer than I've known how to interact with the opposite sex or put on lipstick. I've known them for everything, and love them with the love only people who are physically in each other's lives for this long can love. It's so easy to be a friend when you only have to see people now and then. When you can be a friend when you are constantly presented - in the flesh, not email - with that person, that's when you really know them; otherwise you know them on paper, and that's not knowing in the most sincere sense. It can't be. Be strong enough to let a person get close in real life, and that's real friendship.

I'm digressing. The point is, I'm so lucky. These are just a few of the people with whom I am blessed. Last night was my sister's birthday celebration and Milly commented to me on the way back home that she was in absolute love with my family. (And mine loved her, sweet girl that she is. My mother, especially, liked her, said she had a good heart. That's all you need to win my mom). And she said this and got teary eyed, at watching my family and my family's friends, and now today as I just realize how these people dragged me out of the nasty-ass, kill-the-world, bite-me-on-a-stick mood I was in yesterday, it gets me teary-eyed too.

Holy cow, I'm such a sap I should be trickling out of a tree...