AboutEnnis grew up in Cincinnati, the sixth of ten children. In his first life he was an actor and singer; embarking on his second, he completed his BA at Empire State College, where he was a Richard Porter Leach Fellow.
Read morePhilip Roth, Indignation (Houghton Mifflin, 256 pgs). The moment when you cease to see eye to eye with your folks; the overwhelming shock of college campus life; the initial sexual encounter: Philip Roth turns his unerring eye on Marcus Mesner, a “straight A student” buckling under the constraints of his father, a smotheringly vigilant Newark…
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Sometimes the only way to mourn is to listen, especially when the object of loss is a musician whose work dredges up a lifetime of memories. By the time I’d heard Pyramid, The Alan Parsons Project had already recorded 2 albums; I’d come late to what the hetero boys in my burb called, derisively, art rock,…
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A slab of Grade-A beef who graduated from modeling in physique magazines to bits and supporting parts on television, notably on Felony Squad with Howard Duff and Bearcats! with Rod Taylor. Type-wise he was the male Farrah–ironically he married Jaclyn Smith after meeting her while guesting on Charlie’s Angels. RIP.
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The river rose all day The river rose all night Some people got lost in the flood Some people got away alright The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline Louisiana 1927, by Randy Newman Stepping foot in New Orleans for the first time…
Continue readingWith her husband Christo, Jeanne-Claude was responsible for one of my favorite New York afternoons–that day my spouse Jonathan and my friends Mark, Nia, Dave and Joe sent out for Central Park to take in the phenomenon that was The Gates. Under those stunning splashes of orange we joined millions of visitors on that cold…
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It’s good to live it again: the openings, the excitement, the sheer volume of folks taking their talents out for a walk. New York’s art part is in full swing, from its galleries to its opera houses, dance spaces and theaters crammed to bursting with the kind of startling, involving work that makes me happy…
Continue readingPublished Attitude: The Dancer’s Magazine Before Decreation, the new William Forsythe work that appeared this fall at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Gilman Opera House, there was Anne Carson’s Decreation, the title of a book and essay. The word doesn’t appear in Webster’s, but Carson defines it as “… an undoing of the creature…
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The face may not be familiar but if you grew up watching television in the 60s you’ll never forget the snarky music that accompanied these words: “They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky, they’re altogether ooky, the Addams Family.” Even in my predominately black midwestern neighborhood Mizzy’s compositions for The Addams Family, Green…
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Maybe it was his serenity that drew me. Surely it’s what gave his portrayal of the title character in 1962’s Dr. No the dose of unease that assured his status as one of the best villains in the James Bond pantheon. Before that, Wiseman’s no-fuss presence enlivened such films as Detective Story, Viva Zapata…
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