Profile for chekkyjr

I've just never been able to accept the notion that Bobby is straight. No doubt I'm reading my own agenda into the character. Nonetheless. He absolutely strikes me as a certain kind of closety faux-heterosexual "sensitive" and terminally single self-deluding guy who very much existed in the world in 1970.

What happens to Bobby after COMPANY ends? I've never believed he ends up living happily with a woman for ever and ever, or even for now. My guess is that like Dean Jones himself Bobby finds Jesus, and ends up running one of those "ex-gay" ministries somewhere in Kansas, with a wasbian for a wife and a giant crush on ex-gay after ex-gay after ex-gay. . .

FindingNamo! I am holding you in all your tender places!

You guys are hilarious! And you clearly think you're all Addison DeWitt! I won't deprive you of your illusions. I like illusions! PS: I'm not the lead book reviewer for the *NYTimes*, dudes, I'm just a schmuck posting something entirely dispensable on a message board thread. It seems to me ethically sound, in this forum, to fling out a snap response on the basis of having read a chapter of a book! I don't understand your rage. I guess it's a good thing you're snarking at me instead of, like, ...

PS: FindingNamo, your post could use a strategically placed comma. I mean if it's sense that you want to make.

Wow, you posters are a bunch of snarkmeisters, aren't you? Except for After 8. I said something NICE. Okay? What the hell? And, I don't know, can't I get excited by a book after reading its Introduction? Don't you ever get all pumped by the first 5 minutes of a movie? Am I to confine my topics to the weather and your health? And Streisand's GYPSY? How do you ever enjoy yourselves at the theater?

In his book, Sondheim calls himself out for the lyrics to "I Feel Pretty," which he says are way too Noel Coward-ly for a working class Puerto Rican girl. And I mean I get his point, but this is the one area in which I feel frustrated by Sondheim's book: Because of assumptions he makes about class and race. Okay, he calls himself "an upper middle class boy," and he's no doubt aware having - necessarily - a specific point of view from which he creates music for his characters, and we all have ...

I mean, I bought the thing, finally, after having surfed somebody else's copy at Xmas, and I do make snap judgements, and this is probably a snap judgment, too, because all I've read so far is the Introduction, but the Introduction is delightful. There aren't so many profoundly gifted artists still alive and floating around NYC, if you ask me, and it's our luck that Sondheim is still on the planet and living in Manhattan. I hope that continues to be true for a long time.

A question: What kind of cultural influence do you think Sondheim has really had? Because it occurred to me watching him on Stephen Colbert that Sondheim has gotten more publicity over the past year - his yearlong b'day celebration, sponsored by the NYTIMES - than in any single year of his life. I mean, I'm guessing that's true. And I bet there were plenty of people watching Colbert who'd never heard of Sondheim - certainly never seen the guy. Doesn't Colbert get the "men between 19 and 40" c...

Sondheim should say whatever he likes, whatever if ever he likes, says I. Some of youse lose respect easy. I plan to buy the book tomorrow afternoon and spend New Year's Eve between Sondheim's covers. Expect a full report!

Sondheim and Webber have the same birthday, don't they? I guess I knew that. 22 March. Sondheim is an Aries - optimistic, impetuous, the sex is all about *him* - with his moon in Capricorn - cold, cold, cold - and Aquarius rising: spacey! Friendly. Odd. Conceptual. Idealistic! Holds everyone else to impossibly high standards that he himself can't quite reach. Mars and Mercury in Pisces, Venus in Aries. He's a bossy bottom! Webber, on the other hand, has his sun in Aries with moon in Leo and L...

esparza! Your link sent me to, um: your link! Did I do something wrong? I wish Sondheim would say what he really thinks about Andrew Lloyd Weber. And Bill Finn! And Jonathan Larson. And Duncan Sheik! And so forth. Maybe he'll drink some potent truth serum before he writes the next book. Fingers crossed!

raker, what's the "final sunny-on-the-surface" version? The only version of the song I know is on *Side by Side by Sondheim*, which is neither cynical nor sunny-on-the-surface. Actually, I've never liked that cast album, which I value only because it has a couple songs on it that I don't have anywhere else.

After8, but did you not love Raul Esparza's "Being Alive?" I think Bobby is unplayable, frankly - there'll never be a there there - but I totally enjoyed Esparza's two big songs, especially the last one. alawhat: ???

Yeah, good for Stevie for giving us the gift of his insights into writing musicals. But don't you find his book aggressively apolitical? I guess that's what I mean by "bombastic," in my subject heading: That he dismisses out of hand any considerations of political life in or around or leading up to or as a consequence of his work.

alawhat! I *hated* Mimi coming back to life! Do you think Sondheim thought of RENT as Jonathan Larson's SATURDAY NIGHT? Awful to think of what Larson might've done with material like A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC - stripped down and obvious, with Madame Armfeldt as a very wise drag queen. Except: Wait! I think I just described the current *Bway* production of ALNM!

Namo, I got flung out of various message-board-type-places for my cult-of-personality-ish way of conducting myself online - or, really, in any conversation. I can't help it! It's planetary! My sun's in my 8th house facing Uranus - you should pardon the expression - in my 2nd. Try it yourself, see how easy it is. Anyway, so I'll try to turn down the volume a little, from here on, which includes not saying, you know, "I was *him*. And I was *him*! And maybe also him." Kisses to you. Theater-rel...

Namo, I've never been on this message board before, and therefore never had a screen name here, before. I thought that was what you meant, seriously. I've had a bunch of different screen names in a bunch of different places, but I don't feel like sharing them. I hope that's okay. If you're wondering if I got banned from ALL THAT CHAT, well, I certainly did get banned from ALL THAT CHAT, and from at least one other place, too. I don't mean to be obnoxious. I type fast and I say whatever comes ...

Hey, I see that in my response I merged A Director with Sean/Martin. Sorry about that! Didn't mean to turn you into one guy.

SeanMartin! No attempt to be withering. I'm no good at withering, I'm too silly. I wish I lived in Oregon! Especially in light of all this snow. NYC is where I see theater, and not exclusively Bway theater, but mostly. I get your point, though. I don't think we disagree, fundamentally. And for all of my carping about Hammerstein's racism, well: Hammerstein did have that liberal/humanist streak - however problematically he expressed it. Of course, Sondheim wasn't writing his own books, so. Sti...