Snobby, Elitist, Grumpy Old Lady Fights Back!!!

Okay, who are all of these people who continuously invade my neighborhood every Halloween?? Grumpy old lady has a very oily t-zone and desperately needs to buy more face wipes, which she knows are conveniently located right at the counter! Grumpy old lady pays a damn lot of money to live on the upper-west-side and does not have the time or energy to stand in line behind a bunch of teenagers waiting to shop for Halloween costumes! Grumpy old lady wants to be able to walk into her neighborhood Rickys, go up to the counter, and buy her blasted face wipes. Grrrrrrrrrr…..

Seriously, I just got back from seeing Twyla Tharp’s “The Times They Are a Changin‘” and have to agree with all of the reviews. For me, I think the problem was in the whole conceptualization of it from the get-go. I’m not a huge Dylan fan, but I just don’t see how the goings-on behind a traveling circus act reflect or symbolize his body of work. Reviewers said she was too literal with what is essentially poetry that defies narrative. Maybe… but I think she could have organized his music into SOME kind of over-arching story — like guys going to Iraq, some kind of inner-city turmoil — some relevant social crisis of today I think would have spoken better to his ouevre — just not discontent within a circus show. Like, when they broke out into ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ I just wanted to laugh. Because of the history of the song, it seemed kind of like she was comparing the circus owner’s mistreatment of some of his underlings to the atrocities of Vietnam. Maybe she just didn’t want to repeat her ‘Movin’ Out’ theme or be too ‘political.’ And it’s not that mistreatment of performers or father-son rivalry can’t ever speak to the human condition, but it needs to go a lot deeper than this. Also, for a so-called ‘Dancical,’ there wasn’t much dancing… a lot of great floor acrobatics, but not a lot of dancing; it was more like a basic musical. Still, I think she’s one of the most brilliant choreographers today — anyone’s entitled to a misjudgment now and then!