Speaking of my wife…
She insists that I should review this performance:
That’s right. He’s walking a cabbage. It’s quite an impressive cabbage, really, much bigger than the bourgeois cabbage I’ve experienced here in the states. I’m also impressed with the care and attention he is giving his cabbage. Note how his head is turned with concern for its welfare as he turns around the corner; none of that capitalist selfish disregard for others in his mien! Speaking of mien, it almost rhymes with bing, which is his name: Han Bing. His work will be showing in Shanghai until November 19.
Those Chinese artists. What will they think of next?
Personally, I think they ought to get out more. Especially if it’s to listen to Sting’s new classical album, "Songs from the Labyrinth." (Aren’t you impressed by that brilliant segue?). It’s a classical music piece (though his pop hit, "Fields of Gold", gets a bit of treatment as well.
Though I’ve not purchased it yet, this is on my must-have list; I’m an old medieval music geek, and this entire album is Sting on lute playing (for the most part) the songs of John Dowland. Since I have fond memories myself of standing on a dusty crossroads with a beautiful lute player singing "Lord Willoughby’s Welcome Home" as men in armor walked past, I can’t wait to hear his treatment of it. The fact that he is playing along with Edin Karamazov, another fine musician, is just gravy.
Here’s the really neat part: you know how I found out about this album? In doing the research for the TV show that I mentioned in my last entry, I went to nbc.com , and found that I could watch all of the current week’s shows with minimal commercials for free on the web. In particular, I could watch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, including the interview with "Harriet Hayes". Aaron Sorkin is the David Mamet of TV, I think, his dialogue fast, intelligent, and funny ("Why don’t you think this show is right for our network?" "It’s good." HA!).
And, in blatant cross promotion that worked incredibly well, Sting was there on the "set", doing a sound check, and the actors reacted as, well, anyone actually would if they had the chance to see Sting playing a lute from 15 feet away. Especially single heterosexual women…
Anyway, check out, at the very least, part two of the show, so you can see and hear a bit of the album.
Tags: sting, lute, studio60, china, performance art, cabbage
2 Comments
I wonder if that’s Bok Choy?
I don’t know, when I think Dowland I think of “Come Again”, which was rightly mocked as being HIDEOUSLY over dramatic. Sting sung it right purdy on Studio 60 though, so I may pick it up.