Post Oscars...

Just 3 things:

1) I am so excited to have 2 Lily Tomlin tickets*, for when she comes here next month. She and Streep were the funniest. She sold out the first show, but opened a later one Friday night. The lady selling me the tickets assures me they're pretty good, for not being on the main floor. (Got tickets for STOMP, and Joseph and the Amazing Dreamcoat** too. I think she was working the computer especially hard for me by then.)

2) So that's what Larry McMurtry sounds like! Not sure if he reads any of his audiobooks, but I find I can't really follow a story just by listening anyway.*** Just re-read one of his earliest "All My Friends are Going to Be Strangers" on vacation; I could relate to the young writer being fascinated with rivers. I probably have more McMurtry first editions in my collection than any other author, which speaks more to the paucity of my collection though, than to my dedication to his work. Prolific American, he is.

3) CRASH! Rented it on DVD a few weeks back, and admit to not having seen any of the others, so my view is skewed. Still, that's my kind of film. Like Magnolia and ShortCuts (that door open or shut?) -- the latter which until last night made me think more Raymond Carver than Robert Altman -- I do like being reminded that we're all spinning bodies here, so connected and yet disconnected too. (Rented it mostly having remembered such a strong endorsement from columnist Stebbins Jefferson, from when it was back in theaters. I don't try out too many movies these days... Thank you!)
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* Now I just have to find someone, who likes to laugh, to go with me. How 'bout you? Send up a signal...
** This, I think, was the first theater show I ever saw, with my aunt taking my sister and me. Pre-job loss, I got 5 tickets for this one: for my friend, his brother, friend's godson (almost 10), and his divorced father. They've helped me with moving, and despite being kind of macho, sang in the school choir way back when. Of course, I saw the pre-Donny Osmond version, and I'm not sure if Andrew Lloyd Webber was in on the version I saw. It's a gamble, but April in Madison for a few days hopefully would make up for an over-the-top production anyway. I'm betting we'll all have fun.
*** Since it seems to be true confessions week here, my hearing is bad and I'm afraid slowly going over the years. I learned this in law school; you can't much blame your seat when the person next to you and a few years older too, is laughing at the jokes you missed. "What'd he say?" It's not bad, mind you, but the hard thing I've found is, it's not so much I don't hear, but more mis-hear, and only think to question it when what I do hear comes off overly odd. As in, makes no sense. Seems funny in conversation when you repeat it and they tell you what they really said, but don't think I'm weird if I need to look at you closely when you talk. Unless everyone could just write everything out for me.