In the Details

Tom Waits talks about early influences in an old interview with Terry Gross (at about 9 minutes in):

I liked songs with the names of towns in them. I liked songs with weather in them. And something to eat. I feel like there’s a certain anatomical aspect to a song that I respond to. I think, “Oh, yeah, I can go into that world: There’s something to eat, there’s the name of a street, there’s a saloon.” I think probably that’s why I put things that like that in my songs.

Whirly Merge

Disney World's new ride sounds awesome. Imagine: "Riders are...treated to a dizzying laser-light e-mail exchange and a lightning-speed courier chase as they spin down the seemingly endless 'Paper Trail.' "

Subterranean Homesick Cowboy

I've made a new musical video production, and here it is. The director is Nina Najjar.

All my YouTube thingies, including one directed by Ken Roht, are here.

Le Temps est Tendu

Booker T, who led possibly the greatest non-jazz instrumental band ever, tells Terry Gross (about 25 minutes in) about the melody of the group's greatest song, "Time Is Tight":

I wrote that in Paris, on the banks of the River Seine...If you listen to the melody, listen to the simplicity of it, I think that was born out of my classical roots, actually. It's not a 12-bar blues; it's an odd number of bars. I listen to people like Jean Sibelius, people who wrote these long, flowing melodies, and found a personal comfort in that type of thing. And a lot of people tell me that song makes them feel relaxed and comfortable.

Oui.

Quotable Santo

At the recent TDF/Sharaff Awards for excellence in costume design (my little write-up here), lifetime achievement honoree Santo Loquasto protested that he's too young to receive such an honor, then offered this pause-giving observation: "I have so shrouded my work in dissatisfaction, I would hate to think I had to stop." Wow, you don't hear that on awards podia very often, do you? Other bits of Loquasto-loquation worth repeating: "Collaboration is not for sissies." And, "I would be remiss if I didn't thank the lighting designers who have plunged my work into the dark over the years...You know who you are."

Entrancing "Entrances"

It gives me great joy to realize (I guess it's not news) that Athol Fugard's Exits and Entrances will make its New York debut this week at Primary Stages in its original production, with Stephen Sachs directing and the two cast members who created it definitively in L.A. at the Fountain Theatre in 2004, Morlan Higgins and William Dennis Hurley. Those who wonder what more Fugard has to say since apartheid's end, as I did, should be beguiled and moved by this look back to his early days in the theater, and to his formative experience in the thrall of a deeply confused and deeply fascinating Afrikaner actor. I can't recommend it highly enough. My interview with Fugard at the time of its opening is here.

Nearly Naked Self-Promotion

I'm having my first Manhattan gig next week, Tues. Mar 27 at 9 p.m. at Bar Nine in Hell's Kitchen. Opening will be the fabulous singer/songwriter Kevin Ray. The show is free. What else can you ask for? In related news, I've dipped my toe (and, um, the rest of me) into the music video racket with this. More to come.