The Write Advice 087: EUGENE O'NEILL

Altogether too much damn nonsense has been written since the beginning of time about the dissipation of artists.  Why, there are fifty times more real drunkards among the Bohemians who only play at art, and probably more than that among the people who never think about art at all.  The artist drinks, when he drinks at all, for relaxation, forgetfulness, excitement, for any purpose except his art…You've got to have all your critical and creative faculties about you when you're working.  I never try to write a line when I'm not strictly on the wagon.  I don't think anything worth reading was ever written by anyone who was drunk or even half-drunk when he wrote it.  This is not morality, it's plain physiology.

Quoted in Eugene O'Neill: The Man and His Plays (1944) by BARRETT H CLARK


 

Use this link to visit eOneill.com, an electronic archive designed to celebrate the life and preserve the work of playwright EUGENE GLADSTONE O'NEILL (1888–1953), the writer who almost singlehandedly invented modern North American theater.

 

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Words for the Music 008: LORENZ HART

LORENZ HART
2 May 1895 – 22 November 1943

 

I WISH I WERE IN LOVE AGAIN

 

Written by LORENZ HART and RICHARD RODGERS

 

Performed by FRANK SINATRA

 

from the 1956 Capitol LP  

 

A Swingin' Affair

 

 

I WISH I WERE IN LOVE AGAIN

 

The sleepless nights, the daily fights

The quick toboggan when you reach the heights

I miss the kisses and I miss the bites

I wish I were in love again

 

The broken dates, the endless waits

The lovely loving and the hateful hates

The conversation with the flying plates

I wish I were in love again

 

No more pain, no more strain

Now I'm sane but

I would rather be punch-drunk

 

The pulled out fur of cat and cur

The fine mis-mating of a him and her

I've learned my lesson but

I wish I were in love again

 

The furtive sigh, the blackened eye

The words 'I love you till the day I die'

The self-deception that believes the lie

I wish I were in love again

 

When love congeals it soon reveals

The faint aroma of performing seals

The double-crossing of a pair of heels

I wish I were in love again

 

No, no more care, no, no despair

Now I'm all there now but

I'd rather be punch-drunk

 

Believe me sir, I much prefer

The classic battle of a him and her

I don't like quiet and

I wish I were in love again

In love again

In love again 

Words by Lorenz Hart

Music by Richard Rodgers

© 1937 Chappell & Co Music/Williamson Music ASCAP

from the musical Babes In Arms

 

 

What makes a lyricist a genius?  Is it their ability to dazzle us with their extensive vocabulary?  Or is it their artful use of everyday language to astonish, amuse and genuinely move us by combining unexpected words and phrases to create something that resists cliché and categorization even as, in another sense, it might appear to embrace if not define those over-utilized tropes?  

A song like I Wish I Were In Love Again proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Lorenz Hart was the latter type of artist –– a sensitive, educated, highly articulate individual who possessed a faultless understanding of modern North American vernacular and used this knowledge of it to create instantly memorable works of art which, in his time, were often dismissed as popular entertainment that, of course, would 'never last.' 

How many lyricists, then or now, are able to combine words like 'toboggan,' 'mis-mating,' 'self-deception,' 'furtive' and, my favorite, 'congeals' in such a seamless way while simultaneously managing to be riotously funny even as they suggest a sophisticated but world-weary form of loneliness?  If Hart had never written anything besides the lines 'When love congeals/it soon reveals/The faint aroma of performing seals/The double-crossing of a pair of heels' he would still be the greatest lyricist to emerge from the Broadway/Tin Pan Alley tradition despite having some formidable competition in the likes of Harold Arlen, Dorothy Fields, Ira Gershwin, Frank Loesser, Cole Porter and many others whose names are not as well known as they should be despite the fact their songs continue to serve as the soundtracks to many of our lives.  

There is a reason people keep performing Rodgers and Hart material decade after decade.  It is the same reason directors keep staging productions of Shakespeare and actors keep lining up to perform in them –– to live with and inside that glorious language for a while and be reminded that true wit, like true talent, is as fine as gossamer and just as difficult to find.   


 

 

 

Use the links below to read more about the life and work of North American lyricist LORENZ HART (1895–1943) and a 2013 article about his successful but often tempestuous partnership with RICHARD RODGERS:

 

 

 

https://www.songhall.org/profile/Lorenz_Hart

 

 

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/words-and-music/309249/

 

 

 

Special thanks to everyone who takes the time to upload music to YouTube.  Your efforts are appreciated by music lovers everywhere.

 

 

 

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Last updated 5 April 2021 

Masters of Cartoon Art 002: WINSOR McCAY

Little Nemo in Slumberland 
Published in The New York Herald 
Sunday, 12 August 1906

 

The August 12, 1906, Little Nemo in Slumberland episode is Winsor McCay's masterpiece, the single most beautiful comic strip page ever.  It is a pantheistic dream, designed with the elegance and luminosity of a stained glass window.  The panel shapes work in sympathy with the characters' actions –– a wide rectangle accommodates six giant butterflies in the top panel, changing to a series of vertical shapes when Nemo and the Princess ascend the tree.  The drawing is alive with illusions of motion: the differing poses of the butterflies imply fluttery animation, and their flight to a distant tree uses dynamic perspective to lead the eye.  The point of view throughout is as mobile as if shot by a swooping camera crane in one continuous take.  The downward direction of the insects [panel 5] signals the start of the rain, enhancing the effect.  During the downpour [panel 6], McCay eliminates the usual thick Art Nouveau outlines around characters and objects, and by adding thin vertical lines he creates a diffuse, steamy summer shower of cool drops hitting hot surfaces.

The use of color is extraordinary, from the blazing red title on complimentary green, to the multihued butterfly's wings.  The volatile sky excites us, then cools us off with its constantly changing colors.  This is a peaceful world, where nature is tame and friendly –– bugs do not bite and weather is truly predictable.  A fictional metamorphosis solves problems: a stem and leaves become a railing and stairs; a tree becomes a giant umbrella.

Only the relationship between the relentlessly boyish Nemo and his 'romantic' partner, the matronly Princess, is out of sync in this leisurely, timeless utopia.  They contrast in attire, energy, and attitudes: she is confident and full of polite chatter; he is concerned for his safety, preoccupied with the mechanics of the place, and bored by his hostess and her tour of marvels.  'How long will this rain last, eh?' he asks with impatience.  Mundane reality intrudes when the gentle rain becomes an annoying sprinkle tossed by Nemo's angry father.  The dream has ended rudely and too soon, but the memory of Winsor McCay's most perfect vision will remain.

JOHN CANEMAKER

Winsor McCay: His Life and Art

© Harry N Abrams, Inc (2005) 

Use the links below to read about the life and work of North American artist, illustrator and pioneering animator WINSOR McCAY and view more extraordinary panels from his legendary comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland:

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsor_McCay

 

http://www.comicstriplibrary.org/browse/results?title=2

 

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Think About It 020: WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

The historian calmly leafs through Gilgamesh, that most ancient epic of humankind, and immediately latches on to what he needs, ie. 'one of the earliest testaments to the formation of the state leadership’s social base.'  The poet isn’t equipped to relish the epic for such reasons.  Gilgamesh might just as well not exist for him if it holds only such information.  But it does exist, because its titular hero mourns the death of his friend.  One single human being laments the woeful fate of another single human being.  For the poet this fact is of such momentous weight that it can’t be overlooked in even the most succinct historical synthesis.  As I say, the poet can’t keep up, he lags behind.  In his defense I can only say that someone’s got to straggle in the rear.  If only to pick up what’s been trampled and lost in the triumphal procession of objective laws.

Nonrequired Reading (2002)


 

Use the link below to read more (in English) about the life and work of Polish poet and essayist WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA:

 

https://culture.pl/en/artist/wislawa-szymborska

 

 

 

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The Write Advice 086: VIRGINIA WOOLF

The only advice… that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions… After all, what laws can be laid down about books?  The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear?  Nobody can say.  Each must decide that question for himself.  To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries.  Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions — there we have none…
     Perhaps the quickest way to understand the elements of what a novelist is doing is not to read, but to write; to make your own experiment with the dangers and difficulties with words.

 

How Should One Read A Book? (1925)


 

 

 

Use the link below to read more about the life and work of British novelist and essayist VIRGINIA WOOLF:

 

 

https://v-woolf-society.com/

 

 

 

 

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