Author Archives: Tin Man

On Glee

Posted on by

Glee drives me nuts. It has some nice moments, true. But to get to those moments you have to wade through an enormous amount of ridiculousness.

Here are some things I hate about Glee:

(1) Blaine’s bow ties. I viscerally loathe Blaine’s bow ties. When I see Blaine wearing a bow tie, I feel almost… angry. Bow ties are for suits. You do not wear bow ties to school. You do not wear bow ties with plaid shirts or polo shirts.

But it’s not that I’m some fashion maven. Far from it — I tend to dress pretty plainly. And I think that’s the issue: I don’t like it when people try to get attention for themselves by dressing outrageously. Why can’t you just trust that people will get to know you and find out what a unique person you are? Why do you have to proclaim your individuality so aggressively?

From a production standpoint, I do not understand why the show’s costume designer thinks Blaine looks cool this way.

I also hate almost everything Kurt wears.

(2) The extremely unrealistic musical performance process makes me batty. I know, it’s just a TV show and I should just relax and enjoy it. I’m not usually one to point out plot holes in other shows, so I don’t know why it bothers me so much here, but it does. Maybe it’s because I did musical theater in high school.

If the production of “West Side Story” is opening in a few days, why are Rachel and Blaine standing around a piano instead of in a full dress rehearsal? And why aren’t they off book? And how did the musicians get permission to change the orchestrations? (And as Matt pointed out, why did they perform the film version of the show instead of the stage version?) And why did it take them several weeks to put together a production of “West Side Story” but they were able to throw together “Rocky Horror Picture Show” overnight? And why doesn’t anyone ever need to rehearse anything? And what the hell kind of glee club is this in the first place?

(3) The ridiculous plot points regarding adoption and congressional elections and a splinter glee club.

(4) The wildly uneven character writing. What are we supposed to think of Mercedes, who hides her extreme insecurity behind some diva attitude she learned from watching movies and other TV shows? Are we supposed to feel sorry for her? Are we supposed to dislike her? (Because I kind of do.) Or is every gay viewer just automatically supposed to love her because we’re all supposed to be stereotypical gay men and identify with divas?

Gee, you seem to dislike this show so much. Why do you keep watching?

Aw, heck. Because there are some good moments. The Kurt/Blaine/Sebastian plot last night was great, and it was nice to see Kurofsky again.

And the music performances, as ridiculously overprocessed as they are, are fun to watch. Sometimes.

There’s a good show hidden inside Glee. It’s too bad you have to dig so hard to find it.

Watching the Critics

Posted on by

Last night Matt and I went to see Queen of the Mist, a new musical by Michael John LaChiusa, starring Mary Testa, and produced by the Transport Group. The show is performed in a small school gymnasium, and the 100-seat audience is arranged on two sides of the gym, facing each other, in four rows of 12-13 people each.

Before the show, Matt wondered if any theater critics would be there, since the show is opening in just a few days. Sure enough, a few minutes before 8:00, I looked at the half of the audience that was facing us and spotted Ben Brantley, the New York Times theater critic. And then, three seats over from Ben Brantley, Matt noticed Roma Torre, theater critic for NY1’s On Stage TV show, which we watch every weekend.

They fascinated me. I probably spent half the show watching them watch the show. Every so often they would scribble on notepads. I tried to gauge their opinions of the show from their facial expressions, but it was hard; they both had these thoughtful, close-mouthed smiles while watching. I couldn’t tell if they enjoyed it or were just being polite.

As for my opinion: it was a decent show, but I found it a bit boring. The plot is thin; it’s about Annie Edson Taylor, the first woman to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive, which she did in 1901. LaChiusa’s music was very nice, and Mary Testa is always great to watch. But the show could have been about 15 minutes shorter.

I find myself feeling that way a lot lately: most recent shows I’ve seen seem to run about 15 minutes longer than I want them to be. I don’t know what that’s all about.

The Walt Disney Family Museum

Posted on by

We visited the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco earlier this month, and weeks later, I still keep thinking about it. Not only was it a moving experience, but it also gave me a new metaphor for thinking about a life. About anyone’s life.

The Walt Disney Family Museum was created by Walt’s family as a place to tell the story of Walt, as distinct from Disney the company, and it’s owned by a private non-profit, not by the Disney Corporation. In order to maintain that distinction, it’s located in San Francisco, rather than in Disneyland or Walt Disney World. Walt’s daughter, Diane Disney Miller, didn’t want people to rush through the museum between theme park visits; she wanted people to take the time to explore Walt’s life. In fact, the museum seems much more oriented to adults than to children.

The museum is located in the Presidio, an enormous, beautiful park, and as you walk toward the museum, the Golden Gate Bridge looms in the background.

The two-story building is divided into 10 galleries. Unlike most museums, where you can wander around and see things in any order you wish, there is only one way through this museum, as it tells the story of Walt’s life chronologically, gallery by gallery — sort of like a theme park ride. Each room is filled with fascinating historic objects — the first drawing of Mickey Mouse; colorful paint jars used by Disney animators; a two-story multiplane camera — and there are also plenty of sound recordings and video installations along the way. The museum starts with Walt’s birth and childhood, and then you follow the story as he reaches greater and greater heights: the creation of Mickey Mouse, the Silly Symphonies, the first full-length animated film in history (Snow White). After the lows of World War II – culminating, for the Walt Disney studio, in a labor strike against Walt — he regroups, taking his first steps into live-action films. You learn about his newfound love for miniatures and model railroads.

And then you enter the centerpiece of the museum: an amazing, two-story gallery covering Walt’s greatest decade, the 1950s, when he opened Disneyland and began his groundbreaking weekly TV show. The highlight of this gallery is a stunning scale model of Disneyland, known as “The Disneyland of Walt’s Imagination.” It’s not historically accurate; it doesn’t depict Disneyland at any one particular time, but is more of a composite Disneyland as Walt wanted it to be. Matt and I probably spent 10 to 15 minutes just looking at this model — we’d been to Disneyland itself just two days earlier, so it was especially cool to examine the model.

After the model, you can see clips of Disney’s TV show and the later live-action movies, and explore exhibits on Mary Poppins and Disney’s contributions to the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair. And then… in 1966, Walt dies, way too early, at age 65. There’s a TV clip of an obituary, and a wall of newspaper cartoons expressing sadness over his death.

I had no idea what to expect from this museum, other than that it was a must-see for Disney fans. It was a very profound experience. We wound up spending four hours there, and I didn’t even listen to all the audio or watch every video clip. In fact, somewhere around 1938, in the middle of the Snow White exhibit — not even halfway through the museum — my eyes began to glaze over. But then I got a second wind, and I was riveted again.

I’ve read two biographies of Walt Disney, so it was a weird experience to travel through a physical representation of his life. I felt like I was exploring a book brought to life. It also made me think of a recent article in the New York Times about how to memorize things: one trick is to conjure up a 3D model of a house in your mind and then mentally place the things you want to remember in specific locations throughout the house. Walking through the museum, I felt like I was in someone’s mental map of Walt’s life. I can remember things about his life much more clearly now.

And it makes me wonder what my life would look like if it were laid out as a building. I’m 37, the same age Walt was when Snow White came out. How far through the exhibit of my life would I be right now? How much is behind me and how much more looms ahead? Is there a fantastic two-story gallery in my future — filled not with fame, but with wonderful experiences?

I loved the Walt Disney Family Museum. I hope I can visit it again sometime.