Friday, August 03, 2007
who is gore vidal?
so i went to the hollywood bowl today with kat, and we listed to tunes by bernstein, copeland, and gershwin.
the first one, by bernstein, i sorta realized i recognized it at first, and then whispered to kat “i sorta feel like i should be watching cartoons running around on stage” because it had that running around feeling to it. it was just… soundtracky, y’know? and all the cartoons i watched growing up always had classic music tunes while you watched them chase each other around cliffs and anvils and through hallways and doors. as the medley progressed to the next song, i realized that this was actually a song i knew the words to, and then i slowly put the pieces of the puzzle together as i heard the theme song “maria.... i’ve just met a girl named maria” and realized i why it sounded so soundtracky - i was actually listening to the theme from “west side story”
the next piece on the set was by copland and it was a bunch of songs sung by some dude who was really unremarkable. but kat knew the songs he was singing. and i didn’t.
but after the intermission, the next piece was by copland again, but this time it had a narrator, not a singer. and he got this big ol’ introduction, being that he shared the same political views as copland, etc, etc, and that he had a great voice, and please welcome to the stage, gore vidal!
kat and i sorta looked at each other, didn’t wanna act like we didn’t know who he was, so we “ahhh’ed” him as we watched him being wheeled out onto the stage, and then sorta clapped but whispered to each other, “who is he?”
yeah yeah, so we’re ignorant. we didn’t really wanna acknowledge that we didn’t know who he was, but we couldn’t explain him to each other either. so we both whipped out our cell phones and texted different friends to see who could find out first. she won with the response “author”, but i think that my response 10 minutes later was a better explanation: “He’s lilke a writer dude who created controversy because he wrote about homosexuality… why?”
anyways, after hearing gershwin and also not being able to place the tune i was hearing, kat and i came home and i promptly wikipedia’d “gore vidal” and read up about him. -and- i found out susan is currently reading a book by him and that he is a fantastic author with a fascinating autobiography.
i think everyone who knows me will know that i might be able to hum along with a song, but i don’t know its title, the correct words, or anything else. i’ll sorta fudge it if i actually try to sing along. and apparently, i have to admit that i might recognize names as well, but i can’t really describe them or anything. i have a lot of surface knowledge. but i’m really lacking in contemporary culture. it’s sorta sad. no, lemme rephrase that. it’s -really- sad. but google and wikipedia are working overtime to educate me =)
i’m in my late 20’s and finally catching up…