Word: sketches
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This coarse pantomime misses the comic brio of buffa; instead we have the self-conscious and self-subverting irony of a "Saturday Night Live" sketch. The chaotic ensemble action of the first scene--where the various members of Buoso's family mourn his death only because they fear disinheritance--is only a slight improvement...
...feature of most Dave Matthews songs is their unpredictable structure. Like a Kids in the Hall comedy sketch, the songs go in surprising directions, ending up in unexpected places. This is not just a result of jamming, but of fundamental shifts in melodic and lyrical moods. For instance, the song "Dancing Nancies" begins in a downbeat minor key and sparse instrumentation (guitar, drums) as Matthews laments, "Could I have been anyone other than me?" Halfway through, the song completely changes course with an eruption of violin and saxophone, becoming upbeat and bouncy: "What's the use in worrying, what...
Before that comes a sketch of a youngish architect, Kay Fischer, who is trying to launch a career in Los Angeles in 1936. She meets a man named Salvador Carriscant, who claims to be her father, and eventually she accompanies him to Lisbon, where he promises to substantiate his story. That story is what follows. Why introduce it in such a distracting way? Maybe the author indulged in a little showboating. He is an expert mimic of the Hollywood hardboiled school, typified by Raymond Chandler. Good nostalgic fun, but Boyd shares Chandler's awkwardness in writing from a woman...
...American Airlines flight en route from Chicago to Washington that caused 12 injuries from smoke inhalation. The only known sighting of him took place in 1987, when he left a concealed bomb outside a Salt Lake City computer store. A witness there helped police fashion their composite sketch of a white man now in his late 30s or early 40s, nearly 6 ft. tall, with fair hair, a thin mustache and glasses. Then the bomber vanished for more than six years, leading some authorities to speculate that he may have been in prison or a psychiatric facility. In June...
Even with a mountaineer's ax stuck in his head, Leon Trotsky (Philip Hoffman) can find nine ways to muse on life and death. And even in a 10-minute sketch, playwright David Ives can find a dozen ways to aerobicize the playgoer's brain. Six pieces in one dazzling off-Broadway evening display Ives' verbal gifts and humanist brooding. These are breathless sprints that the heart makes over the high hurdles of language...