From: owner-lucy-list-digest@smoe.org (lucy-list-digest) To: lucy-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: lucy-list-digest V4 #181 Reply-To: lucy-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-lucy-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-lucy-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk lucy-list-digest Sunday, August 11 2002 Volume 04 : Number 181 In this issue: [lucy-list] Lucy in Pawling 8/9: Part 1 (The Preface) [lucy-list] Part 1A: A Turtle Postscript [lucy-list] minor clarification [lucy-list] Part 2A: the show...trying again [lucy-list] Part 2B: the show, continued ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 10:48:54 -0400 From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] Lucy in Pawling 8/9: Part 1 (The Preface) Well, I am back at last from my journey to Lucy's Towne Crier show last night...this review had to wait for morning because I couldn't get back to the city last night (too late) and had to rely on my stellar road buddy for the evening and most gracious host, Gerry, for a most comfortable (if short) night's lodging. Hmmm...how to begin to describe last night? How can I do justice to it? This was, in short, THE BEST LUCY SHOW I'VE EVER SEEN! I didn't think it was possible to beat Thursday night's Huntington show, but this show did...it even beat the Bronx show I'm always looking back on as wonderful. This show set the new standard when I didn't even know there was a new standard to set. This show was, on a scale of 1 to 10, at LEAST a 15! But, see, I can't just launch into a discussion of the show. A little scene-setting is in order. Besides, I need TIME to write about the show..and very shortly I have to go to a friend's place and get my final lesson in turtle-sitting so that I can spend the next week waking up early every morning to hike over there and care for The Two Cutest Baby Turtles in the World...at least, that's my friend's opinion of them. I tend to view them as Wriggly Two-Inch Potential Salmonella Carriers with a High Mortality Rate. You have to mince up little tiny bits of steak and hot dogs for them---they apparently turn up their tiny turtle noses at the turtle kibble they are SUPPOSED to eat---and then put them and the whole mess in water that's Just the Right Temperature, and then coo at them with loving concern for ten minutes or so to encourage little Skipper and Sophie to eat, and then refill their tank so the rocks are covered with Just Enough Water---again, at Just the Right Temperature, and with Just the Right Number of Reptile-Protection Drops added---and then make sure the whole shebang is repositioned directly under their Special Light. I am, frankly, thinking I should've gone to Chinatown and attempted to purchase a few spare baby turtles to hold in reserve, just in case...but my friend KNOWS these particular turtles already; she assures me that one of them (Skipper, the feisty one!) has a special scar on its back, although if so, I swear it's invisible to the naked eye...so I'm pretty much doomed if anything happens. (Please, everyone, say a little prayer for me that I can keep the little turtle prince and princess paddling around in their wet, rocky little kingdom for a week. If I fail, my friend may kill me.) So ANYWAY...I'm gonna do a little scene-setting, then go get my final turtle lesson, and THEN come back and discuss the show. I took the train up to East Norwalk, where Gerry picked me up...an uneventful train trip until the conductor informed me I had to walk up a car to get out at East Norwalk, and when I did, I discovered...the Bar Car! There was just recently a big article in the New York Times about how some commuter trains on Metro-North have these bar cars, where they sell drinks and have long benchlike seats where commuters lounge around unwinding with the alcoholic beverage of their choice on their trip home. I read it with some fascination...and was strangely thrilled to get to see the Bar Car, mythical to me until this point, in living color. Well, OK, basically it was wall-to-wall guys holding beers and talking loudly in boozy cameraderie, except for about two who were sitting there reading books as if the din around them didn't exist. (Why would you sit THERE to read a book? I pondered this for some time...well, at least the couple of minutes until I got off the train.) Anyway, I met up with Gerry easily at the train station, and we began the hour's drive from there to Pawling. And I assure you that for at least ten minutes, we engaged in the intelligent, insightful discourse for which intelligent, insightful Lucy fans are known the world over. Not sure if that really fell apart BEFORE or AFTER we stopped for burgers and onion rings and Pepsi (but not the blue kind!) at the Red Rooster. All I know is that Gerry started it with---and this was HIS creation, but he has given me permission to post it---the Lucy Lightbulb Joke. It is as follows: Q: How many Lucy fans does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Forget the lightbulb---just kill the damn bug! I laughed, then made the fateful mistake of mentioning that I'd thought the punchline was going to have something to do with Turn the Lights Back On...like, "we can't Turn the Lights Back On until you kill the bug!" And from there...well, it was hopeless. Picture, if you will, two usually intelligent and insightful Lucy fans, hyped up on sugar and caffeine and general excitement, zooming along on the rural roads of Connecticut and upstate NY, having a 45-minute exchange that was, um...well, this doesn't exactly reflect who said what, but...the lightbulb got sort of left by the wayside, and the discussion pretty much resembled the following: Gerry: "No More Excuses---it's Five in the Morning---kill that bug!" Benay: "You're Still Standing There! I'm Looking Through You and I still see the bug!" Gerry: "It's not a Scorpion, but you have to kill it!" Benay: "I won't ask for More Than This---please kill the bug!" Gerry: "I'll Know What Kind of Love This Is when you kill the bug!" Benay: "Kill the bug Someday Soon, preferably before the End of the Day!" Gerry: "This Is Home, but it won't be for long if you don't kill the bug!" Benay: "Don't Mind Me, but I don't understand why there's Still Life in that bug!" Gerry: "Somewhere Out There must be someone who can kill that bug!" Benay: "I'm at the Edges of my sanity with this bug...it seems like one of those Crazy Dreams!" Gerry: "Don't Renege on Our Love---kill the bug!" etc., etc., etc. Hopeless. Well, for now, the turtles await. But tune in a bit later for Part 2, when I might actually manage to get around to discussing the SHOW! Benay ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 14:06:22 -0400 From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] Part 1A: A Turtle Postscript OK, I'm back (momentarily) from the turtle universe. A more than slightly scary place...I hate to say it, but Skipper and Sophie really do, to me, kind of resemble large-ish green waterbugs with shells. Except the objective here is to keep THESE creatures alive at all costs. I kid you not---at one point, an hour ago, my friend went over to a cupboard and pulled something out, saying, "Now, in case of emergency...if they seem to have stopped breathing..." I swear I thought she was going to hand me some sort of turtle CPR kit (i.e., "Place neck brace on turtle to prevent accidental head retraction...gently compress turtle chest, being careful not to damage shell...insert one end of supplied tube in turtle's mouth, and breathe V-E-E-E-E-R-R-R-Y gently into other end...feel for turtle pulse and repeat..."). Instead, though, what she handed me was "Turtle Health Conditioner...for a Happy Turtle," which consisted of a package with a small white turtle-shaped object in it. I thought this maybe meant we were going to attack any potential health problems from a psychological angle (i.e., "Does your turtle seem to have stopped breathing? It could be depression. Perk up your turtle with an artificial albino friend!"). But no...it turns out that at the first sign of trouble you're supposed to dissolve Mr. White Fake Turtle in the water of the turtle tank, thereby removing any dangerous impurities and thereby alleviating all turtle health problems. Except that Mr. White Fake Turtle is designed to be dissolved in 20 gallons of water, and Skipper and Sophie at their current size cavort around in...maybe five cups' worth. So, if I deem it necessary, I'm only supposed to break off, say, one of Mr. White Fake Turtle's LEGS and drop THAT into Skipper and Sophie's tank, lest the cure-all accidentally kill them... But hey, it could all be worse...my friend's final comment before departing was (in a tone of dire panic): "Oh, no, I forgot to wash the plant!" Yes, she has a plant that apparently requires washing. Leaf by multitudinous leaf. With a sponge. Don't ask me why. All I know is, I am off the hook on washing the plant...well, unless it gets dirty, I suppose, but it's not as if I'm planning to let it out to play or anything... She will wash it again when she gets back. Thank heavens for small favors. Oh, but you were wanting to hear about Lucy's SHOW, weren't you? Well, this post has gotten too long for that now, so...next post, coming right up, I promise!!! Benay ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 20:15:17 -0400 From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] minor clarification If anybody not on digest saw my first two posts and figured I was just teasingly holding out for hours and hours on posting about the show, know that I wrote and sent the actual show-related post RIGHT after the second turtle post...but five hours or so later, it hasn't come through yet here. I don't know if it's longer posts or what, but the Lucy-list just seems to get the hiccups sometimes...however, I think if I resend it, the show post might just come through TWICE later. So I just have to have faith that that post, and this one, will make it eventually... Benay ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 21:31:18 -0400 From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] Part 2A: the show...trying again OK, my little post came through and the last big one didn't...so maybe it's a size issue. I'm breaking the big one in half and sending it again...if it ultimately ends up coming through twice, my apologies... ______ So Gerry and I got to the Towne Crier an hour before the show (see? I've finally gotten us INSIDE the venue...told you I'd get there eventually!) and found the place already quite full...it's a lovely little venue, even if it is kind of in the middle of nowhere. You can eat dinner there or not---we weren't eating, so we were in the back, but the back part was raised somewhat, so the view was fine. By the time the show started, there was one empty chair right near me, but otherwise the place looked FULL. The show began at about 9:15...there was no opening act, so Lucy was introduced right away as having played at the Towne Crier for 20 years ("since I was six!" she later joked). When she came onstage, she was wearing the same clothes as in Huntington, the preppy/hippie combo. Because there was no opener, Lucy ended up doing TWO sets, with a short break in between. It was the longest single Lucy show I'd ever seen, which gave her time to sing a LOT...and although she initially asked for some changes in HER sound ("I'm such a diva!"), the sound was excellent from where I was in the audience. Set list: Small Dark Movie One Good Reason I Had Something The Kid (She hadn't played this in a while, she admitted, and she forgot lyrics a couple of times...the audience was able to help her at "late at night in the empty big top..." but later she got stuck again and NONE of us remembered the start of that line, so she finally just skipped a few words...actually, not being able to recall what those words were bugged me a little the rest of the night, and it wasn't until the drive home that I had a flash of remembrance and exclaimed "'Cross the boulevard! That was it! 'Cross the boulevard!"---prompting Gerry to look at me very strangely. Lucy said it felt so magical singing this song that she just got distracted and forgot some lyrics...but it was so, so beautiful regardless.) Don't Mind Me Bug Intro (There were some great twists to it this time, though. Lucy started off saying, "I don't like bugs. I don't like any kind of bug." Then, in further explanation, came one of my favorite Lucy-isms ever: "I don't like butterflies because there's a bug in the middle!" I didn't remember hearing her say just exactly that before...or maybe she has and I just haven't heard it, but in any case, I LOVED that one...I mean, it would never have occurred to me to think of a butterfly as having "a bug in the middle," but it's so true! I'll never quite look at butterflies the same way again...anyway, then Lucy got to the point in the story where she says, "This THING flew in and landed on our computer screen...and it was THIS big and I don't even know what you CALL something like that..." And before she could get to say "flying waterbug," a voice from the audience bellowed an answer: "SIR!" (You call it "Sir!") We all lost it for a little while after that...Lucy had to mock-sternly warn us, the audience, that we weren't allowed to be funnier than she was!) Ten Year Night Guilty As Sin I'm Looking Through You (I totally think Lucy needs to record this someday...at the very least, it has to stay part of her live set. She is just SO good with it, and I was surprised to realize just how glad I was to hear it again.) If You Could See (on piano...yes, Donna, I'm sorry to say she did it AGAIN without you there...and it was gorgeous...wow, as I write this, I'm listening to Flesh & Bone, and that song just started as I started writing about it...eerie. Somewhere around here she mentioned that she felt like she should have a real drink next to her since she was playing the piano, but if she did there would be no show! She also talked about how she could never go onstage hungry at the Towne Crier because the food looked so good...even though she said she WASN'T in fact hungry, some audience member in front apparently tried to give her some food---she said that was a first!) Loch Lomond (as a singalong...Lucy said "beautiful" in the middle a couple of times, so I guess she could hear us!) (more to come...) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2002 21:34:05 -0400 From: "Benay Bubar" Subject: [lucy-list] Part 2B: the show, continued Yup, guess it must have been a size thing. Sorry...here's the rest. - ---------- After a short break came the second set...the applause began before Lucy even reached the stage. And then she played: More Than This (no Ricola story, but mention of the Bryan Ferry album) Scorpion (away from its recent position as a follow-up to Ten Year Night) End of the Day Secret Journey (great to hear...I'm so glad it's come back these last few months) This Is Home Land of the Living Just You Tonight (on piano) Alphabet Song (In the intro, where she usually sings just the first three letters' worth of the real song, she got through D and E and some in the audience were singing by the time she got to F, which is apparently "a feather in my arms," although Lucy took a moment to get that, asking "a feather in my arm?" I figured she might be having the same weird split-second image I was, of somebody's arm being stabbed with a feather, before realizing that wasn't it...anyway, then the real song stopped and on she went with the parody. I still don't know how she can sing it without breaking up into laughter...I've heard it lots of times, SUNG it to myself lots of times, and it still cracks me up, especially when others are laughing!) Written on the Back of His Hand (later than usual...I'd gotten a bit worried she wouldn't do my perennial irrational favorite...but she did!) Someday Soon (Hooray! No opening act to "steal" the song from Lucy! She broke a string during this song...just as she had at Falcon Ridge, or at least I think it was during this song both times...but as at Falcon Ridge, she went right on. Afterward, of course, she had to change the string, and she kept talking to us while doing it...thanking people she wanted to thank for having her, telling us about CDs, etc., at one point "fixing her hair" in that way that makes me so envious. When she was done with the string, she said something like, "Wow, I changed that pretty fast!" and we applauded. Lucy seemed to bask in the applause for a moment, then said in a semi-shocked tone, "I'm asking for applause for changing a STRING---pathetic!" But she DID do it awfully fast...so, hey, it was worth applauding.) By Way of Sorrow That was the close of the set----Lucy went offstage. And then I found myself trying to be philosophical. I already knew it was my favorite Lucy show ever---such a great setlist, so many songs old and new, Lucy in fine voice and great humor. But...see, the night before, after the Huntington show while saying hi to Lucy, I'd mentioned to her that I would be in Pawling the next night, and she'd very kindly asked if there was anything I'd like to hear. Having heard My Name Joe that night, it had been easy to say "Still Life"---I hadn't heard it live in the longest time. And she had said she'd do it. Not being a natural "requester" (something I may expound upon later, because I COULD), and never having made any specific, direct request of Lucy before, I was...well, happy doesn't quite cover it...to hear that. So here I was in Pawling, and the show had ended except for the encore, which I figured would be either Guinevere or Song for Molly because those are the most frequent encores for shows I've attended. And I thought...well, Lucy probably just forgot, or else didn't feel comfortable doing Still Life because she hadn't in a while, or just couldn't find a good place to fit it in...it IS slow and upsetting, as beautiful a song as it is, so it was a weird request anyway. And in those moments of pre-encore applause, I officially decided, well, that's OK. Lucy doesn't have to do my bidding, ever, for me to love her music...as long as she's singing things she wants to sing and I'm privileged to hear her do it, what more can I ask? I'll just listen to Still Life on the CD when I get home. Back came Lucy for the encore. And the first thing she said was, "OK, there's one song I know I absolutely have to do...but what do you want to hear?" A chorus of answers, few intelligible to me. "That's the one [I'm definitely doing]" I heard her say to someone on the side, but I couldn't hear what the person had said. Through the din, It Ain't Me, Babe, was established as the second encore. And then, for that FIRST encore, the song she'd said she HAD to do, Lucy said, "There's a person here who was at my show last night, too, and anyone who comes to two shows in two days gets to hear what they want...this is for Benay." So, before closing with It Ain't Me, Babe, Lucy sang Still Life. Or at least, I THINK it was Lucy who sang Still Life. I only knew by the voice, since my vision was a little...blurry...from that point on. :-) It was a magical, magical show. And I hope it doesn't seem that I think that just because she did a song for me...that certainly made it especially magical for me personally, but I knew it was going to be my favorite Lucy show ever long before that. I'm not sure I can be clear as to why---it didn't have to do with the show's being technically perfect, because it surely wasn't---there was the broken string, the few forgotten lyrics, the people at the tables near me who were a bit too chatty while Lucy was singing...and Rick wasn't there, which made me sad because I'd just kind of naively assumed he would be. But there was just this clarity and intimacy and energy and LUCY-ness about it all, and so many songs, and a set list that for the most part Lucy might as well have plucked straight from my head. I enjoyed it absolutely thoroughly. (And when I called it a 15 on a scale of 1 to 10, Gerry's only argument with me was that I wasn't going high enough!) So that's how it was in Pawling, for those who managed to wade through the turtle tales to read this! And I could say more, on slightly more general topics, and I might later, but I have a huge work-related project on top of me this weekend and have had very little sleep. Given all I have to accomplish (a week's turtle-sitting is actually the least of it), the next couple of weeks of my life are not going to be particularly fun at all...but Lucy has given me two nights' worth of laughter and delight and incredibly wonderful music to remember, to remind me of how happy I can be. Benay P.S. Thanks again so much for everything, Gerry---I couldn't have been there at all without you! ------------------------------ End of lucy-list-digest V4 #181 ******************************* This has been a posting from the Lucy Kaplansky mail list digest To unsubscribe send mail to Majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe lucy-list-digest" in the body of the message