- Owen Carey, Jack Goes Boating
This week in the bargain bin that is the Mercury arts section…
BOOKS!:
Erik Henriksen reviews Sarah Vowell’s Unfamiliar Fishes—an “approachable, brisk, and frequently fascinating” book about the modern history of Hawaii and American expansionism.
I review the new novel Catching Babies, by local author J.D> Kleinke and published by local house Fourth Chapter, about a OB/GYNs as they finish their residencies and begin their medical careers. I am completely unversed in medical fiction, which I assume is a genre, and I was initially put off both by the gore and by Kleinke’s occasional syntactical clumsiness (here’s both: “a large gauze dressing, protruding from a vulva swollen from a delivery two hours earlier, was crimson wet with fresh new blood and dripping”). But by a few chapters in I was totally hooked. Probably don’t read it if you’re pregnant, though.
I also review Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth’s great Stumptown, a noir comics series set in Portland. Oni Press is releasing the first four issues in hardback, with a kickoff party at Bridge City Comics.
PERFORMANCE:
I write about Jack Goes Boating at Artists Rep, which—unlike One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—was actually better than the movie.
This week also kicks off a new column from local burlesque producer Rayleen Courtney, highlighting upcoming burlesque, cabaret, and circus performances of note. Here’s the first one.
You forgot the three “<'s" at the end of Kleinke's name.
The “Stumptown” hardback actually came out yesterday. Or, at least, Excalibur had it yesterday. It looks nice but I’m not spending $30 for four comics I already have.
I’m going to sneakily delete the word “tomorrow” from my post and NO ONE WILL BE THE WISER.
Nice work 😉
Can I put in a shameless request to leave the comparison (inevitable as it is) of movies to plays by the wayside and ask you to be daring enough to see that just because one actor plays a role in a film doesn’t mean it’s dead to the world of thinking people who see plays (I know you like theatre AH, I’m not busting you, just sayin’ people follow your lead). I saw the replacement guy do “Cukoo’s Nest” and I was overwhelmed with his take on it- the almost whimsical sense of the time period that he brought, and his energy- he was like an adolescent, which makes so much sense for that character! And the fact that he stepped in, last minute…I’ll never forget that. Movie? What movie? Fuck that! I was THERE in that hospital at that play. Movie schmoovie. Freaked me out in the best way. I could have kissed them all at the end of that play I was so happy (and sad).
And Phillip Seymour Hoffman..Mr. Fakey Pants hack-tor…Jack Goes Boating…whatever.
You CAN put in the request… I don’t think I agree with you, though. If there’s an iconic film version of a work, I want to see more than just a staged reenactment when I go to the theater. I had similar beef with Sunset Boulevard and A Christmas Story – not enough distance from the films to stand on their own.
(I mentioned the movie in my review of the ART show only ’cause the movie was BAD – a few of the people I tried to talk into seeing the play with me declined because they didn’t like the movie.)
(It is surprisingly hard to get people to go to the theater, even when it’s free.)