Seeing as it’d feel odd to not follow up yesterday’s predictions with at least some sort of wrap-up, but also seeing as I’d much rather eat an entire stromboli and get caught up on The People v. OJ Simpson, here’s a few scant thoughts on the 88th annual Academy Awards. It’s just enough to say “I still care” without it ending in a caterwaul of famished sobs:
Because you can’t appreciate the Humoresque sweet without having to taste Humoresque sour, and because I can never get enough Joan Crawford (particularly until I’ve finished reading David Bret’s epically salacious Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr) here’s Joan Crawford’s Helen Wright shedding a single tear of profoundly agonized longing for her violinist lover, Paul Boray (John Garfield). He’s playing the Liebestod from Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, she’s drowning her sorrows as she listens to him on the radio, and my head’s exploding from having a moment appeal to the Crawford queen AND the opera queen in me.
Fact: Jessye Norman was born in Augusta, Georgia.
Fact: Given that she’s a fellow Georgian, this fabulous diva always gives this ol’ opera queen a healthy dose of southern pride for biscuits and gravy and fried oreos and summer thunderstorms and the fact that it birthed the most gorgeous voice the world’s ever know.
Fact: Jessye Norman’s rendition of Wagner’s “Liebestod” will most assuredly destroy you. Particularly when she’s performing in front of a wall of fire and dressed in a gold robe, as she is for Jessye Norman: A Portrait, which should incidentally be noted as the DVD that now sits atop my Netflix queue.
Consider yourselves warned:
Congratulations. You’ve just had the high point of your day, and now the rest of it’s essentially ruined.
You’re welcome.
