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A Show About Nothing
Steven Wright is all over the map
By Brian Mackey
The American Heritage Dictionary
defines the word “aside” as “a parenthetical departure; a
digression.”
 Steven
Wright’s show at Sangamon Auditorium last Saturday was a
90-minute stream of asides.
“It’s a good thing lots of people
speak foreign languages, otherwise they’d have no one to talk
to,” he said.
A few minutes later: “Next week,
I’m going to have an MRI to find out if I have claustrophobia.”
Part of what makes Wright funny
is the impression that he is first experiencing these
revelations right there on stage, in front of the Springfield
audience.
He asked, of no one in particular
or in general, “Why are ballerinas always on their tiptoes? Why
don’t they get taller women?”
Despite the almost complete lack
of theme or narrative thread binding the material, Wright
maintained an unrelenting pace as he pitched joke after joke
from his seemingly bottomless well:
“Last night I was wearing a mock
dickey.”
“I think it’s wrong that only one
company makes the game Monopoly.”
That kind of one-two punch,
dancing on the precipice of decency, elicited both laughs and
groans. Wright said he owned two rare photographs: the first
showed Houdini “locking his keys in his car,” the second was of
Norman Rockwell, “beating up a child.”
Disappointingly, the quality of
the show was somewhat inconsistent.
There were a few stretches that
called to mind the cliché that war is 95 percent boredom
punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Mercifully, the ratio of
funny to not was much more favorable in Wright’s show.
The less funny parts (“I bought
an ant farm — where am I going to get tractors that small?”)
quickly gave way to more entertaining fare (She’s so drunk she
“slurs her pauses”).
Wright was at his best when he
picked up his guitar. He could apparently play just a few
chords, but his songs drew more laughs than many of his jokes.
Speaking over his own noodling, Wright announced that his next
song was called “They’ll Find Her When the Leaves Blow Away,
‘Cause I’m Not Raking ‘Til Spring.” He added, “It doesn’t go
something like this, it goes exactly like this.”
Last month, The New York Times
traced the comic art of the one-liner from Henny Youngman and
Milton Berle through Buddy Hackett, Rodney Dangerfield and Don
Rickles. Of those comedic legends, only Rickles survives; the
Times dubbed him (and the article) “The Last Clown in His
Class.”
Wright, however, though
stylistically different from his predecessors seems to be a
standard-bearer for the form. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the
report of the death of the one-liner has been greatly
exaggerated. The only thing missing are the rim-shots.
After all, it is a short distance between Youngman’s signature
“Take my wife — please!” and Wright’s “A friend of mine has a
trophy wife — but apparently it wasn’t first place.” Ba-dum
chink.
The name says it all....
Incredibly Delicious is, well, incredibly delicious
By Gabrielle
Wiegand
If the pen is mightier than the
sword, the fork is mightier than the pen. In my mind, the fork
was invented with Incredibly Delicious in mind.
Incredibly Delicious, a locally
owned bakery and café, offers authentic French baked goods and
food. The lunch menu offers about half a dozen options each day
and they change regularly.
 When
I went this week, they had ham and mushroom quiche for $6.65,
garden vegetable quiche for $6.65, chicken salad sandwich for
$6.75, black bean and sweet potato burrito for $6.65, and a
roast beef and Muenster cheese sandwich for $7.25. They all
come with your choice of soup or salad.
I had the ham and mushroom quiche
with chicken noodle soup. The quiche was out of this world,
with fluffy eggs, full layers of ham and mushrooms and a flaky
crust that melts in your mouth. My roommate had the vegetable
quiche, which consisted of zucchini, broccoli, squash and some
red stuff we couldn’t identify but we think it was red pepper.
Her dish was also excellent.
The lunch menu also had several
salads, the first of which was a roasted chicken breast salad
for $6.95 with mixed greens and sun dried cranberries tossed
with a raspberry vinaigrette dressing.
They
were serving a Waldorf salad for $7.25 that included mixed
greens, roasted chicken, diced apples, celery, raisins, toasted
pecans with an orange dressing, and an Asian style chicken salad
for $7.25 with mixed greens, roasted chicken breast, green
beans, cucumber, toasted sesame seeds, tossed with a spicy Asian
style vinaigrette.
Last time I went, I had this
spinach salad with dried cranberries and pistachio nuts in a
raspberry vinaigrette that was fresh and very good.
If you are not salivating yet,
wait until I tell you about the desserts and baked goods! They
bake their bread daily and offer a variety of different kinds.
They sell traditional French bread, baguettes, croissants,
Country French bread, which is made with a sourdough starter,
multigrain, and King Midas, which is baked with Semolina, a
pasta flour.
On Wednesdays and Saturdays, they
serve pepper parmesan bread, a soft sourdough with black pepper
and parmesan cheese, and wheat raisin walnut, full of raisins
and walnuts. They also bake assorted focaccia, a white bread
made with olive oil. They top it with different things from
tomato and basil to roasted garlic.
Over the summer I sampled their
pineapple coconut focaccia, which is so flavorful and fresh you
almost feel like you are at the beach when you eat it.
But I forget all about the bread
once I look at the tarts, pastries, and cakes. When I went this
week they had all their usual mouthwatering treats in addition
to the day’s specials- a white chocolate raspberry brownie,
cranberry, walnuts and orange tart, and pumpkin white chocolate
cheesecake.
I tried the pumpkin
cheesecake, which was like taking a bite out of all the spicy,
warm goodness autumn has to offer. They also have their regular
deserts, like their mixed berry tart and flourless chocolate
cake (which makes so much sense, because without flour there is
more room for chocolate!) They also serve a fruit tart that is
absolutely orgasmic.
Incredibly Delicious is located
at 925 S. 7th St. and is open from 7:30a.m. to 4p.m.
Monday, 7:30a.m. to 5p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 7:30a.m.
to 2:30p.m. Saturday. You can dine in or get takeout.
Illinois Symphony Orchestra to
perform 'Dvorak meets Sibelius'
By Gabrielle
Wiegand
The Illinois Symphony Orchestra
will perform its second concert in their Masterworks Series on
Nov. 20 at 8p.m. in Sangamon Auditorium.
The
concert, entitled “Dvorak meets Sibelius,” will feature composer
Antonin Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance and his Symphony No. 7, as well
as Jean Sibelius’ Concerto for Violin.
 Dvorak,
living from 1841 to 1904, is one of the best known and most
played Czech composers. He wrote a great deal of music,
including nine symphonies, 16 string quartets, symphonic poems,
choir works, and songs and compositions for the violin and
piano.
Dvorak was incredibly proud of
his Slavic heritage and strove to compose only that which was
inspired from Moravia, Slovakia, Poland and Russia.
Like Dvorak, Sibelius’ music is
synonymous with one particular national identity, only Sibelius’
is Finnish. Born in 1865, Sibelius is one of the most popular
20th century symphony composers. He is also very
famous for the violin concerto that will be performed Nov. 20 by
concertmistress
Julieta Mihai on violin and the Illinois
Symphony Orchestra.
The Illinois Symphony is
celebrating its twelfth year in the 2004-2005 season. It was
formed by combining of the Bloomington-Normal Symphony Society
and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra Association, which had
been in existence in some form since 1921.
According to their website,
“(the) commitment to artistic experience continues, as the
Illinois Symphony Orchestra serves Central and Downstate
Illinois with a diverse mixture of innovative programming.”
The Illinois Council of
Orchestras has twice named the Illinois Symphony “Orchestra of
the Year.”
There will be two more concerts
this season in the orchestra’s Masterworks Series: “Webber meets
Beethoven” on April 2 and “Tchaikovsky meets Rachmaninoff” on
April 30. They also have a Pop Series at Sangamon Auditorium
that will include two more concerts: “Home for the Holidays III”
on Dec. 18 and “Valentine Pops: Evening of Love and Romance” on
Feb. 19.
The Illinois Symphony Orchestra
also partners with the Springfield Ballet Company for their
performance of “The Nutcracker” that will be performed at
Sangamon Auditorium on Dec. 4 and 5.
There will be a pre-concert
discussion with the conductor and guest artist at 7:15p.m.
before Saturday’s performance.
The Illinois Symphony
Orchestra’s “Dvorak meets Sibelius” will be at Sangamon
Auditorium Saturday, Nov. 20 at 8p.m. Tickets range from $25 to
$29. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact the
Sangamon Auditorium Box Office at 217.206.6160 or
www.sangamonauditorium.org.
WUIS hosts youth music
competition
By Brian
Mackey
The future of classical music in
central Illinois sounds bright, especially if your taste in
music favors the flute.
WUIS, the University of Illinois
at Springfield’s public radio station, hosted a competition for
young musicians at the First Presbyterian Church in downtown
Springfield last Friday.
The concert featured 31
classical musicians, ranging in age from 10 to 17. There were
two violinists, three pianists, and — improbably — 26 flutists.
WUIS music director Karl
Scroggin organized the event and served as master of
ceremonies. The evening began with six flute ensembles: two
quintets, two quartets and two duets. Next came the junior
soloist competition, for the musicians not yet in high school,
and finally the senior competition, for high school aged
performers.
Ashley Quick and Nini Zhang,
both 16-year-old students of Glenwood High School in Chatham,
gave the standout performance of the ensemble competition. They
played the most modern of the selections: Franz Doppler’s
“Concerto in d.” The 19th-century opera and flute composer’s
divergent parts left the musicians exposed, but Quick and Zhang
glided through the piece with aplomb. The duet won the award
for best ensemble.
The instrumentation diversified
with the junior solo competition. J. Colin Crowley, the first
of only three male musicians, performed “Fantasy: Loss of Me,”
by Nobuo Uematsu. This contemporary Japanese composer is known
mostly for his video-game soundtracks, including the popular
“Final Fantasy” series.
But it was the late 19th
century composer Johannes Donjon who seemed to capture the
judges’ good graces. Lydeah Negro, an eighth grader at St.
Agnes in Springfield, earned runner-up honors with “Offertoire.”
Chatham yielded another winner
in Molly LaCamera, in grade eight at Glenwood Middle School.
She performed Donjon’s “Pastorale: ‘Pan.’”
The evening ended with the
senior soloists. The performers in this category demonstrated a
greater depth of that ethereal quality known as musicianship.
Nini Zhang, one-half of the
winning ensemble, earned second place with “Orientale” by R. de
Boisdeffre. Zhang, who also plays violin and piano, performed
with a musical maturity beyond most of her peers.
Her depth and talent were
matched only by violinist Gustavo Cabrera, who earned first
place with the final performance of the concert: Dmitri
Kabalevsky’s “Concerto No. 1.” A 15-year-old student of
MacArthur High School in Decatur, Cabrera also plays piano,
guitar, and saxophone.
After his performance, the
audience burst into a sustained applause, the first of the
evening. While holding applause to the end may have quickened
the pace of the concert, it could not have been very pleasant
for the majority of the students, most of whose performances
were rewarded with silence.
The winners of this biannual
competition will be invited to perform at “First Night
Springfield 2005,” the family-centered arts program that takes
place on New Year’s Eve in downtown Springfield.
WUIS recorded the competition
and will air selections interspersed with its normal classical
music programming on Dec. 31 this year. |
