Oh Miss Dusty …

Seriously, I remember where I was when Dusty Springfield died. That was a major event … the passing of a singing legend. And not just because she did wonders to the Burt Bacharach songbook; in fact, Bacharach once noted that Dusty was the singer for “The Look of Love”.

Sure, Dusty Springfield may be best known for her iconic rendition of “Son of a Preacher Man” (video). It is one of those truly great songs of the mid-/late-20th Century, and it’s return to us in Pulp Fiction helped awaken a whole new generation to its poignant and searing vocals.

But it’s a diva-worthy performance on “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” (video) that will also make Dusty Springfield stand out as one of the great back-combed divas of the 1960s and 1970. (You simply can’t get that level of lift in hair with out a lot of teasing and Aqua-Net … or a wig.) With “Say You Love Me”, Springfield shared with the world some ache, tinged with the upbeat movements that make pop pop.

Recently, the standout star of the British TV show “The One and Only” (an American-Idol-styled show for aspiring singers) offered her cover of Springfield’s classic tune. Not too shabby!

Also memorably for folks today is “Wishin’ and Hopin'”, which you’ll remember from the Julia Roberts film My Best Friend’s Wedding.

Regardless the song (or even the genre), Dusty Springfield made it her own.  She’s a true treasure of the British Isles, and was even named to the OBE, though she died on the day she was to accept her honor at Buckingham Palace.  Currently, there’s a bio-pic being made of her life, rumored to star Kristin Chenoweth.

A London 4th of July

I remember a July 4th in London, the day we hold our secret subversive holiday in our hearts, even though there’s no mention of it on the telly or in the tabloids. Wonder why they aren’t celebrating, we joke in our arrogant Yankee manner.

We’d seen a Tempest at the Globe as groundlings, standing in the middle space between the respectable patrons and the magical action, which explodes into our midst: Ariel on a rope arcing over our heads, Caliban snarling his complaint directly to the startled crowd.

Then, joyous with Prospero’s spells and with aching legs, we half-limped half-danced across the Thames toward St. Paul’s and the Tube back to our flats. And (I swear) when we were halfway across the river some unseen Prospero set off an arsenal of fireworks from the Tower Bridge south of us.

Our secret was out.

My Favorite Park

Hyde Park is probably most famous, mentioned in every eighteenth-century play as “The Ring” where all the fashionable people went to be seen and to exchange secrets. Kensington Gardens attracts the Diana-philes wanting to tour her palace (actually a queen named Victoria grew up there, too). Green Park provides a delightful walk to Buckingham Palace: why do those guards have to keep changing? Aren’t they ever satisfied? And there are flowerful parks all over London of every size and design.

My favorite, though, is Regent’s Park. I hop on the Circle Line train to the Baker Street Station. If you pass Madame Tussauds, you’re walking away from the park. Head towards Sherlock Holmes’s house and you’ll see it straight on. Around the first of June all the Queen’s rose gardens are in full bloom.

’m led, intoxicated by the scent, past the swans and the amphitheater where the musicians are setting up and the ice cream stand to the labyrinths of flowers, the blooming walkways with tributaries leading farther and farther from the traffic. I go past two fountains with their peeing statuary. And . . . but I can’t tell you this part . . . I make two or three or four more turns and find, once again, my own secret garden. Sorry, you’ll have to find your own.

Shakespeare’s Globe: 2008 Season

We couldn’t be any luckier for our 2008 trip! Shakespeare’s Globe (virtual tour) has just announced it’s 2008 season and headlining the group are one of the Bard’s best tragedies (King Lear) and (if it matters) one of my favorite comedies (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). In fact, I’ve seen Midsummer more than any other Shakespeare play, and had held out great hope that we’d have the chance to see it at the Globe.

Also on the bill this summer will be a Shakespeare “sit-com”, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and one biting satire, Timon of Athens.

It is perhaps hard to think of the theater and not think of the famous Bard. While I’d be the first to say not all Shakespeare plays are great, I’d have to agree with those who find both Lear and Midsummer to be among his best in their respective genres. In Lear, we have an aging monarch, contemplating his waning years and the values (or lack thereof) of age and power; in Midsummer, we have the converse: youth, ah youth, and beauty, and love, and, well, a lot of “power” and “age” turned topsy-turvey in the “green world” of a forest near Athens. What Lear asks us to ponder about our mortality and the value of family and our lives, Midsummer calls us to ignore for a few minutes and to wonder, instead, about the follies of youth and, at times, the capriciousness of our own lived experiences.

No doubt we’ll be have a great time this summer as we stand like Groundlings and watch the plays!

In keeping with the humor of Midsummer, I offer you the Animaniac’s rendering of A Midsummer Night’s Dream …