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Weekend Butler: Could coffee save your life? Jimmy Fallon and Lin-Manuel Miranda sing for Broadway. English decadence. A hit TV series that couldn’t be made now. And more.
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Published: Jun 17, 2021
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Weekend
Fireworks! Mass burnings of masks! That’s New York, with 70% of us having received at least one shot. In the restaurants, predictable behavior: people are loud and joyous, like the last year never happened. Let’s overlook that all-too-human behavior and look into the light… the bright lights. Like….
“BROADWAY’S BACK!” WITH LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA AND JIMMY FALLON
THE WEEKEND MEMOIR: THE BEST THEATER STORY…EVER
Act One is the best Broadway memoir. Ever.
I’m not the only one who says it.
Here’s André Bishop, Artistic Director of Lincoln Center: “This is the greatest theatrical memoir ever written and it reads like a Dickens novel.”
Here’s novelist and bookstore owner Ann Patchett: “’Act One’ is one of the best things about owning a bookstore. I can sell ‘Act One’ to people all day long.”
Moss Hart was a phenomenally successful playwright — “The Man Who Came to Dinner” and “You Can’t Take it With You,” which won the Pulitzer Prize. As a theater director, he won a Tony award for “My Fair Lady.” He wrote the screenplay for “A Star Is Born.”
“Act One” deals with none of those triumphs. As its title suggests, it’s about Hart’s childhood, his struggles and his ascent — for me, the most exciting and important times in anyone’s life.
CAN COFFEE FIGHT DISEASE AND HELP YOU LIVE LONGER? YES!!!!!
from The Times: The latest assessments of the health effects of coffee and caffeine, its main active ingredient, are reassuring indeed. Their consumption has been linked to a reduced risk of all kinds of ailments, including Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, gallstones, depression, suicide, cirrhosis, liver cancer, melanoma and prostate cancer.
In fact, in numerous studies conducted throughout the world, consuming four or five eight-ounce cups of coffee (or about 400 milligrams of caffeine) a day has been associated with reduced death rates. In a study of more than 200,000 participants followed for up to 30 years, those who drank three to five cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, were 15 percent less likely to die early from all causes than were people who shunned coffee. Perhaps most dramatic was a 50 percent reduction in the risk of suicide among both men and women who were moderate coffee drinkers, perhaps by boosting production of brain chemicals that have antidepressant effects.
For the Head Butler Guide to Great Coffee, click here.
THE WEEKEND NON-FICTION: THE WAY WE WEREN’T
For many people we know, this is the perfect summer. Think again: The English are masters of the short good season. That is, the upper class. That is, 1911. The book is A Perfect Summer.
Consider a great country estate, in good weather, where we enjoy every luxury because we are rich and titled. And why not, say, in May of 1911? Edward VII had died the previous spring; mourning was over, George V was about to be crowned, there would be a full season of glorious parties.
And the parties would be…hot. Paul Poiret’s evening gowns were in vogue, and they were wonderfully sheer. The brassiere was replacing the corset; women were displaying their assets. Sex was everywhere. When Rolls-Royce commissioned a new hood ornament, it chose a woman in a clinging gown.
In that year, Winston Churchill wore pink silk underwear. Extra night watchmen were hired at great country houses to protect the precious jewels of weekenders. Porters rang bells at 6 AM so guests could scurry back to the rooms they were supposed to occupy. At parties, the jaded acted out — for fun — moments like announcing a child’s death to its mother.
COLD STAYS COLD
Yes, with the Zojirushi Stainless Steel Mug hot stays hot. In the heat of the summer, it’s just as important that cold stays cold.
THE WEEKEND POEM
“Good Bones,” by Maggie Smith, in her book.
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
THIS WAS A HIT TV SERIES 60 YEARS AGO IN ENGLAND. IT WILL NEVER BE REVIVED HERE.
Vigilantes? You can call them that. But they don’t act like hate-filled zealots. The Four Just Men are civilized. They advise their targets they are guilty of crimes. They tell their targets to reform. They alert their targets to the date of their death. They even give their targets a final warning — delivered in person. As the author notes,”The honesty of the Four was their most terrible characteristic.” Honesty — how thrilling. Read all about them in the short novel.
