#true west

[thatkaseyjames]

[balu8]

Jack Davis

[philhoffman]

John C. Reilly shared some very sweet memories about working with Phil and their friendship in a recent interview 💙

He was an incredible actor — I call him a lion among men. He really had this gravitas, even as a very young guy. This presence I was always in awe of: I've never seen someone who had such an easy command of an audience. He could hop on a countertop and get a huge laugh, and I'd look at him and say, 'He's not a clown. Not in the way I am. I know what I'm doing when I'm going for something with an audience' — but he had a way of doing it invisibly. I was fascinated. How does he do it?

We did True West together on Broadway, where we played brothers, switching roles every three performances, so it was this really intense thing, and it forged us together in a way I've never had with anyone else. It was like being in a foxhole together in a war, what we went through together as young men — at the time we were both untested on Broadway, no one really knew who we were.

So I remember that we were in conflict a lot in that play — the brothers are kind of battling each other for each other's identity. And I knew I couldn't feel like I was actually in conflict with Phil. So before every performance, every night, I'd take him in my arms and hug him, and say, 'I love you, brother.' It was a really special thing. I miss him a lot.

[dustedmagazine]

Field Hospitals — Ethel Green (Subjangle)

Field Hospitals jangle and thump, the romantic overtures of spiraling dual guitars meeting the punk abrasion of straight-up bass and drums. The easiest comparison is R.E.M. but True West is a better one. Field Hospitals’ “Passion Play” is as doomed and tuneful as True West’s “And Then the Rain,” an epic arc of chorus cutting across tangled guitars.

The band is a made up of four seasoned Minneapolis musicians, all of whom have been in bands for years, none of whom have ever sounded exactly like this.The guitarist/founders—Hank Henry and Dan Ganin—came out of math-rock-y Stillwell and hardcore Charles de Gaulle. The rhythm section ofJeff Ball (drums) and Matt Helgeson (bass) were last in post-punk Maps of Norway.

And yet they slip so easily into mid-1980s Paisley Underground sounds, sweet swirling tunes braced by manic pummeling rhythms. “Sister Jane” rocks the hardest and most plaintively, letting the kickdrum boom and the melody twine in a flowery longing. The two guitars play off one another, one of them slashing at chords, the other dancing around them in delicate filigreed flourishes. “The Feeding Ground” veers hardest towards post-punk, with its eerie harmonics and driving, motorik beat, but the vocals pull it back, gently eddying around the hard pulse.

It's hard to remember now, but this kind of sound used to be massive and commercial and ubiquitous on radio playlists. My first thought was the Hoodoo Gurus, whose new wave stutter flowered into lush careening choruses (see “I Want You Back”). Bands like R.E.M. and the Feelies also broke from niche to mainstream in a way that even the best of 2020s jangle rockers — and there are a bunch of them, not just Field Hospitals, but Tubs, the Woolen Men, Ducks Ltd. and RVG to name a few — never will. But just because fewer people will hear the stuttering grace, the doomed romanticism of “Ethel Green,” doesn’t make it less enchanting. Tune and turbulence, instrumental muscle and lyrical sighs, it’s in balance here, though a bit out of time.

Jennifer Kelly

[specificpollsaboutbooks]

Plays

Round 1

True West (Sam Shepard) VS Dom Juan (Molière)

True West

Dom Juan

Show results

Voting ended onDec 11, 2024

True West :

A messed up play about a pair of brothers. The younger brother is a screenwriter and is house sitting for their mother somewhere in the California desert suburbs. The unscrupulous thieving brother shows up at their mother's house and all hell breaks loose.

There are productions on youtube but I haven't watched them. Here's a video montage from Roundabout Theatre's 2019 production.

Dom Juan :

My favorite play by Molière

[deadpresidents]

2023's Best Books

I meant to do this a few days ago so there was more time before the holidays, but here's a quick list of the best books that I read that were released in 2023. Obviously, I didn't read every book that came out this year, and I'm only listing the best books I read that were actually released in the 2023 calendar year.

In my opinion, the two very best books released in 2023 were An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford by Richard Norton Smith (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), and True West: Sam Shepard's Life, Work, and Times by Robert Greenfield (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO).

(The rest of this list is in no particular order)

President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier C.W. Goodyear (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The World: A Family History of Humanity Simon Sebag Montefiore (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

France On Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain Julian Jackson (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Last Island: Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth Adam Goodheart (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World Mary Beard (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

City of Echoes: A New History of Rome, Its Popes, and Its People Jessica Wärnberg (BOOK | KINDLE)

We Are Your Soldiers: How Gamal Abdel Nasser Remade the Arab World Alex Rowell (BOOK | KINDLE)

Edison's Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History's Greatest Geniuses Katie Spalding (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Waco Rising: David Koresh, the FBI, and the Birth of America's Modern Militias Kevin Cook (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Summer of 1876: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season That Defined the American West Chris Wimmer (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

King: A Life Jonathan Eig (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

LBJ's America: The Life and Legacies of Lyndon Baines Johnson Edited by Mark Atwood Lawrence and Mark K. Updegrove (BOOK | KINDLE)

Who Believes Is Not Alone: My Life Beside Benedict XVI Georg Gänswein with Saverio Gaeta (BOOK | KINDLE)

Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East Uri Kaufman (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship That Changed American History Laurence Jurdem (BOOK | KINDLE)

White House Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America Shelley Fraser Mickle (BOOK | KINDLE)

Romney: A Reckoning McKay Coppins (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics H.W. Brands (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Earth Transformed: An Untold History Peter Frankopan (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

LeBron Jeff Benedict (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America Abraham Riesman (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House Chris Whipple (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

[spacenoirdetective]

Klaus Janson, Christmas cover for "True West" magazine, Dec 1956

[thewolveswithin]

True West (1984) [] Play written by Sam Shepard starring John Malkovich and Gary Sinise - Laserdisc