A Visit to Martha Stewart's TV Show

Omnimedia TV Studios, W26th Street, New York, Tuesday November 24 2009.

Martha Stewart’s TV show is the matrix of all of her productions and merchandising. It's not just a TV show; it produces the raw material for magazines, books and websites as well as design concepts for merchandise and retail methodologies and much of the work is done in “real time” before, during and after taping in the Omnimedia studio on West 26th Street.

Members of the public can go and watch the show being filmed.  The studio audience is remarkably well treated, for a faceless crowd. The corporate Human Resources staff from the main building further down 26th Street are required to meet and greet the audience (referred to as guests) because, according to the charming, smartly-dressed young woman who welcomed me, Martha believes this is the appropriate relationship she wants to have with her customers.

Each guest is given a personal greeting, an assigned seat and a briefing about how the show works and what they are required to do; then they are conducted into the studio and told by the famous warm up man, Joey Kola, how to sit and how to respond to whatever goes on in front of the camera.

Just before taping begins a few individuals in the crowd are moved to different seats by an unseen hand (Martha?), evidently to create a more balanced on - screen palette, and it is obvious when the show was broadcast one week later that there is indeed a fine balance of colours, forming a pointillist effect across the TV screen.

Martha soon materialises in the vast kitchen, stage left of the set. Off camera, she is tall and beautiful and the relaxed and confident expression on her face never changes except when she breaks into a broad grin or a hearty laugh, which she does often when talking to her staff. She is surrounded, like a Delphic Oracle, by swirling steam, but she soon strides out of the kitchen and onto the set and, without pausing, begins to speak.  The audience is entranced to hear that she is profoundly hoarse from laryngitis, but nothing stops Martha Stewart and the show goes on.

Martha Stewart shows Claire Danes
how to make marshmallows

The segments today concern marshmallows, paper folding and Christmas decorations. A movie star, Claire Danes, arrives to help (rather hopelessly) with the cooking and an expert is on hand for each of the craft segments.  But it is quite clear that Martha knows exactly what she is doing and she is firmly in charge not only of the cooking and so on but of whatever is going on anywhere in the studio. She ignores the crowd and the camera and just gets on with it, continuing with her cooking or paper folding through the ad breaks while ensuring that her guests get their work done on time, too. During a commercial break, she orders Claire Danes to do the washing up. 

Martha is refreshingly brisk with Miss Danes, whom she evidently finds slightly irritating, but the actress is a regular on the show so they must understand each other.  “You’ll learn,” she intones when the movie star overturns her mixing bowl all over the counter which Martha has only just mopped up.  After largely ignoring Miss Danes' slightly self conscious account of her extravagant wedding in France, Martha grunts and says “Is it your first?”

Click here to read more about White Noise by David A. Carter

At the end of her segment, having been refused permission to leave until all the marshamallows were fitted neatly into their little plastic bags, Miss Danes is escorted through the wide, wainscoted doors of the show's elegant set and Martha turns her attention to David A. Carter.  His recent book, Bed Bugs: A Pop-Up Bedtime Book, is described by the New York Times as "one of the ten best illustrated children's books of 2009."  Today he is here to promote his latest book, White Noise, a copy of which is given to each of us in the audience, albeit to scant appreciation.  Joey Cola's pre-show comment that Martha was "feeling generous"  might have over-raised expectations, audience members being all too aware of Oprah Winfrey's on-screen generosity.

Everyone knows Martha Stewart can cook, but the audience is captivated by the fierce concentration with which she produces an elaborate folding paper Christmas tree, live on camera, in no time at all.  For someone with severe laryngitis, she is not only well rehearsed, but her perfectionism is demonstrated yet again during the commercial break, when the cameras are not rolling.  While Mr. Carter marks time in the shadows, and her massive studio crew races to change sets around her, Martha continues to work on her tree, ignoring all except a friendly young woman who brings her a cup of herbal tea.  It's difficult to avoid observing that Martha quickly establishes an edge of competetion between herself and her guests, whether consciously incompetent cooks, like Claire Danes, or acknowledged experts, like Mr. Carter.  Indeed, Mr. Carter appears to realise what he is up against and seems relieved when Martha moves on and he has been escorted through the wainscoted doors.

The Asian Christmas Tree

The next segment is intriguing not only because its focus is the creation of an Asian Christmas Tree but because her guest is the increasingly well - known Kevin Sharkey.  Pencil thin, laser- focused and evidently as driven as Martha, Kevin Sharkey is her accomplished home design editor and somewhat of a controversial character himself, owing in part at least to the obvious personal rapport he has with his boss.  They appear to thrive on each other's obsession with whatever they are doing; Martha Stewart is very relaxed around him, and he seems to find it easy to make her laugh.  Even so, when he proudly produces a huge plastic bonsai to form the frame of the Christmas Tree, she remains competitive. 

"Do you know how to paint a tree?" she challenges.  Without waiting for his answer she seizes the entire tree and up-ends it into an enormous garbage can full of water with a slurry of paint on the top.

“See,” she says, pulling out the delicately - coated branches, “paint floats." 

Kevin appears to be speechless. 

"Did you know that?” insists Martha.  Kevin flinches slightly and takes a couple of steps back.

Kevin Sharkey

Between the two of them they somewhat combatively decorate the Asian Christmas Tree so it resembles a drawing by Old Mister Wang, and the show is over.  But not quite; the lights go down and the cameras are switched off and Martha wanders into the audience and does an entirely spontaneous home hints Q and A, off the cuff and unrecorded.  A woman from Philadelphia asks her how to make perfect fondant, as if this is the sole reason for her long trek into Manhattan. 

"Buy it at Cake and Bake," she replies, throwing an elegant arm upwards and behind her head, in the vague direction of New York Cake and Baking Supply on 22nd Street. "I always do."  The crowd is silent, apparently stunned. 

"Oh, come on!" yells Martha. "It's sugar and water, nothing to waste time on."

With this, a beast is unleashed and Martha Stewart is pelted with an uninhibited torrent of earnest questions about short cuts and efficiency measures.  Someone even asks her where to buy the best pizza. She seems to enjoy this rally with her fans, not only because she knows what she is talking about, but because she enjoys demonstrating that this is so.  She comes close to laughing at herself, especially when asked how to measure out a pint. 

"A pint is a pound, the world around," she laughs, instantly.  "Did you know that?"

New York Cake and Baking Supplies
52 West 22nd Street, New York, NY, 10010

She wanders, chatting.  Unlike many American crowds, this studio audience is not overawed by her celebrity, but they really do want her advice.  It's difficult to tell what she is better at, household hints or people management.  She's a master at creating happy customers who want more and more of her advice, her books, kitchen gadgets, shopping bags, clothes and umbrellas, millions of which are sold every month on line, in shops, and at the studio itself.

Martha works the crowd, happily and effortlessly creating the impression that she is reluctant to end this time we've had together.  People are quietly and sincerely mesmerised by her and it comes as a surprise and a bit of a relief when she suddenly says she has to be off, gives a casual wave and disappears with Kevin Sharkey into the vast stage left kitchen from which she entered over two hours previously, and from which she will soon emerge for another taping. 

We are individually escorted from the studio with exquisite courtesy and handed a goody bag containing David A. Carter's book.  Another smiling Omnimedia personality hands us our coats and scarves, all of which have been invisibly tagged so as to return to their rightful owners, and waves us goodbye at the studio door.  We are sent very happily on our way after what feels like a delightful afternoon at home with Martha Stewart, and her amazing merchandising machine.

Complexions Contemporary Ballet

Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson (artistic directors)

Joyce Theatre, 175 8th Avenue, New York
Tuesday November 24 2009

Complexions’ current season at the Joyce, 8th Avenue at 23rd Street, is the hit of the fall Manhattan dance season and I was lucky to get a seat at the performance last Tuesday night.  I did not read the program notes before the curtain rose because I was so interested in seeing who else was there. I have never seen so many unaccompanied people, very seriously taking notes or reading the program or signalling greetings to each other. Judging by their appearance they were now or had once been dancers themselves, and I felt both privileged and fraudulent to be a mere dilettante in the midst of what was obviously a serious ballet crowd.  My distraction paid off because my first gasp occurred when the curtain rose on the entire company confronting the audience in a stance of defiant pulchritude before they hurled themselves into what felt like an intense representation of the tortures of birth, life and death.  This swept along to conclude in a phenomenal and gravity-defying epiphany as the dancers were swept up on each other’s shoulders in an elevating spiral of grace. During the interval I was moved to read that this was the first act of “Mercy,” a ballet by Complexions’ choreographer Dwight Rhoden, who created it in memory of Patrick Swayze, who was beloved by the company and whose wife is on the Board.

The Late Christopher Bean

By Sidney Howard

Actors' Theater, 410 West 42nd Street, New York
Monday November 23 2009.

I went to the Actors’ Theatre at the Beckett Theatre, 42nd Street, to see a revival of this very funny play about losing money. It was written by Sidney Howard, who won an Academy Award for the screen play of “Gone With the Wind,” and it was last seen in New York at its first season in 1932, though it was revived for Jean Stapleton in Washington DC 20 years ago.

The superficialities of time and place have aged of course (a rural doctor’s house no longer has live-in domestic staff, telegrammes no longer exist (alas) and tastes in dress and furnishings have changed, even in Massachusetts).  But the premise, that it is a tragedy to lose money you never had, seemed to resonate with the Manhattan audience.

All the actors were strong and well cast. The star of the show is said to be James Murtaugh who played the patriarchal doctor, but my attention was fixed on Cynthia Darlow. Her portrayal of a frustrated matriarch who has had to “make do” for decades, and whose cork is popped by the appalling circumstances that unfold for her and her family, was shatteringly hilarious.

Die Große Stille [Into Great Silence]

Philip Groning (Director, Screenplay, Editor, Cinematographer)

Documentary, Germany 2005, 162 minutes; Philip Groning, Elda Guidinetti, Andres Pfaffli, Michael Weber, Michael Stricker (Producers)

Many years ago I met a charming man who had, for a time, dedicated himself to a silent, enclosed order of monks. His account of the experience made me want to know more about it and I even developed the conceited fantasy that I too should dedicate my life to silence.

Philip Gröning had the same fascination and in 1984 he wrote to the Carthusian Order high in the Chartreuse Mountains and asked them to give him permission to film them. The Order replied that it would let him know when a decision had been made, and sixteen years later (a mere moment in time), it was ready. This documentary is the result.

Gröning lived with the monks for six months during which he closely observed their daily activities - with a camera. Apart from the creaking sounds of the ancient building and the disciplined routine of the monks, the film is mostly silent and establishes a clear sense of the rigorous, ascetic discipline of the life of silent contemplation.

Anyone would think this observant film would be an adequate substitute for those like me, whose egos allow them merely to fantasize about taking eternal vows in a silent order.  But the film left me with such a sense of calm and serenity that I cannot understand why it did not spark a stampede of frustrated bourgeoise heading to the Grande Chartreuse in search of the contemplative life.

Watch the trailer:

 

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

By Mary Roach

W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2003; Softcover; ISBN-13: 9780393324822 ISBN: 0393324826


This "larf 'n barf" account of the uses to which corpses are put attracted the attention of more than a few of my fellow passengers on the train from Pennsylvania Station last Friday, and rightly so. Occasionally I had to put it down, either because I was turning green or because I was convulsed with laughter.

The opening chapter reveals a room full of baking trays containing the freshly sawn-off heads which await a plastic surgeons' face lift class. Did you know that Botox is derived from cadavers donated to medical science? Want to know how to transplant a head, or learn more about "organ harvesting"?

If it all becomes too much, turn for a sweet note to the section concerning "mummy candy," a confection comprising dainty slices of the fermented bodies of old men who willingly spent the last ten years of their lives eating nothing but honey so as to be transformed into a yummy snack.

The book surprises and alarms and in my case it ensured a 12 hour train journey from New York to Maine passed in what seemed like a moment.

Visit Mary Roach 's website

Handling Edna, The Unauthorised Biography

By Barry Humphries

Hachette Australia, 2009, 412 pages, ISBN 0733624006, 9780733624001

Having seen every show, film, TV programme and book written by Barry Humphries I did not expect to be surprised by this, his 4th autobiography, and I was not disappointed.

The story is the same, more or less a melange of his two previous autobiographies and Edna’s "My Gorgeous Life," plus the new admission that, from time to time at least, Barry himself dresses as Edna and pretends to be she.

None of this matters, though. We all know Edna is a discrete personality. Barry is alone with the conundrum of her existence, and the jokes are almost as funny the fourth time around as they were when they wrecked me on the rocks of hysteria 40 years ago.

October 2009

Metropolitan Opera, Tosca

By Giacomo Pucini (music), Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica (libretti)

Luc Bondy (Director), James Levine (Conductor), Karita Mattila (Tosca), Marcelo Álvarez (Cavaradosi), George Gagnidze (Scarpia), Lincoln Center, New York, October 6 2009

I went to see the much maligned Metropolitan Opera production of Tosca in New York on October 6 2009. That was my birthday treat.  I took one of the last seats that was for sale and it was in the director's box, so I hung over the side of the auditorium (taking care not to fall, unlike Tosca) and had a wonderful time. It had its own little sitting room behind it, and a narrow corridor which was separated from the auditorium by a velvet curtain with PRIVATE inscribed on the pelmet.

What can be said about Tosca that has not been said before? It was brilliant. How could it be otherwise? Anyone who loves the "shabby little shocker" could enjoy it performed anywhere and anyhow. I’ve seen a few productions, firstly in Tasmania in 1967 with my cousin Mavis Brinckman as Tosca, then at the Sydney Opera House with Eva Marton in 1984, the Glimmerglass Opera Festival in upstate New York in 1998 and now at the Metropolitan Opera. But I have also enjoyed a version delivered by a solo street busker at the Cafe de la Paix in Kings Cross, Sydney, and nothing can compare with the performance of Act 2 by two octogenarians, residents of the Casa di Verdi home for retired opera singers, in Daniel Schmid's famous film Il Bacio di Tosca (1984).

Yet the New York audience, led by the increasingly conservative city newspaper critics, hated this new production and booed the director. The New York Times called it "a kinky take on a classic" because the staging of Act 2 introduced ogling prostitutes to Scarpia's den and, furthermore, deprived the audience of the spooky moment when Tosca arranges the candles and crucifix on and around Scarpia's remains (she lolls in shock on a sofa instead).  In a discussion at the New York Public Library two days after this performance (see the video below) Luc Bondy, having been forced by hostile critics to defend himself, said "I did not realise that Tosca is like the Bible in New York."

The audience booed because they love the old Franco Zefirelli production, in the same way as they love The Nutcracker at Christmas. Luc Bondy’s sets and staging are as new and crisp as Zefirelli's were old and fussy, yet the Te Deum was as spine chilling as ever as were all the famous, anticipated hair-raising moments. Floria’s demise was actually more dramatic than usual; instead of skipping off a three foot high battlement onto the old stuffed mattress hidden in the wings, she plunged face-first from a vertiginous bell tower, in full view of the audience.

It doesn’t really matter. All performances of Tosca are good. It's the kind of opera that just makes people want to scream, or cry, or die, or boo.

Watch Luc Bondy defend his new production of Tosca:

Snowdon, The Biography

By Anne De Courcy

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008, 404 pages, ISBN 0297844873, 9780297844877

Apart from his photographs, there's not much about the Earl of Snowdon that is intrinsically interesting except for his sex life or, more specifically, the microscopic portion of it which he shared with his wives.

After decades of discretion on the subject of Princess Margaret's sexual promiscuity and alcohol abuse, Anne de Courcy has blown the lid and the greatest burst of steam comes from none other than Lord Snowdon himself. He details not only his late wife's infidelities and addictions but also his own.

He is probably much less kind to himself than he is to his former wife, but the point remains that in co-operating with this book he displays his egocentricity more than his compassion.  As a result, reading the biography is an intense experience, involving hour after hour of voyeurism as the dirty linen of London's high society and the Royal Family is washed, scoured, scrubbed and dried in plain sight (of all who wish to watch, that is).

It’s impossible to imagine that H.M. The Queen, hitherto Lord Snowdon’s good friend, will have been greatly pleased by this book, but she has forgiven the Earl’s rakishness before and so she might again.

Somewhere along the line Anne de Courcy fell in love with Lord Snowdon.  This works well for the book as her feelings intensify rather than compromise her desire to tell all.  In fact, her fascination with the Earl seems to cause her to draw more attention to his less appealing actions and qualities than to any others.

This does not reflect favourably on her subject, and it is disgusting for the reader who is nevertheless well - entertained.

The Other Elizabeth Taylor

By Nicola Beauman

Persephone Classics, Persephone Books, London, 2009, 444 pages, ISBN 1906462100, 9781906462109

Elizabeth Taylor was despised by the literary establishment in Britain, and she still is. This biography helps to draw attention to her genious not only by accounting for her life but by describing it in the context of a literary analysis of Taylor's work.

It's a fascinating account of a sharp eyed observer who turned all she saw into some of the most brilliant fiction of the twentieth century. Despite recent re-publication of her novels and short stories, she remains unpopular and disregarded.

Even her own family opposed the publication of this book, which is brilliantly informed and studious and places Elizabeh Taylor in the firmament of literary stars where she belongs.

August 2009

Frances Partridge, The Biography

By Anne Chisholm

Publisher Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2009, 36 pages, ISBN 0297646737, 9780297646730

Everyone who loved reading Frances Partridge's diaries waited for this book with the sort of greed which could only be rewarded with a stomach ache. 

It was widely expected that many of the tantalising gaps Partridge had deliberately left in her published diaries would be filled by the author's access to previously unreleased papers and letters, as well as Frances Partridge's friends and acquaintances and to Frances herself, who co-operated with the writing of the book for several years, until she died in 2004.

Some of the gaps are filled, such as the deaths of her husband and her son (painful events which Frances Partridge edited out of her published diaries), but most are not.  It's impossible not to wonder why or to conclude that the author decided not to include material which would dismay Frances Partridge or her many friends and aquaintances still living.

Ultimately, the biography adds little to the diaries; in fact, it relies heavily on them for content and this defeats its purpose.  Considering Frances Partridge's almost uniquely privileged position as an accute observer of British art, literature, music and society throughout the entire twentieth century, and Anne Chisholm's access to her during the last ears of her life, this biography is cause for significant disappointment.

July 2009

The Letters of Noel Coward

Barry Day (ed.)

Random House Inc., New York, 2007, Hardcover, 800 pages, $37.50, ISBN: 978-0-375-42303-1 (0-375-42303-6)

It's no surprise to that Noel Coward not only wrote notes and letters compulsively, but that he meticulously kept copies of them in a well organized archive so that he could be sure we would have the benefit of reading them decades later.

The trouble is, many of them (in fact most of them) are not worth reading.  Until she died in the 1950s his mother was the main object of his letters and his affections and it is impossible to read the letters to her without feeling slightly nauseated. It's a relief when now and again she attacks him for being pompous or patronising, because in the main he is, not only to her but to, well, almost everyone.

The editor's decision to 'stream' some of the letters into subject matter channels makes the book complicated because this interrupts the chronology, but sometimes this also saves one flipping back and forth to the index to find the next letter dealing with a particular subject. The tale of Coward's friendship with Marlene Dietrich is a good example. We are able to read of her unhappy affair with Yule Brynner without pausing to pant and fumble through the index to find the next lurid instalment (and it is lurid). But this approach destabilises the book's essential continuity.

The non-chronological approach frustrated me less than the inconsistent standard of the letters themselves.  Most are neither intrinsically interesting nor of a publishable standard. To the die hard fans such as the editor is (he has written or edited all of the authoritative works on Noel Coward) this would be no deterrent to enjoyment, but to those of us who love good letters more than we love Noel Coward it is a bore to have to wade through so much of so little consequence.

In Tasmania: Adventures at the End of the World

By Nicholas Shakespeare

I read this book while I was in Tasmania in March, 2009, staying at my late grandparents’ shack at Marion Bay, so found myself in the places Shakespeare was writing about, up the East Coast and around Swansea.

I enjoyed its casual narratives in the way that it is fascinating to read about a place you know well but I remained distant from the narrator.

Shakespeare accumulates no end of contradictions, paradoxes, and missing pieces as he drives about the island exploring its history and gossip. Although he engages plenty of weathered, shrewd and atavistic locals in discussions, he doesn’t pursue to conclusion any of the hints they make about the facts behind their histories, but leaves the stories as they are, enigmatically colourful.

Ultimately the book is a vast collection of pithy observations and leading questions, which remain unresolved. After writing it, Shakespeare decided to move permanently from London to Tasmania, to a house in a remote location beyond Swansea on the south east coast. I wasn't really surprised to find that he remained a visitor and has since moved back to the UK

Anyone who grew up in Tasmania knows there actually are solutions to the riddles for which Shakespeare finds no answers and I certainly doubted that he would want to stay in Tasmania once he’d worked them out for himself.

March 2009

Life With My Sister Madonna

By Christopher Ciccone

Simon & Schuster, New York, 2008, hardcover, 352 pages, ISBN-10: 1416587624, ISBN-13: 9781416587620

Reading this book is like watching an obese man complaining about his weight while stuffing himself at an "all you can eat" buffet.

Evidently Christopher Ciccone did not know that, in the wild, siblings slaughter each other.  When he was fourteen and his big sister Madonna started telling him what to do, he assumed she knew what she was talking about, and he obeyed her.  He's been doing this ever since and now he wonders why he is in trouble with his career, finances and identity.  Naturally, when he followed Madonna’s every instruction and made himself available whenever she wanted him, he became a bore and Madonna fired him.

Poor Christopher is still trying to work it out. He won’t of course, until like the man at the buffet he steps away from the table.  But in the meantime he hangs in the purgatory he shares with all of Madonna's ex family and friends, waiting for the call to return to duty.

Diaries: 1939-1972, Frances Partridge

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000, ISBN 0297646664, 9780297646662, 715 pages

Frances Partridge, who died a few weeks short of her 104th birthday in 2004, kept diaries throughout her whole life, and reading them propels you into a parallel universe from which there is no escape until they have all been devoured.

She was acquainted with the entire Bloomsbury Group, but she knew almost everyone else who played a leading role in British writing, music, theatre, dance, cinema and painting throughout the 20th century, and her diaries lead the reader into what feels like an intimate acquaintance with them all.

The diaries continued for thirty years after the last published volume so we addicts are waiting for more (quite soon, please).

Listen to Frances Partridge on the BBC Women's Hour

December, 2009

Wodehouse, A Life

By Robert McCrum

W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2004 530 pages, $27.95, ISBN: 0393051595

Reviewed in Good Reading, the Magazine for Book Lovers, ABN 38003 750 150, October 2005

Good Reading Magazine

Like millions of others I had an early attachment to P.G. Wodehouse’s books having read them in omnibus version through four years of Scripture at Prospect High School in Launceston. Although I have returned to them over and over I’ve always had the impression that Wodehouse was born old and boring.

This biography indicates that I might have been right about that. Half way through the book there is an entire chapter on tax returns and during the first half of the book Mr. McCrum cranks the reader's flagging interest with frequent promises of more excitement during the chapters covering World War Two.

It appears, despite McCrum’s apologia, that Wodehouse was an outright collaborator except that unlike some others he was directly commissioned and sponsored by the Nazis. Previously I had always thought he was an innocent victim of circumstance who richly deserved the knighthood so remarkably bestowed in his last year (the Queen Mother was a fan).

The book is well written and easy to read though it hasn't much to say as, when not writing, Wodehouse seems to have spent all his time watching cricket, having a martini before dinner and going to bed. If he did anything else (apart from collaborate with Nazis that is) there is little evidence of it in this book.

There is much to enjoy in McCrum’s valuable and informed enthusiasm about Wodehouse’s writing, but he tends to dismiss the rest of Wodehouse’s life by saying what an odd person he was - oh and a Nazi collaborator, but lets draw a veil over that.

After reading Allan Jefferson’s 1996 biography of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in which it was proved that she was a willing member of the Nazi Party, I was never able to listen to her music again and having failed to give away her CDs I threw them out. After reading "Wodehouse, A Life" I honestly doubt that I will ever read another Wodehouse book again (don’t hold me to that) or have one in the house (ditto).