Yesterday I went up to Albany with my partner Laura to visit Phil Frost’s painting studio. We toured the massive industrial work space and got a sneak peek at the hundreds of works that he is simultaneously painting. He has made some very beautiful pieces that are very much worth checking out.

I just discovered this very impressive installation by my friend Andy Payne.

In September the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a bipartisan deficit-hawk group based at the New America Foundation, held a high-profile symposium urging the Congressional “supercommittee” to “go big” and approve a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan over the next decade, which is well beyond its $1.2 trillion mandate. The hearing began with an alarming video of top policy-makers describing the national debt as “the most serious threat that this country has ever had” (Alan Simpson) and “a threat to the whole idea of self-government” (Mitch Daniels). If the debt continues to rise, predicted former New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, there would be “strikes, riots, who knows what?” A looming fiscal crisis was portrayed as being just around the corner.

This future / past BMW scene is on my friend Noah’s website. I have no idea what is going on here but I like it.

Five Beauties, which is produced by (and features) my soon to be brother-in-law, Anthony Cran, just received this great review by the LA Times:

Tennessee Williams’ enduring masterworks understandably overshadow his knack for the short form, worthy miniatures appearing across the canon. The New American Theatre gratifyingly observes the Williams centenary with “Five Beauties,” an airtight quintet of rarely performed one-acts.

First up: the recently discovered “Green Eyes,” a Vietnam War-era study of a tormented soldier and his hormonal bride. Courtney Munch and Brendan Brandt are physically unfettered, palpably attuned combatants, directed by Mark Bringelson with coiled intensity. “The Lady of Larkspur Lotion” shifts to comic Southern Gothic, and Bjorn Johnson’s staging lovingly highlights the fantasist title character (delicious Cameron Meyer), her grimly unconvinced landlady (wry Mona Lee Wylde), and a sodden fellow dreamer (rhapsodic John Copeland).

Before intermission comes “The Traveling Companion,” which packs a wallop. As a neurotic gay writer navigates his aggressively macho escort’s defenses, the exchanges feel as much like embedded memories as taut dramaturgy. Tom Groenwald makes a superb authorial proxy, Byron Field is an ideally posturing prey, and director Ron Klier maneuvers them to memorable effect.

“Moony’s Kid Don’t Cry,” Williams’ first published work, heightens the tension. Helmed by Elina de Santos with precision, this standoff between a factory worker (bravura Scott Sheldon) and his exhausted wife (nuanced Jade Sealey) is Williams in Arthur Miller mode. And the baroque finale, “Auto-Da-Fé” — anxiously repressed son, sweetly domineering mother, incendiary French Quarter — benefits from actors Anthony Cran and Bibi Tinsley and director Jack Stehlin, who devour the surreal, pre-“Glass Menagerie” idiom.

There’s a faintly showcase aspect to the budget-constrained designs, but they’re handled with resourceful élan. Such assurance typifies this compelling compendium.

— David C. Nichols

I hung out with my friend Darren last night and he showed me this new Rolex he designed. Pretty sweet.

New paintings by my friend Noah Olmsted