[MAHLER ON THE COUCH screens Friday September 21st at 7:30 pm and Sunday September 23rd at 4 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
Remember Tom Lehrer? He was the Harvard math professor
who had a brief, brilliant career as a piano-playing musical satirist, quite
edgy for his time, pressing a few immortal albums before retiring from the gag
biz. He gave a fine excuse, that when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace
Prize, no joke Lehrer or anyone else could conceive could surpass what was
going on in reality. Kind of like what I felt about the 2000 elections. Anyway,
one of the tunes in the Tom Lehrer songbook was "Alma,"
a naughty little ditty about the wife of the great composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911); she
seemed to have serial marriages/affairs with geniuses, one after the other, in
different fields. If Alma lived in Hollywood
today...bet she'd be celibate (rimshot).
Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
