Too many mornings,
Wishing that the room might be filled with you,
Morning to morning,
Turning into days.
All the days
That I thought would never end,
All the nights with another day to spend

Here's a shameful confession, in case it makes you feel any better: in almost twenty years of living in Washington Heights, I haven't learned a single word of Spanish.

Third time's a charm. I finally got my new dishwasher installed today after being told last Saturday that it couldn't be installed until I had an electrician put in a dedicated 110V outlet for a dishwasher. So now I have the proper setup for a new dishwasher, and am out an additional $300-something.

Unfortunately, I don't know if it was installed correctly because there was a language barrier between the installers and me (I don't speak Spanish   ) They did show me that it was working by turning on a setting, but no one actually showed me how to use it. They didn't put any of my stuff from the under-sink cabinet away, either, leaving it up to me with my arm in a sling.  I got the impression they just wanted to be out of there quickly. I feel like I'm Archie Bunker or something, and I hate feeling like this, but we truly could not understand each other. 

I feel terrible. Maybe I'll take a nap before Physical Therapy comes.

So, old friends.
Now it's time to start growing up:
Taking charge, seeing things as they are.
Facing facts, not escaping them.
Still with dreams — just reshaping them.
Growing up...

Charley is a hothead, Charley won't budge.
Charley is a friend...

Charley is a screamer, Charley won't bend!
Charley's in your corner.

Mary is a dreamer.  Mary's a friend...
Mary is a nudge.

Mary is a purist, Charley's a judge.
Charley is a dropout.  Everything's a "copout"!
Why is it old friends don't want old friends to change?

Every road has a turning,
That's the way you keep learning...

I thought this would take a bit longer to find, but I had the libretto sitting out (being too lazy to put it away).

Don't be scared
You won't prevail,
Everybody's
Free to fail,
No one can be put in jail
For his dreams.


[When this lyric is repeated later in the show, it's "for their dreams," which is how I remember the lyric, but the libretto says "his dreams" when Booth originally sings it. (Assassins, Sondheim & Weidman, Theatre Communications Group, 1991, page 12). None of this affects the target word.] 

Further hijinks with our lovable Tony-nominated trio — who, if they don't already have one by now, really need a compound nickname (like Brangelina or Bennifer, but tripartite):  Jandsay?  Dindathan?  Lothaniel?...

Anyway, here they are at the 92nd St Y a few weeks ago:



...And in several more cast-album music videos, featuring mixed footage from rehearsal, performance, and the recording studio:

Today is the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby, and, as usual, I have high stakes bet on the race (two candy bars). There is no horse with a Sondheim-themed name running this year. It is also (ostensibly) Dishwasher Delivery Day No. 2. This is 8 days after the dishwasher was originally supposed to be delivered and never showed up. I'm not putting much faith in its delivery today. Naturally, they did not call to tell me a window when they would be delivering.

Tomorrow I am finally seeing Emma, a stage adaptation of the Jane Austen novel, after that was delayed twice. 

If only angels could prevail,
We'd be the way we were.


I've always assumed that this game works far better with Sondheim than it would with any other lyricist.  That's because I've always assumed he uses a significantly broader vocabulary, which might partly be related to his aversion to "extractable hits," instead tailoring each song to character and dramatic circumstance with uncompromising specificity.  (This is a randomly broad observation, apropos of nothing in particular.  But, just to link it loosely to the two lines above, Sweeney is written with far more attention to "period" diction — or at least to Sondheim, Wheeler and Bond's version thereof — than just about any other musical I can think of; the show's first three words, "attend the tale," place us in some fairly remote past, and for almost the next three hours, the slightly archaic word-choice and syntax never go away entirely, nor do they ever devolve into any insipid, Hollywoodish version of "olde-timey" language).

But I say I "assume" SJS's vocabulary is broader because, notwithstanding the many, many specific instances one could cite, I'm curious about the actual numbers.  How many of his more-exotic words are one-offs within his entire body of work ("ameliorate")?  How many are unique to him (e.g., had the word "cupola" ever, in the nearly 500 years since it entered the English language, been set to music prior to Bounce?  And, in terms of overall breadth, how would a complete concordance of Sondheim's lyrics compare to one of, say, Jerry Herman's?  Again, I'm guessing it would contain "significantly" more entries — but just how significantly?  Is Sondheim's vocabulary as much as twice the size of Herman's?  or even more??  How about Sheldon Harnick's?  Or Fred Ebb's?  Would the actual numbers prove Sondheim to be the wordiest B'way lyricist, in terms of the sheer quantity of words he's written — or of the average word-length of his songs — and, if so, should that be factored into any attempt to quantify their variety?  Such a concordance might make this game a lot less fun to play, but it would still be fascinating to peruse.

To return to the current target-word, prevail isn't terribly exotic, but it's not super-commonplace, either; still, SJS uses it at least twice that I know of.

You've been a preacher--
  Yes, I have!
You've been an author--
  Yes, I have!
You've been a killer--
  Yes, I have!
You could be an angel--
  Yes, I could!



I'm listening to this song right now from Anthony De Mare's Liaisons: Reimagining Sondheim from the Piano. An insanely good recording.

...or not:

NYT:   Forbidden Broadway Scraps Summer Broadway Run, Citing Crowded Season