Steve Martin Event So ‘Boring’ Audience Issued Refund

By Audrey Morrison
Fri, 03 Dec 2010 16:42:03 GMT

wow. that IS odd. he did his part, showed up and talked on topic.

i wonder if that particular venue has some kind of weird rule

Aside from having a little crush on Steve from the time I was a wee lad, I respect him for his talent and wit. I would love to hear him discuss art. He has an amazing collection. I wish I had gone to this event.

i adore vintage Steve as well, but let's be honest, he has been a crushing bore since around LA Story.

whistle said:

i adore vintage Steve as well, but let's be honest, he has been a crushing bore since around LA Story.

has not*

*in my opinion

[Edited 12/3/10 9:54am]

XxAxX said:

whistle said:

i adore vintage Steve as well, but let's be honest, he has been a crushing bore since around LA Story.

has not

oh, i think so. somewhere along the line he stopped being funny and switched over to saccharine American family dreck and/or trying a little too hard to be urbane.

My friend knows two people that went. She said while they weren't "art" people, they aren't philistines either and they thought it was ridiculous. Evidently, Solomon (the interviewer) actually took out her copy of the book and asked questions from the text and margins, e ffectively revealing parts of the novel. Since the event was also an attempt to sell books, and the book was only out 6 days, this was not appreciated much by her friends, both of whom are reading the book. And that when Solomon asked the audience questions, she prefaced at least one by saying something along the lines of 'Well, that's a stupid question.'

Here's another write-up about it: http://emdashes.com/2010/11/steve-martin-and-deborah-solom.php

It looks like the interview treated the event like a book review/report/lecture.

whistle said:

i adore vintage Steve as well, but let's be honest, he has been a crushing bore since around LA Story.

That is just absolutely not true.

Although I'll grant you that "It's Complicated" has to be a career lowpoint.

whistle said:

XxAxX said:

has not

oh, i think so. somewhere along the line he stopped being funny and switched over to saccharine American family dreck and/or trying a little too hard to be urbane.

well, i've gotten in trouble on here for expressing myself a little too bluntly but here goes anyway

i see it like this: he's branched out and people won't let him be anything but the 'funnyman' he used to be. trapped in a mold of his own design

i think this book sounds intriguing (could be wrong but it does to me).

thank you, that is all

By virtue of his many decades of A-list celebrity, Steve Martin is a famous author. But unlike James Franco (who last month released Palo Alto, a debut collection of short fiction) or Pamela Anderson (who has written not one, but two quote-unquote novels), Martin has spent the past decade proving that he’s not a dilettante capitalizing on name-brand recognition. Starting with his 2000 novella Shopgirl, Martin has been keyboarding at a steady pace, publishing a second novella in 2003 (The Pleasure of My Company), along with his 2007 memoir Born Standing Up.

An Object of Beauty is Martin’s first full-length novel, an examination of how art and commerce intersect in New York (“Auctions were, and still are, spectator sports, where the contestants are money”), as chronicled by an art writer with the unfortunate name of Daniel Chester French Franks. Providing a peek inside Sotheby’s auction house along with the back rooms of various Chelsea galleries (“from which new art was mined and then trucked into residences of Manhattan”) the novel exposes the strange rituals and logic-defying prices of the contemporary art world, in a way similar to Sarah Thornton’s non-fiction book Seven Days in the Art World. But since An Object of Beauty begins in the early 1990s and concludes with the recent recession, Martin instead provides Eighteen Years in The Art World.

Our heroine is Lacey Yeager, a good-bad girl determined to open her own gallery no matter who gets crushed along the way. As Lacey explains to her confidant Daniel Franks:

“I’m seeing a guy who’s got me figured out. He never says I love you.”

“That’s good?”

“I love him for it.”

During her 20s, Lacey quickly learns to convert objects of beauty into objects of value — be it artworks or, indeed, herself. Her off-again, on-again lover, Patrice Claire, notes that “both you and paintings are layered. You, in the complex onion-peel way, dark secrets and all that.”

The problem with Lacey, however is that “Patrice was used to the steadfast responses of paintings, not the unpredictable responses of people.” Thus, the Picture of Lacey Yeager eventually becomes as grotesque as Dorian Gray.

While Martin effectively mixes research with an obvious passion and insight into art (he’s a noted collector himself), the novel contains a few unnecessary brushstrokes, mostly involving 9/11. It’s not that funnyman Martin isn’t equipped to handle the challenge — it’s more that there isn’t anything to add to that particular tragedy. As the Toronto literary journal Taddle Creek notes on its submission guidelines, “The magazine wishes it didn’t still have to be said, but it does: no stories about September 11th, the Y2K bug, or tsunamis.”

As you might expect from a lifelong comedian, there are plenty of witty asides throughout — a hotel “where the lighting had been preset to sex” and “Basquiat was achieving sensational prices but at least had the courtesy to be dead”.

More often the novel provides a serious attempt at documenting the financial and creative ripples made possible by Warhol’s self-aware pop art. It would seem that the true wild and crazy guys are contemporary artists able to create surreal punchlines (“Maurizio Cattelan made a life-size sculpture of the pope flattened by a meteor that had just fallen through a skylight”) that earn them millions.

XxAxX said:

wow. that IS odd. he did his part, showed up and talked on topic.

i wonder if that particular venue has some kind of weird rule

That's what I'm saying as well. Like it wasn't like he just didn't show up or he did show up and was high or drunk and talked about the space, the moon and the stars. He showed up, discussed the book and that was it. I'm thinking maybe the audience felt they could get a partial stand-up performance thrown in with the event as well???

here is some insight from the link posted above:

http://emdashes.com/2010/...-solom.php

missfee said:

XxAxX said:

wow. that IS odd. he did his part, showed up and talked on topic.

i wonder if that particular venue has some kind of weird rule

That's what I'm saying as well. Like it wasn't like he just didn't show up or he did show up and was high or drunk and talked about the space, the moon and the stars. He showed up, discussed the book and that was it. I'm thinking maybe the audience felt they could get a partial stand-up performance thrown in with the event as well???

it seems like the problem was more with the interviewer who treated the discussion like a book review and revealed details from the book that wasn't common knowledge to the audience, as well as insulted their intelligence.

XxAxX said:

here is some insight from the link posted above:

http://emdashes.com/2010/...-solom.php

Martin Schneider writes:

It was a curious scene Monday night at 92Y. Steve Martin and Deborah Solomon, who is responsible for the "Questions For" feature in The New York Times Magazine, were slated to entertain a mostly filled Kaufmann Concert Hall (and, via simulcast, many other viewers at synagogues around the country) with an hour or so of lively chat.

It took only a few minutes for Solomon to alienate the audience thoroughly.

Solomon's strategy was to treat the event like a book report, covering, almost chapter by chapter, Martin's new novel about the art world, An Object of Beauty. As Martin pointed out, it was wise to assume that the percentage of spectators who had read the book, published only a few days earlier, was "zero," making in-depth discussion of the characters' foibles something less than the optimal plan. That did not stop Solomon.

Still on how the audience was able to get a refund because they were simply "bored to death". Doesn't seem like their reason for wanting a refund was justifiable.

[Edited 12/3/10 10:07am]

missfee said:

XxAxX said:

wow. that IS odd. he did his part, showed up and talked on topic.

i wonder if that particular venue has some kind of weird rule

That's what I'm saying as well. Like it wasn't like he just didn't show up or he did show up and was high or drunk and talked about the space, the moon and the stars. He showed up, discussed the book and that was it. I'm thinking maybe the audience felt they could get a partial stand-up performance thrown in with the event as well???

i've attended book events where it was clear the author was just not into being there. but, i appreciate that too. it gives me insight into the artist as a person, in a way.

steve martin has made such a career of being outrageous he will probably never live it down. he's been pigeonholed.

missfee said:

XxAxX said:

here is some insight from the link posted above:

http://emdashes.com/2010/...-solom.php

Still on how the audience was able to get a refund because they were simply "bored to death". Doesn't seem like their reason for wanting a refund was justified enough.

i agree. when i'm bored to death i get up and leave. simple. chalk it up to a learning experience as in, don't buy tickets to this again

XxAxX said:

missfee said:

Still on how the audience was able to get a refund because they were simply "bored to death". Doesn't seem like their reason for wanting a refund was justified enough.

i agree. when i'm bored to death i get up and leave. simple. chalk it up to a learning experience as in, don't buy tickets to this again

For real That's just like me calling Verizon to demand for a reduction in my cable bill for the month I wasted my time being bored to death by watching the Grammy Awards. Them folks would laugh on the phone and then hang up in my face.

missfee said:

XxAxX said:

here is some insight from the link posted above:

http://emdashes.com/2010/...-solom.php

Still on how the audience was able to get a refund because they were simply "bored to death". Doesn't seem like their reason for wanting a refund was justified enough.

If you showed up to a Prince concert and instead got Prince giving a talk about Jehovah would you want your money back? The audience thought it was going to be a talk about many different facets of Martin's career including his film/comedic career and books. It ended up being a detailed book review about a book that was released about a week ago and most of the audience had not read.

jone70 said:

missfee said:

Still on how the audience was able to get a refund because they were simply "bored to death". Doesn't seem like their reason for wanting a refund was justified enough.

If you showed up to a Prince concert and instead got Prince giving a talk about Jehovah would you want your money back? The audience thought it was going to be a talk about many different facets of Martin's career including his film/comedic career and books. It ended up being a detailed book review about a book that was released about a week ago and most of the audience had not read.

Sure I'd want it back, but I wouldn't actually GET IT back. C'mon now.

And your example is a bit of comparing apples with oranges. I think a better example would be "If I showed up to a Prince concert expecting him to perform his classic songs mixed with some new and he ended up performing all of his new, unreleased material (which I'd probably wouldn't mind ...but for the sake of this example) which I didn't care for, I'd just walk out. I'd probably want a refund but I know I wouldn't get one.

Shucks if that's the case, then where are my damn reparations from wasting my time and money going to see those Tyler Perry films???

[Edited 12/3/10 10:13am]

jone70 said:

missfee said:

Still on how the audience was able to get a refund because they were simply "bored to death". Doesn't seem like their reason for wanting a refund was justified enough.

If you showed up to a Prince concert and instead got Prince giving a talk about Jehovah would you want your money back? The audience thought it was going to be a talk about many different facets of Martin's career including his film/comedic career and books. It ended up being a detailed book review about a book that was released about a week ago and most of the audience had not read.

the last prince concert i attended was the 7/7/7 series at the target center and the sound was so bad i could hardly tell what songs were being played, half the tine.

still didn't ask for my $$ back. chalked it up to experience......

you're right though. had he spoken on jehovah instead of playing that would not have been okay.

[Edited 12/3/10 10:11am]

missfee said:

jone70 said:

If you showed up to a Prince concert and instead got Prince giving a talk about Jehovah would you want your money back? The audience thought it was going to be a talk about many different facets of Martin's career including his film/comedic career and books. It ended up being a detailed book review about a book that was released about a week ago and most of the audience had not read.

Sure I'd want it back, but I wouldn't actually GET IT back. C'mon now.

And your example is a bit of comparing apples with oranges. I think a better example would be "If I showed up to a Prince concert expecting him to perform his classic songs mixed with some new and he ended up performing all of his new, unreleased material (which I'd probably wouldn't mind ...but for the sake of this example) which I didn't care for, I'd just walk out. I'd probably want a refund but I know I wouldn't get one.

Shucks if that's the case, then where are my damn reparations from wasting my time and money going to see those Tyler Perry films???

[Edited 12/3/10 10:13am]

Well evidently there were enough complaints from audience members that the 92nd Street Y felt a refund was warranted. I've been to a lot of boring artist lectures and never even walked out, let alone asked for a refund. But that's just me.

jone70 said:

missfee said:

Sure I'd want it back, but I wouldn't actually GET IT back. C'mon now.

And your example is a bit of comparing apples with oranges. I think a better example would be "If I showed up to a Prince concert expecting him to perform his classic songs mixed with some new and he ended up performing all of his new, unreleased material (which I'd probably wouldn't mind ...but for the sake of this example) which I didn't care for, I'd just walk out. I'd probably want a refund but I know I wouldn't get one.

Shucks if that's the case, then where are my damn reparations from wasting my time and money going to see those Tyler Perry films???

[Edited 12/3/10 10:13am]

Well evidently there were enough complaints from audience members that the 92nd Street Y felt a refund was warranted. I've been to a lot of boring artist lectures and never even walked out, let alone asked for a refund. But that's just me.

Yeah I suppose.

Lisa10 said:

What a fucking twerp.

I'm not even a tremendous fan of Martin's, but that was just stupid. There's nothing about that stunt that makes the interviewer clever or appealing.

Ottensen said:

Lisa10 said:

What a fucking twerp.

I'm not even a tremendous fan of Martin's, but that was just stupid. There's nothing about that stunt that makes the interviewer clever or appealing.

Oh my that was just wrong on all levels.

There is was another mention in the New York Times last week: http://artsbeat.blogs.nyt...f=nyregion

He has become a "mild and lazy guy," but it was not his fault the interviewer asked him about nothing but art.

Plus it was not a perfomance. Who pays to see an interview?!