STEVE SONDHEIM IS WATCHING YOU.

He’s in a tree!

Avedon at his best.

Poor guy had so much trouble with his eyelids as he got older.

I'm shocked his hair was combed.

I just watch him right back.

Is Sondheim Ceiling Cat?

Steve Sondheim is watching me poop.

Isn't it rich?

He's saying you'll never get away from me

Yoo, hoo, Steve, I'm in my leather now with a riding crop in hand.

The sun comes up, I'm watching you.

The coffee cup, I'm watching you.

Sometimes people watch you, halfway through the wood...

👀 👀👀👀👀

I feel pretty!

FOLLIES!

Children will listen!

What a surprise

Who could foresee?

I've come to feel about you what you felt about me

And here's to the girls who just watch — aren't they the best?

This is piss! Piss with ink!

By the way, if you go by his house, there is now a plaque commemorating him. Very tasteful of the new owner.

He dims the lights...and thinks about you.

Me here at last on the ground, him in thin air.

And one for Mahler!

Spends sleepless nights... to think about you

A weekend...

Well, let us part by mutual consent and be content.

And so good luck and goodbye - I must go.

Oh, and yes, we haven't paid the rent

Since July...

Just so you know...

Every day a little...

He looks like Peter Falk on a good day.

In the parlor, in the bed,

In the curtains, in the silver,

In the buttons, in the bread.

One quick look as each of 'em leaves you

All I meant is that I haven't seen a customer for weeks!

In his dungeon was he the submissive or the aggressor?

[italic]Americana[/italic] by Don DeLillo supposedly gives details about how Sondheim was from the 60's until he mellowed out as he aged.

Well ,there are worse things than staring at the water on a Sunday.

And he won't go away...

[quote] In his dungeon was he the submissive or the aggressor?

He was only the greeter, like at Wal-Mart.

That made the whole thing even more humiliating.

Where ya goin'?

That's a nice segue into what I wanted to talk about. I just saw the gender-reversed Company on the Broadway tour. Having seen Company in many different versions, I didn't love it. The female lead worked hard, but to me the essence of Bobby as a character is his unwillingness to commit, partly based upon his cynical appraisal of the marriages around him, but partly because of his own ambiguity about love and loneliness. That's what gives Being Alive its poignancy. Woman seem to commit at the drop of a hat, so it wasn't convincing to me to have a woman being unwilling to commit. It's almost always men who are reluctant to commit. The director also worked in a whole bit in which Bobbie seems to visualize her future as a somewhat unwilling mother while she's having sex with the dumb flight attendant. Not believable, partly because in the original, (and the ending of "Barcelona") it's clear that Bobby is NOT going for the flight attendant long-term. So that was a fail of a plot device.

Some of the words are obsolete now. "I'll call you in the morning, or my service will explain" and some of the lines from "Ladies who lunch". Still, Sondheim had a genius for capturing the poignancy of longing, and he dissected the pros and cons of long-term relationships perfectly in "Sorry/grateful" in a way that I don't think had ever been done before in theater before then. It's a great musical because of that.

Men are stupid, men are vain

Love's disgusting, love's insane

Nothing's going to hard you. Not while I'm around.

HARM. GOD DAMMIT, STEVE, JUST WHIP ME ALREADY.

He must be thankful he's dead.

Steve, I know some rando queen said your lyrics to "Send in The Clowns" were "the definition of leaky maudlin bullshit", but it's hard enough right now and we don't need you haunting the place. We'll take care of her.