Thinking Genius Look

Well the BBC special on Billie Holiday was not as good as the one on Callas, but there was one really eerie thing that, unless you have watched “The Making of Miss Saigon” a million times with me like Wong has (who had her birthday yesterday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!), and she will unfortunately probably never see the BBC special, you won’t be able to understand, but Billie Holiday in her later years and Lea Salonga (even at 16) bear such similarity it was truly uncanny (one will note that it’s perhaps odd that an aged black woman could bear such a resemblance to a teenager from the Philippines).

It wasn’t just her eyes, but her look, her forehead, just EVERYTHING in some shots was so Lea. Very spooky. There is a part of the BBC special that has Holiday’s 1957 “Sound of Jazz” TV performance, where she sings the one and only blues song she ever sang (which she wrote, herself – something about how her man was bad to her), and her Nester Young, a dying saxophone player, was there, too. The looks that she has when she is singing in that part are SO much like Lea sitting at the piano in her first audition in Manila that I can’t believe it – its this thinking look (I described it once to Curie, and I don’t know if she remembers…there is a look that I call the “thinking genius” look and it’s actually the weird way in which someone like Lea can look like Martina Hingis, or Billy Holiday…it’s so hard to describe!). I really wish I could find side-by-sides to prove this! (I should say that USUALLY they look nothing alike, but just in these moments they really look the same)

Ah well. Better go to the gym. It’s so cold, still!

VC

PS: Alfred Brendel (pianist) special on, now. I really want to stay and watch. He said the cutest thing – he was like: “I wasn’t a child prodigy. I’m not, to my knowledge, a genius. I’m not from Eastern Europe. My parents were not musicians. I have a decent memory, but it’s not exceptional, and I am not a very good sight-reader. I have no idea how I made it.” *big grin* He seems VERY good-natured! His hands are SO still. God, Pookie was an ANGEL for taking me to so many concerts (probably because my après-box analysis was so on point ;p). Oh he just said another cute thing (reading from his diary…he’s also a poet and painted in his youth – they looked great to me, but he thinks they’re bad): “If I had a twin…a real-life double, my doppelganger could be used to save time by cooking and cleaning, and practicing…and in return he could be recognized in public, receive prizes, honours, and distinctions, charm ladies, smile coyly, and exude optimism…of course, he’d have to be kept happy, otherwise he might hide my socks, overdraw my account, or, worse yet, attempt to play the piano, maybe a Beethoven sonata, even…in the end he could run me out of business, completely!”