Jonathan Kirsch, reviewing the novel "Carriage Trade" in the Los Angeles Times in 1993, noted that Birmingham kicked off the book "with a device so hackneyed that it has become the stuff of parody: the reading of the will". But by the end of the book — a mystery tale concerning a family dynasty in the department store business — Kirsch admitted to being hooked.
Van Gundy did not issue any warnings about a letdown, not even a cautionary tale concerning the Knicks' pattern of giving the league's lowliest team 19-522) a reprieve from its depressing existence.
In performances at the Opera House from Tuesday through Sunday, the company will present two full-length ballets by the 19th-century Danish master August Bournonville: "A Folk Tale," concerning trolls, changelings and the triumph of love, and "Napoli," a seaside romance set in Italy.
The opera, Mozart's last, premiered at the rustic Theater auf der Wieden near Vienna on September 30, 1791, not long before Mozart's death on December 5. On one level, The Magic Flute is a simple fairy tale concerning a damsel in distress and the handsome prince who rescues her.
I spoke with New Orleans lawyer, Andrew Legrand of Spera Law about an interesting cautionary tale concerning an artist who had developed a logo for a small business about ten years prior and the business that paid for it but did not have the rights assigned.
"How to Plant a Rose," on the other hand, is an addled playlet set in a garden where a grandmother (Delphi Harrington) relates a thoroughly uninvolving family tale concerning an ancestor named, uh, Rose, to her granddaughter (the sweet Bronwyn Maloney).
It is no accident that Michael Redgrave's one work of fiction was a Gothic novella, The Mountebank's Tale, concerning a pure classical actor and his extrovert showman double, or that his highly articulate essays on acting are called Mask or Face.
He introduces 'Spooky Girlfriend', off the new album, as 'a cautionary tale concerning a showbiz weasel'.
The film is a coming-of-age tale concerning Rashad, played by Atlanta native and hip hop artist T.I. in his film debut, and his friends in their final year in high school and on the verge of adulthood.
This plot, however, is a metaphysical comic fairy tale, concerning aging Pridamant (Christopher T. Wood), whose search for his disinherited son (Jay Sefton) has led him to necromancer Alcandre (Lauren Maher).
(Got all that?) But this tale, concerning a trio of Vietnam vets who reunite to bury one of their own sons who was killed in the Iraq war, is universal in its evocation of the sorrow and regret that comes with getting older, as well as how crushing and utterly pointless loss can feel.
