Tuesday, May 06, 2003
Welcome to the 11th Annual Dick Tracy Days 2000 Events Woodstock's celebration of Dick Tracy Days, June 21 to 25, will begin with a 16-year tradition, a Woodstock City Band concert in the Park-in-the Square.
For eleven years, Dick Tracy Days has officially opened with a band concert. This year's band concert begins at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 21. "Books on the Square," music inspired by literature, is the theme of the evening. Hmm, you'd think the theme of the evening would be "having your fingers broken and dying alone and unnoticed in a freezing storm trying to escape from that #@$! copper Tracy!" But then that's a lot harder to stage, I guess. It's a shame that so few people actually know, remember or care what black, harsh and brutal strip Chester Gould's Dick Tracy was: Gould, a four-color puritan (although his strip worked best when he stuck to just black and white), plotted his stories by the seat of his pants, giving himself the time to fully flesh out torture sequences of Tracy (I remember a deathtrap in which a long nail is being driven slowly through his chest) and spectacularly grisly finishes for his ugsome criminals (I doubt there was ever a more successful physiognomist than Chester Gould). And what do we have as tribute to the bold and brutal success of his work? Water fights and garage sales. Who knows? Gould--whose immortality is assured until two-way public radio watches become common--may well have preferred to be remembered that way than for the truth.
posted by Jeff Lester |
8:54 AM |
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