When is Manhattan the most crowded?
Between 5 and 6 p.m. on the Wednesday after Christmas, apparently:
“You have, on the one hand, all the tourists who are here… Then you have people who have left the matinee and people who are coming to evening shows and eating dinner before or after the shows.†Add the commuters who are still pouring out of offices, along with people returning gifts or using their gift cards.
Agoraphobes: stay away.
Wow! I’d been looking for this old “3-2-1 Contact” segment forever:
[via Scrubbles]
From a few months ago: Tired Sci-Fi Tropes, Part 1 and Part 2.
My favorites:
(1) Humanoid aliens. This is the one I always make snarky comments about whenever Matt’s watching reruns of Star Trek: Voyager.
I don’t have the space here to go into the reasons why an alien life form, even an intelligent one, is unlikely to be an upright bipedal, bilaterally symmetrical, four-limbed, endoskeletal, pentadactyl, binocular and binaural chordate.
(2) The Planet-as-Location.
Sci-fi writers love to treat “planet†as if it’s a single location. “Let’s land on the planet, where we’ll meet the one settlement of the one culture, and have the one adventure the planet can afford us.†Planets are entire WORLDS. Even with advanced technology, it will take a space exploration crew YEARS to explore and survey a single planet. Even an uninhabited one.
Thomas Jefferson complains about Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Virginia.
Yet much of the Publick Attention has been turned of late to issues of a Lotterie merely to see Her Majesty for a few moments or of a “Webcaste” for those who do not win such a Lotterie. Moreover, Publick Discourse itself has been spent on the issue of whether it is required of gentle ladies, or merely proper of them, to wear hats within the presence of Her Majesty…
Glenn Greenwald, on the idea that war criticism will “embolden the enemy”:
Mature societies do not make decisions by wondering what the Bad People want and then automatically doing the opposite. That is the mindset of a child.
This is what I’ve been thinking for some time but hadn’t thought to put into such simple, direct words. Bravo.
I’ve heard Dick Cheney or others say things like, “Osama bin Laden is probably smiling at the idea of all these war protesters.”
So what if he is? Who the hell cares what he thinks? Why are you imprisoned by the thoughts and feelings of a crazy human being? Why give him that legitimacy?
The mindset of a child.
I’m struck by the following.
Election Day 2008 is in about 18 months. In other words, Election Day 2008 is two pregnancies from now.
If a woman gets pregnant tomorrow, she’ll give birth around Super Duper Tuesday, February 5, 2008, when more states than ever before will hold their primaries and, very likely, effectively determine the nominees.
If a woman gets pregnant on Super Duper Tuesday, she’ll give birth around Election Day, November 4, 2008.
We have to wait through two whole pregnancies, beginning to end, to find out who the next president is.
It’s gonna be a looooooooong season.
Could someone please explain what the deal is with “Watergate Sue,” currently being serialized in the New York Times Magazine? It has no plot. What point is it trying to make?
I just realized that as of yesterday, I am one-third of the way through with my 30s.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!
Rudy Giuliani, surprise surprise, has come out against New Hampshire’s new civil union law. [via Mike]
“Mayor Giuliani believes marriage is between one man and one woman. Domestic partnerships are the appropriate way to ensure that people are treated fairly,” the Giuliani campaign said in a written response to a question from the Sun. “In this specific case the law states same sex civil unions are the equivalent of marriage and recognizes same sex unions from outside states. This goes too far and Mayor Giuliani does not support it.”
What a hack. Is there anything he won’t say? Is there any member of the base he won’t pander to? First he flip-flops on abortion, then he goes all Karl Rove and says that a Democratic president will lead to another 9/11, and now this. He’s totally going into crazy base world.
Except for a few days in September 2001, Rudy Giuliani has always been an asshole. Here’s the real Rudy. New Yorkers had to put up with his crap for eight years. Had I been a New York City voter in the ’90s, I would, in fact, have voted for him – I liked his anti-crime policies, and the Disneyfication of Times Square doesn’t bother me. But back then, he was a northeastern, socially liberal Republican. Ever since he started believing his own 9/11 hype, he’s been bonkers.
I’m in one of the inter-book chasms right now. I finished reading a history book a couple of weeks ago, and I can’t seem to settle on a new book. I bought Michael Chabon’s new book, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, read the first two chapters, didn’t like it, and returned it. This was disappointing, because I loved Chabon’s first two novels, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys, and really enjoyed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
After returning the book, I bought Orhan Pamuk’s Snow. It was supposed to be good, and the author won the Nobel Prize. I’ve been reading it this week, but I’m 100 pages into it and I’m bored. I’m giving up, because I can.
Then I was thinking I might read something like Anna Karenina, which is supposed to be one of the greatest novels ever. But I’ve read the first few pages online and I don’t think I’m in the mood for it.
I think I feel like reading something more American, more modern, more fresh. So I’m leaning right now toward either Don DeLillo’s Libra or Philip Roth’s I Married a Communist. DeLillo’s book supposedly does neat things with history; as for Roth, I’ve read three of his novels, and although he can be old and cranky and hetero, I love his prose.
I’m also very curious about this. But it’s not out for a few weeks.
So we’ll see.
Oh, jeez… this comes out next week.
It doesn’t end, does it.
I was a big fan of “Growing Pains” when I was younger. The end of the final episode actually made me cry.
I especially liked the show’s theme song. But what I loved was the little-remembered a cappella version of the theme, which was used only toward the end of the series. Well-sung a cappella music has such nice and tight harmonies.
I’ve never been able to find any clips of the a cappella theme online. The show even runs on TV in syndication, but whenever I caught an episode, it had the regular opening. I began to wonder if they’d dumped the a cappella opening in syndication.
That made me sad.
Lo and behold, the other night our TiVo recorded a late episode of “Growing Pains” as a suggestion, and the episode used the a cappella opening! I was so excited that I transferred the episode to my computer and made a clip of the theme. Here it is.
Pure happiness.
For some reason I found myself looking up information about “You Can’t Do That on Television,” which ran on Nickelodeon in the 80s. I used to love that show when I was a kid. And I used to have a big crush on Alasdair.
Here’s what he looks like today, or at least five years ago. Not too bad. Not too bad at all.
Yesterday I saw Frost/Nixon, a new Broadway play, originally produced in London, about David Frost’s interviews with Richard Nixon, three years after Nixon resigned. The most famous line from those interviews: “[W]hen the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
Nixon died thirteen years ago today, and coincidentally (or not), the play officially opens on Broadway tonight.
From the show’s producers: “How did David Frost, a famous British talk-show host with a playboy reputation, elicit the apology that the rest of the world was waiting to hear from former President Richard Nixon? The fast-paced new play shows the determination, conviction and cunning of two men as they square off in one of the most monumental political interviews of all time.”
It has a classic structure: a dual character study. Two characters meet in a confrontation, and we get to see both of their motivations. Frost actually seems to be the more important character than Nixon here — after all, Frost’s name comes first in the title. I was fascinated by the play, even though it was hard to hear Frank Langella, who portrays Nixon. He mumbles and swallows his words. Fortunately, the mezzanine wasn’t very full, so at one point I got up and moved closer, and after that I could hear him better.
The play set my mind going, and I started to think about how an ex-presidency has a life of its own. I realized that even on January 20, 2009, we won’t have heard the last of George W. Bush. He’ll be 62 when he leaves office. Will he pull a Gerald Ford, never to be seen again except at golf tournaments? Will he pull a Carter or Clinton, setting up a foundation and trying to change the world – in his case, by spreading Christianity or trying to export democracy abroad? I doubt he’ll pull a Nixon, writing memoirs and trying to rehabilitate his reputation. In his mind, he probably has nothing to atone for.
I wonder if he’ll ever sit down with an interviewer like Nixon did with Frost and try to explain himself and his actions.
Thank you, Dick Cavett, for pointing out something that bothered me this week:
Could someone please inform our lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee that Attorney General Gonzales is not a general? Was it sixth or was it seventh grade when we all learned that “general†is the adjective? He is a general attorney, Senator Grassley (even the inspector general has no stars on his shoulders), and every time you call him “General Gonzales†you embarrass your home state of Iowa. And all of us.
Scott Rudin, the producer of “The Year of Magical Thinking” on Broadway, is pissed at the New York Times for allowing readers of its website to post “Reader’s Reviews” while a show is still in previews. He got back at the Times by taking out ads in the paper, quoting one of those “Reader’s Reviews,” which said, “An evening of magical theater. Get yourself a ticket to the Booth Theatre,” and Rudin purposely and misleadingly attributed the quote to “The New York Times Online.” And the Times is not happy. Letters ensued.
For those who don’t know, before a show’s official opening, there are usually a few weeks of previews, which is an opportunity for the creators of the show to see what works in front of an audience and what doesn’t and to adjust things accordingly. From night to night, entire songs might be added or removed, scenes might be rearranged or taken out or whatever. The show doesn’t get “frozen” until opening night. Anyone can see a preview; the ticket prices are usually the same; you still get a Playbill. The average theatergoer would have no idea whether he or she was attending a preview.
Here is the page on the New York Times website where you post Readers’ Reviews. There’s no indication of whether a show is in previews or not. Savvy readers can tell that a listing without a New York Times review is probably still in previews, but the average reader won’t catch that. It’s probably a good idea for the Times to designate shows in previews as such.
But if Scott Rudin’s pissed at the New York Times for allowing readers’ reviews before a show has opened, he may as well go after All That Chat, and the entire Intarweb for that matter.
If you’re going to charge audience members full price to see a preview of your show, they have the right to know what they’re getting into beforehand, and that includes hearing about the show from others. If Rudin’s unhappy with the Times policy, he should, um, TELL THEM, instead of acting passive-aggressively.
As one commenter says, this is a great way to cut the Gordian knot of this issue. It would take years to happen, but the debate should occur. Let the NRA and other gun supporters defend their position on the merits.
As another commenter points out: if people want to defend themselves against government tyranny, do they really think their guns would be any match for U.S. military tanks? And if the government decides to abrogate the Constitution, how will the Second Amendment help you in the first place?
Next year, New Hampshire will become the fourth state to allow civil unions. Hooray!
The killer sends a package to NBC news containing video, and NBC News AIRS some of it?
Tucker Carlson called it pornography. Figuratively, but he’s right.
I watched it, but I shouldn’t have been able to. They shouldn’t have broadcast it. It’s just going to encourage other potential killers/narcissists. Commit mass murder and send your video to the national news and you’ll get a nationwide platform!
It’s hard to satirize reality when it does such a good job of satirizing itself.
Sick, sick, sick.
[Further thought: How is this any different from Fox potentially airing the O.J. Simpson interview? At least they had the decency (Fox? decency? yeah, I know) to reverse their decision to do so.]