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taking a classical greece course n i keep forgetting the persian empire is literally the same one from like. jewish history. wym this is the guy from purim.

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Jk here's exclusive Pan content. I will post again in a few months

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“Had Moses seen how my friend’s face blushes when he is drunk, and his beautiful curls and wonderful hands, he would not have written in his Torah: do not lie with a man.”

—

Jeffrey Gorsky (via yidquotes)

IDK if u meant to attribute Jeffrey Gorsky as translating this (he’s slightly off) but he didn’t write this, he even attributes the original in his book. 

This is the original text and it reads (at least in my translation),  If the son of ‘Amram [Moses] had seen the face of my beloved, his ringlets, and his gloriously beautiful face blushing whilst imbibing alcohol, he would not have written in his Torah, “…and with a man” [which obvsly refers to Wayiqra 18:6] This poem was recorded by Yehuda al-Ḥarizi in his work, תחכמוני, allegedly in Baghdad (x). (The Andalusian poet traveled quite frequently.)

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ok so i saw the 1776 2022 revival and omg

(spoilers for changes in the new revival. 100% worth it to see it if u can)

first of all: every single person in that show was amazing. literally not a single weak link. costume design: amazing. lighting and set: perfect.

what i liked:

they didn’t modernize it too much. yes there was a whole thing in “the egg” where they projected onto a curtain all the civil rights movements/protests/etc up to the present but other than that (and a couple other times where the characters broke the first wall to adress the crowd) it was fully set in Philadelphia, 1776. also i don’t think that show ever needs to be done with men again. having it all non men made all the voices blend so much better and let them all show off their (insane) talent. also, everyone who had a solo song (ex he plays the violin, lees of old virginia, etc) like went up an octave and showcased their vocals and it was so good.

what i didn’t like:

there honestly wasn’t that much i wasn’t in love with. i think jefferson could have had a little more personality tbh but her violin was incredible so im ok with it.

the true showstoppers of this show were “he plays the violin”, “mama, look sharp”, and “molasses to rum to slaves”. with “he plays the violin”, the actor who plays martha washington used to play christine daae on broadway and it SHOWS. that girl sang that song so perfectly. there were some issues with the pacing of it but i did like how adams and franklin left halfway through and left martha with just jefferson and showed how in love they were. i must say, i was not insanely impressed with martha jefferson’s character until she started singing but i guess it was more in line with who she was in real life rather than a girl like in the movies. also. when they first saw each other they danced. i was hoping for a kiss lmfao.

mama, look sharp:

power. vocals. like it was a powerful song made even more powerful by the godsend vocals. the scene didn’t start off lighthearted like in the movie and i think that was a good choice and when she started singing, billy’s mama (who also played hancock) came out and just started riffing over the instrumentals in a gospel style and good god it was amazing. 

molasses to rum to slaves:

this hit so much deeper cause the audience was from boston. it was also so powerful watching the Black actors take off their congress coats and dance in front of the non Black actors. also rutledge put her everything into that song, she performed it and sang it so powerfully. it really cut the new englanders in the show and the audience to their core. 

other misc notes and thoughts

southern accents are hot

slavery comes up a lot sooner in the revival; jefferson brings an slave to philadephia and there’s a scene where they’re reading the declaration of independence and when it’s like “we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal” and the slave is on stage and we see just how much of a hypocrite jefferson was.

the new scoring for the orchestra pretty much made the show. it modernized it and, especially with john and abby’s songs, it lifted them from pretty ok to amazing. like the way that the guitar came in. it was so good

jefferson’s coat was clearly a nod to hamilton lmao. it was a very nice coat too. and they gave her a red wig b/c of course

a lot more jefferson playing the violin 

john adams was insane. she was just so good

the lees of old virginia was somehow. forgettable? like don’t get me wrong, it was amazing but because everything else was so good, it just happened and then was kind of forgotten

“the egg” got turned from a boring song to a rocking firery song about american revolutions etc it was great. also more violin

hahaha dickinson was such a karen like oh my god i loved it

1776 is kind of a hard show to pull off, what with so few female characters and the time period that it’s in (and the way it kinda glorifies the founding fathers) but i think the newest revival is the gold standard to how it should be performed.

ok i’ve probably forgotten a lot but i genuinely enjoyed it so much and i’m praying so hard that there’s a cast album so i can listen to eryn lecroy sing “he plays the violin” on repeat. and also a proshot. i would v much love a pro shot.

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definitely not hyperfixating on 1776 or anything like that

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1776 as characters welcome skits part 2

(Part 1)

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with friends like these who needs enemies

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Between the swivel chair (that Jefferson created) and the look of utter offense on Adams’ face, and Franklin back there just snoozing in TJ’s bed, this could be one of my all-time favourite scenes in this movie.

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1776 musical movie Thomas Jefferson hot.

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every so often i remember theres a song about thomas jefferson’s wife getting off to music in 1776

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I will admit, I did not have Bill Daniels— aka John Adams from 1776: The Musical— endorsing RED (Taylor’s Version) on TikTok on my bingo card, but here I am.

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Not gonna post this publicly on my tik tok but I'll drop it here for your enjoyment:

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ngl my favorite piece of jewish folklore/tellings is this story where two rabbis are arguing over the meaning of a scripture written by god and god himself literally descends from the heavens into their living room and is basically like “yeah shmuley over there is correct that is what I meant” and the other guy just shakes his head and is like “where’s ur proof bozo?”

And if telling god that he’s fucking wrong about something that he wrote ain’t one big fcking mood then idk what is. Rabbis have no chill. A wise man once said (in a YouTube comment section) that judaism is all about fighting god at 2 am behind a Denny’s parking lot and I’m inclined to agree.

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Part of the reason I have a complicated emotional relationship with Javert is because— Javert is BAD. He is a BAD person

But adaptations often don’t understand why he’s bad, and make him bad for the wrong reasons.

In the book, Javert is bad because he’s a cop. He is the Best Cop It is Possible to Be, he’s honest and completely obedient to the law, and he’s TERRIBLE, because you can’t be “good” when you’re enforcing a system that is inherently cruel.

But like... in Les Mis 1998 Javert is portrayed as being an unusually evil person who just has a weird obsession with Valjean, unlike other cops, who are Good. Les Mis 1998 even adds a Good Cop side character who lets Valjean go free in Montreuil-sur-Mer, while joking with Valjean about how Javert is unusually evil and none of the other cops like him.

???????

And as I’ve ranted about a lot, BBC Les Mis Javert’s desire to enforce the law is portrayed as a good honorable quality, and there’s an entire precinct of “good cop” side characters who help him.....while BBC Javert’s actual “moral failing” is what Andrew Davies calls his “twisted love” for Valjean.

and I’m just like...eh? Javert is bad, yes!! But that’s noT WHY he’s bad. He’s not bad because he’s gay, he’s bad because he’s a cop. He’s not bad because he’s an usually evil cop, he’s actually an unusually “good” cop— and being a “good cop” is why he’s bad!

Anyway....my problem with these adaptations isn’t that they make Javert a bad person, it’s that they completely misunderstand why he’s a bad person. They turn a critique of the police as a whole into “one guy was weirdly mean, and then he died and everything was fine”

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Germany vs. Norway (22.05.2021)