#season 26 revived my silliness

[esper-eclipse]

Tweek and craig and their lovely son stripe

[fireflyhwufanficwriter]

My thoughts on Dr. Stone’s S03E14 (“Deal Game, Test of Wit”)

(Safe to read for anime-only folks.)

My thoughts after watching Season Three, Episode Fourteen:

01. Why, Kirisame, why? :(

02. A second look at the Medusa, and at Kohaku and Ginro's heroism! They're absolutely correct to have completely faith in Senku and their friends!

03. The stars in this opening song are honestly just GORGEOUS...

04. It's very cool how in the previous two times we saw the opening song, Kohaku and Ginro's petrified statues are in shadow, because the scene would have been a spoiler - but now that it's happened, we see a different, more colorful version of the shot and it clearly shows them now. Awesome detail, animators! :D

05. The title of this episode is, "Deal Game, Test of Wit!" :)

06. Yuzuriha has been revived! Taiju's so respectful!

07. Gen's right - she's so good and fast with those stone statue puzzles now!

08. Chrome's back, and Kaseki's now very confident that he and Chrome are maker buddies!

09. It was very sweet of Suika to make a paper hat for Ukyo... who has also now been revived!

10. Umm... thanks for the close-up shot of Kohaku, Ginro, and GINRO'S BLOOD having just been turned to stone... :'( Also, how did they get into that pose, when Kohaku's face was clearly apart from Ginro's body while they were turning to stone?

11. Everybody looks sad and concerned, but Chrome looks agitated, and Senku... whoa, look at his right eye! :O That is a serious, SERIOUS expression! He means BUSINESS!

12. (Although... I THINK his fist was clenched in the manga...?)

13. Would have liked it if Suika had expressed a bit more concern about Kohaku... She just dove right into the Soyuz information XD

14. The five wise generals are off! They're gonna collate their information, and strategize about the next course of action... and... four of them are going to explain to Chrome how they know there's only one Medusa...

15. I like how Chrome pushed everybody's panels apart while he was asking for clarification XD

16. "He runs the show" shouldn't be an idiom that Chrome would use... There's theater shows, but still, I don't think he'd be casually using that idiom... AND Amaryllis agreed. I suppose the Japanese dialogue probably directly translates to something else, and this was just the closest phrase meaning-wise?

17. Mozu! And Taiju!

18. He is speaking so languidly... he really is not threatened at all by the kingdom of science. And I'm so glad Taiju can protect Senku and Yuzuriha this time, by putting himself between them and the enemy! Although he MAY have done that in the second season as well; I should check sometime...

19. Before, it was Ryusui, and now, it's Ukyo who's the one who is thinking to get at least one person out alive!

20. Don't feel bad, Amaryllis! The kingdom of science really need the information you gave them! Of course you had to come!

21. Good job, Chrome! :) You intuition is totally baad! :D

22. It's just weird how smooth and curved and cartoonish Mozu is the anime. He felt like a huge, powerful threat in the manga, but here... I don't know; the way he's drawn makes him seem a bit goofy?

23. Poor Gen... XD It's up to you! Everybody's lives are depending on you!

24. Senku, shh! You might get us all killed! XD

25. Manipulation technique #00: "Pretend your weak card is your ace of spades!"

26. Manipulation technique #01: "People feel more solidarity with you if you're next to them, not opposite them!"

27. Manipulation technique #02: "Try saying something that's a little bit off-the-mark. The urge to correct you will be so strong that they might sign on to something they never intended to!"

28. (Hah! Mozu's power may be one hundred, but according to the arithmetic battle, Kohaku's is one thousand! :D ...Of course, I think the old system also put Ginro at one hundred, so... um... maybe they're not using the same units... XD)

29. ...See, that Mozu frame was supposed to look menacing, but he just looks so silly in the anime for some reason...

30. I suppose that glowing aura around the Medusa makes it otherworldly, but there's NO way Ibara would hold it while it was still glowing XD He's much too cautious to do that!

31. Does Mozu have the same voice actor as Tsukasa? Their voices sound a bit alike...

32. This hidden, almost-evil-looking face of Gen's is like the face he made in Season One, when he had the idea to get everybody in Ishigami Village to make a telescope for Senku's birthday! :)

33. Manipulation technique #03: "It's called psychological reactance. When you feel like you're being forced to do things, your need to maintain control causes you to reject things!"

34. What is that tied-up part on the back of Ukyo's clothing...?

35. Manipulation technique #03.1: "The way to win a deal isn't to make the other person feel defeated. It's to show servitude, setting out a false red carpet for them and stuff. That's what really matters!"

36. Oooh, Senku and Mozu are shaking hands, formalizing their (super temporary, haha) alliance!

37. It's cute that Mozu was really surprised out when he heard Senku's voice through the earring - and very understandable!

38. He's so extra; he has to be ROWED back XD

39. Gen was so worried and relieved... but he did an AMAZING job negotiating for the kingdom of science, and more importantly, for his friends! :D He's such a talented mentalist and manipulator! :O

40. And Chrome's just like, "Well, as long as Mozu's planning on killing us LATER instead of RIGHT NOW, we're good!" XD

41. Gen totally deserves all the congratulations, and a very long, relaxing break!

42. "Mozu joined the party (for now)!!" And he beat up his fellow Treasure Islanders (which Gen seemed to approve of XD) in order to make them believe that he's an even stronger warrior than... himself, hahaha!

43. And that's it for this episode! Gen was, without a doubt, ten billion percent the MVP for this episode; his negotiation tactics were incredible! :O I have a theory about the episode after this one. I can't talk about it now because it would be spoilery, but I will when it's safe to do so! The next episode's title is "Battle in Three Dimensions," and it's going to air tonight! :)

https :// fireflyhwufanficwriter . tumblr . com / MyDrStoneEpisodeMangaThoughts

[happytroopers]

Mando S 3 Ep 1 shit post!

back and hornier than ever !! Me trying to control my reactions as I watch the sexiest motherfucker in the galaxy do silly little tasks !! Spoilers below. duh.

1.) me watching Mando before I've gotten past episode two of Bad Batch?? yeah I'm also disappointed

2.) tiny helmet??

3.) YOUNG DIN????

4.) him needs a hair cut

5.) issa gator!! Gator needs his gat- punk ass bitch!! love that this just takes place in fucking Florida

6.) NOT THE GO PRO HELMET SHOT

7.) not baby din I was so very wrong

8.) not the entraiLS

9.) DIN!! and son!!!!

10.) he's so,,, shiny. Mirrorball type beat. I wanna string him up on the ceiling fan and put a flash light on him.

11.) but it's pretty!

12) ok getting strong baptizing vibes... maybe its my southern baptist upbringing

13.) THEY NAP!!! cute

14.) squiiids

15.) hate to see him go love to watch him walk away

16.) gentrification??? on my Navarro??? more likely than you think

17.) not the droid memorial ;'(

18.) why is he swaggy now

19.) love him spinning he's gonna get sick tho !!

20.) "if you say so." love that Disney knows that we all hate that name

21.) snamcks!!

22.) hondo!!! please!!! no hondo ;////

23.) love when he crosses himself like that.

24.)quick draw McGraw my love

25.) love that he's so picky about droids

26.) Din fiddle with my insides like that

27.) throw the boy!!!

28.) babu frik???? we're really trying anything to make the sequel trilogy relevant huh.

29.) wow already with the side quests

30.) ME EVERYTIME I SEE A CAT

31.) AVAST!!! AVAST!! A V A S T !!!

32.) GROGU USING DINS AMMO STRAP AS A SEATBELT

33.) tbh I love the new ship but I miss the razor crest.

34.) Disney saw too many cohabitating fics and said they're too horny! destroy the one bed trope! fuck it! no beds!

35.) swamp thing????

36.) thinking obitine thoughts

37.) lemme get a good look at those banners

38.) oh its this bitch

39.) Jesus its really tent revival this season

40.) wow we set up like four side quests in one episode that's got to be a record

[tafadhali]

I just hit my 10,000th bookmark on Pinboard, which feels like a weirdly big milestone! I've been bookmarking and tagging fic formally since 2006, but there are also ~700 bookmarks in there from 2003-2006, when I kept them in elaborate Internet Explorer folders. I started bookmarking vids in 2014, which is why the intervals between thousands markers get shorter at that point (even moreso once I started vidding and going to vidding conventions in 2020).

Some snapshots of what I've bookmarked over the years, if you would like EXTREMELY miscellaneous recs:

10,000 (10/20/24): Community, by AgentStannerShipper (Dimension 20, Evan Kelmp & Sam Black). I've been overwhelmingly reading 9-1-1 fic this year, but I'm extremely invested in the new season of MisMag so that's been my focus this month.

9,000 (7/9/23): Starlight, by pigflight (Dimension 20, Ayda Aguefort/Figueroth Faeth). I was actually reading a ton of D20 fic last summer because I'd just finished FHSY and felt like I could finally dive in without fear of spoilers.

8,000 (12/30/21): Catspaw, by greenfionn (Taskmaster RPF, Greg Davies/Alex Horne). Yuletide fic! 15% of my fic bookmarks are from Yuletide.

7,000 (12/25/19): Til Tomorrow's Show, by kikitheslayer (American Vandal, Sam Ecklund/Peter Maldonado). More Yuletide fic! The fandom starts with A and this was bookmarked on Christmas Day, so probably one of the first things I read that season.

6,000 (11/5/17): Here's to Retirement, by Jedi Buttercup (The Mummy, Ardeth Bay/Evelyn Carnahan/Rick O'Connell). No real notes here but The Mummy is great and I'm glad at least one of these random links was for a poly ship?

5,000 (10/26/15): Kiss on the ear, by queenklu (due South, Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski). There has not been a year in 21 years of bookmarking that I have not read and bookmarked at least one due South fanfic. The only other fandom that is true of is Star Trek! (Sports Night is so close. What happened, 2015?)

4,000 (3/6/14): The Finest Feeling, by Bow (Avatar, Iroh & Zuko). I started tracking my fic bookmarking in a spreadsheet this year, including keeping stats on what category the fics were, so I read a LOT more gen and poly and het than I previously had because observer effect. I was also rewatching AtLA at the time as I worked my way through Korra!

3,000 (7/15/11): The Deepest Secret Nobody Knows, by lovingthevolume (Sherlock, Sherlock/Sally & John/Sherlock). This is a broken link now but if I RECALL the premise was that Sherlock had gotten Sally pregnant and was an absentee dad and that's why she hated him so much, as if she needed a reason.

2,000 (5/19/09): Graven Image, by irrelevant (AOS/TOS, James Kirk/Spock). I was not in nu!Trek fandom but obviously the movie's release meant a major TOS fic reading revival for me.

1,000 (12/10/06): Mofo, Last of the Valar, by Mercuria Stardust (Lord of the Rings, crack ficlet). This ISN'T a broken link, but I won't blow up my high school friend's spot that way for this incredibly silly concept that was definitely at least 50% my fault. This was posted to LJ when I was in my first year of college and had been using (at the time) Delicious to track my bookmarks for 2 months.

1 (??/??/??): A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Strip Club, by DeadGrrl (Askewniverse, Jay/Silent Bob). The first bookmark on my account, read sometime in 2003-2005 and posted first because Askewniverse was the first alphabetically in my Internet Explorer bookmarks folders.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Piper Sargasso

Piper Sargasso has 25 stories at Gossamer, but don’t miss her website where the fics each have cover collage art. If you are a fan of Mulder/Scully romance, there are a lot of MSR fics to read that are set in different seasons of the show. But like the show that never stuck to one type of story, Piper’s stories have variety, so you can also find AUs and /Other.  Big thanks to Piper for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

It does, but I love that people are still into it! Writers back in the day put so much work and love into their writing, and it's nice to know that the stories are still being appreciated to this day. As for my own stories, it puts a huge smile on my face to know there are still people out there checking them out and hopefully enjoying them.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

It was such a positive period of my life. I made some amazing friends who became something like older sisters (and some brothers) to me, even though I was a little ridiculous when I was in my early to mid-twenties. It was also a much-needed confidence booster. I was a pretty shy person and loved writing, but never had the nerve to show anything to anyone. My first fanfic was completely horrible, but because of it I made my first XF friend and super beta, Mimic117. Between her guidance and the encouraging words from my Yahoo group I was able to do something I really loved and felt great about myself and my abilities for the first time. That will stay with me forever. That first story was truly atrocious, but it was a catalyst for great things in my life when I needed them the most.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I remember trying this cool new thing called an AOL chat room, but they were more interested in perving on each other than talking about the show. Once I knew about fanfiction I kept seeing that some of my favorite authors kept mentioning IWTBXF in their notes, a Yahoo group named I Want to Believe. I looked it up, joined, and with great trepidation made my introductory post. Everyone was so warm and welcoming, and talking to my favorite authors in the group was a little like meeting a celebrity and finding out that they're awesome in real life. After IWTBXF fell apart, an off-shoot called Beyond the Sea was created with almost all of the original group transferring over. I stuck to my little family there and didn't branch out into much else, other than the rare dip into Haven. Ephemeral and Gossamer, of course.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Mostly the overwhelming feeling of acceptance and confidence to write, something I was sorely lacking before in my life. I fell in with the best group, that's for sure! They made me feel like being a professional writer could be an achievable goal.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

The commercial advertising. The pilot spoke to my supernatural-loving, angsty 15 year-old soul. I watched it religiously every week. There was nothing like it. It was off-beat, but serious (most of the time) and fulfilled my insatiable craving for the paranormal and weird. You just couldn't get that from Melrose Place and Beavis and Butthead, you know? It definitely helped that David Duchovny was adorable and the character of Scully was the strong and intelligent icon we needed in the 90's and beyond.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

In high school I had a friend who was as obsessed with the show as I was. Maybe more, since she once had a slumber party that was exclusively to binge watch her taped episodes (the other girls who wanted to mess around with spells and the Ouija board weren't thrilled that she couldn't be swayed away from it) and she often drove me from play rehearsals in her convertible with the top down and the theme song blasting to the heavens, much to my delight and mortification. A couple years after we graduated she told me about the piece of fanfic she wrote. Insert a record screech here. What?! You mean there are thousands of stories dedicated to my favorite show? And hundreds more get added every month?! I was obsessed. If I could've stopped working and slept at my computer desk I would have.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Sadly it's nonexistent these days. I have great memories and it holds a big piece of my heart, but I haven't been active in a long time. I would love to see a huge revival, and would definitely want to be involved in that in some way, were it to happen.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I read a lot of Harry Potter fanfiction for a while, but I never could expend the kind of energy and time I did for the X-Files fandom. It came at a perfect time in my life, and so far nothing else has measured up to it.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Besides XF characters? Off the top of my head I really love Hermione Granger, Buffy Summers, Elizabeth Bennet, and Claire Fraser for their sass and strength of character, Severus Snape for his complexity, and Christina Ricci's version of Wednesday Addams for her pure awesomeness. She's pretty much my spirit animal.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I do occasionally. I watched the series from season 1-7 so many times that I started to burn out, but I get on my X-Files kicks sometimes and binge it again.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

Like with the show, I'll get nostalgic and need to consume all the fanfics my greedy little eyes can behold until I move on to something else. It can feel a little lonely though, if you'll excuse the drama. We're not in the heyday anymore, so it feels a little like walking through a ghost town. Many of the stories out there are suspended in time because the show ended, or people stopped writing.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I know I have dozens, but I'm drawing a blank. My ultimate favorite is any well-written MSR casefile with UST finally resulting in RST. Those are my unicorns!

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I have a silly one called Baby, It's Cold Outside that I sometimes read around Christmastime. It was a fluffy song-fic, but I can see the scene so clearly in my mind when I read it and it's just pure fun. I also like my Donnie Pfaster series. I can see the potential in my writing with those, which makes me feel I could really write something special someday. Plus, he's such an interesting little slimeball to write and read about. Bless his heart.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I still think about the two WIPs I haven't finished. I wrote myself into a corner with This Mortal Coil, and honestly I think it needs a total overhaul. I think Dana Scully's Diary would be a fun one to finish. I hate that I never finished them.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I think about writing fanfic now and then and I've had a couple original novels sketched out, but there are so many other demands on my time that I haven't gotten very far. I still plan to see the novels through, even if no one but interested friends and family read them.  

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I used to watch an episode and really study the actors' expressions and actions, always trying to find new angles to the stories we all know. A lot of times things would just come to me and I'd get so excited I couldn't sleep until I wrote a good chunk of it down.

What's the story behind your pen name?

The friend who introduced me to fanfic told me the best way to choose a pen name was to make sure it derives from the show. For a couple days I looked at the titles and summaries of episodes and agonized over just the right name. Finally Piper Maru and the summary from Triangle, which mentions the Sargasso sea, stood out and just clicked.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

My now husband always knew, and he thought it was cool that I had a hobby that made me so happy, but he was never a reader. My parents found out when I was about 24 and my step-dad would tell EVERYONE about it, much to my horror. Most reactions were of the bland, "Oh yeah? That's nice." variety but I definitely got some weird looks from others. The worst was when I found out how much of my racier MSR stories my parents read. My step-dad thought it was hilarious and teased me a little. My usually open-minded mom was uncomfortable, but tried to be supportive. It's all fun and games until your daughter starts writing psuedo-erotica for anyone to see!

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Circe Invidiosa very generously hosts a page for me at http://pipers.invidiosa.com.

(Posted by Lilydale on January 26, 2021)

[tardigraded20]

Witchy Questions

1. Are you solitary or in a coven? -solitary, you think i have time for humans? 2. Do you consider yourself Wiccan, Pagan, witch, or other? -Idk someone who said fuck other religions and said revive the old gods 3. What is your zodiac sign? -Gemini 4. Do you have a Patron God/dess? -I don’t, but I am open to it 5. Do you work with a Pantheon? -No, but I am looking into the norse pantheon  6. Do you use tarot, palmistry, or any other kind of divination? -tarot and rune stones 7. What are some of your favorite herbs to use in your practice? (if any) -bergamont and I use incense 8. How would you define your craft? -idk i diy religion  9. Do you curse? If not, do you accept others who do? -No, i haven't tried but I would if i was motivated for it 10. How long have you been practicing? -5 years? I guess? I don’t count 11. Do you currently or have you ever had any familiars? -lmao i wish 12. Do you believe in Karma or Reincarnation? -Karma yes, I am not sure about reincarnation 13. Do you have a magical name? -how do you find that? 14. Are you “out of the broom closet”? -Yeah, but im not sure how much my dad thinks im serious   15. What was the last spell you performed? -A positivity jar  16. Would you consider yourself knowledgeable? -about mythology yes but actual witchcraft? Kinda.  17. Do you write your own spells? -im not that original lol  18. Do you have a book of shadows? If so, how is it written and/or set up? -I do but its kinda just a book i occasionally write in  19. Do you worship nature? -somewhat, but its not a focus  20. What is your favorite gemstone? -umbalite and labradorite 21. Do you use feathers, claws, fur, pelt, skeletons/bones, or any other animal body part for magical work? -feathers and naturally fell from a bird  22. Do you have an altar? -yes 23. What is your preferred element? -fire 24. Do you consider yourself an Alchemist? -no 25. Are you any other type of magical practitioner besides a witch? -idk  26. What got you interested in witchcraft? -lmao percy jackson 27. Have you ever performed a spell or ritual with the company of anyone who was not a witch? -no 28. Have you ever used Ouija? -Yup, at school in the hallway  29. Do you consider yourself a psychic? -pfft no 30. Do you have a spirit guide? If so, what is it? -no, but I am looking into it 31. What is something you wish someone had told you when you first started? -Not everything is black and white, you can do your own thing 32. Do you celebrate the Sabbats? If so which one is your favorite? -Yeah, although mildly. My favorite is Samhain 33. Would you ever teach witchcraft to your children? -yes but i would never force it on them 34. Do you meditate? -I try too but not often    35. What is your favorite season? -autumn 36. What is your favorite type of magick to preform? -Nature based magic 37. How do you incorporate your spirituality into your daily life? -Appreciate nature  38. What is your favorite witchy movie? -Kiki's Delivery Service 39. What is your favorite witchy book, both fiction and non-fiction. Why? -The Raven Boys because it is fucking amazing 40. What is the first spell you ever preformed? Successful or not. -some shitty rain spell from a childs book 41. What’s the craziest witchcraft-related thing that’s happened to you? -when i was in Senior Kindergarten I saw a “fairy” 42. What is your favorite type of candle to use? -beesewax 43. What is your favorite witchy tool? -candles 44. Do you or have you ever made your own witchy tools? -I use a rock to grind shit because i dont have a pestle and mortar  45. Have you ever worked with any magical creatures such as the fae or spirits? -I want to try working with fae but I need to learn more 46. Do you practice color magic? -yes, a bit 47. Do you or have you ever had a witchy teacher or mentor of any kind? -No, I think? I have older online witchy people I talk to but no mentor 48. What is your preferred way of shopping for witchcraft supplies? -In person, but somethings you can only get online 49. Do you believe in predestination or fate? -I guess? I think that life has a story that gives you options and a new story starts on what you choose, kinda like an RPG 50. What do you do to reconnect when you are feeling out of touch with your practice? -Read into it and appreciate it more 51. Have you ever had any supernatural experiences? -yes, at my grandmas funeral     52. What is your biggest witchy pet peeve? -”I CAn PrAcTiCe CLoSEd ReligIoNs If i aM rEsPeCtFul” 53. Do you like incense? If so what’s your favorite scent? -bergamont    54. Do you keep a dream journal of any kind? -no but I should 55. What has been your biggest witchcraft disaster? -spilling wax on myself    56. What has been your biggest witchcraft success? -not burning the house down    57. What in your practice do you do that you may feel silly or embarrassed about? -chanting shit in my room    58. Do you believe that you can be an atheist, Christian, Muslim or some other faith and still be a witch too? -yup    59. Do you ever feel insecure, unsure or even scared of spell work? -of course, its dealing with things that dont have 100% safety measures    60. Do you ever hold yourself to a standard in your witchcraft that you feel you may never obtain? -lmao I one day want to be a teacher but I never feel knowledgeable enough for that     61. What is something witch related that you want right now? -my own pestle and mortar    62. What is your rune of choice? - Hagalaz   63. What is your tarot card of choice? -the empress    64. Do you use essential oils? If so what is your favorite? -Lemongrass 65. Have you ever taken any kind of witchcraft or pagan courses? -no   66. Do you wear pagan jewelry in public? -Yup, I have a cheap ass pentagram necklace    67. Have you ever been discriminated against because of your faith or being a witch? 68. Do you read or subscribe to any pagan magazines? -no because I am poor and where would I find one?    69. Do you think it’s important to know the history of paganism and witchcraft? -yes 70. What are your favorite things about being a witch? -those scared looks that karens give you, even though you are eating cupcakes and smiling    71. What are your least favorite things about being a witch? -the amount of people who keep on trying to make you christian      72. Do you listen to any pagan music? If so who is your favorite singer/band? -heatherdale    73. Do you celebrate the sabbats? If so, how? -yes, by lighting candles and making tea 74. Do you ever work skyclad? -I want to be but nooo 75. Do you think witchcraft has improved your life? If so, how? -makes me happier 76. Where do you draw inspiration from for your practice? -other witches and what makes me happy 77. Do you believe in ‘fantasy’ creatures? (Unicorns, fairies, elves, gnomes, ghosts, etc) -The fae yes, but like celtic like ones 78. What’s your favorite sigil/symbol? -I have none    79. Do you use blood magick in your practice? Why or why not? -No, because I am not ready for it   80. Could you ever be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t support your practice? -Hahahaha no, if you dont respect my religion I dont have time for you    81. In what area or subject would you most like your craft to grow? -meditation and divination     82. What’s your favorite candle scent? Do you use it in your practice? -beesewax 83. Do you have a pre-ritual ritual? (I.e. Something you do before rituals to prepare yourself for them). If so what is it? -have a bath 84. What real life witch most inspires your practice? @spellchased 85. What is your favorite method of communicating with deity? -meditation and a yes-no pendulum 86. How do you like to organize all your witchy items and ingredients? -in jars and by aesthetics    87. Do you have any witches in your family that you know of? -my mom is interested in druidry but doesn't call herself one    88. How have you created your path? What is unique about it? -I dont know? I just did what felt right.    89. Do you feel you have any natural gifts or affinities (premonitions, hearing spirits, etc.) that led you toward the craft? If so what are they? -No    90. Do you believe you can initiate yourself or do you have to be initiated by another witch or coven? -with closed practices you need to be initiated, but with open religions thats not the case 91. When you first started out in your path what was the first thing or things you bought? -incense tray and incense    92. What is the most spiritual or magickal place you’ve been? -The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul     93. What’s one piece of advice you’d give someone who is searching for their matron and patron deities? -Read. Just read a lot.    94. What techniques do you use to 'get in the zone’ for meditation? -Silence and deep breathing 95. Did visualization come easily to you or did you have to practice at it? -I need to practice it     96. Do you prefer day or night? Why? -night because i dont sleep 97. What do you think is the best time and place to do spell work? -My best time is the full moon at midnight  98. How did you feel when you cast your first circle? Did you stumble or did it go smoothly? -It was okay, nothing special     99. Do you believe witchcraft gets easier with time and practice? -old practices become easy, but you learn more complicated things 100. Do you believe in many gods or one God with many faces? 101. Do you eat meat, eggs and dairy? -I eat cheese, eggs and fish 102. What is your favorite color and why?  -purple, blue and yellow because its pretty 103. What is the one question you get asked most by non-practitioners or non-pagans? How do you usually respond? -why dont you respect Jesus? Because he did nothing for me Susan.  104. Which of your five senses would you say is your strongest? -sight 105. What is a pagan or witchcraft rule that you preach but don’t practice? -Karma, I keep on doing shitty things 

@prettyalice13

[thankskenpenders]

So there’s this little cartoon you may have heard of...

As I’ve said on this blog before, I’d never watched all of SatAM. This might be shocking to hear from someone who runs a blog dedicated to Archie Sonic and one of the top twenty Bunnie Rabbot fangirls in the world. But it’s true.

SatAM was very difficult to track down compared to other Sonic cartoons when I was a kid, and I just never got around to watching it as an adult. So for the longest time, I had only ever seen the first episode, which I found uploaded in parts on YouTube in 2007. As the one cartoon featuring the characters I liked from the comics, it became sort of this holy grail of Sonic media for me as a kid, especially with people online always talking it up as the best thing ever and petitioning for a revival. Hell, to this day, a lot of people hold it up as this masterpiece and act like the Archie comics were a complete mockery of it

Anyway so I finally got around to watching the whole series with my boyfriend these past couple weeks, and it was pretty good. So instead of covering a comic today, here are some thoughts on the cartoon that started it all

General Thoughts

SatAM is a pretty good show. It isn’t the greatest piece of Sonic media ever, unlike what some older fans will tell you. It might not even be the best Sonic cartoon (you could easily make a case for the Japanese version of Sonic X, or Sonic Boom if you’re looking for something more comedic). It hasn’t aged the most gracefully, in some ways. The animation’s cheap, the stories sometimes bland. But for a DiC-produced video game cartoon from the early ‘90s, it’s really solid

I think that in many ways, SatAM is carried by the strength of its ideas over its actual execution. The darker, more serious tone is a really cool idea, even if at times it can get a little dull, and even if the show actually gets silly as hell pretty often. (This is a show where Snively literally tortures a captive Antoine by preparing French cuisine improperly.) That opening scene of Robotropolis in the first episode actually sets the mood really well and feels like it came straight out of some cyberpunk anime from the ‘80s or ‘90s. The concept of Robotnik turning people into robot slaves is really cool, even if surprisingly little was done with this aside from Uncle Chuck’s storyline. And I think the Freedom Fighters make a great supporting cast for Sonic, even if the writers didn’t use them to their full potential

Interestingly, I’d often heard from fans that season one was the stronger of the two, when I’d say that the opposite is true. Season one episodes were pretty samey, usually involving low stakes missions to Robotropolis with no real continuity, and Sally ended up being a damsel in distress more than I’d like--hell, so did Bunnie in a few episodes. It wasn’t bad, but it was highly repetitive, and I got a little bored at times. Season two had a few real stinkers (the Antoine episodes) and Dulcy was an unwelcome addition, but I thought the heavier focus on continuity gave the season some real momentum and more emotional weight, which made it way more enjoyable overall

Things I Liked

Sonic. I quite liked this version of Sonic, actually! Jaleel White is a great Sonic, and he was written pretty well. At times the extremely tubular ‘90s lingo was grating (I never wanna hear “Gotta juice!” again), but I was surprised to see that this version of Sonic had a lot of heart. He really cared about the well-being of his friends and Uncle Chuck, and they even let him cry a couple times. I thought they struck a good balance between snark and sincerity with him

Sally. I don’t think SatAM Sally was perfect, but I liked her. I’m still of the opinion that she should have been given more ways to defend herself physically (maybe some kind of power of her own) so that Sonic didn’t have to save her as much, but I liked the banter she and Sonic had. Unlike the early Archie comics, Sally doesn’t come off as the bossy girlfriend who ruins Sonic’s fun. Maybe it’s Jaleel White and Kath Soucie’s performances doing most of the work, but they had a fun back and forth dynamic, with Sally’s sarcasm keeping Sonic’s ego in check, but there still being clear chemistry between the two of them

I also liked the greatly reduced emphasis on her being a princess compared to much of Archie’s material. Like yeah, it’s there. Her dad’s the king, and left her some classified info via Nicole. But her status doesn’t really affect things much. They don’t talk about her having this grand destiny and being the next in line to rule. It’s clear that she’s in charge of the Freedom Fighters not because of her status, but because she’s smart, brave, and gets shit done. That’s the Sally I like.

Plus! In the finale, Sally insisted upon going with Sonic for the final confrontation, and was a crucial part of the climax. Her powering up with Sonic and matching his speed and strength ruled. Compare that to the climactic defeat of Robotnik in Archie, where she was fucking dead

Robotnik. I don’t think much needs to be said here. Jim Cummings rules as Robotnik, like everyone has always said. He’s just so evil and so much fun to watch

Snively??? I’ve never cared for Snively as a character, but Charlie Adler rules and his over-the-top performance made the character way funnier than he should’ve been. Just something about all the little noises he makes, and the way he almost shifts into the Red Guy voice at times

Nicole. It was fun to see Nicole start to get more of a personality in season two, having some banter with Sonic and also picking up some slang from him. It makes the later decision to turn Sally’s computer into a full character (which would have happened in season three, and obviously eventually became a big subplot in the comics) make a lot of sense

King Acorn. While he was only around briefly, I liked that he wasn’t a huge dick, unlike Archie’s King Max

Things I Didn’t Like

The misuse of the other Freedom Fighters. This is, by far, the show’s greatest crime.

I already write approximately 100k words a week on this blog about how I think Bunnie Rabbot is amazing and criminally underused, so I’ll keep this brief, but I was shocked to see how little she was used in this show. People tend to say Dulcy stole her screentime in season two, but she didn’t have much to do in the first season either! We somehow never got a single episode focusing on her. The one where she got temporarily deroboticized focused much more on Uncle Chuck. We never got to learn the story behind her roboticization, or delved into her feelings on the matter much. She mostly just served as a positive, lighthearted supporting member of the team who acts cute and gets some funny lines, but usually stays home

Antoine might have been even worse, honestly. Like, they used him so much! They had multiple episodes focusing entirely on him! And yet I’m not sure he ever really helped. Sonic and Sally kept taking him along, but every single time it felt like it would’ve been a wiser decision to bring Bunnie instead. The jokes about his broken English were just dumb, and god, the way he constantly hits on Sally and starts kissing her hand at the most inappropriate times is just SO fucking creepy. SatAM Antoine is just a horrible, one-dimensional stereotype. There’s a reason why readers of the Archie comics wanted him out of the series until later writers majorly rehabilitated him

Rotor also didn’t get much use, which was a shame, but it at least felt like he was used efficiently. I got the vibe that Rotor was much more bitter about the war with Robotnik than his friends, and it would’ve been interesting to see this explored more. At least we got that one fun episode where he went to space with Sonic

Dulcy. Oh my fucking god. I wanted to like Dulcy! I really did! But most of the time she was just a clutz used for comic relief, and they kept reusing the same joke where she crashed, bumped her head, got dizzy, and thought she was talking to her mom. This happened in almost every episode she was in.

The other miscellaneous Freedom Fighters. Like in the early Archie comics, none of the other miscellaneous Mobians they meet were as interesting as the core cast. They just always felt very bland and I was never as invested in them as the writers wanted me to be. Ari was boring, and that episode where they found the underground city and this other dude started hitting on Sally was a drag. Lupe’s cute though

Rings. This is a common problem in Sonic adaptations, but the fact that rings always serve as Sonic’s instant win button kind of sucks. Basically any time Sonic’s in a pinch, he pulls a ring out of his backpack, powers up, and wins. Not exactly a recipe for suspenseful action

Oh, also, I did kinda find it weird how much Sonic and Sally kissed? Like, all the time? Often while their friends just stand there and stare at them? Not something I’d expect from a Sonic cartoon

Things Archie Did Better

I’ll limit this to the first 50 issues or so, since I don’t think it would be fair to compare two short seasons of SatAM to the highlights of nearly 500 issues of comics

Tails. Tails is okay in SatAM, Archie just used him as Sonic’s sidekick way more. He was barely even in the show. Poor little guy only gets to play dirt hockey all day

Bunnie. Again, Bunnie was underutilized in both series, but the Archie comics did her better. They actually showed the story of how she got roboticized (even if it was a silly story), and they got to flesh her out a bit more. Gallagher showing that she was a carrot farmer before her roboticization and saying she wanted to be a hairdresser was at least something. And as I keep harping on, Rich Koslowski’s backup story in #37 where we find out Bunnie has recurring nightmares about her robot parts taking over and making her a threat to her friends? This single backup story did more to flesh her out than all 26 episodes of SatAM combined

Antoine. Not hard to do better than SatAM here, really. He was really bad early on, serving as little more than Sonic’s punching bag, but eventually they started to set up a romance between him and Bunnie and explored his past a bit, saying that Antoine’s father (his personal role model) was a member of the royal guard who was roboticized in the war. While he still had a long way to go, these were important first steps towards him being a decent character. Hell, these days, being Bunnie’s love interest is one of Antoine’s defining characteristics! And it doesn’t come from the cartoon at all

Roboticization in general. I was surprised how little this came up in the cartoon! In the comics, it’s such a central element. We see more of the heroes’ loved ones turned into robots, and we even got some fun stories where characters like Sonic and Sally were roboticized temporarily. The Freedom Fighters’ efforts to reverse the process was a major part of the plot for quite a while. Bunnie’s fear of losing control is a pretty important part of her character (even if it was only touched on briefly), and after they’re rescued, the rest of the Mobians fear that the “Robians” (including Sonic’s entire family) will turn evil again. It comes up a lot! There are interesting things to discuss here! But SatAM only really talks about Uncle Chuck. We never even see what happened to everyone else

Closing Thoughts

SatAM is not the best show in the world, but it is a solid and enjoyable one. It’s easy to see why people who grew up with it are fond of it, even if I think that it’s long past time certain fans quit acting like it’s the only valid take on the Sonic source material and petitioning for a third season. At the very least, the concepts and characters introduced here are strong ones, and it’s easy to see how they spawned over 20 years of comics exploring said ideas in greater detail. While I’m not sure I could recommend it to non-fans, I think it’s definitely worth checking out for Sonic fans who missed out on it (especially fans of the Archie comics)

Anyway I got to see Bunnie dropkick some Swatbots twice her height so I had fun

[papermoonloveslucy]

ORSON WELLES RADIO ALMANAC

March 9, 1944

“Orson Welles Almanac” (1944) is a CBS Radio series directed and hosted by Orson Welles. Broadcast live in California and Arizona via CBS West Coast studios, the 30-minute program was heard Wednesdays at 9:30pm beginning January 26, 1944. Its last broadcast was July 19, 1944. Orson Welles Almanac presented readings from classic works, drama, music, sketch comedy, magic, mindreading, and personal commentary by Welles. Many of the shows originated from US Army camps where Welles entertained the troops. Welles had an ongoing battle with the program's sponsor, Mobil Oil, which shortened the life of the series. Twenty six broadcasts were produced; all but four shows have survived.

This is the seventh episode of the series, aired on March 9, 1944. Previous guests were Groucho Marx, Lionel Barrymore, Ann Sothern, Robert Benchley, Hedda Hopper, and Victor Moore.  Lucille Ball would return to the series to guest star on May 3, 1944. Unfortunately, this is one of the four lost episodes.  

CAST

Lucille Ball (Guest Star) was then filming Ziegfeld Follies for release in 1945.  Her films Best Foot Forward and Thousands Cheer (both released in 1943) were then in local cinemas. Ball was in her fourth year of a rocky marriage to Desi Arnaz, who she would divorce in September 1944, although the papers were never officially filed. The week prior to this broadcast, Ball guest starred on Bing Crosby’s radio show “Music Hall”.  

Orson Welles arrived in Hollywood in 1939 when Ball was a contract player at RKO Studios. To squelch rumors that he was a homosexual, the studio sent Lucy to escort him to a premiere to be photographed. He later recalled,

“We went to see the opening of some movie or other—I simply picked her up at her house and we went to the movie and got photographed and came home and I said ‘Good night,’ and that was the end of that. That was the end of that romance, but it was the beginning of a long friendship.”

A veteran of the theatre, in 1941 the actor / director completed his magnum opus film Citizen Kane. In the 1950s he was under contract to Desilu to film a pilot for an anthology series called “The Fountain of Youth,” which wasn’t aired until 1958 and did not result in a series. Despite that, it won a Peabody Award, the only pilot to ever do so.

On February 5, 1956 Lucy and Desi appeared with Welles on Ed Sullivan’s “Toast of the Town.” They were there to promote their film Forever Darling. Welles was there to promote his revival of his King Lear at New York’s City Center, which he initially performed in a wheelchair due to injuries to both ankles. By the time he performed it on “Toast of the Town” (aka “The Ed Sullivan Show”) Welles was using a crutch.

When the Oscar-winning actor and director was down on his luck he was invited to stay in the Arnaz guest cottage. Notorious for his drinking and rude behavior, Lucy had to find a way to politely get rid of her guest so she decided to have an episode of “I Love Lucy” written for him so she could pay him a salary. With that in mind, Desilu paid him the exorbitant sum of $15,000!  Ball’s memories of Welles were mixed. “I had a real love-hate relationship with Orson,” she said towards the end of her life. “His mind was awesome…but he was also a pain in the ass.”

At the time of this broadcast (March 8, 1944) Welles’ film Jane Eyre was playing in cinemas. 

Ella Mae Morse (Musical Guest) was signed by Jimmy Dorsey at the age of 14 (she lied about her age and said she was 19) and was subsequently fired after discovering the truth about her age. Her recording of "Cow Cow Boogie" was the first million-selling single for Capitol Records in 1942. Her biggest hit was "The Blacksmith Blues" released in February 1952. The song she sings here, “Shoo-Shoo Baby” (written by Phil Moore), would be heard in the about-to-be-released film South of Dixie in which she played Barbara Ann Morgan.  

Agnes Moorehead (Prudence Pratt / Miss Grimace / Swoon Club Girl) was a member of Welles’ Mercury Theatre on stage and radio as well as starring in Welles’ films Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. She is best remembered as Endora, Samantha’s mother-in-law on TV’s “Bewitched”. 

Hans Conried (Colonel Peabristle / Hotel Operator / Frenchman / Dr. Snake Oil / Flat Top) first co-starred with Lucille Ball in The Big Street (1942). After being a recurring guest on her radio show “My Favorite Husband” (1948-51), he appeared on “I Love Lucy” as used furniture man Dan Jenkins in “Redecorating” (ILL S2;E8) and later that same season as Percy Livermore in “Lucy Hires an English Tutor” (ILL S2;E13) – both in 1952. The following year he began an association with Disney by voicing Captain Hook in Peter Pan. On “The Lucy Show” he played Professor Gitterman in “Lucy’s Barbershop Quartet” (TLS S1;E19) and in “Lucy Plays Cleopatra” (TLS S2;E1). He was probably best known as Uncle Tonoose on “Make Room for Daddy” starring Danny Thomas, which was filmed on the Desilu lot. He joined Thomas on a season 6 episode of “Here’s Lucy” in 1973.

The All-Star Jazz Group: Mutt Carey (trumpet), Kid Ory (trombone), Jimmy Noone (clarinet), Buster Wilson (piano), Bud Scott (guitar), Ed Garland (bass), and Zutty Singleton (drums). 

John McIntire (Announcer) 

EPISODE

Orson Welles introduces the episode, opening with a Household Hint by Prudence Pratt and a Wonders of Science fact by Colonel Peabristle. After the opening music and Mobil Oil sponsorship message, Welles summons his secretary Miss Grimace to tell him who is on the show tonight. She reports that it is Miss Lucille Ball, although she hasn’t arrived yet.  Welles says she is filing her tax forms. 

WELLES: “Can you imagine. The Government wants Lucille Ball to fill in HER form!” 

Miss Grimace admits the three members of The Orson Welles Swoon Club.  Welles interrogates them as to their whereabouts during his public appearances. He wants new members, promising them nylons.   

Oops!  Welles mis-reads the script, saying “nylon baby socks” instead of “nylon bobby sox”. He corrects himself with a laugh and says “For me, it’s booby socks!”  Bobby soxer is a term for the wildly enthusiastic, teenage female fans of 1940s music, particularly Frank Sinatra.

Orson wants to know if they have gotten the new photographs he sent them. One of the Swoon Club compliments him on how he looks in his sarong - mistaking him for Dororthy Lamour in a Bob Hope / Bing Crosby picture. 

Dorothy Lamour was nicknamed ‘The Sarong Girl’. In 1936 she donned her soon-to-be-famous sarong for her debut at Paramount, The Jungle Princess (1936), and continued to play similar parts through the war years and beyond. The most famous of these was in the popular Bob Hope / Bing Crosby "Road" pictures - a combination of adventure, music, and slapstick.

The Swoon Club feel sorry for Orson that he hasn’t won an Oscar, so they knit him a tie - which started out as a pair of socks.He dismisses the club.  

When the 16th Academy Awards were distributed at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Thursday, March 2, 1944, neither of Welles’ 1943 motion pictures were among the nominees: Jane Eyre and Journey Into Fear, which he also co-directed and co-wrote. Welles shared a 1942 Oscar with Herman Mankiewicz for writing Citizen Kane, a bone of contention between them, since Mankiewicz later claimed he wrote the entire script. The backstory is explored in the modern film Mank (2020). 

Miss Grimace reports that the Hotel Carlton is suing him. After he did a magic show there, the two rabbits ran rampant and did damage! Orson calls the hotel operator (Hans Conried) and learns that the hotel is now called the Carlton Rabbit Farm and the manager’s eyes have turned pink!  Welles asks Miss Grimace to send Lucille Ball roses. Miss Grimace says they are too expensive and he should send her something simpler, like phoenicia vulgaris. Welles says no because it sounds too dirty.  

Here Welles ad libs, causing Agnes Moorehead to break character and laugh. He mentions Lewis Titterton, the NBC censor and says “If you had a name like Louis Titterton anything would sound dirty. Let’s get back to the script.”  They try, but it takes a moment for their laughter to subside. 

A Frenchman from a reducing salon (Hans Conried) approaches him for an estimate on a new body. He measures Welles’ body with a tape measure. He was once the girdle coordinator at Bullocks basement for 15 years. 

FRENCHMAN: “If a size 44 tries to get into a 38, I help push!”

Announcer John McIntire does a live commercial for Mobilgas with some driving tips.  

PART 2

Before a musical introduction, Dr. Snake Oil (Hans Conried) gives a tip about dislodging a fishbone caught in the throat. 

The All-Star Jazz Group plays "Bésame Mucho" ("Kiss me a lot"), a song written in 1940 by Consuelo Velázquez. It is now considered one of the most popular songs of the 20th century and of all times. It is also the most recorded and covered song in Spanish of all time. 

Welles welcomes Lucille Ball to the show to studio audience applause. Welles says he’s written a sketch full of romantic love scenes. Orson improvs a commercial for a sponsor Krunchies, a noisy breakfast cereal that gets soggy in milk. He introduces...

“THE CASE OF THE BLUE BLOOD STAIN”

Orson plays Mickey, a detective on his night off, reading the evening paper. Lucy plays his adoring wife, Dora. 

DORA: “Mickey, where were you last night?” MICKEY: “Don’t be silly, you know how I feel about you. You’re the eighth wonder of the world.” DORA: “Yeah, well, just don’t let me catch you with the other seven, bub!” 

Lounging in bed, Dora feels a cold hand which doesn’t belong to Mickey. She screams! There’s a dead man in their bed. 

MICKEY: “You know how difficult it is to find a room these days.”

Detective Mickey notes that the dead man has 18 knife wounds in him and no holes in his shirt.

DORA: “Must have been an inside job.”

They push the body off the bed and decide to turn out the lights and go to sleep.  In the darkness, they hear a squeaky door. 

WELLES (aside): “Fine thing, a squeaky door in an oil program!” 

The audience loudly applauds this ad-lib by Welles, and even Lucy chuckles.

Dora insists there’s someone in the closet. A body falls out of the closet and onto the floor with a loud thud. Someone throws a rock through their bedroom window with a note on it. 

Except the sound effect of broken glass does not happen. Welles laughs a bit but forges ahead. 

MICKEY (reading the note): “Keep your mouth shut and throw a thousand dollars out of the window or you’ll never get another sounds effect...no, excuse me... or they’ll be four bodies in your room.”

Another rock comes through the window - with a sound effect this time!

MICKEY (reading the note): "PS: I’ll settle for $950.” 

A knock at the front door. 

MICKEY: “That must be the murderer. Come in!  I’ll take that line again: That must be the murderer. Come in!”

The man, Flat Top (Hans Conried), pulls a gun on them and threatens to shoot.  

DORA: “Where’s your patriotism? You can’t shoot him. Don’t you know the government is trying to save waste fats?” 

During World War II, the US government urged Americans to save excess fat rendered from cooking and donate it to the army to produce explosives. Fats are used to make glycerin, and glycerin is used to make things blow up.

As gunfire rings out, Welles does a Krunchies commercial, extolling their virtues with strawberries and cream.

WELLES: “You can have strawberries and cream. What do you need Krunchies for?”

Mickey is bleeding. During the commercial, Mickey has hit Flat Top on the head and called the police!  

John McIntire does a commercial for Mobil Oil. He urges motorists to keep their car oil clean to avoid repairs. 

PART THREE  

Welles introduces Ella Mae Morse, who sings “Shoo-Shoo Baby” backed by the All-Star Jazz Group.

The song was also heard in the 1944 film Follow The Boys aka Three Cheers for the Boys sung by the Andrews Sisters. 

Welles then takes a serious tone, dedicating the show to the premise that ‘every man belongs to all men.’ He reads from “Meditation 17″ by John Donne (1572-1631). 

Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris. Now this bell, tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die. 

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. And therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all;  Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? But who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Welles bids the audience goodnight. 

[celebritylive]

The countdown to Reno 911!‘s return is officially on!

In December, it was announced that a revival of the comedic cop show — which originally aired for six seasons on Comedy Central — will be making its debut on upcoming streaming platform Quibi.

On Friday, Quibi shared two side-by-side photos of the cast to Twitter: one was captured in 2003 and the other was taken behind-the-scenes on the revival.

“Quibi is making Reno safe again,” the streaming platform tweeted.

The original series premiered in 2003 and was led by creators and cast members Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon and Kerri Kenney-Silver. All three are returning to write the show’s new season, Variety reported.

“Pic on the right was taken in 2003. Pic on the left was taken 4 days ago. See you n April on Quibi!” Wendi McLendon-Covey, whose character was killed off in the show’s fifth season, tweeted on Friday about the images.

Pic on the right was taken in 2003. Pic on the left was taken 4 days ago. See you n April on Quibi! https://t.co/fVSXHMhuw0

— Wendi McLendon-Covey (@wendimclendonco) February 28, 2020

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

RELATED: Tyler Cameron Builds a Dog House for Kyle Richards in First Trailer for Quibi’s Barkitecture

Also coming back to the show are series originals Niecy Nash, Cedric Yarbrough, Carlos Alazraqui, Ian Roberts, Joe Lo Truglio, and Mary Birdsong.

On Wednesday, Kenney-Silver shared a video of several cast members being silly on set.

View this post on Instagram Family fun time

#reno911

A post shared by Kerri Kenney-Silver (@kerrikenneysilver) on Feb 26, 2020 at 7:15am PST

//www.instagram.com/embed.js

“Family fun time,” she captioned the post.

“Reno 911! holds a special place in our hearts, and it will be a delight to get the original cast back together for ‘re-boot goofin,’” Lennon, 49, said in a release in December. “Hopefully Nick Swardson can still roller skate. Quibi’s short format seems custom made for our show.”

The mockumentary-style show parodied Cops and inspired the film Reno 911!: Miami.

In October, McLendon-Covey, 50, told PeopleTV that there was “serious” talk about it rebooting.

“Reno has now been so far in the past that I don’t remember a lot about it and that’s a shame,” she said, before adding, “One of my treasured memories is always working in an actual cop station that didn’t shut down for us.”

RELATED: Quibi’s The Stranger: Rideshare Driver Maika Monroe Picks Up Sociopath Murderer in New Trailer

“There’s been talk about it,” she said about a potential reboot, before adding that the talk was “pretty serious.”

Reno 911! isn’t the only show returning, thanks to Quibi. The streaming platform is reviving MTV’s Punk’d, hosted by Chance the Rapper, and Singled Out, hosted by Keke Palmer.

The Quibi videos are expected to be short, but will still tell long-form stories, just over a longer period of time. Quibi launches April 6.

from PEOPLE.com https://ift.tt/2VvZK07

[monstersinthecosmos]

Hello! Could you answer 3, 13 and 26 for the fanfic writer meme please?

Sure!!!!!!!!

3. name three favorite writers

OMG as of late:

@suggestivescribe writes like, incredible porn that I’m obsessed with lol. I’ve read their Yuri on Ice fics and I JUST REALLY APPRECIATE IT WHEN PEOPLE WRITE BEAUTIFUL BDSM OR ROUGH SCENES because I think it can sometimes be an overused/underwritten trope by people who either don’t have the writing skill or don’t have the actual life experience to convey the emotional weight. It’s such a joy to read because there’s such a beautiful emotional connection between the players and really well-paced, intense sex. :D MY PERSONAL FAV IS CALLED SUBMISSION, v good 11/10 would recommend. 

@pro-antagonist !!! I’ve only read their one story Winter Song so far but AS OF MY 2016 FANFIC REVIVAL IT IS MY NEW FAVORITE FIC. It’s Yuri on Ice again (SORRY THIS IS LIKE ALL I’VE WANTED TO READ LATELY LOL) and it novelizes the second half of the season and fills in all the gaps between episodes and basically all the off-screen relationship development between Victor and Yuuri. I cannot underemphasize how impressed I am with their reading of subtext and beautiful grasp on these characters, and how PERFECTLY all their extrapolations on canon FIT THE CANON PERFECTLY. I’m also beyond impressed by the dual emotional/sexual development of them as a couple, and it’s incredible that one chapter has me like crying because it’s so poignant and the next one is like the most scalding hot smut? lol it’s great. !!! WOW AMAZING!

BUT MY FAV EVER IS THIS PERSON CALLED SCARLET FEVER? I don’t think she writes anymore and I don’t think she ever made the conversion to AO3 but she wrote my two favorite fics in my life ever that I feel like ARE MY FAVORITE BOOKS? They’re novel length so I think they count as my favorite books lmao. But checkit out, it was from the bad old days when FF.net banned explicit content LOL so the fics got taken down, and she had them hosted on her personal website but it’s gone now. Thankfully I had saved them in a document at some point so I have RESCUED THEM FROM OBLIVION and I still reread them every couple years and just ugh. I wish I could link them cause otherwise I’m just rambling about nothing and it’s like “Uh, cool thanks for the fic rec that I can’t read?” Sorry lmfao. But anyway it was a Resident Evil fic + sequel and it was just. So good. It novelized Wesker & Birkin’s relationship starting in the 70′s when they were first hired by Umbrella and covering up until the events of CODE: Veronica. AND THIS WAS LIKE 2003 OR SOMETHING? So then that was all that existed in canon so far, and so the sequel she just MADE THE FUCK UP. I still take the sequel as canon because the rest of the games were silly lolol I like what she came up with better. But seriously like, beautiful life changing fics with incredible attention to canon and amazing amazing amazing science research to write background exposition about the viruses and bio-weapons that are essential to the Resident Evil world. DO YOUR RESEARCH, KIDS! EVEN FOR FANFIC! IT MAKES YOUR STORIES WAY BETTER! =D

13. hardest character to write

Within VC, fucking Marius?! Part of it is that he’s my favorite and I want to do him justice and I just think he’s tricky. The other part is that he’s such a fucking dumpster fire of ethical problems LMAO so it’s my intention to write him in a way that is true to his shortcomings while also making him sympathetic. I LIKE Marius so it’s easy for me to understand that side of him, because I see both sides, and I don’t think he’s either good or evil, I think he’s a blend of the two. I also think it’s important to consider that even with the fucked up shit he’s done, he doesn’t have a malicious temperament. So to me it’s important that if he does something horrible that he’s doing it with his own reasons and he’s justified it to himself somehow. SO LIKE YEAH idk that’s kinda tricky to write and I just love him so much I’m like OMG DON’T FUCK IT UP DON’T FUCK IT UP!!!! It’s a lot of pressure. =P

26. story you’re most proud of

AS OF LATE, I suppose this one  that I wrote for @vcsecretgifts at Christmas haha. It’s partly because of what I just said about Marius and I hope I got it right? LOL. But I’m pretty happy with how this one came out for the most part and it was really fun to write and I got through it with little to no creative hurdles. I’m working on a fic now that I THINK I’M PRETTY PROUD OF SO FAR? but I keep hitting creative blocks and it’s just coming out at the speed of molasses so I’m really frustrated with myself LOL. But I think I might like it once it’s done if I don’t fuck it up. 

As of my ancient dark fanfic history, I’ll also mention THE ONE LONG FIC I EVER FUCKING FINISHED? Cause I used to start 100 multi-chapter stories and never finish them LOL. But I had ONE that I finished in high school that was like 179k and omg. I mean it’s not a great story and I’m so embarrassed of it now LMAO but I was really proud of myself for finishing it. =P It was wrestling fandom and about Kane & the Undertaker LOL with Raven as a major supporting role. lmaaaao. jeez. 

[dfroza]

Today’s reading in the ancient book of Proverbs and Psalms

for Tuesday, may 26 of 2020 with Proverbs 26 and Psalm 26 accompanied by Psalm 69 for the 69th day of Spring and Psalm 147 for day 147 of the year

[Proverbs 26]

It is totally out of place to promote and honor a fool,

just like it’s out of place to have snow in the summer and rain at harvest time.

An undeserved curse will be powerless to harm you.

It may flutter over you like a bird, but it will find no place to land.

Guide a horse with a whip, direct a donkey with a bridle,

and lead a rebellious fool with a beating on his backside!

Don’t respond to the words of a fool with more foolish words,

or you will become as foolish as he is!

Instead, if you’re asked a silly question,

answer it with words of wisdom

so the fool doesn’t think he’s so clever.

If you choose a fool to represent you, you’re asking for trouble.

It will be as bad for you as cutting off your own feet!

You can never trust the words of a fool,

just like a crippled man can’t trust his legs to support him.

Give honor to a fool and watch it backfire—like a stone tied to a slingshot.

The statements of a fool will hurt others

like a thorn bush brandished by a drunk.

Like a reckless archer shooting arrows at random is the impatient employer

who hires just any fool who comes along—someone’s going to get hurt!

Fools are famous for repeating their errors,

like dogs are known to return to their vomit.

There’s only one thing worse than a fool,

and that’s the smug, conceited man

always in love with his own opinions.

The lazy loafer says,

“I can’t go out and look for a job—

there may be a lion out there roaming wild in the streets!”

As a door is hinged to the wall,

so the lazy man keeps turning over, hinged to his bed!

There are some people so lazy

they won’t even work to feed themselves.

A self-righteous person is convinced he’s smarter

than seven wise counselors who tell him the truth.

It’s better to grab a mad dog by its ears

than to meddle and interfere in a quarrel

that’s none of your business.

[Watch Your Words]

The one who is caught lying to his friend

and says, “I didn’t mean it, I was only joking,”

can be compared to a madman

randomly shooting off deadly weapons.

It takes fuel to have a fire—

a fire dies down when you run out of fuel.

So quarrels disappear when the gossip ends.

Add fuel to the fire and the blaze goes on.

So add an argumentative man to the mix

and you’ll keep strife alive.

Gossip is so delicious, and how we love to swallow it!

For slander is easily absorbed into our innermost being.

Smooth talk can hide a corrupt heart

just like a pretty glaze covers a cheap clay pot.

Kind words can be a cover to conceal hatred of others,

for hypocrisy loves to hide behind flattery.

So don’t be drawn in by the hypocrite,

for his gracious speech is a charade,

nothing but a masquerade covering his hatred and evil on parade.

Don’t worry—he can’t keep the mask on for long.

One day his hypocrisy will be exposed before all the world.

Go ahead, set a trap for others—

and then watch as it snaps back on you!

Start a landslide and you’ll be the one who gets crushed.

Hatred is the root of slander

and insecurity the root of flattery.

The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 26 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 26]

Declare Me Innocent

King David’s poetic praise to God

You be my judge and declare me innocent!

Clear my name, for I have tried my best to keep your laws

and to trust you without wavering.

Lord, you can scrutinize me.

Refine my heart and probe my every thought.

Put me to the test and you’ll find it’s true.

I will never lose sight of your love for me.

Your faithfulness has steadied my steps.

I won’t keep company with tricky, two-faced men,

nor will I go the way of those who defraud with hidden motives.

I despise the sinner’s hangouts, refusing to even enter them.

You won’t find me walking among the wicked.

When I come before you, I’ll come clean,

approaching your altar with songs of thanksgiving,

singing the songs of your mighty miracles.

Lord, I love your home, this place of dazzling glory,

bathed in the splendor and light of your presence!

Don’t treat me as one of these scheming sinners

who plot violence against the innocent.

Look how they devise their wicked plans,

holding the innocent hostage for ransom.

I’m not like them, Lord—not at all.

Save me, redeem me with your mercy,

for I have chosen to walk only in what is right.

I will proclaim it publicly in every congregation,

and because of you, Lord,

I will take my stand on righteousness alone!

The Book of Psalms, Poem 26 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 69]

A Cry of Distress

To the Pure and Shining One

David’s poetic song of praise to the tune of “Lilies”

God, my God, come and save me!

These floods of trouble have risen higher and higher.

The water is up to my neck!

I’m sinking into the mud with no place to stand,

and I’m about to drown in this storm.

I’m weary, exhausted with weeping.

My throat is dry, my voice is gone, my eyes are swollen with sorrow,

and I’m waiting for you, God, to come through for me.

I can’t even count all those who hate me for no reason.

Many influential men want me silenced,

yet I’ve done nothing against them.

Must I restore what I never took away?

God, my life is an open book to you.

You know every sin I’ve ever done.

For nothing within me is hidden from your sight!

Lord Yahweh of Angel Armies,

keep me from ever being a stumbling block to others,

to those who love you.

Lord God of Israel, don’t let what happens to me

be the source of confusion to those who are passionate for you.

Because of my love for you, Lord,

I have been mocked, cursed, and disgraced.

Even my own brothers, those of my family,

act as though they don’t want anything to do with me.

My love for you has my heart on fire!

My passion consumes me for your house!

Nothing will turn me away,

even though I endure all the insults of those who insult you.

When they see me seeking for more of you with weeping and fasting,

they all just scoff and scorn at my passion.

When I humble myself with sorrow over my sin,

it gives them a reason to mock me even more.

The leaders, the influential ones—how they scorn my passion for you!

I’ve become the talk of the town, the theme of drunkards’ songs.

But I keep calling out to you, Yahweh!

I know you will bend down to listen to me,

for now is the season of favor.

Because of your faithful love for me,

your answer to my prayer will be my sure salvation.

Pull me out of this mess! Don’t let me sink!

Rescue me from those who hate me and from all this trouble I’m in!

Don’t let this flood drown me.

Save me from these deep waters

or I’ll go down to the pit of destruction.

Oh, Lord God, answer my prayers!

I need to see your tender kindness, your grace,

your compassion, and your constant love.

Just let me see your face, and turn your heart toward me.

Come running quickly to your servant.

In this deep distress, come and answer my prayer.

Come closer as a friend and redeem me.

Set me free so my enemies cannot say that you are powerless.

See how they dishonor me in shame and disgrace?

You know, Lord, what I’m going through, and you see it all.

I’m heartsick and heartbroken by it all.

Their contempt has crushed my soul.

I looked for sympathy and compassion

but found only empty stares.

I was hungry and they gave me bitter food.

I was thirsty and they offered me vinegar.

Let their “feasts” turn to ashes.

Let their “peace and security” become their downfall.

Make them blind as bats, groping in the dark.

Let them be feeble, trembling continually.

Pour out your fury on them all!

Consume them with the fire of your anger!

Burn down the walled palace where they live!

Leave them homeless and desolate!

For they come against the one you yourself have struck,

and they scorn the pain of those you’ve pierced.

Pile on them the guilt of their sins.

Don’t let them ever go free.

Leave them out of your list of the living!

Blot them out of your book of life!

Never name them as your own!

I am burdened and broken by this pain.

When your miracle rescue comes to me,

it will lift me to the highest place.

Then my song will be a burst of praise to you.

My glory-shouts will make your fame even more glorious

to all who hear my praises!

For I know, Yahweh, that my praises mean more to you

than all my gifts and sacrifices.

All who seek you will see God do this for them,

and they’ll overflow with gladness.

Let this revive your hearts, all you lovers of God!

For Yahweh does listen to the poor and needy

and will not abandon his prisoners of love.

Let all the universe praise him!

The high heavens and everyone on earth, praise him!

Let the oceans deep, with everything in them, keep it up!

God will come to save his Zion-people.

God will build up his cities of Judah,

for there his people will live in peace.

All their children will inherit the land,

and the lovers of his name will live there safe and secure.

The Book of Psalms, Poem 69 (The Passion Translation)

[Psalm 147]

Our Amazing God

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

How beautiful it is when we sing our praises to the beautiful God,

for praise makes you lovely before him

and brings him great delight!

The Lord builds up Jerusalem;

he gathers up the outcasts and brings them home.

He heals the wounds of every shattered heart.

He sets his stars in place, calling them all by their names.

How great is our God!

There’s absolutely nothing his power cannot accomplish,

and he has infinite understanding of everything.

God supports and strengthens the humble,

but the ungodly will be brought down to the dust.

Sing out with songs of thanksgiving to the Lord!

Let’s sing our praises with melodies overflowing!

He fills the sky with clouds, sending showers to water the earth

so that the grass springs up on the mountain fields

and the earth produces food for man.

All the birds and beasts who cry with hunger to him

are fed from his hands.

His people don’t find security in strong horses,

for horsepower is nothing to him.

Man power is even less impressive!

The Lord shows favor to those who fear him,

to his godly lovers who wait for his tender embrace.

Jerusalem, praise the Lord! Zion, worship your God!

For he has strengthened the authority of your gates.

He even blesses you with more children.

He’s the one who brings peace to your borders,

feeding you the most excellent of fare.

He sends out his orders throughout the world;

his words run as swift messengers, bringing them to pass.

He blankets the earth with glistening snow,

painting the landscape with frost.

Sleet and hail fall from the sky,

causing waters to freeze before winter’s icy blast.

Then he speaks his word and it all melts away;

as the warm spring winds blow, the streams begin to flow.

In the same way, he speaks his word to Jacob,

and to Israel he brings his life-giving instruction.

He has dealt with Israel differently than with any other people,

for they have received his laws.

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

The Book of Psalms, Poem 147 (The Passion Translation)

[fireflyhwufanficwriter]

My thoughts on Dr. Stone’s S03E13 (“The Medusa's True Face”)

(Safe to read for anime-only folks.)

My thoughts after watching Season Three, Episode Thirteen:

01. Time to get Kaseki back - and after that, it's drone time!

02. This episode's title is, "The Medusa's True Face!" :O

03. Gen's right that the way Senku is going about this is a little too unceremonious... and if I were Kaseki, I don't think I'd like having that mark on my back!

04. Taiju can hold his breath for a few minutes?! Everybody else is shocked at how casually he thinks of a few hundred trips, but Senku wasn't surprised at all! :)

05. Hmm, "buckle;" Gen used that word in relation to Senku and Byakuya before, too... now it's for Senku and Taiju...

06. Suika, nooo! Don't say "poop hole!!" XD

07. Kaseki has been revived! It's adorable how Suika's copying his hand and body gestures, just like she did with Senku before! :)

08. He had such confidence in his friends and comrades!

09. Senku knew that the kelp would work just fine, because he knew Kaseki would explode after finding out about the drone project! But then Kaseki's cheerfulness took a hit when he saw the state the mobile lab car was in...!

10. They probably collected the bird feathers while they were out, after they learned more about the petrification weapon... I'll have to pinpoint exactly when someday...

11. Leonardo da Vinci was an art genius AND a science genius; that was one lucky dude!

12. That's a really smart way to separate those small metal balls by size!

13. I like how the anime gives us a much better idea of the passage of time. The cave is darker now, so it seems to be nighttime during the time Taiju and Soyuz are coming back to the others :)

14. Ryusui was so sentimental as he looked at Chrome, Francois, and Ukyo... and then this random dude is thrown into the mix and the music disappears and he's just like, "Who?" Perfect comedic timing by the anime! :D

15. And then after they talk about the random guy a bit, the touching music starts up again, hahaha! XD

16. Kaseki's reveal of the working drone was cooler in the manga, but this is good too! :)

17. Don't worry, Ginro! Kohaku believes in you! You can do it! :D

18. Oooh, Mozu...!

19. As if Kohaku would reveal anything about her friends! :O

20. Ginro, you have a secret pineapple weapon, so you're not there unarmed! And you're talking like a man again; please get it together, or you might be discovered!

21. "Oh-so-lovingly?" Ibara's so creepy... :O

22. Oh, good, Kohaku has a weapon! It looks like a butcher knife, but it's still a weapon! And she defeated thirteen people in just a few seconds!

23. They really made Mozu look protective of Kohaku in the anime, didn't they? First the selection, and now this fight!

24. Wow, looks like they teach teleportation on Treasure Island... XD

25. The best of the petrification kingdom versus the best of the kingdom of science!

26. Ginro was motivated not by the thought of helping everybody get information, but by the thought that Kohaku might kill him if he wasted his chance to find out something useful XD

27. The master of the island is a petrified statue...

28. Finally, Ibara's as menacing as he was in the manga! Well, closer, anyway. The anime made him really soft and silly, but now he's closer to what he originally was. Although... that's really bad news for Ginro...

29. So compared to Kohaku, Mozu is THAT strong?! Dozens of her wouldn't be able to beat him? That can't be... right? :O And I like how the anime gives a clearer picture of how the fight is going!

30. The flower petals falling off of Kohaku... I wonder if they're supposed to be a substitute for blood? Like they're a symbol of how outmatched she is?

31. "I like strong girls, too, as long as they have a pretty face. What kind of men do you like, Kohaku-chan? How about me? I'm strong."

32. "Strength is strength of mind. To be able to continue hammering a wedge for as long as it takes to carry out one's will. That's the kind of man I'm drawn to. Well, this is a problem, Moz. You seem to be the exact opposite."

33. "You're so cute, Kohaku-chan. But you aren't cute."

34. Sooo... I'm glad we've finally arrived at this scene, but the translation... it was SO MUCH BETTER in the manga! It was SO clear that Kohaku was talking about Senku, because she said something incredibly similar to him the day they met! Argh, why did they use THESE English subtitles for this scene? I know exactly how this was supposed to go, but the way they worded it... ah, well, I hope people can still see who Kohaku truly meant...!

35. Okay, so Ibara has confirmed that he has straight-up murdered previous harem members because they saw the master of the island... yikes! It was a good idea for Ginro to jump away from him, but the fact that he was actually able to jump from that height and come out unscathed is impressive!

36. Ack, don't distract Kohaku, Ginro! Can't you see she's fighting an extremely powerful enemy?! -_-

37. But I guess that had to happen so that Kohaku could see exactly HOW Ginro was injured... Ibara's weapons are horrifying!

38. Oh, Ginro... :(

39. With his last breath, he's giving Kohaku the information he discovered... I've watched this before, but this is STILL made me cry. again... :O

40. Kohaku is incredible. The master's house is probably the tallest point in the whole tree infrastructure thing going on. Ginro jumped DOWN from that to flee from Ibara; then he was stabbed in multiple places and fell DOWN past where Kohaku had been fighting Mozu...

41. ...and then after receiving Ginro's information, she carries him in her arms; speaks briefly to Amaryllis; runs on the wooden platform; jumps UP thick tree branches; runs UP an almost completely vertical wooden platform; runs UP a gigantic tree trunk; and jumps UP to the island master's rooftop.

42. From the time she started running, she already knew what she had to do - and not only was it a great personal risk, but it also required incredible speed and athleticism, and this was AFTER she had just fought a very powerful enemy (who seemed to have just vanished, hahaha)!

43. Nobody seems to want to indulge what I think the Medusa looks like. Because I read the manga, I imagined it to be grey, like stone. Then later on, I think I saw a colorized version of that panel that somebody had made, and they had colored the Medusa green...

44. ...And NOW in the official anime, it's blue (sort of metallic blue, but still blue, unless it's just reflecting the color around it), but it turns green when activated. Am I the only one who thought it was grey??

45. (Also, they missed something in the process just before they fully lit up the Medusa's petrifying light, but maybe they want to show it later?)

46. Kohaku knew she had to make them petrify them so that Ginro could be saved... :'( Just like how Byakuya passed the baton to his descendants, Kohaku passed the baton to Amaryllis... You know an ending scene is EPIC when they're playing the ending song over it... :O

47. Her last thought was of Senku! :D She has so much faith in him and in science and their friends! :O

48. Well, at least we get part of the ending song, and see Kohaku coming home to Senku... :)

49. What an episode! So much bravery and strength and love, especially from Ginro and Kohaku! While I wasn't happy with how they translated that scene I mentioned, that doesn't take away from the courage they both showed in the last scene... they were incredible! :O The next episode's title is going to be "Deal Game, Test of Wit," and it's going to air tonight! I can't wait to see Senku's reaction to Amaryllis' news! :O

https :// fireflyhwufanficwriter . tumblr . com / MyDrStoneEpisodeMangaThoughts

[newyorktheater]

  Angela Lansbury, who is appearing tonight as Lady Bracknell in a one-night benefit staging of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest at Roundabout’s American Airlines theater, was interviewed at Lincoln Center library over the weekend by Irish Rep’s Charlotte Moore as part of the 37th season of The League of Professional Theatre Women’s Oral History Project.  Lansbury, 94, recounted her first role in the movies, as the saucy maid in Gaslight at the age of 17. From then on, “I was a utility actress, as far as MGM was concerned. They could put me into almost any role, and I would act it.” Two decades after that first Oscar-nominated screen role, she won her first of five Tony Awards. Three quarters of a century after she began, she’s still preparing for roles.  “It’s terribly important to get out of yourself and into that character. Leave yourself at home.”  

So many people (and journalists!) complained that the public impeachment hearings made for dull theater that others angrily denounced the “theater critic school of journalism” and Saturday Night Life responded with a soap opera called “Days of Our Impeachment.”

Her dignity in responding to Trump speaks volumes. I wonder if this is riveting enough for the “theater critic” school of journalism. Schiff uses the opportunity t make clear Trump is engaged in witness intimidation. This is a moment. A real moment.

— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) November 15, 2019

Covering the news like a fucking theater critic. This is why Donald Trump is president. This is why our missiles are shinier than our schools. This is why the Climate Crisis will destroy us all. https://t.co/ukmWBv99EA

— Bradley Whitford (@BradleyWhitford) November 14, 2019

But then others, such as Washington Post theater critic Peter Marks, rightly denounced the denouncers for besmirching theater critics.

The dismissive use of theater criticism is misapplied, anyway. By people who should know better. If you are not observing a performance in the room, you aren’t a theater critic. You are a TV critic.

— Peter Marks (@petermarksdrama) November 14, 2019

A lot of denouncing in America these days — and more to come:

Schedule of impeachment hearings in the coming week

Week in NY Theater Previews & Reviews

Rick Borutta, personal assistant to Elaine Stritch

Preview: “Nobody’s Bitch”: Elaine Stritch as Boss

Elaine Stritch kicked Rick Borutta in the stomach every day. That, anyway, is how he says it felt at the beginning. “Other than that, she was rather likable,” says Borutta, who worked as her personal assistant for four years, an experience that he has turned into a solo show, entitled “Nobody’s Bitch,” which he is bringing to New York for the first time for one night only at The Duplex on November 26th.

Michael Benjamin Washington

Fires in the Mirror

It would be hard to overstate the city-wide trauma that occurred in Crown Heights, Brooklyn in August, 1991, nor the power of “Fires in the Mirror,” the groundbreaking documentary play about it nine months later at the Public, which introduced New York theatergoers to the astonishing theater artist Anna Deavere Smith. That power comes roaring back in a revival at Signature that, for the first time, features an actor other than Smith…“Fires in the Mirror” offers, without judgment and with implicit compassion, a breadth of personalities — rabbis and reverends, activists and everyday residents — with views that conflict, contradict, supplement or concur. But how they present themselves and what they say also often resonate way beyond what happened in Crown Heights.

Tina The Tina Turner Musical

The thrilling final minutes of “Tina” are all that a rock concert should be, and the main reason to see this jukebox biomusical about one of the world’s most electric performers, portrayed by Adrienne Warren in a star-making role. It may not be reason enough, though, especially for those of us who recall the 1993 movie, “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” which covers the same remarkable life of the outsized talent born Annie Mae Bullock to a sharecropping family in Nutbush, Tennessee.

Slava’s Snowshow

In the 26 years since the Russian clown Slava Polunin began touring, “Slava’s Snowshow” has been performed “thousands of times to millions of people in hundreds of cities,” according to the playbill. It doesn’t mention how much confetti, water and fusillades of giant beach balls have been dumped on, squirted, and shot at audiences. I’d say tons just in the performance I saw at Broadway’s Stephen Sondheim Theater, where the silly, wordless, plotless, pointless and popular 90- minute show (plus intermission) is running through January 5. Much of the show is a series of moments too sketchy to be called scenes and too scenic to be called sketches

User Not Found

Keep those cell phones on; that’s where “User Not Found” largely unfolds.   Yes, this terrific site-specific play takes place in a café near BAM in Fort Greene, where Terry O’Donovan portrays a fellow café dweller also named Terry grieving the death of his ex-lover Luka. But this inventive, pointed work of theater asks us to consider how the current public immersion in the digital world affects both life and death. And so, to that end, the theatergoers are each given a headphone and a smart phone in order to follow Terry’s story, though he’s standing (and moving around, and eating) right in front of us, and speaking directly to us. But he’s also answering his text messages, and looking at his dead lover’s social media accounts – and we’re looking right along with him. “User Not Found” is an unusual show that requires some initial adjustment, dips into what feels like sci-fi, but ultimately, and surprisingly, becomes quite touching…in more ways than one.

BrandoCapote

“BrandoCapote” is a play with a script by Sara Farrington inspired by a fascinating interview Truman Capote conducted with Marlon Brando at the peak of his popularity in 1957, while the movie star was filming “Sayonara” in Japan. It is also a dance theater piece choreographed by Laura K. Nicoll that mixes modern American with traditional Japanese movement, enhanced by vivid Japanese costumes. And it is the latest showcase for director Reid Farrington’s inventive technical experiments in integrating filmed images into live theatrical performance: Very brief clips from more than a dozen of Brando’s film performances (from Oscar-winners “On The Waterfront” and “The Godfather” to such oddities as “The Island of Doctor Moreau”) are projected crisply onto Japanese umbrellas of varying sizes that the cast members suddenly unfold.

Each of these elements of “BrandoCapote” intrigued me and impressed me. But all three put together lost me.

The Week in New York Theater News

Santino Fontana in Tootsie

Tootsie will close on Sunday, January 5, 2020, having played 293 regular and 25 preview performances at the Marquis Theatre.

Forbidden Broadway The Next Generation will close December 1st.

The Drama Bookshop has found a new home a block south of the old store and will reopen in March, 2020.

wow. the new @dramabookshop animated by architect @DavidKorins https://t.co/ukykIRLoFs

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) November 12, 2019

  Accessibility Corner

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/theater/tiny-tim-a-christmas-carol-disabled-actors.html

Tiny Tim is being portrayed by a disabled actor (actually two.)

In Mockingbird, Russell Harvard, a deaf actor, finally gets his wish not to be defined solely by his deafness: Harvard assumes two supporting parts (both of them hearing characters): Boo Radley, the mysterious, rarely seen neighbor of the intimidated youngsters, Scout and Jem Finch, and more prominently Link Deas, the inscrutable local dismissed as a drunk.

A celebration of the life and legacy of Broadway legend Harold Prince will take place on Monday, December 16, at The Majestic Theatre (247 West 44th Street). Beginning at 1:30 PM, the tribute is open to friends, family and the theater community, and will feature tributes and performances from colleagues and loved ones. Doors will open at 1PM. The Majestic is the 31-year home of Mr. Prince’s record-breaking production of The Phantom of the Opera, the longest-running show in Broadway history.

MasterVoices will begin its 2019-20 season on Thursday, November 21 at Carnegie Hall with the concert staging of George and Ira Gershwins’ 1933 musical Let ‘Em Eat Cake, with a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, a comic satire about a populist U.S. President who is voted out of office and stages a coup to regain power.

Theater has a problem with people of color by Jose Solis: I’ve been working professionally as a theater critic since 2013; I’m a board member of the Drama Desk (where I also serve as part of the nominating committee), and I’ve written for every reputable publication in town. For as long as I’ve been attending theater in the city, my name and brown skin have made me the target of bullies and racists. I’ve been asked if I’m with the catering staff at theater critics events, been chastised by angry ushers to turn my cell phone off, even if I have never taken my device out of my pocket during a performance, and often been asked if I’m sure I belong in the orchestra, as ushers point me to the mezzanine. My skin has become so thickened by the mistreatment and rudeness of theater employees that I might as well be a walking callus. I experience this, in part, because I’m a rarity on Broadway. In the 2017-2018 season, 75% of Broadway audiences were Caucasian, according to statistics compiled by the Broadway League. Theater clearly has a people of color problem: It’s not only that many people of color have no interest in revivals of revered but irrelevant plays featuring beige ensembles, it’s also that when we do come to the theater, we are told that we’re invading white spaces. When I see a show with a white friend, people often ask the friend if they brought me to the show and ask me if it’s my first time at the theater.

  “Time 100 Next” list honors Broadway veterans @ALISTROKER, @BeanieFeldstein and @jeremyoharris https://t.co/lUgGDwG2Gb pic.twitter.com/XFRyJ88hUQ

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) November 13, 2019

Have a play in mind you think we should have in our circulating collection? There’s a form for that! https://t.co/UooR75cEFu

— NYPL Theatre (@NYPL_Theatre) November 14, 2019

How Theater Directors Use Fragrances to Create “Poetry for the Nose”

From at least the late 19th century, when David Belasco had actors cook and brew coffee on stage to heighten the realism of domestic scenes, to recent efforts to evoke a piney forest or the tang of gunpowder, directors have tried to involve an audience’s olfactory sense to intensify their experience. …“The difficulties of controlling an odor once released into a large room like a theater are very complicated,” said Stuart Firestein, a neuroscientist at Columbia University and former theatrical actor and director.

(I don’t think you need a neuroscientist with a back to point this out.)

Celebrating 25 Years of Disney on Broadway raised $570,426 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

#Stageworthy News of the Week: Angela Lansbury 77 years later. Impeachment as Theater? Stritch The Bitch? Drama Bookshop Finds a Home! So many people (and journalists!) complained that the public impeachment hearings made for dull theater that others angrily denounced the "theater critic school of journalism" and Saturday Night Life responded with a soap opera called "Days of Our Impeachment."

[nathanielwharton]

My 2017 in Pop Culture

Same deal as usual. This is what meant most to me last year in pop culture.

Top Forty Things From 2017

40. The Mummy I liked it. It's definitely got the worked-over vibe that people most object to in these shared-universe experiments, and it goes a little bigger and more action-heavy than I'd probably prefer for a Universal Monster movie. But, I liked the way it fused a modern Tom Cruise narrative with a traditional monster story. I liked the genuine horror movie flourishes throughout. I liked the winks at monster fans in the Prodigium headquarters. I loved Sofia Boutella's Ahmanet. And I loved Russell Crowe's silly/creepy thug Mr. Hyde. This one also got bonus points for The Mummy: Dark Universe Stories, the iPhone game that came out a month after the film. The story plays out a sequel to the movie, but the real nerdy thrill of it was the way it incorporated a bunch of original Universal Monsters characters and ideas, including Lisa Glendon from Werewolf of London and Kharis and Boris Karloff's Ardeth Bay from the original Mummy movies! 39. Baby Driver This was just a delight, a combination of classic crime movie and classic musical with that Edgar Wright energy giving it that extra nitrous burst of excitement. 38. "Every Country Has a Monster" on Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return I'm one of those fans who loved Mystery Science Theater 3000 when he stumbled across it on cable in the 90s but has a little trouble with the way it gave license to a certain sourness and superiority about older movies among some audiences. Still, I found myself looking forward to the revival with a little trepidation as to whether it would find the right tone (or recapture the lo-fi public access charm of the original). The first twenty minutes or so of the first episode back (focused on the Danish giant monster movie Reptilicus, so they were doing well by me right off the bat) were pretty promising, but this song about giant monsters of myth across the world was where I decided I was on board for this revival. 37. Happy Death Day What a fun time this was! It's got a really charming lead performance and a fun story hook, but it's really the energy and inventiveness that it applies to slasher movie/Groundhog Day story of self-improvement that put it over the top for me. 36. John Wick Chapter 2/Free Fire/Atomic Blonde Hard to pick from among the three of these in terms of which action movie I had the most fun with this year. They've all got something special to recommend them. 35. The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween This doesn't quite scale the heights of last year's Duck the Halls Christmas special, but it was still a funny, thoroughly delightful seasonal treat that I'll probably make a point of watching next October too. 34. My Favorite Thing is Monsters Vol. 1 I checked it out because I'd read it was a comic about a 10-year-old girl who was obsessed with monsters (picturing herself as a little wolfman) who tries to solve the murder of her neighbor. What I got was a moving story about historical injustice and personal revelation told with dazzling illustration. Really, this knocked me out. 33. Gemini/Murder on the Orient Express I think Gemini is actually going to be a 2018 release, but these two mystery films really scratched an itch for me this year. I was a big fan of director Aaron Katz's Cold Weather, a wonderful little mumblecore mystery story, but I wasn't prepared for how much I dug his twisty neo-noir, Gemini. And Murder on the Orient Express was kind of a similarly satisfying experience on the other end of the spectrum: a lavish, big-budget adaptation with a cast stocked with movie stars and exciting up-and-comers. I loved it, and now I'm all about seeing Branagh continue to work on his little proposed Agatha Christie universe. #thirtyBranaghPoirotmovies 32. Okja It's a new Bong Joon-ho film! That means it's got a bunch of thrilling filmmaking, wild performances, tricky tonal shifts, and a beautifully clear-eyed honest empathy. 31. The Get Down Season One, Part Two I was sorry to see this one cancelled after the still thrilling but also melancholy second half came out this year. I really fell in love with these characters, and it was always an exciting experience. And this was just one of the many Netflix shows I really loved this year (including Mindhunter, BoJack Horseman, Lady Dynamite, GLOW, Orange is the New Black, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). 30. The ending of Split I loved the rest of Split, and I was already onboard the M. Night Shyamalan comeback train from The Visit (after riding like five movies on the “oh no, he’s lost it so bad!” train). But those surprising final moments of Split, while holding the potential for another dive into disastrous hubris, made me straight up gasp out loud in confusion & delight.

29. The Samurai Jack Revival/Finale I enjoyed a lot of the original run of Samurai Jack, but I wasn’t exactly a devoted viewer & hadn’t particularly missed it in its absence. So I checked out the revival largely just to see what the great Genndy Tartakovsky would to with it after spending time on other projects. And wow! It turned out not only to be a truly gorgeous & riveting experience, but it also took the characters & elements of the original & gave them some interesting psychology & moral challenges. 28. Nathan for You’s "Finding Frances" I love Nathan For You, but this year’s season finale, “Finding Frances,” was probably the most interesting thing he’s done with the format. In some ways it’s basically Nathan For You: The Movie, finding a sprawling emotional journey, still filled with nutball comic cul de sacs, that also digs into the “Nathan” character & finds a new place to take him by the end. 27. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Season One I figured I’d check out the first season, despite the fact that it would mostly be covering the same material covered in the totally decent Jim Carrey movie, because I was interested to see Barry Sonnenfield finally get a shot at the material & because I wanted to see what they’d do with the later books. But from the first moments with Patrick Warburton’s Serling-esque take on Lemony Snicket (and that infectious theme song) I fell in love with the show. The cast is great, the adaptation work is clever and involving (including an ingenious side story with Will Arnett & Cobie Smulders that seems brilliantly designed to provide different-but-complementary experiences for fans and non-fans), and I stress again how much I loved Warburton. There’s also a wonderful flourish in the season finale that amped my love into adoration. 26. A Cure For Wellness If Gore Verbinski can keep getting people to give him huge budgets to make big, weird genre films about the rot at the center of capitalism and western civilization, I will keep seeing them and (presumably) loving them. 25. Opening sequence of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets The rest of the movie is a colorful bit of fun, but the opening sequence where we see, via montage, the establishment and development of the titular city of a thousand planets, is as sublime and moving a movie moment as any I saw this year. Thrillingly optimistic and hopeful, Besson briefly hits on something more than his usual enjoyably daffy nonsense. 24. Final seasons of The Leftovers & Vice Principals Two HBO shows I loved aired their final seasons this year. Both of them had set themselves up with particularly tricky tasks in providing satisfying resolutions without either ruining the mystique of what had come before or pulling their punches in a way that impacted the whole. And they both nailed it. 23. A Ghost Story I wrote about this one for SportsAlcohol.com. I found it bewitching and it stayed with me. 22. Star Trek: Discovery It was a long wait, but this new Star Trek show pretty immediately justified my subscription to yet another streaming service all on its own. I love the characters, I’m engrossed in the storytelling, and I’m challenged by the moral and intellectual ideas it’s exploring. Good Star Trek. (This also may as well be where I mention that I also watched, and pretty much enjoyed, the whole first season of Seth Macfarlane’s generic brand Trek cover, The Orville. Pretty well scratches whatever old school Trek itch Discovery could have left me with.) 21. Wormwood I love most everything of his that I’ve seen, but this is basically in competition with Tabloid for my favorite Errol Morris project.

20. Gorogoa Feels almost silly that I found what basically amounts to a puzzle game for my phone so entrancing & even spiritual. But I LOVED this thing. My only complaint is that it wished it kept going and going. 19. DuckTales Wrote about this for SportsAlcohol.com. A testament to how delightful this show is can be found in the fact that I put it in this slot instead of the also hugely enjoyable Milo Murphy’s Law. 18. Marvel Cinematic Universe While this year I definitely cooled on the Marvel television offerings (I still watched and enjoyed the Netflix shows despite some underwhelmed feelings, and I'm still pretty high on Agents of SHIELD, but Inhumans was a total misfire), it was perhaps the best year yet for Marvel Studios's cinematic offerings. I totally loved Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor Ragnarok. They each offered something fairly distinct and emotionally engaging (even Ragnarok, despite it's hilariously cheeky tone) and they were all a complete blast. Best Guardians yet, best Spider-man yet, best Thor yet! 17. Lady Bird Between 2016’s Edge of Seventeen and this,  guess I’m gonna hope for a wonderful teen girl coming-of-age movie every other year. And thanks to Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and the idiosyncratic empathy of Greta Gerwig, this one was a true highlight of 2017. 16. Get Out The terrific horror-themed sketches on Key & Peele suggested a genuine feel for the genre, so it wasn’t a huge reach to expect Jordan Peele’s directorial debut horror movie to turn out well. But this one still felt like a revelation at the beginning of the year (not to mention a huge event when seen with an audience). 15. Your Name Another wonderful surprise, this one makes some clever and twisty shifts as what starts out as a charming body-switching comedy reveals an emotional core that really swept me away. 14. War for the Planet of the Apes I wrote about this one for SportsAlcohol.com. 13. Blade Runner 2049 I also wrote about this one for SportsAlcohol.com. 12. The Post I wrote about this for SportsAlcohol.com too! 11. Coco Look, I’m generally less excited about Pixar’s sequels than I am about its originals (and I generally really like or love their sequels! but still...), and Coco is a perfect example of why. It’s a great story with a bunch of lovable new characters, beautiful new worlds, and the fun of seeing something new. And as is often the case, it also packs a real emotional wallop. 10. S-Town Speaking of emotional wallops, this podcast miniseries was already shaping up to be an involving look at a fascinating character, but a bombshell dropped in an early episode spins the thing into something deeper and more powerful than anything else I listened to this year.

9. Colossal Wrote about this for SportsAlcohol.com. 8. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel While this show has many things that set it apart from the other Amy Sherman-Palladino shows I love (namely Gilmore Girls & Bunheads), it does share the qualities of being unstoppably effervescent and entertaining while offering hidden depths. We gulped the whole season down in two plane rides and can’t wait for the next batch. 7. Star Wars: The Last Jedi Wrote about the movie on SportsAlcohol.com. It was another good Star Wars year in general, with some excellent Star Wars Rebels episodes, the continuation of the fantastic Marvel comics, and some cool novels (generally I didn't read any bad Star Wars books this year, so that's good; personal highlights were Aftermath: Empire's End and Leia: Princess of Alderaan). But the real highlight was, of course, the movie. It was a joyful, powerful experience opening night (in a way that felt interestingly different from the experience of The Force Awakens), and it’s a movie that has lingered and deepened in my mind as I’ve thought about it. 6. The Shape of Water I run pretty hot and lukewarm on Guillermo del Toro (that is to say, I don’t particularly dislike any of his movies, but while I love some of them, others just don’t connect like I feel they should, despite how much the separate elements might appeal to me). But for every one that I just like okay, he connects with something like this, a gorgeous, perverse fairy tale retelling of the Creature From the Black Lagoon with tributes to Cold War paranoia, classic movie musicals, and a great Michael Shannon performance added to the mix. Just a lovely tribute to the way love can unite the disenfranchised and overlooked. 5. Kong: Skull Island An eye-popping fever dream of a monster mash, this movie assembled a stacked cast of actors I love and surrounded them with some of the most stunning monster movie images I’ve ever seen. A++++infinity 4. Stranger Things 2 What a wonderful surprise the first season of this show was, and what a relief and a joy to get this sequel that is, in most ways, even better. By the final scenes of the finale, I was more in love than ever. 3. The Florida Project I wrote a bit about this for SportsAlcohol.com, so I think it’s enough to say here that this is a very special movie. 2. American Vandal What a wonderful little surprise this was! Like Stranger Things last year, this was something that popped up on Netflix & gave me something I didn’t know I wanted. On one level, it’s just a silly, dirty joke really elaborately told. But on another level, it’s a sneakily moving portrait of the way that expectations and choices made when you’re young can really impact what you become in that transition from teenager to adult.

1. Twin Peaks: The Return I was looking forward to this, and I had a pretty open mind as far as what it could be or what to expect from it. But I still had no idea how amazing and immersive and gripping it would all be. I wrote about it over at SportsAlcohol.com and talked about it on the podcast and I STILL only scratched the surface of how I felt about it.

Top Twenty Things I'm Excited About in 2018

Arrested Development Returns! I adored both the original run of the show and the fourth season that hit Netflix five years ago. I cannot wait for this. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs It's the new Coen brothers project. And it's supposed to be something like six hours of new Coen brothers project. Holy smokes. The Last Best Story I really loved Maggie's last book, and the tidbits I've heard about this one make it sound terrific. Been anticipating this one for nearly three years and it's almost here! Isle of Dogs Wes Anderson movies pretty much automatically quality as "most anticipated" for me, and the trailer for this one looks thoroughly delightful. And it hopefully augurs an exciting year for stop motion animation. While I'm obviously into The Incredibles II and Ralph Wrecks the Internet, I'm even more intrigued with the untitled Laika film scheduled for this year. There's been so little news about it, it seems possible it won't actually hit this year, but even if it doesn't there's Early Man, a new Aardman film directed by Nick Park due out in February, and Jan Svankmajer's final film, Insects, that I hope makes its way to the US this year. Ready Player One I'm sure I'd see this one no matter what, but the fact that Steven Spielberg directed it means I'm actively excited to catch it on day one. Marvel Cinematic Universe After a stellar 2017 (and all the goodwill they built up over the last ten years in general) I'd be excited for their three pictures this year. So the fact that they've got Black Panther (a terrific cast in Ryan Coogler's follow-up to Creed!), Avengers: Infinity War (the beginning of this big two-year culmination event, written & directed by the folks who made my beloved Captain America movies), and Ant-Man and the Wasp (I had a great time with the first one, and Down With Love guarantees Peyton Reed my attention forever), gives me confidence that they'll have another great year in 2018. Star Wars I'm forever excited about Star Wars (or at least the current firehose volume of it still hasn't made me bored of it yet) so I'm pretty interested to see Solo: A Star Wars Story, and I'm also really on the hook to see the final batch of episodes of Star Wars Rebels. Roseanne Revival Maybe I'm just tempting fate because of how the Twin Peaks revival turned out, but I'm excited for this one. I love the original show (one of my favorite little things about getting cable has been that Roseanne is on one channel or another almost all the time) and I'm equally apprehensive about and intrigued by the news that's come out about the revival so far. But I'll definitely be watching the whole thing. Lethal White AND Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald A new Cormoran Strike book and a new Wizarding World movie with a screenplay by J.K. Rowling! I understand why neither of them are exactly the kind of cultural event that the Potter books and movies were, but I'm personally so excited for both. A Wrinkle in Time AND Mary Poppins Returns Two big Disney productions that are super up my alley, so I'm grouping them together. Wrinkle promises an adaptation of a wonderful book from an exciting director and a fantastic cast. And Poppins has the liability of a director I've been extremely mixed on in the past, but it also has a perfect cast and the original Mary Poppins is a movie a really love deeply. Really excited to have these bookending the year. A New Cloverfield The God Particle was on this list last year, and it's on there again this year. We're only a couple of weeks into the year and it's already been delayed again, so this is in hopes that it does really come out this April. But in any case, with God Particle and Overlord, another mysterious genre film from Bad Robot that fans have been speculating could be another Cloverfield movie, both scheduled for release this year, seems pretty likely we'll at least get one new Cloverfield picture. (UPDATE SINCE I WROTE THIS: the game is afoot again!) Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters It's got a killer premise and it's just hit Netflix! I'm excited for this one, and it seems possible that the second film in the announced trilogy could also hit Netflix before the end of the year. New Darin Morgan X-Files episode The new season of the X-Files revival already seems off to a stronger start than the last one, but no matter what it does hold the promise of another new episode by writer Darin Morgan. This is an event. Disenchantment Look, I still watch (and usually enjoy) The Simpsons. I adore Futurama. I am super excited for a new Matt Groening animated series, and tickled by the notion that it'll explore a new genre. My Favorite Thing is Monsters Vol. 2 The first half of the story was such a beautiful, engrossing, moving surprise this year, that I can't wait for the follow-up. Sense8 Finale Movie I'm glad they're getting a chance to wrap things up the way they want to here, and I'm looking forward to one more visit with this nutty, beautiful show. My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman AND Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee I don't keep up with all of Netflix's stand-up comedy offerings or the like, but I am super excited for these talk shows by a couple of my absolute favorite comedy curmudgeons. I actually watched (and really loved) the episode of Letterman's show with President Obama, and I'm looking forward to getting through all the rest of both of these throughout this year. Mute It looks like Duncan Jones's new film, some kind of spiritual follow-up to his great Moon, is finally going to show up on Netflix early this year! And they've also got the next films by Gareth Evans, Jeremy Saulnier, and David Mackenzie that could always drop sometime this year AND The Other Side of the Wind, a lost Orson Welles film! The Predator A new Shane Black movie is a cause for celebration, and while trying to revive the Predator seems like a dicey proposition, he's assembled an exciting cast and co-wrote the film with his Monster Squad collaborator Fred Dekker, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they've cooked up enough to put it here instead of the other genre sequels I'm intrigued by this year (like David Gordon Green's Halloween or J.A. Bayona's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom). The Happytime Murders A Roger Rabbit riff with puppets would be enough to get my attention, but get Brian Henson to direct it in his first theatrical feature since his Muppet films from the 90s and I'm fully excited.

[newyorktheater]

In celebration of the Blue Wave – which has grown steadily in the week since Election Day — a silly observation: There have been 51 Broadway shows with “Blue” in the title.

Theda Bara and unidentified actor in the stage production The Blue Flame, 1920

The Blue Bird

I’m reluctant to point out there have been just about the same number with “Red” in the title. I prefer to think of the shows that had both in the title, though it’s been a while –  the 1898 drama “The Red, White and Blue” and the 1936 Cole Porter musical, Red, Hot and Blue,, starring Ethel Merman, Bob Hope and Jimmy Durante, which introduced the song “It’s De-Lovely” – It’s delightful, it’s delicious, It’s delectable, it’s delirious….

Not silly: Sample Broadway’s Most Entertaining Shows About Serious Social Issues

Week in Theater below: News of the new Evan Hansen, the full cast of Ain’t Too Proud, Fiddler fiddles on, a video taste of Mary Poppins returns. And: Separated at Birth?

The Week in New York Theater Reviews

Kerry Washington, Steven Pasquale, Jeremy Jordan

American Son

While anxiously waiting in a Miami police station for word of what happened to her son Jamal, an educated African-American woman named Kendra (Kerry Washington) talks with her estranged white husband Scott (Steven Pasquale) about the nightmares she’s had over the years about Jamal – of “nooses and crosses,” but, far worse and far more often, “getting stopped by a cop.”

That nightmare has turned into Kendra’s reality in American Son, a timely if flawed drama whose power comes largely from Kerry Washington’s intense performance.

The Chinese Lady

AFong Moy was the first Chinese woman in the United States. Brought to New York in 1834, she was put on display in a museum.

Out of this true story, playwright Lloyd Suh has fashioned “The Chinese Lady,” an often amusing but pointed and instructive play that is as deceptively simple as calligraphy. Its bold strokes are masterfully etched by actors Shannon Tyo as Afong and Daniel K. Isaac as Atung, her interpreter.

The Female Role Model Project

“The Female Role Model Project” is a pioneering work of theater by a new company called Transforma, in which artists and scientists collaborate to explore attitudes about women, and questions of female identity. The 90 minute show, which is running at 3-Legged Dog Art and Technology Center through December 2, is a mad mix of tones and activities, from game-playing to storytelling to electroencephalogram analysis.  If it’s too uneven, abstruse, and ultimately too scattershot to work as a whole, “The Female Role Model Project” is an intriguing experiment, with moments that are engaging, entertaining, and just plain cool.

Mike Birbiglia

The New One 

“The New One “isn’t literally new. Mike Birbiglia’s solo show debuted Off-Broadway three months ago – where it sold out quickly. It’s now on Broadway – same cast (i.e. Mike Birbiglia), same creative team, a bigger stage, a few new producers. I liked it when it was at the Cherry Lane. I’m happy that Birbiglia is making his Broadway debut. I feel no need to see the show again…Here’s my old review of that show and two other transfers: “Daniel’s Husband,” and “School Girls, or the African Mean Girls Play.”

The Week in New York Theater News

Casting for “Aint Too Proud,” which is scheduled to open on Broadway on March 21, 2019: Derrick Baskin as Otis Williams, James Harkness as Paul Williams, Jawan M. Jackson as Melvin Franklin, Jeremy Pope as Eddie Kendricks and Ephraim Sykesas David Ruffin.

The ensemble will feature Esther Antoine, Saint Aubyn, Shawn Bowers, E. Clayton Cornelious, Rodney Earl Jackson Jr.,Taylor Symone Jackson, Jahi Kearse, Jarvis B. Manning Jr., Joshua Morgan, Rashidra Scott, Nasia Thomas, Christian Thompson, Curtis Wiley and Candice Marie Woods.

Steven Skybell as Tevya and Ensemble sing “Tradition” (“Traditsye” טראַדיציע)

Fiddler plays on The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s revival in Yiddish of Fiddler on the Roof at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, which extended four times and ran for more than 100 performances, will end at the museum in December – and transfer in January to off-Broadway’s Stage 42, formerly the Little Shubert Theatre

2019 Kids’ Night on Broadway will take place on Tuesday, February 26, 2019. Tickets will available for purchase in early December. Kids’ Night on Broadway is an annual event where children 18 and under can attend participating Broadway shows for free when accompanied by a full-paying adult.

Jimmy Award-winner Andrew Barth Feldman, a 16-year-old high school junior, will make his Broadway debut as Evan in “Dear Evan Hansen” starting January 30, 2019

Austin Pendleton will briefly bring back his Wars of the Roses: Henry VI & Richard III. December 3–5 at Theater for the New City

“Arcade Amerikana,” which combines rave culture, cinema and performance art, will immerse audiences in a Las Vegas rehab retreat for the virtually addicted, December 4 – 16, at Industry City in Brooklyn.

“‘Celebrity Autobiography,’ a comedy show in which celebrities act out the memoirs of other celebrities, will perform four Monday night performances at the Marquis Theatre on Nov. 26, Dec. 3, Dec. 10 and Dec. 17.

The Bat Out of Hell national tour has been “postponed”

  Ian McKellen to celebrate 80th Birthday with 80-venue U.K. tour of new solo show, raising money for British theaters.

Separated at birth? Actor @will_roland and writer/showrunner @WriterRAS Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa pic.twitter.com/xxr1WHcjAg

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) November 9, 2018

REST IN PEACE

  Paula Wayne, 84, the golden-voiced leading lady of Broadway’s Golden Boy opposite Sammy Davis Jr.

Douglas Rain, 90, Shakespearean actor who performed for 32 seasons t the Stratford Festival, but was best known as the voice of the computer HAL In ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

Dorothy Bruns, 44, the driver of the car that killed two children in Brooklyn, including Ruthie Ann Miles’, was discovered by a friend dead in her apartment, a bottle of prescription pills and a suicide note near her body

Blue Wave on Broadway. #Stageworthy News In celebration of the Blue Wave – which has grown steadily in the week since Election Day -- a silly observation: There have been 51 Broadway shows with “Blue” in the title.