MALLORY AND I SAW CRIMSON PEAK YESTERDAY, but you CANNOT discuss it here, we are doing an installment of Movie Shouting about it later today, save your thoughts. Yes, this DOES mean that I am in California, but only for a few days, and I’m mostly sitting on her parents’ couch and blogging next to her and this is good and right.
The sex scandal at Stanford Business School! IT IS BANANAS:
Once, Phills says, he’d have happily settled the case: all he’d have wanted would be to stay in the house in which his two children were raised and teach at Stanford for a few more years before becoming emeritus, and for the university to pay his then modest legal fees. But as Stanford dug in, the costs, and the bitterness, and the indignities, have escalated. Phills assumes that Stanford has gone through all of his university e-mail for the past several years. (Stanford says it has reviewed only those e-mails produced in litigation.) Gruenfeld has seen an investigator for Stanford probe her love life, including whether she ever had affairs with her students. (She did not.) Gruenfeld has accused Phills of drinking excessively. Phills says that Gruenfeld confessed to him that she fudged research on the paper that launched her career, and charges that, in the two years since learning about it, Stanford has looked the other way. At a certain point, Gruenfeld, fearful that Phills would shoot her, had an armed guard stationed outside her classroom.
Is Hamilton good? Yes, yes it is, so let’s break this down with Talib Kweli:
“The Reynolds Pamphlet”
“The show definitely comes from the type of hip-hop that’s based on spoken word and poetry, the hip-hop that I grew up on — the hip-hop of the late ’80s and early ’90s. It has that rhythm, style, and tradition. That’s definitely what Lin-Manuel as an artist is inspired by. But I definitely think he’s a hip-hop liberal, meaning that he’s not stuffy or fogyish about his hip-hop. Even though he might like hip-hop from the early ’90s, he understands that hip-hop changed, and you see that growth in the songs. I’m guessing because Hamilton was born in the Caribbean, there was a lot of reggae and Caribbean rhythm, especially with Burr’s character. So it’s not just hip-hop, and that’s what’s great about it. There’s a lot of rapping, but there’s a lot of traditional Broadway music. Pop songs, reggae songs, ballads. There were newer styles of hip-hop, too. ‘The Reynolds Pamphlet,’ for example, is trap rap. They’re doing straight-ahead trap on Broadway; they were even doing the dances that people do when they listen to trap music in the club. They definitely made sure to incorporate different styles of hip-hop rather than keep it boom-bap.”
We still do not know how the comments got turned off on the link roundup yesterday, but you are welcome to CARRY OVER any discussions you wanted to have in that roundup to this one!
It’s only now sinking in for me that Justin Trudeau is going to be Prime Minister, so here is the big Maclean’s piece about him from 2002 (the eulogy in question was delivered by him at his dad’s funeral):
In the hours after the funeral, the CBC’s switchboards lit up with requests to replay the tribute — more than 1,000 callers by the end of the day. The newspapers overflowed with smoochy hyperbole. “Justin Trudeau hit the national consciousness like a thunderbolt,” wrote the Canadian Press. “A young man buried his dad, a star was born,” proclaimed the Globe and Mail. “He oozes charm and poise from every pore,” said the Red Deer Advocate.
There were a couple of dissenting opinions. A columnist for the National Post called it “a treacly overacted embarrassment.” Trudeau “gesticulated like a third-rate modern dancer” in a performance that “was far too calculated to be trustworthy.” Hate mail and death threats clogged the writer’s in-box for months.
Oh, and here is Michelle Dean with the most Canadian of takes (Harper bad, Harper gone, Trudeau here, Trudeau¯_(ツ)_/¯ ):
As a public speaker Trudeau is mostly a campy disaster – a friend described his style as “drama teacher sanctimony” – and as a thinker, well … let’s say he will does not promise to be a match for President Obama in the intellectual curiosity department. Perhaps he is not a bad guy at heart, whatever that means, but it’s hard to tell who his real self is, because Trudeau has burnished himself to the kind of sheen that makes any “honest” moment impossible to trust.
Worse yet, Trudeau traded on his parentage to ascend to where he is today: he sold himself as a leader in large part because of his last name, and Canadians bought in. At the New Yorker, for instance, my fellow Canadian Jeremy Keehn wrote recently that, “Trudeau undoubtedly shares many of his father’s most deeply felt ideals, and his rhetoric has been marked by principled stands that have at times seemed strategically ill-advised.”
If you are trying to figure out the Amazon/New York Times kerfuffle, I recommend The Awl’s explainer:
Then again, I’m sympathetic to, or at least familiar with, her position. It’s a common one: You’re writing a story about a powerful company, which is giving you some degree of access; the company gets a sense that the piece won’t paint a purely positive picture of everything the company is doing; the PR person, whose job it is to manage the company’s representation in media, threatens to back out or actively work against you; you try to assure them, without lying, that you may be critical but that you’ll be fair. There’s a subtle but strong case against access journalism contained in these types of emails, particularly as publications lose the leverage they once had in their unique and captive audiences. They’re interactions between an individual intent on telling stories that a company wouldn’t tell about itself and a representative of that company charged with making sure that doesn’t happen. What’s difficult about theseparticular emails is embedded in sender and recipient. Amazon is clearly the more powerful party and is approached as such, with a sort of ends-justify-the-means utility. This might not square with most readers’ ideas of what should motivate a newspaper story about a company they see as vaguely large and problematic but immediately useful. It’s hard to ignore, however, that the man on the other side of the exchanges is a former White House press secretary.
My friend Carrie’s new puppy is soooooo sleepy:
Grantland’s Mike Thomas on Jan “Perfect Human” Hooks:
Although she kept a small apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, most of Jan’s final years were spent in Bearsville, New York, a tiny hamlet within the town of Woodstock, where she bought a shabby 130-year-old farmhouse on 66 acres in the late ’90s, and which became her refuge. There, she watched and rewatched terrible old films (the worse, the better — she loved, for instance, The Oscar, featuring Frank Sinatra), drank untold gallons of Robert Mondavi Sauvignon Blanc (nicknamed Bobby Mo), rode her albino horse (also named Bobby Mo), and puttered around the property as her dark green 1983 Jaguar sat rotting in the garage. Two German shepherds, Frank and Kitty, kept her company until they died. An unabashed smoker, she purchased boxes of her favorite brand, Merit, on the cheap in neighboring Pennsylvania. Friends say they never heard her talk of quitting or using a nicotine patch, both of which she considered laughable.
Ghosts. It was ghosts. Ghosts hate commenting. (Or possibly links about Victorian dildos.)
DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WITH YE OLDE DILDOS? DID DAPHNE DUMARIER’S SEX DOLL WARNING TEACH US NOTHING?
I was afraid it was due to some kind of troll influx, like a plague of locusts. I’m very happy to hear that it was just a poltergeist.
I so can’t wait for the Movie Shouting installment, but I’m not seeing Crimson Peak till this weekend.
Same, and I kept looking for where things went off the rails! Glad that was not the case.
*But other than terrifyingly vivid nightmares of a dark figure standing beside my bed, I didn’t experience anything paranormal until halfway through the semester.*
other than.
OTHER THAN.
R I G H T
Like…. I need more detail.
TODAY IS THE DAY MARTY MCFLY ARRIVES IN THE FUTURE
A break in my Halloween movie watching is called for. This occasion must be recognized.
I met a friend earlier who asked if I was coming to our church meeting tonight, and I obviously said, “No, today’s the day Marty McFly arrives in the future” and HE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT. Can you believe it??
Poor, misguided soul.
I have a college friend who is from Alaska– cinnamon roll personality, but hasnt seen any classic sagas! So we’re conquering BttF this weekend and Indiana Jones the next. It’s important.
I would say like 80% of kids my age have seen it and it’s a TRAVESTY.
I’m sitting at my desk trying to figure out what a cinnamon roll personality is. Warm and spicy? Doughy and sweet? Yeasty with icing? Endlessly curious.
http://www.theonion.com/article/beautiful-cinnamo…
It means they are too good for this world, too pure. That’s the definition of Alaska. She looks just like me except 6 ft tall.
Our local 911 service posted this today on their always-hilarious FB:
Grand Traverse 911
1 hr · Edited ·
GREAT SCOTT!
The US Coast Guard will be setting off some pyrotechnics in West Bay between 9am and 11am this morning during a training exercise. It won’t be anything near 1.21 gigawatts, and definitely won’t be enough to send Marty Back to the Future, but where the Coast Guard is going, they don’t need roads 🙂 #backtothefuture
THEY DON’T NEED ROADS
Definitely cosplaying as Marty and going to an Enchantment Under the Sea party tonight.
There’s a cinema right across the street from my office and they’re playing the theme. There’s also a DeLorean inside.
Oh my god the Michigan State Police just upped the BttF game:
Michigan State Police
38 mins ·
Michigan State Police troopers stopped a silver DeLorean today for driving 88 mph in a 55 mph zone. The two occupants, Dr. Emmett Brown and Marty McFly, were given a verbal warning to drive more safely on Michigan roads. Dr. Emmett Brown responded by saying, “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
Does that mean the Cubs will start winning this series so they can go on to the world series and then win that???
Wait, hoverboard future or Biff future? I don’t like what this suggests about the upcoming election.
Hover Board Future!
Biff!world was a 1985 AU. *nods*
goddamn, clearly been too long sine I saw it last
Is Canada supposed to be immune to political nepotism or something? Am I Too American to understand the outrage? I mean, the trauma of the Bush family threatens to repeat down here and people aren’t shocked by that. He traded on his family name? So what? Canada doesn’t do political dynasties? (I know next to nothing about Canadian politics. With the exception of the criminal treatment of their indigenous cultures, I’ve always vaguely thought about Canada as “not as shitty as us” and the source of many theatrical gifts to the world, with the exception of the absurd Murdoch Mysteries).
(Seriously, what the hell is up with that show? HE IS A PLANK OF WOOD WITH A FACE FULL OF EYELINER and he isn’t pretty enough for that)
Um, I really disagreed with the statement that “Canada doesn’t do political dynasties”.
Mackenzie King anyone?
(He was a PM who was literally named after his maternal grandfather, who was mayor of Toronto /leader of 1837 rebellion)
We had the Bennetts in BC, starting with good old Wacky Bennett.
Okay, that’s a name that requires more research. Thanks!
You should check out Mackenzie King’s interest in the occult, too!
Well, for my part, it was a question, not a statement :). Thank you for the name to aid my falling down a wiki-hole today!
Oh, I know yours was a question! I just read Michelle Dean’s statement about political dynasties, and went “WTF is she talking about”
Please forgive my paranoia! (“Oh, no, I wasn’t clear and now someone on the Internet thinks I’m a stupid person. Noooooooo!!!” *self-esteem plummets* “Clarify! With smiley!”)
I need to learn more about Canada. Half my family were Tories who Fled North after all that revolutionary business down here, and my grandpa joined the RCAF before the US entered WWII to avoid any possibility of being drafted into the US military, so I feel like I owe Canada better than cursory knowledge of their national anthem (I know the whole thing!!) and admiration of poutine and Paul Gross. Thank you again!
Loyalists, eh? Canadian history and politics can be pretty cool!
If you want a quick overview of PMs between 1900-1980, this is my fav: https://youtu.be/6fwzhKgd55k
The Canadian government has also produced a great amount of “history minutes”, watchable here https://www.historica-dominion.ca/content/videos
They’re a great intro to Canadian history
History minutes are objectively terrible- both artistically and as a means of teaching history.
Sorry. I feel strongly about history minutes.
Fair enough! I like them as a means of exploring themes and representations of mainstream Canadian history. When I was a TA my seminars always had fun unpacking them. I mean, I wouldn’t say that they are a perfect pedagogical tool, but anything that gets people talking Canadian history is great by me!
Fair enough. I just tend to feel that they are conservative and dedicated to telling the one sided, sanitized, colonial history that is already WAY too perpetuated by our textbooks and in our national psyche!
Oh I agree, that’s why they’re a great tool to delve into deeper readings and topics, to ask why these are the stories we tell and value. Maybe I’m giving the audience too much credit though.
No, no, you’ve won me over! I admire your cheerful optimism, and I think your class sounds interesting. (I think I’ve just had too much time talking to the electorate recently. Makes me grumpy.)
Hahahah, I worked as a registration officer for Elections Canada on Monday, and I am just jazzed by registering so many first time voters!
Plus, they’re a cultural touchstone, so that you can elicit a laugh out of anyone of a certain age just by saying “doctor, I smell burnt toast!”
“Nice women don’t want the vote”
Canadian Toastie greeting/tshirt?
Honestly, as far as political dynasties go, Trudeau is one of the better ones.
What about Ernest and Preston?!
In large part it’s because Pierre Trudeau was the architect of a lot of change in society at a turbulent point in Canada’s history, and it seems somehow…tone-deaf or regressive to a lot of people that his son would be trading on that aspect of change and dynamism in order to cement his place as a semi-hereditary leader. They’re contradictory, in a sense.
I don’t particularly subscribe to that panic (since I live in Canada but am not allowed to vote a lot of this has passed me by) but that is some of the thinking among some parts of the voter populace.
Understood, thanks much!
Part of the outrage comes from the huge gulf between Justin and his father as far as intellect/accomplishment goes. I am not a fan of Pierre Trudeau but he was undeniably a brilliant man with a vision that inspired many, many people. If it weren’t for his last name Justin wouldn’t have gotten elected as an MP, let alone leader of his party.
That makes sense, thank you.
MURDOCH MYSTERIES IS A TERRIBLE SHOW AND IT IS A TRAVESTY THAT IT’S LASTED NINE SEASONS
Ahem.
I am not a fan.
(The same books were made into a series of TV movies in 2004 starring Peter Outerbridge as Murdoch, and they are several thousand miles better than the show. Mostly because Peter Outerbridge.)
Yay! Drink some haterade with me! It also seems to be the “Law & Order” for Canadian actors; I see so many Stratford people pop up in it and it makes me sad for them.
Seriously, though, I have hate-watched like, six seasons? Seven? So I can yell at the television about all the anachronisms and modern speech and fucking Yannick Bisson’s inability to act, like, at all. Does it think it’s being clever? “Oh, look, Murdoch invented the polygraph! It’s a notoriously unreliable tool, but let’s pretend this weird 19th century version would have worked perfectly! Oh, look, Murdoch is some sort of physics genius!” Or is it being tongue-in-cheek and laughing at itself? I CANNOT TELL.
My husband refuses to be in the room with me if I have it on the television, he hates its cutesy smugness so much.
Also now-former PM Harper loved it, which is enough to put me off it permanently.
Was coming down here to say this. Ugh.
“Cutesy smugness” is an excellent descriptor- it’s like watching something with a friend who’s constantly elbowing you in the ribs and going “eh? eh? get it? eh??” But at the same time, it refuses to engage with the audience as intelligent adults (it telegraphs EVERYTHING from miles away) which is a really poor choice for a murder mystery show, aka one that’s probably not going to draw the twelve and under crowd) so it’s just a corny, atonal mess. I have no idea how it’s lasted this long.
Also, Stephen Harper loves it and guest-starred in one episode, so you KNOW it’s been touched by evil.
I just assumed that all the inventing was because it’s basically CSI: 1890s Toronto, and they needed to substitute something for the ridiculous enhance button. But I’ve only watched a couple episodes, so I could be wrong.
Have never seen the show, but I looked it up and the main dude has a TERMINAL case of Smugface. I wanted to smack him just looking at him…
HE REALLY DOES. I think it may be the only expression he’s capable of making.
Is Peter Outerbridge related to Peter Mansbridge?
How many people named Peter ___bridge are there in this country?
Not as far as I know, no. Americans may recognize him as the Bad Guy on just about every genre show ever filmed in Canada.
And Yannick Bisson previously starred in another terrible police procedural that my mother loved for some reason. I think because it had a dog. It was called Sue Thomas F.B.Eye because she was a lip-reading FBI agent. The pun alone is unforgivable.
I just went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and dredged this fact up: His big break was in CBC’s critically acclaimed 1984 movie of the week Hockey Night with Megan Follows and Rick Moranis.
Has anyone seen this? It is terrible?
Stephen Harper’s favourite show is Murdock Mysteries.
Enough said.
And he actually appeared on it. “Acting”. It was terrible.
The thing about “Murdoch Mysteries” is that, according to my sister, they are the reason “Bomb Girls” only lasted two seasons- the two shows were in the same time slot and split the “historical drama” demographic, I think (I may be wrong) So screw them.
Booo Murdoch Mysteries! Booo!
My parents watch The Murdoch Mysteries! I love catching glimpses of the Eyeliner Detective, as I call him.
True fact: at first I thought that Murdoch Mysteries and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries were the same show and I could not understand why Toasties far and wide were such big fans.
After I started binge watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Netflix tried to convince me to watch Murdoch Mysteries. I didn’t even make it through one episode. So terrible.
THEY’RE NOT?
brb recalibrating things in my mind
Murdoch Mysteries is the pits. I have tried to like it on at least 3 separate occasions because I love period dramas and I have run out of them, and there are so many episodes of it! On Netflix! It would be great if I liked it! I’m not even that discerning; I got pretty into the terrible “When Calls the Heart” (Yes. That’s what it’s called. And it’s based on a Janette Oke book.) earlier this year.
SHOCKED AND APPALLED AT ALL THE MURDOCH MYSTERY HATERS.
Yes I have seen the Outerbridge version. Yes I have also read a couple of the books.
LET ME LOVE YOU.
(I’ve yet to see the films with Outerbridge or read any of the books, but yeah. I like the show.)
It’s okay, I watched that too. Just bone the damn Mountie and then go marry some appropriate hot society dude, Elizabeth! It’s not that hard!
Dean’s post is almost weirdly obsessed with surface banalities; while acknowledging that maybe it’s a good thing that Harper’s gone, she characterizes him as “a calm, boring father” while picking on Trudeau for trading on his name and having a not-great speaking style. Given what I’ve read about the Harper government’s relentless efforts to make Canada a model of the sort of country that the American GOP would love to see, I wouldn’t care if he was replaced by a clone of Dan Ackroyd who communicated exclusively through hand puppets. (I technically have no skin in this game, but I’ve always wanted Canada to be a failsafe emigration option if the snake-handlers took over the States.)
I would’ve taken that pickle on Facebook as a replacement, too.
The Stanford business school scandal has me rooting for exactly none of them. It was such depressing reading
I was tempted to somewhat root for Phills, even though he was doing some really questionable things. Then I got to this, ” Still, anyone making more than a million dollars a year at Apple, as Phills now does, will be hard-pressed to prove damages or elicit much sympathy from a jury.”
And I now I am rooting against them all.
They all deserve each other
I’m about 2/3rds through it, and I’m considering giving up, its really quite boring. Three super rich super privileged people are butt hurt because things. #nope
Yep, I was reading this on the bus the other day and also gave up. At first, I thought the author was using this particular story to discuss the insular world of GSB and the implications of that. Eventually, I felt icky reading someone else’s personal correspondence; the whole thing was too focused on the love triangle aspect.
I very much felt the author trying to manipulate me into feeling a certain way about each person, which I hate; Like it was written very much like this is The Good Person and these are The Bad People and that’s what you should believe.
Unless there was some massive twist at the end that I did get to where the author admitted that they’re all pretty crap people and there’s no reason for us to care about them at all.
Also, Vanity Fair sometimes has some fantastic longform pieces, but if there’s one thing they’re guilty of, it’s thinking that rich people are much, much more fascinating than they actually are. Though, to be fair, I think they’ve made it a whole year without publishing a long story about JFK Jr. (he died young, it was sad, let.it.go).
Yes. Also this reminds me of the scandal around Stanford promoting an association between a beautiful student who was a virgin and a part-time model and was being mentored/doing one-on-one courses for credit under a Silicon Valley billionaire who became her boyfriend midway through and who ultimately seems to have been abusive…. I think it was also covered in the NY Times… a lot of problems going on right now at Stanford/in Silicon Valley.
Wait, is this some sort of 50 Shades sequel?
Urgh, that story. Also that piece is a master example of ‘don’t read the comments’…(I say, whilst being a comment writer here…)
That whole article read like the plot of that 80s novel The War of the Roses, where I believe the married couple literally burns the house down around themselves. The absolute definition of cutting off one’s nose to spite their face.
Delurking to give a huge THANK YOU to The Toast for being the first place I heard about Hamilton a few months ago. It has literally taken over my life and last night I decided “ok,so we’re doing this,” and bought tickets to see it in February. So, thanks!
OKAY, SO WE’RE DOING THIS. 😀
BOUGHT MY TICKETS YESTERDAY TOO. Last Friday before it closes, in June. All the original cast is going through then, right? Also that was when I found front row seats in the first mezzanine (I’m 5’1″–at most) and also more time to save money for the trip. I do NOT want to go to NYC basically ever but I do want to see LMM in this.
It only sold at least two at a time, so I MAY VERY WELL end up with an extra ticket come spring, if I don’t have to sell it before then for the moula. If that happens I will definitely offer it here, and for less than what I paid for it (um, $500, jesus christ) if I can. (My dream is to give it away at the lottery, but that’s probably not financially realistic. :/ )
Congrats! I’m pretty sure the whole cast is going to be there through June. I read somewhere that LMM wanted to film the production before then; the speculation was that after June some of the original cast were leaving, but I haven’t seen anything to confirm this.
I was amazed to find the tickets that I did – second row, front mezz, on President’s Day Weekend for the cost of an arm (not quite a leg) on Broadway.com. Ticketmaster is out of its GODDAMNED MIND with its resale prices.
Center orchestra seats are reselling for $2500! Who can afford that?
I propose a different ticket system where rich people have to donate their tickets to people like you and me and other Hamilton Toasties. I mean, who deserves it more? Someone like Madonna, with her infamously rude texting during the performance, or someone like me, who can spit the raps in Satisfied, Guns and Ships, AND both parts of Cabinet Battle #1 LIKE A BOSS?!?!
Andrew Rannells is playing King George 10/27-11/29, but I don’t know if John Groff is coming back after that.
I have a friend In The Know (he directed Leslie Odom in a college production!) who says he’s pretty sure Groff is coming back, yes.
I propose a different ticket system where rich people have to donate their tickets to people like you and me and other Hamilton Toasties.
Agreed.
#socialistmeritocracy
And oops, maybe I shoulda gone with Broadway.com. I was just clicking through from the official site.
Oh noes, LMM won’t be there on the day I just got tickets for 🙁
I’m sure it’ll still be WONDERFUL, tho.
🙁 I’m sure you could still sell the ticket, and get another–if you can juggle it financially, and it probably won’t be as good a seat. The show has still got to be amazing, though. I can’t wait to see Daveed rapping 19 words in 3 seconds with a French accent while jumping around, according to the annotations, like this:
http://genius.com/Lin-manuel-miranda-guns-and-shi…
(open the song description at the top)
Also, here’s a great story with Javier Munoz, LMM’s longtime understudy. They’re really tight.
Meet Hamilton’s Other Leading Man, Standing By for Lin-Manuel Miranda for More Than Ten Years http://m.playbill.com/news/article/meet-hamiltons…
Just a note: it is almost certainly not going to close in June. Or anytime next year. Or probably the year after. Unless the producers hate money or something, which judging by the ticket prices they do not. I’m sure there will be some cast changeover at some point, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing!
Sweet!
My beloved just got invited to a work thing in NYC in May, so obviously the first thing I did was buy Hamilton tickets!!! Now the question is, do I continue to obsessively listen to the soundtrack until then or not?
Why is that even a question? The answer is yes, obviously.
Is it a spoiler to have memorised the whole thing? I usually don’t like knowing what to expect, but it’s already too late for that.
There’s a scene that’s not on the soundtrack.
Also, there’s something to be said for knowing the words/plot well enough to let yourself JUST concentrate on the staging/blocking/sets/costumes etc.
There’s a scene that’s not on the soundtrack!
Care to give a brief synopsis? I probably won’t be seeing this thing until they take the show on the road/if maybe I get to NYC in like 2 years, so I’m not afeared of spoilers.
I’m at work, which blocks the most random shit, but Lin Manuel Miranda posted the text of the (short) scene to his tumblr, so you should be able to dig it up based on that. If you (or anyone else) is having trouble finding it, lemme know and I’ll re-find and link when I get home.
Ooh thanks! I found it (I think this link should work for others who are curious) and it actually answers a big question I had about the show! I wondered if I was missing a reference to that character’s fate.
Well, now I’m having way too many feelings while pretending to be a normal functioning human at my desk . . .
Oh my christ I should not have read that at the same time as listening to Who Lives, Who Dies…
Good point! I’ll stop trying to resist the relistening urge.
I mean, do you think it’s plausible that you could stop obsessively listening to it? Because I know that wouldn’t be a realistic option for me.
Yeah, I can’t see getting tired of this anytime soon.
Exactly my reaction! I’m still bouncing!
I’m going in March and I tried to stop listening so it would feel new (also I was annoying my officemate). I made it about a week and the entire time it was just playing in my head. So I am listening to it at the office today since officemate is working from home.
I live in Philly and I despite having trouble spending that much money on myself, I just bought tickets for the end of March super close to my birthday!
Also, I read in an interview with LMM and the Roots members who produced the cast album about how they augmented/altered the sound of the music from the “keyboard, rock band, and strings” of the show for the album. Not clear on whether that sound is now included in the show, I have a lot of interviews bookmarked and I can’t find it right now. But so there may be that as well.
In revenge fantasies come true news, I was listening to the radio this morning and caught the tail-end of a segment about a mayoral candidate running in a nearby city, who was embroiled in some kind of sexism scandal. He was going on and on about how he had DAUGHTERS and a WIFE and MOTHER so how could he possibly be a sexist?!?! which was eye-rollingly stupid enough.
It wasn’t until the very end that I realized it was actually my husband’s old boss, a disgusting man who was and apparently still is a vile misogynist. It brings me great joy to see him raked over the coals publicly and I look forward to watching him crash and burn.
mmmm schadenfreude actualization
Have some delicious Schadenfreude Pie. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2006/09/26/how-to-make…
*adds to recipe bookmarks folder*
Guys, MrChouffe bought me the Hamilton soundtrack yesterday because I was sad about not being able to listen to it all the time, he is the best husband who ever husbanded, round of applause
I think you mean not being able to listen to it NON-STOP.
but yes MrChouffe is the greatest and you make me squee.
DRAMATIC REENACTMENT OF MY THOUGHT TRAIN.
Why can’t I comment? Must be my browser, I will refresh. Refresh again? Wait five minutes, refresh?
Oh, there is a message that comments have been turned off. Oh dear.
Were we bad? *skims comments*. No, we were not bad.
Did some sort of influx of outsiders decide to try to comment? *skims link topics* I… don’t think there’s anything obvious that would have created a problem, and nothing else was closed.
Is there anything on twitter explaining this? Hrm, Mallory is around on twitter, but Nicole was in an airport and then has gone quiet. Also, we know that Nicole didn’t remember how to turn of comments after something was posted because of that IWW thread. But maybe someone taught her after the fact? Who moderates comments the most anyway? If Nicole couldn’t figure out how to turn off comments on the IWW thread, what’s the chance that Mallory would figure out how to do that in Nicole’s absence? Does Nikki do comments? I mean, there’s nothing on twitter indicating a problem on that thread, but how many people are messing around with it anyway? Is there a secret moderation team? How would people get tapped to join such a secret moderation team? Is it related to who joined the redesign testing?
Speaking of the redesign, maybe that was related????
………. hrm, given that there’s no obvious problem, I’m going with the easiest explanation, that it happened accidentally and either no one’s noticed or no one that’s noticed knows how to fix it.
Maybe.
Or maybe we were bad.
Yes. To the letter.
“I’m probably being punished. That seems like the most likely thing. I was bad, without realizing it, and Mallory, Nicole, and Nikki know about it and are punishing me accordingly. Probably. Yes.” *shame*
The thing I’m getting from this thread is that everyone is puppies.
Literally my first thought was ‘What happened! Who was bad!’ (Obviously it could never be me because I am virtuous commented who never says anything incendiary.)
As someone who is a moderator for a (very) different web community, after having been a non-mod member of that community for many years, I know that I rarely am the one saying the bad thing, but that I can, at times, push a topic pretty hard so that other people say some pretty terrible things. And when that happens, it’s not as easy as killing one or two comments, it’s often the entire thread that needs to die. And so I take (some) responsibility for those terrible threads.
So I didn’t really THINK there’d been anything where, singularly or as a large group, anything really bad had gone down…….. definitely wasn’t willing to rule it out.
Yes!! Although, I had an extra stage of panic —
“I can’t comment? The tone of my last comment could be read as condescending … I should go edit.
I can’t edit it! Oh no! This was all my fault. Clearly, I was bad”
I feel like it might have been redesign-testing-related, because when I go to my IntenseDebate profile and try to click on my comment from that thread — even now that comments are turned back on — it takes me… somewhere else. A strange place, where the Toast looks different, and there’s an error message with a picture of a piece of burnt toast.
Oooh, I get something like that too sometimes! Where the domain is “thebread,” and I think I might have stumbled onto the secret redesign portal.
I just figured Firefox was trying to make me go do some actual work….
Maybe YOUR firefox would do that to you, but MY firefox knows that its continued existence on this computer is because it is the one window where I do personal things, so, self preservation.
My Firefox is forever crashing on the Toast anyway, so I really just thought it was more of the same… (Also it may be afraid that I will eventually be fired for spending too much time with it, leading to our permanent separation…)
I am glad your Firefox seems to care about you deeply, and that you two are able to communicate about the ways in which you show love to each other!
High-five. My Firefox is also the one window where I do personal things, and as such it has also been trained to stealthily minimize to the System Tray rather than the Windows Taskbar.
Work internet things happen in Chrome.
I’m pretty sure we were all sitting at our computers looking like sad, confused puppies who think their person yelled at them but they don’t know why.
A+ description of all Toasties.
I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one! Toasties really are the best.
Me: “Oh god, what have we done? What have I done? Oh no, everything is ruined and The Toast will fall apart; how has this happened?” It was a stressful period.
“I should never have said anything negative on Nicole’s prayer post, it was a personal thing which affects me in no way. I am history’s greatest monster.”
“I should never have drawn attention to that thread where I indicated that I prefer “queer” over “bisexual” when referring to myself. Who am I to make decisions about self identification? Surely I should have checked some sort of style guide when creating my IntenseDebate account and never strayed. Now that they know, I will be exiled to somewhere unpleasant without internet or gay people.”
Now that they know, I will be exiled to somewhere unpleasant without internet or gay people.
A fate worse than death!
(If it makes you feel better, I feel guiltily as though I am promoting the gender binary by preferring to self-identify as “bisexual” over “queer”. Let us both feel bad about our self-identification decisions together.)
(my thoughts on the topic: there are lots of good words, but no perfect ones for everyone in the middle. attempts to police words other people choose do more harm than people choosing words that some portion of us think are less good.)
The Awl piece on the NYT/Amazon thing was really interesting, but almost a bit..gleeful? It was setting itself up as objective when it itself had a particular motive: the more people distrust ‘old media’ the more they rely on media facilitated by technology, such as online sites. I thought that was interesting, anyway.
Well and I don’t know about anyone else here, but I work a PR-adjacent job at a large, not-much-trusted company. From where I’m sitting, PR as a job, or at least as a job that can be carved out from other communications jobs, is dinosaur thinking. It’s the office of last resort when someone in the company royally screws up, and it’s almost completely unnecessary if your workings are transaprent enough for any employee with 30 minutes if media training to speak truthfully about what’s going on.
Yeah that piece was really weird. It spends so much time bending over backwards to explain the amazing rhetorical double-binds Jay Carney traps you in to make it APPEAR like he’s right about something instead of admitting…Jay Carney might have been right.
I mean obviously Amazon has a lot of unsustainable business practices and is a stressful place to work but we know that from a lot of reporting. That can be true and the NYT piece can also be badly reported. It just seems easier to say that Amazon was right about this while still being wrong about a bunch of other stuff than to turn Jay Carney into some kind of logic wizard so you can avoid saying somebody who has your same outlook on Amazon made a mistake
Talib Kweli analyzing Hamilton?! I got either a stupid head cold or allergies and I’m dreading doing job searching today but this day is now already perfect, thank you. <3 <3 <3
“Trudeau has burnished himself to the kind of sheen that makes any “honest” moment impossible to trust.”
So he’s basically Aaron Burr (sir)?
“Talk less, smile more, don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for” has essentially been the Liberal Party’s slogan for DECADES.
“Talk less, smile more, don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for” = “Sunny ways”
NAILED IT
You guys, the Almeida is going to do another marathon reading! And this time it’s The Odyssey!.
I AM SO EXCITED TO LIVESTREAM THE SHIT OUT OF THIS
Oooooooohhh. I might have to drag my self to that for a bit!!
Speaking of The Iliad they FINALLY put the whole thing up online http://www.almeida.co.uk/the-iliad-video-part-one
I fell asleep right around when Hector dies last time (Soz. Spoilers). I really hope they have the same person live tweeting again, that was the best bit!
I’m actually fairly excited for Trudeau as PM.
Yes, he’s not an intellectual heavyweight, but in a party that got crushed with Dion and Ignatieff as leaders, the Liberals probably view that as a good thing.
He has the likeability factor down. He seems like he listens and responds. (Emotional intelligence?) He’s a feminist! As long as he has a good caucus, he’ll be fine.
It’s not like all of our PMs have been such deep thinkers… as long as he doesn’t start trying to communicate with his father (and dog) beyond the grave…
Well not being a ‘deep thinker’ certainly explains why he has been pro-C-51, pro-Keystone XL, tentatively pro-TTP, etc. etc. etc. I know I sound like an embittered Canadian still trying to shake off the near decade of Harper bleakness, but I see no cause to be even mildly joyful about our new PM. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
He’s committed to axing the Enbridge pipeline, which in my mind is worse than Keystone, so there’s one thing.
I would be ok with it if he had an NDP opposition to keep him honest/accountable. It’s hard not to be bitter when we’ve lost Peggy, Paul, Andrew, Craig, Megan, (OLIVIA, who was not an incumbent but should have been a shoe-in.)
The libs always campaign left and rule right. And like Duchess says, they’ve down their true colors on recent issues. Plus that racist VAW dog whistle.
I really really wanted a Liberal minority with an NDP opposition. And the loss of the amazing NDP MPs is heartbreaking (Mulcair has a lot to answer for. Or the changing demographics/gentrification of those ridings).
And while the support of bill C-51 is absolutely indefensible, I still find, looking over their platform, much more to be optimistic about than cynical.
(And I just found out about that racist response on violence against woman … freaking disappointing. Between this, Mulcair’s support of the niqab ban, and the Green’s support of the MRAs … can’t anyone get it right? … optimism, not cynicism….)
I can’t speak to the other ridings, but I don’t think the demographics of Ottawa Centre (Dewar’s riding) changed that much between elections. He had >50% of the vote last time, and I was pretty sure it was a safe seat — he’s popular here! But apparently it wasn’t enough. 🙁 Megan Leslie is a big loss — she was a great environment critic, and that’s increasingly important these days.
Oliva was a tougher sell than I think people are giving it credit for. Plus there were a lot of riding specific politics going on (at least from the people I was talking to). Remember she is running in a riding that had not only a municipal election last year (where her campaign stuttered terribly) but also a provincial and a federal by-election, partly because she had already stepped down as the MP. Plus Adam Vaughan is (inexplicably) popular as he is seen as a more leftwing liberal and served for years on the Toronto city council and was vocal against Rob Ford. Plus a lot of people in the riding were frustrated that the NDP and Liberals were running two strong candidates against each other, especially as she was announced fairly late in the game.
Honestly, I say this as someone who voted NDP and is really sad about their losses. I WISH we had them in parliament to keep the Liberals accountable but they didn’t run a great campaign this time around.
If he looks for really smart people to surround himself with, he’ll probably do well — I think he has reasonably good instincts and wants something similarish for Canada as I do, so he just needs smarter people to advise him. I can’t tell if he’ll do that or if he’ll just bring around more of his high school friends.
I think that now is the time for the re- or newly-motivated among us to start writing letters (to Trudeau directly, or one’s MP with a cc to him) about the things we want to see changed. Things Harper screwed up that need fixing naow. Things he refused to address (missing/murdered aboriginal women) that need immediate attention. Things that are longer term but still important. I really think the more Canadians point out what’s super-important to them (I, for one, don’t give two shits about balanced budgets, but I really want a new Health Accord), including all over social media, then it’s harder to push aside and rule like in olden times? I dunno. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but what else do we have?
Yup, it’s put-on-our-boots-and-get-advocating time.
He also seems to have made a point out of surrounding himself with competent & knowledgeable people (certain candidates or course excepted) and allowing himself to be informed by them, as a PM should since no one can be an expert in every aspect of policy (looking at you, Mr. “too in control of this party to even appoint a deputy PM” Harper)
Would have preferred a minority with an NDP opposition of course, but I think this is a very hopeful change, even just in terms of process and transparency, from the Harper government!
This morning I realized that I’ve been singing the wrong words to Just One of Those Things pretty much the entire 30 years I’ve been alive. I sang “So goodbye, dear Anyman” (like she didn’t bother to learn his name because he was not worth her attention) but apparently it’s “So good-bye, dear, and amen”
I CANNOT WAIT TO SHOUT ABOUT CRIMSON PEAK WITH OTHER PEOPLE. I saw it opening night and NONE of my friends have seen it yet and I just [LOUD YELLING]
It is definitely a movie to yell about. Loudly. And who better to do that than Nicole and Mallory? I can’t wait.
I would also like to get more ghost stories in general from Toasties. I am 3000% Here For Ghosts.
I want to talk about just how much this movie was like Jane Eyre, but with more stabbing, POSSIBLY IN ALL CAPS.
Let’s be real. DEFINITELY IN ALL CAPS.
Also, based on tweet timing, I’m pretty sure I was watching Crimson Peak at the exact same time as Nicole and Mallory.
We are running it tomorrow bc I would rather go out to breakfast than do my work right now.
Fair
I can be patient. I can try. Well, I can’t promise to try, but I can promise to try to try.
<Pterodactyl noises>
Update on the difficult work situation: My husband was putting up storm windows on Sunday night and the ladder slipped out from under him. He fell two stories and landed on his head and shoulder. Massive concussion, broken shoulder, generally banged up really badly. Hospital stay, out of commission for awhile, weeks of PT to come. I’m just immensely grateful that he’s alive.
For the crime of missing Monday to be with him in the hospital, my boss graciously asked if I would prefer to take the day unpaid or work the day after Thanksgiving (which I put in for in January, we go to my grandmother’s house). I offered to work a Sunday, hell all Sundays between now and the end of the year, instead – which would be more hours as the office closes early on Fridays. No dice. I have 15 PTO days/yr, and apparently now at I’m 23. Every one of those extra days was a kids’ sick or snow day after our awful Boston winter, and I worked from home on every single one of them. I’ve also worked overtime (not that I get overtime) on evenings and weekends many, many times. My boss feels bent over backwards, she says, and I feel like I’ve done everything in my power to meet her halfway. I’m not asking for freebies, but for flexibility and compassion, which she could easily afford. I brought all of this up with her this morning, and got nowhere. I don’t know what I expected. I know this is obviously her prerogative, but in a small, woman-centered community nonprofit which prides itself on being a place of healing, I’m kind of stunned. The irony is that next month she’s going to a conference to accept an award for our organization’s outstanding work-life balance policies, which I have yet to see (and I’m the only one with young kids and no live-in help, i.e. actually juggling the work-life balance).
This boils down to the fact that we are behind in our (frankly way unrealistic) fundraising goals, and I feel like I’m being punished for that when I’m working my ass off to bring in money despite a flawed development structure (which I’m trying to overhaul) overly dependent on busy volunteers. This latest development makes me want to do the exact opposite of enthusiastically raising money for this organization. I was angry, I was sad, now I just feel knocked down. I’m applying to other jobs but stuck here meanwhile putting on a pretty face and feeling dead inside.
Anyway. Thanks for listening.
I’m so sorry to hear about your husband’s accident! Glad he’s alive and sending many, many thoughts for healing his way (and yours).
Your boss sounds like a 1st prize shitheel. Not that I think this is an ideal solution, but is there anyway you could “borrow” PTO from next year to cover some of the days you’ve been “off” (I put it in quotation marks, because clearly you’ve been working from home on most of them)?
That is awful. I’m sorry your boss is an inflexible hypocrite. I hope the job search goes well and swiftly!
Dude, your boss sucks and you know it. Are you looking for new work? Please look for new work.
Jingles for your husband! That sounds like a bad fall, and I hope you’re ok after it as well as husband!
Boss is being words I don’t feel like exposing you to right now. You could go to the press? Do you have an industry rag that you could kick up a fuss about your org getting this award but being completely hypocritical? You could probably do it anonymously, maybe just write a letter to the editor? Or the awards committee? (I’m feeling like boss-lady needs some public humiliation, and being stripped of an award would be pretty humiliating. Yes I am that petty.)
I am very sorry to hear about your husband’s injury, and your shitty boss.
If I were feeling a bit vindictive, I might send a note to the conference organizers about how unbalanced the work-life policies are… Not that it would help anything, but it might be fun.
Good luck on finding something different soon. I sympathize totally with putting on a pretty face at work whilst feeling dead inside.
I totally would do what she said, because karma is a bitch and your boss needs some.
And having survived a fall like your husband had, I send you guys all my strength, it was horrible.
Oh no, oh honey, oh god I’m so glad your husband is alive just holy shit. And just fuck your boss right in the ear. GOD what horrible person. I hope you find something else soon
I am spluttering mad on your behalf, although I am in no way surprised to hear that a woman-centered non-profit is laughably, hypocritically bad at PTO and work-life balance for its employees. I don’t understand how this is, but I feel like I have a large mental file of anecdotes about this….
Fingers and toes crossed for a swift job search!
This is so terrible and ENRAGING and yet not at all shocking given my own experience in the nonprofit world, and I’m so sorry for all of this unreasonable stress. I’m glad your husband is all right, but oh my god, how frightening for both of you. I hope you find a wonderful new job asap and are soon enjoying six weeks of PTO a year.
Holy cow, so glad that your husband survived and so sorry he’s in pain.
Your boss is awful. I am harboring vicarious revenge fantasies about contacting the conference organizers but I’m sure it’d probably end up coming back on you if you did.
Yeah, I’m afraid that outcome is all but certain, too. It sounds like a small office, and if something happens to this award, the evil boss will probably blame her.
Healing thoughts for ‘boxhusband. Toasthugs for you. Your nonprofit experience sounds sadly familiar. They can’t all be like that, but it’s true for the half dozen in my experience.
That is BULLSHIT and I am EXCEEDINGLY ANGRY on your behalf. A, your boss is a jerk, and B, If you’ve worked from home on snow days/sick days, how do they still count as time “off”?!?!
Also, what a terrifying accident. Really glad it wasn’t worse, and sending healing thoughts your way.
If there’s anything the Toast community can do to help you out – helping you make up the cost of unpaid vacation days, secret ninja crowdfunding to help your org meet its goal and get your boss off your back, care packages for you or husband or kids – please, please let us know. We <3 you and want to support you!
I would donate (modestly, but happily!) to either a Pay Box for her Very Deserved Time Off fund, or an Illustrate Box’s Fundraising Mojo fund.
I would do so as well.
I haaaaaate your boss and am particularly incensed you’re being charged PTO when you’re working from home. Surely that can’t be legal!
So glad your husband is still alive too, oh my God, what a terrible fall. Best of luck to him and you both going forward — good luck with interview calls, and getting away for interviews!
WHAT. What sort of shrivelled fruit do you have to have for a heart to be so uncompassionate?! I hope your husband makes a quick and complete recovery, and a slew of other jobs fall in your lap so you can have your pick.
Just seconding some of the other comments- if you’re working from home, you shouldn’t have to take time off. Is there anyone at all higher than your boss that you can go to on this? Or are there legal options?
next month she’s going to a conference to accept an award for our organization’s outstanding work-life balance policies
oh my god
That’s so terrible.
It’s terrible just to be terrible, too. If she wanted you to make up the hours, she could take you up on the Sundays offer. If she wanted to count the hours you’ve already worked, she could recognize the overtime and working at home days. But no, she’s going to make you take an unpaid day or take the Friday of Thanksgiving weekend, when frankly, what kind of nonprofit work is even possible to do that day, as everyone else is off? In conclusion, SO MANY JERK MOVES.
I hope your husband recovers quickly and I’m sorry to hear about his injury!
This is so infuriating. All of it.
I work on Wall Street, notorious for its heartlessness, and when I was stranded in Michigan thanks to one of the million polar vortices last year (3 flights cancelled! I went through airport security FOUR TIMES), I borrowed my cousin’s laptop and remoted in for full 10-hour days for both of the two business days I was stuck there. The CFO’s admin called me when I got back and asked me if I wanted to count those as sick or vacation days, to which I replied “uh, neither, I worked full days.” I’m an admin, so a large part of my job is answering phones/generally being available in person, but I was ready to take this fight to the owner/CEO. The CFO called me in a day later and told me that because of my superior work product during my tenure there thus far, he wasn’t going to charge me those days. I thanked him as graciously as I could, then walked out rolling my eyes allllllllll the way into my head. But I got my way in the end.
If there’s any way for you to go over her head, I really, really would. Because this is literally insane. If you tallied up all the hours you’ve remoted in after hours and on weekends (maybe that’s something your IT department could rustle up?), maybe it’d be worth it to quantifiably prove that you’ve put in way more hours than required and she needs to get off your back in the spirit of good intentions.
My old roommate worked at a nonprofit and that woman got BEAUCOUP vacation days… it’s so stupid that your company (1) doesn’t feel that that is an option and (2) gets awards for their bullshit policies. Obviously if there’s anything that we Toastrons can do to help, let us know. For now, I’m sending love and light (and healing intentions) your way. And good vibes for a quick and successful job hunt.
I WILL BE HERE REFRESHING MY PAGE UNTIL YOU SHOUT ABOUT CRIMSON PEAK. IT INSPIRES MANY FEELINGS.
“Harper bad, Harper gone, Trudeau here, Trudeau¯\_(ツ)_/¯” pretty much sums up my feelings, although I don’t love that Michelle Dean article. I do see Trudeau being a substantial improvement over Harper, but not exactly a saviour. And as much as everyone loves to go on and on about how Trudeau only got in because of his dad, a) Pierre Trudeau is, in many parts of the country, a VERY controversial figure (particularly Quebec, after the October Crisis) and b) it discounts just how much the Conservatives and Harper fucked up this election with their dog whistle politics — they FORCED a lot of people to choose Liberal by making the niqab a lightning rod issue.
Platform-wise, I’m split on Justin Trudeau — I’m encouraged by his promises to restore and increase funding to CBC, and to reform the electoral system, but I’ll believe it when I see it. And I’m not impressed by promising to “amend” C-51 when they should scrap it completely, or better yet, go back in time and not support it in the first place.
But really, my biggest ICK for Trudeau is, well, rumours. I went to school in Ottawa, and I knew a lot of politically active young women who volunteered or worked for the Liberal party, and I have heard more than one story, from different sources, about some, uh, lecherous behaviour on his part. I really can’t shake that bad feeling. Maybe he’s cleaned up his act in the last few years, but I can’t get behind this whole “dreamy PM” thing.
I am an old crone and my favourite saying is
“Pretty men are the Devil”.
Mark my words…. *raises wizened finger, opens wide maddened, all-seeing eyes, sucks remaining tooth, subsides into magical heap of disappearing rags*
Have one lawyer appointment tomorrow. Still no new interviews. Still feel like a walking panic attack, which is not helped by the teenage boy’s current bus-missing morning behavior. Resent the ex, resent my job, resent my lack of companionship through this. Resent basically all of my 40’s. Am working on firing bad therapist but she is extra dense and will not give up my file. At least my poison ivy is gone.
Augh, so much stress! It’s especially incensing that the therapist won’t give up your file…surely she has to?
She called me a few weeks ago and I was so dumbfounded I just spluttered. Then she called me again this week, insisting that she couldnl’t turn over my file to another person without “filling her obligation to build a treatment plan” with me. I politely asked why she would expect me to work with her on a treatment plan when I didn’t want to be treated by her? She said she’d get in trouble with her supervisor. I said that she could tell her supervisor it was my idea, and I’m an adult, and I would call the scheduling office and not wait for her to talk to anybody. !!!! How wrong is this? She was actually trying to make me feel guilty for HER not doing her job!!
(I tried really hard with this one, but I should have cut my losses after the first session, when my refusal to take an MMPI turned into a critique by me of how I do not trust the statistics of those or most other research in the social sciences, and I just got a master’s in a social science, so I should know–and she literally argued with me the entire session.) I’m 44. I am not my depression, I am not my abuse, and whenever she asked me for a treatment plan I said the same thing: ” I will continue to take my meds, go to karate and do yoga, apply for jobs, and knit when stressed, and come here so that I have a person to talk my feelings out to.” Apparently that was not enough of a plan for her, because no matter how many times I said that, after a year, she still hadn’t written it down as my plan.
Am I the bitch here? well, actually, I know I’m not, because I called the scheduling office to explain that I needed a change, they were wonderful, but still, how can somebody be that dense and think they are helping people?
That is awful. How willfully naive and pigheaded of her. And speaking from a place of experience, it’s not unheard of for someone (*ahemMYMOTHERahem*) with a degree in counseling to pull stunts like that and truly not be aware that their actions and words do more harm than good.
I just honestly didn’t know that anybody took the MMPI seriously anymore. Esp. when I’d said that I’d been in counseling for abuse and knew I had hormone-related depression and knew that situationally things weren’t great. How much more did she need to go on? oh well. Hopefully I’ll get another counselor soon.
Thank you for the update. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s been keeping you in mind (ahem, RIGHT, TOASTIES?). Please know that we’re here for you whenever you need to vent.
I’m very late, but if you share my excitement about Sarah Vowell’s new book, this is the thread! (And to the rest of you–get on board, dammit!)
Sarah Vowell is at my local library tonight to do a reading from it and I’m SO EXCITED to go; the book is going to be my birthday present to myself, one day early.
I’m also trying to decide if I want to be That Person in the Q&A afterwards who asks her a question about if she’s seen Hamilton yet or not.
BE THAT PERSON and report back
I have it sitting in my Audible account, waiting for when I finish The Martian (which should be some time today)
Tell me more! I wasn’t in love with Unfamiliar Fishes. What is the new one all about?
Vowell’s new book is about Lafayette, America’s favorite fighting Frenchman.
I also didn’t love Unfamiliar Fishes. At least not with the fervor of Assassination Vacation. But Lafayette so far is a DELIGHT!
I waaaaaaant it. . .but I want it in paperback so it matches the others on my shelf! :conflicted:
Deeply tempted to take a day off work just so I can spend the day reading the new Cormoran Strike novel. Mmph.
That puppy and I feel the same today. I’m wishing a giant, flying, fluffy mattress would fall from the clouds and bear me to the ground, knocking me cold for another 8 hours.
Yesterday I went with Mr. Floridagal and my parents to put our old beagle to sleep. He had cancer, it was inoperable, his health declined slowly but then he stopped eating so we decided to do it. I know it was the right thing to do for him, but it was awful. He was 15 and we’d had him since he was a tiny puppy.
I’m so sorry, floridagal. So painful to lose a dog. They’re 100% unconditional love. Oh poor floridabeagle. He was well loved. Giving him a gentle peaceful end was the utmost kindness. Good dog. Goooood dog.
Many of my friends who adopted dogs around the same time we brought home our girl have started losing them. I live in fear for the day when we have to let her go. She’s a small breed, so longer life expectancy, but, man… she’s 14. Someday is coming.
And, right… *hugs* for your pup. Thank you for making a loving choice.
<3 it’s so hard. toasthugs for you.
So sorry.
I lost my gingerbread loaf cat last month (I posted something in one of the open threads about it), and making the decision to put a pet to sleep is HARD. Like, you don’t want them to suffer but you always want to hang onto that last little bit of hope. You made the right decision though.
You and your family have my condolences and my internet hugs.
Yes, it was exactly like that. The vet was really the best about it and I think it was probably the most peaceful way possible for him to go. Thank you all for your kind thoughts and words. <3
I’m so sorry.
<3 I’m so sorry.
So sorry. Toasthugs and deep condolences to you and your family.
All this Hamilton talk prompted me to download the soundtrack and listen to it. I’m not obsessed or anything. It’s just a thing I happen to have on repeat. I can stop at any time.
However, I maybe did happen to notice that Lin-Manuel Miranda is FB friends with one of my FB friends (acquaintance from college who works in the film industry and is friends with Dwayne Johnson and Vin Diesel and stuff). I maybe did wonder if I could use that connection to get tickets. But I didn’t ask. That would be inappropriate.
CAN YOU GET TICKETS FOR ALL OF US
That *would* be more appropriate, wouldn’t it? Because I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for a friend…
For a great many friends. A couple dozen? Maybe like a hundred? (How many active commenters are there?)
I just imagined “Toast Night” at Hamilton, and now I want it to be real. An entire theatre, full of Toasties, taking in this musical together.
Oh my god. Yes. This is like my dream.
Jan Hooks is THE GREATEST SNL performer ever, full stop, and that Grantland interview does her justice. God, I loved watching her (and Gilda Radner, they both radiated a “bright shining spark of joy wrapped in a quiet sadness” kinda light) and I wonder where her intense anxiety issues came from and how tragically her cancer targeted the biggest asset to any actor, her voice.
Jan Hooks was brilliant. She and Phil Hartman brought a level of sheer jaw-dropping performing ability that a lot of other SNL cast members with flashier or more famous recurring characters couldn’t match. One of my favorite bits of hers (and Hartman’s) was when Garry Shandling hosted; at the time, he was doing a show (It’s Garry Shandling’s Show) that was all about breaking the fourth wall (it was almost like a half-hour standup routine that was occasionally interrupted by acting), and the conceit of the opening SNL sketch was that he was supposed to be doing a regular sketch, but doing it in the style of his own show, and Hooks and Hartman were trying to stay in character but gradually lost it at Shandling for fucking things up. They did it so seamlessly and convincingly that it wasn’t until later that I found out that it was all part of the sketch.
Um, you guys, the Burgomaster just now bought us tickets to Hamilton. We have second row tickets to the Wednesday, March 16 2pm matinee.
I AM FREAKING THE FUCK OUT.
SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT THE FUCK UPPPPPPPPPPP
I actually started crying at my desk and had to go somewhere private to sit down for a minute.
Well, yeah, that is an eminently logical reaction.
Still kind of crying off and on, but mostly I’m just a bundle of nerves because what if LMM steps down, what if the theater burns down levels of anxiety are sweeping over me in waves.
I suspect LMM will stay with the show through its first year on Broadway, but even if you see an understudy or alternate, you’ll have an amazing time. I saw an understudy do Burr and I have zero regrets–he gave an ASTONISHINGLY strong performance, even without factoring in the fact that he had to learn multiple parts and has only performed the role a few times.
Thank you for the reassurance!
I second the reassurance – LMM’s understudy has been his understudy since the beginning of In the Heights, and by all accounts he is fabulous. Pretty sure I actually saw him one of the times I saw ITH and the show wasn’t lacking at all.
This is probably where I should admit I’ve developed a crush second only to Tom Hiddleston on LMM.
Thirding the reassurance- I saw Philippa Soo’s understudy when I went back in March and she BLEW ME AWAY. Just, incredibly gorgeous and talented and she made me cry buckets of tears
I’m worried because LMM is sick right now. New baby and starring how many times a week in a hit musical… he’s really burning it at both ends, I can’t imagine. (Of course all the performers are working so hard.) He looks so tired in interviews.
Sorry!
I saw Javier Munoz as Usnavi and he is a fantastic performer, to the point I was initially upset he wasn’t on the OBC. If he’s your Hamilton, it will be wonderful. <3
You’re the second person to mention that to me, so he must be amazing! Thank you!
Late to this, but here‘s Bradley Whitford’s endorsement of LMM’s understudy.
This really does make me feel better, thank you.
When I told my sister I’d purchased us tickets (also for March, high five!) she was at work and happened to be listening to Guns and Ships at the moment. She said she was so pumped up/overwhelmed she had to go for a walk to calm down. (I have still not calmed down, I would say I think about Hamilton, LMM, New York, and/or the month of March at least 3 times/day).
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
That “Tell your friends” button has never looked so appealing 😉
I have NEVER been tempted to click that button before now.
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD
FUCK I’M CRYING AGAIN
OMGGGGG
SO ANYWAY GUESS WHAT I JUST DID
APRIL 16 MATINEE
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD
SRSLY I am so excited for you and I can’t wait for you to go and come back and then there can be many discussions about staging and lighting and THEIR FACES and we can use ALL THE TOM HIDDLESTON GIFS
If we are still talking about Hamilton in March, I will be SO HAPPY.
I am hoping that NYC Toasties will be interested in having a meet-up while I’m there.
We will still be talking about it in March.
*have just planted the seed with MrChouffe. Him: Any chance of a tour, or are we going to have to do a weekend in NYC? Me: Uh, honey, this isn’t going to tour for years. Him: We better probably look at buying tickets before it wins all the Tonys.
SO GLAD I’m seeing it before the Tonys.
(It will probably tour next year. That’s the usual formula. But you never know, so obviously seeing it on Broadway before then is completely justified!)
Can we start a group fund to help each and every one of us dorks afford to see this thing? Like if every one of us gave $10……we still couldn’t afford shit. Nevermind. Sigh. Going to be in NY in January and crossing my fingers for the lottery.
Seriously. This will be the most expensive vacation we’ve taken to date and we’ve been together for over ten years. The Burgomaster’s going to use it as an opportunity to also scout out agents, etc., too, though, so at least he’ll be able to claim part of it as a business expense. But still. $$$$. I’m trying not to think about plane tickets, food, lodging, etc. We might have to sleep on someone’s floor? IDEK.
Ugh, I’ve been trying so hard to rationalize spending $$ on a flight, hotel, and a ticket and I just can’t do it. If I still had friends in NYC I would absolutely find a cheap flight and try the lottery.
I think neither of us will be getting much for each other for xmas or birthdays for…a while.
From the 2002 Maclean’s piece on Trudeau: “…swirling a C.C. and ginger in his hand.”
Okay, I love me some Canadian Club and ginger ale. JUSTIN TRUDEAU: JUST LIKE US??
“In speeches, he’s always swinging for the fences, whether he’s cutting a cake or introducing the Prime Minister. At the Museum of Civilization gala, only the timely intervention of a proofreading friend stops him from describing Katimavik, a now marginal program with just 726 volunteer placements to fill this year, as “a beacon of hope, a ray of light that will shine across this great country.”” YUP.
“A desperate challenge to define his core belief in 25 words or less— by this point our discussion has already filled a notebook and two cassettes— produces the following response: “The nation is no longer a legitimate basis for the state and the rights of the individual are never secondary to the rights of the collective.” For those who are counting, that’s 26 words, though it takes several thousand more to explain exactly what he means (it turns out to be a repudiation of ethnic nationalism in all its forms).”
And to the USians: don’t forget that there’s some elections coming up on November 3rd. They’re mostly state and local elections, and you may not have a lot going on. It’s very exciting for us Pennsylvanians, though; three of seven of our supreme court seats are up for grabs! (One person hit the age limit, the other two were forced out due to scandal.)
It’s also very exciting for me on a very local level, as there is a heated race for my ward commissioner position. Back in the spring we had our primaries and two democrats were running for the position (no republicans applied): the incumbent and a young upstart. The incumbent sadly won, and we thought the matter was settled, but now the upstart has come back and is running as a republican in order to try again. I have no idea how kosher this is, but it’s certainly gotten me to pay attention to local politics.
I TURN 18 ON THE TWELFTH I AM SO SAD
I WANT TO DO THE VOTING THING
LET ME DO THE VOTING THING
YOU WILL, WORRY NOT
You’re turning 18 just in time to participate in the presidential primaries! I don’t know which state you’re in, so here’s a list of the dates, though I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t know what a caucus is.
*marks my calendar, then looks longingly at the 2 I got on the AP Government and Politics final*
I dont know either…
I’ve caucused, since in Texas we have the two-step. It’s very much like voting, except the rules work a bit differently in that you have to openly declare your preference, in my case to someone walking around the room with a clipboard, and people can wear their buttons to support whichever candidate. I much prefer voting, because I’m a private sort of person, and caucusing felt much more exclusionary, which is pretty impressive considering how hard Republicans have worked at intimidating and discouraging voters in Texas with ID laws and whatnot. But it was clear that most of the people there besides me knew each other, maybe through a homeowner association or neighborhood watch type thing. I felt very out of place to be honest. Still, I’d probably caucus again this year if I were still in Texas, because it does have some effect on the delegate count. I think some proportion are chosen by caucus and some by the voting. It’s a truly weird system.
Thank you! That sounds very weird to me.
Also, Vote 411 is incredibly helpful. You just put in your address, and it’ll tell you what races and candidates you can vote for. I don’t know how I’d find most of this information, otherwise.
Maine’s got a clean election referendum this time around (Question 1), and I’m sure there are some bond issues as well. There always are. But Question 1 is the big one.
OK, I don’t think that Canadians “voted for Trudeau” specifically. I mean, it was a sea of bad options, and even if he’s not very smart at least a) he is not outright evil, which I think is all we cared about. He has the entire Liberal party on his site so I don’t know that’s going to be such a huge issue. Though we’ll see. Plus, we didn’t get to vote on him as Liberal party leader, the party did. AND we don’t vote for the PM directly, so these arguments that we picked him specifically I think are kind of ridiculous. There are a LOT of reasons why people voted Liberal this year, and I think fewer of them have to do with Justin Trudeau than the media thinks.
I legit squee’ed out loud when the link came across my twitter TL yesterday. It was great, but I was bummed that none of REG’s glorious work was included. :'(
Any Drunk History fans out there?
Best Drunk Ever Jen Kirkman was on last night and was predictably brilliantly shitfaced. Cameron Esposito also stopped by and was pretty great.
Ohh can’t wait to watch that one! The Harriet Tubman one was my favorite thing ever.
I loved that one! “Harriet Tubman leads an army of bad bitches”
Thank you for reminding me to watch it. Crissles is the best.
Cameron Esposito holds a special spot in my heart as my first female crush I was aware of. Im so excited to see this.
(though nothing can beat the Patty Hearst one in my mind)
I didn’t know who she was until I heard her on the You Made It Weird podcast. It’s one of my favorite podcast episodes, and I highly recommend if you’re a fan!
I loved Ellie Kemper as Nellie Bly! And Michael Cera and Haley Joel Osment in (non singing, non dancing) Newsies!
I KNOW I’M LATE ON THIS but I just discovered Drunk History while on vacation in Banff with cable and NOW I IMMEDIATELY NEED TO DOWNLOAD EVERY SINGLE EPISODE AND WATCH THEM ALL, I LOVE IT SO DAMN MUCH
The Miss Fisher FB page linked to the ‘things I shout at the TV while watching Miss Fisher’ piece!
That was so charming until I got to the commenter who thought Phryne Fisher needed therapy for her “sex addiction”. Dude. She has a healthy sexual appetite. That’s not actually THAT outlandish for a women, no need to problematize it.
The Obama admin in general has a pretty terribly too-cozy relationship with Amazon. Obama goes around Amazons’ quantifiably terrible warehouses and calls them “great jobs.” The head prosecutor in the DOJ’s suit against the publisher collusion thing shared an office with Amazon, but didn’t mention it once in the suit, which is insane since, at the time, Amazon controlled 90% of the marketplace. Jay Carney went to work there after he left the administration.
Amazon spends a lot of PR dollars talking about how great they are for readers and are breaking down the gatekeepers, but then they stop paying the authors they self-publish royalties (based on “percentage read” not “unit”). C’mon. They turn off buy buttons a whim when they’re pissed off–this isn’t a “great place for readers.” And there’s the discoverability problem they can’t crack. The idea that they’re good for consumers or the people they claim to support–including their own employees–is such a thinly veiled joke. Anyone who has done business with them know what’s up. I will take my slow shipping from Powell’s thankyouverymuch.
Guys, I can’t believe I went for Hamilton tickets just yesterday more than halfway thinking “wtf how crazy exactly am I being”… and today other Toasties getting tickets are all over the comments. Damn, you guys. All the love.
Just popping after after an absence of many months to tell you that you all need to immediately go read up on #NationalShutdown: https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=%23Nati…
South African university students being unbelievably brave and incredible and deserving of support from everywhere. They are responding to police and state violence with phenomenal restraint and dignity. I am so proud of them.
I need help, Toasties. No one of my acquaintance watches Ms. Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, and I’m on the 8th episode and DYING at how ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL the sexual chemistry is, and I need to share my profound shipper feelings for Jack and Phryne
Fair dues! I am undeniably interested to see what happens now, for the NDP and for the Liberal majority.
Also, I read in an interview with LMM and the Roots members who produced the cast album about how they augmented/altered the sound of the music from the "keyboard, rock band, and strings" of the show for the album. Not clear on whether that sound is now included in the show, I have a lot of interviews bookmarked and I can't find it right now. But so there may be that as well.