So pretty.
The Undefeated just dropped, and it is looking GORGEOUS and STRONG, and here’s a story about how and why Black Panther is happening at Marvel:
A young Moore cringed through the original ‘79 Alien and peeked at ‘89’s Pet Sematary through 7-year-old fingers as he watched on VHS. He cheered during ‘85’s The Goonies when he saw it at the movie house with his family, and was a fan of angsty teen ‘80s films like The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And Moore was a fanatic for Indiana Jones movies, and the original Star Wars trilogy. “That was the cool way to hang out with your friends, but not roast alive,” he says. “We’d sneak in, do triple features…movie hop, see everything. [Or] we’d stay home and watch movies on our VCR.”
And when the VCR was tapped, Nate and his brother walked three miles in the Clovis sun to a comic book store to raid the 25-cent bin. Then he’d sit in his room, thumbing through obscure comics and falling in love with characters who looked like they could have been in his own family — The Falcon, Luke Cage and the Black Panther. The two worlds never quite seemed to meet in a larger way when Moore was a kid. The specific comic characters he obsessed over were never on the big screen.
That’s why Moore’s childhood is paramount. His childhood is why we’re seeing black superheroes on the big screen.
At long last.
I just love Carrie Fisher so much:
On what Gary and her mother have in common
“I’m very comfortable around high maintenance. I’m used to sort of tending to someone more of the hot house variety, and so here he is.”On Gary’s occasional aloofness
“He’s a true eccentric,” Fisher said, when Gary sauntered over to our table and sat in a chair facing away from us. “I love this! What is this? He’s going to sleep now. That’s the best thing he did, was fall asleep on all of the talk shows that we did because he was just so bored out of his tree. There was that one woman [Good Morning America‘s Amy Robach] that said ‘that’s the first time anyone’s fallen asleep on my show.’ And I said, ‘That you know of!’ I think I’ve done that, to my utter horror.”
this thread:
“She listens, she does mind, [but] she is a buffalo, you can’t really push her around too much,” Karen Schoeve, doting mother to one 1,000-pound housebroken bison, tells the Dallas Morning News in my new all-time favorite video.
According to the delightful accompanying profile, Bullet the Bison has full reign of Schoeve’s three-acre property, including the house. This, as one can imagine, came with challenges—which Schoeve approached as if they were unavoidable, and not the result of a possibly misguided and definitely elective decision to allow a giant buffalo to track mud inside of her home.
This lady was the real MVP and we should all die like this:
The symphony was performing a pops concert called “Broadway’s Golden Age,” according to its schedule. A spokeswoman said the players were about 30 seconds from the last measures of “There’s No Business Like Show Business” from Irving Berlin’s “Annie Get Your Gun,” the encore to the concert when Little collapsed and was carried backstage by her fellow bassists. She never regained consciousness.
“She seemed to be made of bass resin and barbed wire. She was unstoppable,” bassist Michael Kurth, who was playing next to Little when she collapsed, told The Washington Post on Sunday night.
Kurth, 44, added that “I honestly thought I was going to retire before she did, honestly.”
okay this is funny:
One of his signature moves is to turn to the camera, mid-conversation, and take his shout to a full-on roar, as if he’d absolutely had it. He used this technique when Michelle Obama appeared on “Billy on the Street,” last year, in a supermarket with Big Bird, to promote eating fruits and vegetables, via a game called “Ariana Grande or Eating a Carrot?” “You and your husband have such busy lives,” he said to Obama. He turned to the camera and shrieked, “To say the least! ” The First Lady looked startled. During the quiz, Eichner asked, “Who’s more deserving of a Kennedy Center Honor—Martin Short or a box of frozen corn?”
“The corn,” Obama said.
“No, Martin Short! ” Eichner yelled in exasperation. Obama doubled over, laughing. Eichner said, “He’s a genius! He played Ed Grimley.”
“I like corn,” Obama said.
i just love this fucker so much:
Miranda rarely finds time to sleep, let alone cross state lines on his night off, but tonight, he tells me with a grin, he is headed to the town of Montclair on a matter of family justice: He needs to settle a score among some fourth graders. One of them has been going around telling his classmates that his uncle is the Hamilton in Hamilton, creator of the cultural juggernaut that recently won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This is true. But 10-year-olds are skeptics; they require physical proof. So Miranda is making a special appearance in the auditorium of the stately Montclair Kimberley Academy, where he will, as he puts it delicately, “rub it in all those kids’ faces. This is in my job description as cool uncle. And if I can’t use my powers for that, what am I even doing?”
re-post to get the word out:
Toast Post Summer Care Package Exchange!
If you would like to participate, please email the following info to toastsummerexchange(at)gmail(dot)com:
-Your name and address
-Your username here, if you’d like to share it
-Care package preferences/interests
-Any allergies that might be applicable
-Oh, please note if you’re okay mailing internationally
I’m thinking a small box of care package items such as snacks, books, fun bath products, stickers… If you send me your info, I will match you with another person.
I’ve given it some thought and I’m going to do this (and not procrastinate on it like I did with the Toast post). I already have four things I want to put in there. Where do I send the info?
toastsummerexchange(at)gmail(dot)com:
-Your name and address
-Your username here, if you’d like to share it
-Care package preferences/interests
-Any allergies that might be applicable
-Oh, please note if you’re okay mailing internationally
This is amazing, but what is the timeline? (I’m moving July 1). Maybe I could send a bunch of postcards if this is afterwards?
I sent mine in yesterday – not sure if you got it though?
Well, I haven’t been responding back to everyone, and I haven’t organized the info in conveniently searchable spreadsheet yet, as I’m planning to do. When did you send it yesterday? Was your username in the email?
Yesterday around 9:20, username was in there – if you didn’t get it, no worries, I can resend! 🙂
Ah, I see it! You’re good.
Great! Just wanted to make sure 🙂
Just signed up!
All the love for my half eaten chocolates yesterday has convinced me! Just sent mine off
So excited for this!!
I’m doin’ it!
e-mailed yesterday, yay!
Oh my god, you guys. I spent the last hour trawling for something to post and I am having the best morning.
First off, Somebody in Dallas HOUSE-TRAINED A BISON, who apparently “has a great personality” and is moving to a ranch with some cow friends.
Second, and I still haven’t recovered from this, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jaime Camil (aka Rogelio Our Brogelio) once starred in a buddy movie slash rom-com in which they journey through all of Puerto Rico to find a hot girl Lin saw in a club once. They are to all appearances playing as themselves. Lin went from “In The Heights” to a Puerto-Rican rom-com. HE WAS WRITING HAMILTON WHILE FILMING THE THING. Here is the trailer, it’s ridiculous and beautiful and I’ve already watched it 5 times.
That movie looks delightful! Now I just need to track it down, since Amazon, iTunes, and my local library all appear not to have it.
I don’t know where to buy it but if any Toasties are at Amherst College, Georgetown University, or the University of Texas, it is available at your library!
THAT IS AMAZING
that’s my reaction to the bison and to LMM but tbh mostly to the bison
It is just so wonderful to me that while Lin’s press for the Pulitzer and Tony’s and everything makes it seem like he had a stroke of genius and then spent 6 years in solitary composing, he was really going on vacations and guest-starring in sitcoms and taking roles like this. Everyone has to pay the bills until the side hustl takes off.
He was also in this terrible show Do No Harm, which has the dubious distinction of I think being the lowest rated (or among the lowest) network shows of all time. He did it so he could write in the meantime and still get paid for something. Also Steve Pasquale was the star.
Honestly, I find that kind of inspiring for my own creative projects. He had to work for Hamilton. Hard. As did his wife, actually. Not that I think I’m going to create something like Hamilton, but remembering (a) creating things takes time and (b) even the most successful among us has to have a day job the pays the bills certainly shuts down my whining and excuses.
oh goddd I need to watch that movie!
WHAT? hahaha, I have to watch this trailer later. Thank you for your service.
(Also, Jaime Camil is going to be on Broadway for like 5 weeks this summer in Chicago. My fingers are very much crossed for an insanely delightful #ham4ham.)
(Also, Jaime Camil is going to be on Broadway for like 5 weeks this summer in Chicago. My fingers are very much crossed for an insanely delightful #ham4ham.)
Whaaaaat. I have never before particularly wanted to see Chicago on Broadway, but now I want nothing else in my entire life more than that.
Okay, I got really excited for a second, but then realized this means Chicago the play on actual Broadway, not Chicago the city. Alas.
Thank you! Hopefully this will lead to an appearance on Jane the Virgin, thus bringing together pop culture’s best Puerto Ricans (no, JLo can’t come).
Yeah, Lin is already friends with Jaime and Gina, so I think if the scheduling and a part works out it would totally happen. Despite my current frustration, I would be there for that in a heartbeat.
His short hair! Rogelio my brogelio! The spanglish! I’m in love.
Ok, but let’s talk about how “house trained” that bison is, because it definitely starts to take a wiz on the floor in the video about how house trained it is. That is not convincing.
But then again I don’t think it’s possible to oversell a bison that’s at least house friendly.
It is in the house and the house hasn’t been destroyed; therefore, it is as house-trained as a bison can possibly be.
You have to grade these things on a steep curve.
Thank you, thank you for this trailer. Work has been terrible this morning, and I am just going to retreat into Lin and Rogelio My Brogelio (and I love how he seems to be more or less the same character) galavanting around Puerto Rico.
Okay, I have to see that movie IMMEDIATELY. I kind of want to leave work just to watch it. It sounds PERFECT.
My two favorite things about the house-trained bison story a) the lady used to have a horse named Deuteronomy and b) “They’re [bison] hardy animals, unlike those sissy longhorns.”
That bison made me totally rethink the plausibility of house hippos. I mean, I’m still not entirely convinced hippos come in tiny, but it’s clearly not outside the realm of possibility that you can have one in your house. Except for that extremely dangerous, aggressive towards humans and will attack without provocation part, but otherwise…
Hippos rapidly flick their tails when pooping to facilitate the spraying of said poop as territorial marking. So, there’s that mild flaw in your plan.
House-trained bison: NOPE.
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD – soundtrack analysis / video essay: http://colorfulanimationexpressions.blogspot.com/…
This blog looks at the use of color in film and how color choices help tell the story or create a mood, but also touches on other cinematic techniques. I haven’t had a chance to finish reading this post yet today, but thought The Toast readers might like it.
(He recently did a multi-part series about the way Disney animators used color in their mid-century films, leading up to explaining why the color choices in Sleeping Beauty worked the way they did, which was kind of fascinating. I mean, if you want to know more about what you can find at the blog.)
Oooh, thank you! Adding to today’s Required Reading.
If you’re into Mad Max analyis here’s a great video on how GM uses eye-tracking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wCrdINidls
Which is why FR is much easier to watch than a Micheal Bay movie, the shots tell you where to look so your eyes don’t get tired!
so timely! hoping to teach this next semester.
This looks AMAZING! Thank you!
That was very interesting! Sound is one of those things that you can easily overlook when it’s working well.
I did misread this at first and thought it was going to be a discussion of colour in the film, which I was excited about, but alas.
Carrie Fisher is just the BEST.
The bit that made me laugh out loud:
She comes from Texas, so she was groomed to be, ‘Hello, I’m Debbie Reynolds.’ She calls me: ‘Hello, dear, this is your mother, Debbie.’ Oh, good, because I thought it was my mother, Howard.
I have a friend whose dad opens phone conversations with “Hello, this is your father, John.” I always thought he was unique!
My father often opens his with, “Hi, this is your old dad.” Delivered with an inflection as if he feels like he should specify which dad he is: he’s the old one, not the young one. I do not have a second dad.
Mr Daki calls his mom & says “Hello Mum, it’s your son, R” & I’m like
* she knows his voice
* he calls her every Sunday at the same time
* he is her only son so a male voice saying ‘Mum’ is a giveaway
I 100% ID myself to my mother by saying, “Hi, Mom, it’s Emily,” because I am the youngest of five and I have spent enough of my life listening to my parents start and falter over names until they hit the right one.
My father more than once started a phone call with “Hello, Emily, this is your father, [first name, last name].”
I say, “Hi Mom, this your daughter, [Teka],” and I’M AN ONLY CHILD. I have no idea why I even do this. Clarification if the line is bad or she can’t hear me well, maybe?
I do that because despite the fact that my sister and I sound NOTHING alike, my mom will still be like “Who is this?”
My dad’s favorite Dad Joke is asking “Who’s this?” when I saw “Hi dad” on the phone. I am an only child.
SUCH a dad joke!
Alternately, I absolutely do this because I’m the youngest of three daughters and we all tend to sound freakishly alike when we say, “Hi, Mom and Daddy.”
I have only one sister. It is a private game to see how many times in conversation my mom calls me by her name, or her by my name.
But have you ever referred to yourself by your sister’s name? I have and I feel this is an accomplishment of some note.
Nope, you’ve got one one me there!
Not yet, but my mom called me by the dog’s name once…
I have three brothers, and we had dozens of pets growing up. Parents used to cycle through at least 4 or 5 names before hitting on the correct one: dog name, brother’s name, cat, other brother, hamster or bunny, correct name.
My dad frequently calls me by my mother’s or sister’s name, and sometimes by my brother’s or the cats’. It can take a while to get to the right one.
That is a good one. She never did that to my knowledge but frankly none of us are good at names.
I have one sister, and my dad has never called either of us by our correct names first in recent memory. He has called me by his brother’s name. I have called my sister by my own name.
I have a daughter and a cat with names beginning with “v”. I almost never call the right one by the right name the first time. I have fortunately developed some serious MomVoice in urgent moments, so I can expect everyone in the house to stop what they are doing This Instant And I Mean It with pretty good reliability.
My go-to is “Hi, it’s your favorite daughter.” I am their only daughter.
My dad, calling home to talk to my Auntie B, and getting their dad on the phone: “I’d like to speak to your beautiful daughter!”
Grandpa: “She’s in Texas.” (Where Auntie V lives. Ouch, Gramps!)
About 75% of the time, I identify myself on the phone as their wayward daughter. I am their only daughter and so far from wayward that my mother suspects I have a Scandalous Sekrit Life that I’m not telling them about.
I do not.
Only child here, I usually go with “it’s me” whether or not I said mom/dad before that, or if I’m leaving a message, “it is I, your fire dog.” Neither of my parents has asked me to explain that, so either they’ve seen that particular episode of Ren and Stimpy, or they haven’t noticed.
I called my mother once and started the conversation with “Hi, Mom, it’s me!” Her instant response: “No child of mine would follow the verb to be with an accusative. You clearly have the wrong number.” And hung up. And wonders why I moved 2000 miles away.
I’m considering dispensing with any greetings on the phone to my parents because this is how it goes every time:
Me: Hi it’s me!
Parent: Ah, we knew it would be you! You’re the only one who ever calls us at this time on a Sunday.
After many years of this, I’m wondering whether we can dispense with tradition and just go straight into a conversation.
My grandma does this with her town, haha. As if I have a dozen other Grandmas named Riek who live in twelve different villages.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I usually just open phone conversations with my parents with “Hi!” and assume they will recognize my voice in a single syllable. So far, it’s worked. Either that, or I’m the only person who doesn’t include SOME kind of distinguishing address when calling.
She is so fantastic.
My husband and I do this with each other on the phone, but to a ridiculous level. “Hello, it is I, Kayjayoh, your wife, to whom you are married.”
I love that story of the housebroken bison because it is The Dream, but I worry that it might prompt more people to do this shit: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/us/yellowstone-…
I am so furious about this. Because a of all) Don’t touch a wild animal! It’s a bad idea! and b of all) IT’S A BISON DO YOU THINK THEY ARE BORN INTO THIS WORLD WITHOUT THE ABILITY TO WITHSTAND COLD?
I don’t understand why it had to be euthanized! Couldn’t they have given it to, I dunno, a petting zoo or something? Some eccentric mountain man who would have taken care of it? Side note: can we get a TV show about Sam Elliott as an eccentric mountain man with a pet bison.
I get REALLY emosh about bison. It just kills me that the herds that used to make the prairie shake are now totally gone. When I saw The Revenant, I was very cool and unfazed by all the brutality, but the second Leo climbed up onto the plain and there was a herd of bison there, I burst DIRECTLY into tears.
When I was in AmeriCorps, my team got sent to work at a Nature Conservancy site in Iowa that had a herd of bison. On our first day they took us on a tour of the grasslands and when I first saw the herd I had a very hard time containing my emotions. And over the course of the couple months we worked there, every once in a while we’d see them chilling and it just always made me happy.
(Also, male bison hop, kind of like deer. It’s an intimidation thing, I guess? It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life).
I’m trying to picture a hopping bison, and just the idea of it is making me laugh. I can’t imagine what it was like seeing it in person.
Wonderful.
Yellowstone seems to attract the worst Outdoor Idiots. My husband grew up near there, and he remembers being in a bison traffic jam in the park when he was a kid when they saw a guy taking a picture of his son standing within a few feet of a bison. My now-FIL rolled down the window and gently suggested they move away, and the guy turned around and said, “Fuck off.” So. My husband really hates Yellowstone.
Possibly similar to Yosemite? Orlando Soria basically grew up there (WHAT) and has strong and hilarious opinions on deer.
“Finally, I could ride my bike to the store without having to weave through sweaty tourists in American flag t-shirts eating ice cream and feeding Doritos to the animals.”
Sadly a bunch of the pics in that post are gone, but still.
Also relevant: “As someone who grew up in a tourist trap, I try my best to avoid being a tourist so I love visiting with locals and doing things that actual non-dork normal locals do. When you grow up with tourists screaming stupid questions into your face every time you leave the house, you come to resent their existence (I grew up in Yosemite Valley, which gets about 4 million visitors every year in an area that is only 7 x 1 miles. Typical tourist questions include “When do they turn on the waterfall?” and “Do they still do that thing where they let us feed garbage to the bears?”).”
I’ve been to Yellowstone twice. The first time we drove around a curve and had to stop because there were bison and cars blocking the road. One tourist had gotten out of his car and, less than 5 feet from and face to face with the animal, was taking a picture.
The second time we slowed down when we passed dozens of cars stopped by the side of the road. We peered into the woods as we passed, knowing there had to be some animal there, and caught a glimpse of a bear. People were getting out of their cars and walking into the woods to get a closer look, or walking closer to the spot because they had to park up the way a bit, there were so many cars. One was a woman with a toddler on her hip.
Of course, this stupidity isn’t unique to Yellowstone visitors. Once, between Banff and Jasper, a bear and her cub were rooting for food very close to the highway, maybe 30 feet. One guy got out of his car, took pictures, and turned his back on the bears to stroll back to his car. Shortly after, mama bear rose up, pivoted on her hind leg, and loped into the woods. The power, speed and grace of that pivot, of that one motion … that bear could have been on that guy in a blink of an eye.
I also have an image in my head of some guy holding out food trying to coax a bear cub to eat out of his hand. I think it was on that same Banff/Jasper trip.
I was in BC last week and the local news was airing (with great disapproval) footage some idiot had taken of other idiots trying to hand feed juvenile bears. With any luck someone identified them and they are being fined SO HARD.
Omg DUMMIES (am from BC)
I believe Yellowstone is where they recently had to start explicitly asking people to stop taking selfies with bears. So yeah.
There are signs near the local bison herd that describe how to tell if you’ve pissed off a bison. E.g., if it starts charging you, you made that bison angry. There are no signs about what to do if a bison is charging you, which I’ve always taken as emphasis on how important prevention is in re this particular problem.
Leave bison alone, guys.
isn’t a healthy fear or HUGE DANGEROUS ANIMALS supposed to be programmed into our DNA or something? i’m not totally comfortable being around domesticated horses, and these fools are just walking up to bison. jfc.
I always assumed certain behavior around animals were common sense: move slowly and deliberately, try not to startle them, that sort of thing. Then I worked with the horses and camels at the Philadelphia Zoo, and both children and adults who were scared of them would regularly come up behind them and, while standing in their blind spot, pat them quickly on the stomach or hindquarters. If you want to get kicked, that is an A+ plan. It happened literally every day and I’m still not over my incredulousness.
Hahaha – growing up in BC we kind of had the opposite training re: bears. “If the bear is hungry, act as big and scary and intimidating as you can! If the bear is protecting its young, curl up in a ball and pretend to be dead.”
HOW DO I KNOW IF THE BEAR IS HUNGRY
(I mean, we generally do know things like – if it’s early spring post-hibernation, hunger is likely, or late summer and there has been no rain, hunger also likely, and if there are cubs around, duh, but still it seems like an important choice that hinges on information that is difficult to obtain)
Stuff like the baby bison is why it’s my husband’s dream to go to Yellowstone so he can see an idiot tourist get tossed by a bison.
He went to the big snake orgy that happens in Narcisse, Manitoba and was outraged that people were just casually picking up the snakes as if they weren’t real, live creatures. (More info about the snakes: http://www.gov.mb.ca/conservation/wildlife/spmon/…
“Just look for the Narcisse Snake Dens sign on Highway #17, 6 kilometres (3.6) north of Narcisse” AND THEN DRIVE THE OTHER WAY
“big snake orgy”????????
YES GOOD GOD PEOPLE LEAVE WILD ANIMALS ALONE. >:(
As weirdly adorable as the house bison is, no-one should be doing that.
Martin Short played Dr Desmond Forrest Oates, Fine Arts Chair, and so I will always have a deep and abiding fondness for him.
When people are like “this killer animal only wants to be left alone” I’m like “that’s all of us but we’re not allowed to bite people.”
I consider it a personal triumph whenever I do not lash out and attack people doing things like “being too close to me on the Tube”. (I have never attacked anyone for this.)
People are the worst: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-3630785…
Today in (Feminist) History [Archive]
On this day in 1863, Rosalía de Castro published Cantares Gallegos, her book of poetry which was the first book ever published in the Galician language. Born in 1837, she is known as a key figure in the Galician romantic movement, also known as the Rexurdimento, or Renaissance. Galicia is an “autonomous community” of Spain, and in the past the Galician language had been replaced by Spanish, leaving it relegated to private use, or to the use of commoners. By Rosalía’s time, Galicia had become considered a language fit only for the ill-mannered and illiterate. But Rosalía– expected to only speak Spanish as a highly educated woman– decided to write her poetry in that language, rather than in Spanish, and in the process won herself the love of the Galician people.
Her poetry is most known otherwise for it’s use of saudade (in Galician), or an “almost ineffable combination of nostalgia, longing and melancholy”. Here is an example of one of her poems, in both Galician and English (I made an image for it so I could easily fit it here):
Rosalía was not just a poet, she was also a humanitarian who worked to help the poor and defenseless, was an opponent of any form of abuse of authority, and also defended women’s rights. Every year on this day, the day her book of poetry was published, Día das Letras Galegas (“Galician Literature Day”) is celebrated in the Autonomous Community of Galicia.
Also on this day…
• In 1903, the birth of Lena Levine, an American psychiatrist and gynecologist, and the director of the Margaret Sanger Research Bureau of New York. She was prominent in the development of marriage counseling and birth control.
• In 1937, the birth of Hazel R. O’Leary, an American politician, and former United States Secretary of Energy, who is to-date the only woman or African American to serve as the Secretary of Energy.
• And in 2004, the first legal same-sex marriages in the U.S. were performed in the state of Massachusetts!!
Well, I understand the title of that Thievery Corporation album, now.
That would be where I learned what saudade was too. It makes the feel of the album come together imho.
‘the river’s rumour’ what a beautiful phrase.
I like that it has nice alliteration in both languages, actually. In Galician that line is “o marmurio do rio“.
I wanted to link to this video in yesterday’s post on Bucky Barnes but I couldn’t find it. Then I remembered I had the link bookmarked at home. It’s a very short, silly video and it made me laugh so hard last night that my sheet mask fell off.
This did not disappoint.
oh my god thank you so much for that
Jane Little, local legend. Atlanta is in mourning. Rest in peace, Jane Little.
That LMM article has me howling. That is exactly what the power of cool uncle is for.
SANSA’S SO FLUFFY I WANT TO DIE
I’m going to miss seeing fluffy Sansa pictures every morning SO MUCH.
Ahhhhh, LMM! I can’t believe how many of you on the crush cakes comment thread were like, “I don’t wanna make out with him, but.”
Honestly, I think the short hair makes him more palatable!! I just cannot get behind the long hair + knickers.
Honestly, I think the long hair makes him more palatable! But that might just be hair envy. Life is a rich tapestry!
LMM is one of those people who I was 100% sure I didn’t have any kind of crush on, but then I found out he’s happily married and my first thought was “damn it”
He staged an adorable performance of To Life, from Fiddler on the Roof, at his and his wife’s wedding reception. Like, I died.
I am also happily married, and my first thought was STILL “damn it.”
It’s interesting but I don’t know what I have for him, I honestly think it’s to distant somehow to be a squish (platonic crush) even though that’s my default for I really love and admire you, but apparently that is limited to like fanfic authors not like people as famous as him, so it’s like 90% admiration because I don’t think I could get a chance to be his friend. But than again I don’t think I have a chance to be Angelica’s friend considering I like a very specific fictionalized version of her and she was alive like 200 years ago and yet, I have a squish on her, so I don’t know how it works.
I keep waiting for the backlash, because nobody can be this consistently delightful, right? But I’ll be happy if the backlash never comes.
when he says ‘your faves are problematic’ I’m like but NOT YOU, right????
and he keeps saying “me too.” which is a good sign honestly.
(I have my own theories about what some of his weaknesses might be, but I think they’re understandable.)
His weakness is the same as every male broadway composer: his meatiest roles are men. Women get great songs, but their function is to progress the male protagonist’s story, and therefore they never get to flex their acting muscles as much as the men.
(Yes yes yes, Nina and Angelica and Eliza are great roles, but they have half the emotional depth that Hamilton and Burr and Usnavi do)
The video from his wedding (which I think you can find via Google) is the origins of my personal crush, largely because the man so clearly digs his wife.
Ahaha I should have scrolled down. I just mentioned this vid upthread! That video is amazing.
That video should always be mentioned!
I don’t know if this will make sense, but *I* myself, the 34-year-old person, do not have a sexual crush on him, but the fourteen-year-old that lives inside of me at all times is constantly experiencing her sexual awakening whenever I look at him or hear him speak.
Hi friends. I just found out this weekend that I’m pregnant. It doesn’t feel real yet, like the rug’s going to get pulled out from under me at any point and I’ll realize I somehow misread the results. I’m confident that this is all very natural but it still feels like I’m living a long, weird dream.
Congratulations! It does seem very weirdly unreal for quite a while, do not fear.
Congrats! It is like a weird dream… I didn’t feel either of my pregnancies were real until I felt the little tiny alien moving inside me. Which is a long ~20 weeks of “am I pregnant? Or am I just gaining weight and acting emotional?”
Congratulations! IME, it does take a bit for reality to coalesce around the news.
Congrats! It’s a weird, unreal feeling for sure.
Yay!!!! Maze tov!!! Heartily wishing you an easy and uncomplicated pregnancy and birth. It never really felt real to me, TBH. Like it didn’t really feel real until the baby was about a month or two old.
Same here! I looked at my two month old this morning and thought “wait, what is this? Whose child is this?” And remembered she is mine and was delighted. Sleep deprivation, man.
Yeah… I still do the same thing with my two year old. I’m pretty sure it never gets real.
One of the reasons I have to go in and check my 19mo at night is to make sure I didn’t just imagine the whole thing.
Congrats! I’m 17 weeks and it still doesn’t feel real. Maybe once I can feel the kid moving around I’ll believe it?
Thus far, movement has made things feel more weird but not necessarily more real for me. It’s pretty trippy.
Congratulations! And seriously, everyone else is right – this part *does* feel like a long, weird dream, particularly in the phase before you see an OB/midwife, so no one has actually confirmed that yes, you are pregnant apart from you and the pee you peed on a test.
Right?! I just need to hear a professional tell me I’m pregnant, no question, even if they’re simply going off the same tests I’ve already used to find out in the first place.
Congratulations! The nice thing about pregnancy is that it is long enough to get you used to the idea of a baby.
CONGRATULATIONS!! This is so exciting and wonderful!
Gah me too, and of course it happened right after we said, “we’re not ready, let’s stop trying.” I also keep forgetting that I am, and then I remember, and just feel stunned again.
Congratulations, and best wishes for an easy pregnancy and a healthy kiddo!
And the “am I imagining this?” makes total sense to me. Pregnancy is very sci fi to me.
I think Buffalo Lady and Possum lady should go out for drinks. And then start a joint YouTube channel.
Now I know the very first Youtube subscription I would make!
I want to see a video of the possum riding the buffalo, pls.
I am totally imagining her as one of those prim Ladies Who Lunch, north Dallas style, which the immovable hair and the serious manicure and the make-up adjusted for every occasion of the day including checking the mail (assuming her long-suffering maid – her word not mine – has not done it). Which would be absolutely divine in combo with Possum Lady. Can we have this as a five minute reality show? I need, like, five solid minutes of this every week. Tuesdays at 3:07 pm.
Wow. What a lady. Incredible, weirdly poetic, and very sad.
But can you imagine how traumatic seeing a person die in the middle of a concert would be for the audience and the rest of the orchestra?
But is it, though? An octogenarian losing consciousness and never waking up isn’t exactly what I think of when I think “traumatic death,” yaknow? It’s no more traumatic to me than seeing someone faint, which is basically what it was, aside from the knowledge that they actually died. I feel like any trauma or discomfort anyone in the audience might have experienced says a lot more about our society’s unhealthy relationship with mortality than it does about this death, in particular.
Just seconding this. I’ve been doing lots of reading around death and dying (When Breath Becomes Air, Being Mortal, etc) and wow, we are really terrible at death in the U.S. Also highly recommend Smoke gets in your Eyes, by Caitlin Doughty, who is in the funereal business (her website is great, theorderofthegooddeath)
Honestly, the first thing that came to mind when I read about her was the story about the folklorist Alan Dundes. He died in the middle of giving a lecture and we know his exact last words because of students recording the lecture for later. His last words were: “But there are really only two uses for Marxist theory in folkloristics” and then he DIED. The best part is, the man hated Marxist theory so a fair amount of people are convinced that this was a setup to a joke and we’ll never know the punchline.
I mean — death is a part of life.
I would be shocked and saddened if I were there, and awed by how she went out, but I can’t imagine being traumatized (unless I was her co-singer maybe, and even then). I would have felt present at something important, an event, but not traumatized, no.
CN: bodies and decay and illness of loved ones
Aren’t most ways in which people die pretty traumatic for others? Dropping dead in the middle of something with other people around is at least quick and nobody has to find you after days, or watch you fade away with dementia, or see you in pain, or do other things they never thought they’d have to do for you.
No, I don’t think so. Death is serious, and saddening, but not traumatic unless it came about in a violent way. It is the most certain and expectable part of life.
What’s “CN”?
“Content Note”- in case people don’t want to read about those things today.
Dexteress basically said what I wanted to say in my comment, only much, much better. The thing you wish you could stop thinking about often isn’t seeing someone die (unless, as you said, it was very violent), it’s seeing her suffer and not being able to do anything about it, and then seeing what happened to her body afterward.
That’s sort of confusing to me that you say that, because I strongly agree with Dexteress’s comment, too.
Especially this part: “I feel like any trauma or discomfort anyone in the audience might have experienced says a lot more about our society’s unhealthy relationship with mortality than it does about this death, in particular.
Didn’t mean to leave you hanging, but also wanted to have one last try at making myself understood.
I guess what I am trying to get at is, yes, death is part of life, but that doesn’t mean that, say, watching someone who would have fought tigers for you forget who you are as her brain shuts down, or attending the funeral of a very proper woman and there being such a stench from her body decomposing, because the undertakers fucked up, that nobody can sit in the first three rows of pews, cannot also be traumatic aspects of the death of a loved one, and haunt you more than the actual moment of death did, or being in an audience and seeing a handsome elderly woman collapse while doing something she loved would.
Yes, as a society, we try to ignore death and there is a growing industry devoted to concealing it. No, that isn’t great. But I cannot pretend that dying is not painful and messy and undignified for most people, and that seeing someone you love go through something painful and messy and undignified, and not getting them back when it’s over, isn’t going to cause a certain amount of trauma for a significant amount of people. (Maybe some people aren’t traumatized by it and some people are, the way some people have phobias or allergies and other people don’t.)
At this point you’re talking about situations other than the one we started this thread with.
For those situations that you bring up yourself, I do see what you mean. Though I still feel like “deeply upsetting” might be more the appropriate word than “traumatizing,” which has a specific meaning and gets used loosely in the same way that “depressing” does. Also I think you are in danger of saying grief is a trauma, and I’m not sure it’s a good idea to collapse those distinctions. Grief can be profound and even temporarily disabling without it having to be a trauma, you know? We don’t give a lot of room for grief in our society either, but people used to recognize it as such in the past and give people time to recover for that reason.
I agree–I think I would have been shocked in the moment, but then thought how amazing it was that she lived such a long life AND was able to do what she loved literally up to the second she died.
That actually seems like a pretty lovely way to go? Maybe I am weird.
OH my GOD I can’t WAIT to see that Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds film.
This seems like everything that awful Christmas Village story should have been and was not: http://tinytracksdoc.com/
(A man in Toronto built a replica of Boston’s mass transit system as it was in the 50’s in his basement.)
AND YET THE CHRISTMAS VILLAGE GUY WINS JOURNALISM AWARDS
…you can’t be serious. *plugs ears* JOKES JOKES THATS JUST A JOKE
WHAAAAAAT.
How has nobody set the Christmas Village Man on fire yet?
I volunteer as tribute
Guys! I wrote something for The Mary Sue for the first time yesterday and it was about Civil War and how fandom shapes a viewer’s experience. SEE: http://www.themarysue.com/civil-war-and-fandom-vi…
I did not comment on whether or not Bucky’s hair is real.
Nice, I really liked it! The reveal in Civil War is a particularly good example of fandom involvement, not just familiarity-with-the-adapted-material, being the key to knowing the secret, too — it’s something that’s not comics canon, and that was really only implied or hinted at in the previous movie; it’s really only in fandom that it’s been discussed and theorized about to the point that people could say “Oh yeah, I knew that happened.”
idk p sure it’s…mostly real? Seb Stan always looks like he grows out his hair for the role, just sayin.
#buckyshair
I had this strange experience because they showed the car crash and I got all excited and tapped my brother’s leg to say “Oh my gosh! It’s [spoilers]!” And he just gave me the most puzzled look back, like “What is wrong with you?”
It wasn’t until the reveal that I realized I wasn’t supposed to figure it out that quickly–so your article was fun to read. 🙂
LOLOL at LMM’s cool-uncle visit.
As an aside, I grew up near there and knew kids who went to Montclair Kimberley, and that just makes the story better.
Yes, same! Will you be weirded out if I ask where you’re from?
I grew up in Maplewood, lo these many years ago. You?
Verona. Well met, fellow (former?) New Jerseyan!
former, yes, but I go back fairly often 🙂
Uh. Anyone want to scream with me about the Jane the Virgin finale?
YES. SPOILERS EVERYONE.
I have been frustrated with a lot of season 2 of JTV and don’t understand why most critics still adore it so. It is charming, and the relationships are beautiful. But the storylines are a complete wreck and I feel like last night bore out my every misgiving.
For the record, I am either #teamrafael or #teamjane goes it alone for a while, but once the show committed to Michael, to go so far as marriage, then stick with it! Keeping the love triangle going just feels arbitrary and stupid. All of a sudden Raf is mopey and longing for Jane again. Oh, let’s do a fake-out where he declares his feelings, but not really. Let’s have a beautiful ceremony and dancing and build up to Jane finally having sex, but not pay off on it, AGAIN.
I am really unhappy that she’s had a kid, had multiple relationships, gotten married and is STILL a virgin? COME ON. (and yes, virginity is a construct, and after we discovered Abuela lied about her own past, what is even the point?)
And the whole Michael thing was so predictable. Why carry that out when everyone’s been saying it’s going to happen for a year? And of course it’s a cliffhanger. We didn’t need it, because we’d already had at least two up to that point (Petra and Xo). And let Xo have a life without any more kids, goddamnit, she’s around 40, right? And let her know her own mind for real.
They keep going back to where they were instead of going new places. Sure it’s a telenovela, but you don’t have to keep going back. You could advance for once and not look back. So Rose is still alive and with Luisa. Petra still wants Raf. Raf still wants Jane. Jane and Michael are in love but now he’s been shot so who knows. Xo and Ro keep talking about a relationship, occasionally with other people, then back again. They’re still talking about kids. Alba never ends up with anyone. I could go ON. Move forward dramatically! Don’t just go back and forth to the same old things for no good reason! And for God’s sake abandon the title/premise.
Whew. This has been Jane the Virgin Yelling with Liv. Thanks for listening. (And thanks to burningupasun for listening to the first draft last night on Twitter.)
You’re welcome and also thanks for giving me the final push to stop watching, lmao, I am definitely done!
I hadn’t even thought of it in terms of repetitive plotting. But you’re absolutely right about the stuff with Michael/virginity/wedding/love triangle. Pleaseee just let it move forward!
I’m also not a big fan of the Petra/Aneshka plot. How do you end that? Kill a twin? She better not turn out to be pregnant with a miracle baby from her deception sex with Rafael.
She better not turn out to be pregnant with a miracle baby from her deception sex with Rafael.
Oh, Jesus Christ. Yes, please no.
Oh, god, yes. Everything about the last 5 minutes was utterly predictable. We’ve been expecting Michael to die since the line about him loving Jane as long as he lived. We’ve been expecting a plastic surgery twist with Sin Rosetro since before we even knew it was Rose IIRC. And the second there was a twin in the hospital bed it was obviously Petra.
Oof, thank you for that rundown. See, this is why the show’s title has always made me leery of watching it. Even though people assured me it wasn’t a preachy moral anti-choice tale, I hated the idea of lauding a heroine because of her virginity. I would legit be more interested in a show called Jane the Slut.
Yeah, it’s awkward. At the beginning of the show, she was on the verge of getting married (first engagement), it was her personal choice and so on, but that only worked very early on. Now (because so many events) there’s absolutely no reason it shouldn’t have happened already. So arbitrary.
I don’t think the title was meant to laud her though. It really is just a nod to a telenovela premise (and based on the original Juana de Virgen) – what if a virgin got pregnant? and the rest of the show follows from there.
Ah! I was ignorant of the original telenovela title, that does put a different slant on it.
But yeah, I mean, for a show that’s walking a fine line in its stance on sex and reproductive choices from the very start — the longer you go without letting her have sex in her relationships, the stronger you’re coming down on a certain side. And, unsurprisingly, it’ s the prudish American side.
Yeah. I love many things about it, including how sweet Jane and Michael’s relationship has been the past few weeks. It’s been really nice, and so unusual, to see that level of communication and functionality on tv. All of which was overshadowed by how obvious it was that he was going to die. I could barely get into the sweet parts of the finale because I knew it was coming. And, frankly, I would have accepted the death as a fair trade-off if she at least got to have sex first. Jane almost has sex is used up as a premise, they need to give up on the title.
I really hope Xo has an abortion. And, yes, they get some new plots.
i will be back in an hour to do so – have to watch it first!
What am I going to doooooo without daily pictures of Sansa???
London Toasts! We’re starting to talk about the Toast Wake in London; so far I think we have agreement on the 2nd of July, and I’m looking at booking Zieferblat in Shoreditch.
If you’re not already on the FB group join us! <a href=”http://(https://www.facebook.com/groups/435704426638315/)” target=”_blank”>(https://www.facebook.com/groups/435704426638315/) It would be really good to get an idea of numbers interested!
I seem to have fallen into facilitator, I don’t mind doing booking stuff so long as I don’t have to put down money; but we could use any support, as well as offerings of food/cake making, and ideas for performances or such (like if anyone would like to write/talk about the Toast and do goodbyes or something), and also music if anyone is interested!
Come thee to FB! (I’m sure details will make it to Slack/Reddit/OTs as they become more firm if you’re not a FB person!)
I kinda googled excessively to find out whether flying to London for that weekend would make sense – it doesn’t, unfortunately…
I know how you feel; I’m keeping my eye on flights to New York in case the Toast Summer Party ever happens.
Same.
I want to go but that link doesn’t work for me! How do I find the group?
i think there is an error in the url. Type this: http://www.facebook.com/groups/435704426638315 and it should work!
Can we talk about last night’s Person of Interest? I am still reeling
I still need to watch it, I will come and scream with you tomorrow.
Oh my god, I was so hyped all day because I knew it was the big return episode, and then I watched it and was just… worried and sad and sort of traumatized. It’s a genius episode but SO PAINFUL. Like, I feel like I could get so much out of re-watching it and paying attention to all the tiny details that tell us so much about the main character, but I…don’t want to.
I don’t think I was truly worried about the final outcome for any of the characters until last night.
When I first saw it I was somewhat frustrated with the ending (I just want Shaw and Root to be far away from Samaritan and safe and happy!), but it’s really grown on me and I love the insights it gave into Shaw. I also appreciate the dialogue it appears to be having with this spring’s TV, even though it was shot last fall.
A few other things that stood out: Fusco seemed to be deliberately missing! Sarah Shahi speaking Farsi! “My beautiful girl”!
I have a theory that Shaw is deliberately leaving Fusco out because her subconscious twigs to the fact that none of it is real, and he’s got less defense than any of them and would certainly be killed immediately if Samaritan knew who he was.
Also my friends and I decided that the guy Shaw calls ‘Millhouse’ is in fact a version of Millhouse Van Houten that Shaw’s brain conjured up for an NPC in the simulation, because she likes the Simpsons.
I want to know how much of the simulation is programmed. Like, is it a choose-your-own-adventure, or basically freeform? Is Fusco not there BECAUSE Samaritan doesn’t know who he is? Does Shaw really have traumatic playground memories or is that part of the program as well?
Okay maybe I do need to rewatch it, because I think none of the Shaw stuff was real except the very end, but maybe the beginning contradicts me.
I think all the NPCs (not Shaw or Samaritan agents) are based on real people acting in ways Samaritan predicts they would in a given situation, and Samaritan is experimenting with its agents acting in different ways to manipulate Shaw to a particular outcome. Fusco doesn’t appear because Team Machine has been concealing his significance for years, and by not asking after him Shaw is hiding him like she’s hiding the subway base.
Ooh, I hadn’t thought about the playground memories being invented! That’s an interesting idea.
Oh, it was emotionally brutal. The playground scene was so raw I could barely look at it, but there’s also a moment earlier in the alley when Shaw thinks John is reaching for his gun and all but begs him not to. Because she doesn’t want to look him in the face and shoot him; he’s family to her now. Gave me Mayhem Twins feels.
Also are Shaw and Root not currently the greatest f/f pairing ever put on TV or what?
Root’s huge eyes welling up with tears practically every time she looks at Shaw. 🙁 🙁 🙁
I wonder if this is the only Root/Shaw sex scene we’re going to get, since this was clearly the one they were talking about in the pre-season stuff (breaking Amy’s tailbone, etc). Not that another one is actually necessary, but…it would be kind of great if there were a non-simulation one.
Has POI ever run a present-time sex scene before? I know John sort of gets them in flashbacks to Jessica but I can’t remember any other examples.
Yeah good point, probably not. I’m just being greedy. 🙂
I do hope they get a real-life moment of being together and being on the same page about each other, though.
YES please
All the little minor mischaracterizations that clued us in to the scenario being a simulation! The playground in Qatar! Shaw speaking Farsi! Her loyalty and fear that she could turn on her team! That sex scene, holy christ. This ep was so MUCH.
Oh my god, what a tribute to Shaw. 6,741 chances and counting and she’s never told them where the subway is, revealed Lionel’s involvement, betrayed Root, or failed to betray Greer.
6,741 chances and she’s done every single one right.
Sameen Shaw: 6,741. Samaritan: 0.
She has won every time.
I responded to @chevalier_cygne saying, “wow, your username has just been waiting for this moment, hasn’t it?” and got like 30+ likes and my phone kept beeping ALL DAY. It has only just stopped.
(@chevalier_cygne responded with “it really, really has”, which I am sort of disappointed about because it would have been even better if they’d said, “actually, this is just a normal day. You’d be surprised how many medieval-swan-related misunderstandings occur on Twitter.”)
I mean, I’m sure I would be surprised if the total were more than, like, 5.
I have A Lot of Positive Feelings regarding Carrie Fisher for being so open about bipolar. The dog and his stupid tongue are really just icing on the cake.
I read one of her memoirs where she talked about how proud she was when people wrote her to say that their intro psych books used a headshot of Princess Leia to illustrate bipolar.
So Courtney Stodden is pregnant and being very honest about her feelings about it. Which is great, however I feel about the rest of her life choices aside.
AND AND AND AND AND the trailer for the Laverne Cox “Rocky Horror” is out and I feel pretty damn good about it.
So I totally appreciate how honest she’s being about her pregnancy and feelings, but she’s only four weeks along?? Per that article, she says they weren’t planning to go public so soon, but – does she actually explain why they’re going public? I don’t have kids myself, but I was given to understand that the standard reveal time was “three months or whenever you start to obviously show.”
Tbh I’m kind of a fan of women bucking that standard though? Idk I have no horse in this race, but my friends who’ve had miscarriages as well as those who’ve carried to term have talked about how they wish there was more dialogue about early pregnancy, because it is No Fun and when things go wrong because it’s a secret there’s no space to talk about it?
I personally believe that the “wait three months” is to protect everyone else from having to hear about how goddamn sick I felt.
Ha, yeah, this squares with what I’ve heard as well. Friend of mine is 7 weeks along and she’s just like “yes all is nausea now”
That’s a really good way of framing it! I’ll have to keep that in mind. 🙂
Ug. I’m glad I didn’t have to interact with people in the lead up to my miscarriages. It’s tricky and so long as there are a sufficient number of people who feel like telling you what you can/should do with your uterus or who don’t realize how emotionally painful/fraught pregnancy can be, I don’t think there’s much incentive to saying anything.
Several of my best friends have miscarried and have said exactly this.
Seven years ago, I started miscarrying the same day I started announcing my pregnancy. and (a) of all, that totally sucked, the miscarriage, but (b) I was actually really glad I was out of the pregnancy closet because the emotional support really helped us get through.
I am also a fan of bucking that standard. I vote that it be replaced with “do what you want about that, it’s all cool.”
Apparently, the video they took for their families was leaked (or “leaked”, who knows) to the press. Dlisted had something about this yesterday, but I can’t link to it on my phone.
Thanks! That sucks, whether it was leaked or “leaked.”
The three months thing is because the risk of miscarriage is highest before 12 weeks (although really it’s not hugely different between 8 and 12). Not telling before then is really about limiting the number of people you might have to tell about a miscarriage. But the first trimester is also super sucky, as most women are super tired because the placenta isn’t there carrying the load yet and the nausea/ barfing is usually worst then. So telling people early can be a way of getting support when you need it. There’s no “right” time or rule and judging people for when they announce is just the start of the “judging pregnant women’s choices” as near as I can tell.
Thanks! I hope I didn’t come across as judgy, I was just really surprised, that’s all – I’d never heard of anyone announcing earlier than 7 or 8 weeks (and even then, it was because her MIL spilled the beans on facebook before they were ready to announce).
There’s definitely a lot of unwitting reinforcement of arbitrary pregnancy rules in the world, even when people don’t come from a place of judgement- I can’t tell you how many people have asked about my caffeine consumption (even sympathetically, like, “oh, how are you doing without coffee”) without having any idea what the actual recommendations (not rules, recommendations) are- generally, if you know you don’t know, I think a better approach might be “this is a thing I’ve heard about pregnancy, is it total bullshit?” Because a lot of it is total bullshit- and the person who’s actually pregnant is usually in the best position to make the decisions that work best for them.
I’d heard vaguely about the Rocky Horror thing and my response was, “WHY? The original film was so perfect.” But now that I know Laverne Cox is involved, I realize I was deeply incorrect.
I don’t know who this is but the article says she celebrated her 5-year wedding anniversary and she’s 21? So she got married at 16?
I don’t know who that is either, but I’m baffled by why a 21-year-old is wearing the makeup of a woman three decades older who wants to look 21. *googles* Oh. Reality show contestant. No more questions.
The reality show came after she got notorious for marrying a 50-year-old guy when she was 16.
And now he’s her manager. :/
Oh my god Rocky’s highlights.
It is my birthday today and I feel like this is as good an opportunity as any to admit anytime I see “LMM” I think Lucy Maud Montgomery and not Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Can’t you picture him in costume as “Ham of Sleeves” in a Kate Beaton comic? I’m not well-grounded in either LMM-verse, but it’s still the first thing I think of when I see that monogram.
Same here! I’m constantly having split second confusions.
I keep trying to get people to use the hyphen so this would be solved. L-MM: Tony winner; LMM, Canadian extraordinaire.
YES. THIS. LET’S DO THIS.
I still want that Anne-of-Green-Gables-Musical written by (LMM)² <3
Yes please! Anne 4ever
Same, even though I am totally obsessed with Hamilton. And happy birthday!!!
I actually forgot until my sister reminded me that my initials are *also* LMM and that this should therefore be even more confusing to me than it actually is.
Thank you, I thought I was the only one!
I want some kind of Buzzfeed quiz where you are given a piece of trivia or writing or whatever and have to guess Lucy Maud Montgomery or Lin-Manuel Miranda. ETA: or laurenipsum, making the game even more fun!
ME TOOOOO.
There are a bunch of other great replies to that UKIP tool complaining about Margaret of Anjou: https://twitter.com/TheMichaelMoran/status/731933… https://twitter.com/TheDaiLlew/status/73193432726… https://twitter.com/TheMichaelMoran/status/731935…
My favorite was “don’t tell him about hamilton”
“UKIP tool” is kinda redundant.
Man, Laurence Olivier’s Othello will never stop being upsetting.
*builds little “Billy Eichner was the worst thing about Parks & Rec” fort*
I wasn’t really a fan either. There were moments (SOMEONE FOLLOW ME I’M DISTRAUGHT) but overall, Yelling isn’t really a personality?
I fully agree about Parks and Rec. Sometimes he has good lines in his street stuff but the idea of a white gay man yelling at me in a loud voice has no novelty.
This was two years of my college life! We lived and worked together, so double bonus fun. He wasn’t mad yelling, just excited yell talking, all the damn time.
Yup. I mean, that’s not really saying much due to the overall high quality of Parks and Rec, but I don’t think he meshed well with the rest of the cast in terms of energy/demeanor.
It was kind of sweet to see Kimmy Schmidt give him an on-the-street beatdown.
IS CATE BLANCHETT TALENTED OR IS SHE JUST TALL?
SHE DROVE ME HERE makes his character worth it to me, but I see other perspectives.
I want to curl up and take a nap in Sansa’s ear fluff, is that weird?
For anyone who missed Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Penn Commencement speech yesterday, the video is here: https://vimeo.com/166847414
HOWEVER, the Provost gave an amazing introductory speech in rhyme that even LMM was impressed by, and I encourage you to check that out. It starts at about the 2:26:30 mark, with Lin’s speech immediately following: https://youtu.be/Xo7rJ5JRn7E?t=2h26m25s
That was a pretty great intro.
That was great! Thank you for posting.
Rhyming “propaganda” and “Miranda” was pretty genius.
Ohhhh Sansa’s little ear curlies are most excellent.
+7 points for ear floof
-4 points for too-adult face
Sansa is up 3 points from last week, but I am not convinced she will continue to hold such a strong lead in the face of other contenders like the (still somewhat hypothetical) foster dog my roommate said we could get once we’re moved in.
just 6 months ago Sansa was so smol! and now she is hueg! I don’t know how to handle this
She is not too-adult! She is REGAL FLOOF BEAST +5 trillion points
If Lin-Manuel Were Your Cool Uncle.
Write eet!!!
Haha,
If LMM were your cool uncle, he would sheepishly tell you that Donald Trump was a practical joke that had kinda gotten away from everyone. He would promise to put an end to it immediately.
If LMM were your cool uncle, you would get to see Hamilton, obviously, but only once. He wouldn’t want to be unfair to anyone else. It would be enough.
If LMM were your cool uncle, you’d never fail a history exam. Somehow, the answers would just come to you.
Hurrah!
Just another reminder of how tragic it is that The Toast is ending and we will never get to read this or any other new wish-fulfillment fic.
he’s way too young to plausibly be my uncle. ALAS.
OT: I have yet to listen to Hamilton. I have nothing to do at work. Watch this space for real-time response. (Listening to one song on Spotify, knowing full well I will most likely just buy the album on iTunes.)
Spotify has decided I should listen to “Alexander Hamilton”
You guys, actual, literal chills.
Don’t listen to Act II at work, people could see you and bother you with pesky questions like “OMG is everything ok??”
Second the don’t listen to Act II while at work or driving, it makes me cry every time, and it is a shame because it is great but not worth public crying/ possible car wreck
Oh god, I made the mistake of listening to Act II at work and the only thing that saved my dignity was that I was in a rear desk facing away from the rest of the office and almost everyone else at work was out that day.
I teared up at Satisfied and when I realised the lyric was “I’m not gonna waste my shot” and actually said, “Ohhhhh no. No. Oh no,” out loud in my car.
Oh boy.
You should try to listen to it in order! It’s much more powerful with the context of the story
I am now! I lucked into Spotify picking the first song as the actual first song and I just bought the album, so now I get to see what this is all about.
Lucky duck.
PHILLIP. OMG.
OMG what he does with rhyme for King George vs. the Americans. Holy crap.
>>approached as if they were unavoidable, and not the result of a possibly misguided and definitely elective decision
Surely the bison is a metaphor for life.
“Surely it is the vagaries of fate that have led me to this tragic cock-up, rather than my own terrible choices!” See also: the thread about Othello and the value of 5 minutes of conversation in yesterday’s Bucky post.
Nicole, how did you know I needed a video of cats in fashionable outfits? I’ve been crying all morning and that video made me laugh out loud. Thank you!
They’re so chill! Is it just that Persian cats are just too lazy to care?
Shout out to my fav cat-in-outfits: https://www.instagram.com/p/BFUgJMwkkI1/?taken-by…
Carrie Fisher is a goddamn national treasure and a pioneer of misandry.
That has always been my motto (hence my encouraging my daughter to play a sport where she runs around and hits boys with a long stick). I’m so glad I have get approval in my bossiness!
I’m sad that life has been unkind to her, but happy that her response to that has been to become a mouthy broad with killer one-liners.
She is my hero. And every single time she says something, she gets even better. Every. Single. Damn. Time. Carrie Fisher for Queen of the World.
She’s got moxie and pizzaz.
Jane Little was a fuckin BALLER, it has to be said.
Semi-related I told one of my employees I always imagined I’d die in a theatre and we both kind of laughed and then had a moment where we realized it was probably true.
Angela Lansbury has said she hopes she dies onstage (can’t find a citation at the moment, but I’m sure I read it when she was doing Blithe Spirit or ALNM). I definitely wouldn’t put it past her – though actually she should be immortal and die never, so.
Ha ha toasties, our team rocked yesterday. I wiah I had a video of the moment my daughter (completely hidden in the group fighting for the ball) simply stuck her long pole up in the air and snagged it, inches from the net! I was very proud.
We think in this week’s tournament we might just have an all-girl defense and goalie, because we can, and it shakes the other teams up!
YOU GUYS. Look, here are feather epaulettes. I want to wear all of them all the time.
http://lovechildboudoir.com/collections/epaulette…
Very Goth Sansa!!
OT: I could use some advice about associates degree programs online, and I would really appreciate it!
My brother (mid-30s) is looking into getting his associates either in business or psychology. He has some college credit from a semester 15+ years ago, but he works retail and doesn’t have a schedule to accommodate physically going to classes. He wants to try an online degree program and is wary of for-profit programs. He asked me to help him try to navigate the process and I don’t really know that much about online/distance schooling.
Basically, what’s a good place to start looking into to make an informed decision about different programs/institutions?
I would start by seeing if his local community college has an online program! Or there might be a state school that could work with him.
Thanks! I will definitely look there! He’s moving cross country soon, which made this seem more daunting but this is solid advice.
ouch, yeah, moving cross-country is going to make it more difficult. it’s hard enough just figuring out the local grocery store and drycleaning situation, much less “what the heck is going on with the community college”
try googling the name of the town + community college, if there’s no hits, try county, then state. (Some of the colleges in Florida are named by city, county, or region! so you have Santa Fe State College and Florida State College of Jacksonville and St Johns River State College and…) But if nothing else, if there’s a community college in the town or county, even if it has a different name, Google should bring it up, and that would be a start. 🙂
Stuff is really named oddly and confusingly when you’re not familiar with a place, and I hadn’t really thought about that. Those are some great google tips and I really appreciate it! Thank you 🙂
If he’s recently moved, I would suggest he double-check any state or local residency requirements (to make sure he’s eligible for cheaper tuition rates).
on that note most places offer instate tuition during the summer (my local CC laso gives you instate if you’re taking 6 credits or less). It’s probably going to be too late when he gets there but it might still help him get started earlier.
Yes, very good point on residency status. That is going on the check list. Thank you!
Look at his local Community College. Many of them have enough online courses to get an associate’s without ever stepping on campus. Maybe not specifically business or psych but certainly many of the general reqs. Business especially though often has weirdly hours classes because so many of them are precisely for people going back to school after years looking to start climbing out of whatever ceiling their company has.
Thank you! I am definitely going to start there. A lot of this is really overwhelming because there are just so many options that it is hard to parse stuff sometimes, and I really appreciate the advice!
Definitely start out with state schools. Tennessee, for example, has a website where you can search all the online degree programs offered by the public community colleges and universities in the state. I imagine other states would have something similar, though also just starting with local community colleges would be good too.
That website sounds really helpful, good job Tennessee! Part of what made this daunting is that he is moving cross country soon and I have no idea what the state school system is like where he is going, so fingers crossed they are as organized as Tennessee. Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it!
Sometimes too with the online courses, you can get a tuition break as an out of state student if he falls in love with a good program outside wherever he ends up. I’m an online student myself right now (though in a grad program) at a public university in another state and I pay in-state tuition + a small fee/hour, which is loads cheaper than out of state.
I know it adds some extra work there! But if it’s all online anyway and if he’s moving to a state that might be more expensive tuition-wise, it couldn’t hurt. Especially if, like Mrs_Peel pointed out, meeting residency requirements after the move might be a problem.
Yeah, that’s a great point. The state he is moving to is more expensive than where he is now, so it’s good to know that there are programs out there that can accommodate, especially because the residency requirements look like they might be a potential problem.
Thank you for the advice! I really do appreciate it, and now that I have a bit of a list with things to start with it seems less of a monumental task.
The state schools will often have online courses, and taking them through the state university system will make it much easier to transfer the credits to a four-year program down the line, should he wish to do so!
I’ve heard enough frustrating stories from various friends about credit/coursework transferring that I it definitely something that is on the checklist now, but I would not necessarily have thought of it. Good point, thanks!
Of course, I’m talking about transferring credits all within a single state system here. If you have credits from the Illinois state university system, they may not transfer well to Iowa or Wisconsin or whatever, but should transfer much more easily (though not guaranteed, depending on the courses & grades & how many credits) between Southern Illinois University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for example.
Yes, I appreciate the caveat though. Like I said, it’s something you don’t really think about until you have to deal with it. Thanks!
DEFINITELY AVOID FOR-PROFIT SCHOOLS AT ALL COSTS. Your brother is very right to be wary.
Hard agree.
I love Billy Eichner. His show has brought me a lot of joy over the last few years. I really enjoy how all of the celebrities that appear on the show are such good sports about it. My two favorite celebrity moments include Christmas carols with Amy Poehler and Sarah Jessica Parker having a laugh attack. SJP could not get a word out for most of her appearance because she was laughing too hard.
I had no idea he had a show; I loved him so much on Parks & Rec, and always meant to go find more of his work.
If you are a regular Toast reader and you don’t appreciate the subversive brilliance of the Shondaland obstacle course (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd4CqCxHdXI) or his Wicked tailgate bit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx5Nl9H5goI) then I don’t know what the purpose of this site even was!
These are my two favorite entry points for BOTS newcomers, I hope you laugh at them!
First of all, that bison was NOT house trained—she takes a nice carpet piss right in the video. Second of all, that columnist was “inspired by” a woman GETTING RID OF a 1,000 pound bison. What a jumble of confusing wrongness.
Okay so this weekend (Friday? i think it was Friday, because I went on vacation that morning and lost track of time), there was an announcement that the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is being adapted to novels which is AWESOME for kids, because parents are still iffy about giving their kids comics (especially girls, because comics are boy things I guess?), so here’s a nice way to introduce the character, and then they want to read more about her, so hello comics. Also, I hear that Squirrel Girl is pretty kick-ass and fun, though I haven’t managed to get the first trade yet, because lazy.
HOWEVER the choice of author!
I’m so disappointed. She’s got some really racist stuff in her backlist and doesn’t have a very good track record with how she writes gender, even though since 2004 or 2005 she’s been very vocal about getting kids reading books because they’re fun and not forcing the girl vs boy books false-dichotomy, which does garner her a lot of praise. BUT the stuff she actually writes…? I mean, I love several of her books for reading, they’re excellent from a prosody perspective and very engaging, but when I step back and think about what I just read, it’s.. like it’s progressive and feminist from a conservative perspective, but not nearly inclusive enough from a progressive perspective. So it’s disappointing to me.
Does anyone know of her recent work, if she’s changed for the better?
(I am avoiding using her name because as far as I know, she’s not a bad person or anything, and I don’t really want someone to google her and be like “LOOK WHO HATES YOU” because authors have feelings too, and maybe I am wrong. I did misremember a blog post she wrote in 2009 about how women and men can’t be friends. I thought it was very vivid, but she mostly was defensive about it, saying that she doesn’t necessarily believe that, it’s just that she and her husband don’t have any opposite-gender friends and so on. But that was a blog post that made me stop and really look at her writing, back then, and read it more closely for relationship stuff, and I guess it’s been 6 or 7 years now that I’ve felt betrayed?)
I can’t answer, because I can’t find any new things about Squirrel Girl, and nothing about a novel adaptation. So I have no idea what author you are talking about.
It was on the Mary Sue last week, and I started seeing it on my Tumblr later in the week: http://www.themarysue.com/tms-exclusive-preview-s…
I just googled her after following the link and it looks like she’s Mormon. I know, #notallmormons, but if she’s any kind of a traditionalist, the issues you’re having make a lot of sense.
Right, #notallmormons but her blog and books don’t exactly reject the conservative, “complimentary” views of gender, and the post about The Actor and the Housewife she made that talks about the friendship thing was incredibly upsetting to me, that it was so conservative. (I remembered it as being something like “I don’t agree with this or really understand how it works, but I tried to do it for this book, because fiction isn’t real life…” and was like “wait, male-female friendships are only possible in fantasy? scuseme?” but apparently as vivid as the memory was, I misremembered it, or assumed her position based on other things she wrote around that time)
She’s getting so much positive press for the girl vs boy books thing, though, that I wonder if I’m missing something, or is it just that people aren’t really looking close.
And Calamity Jack and Book of a Thousand Days really are pretty racist, chock full of unflattering stereotypes. :/
Toasties!!!! I’m constantly checking my phone and can’t concentrate on work because I’M ABOUT TO BE AN AUNT. Baby is being born as I type! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!
new baby!!!
Are you an auntie already or is this the first nibling?
I have an 10-year-old nephew and a 5-month-old niece and I never ever want children of my own, but dang it is so much fun to have niblings. I’m looking forward to when more of my siblings have kids, too.
First time aunt! He is BEAUTIFUL. And looks so much like my brother I can barely handle it. I stared at his picture for a good 30 minutes yesterday and I’ll probably get a good hour or two in today. So in love *heart eye emojis*
Oh this is fairly old, but yeah I remember when my nephew was born (he is almost 5 now, and his sister, my niece is 2 and a half already) and I love them so much and also so don’t want any children of my own either heh. It’s nice to have children who you will see grow up and are an important part of your life and you are also not the primary caretaker for.
Interviewer: Do you like to wear tiny hats?
Abysinnian: The more elaborate the better, and with a tight elastic band around my neck. Love that.
Interviewer: Which do you prefer, Fireman, or French Maid?
Siamese: Tart Fireman, but only if this lady dresses up as a Tart Fireman too.
Interviewer: Are you allergic to any medications?
Maine Coon: Drug me now before I claw your eyes out.
Mexican Hairless: My safe word is Global Domination.
(How they determine if the cats like it)
Toasties! Heard an interview with the author of Joe Gould’s Teeth on NPR yesterday and want to read it IMMEDIATELY. It touches on so many things of interest to me (oral history, outsider art, lost manuscripts that may or may not exist, medical history, journalists who get weirdly involved with their subjects) and also things that are horrifying but important:
“In any case, I eventually found out it was a woman — Augusta Savage — who at the time was the most prominent artist in Harlem and one of the most influential still, because she was a teacher of art. She had been the obsession of Joe Gould since 1923, when he first met her at a poetry reading. And what I ended up walking away from the project wishing was that Gould hadn’t basically been complicit in destroying what we could possibly know about Augusta Savage; and that Savage herself hadn’t been so haunted by Gould that she hadn’t done the willful act that she did, which was apparently to have destroyed many of her papers and much of her art.”
D:
The same author also wrote The Secret History of Wonder Woman which I read yearrrrs ago (despite not being the biggest Wondy fan) and LOVED.
I’m glad that her wikipedia page makes no mention of Gould:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusta_Savage
She gets to have her own entry without it being colonized by the dude.
I am glad I read that LMM link, because I learned this:
A Questlove and Black Thought–produced Hamilton Mixtape is also due this fall, from Atlantic Records, featuring such artists as Busta Rhymes, Ben Folds, Regina Spektor, and Common.
As far as I know, the other artists involved are Sia, Chance the Rapper, Usher, and Queen Latifah. I am EXCITED.
OMG this will be amazing
OT, but I feel the need to wail. I left work early this afternoon to go clothes shopping, and it was horrible (as is normal for clothes shopping). I just want to have clothes that are comfortable and flattering and which make me happy, and which aren’t ten years old and baggy and faded. But I find it so hard to find anything that meets these criteria. Nothing fits right; I am 5’0″ with 30H (ish) breasts and a large stomach, plus narrow shoulders. Tops are too tight under the arms (which, as I am constantly battling underarm sweat – how do other people not seem to have this problem? – is not good) and across the chest, or far too long and baggy at the shoulders (or both). Maxi dresses trail on the floor. Even when I use shops offering trousers in short, regular and long, the short ones are too long for me; all trousers, also, cling to my stomach with lines going directly from each hip to my crotch, showcasing cameltoe. I am somewhere in between two sizes, meaning I try on the same two pairs over and over trying to work out whether I want slightly baggy and unflattering or slightly tight and unflattering. It is hell. I end up feeling desperate and just buying stuff that will do, because my one pair of jeans are about to wear out at the thighs and I need something to wear, but that just compounds the problem of feeling frumpy and unenthusiatic about my clothes. Anyone in a position to commiserate? (Or suggest a magical place that will provide clothes that fit? It’s not even like I’m that far beyond the average, size-wise – I am generally a UK 14 or 16 – but my shape just seems all wrong.)
I have similar measurements to you. (5’2″, 32f, high waisted and top heavy). I rarely shop for things irl these days. Honestly, the best thing I ever did was learn my measurements and start shopping online. Lots of retailers put their extended sizes (including petites) exclusively online these days.
Plus if something looks terrible, you’re not learning that under the harsh light of a fitting room.
re: underarm sweat
I have the same problem, and I am constantly wondering how other people seem like they don’t. I own a lot of black tops.
Dark colours 4 lyf. I am glad I am not the only sweaty person in the world.
Give eshakti.com a try? It involves a lot of measuring, bit you can customize almost everything.
Also, I know it’s a hassle, but taking pants to get hemmed/tailored. I’m short with short legs and huge hips/butt/tummy, and the only pants which fit are pants which have been altered to fit. I haven’t tried getting shirts altered but buying something which goes over your bust and having it taken in at the shoulder and waist might help!
Yes I came to say both of these things! I’ve found that eShakti sometimes doesn’t actually turn out to fit, but they’ll let you return it if it doesn’t. It’s really amazing though to have clothes that are cut to your actual size!
Also always go with the slightly-too-big size and pay someone $10 (or local equivalent) to take it in for a perfect fit.
For trousers–I think you might have my problem: long crotch. I’m petite-sized except for my rise (distance from crotch to waist), which is the rise of a much taller woman. I can’t wear petite pants, even though the legs fit, because the waistband cuts too low on my hips and if I try to hoist the waist to the right place on my body, I get cameltoe. I buy regular pants and hem them, or wear capris as normal pants. For jeans, Banana Republic has a high rise style that fits me well and does not look frumpy.
This is a sewing blog, but even if you don’t sew I think the illustrations could help show you what the problem might be and what to look for in buying pants:
http://closetcasefiles.com/14-common-jeans-pants-…
Thanks! I suspect you’re right.
I have similar fit issues. How do you feel about skirts? I find them much easier to fit than pants. I’ve more or less eliminated pants/trousers from my wardrobe, including jeans. I wear leggings or yoga pants for casual wear and skirts or dresses if I’m dressing up. Try sticking to tops and dresses with stretch… Like other people have said, you can get things shortened, if budget doesn’t permit you can try learning to do it yourself. You don’t need a sewing machine, it’s really not hard (although tedious) with a needle and thread.
Is UK 14/16 in between straight and plus sizes the way it is in Canada and the US? If so you might have more luck with plus size clothing. Personally I’ve found clothes shopping easier since I moved from the upper range of straight sizes to the lower range of plus sizes.
UK 14/16 is roughly US 8/10, maybe US 10/12 depending on store, so not on the plus size line! (At least not in the stores I shop in, bookwormV’s experience may vary)
I though it was US 10/12, but yeah, not really plus size (I’m not sure that we really make that distinction here – I’ve never noticed separate plus size sections).
I think I probably look a bit better in tops+skirts or dresses with relatively fitted bodices and full skirts; however, in general I prefer to wear trousers because it’s easier not to have to worry about finding tights that won’t fall down/don’t have holes in (going bare-legged leads to very painful thigh chafing), and they’re a bit more likely to have pockets. I appreciate the increased practicality, although it’s not a given.
I miss living at home; my mum would helpfully hem all of my trousers for me. I have toyed with the idea of hemming my own by hand, but my flat is pretty cramped and I don’t have a good place to spread sewing stuff out. (And, as you say, it is tedious.)
I’m not sure we have the same distinction between straight and plus sizes here in the UK; in general, you can find a fairly wide range of sizes (6-22?) all stocked together, so thankfully that’s not an issue.
If you do want to wear more dresses and skirts you could wear some sort of short-type thing underneath to eliminate chafing. I’ve got some Undersummers that work well for me, plus some cheaper spandex type shorts I bought from Amazon. (I hate pants and am very Team Dress.)
Jockey makes some shorts that are similar to undersummers and fit me better. I’m wearing them right now!
If it’s comfortable for you, wear more dresses and skirts. It’s so much easier to fit them around a super feminine body type. Whatever you choose to wear, buy the bigger size and get it tailored. I usually have the shoulders, back and waist taken in on tops, and am constantly hemming and getting waists taken in.
They definitely look better most of the time, but I find trousers so much more practical (not having to worry about thigh chafing or finding tights that stay up – why is it so difficult? – and a greater chance of having pockets).
I should look into getting stuff tailored. I just hate spending money and am not sure how it works – do you have to go and get measured? If it’s just “take these trousers up two inches”, that sounds straightforward, but the thought of having to go in and get people to see how a dress or shirt fits on my body so they know what to alter is scary.
I just spent an insane amount of money to have low calorie ice cream delivered to my house, 100% because Nicole tweeted recently about how delicious it was…
Hi, Hamiltoasts! So ESPN apparently figured out that the way to get me to care about an ESPN event is to hire Daveed Diggs and Leslie Odom Jr. to open it.
http://www.vulture.com/2016/05/diggs-and-odom-jr-…
hello it is @chevalier_cygne here and i would just like to say that being featured in the toast link roundup is the actual best thing that has ever happen to me
If you do want to wear more dresses and skirts you could wear some sort of short-type thing underneath to eliminate chafing. I've got some Undersummers that work well for me, plus some cheaper spandex type shorts I bought from Amazon. (I hate pants and am very Team Dress.)
Calling 2for1cheesecake!! I saw you are planning a Twin Cities meetup. I’m not on Twitter or Instagram. Please email me at jat8d AT gmail or the linked account. Thanks!!!
Alternately, I absolutely do this because I'm the youngest of three daughters and we all tend to sound freakishly alike when we say, "Hi, Mom and Daddy."
Jockey makes some shorts that are similar to undersummers and fit me better. I'm wearing them right now!