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[Dan (the Man)]

!!!!  Welcome To Godhood, DR GINNY  !!!!!

Use your powers wisely!

[Dan (the Man)]

Page Three Dance:

[vixmom]

welcome to the heavens DR Ginny!!!

[vixmom]

!!!!  Welcome To Godhood, DR GINNY  !!!!!

Use your powers wisely!

or who knows what could happen?!

[Ginny]

   Thank you, all, for your good wishes.  Back to earth now - I have to leave for work.  Will check in later, er, Laters!

[Donna]

Hi Y'all!
Long time no post. Terribly errant and truant . I see things are still humming along.

Re: SAIL AWAY - I have a recording somewhere in my stash of a show Judy Garland did that was recorded live. She was sick at the time and throughout kept apologizing for her performance. Anyway, she opened with "Sail Away" and, even with her problems, it's the best rendition I've heard of the song. IMO, she got the intent of the song just right.

I know I should stay longer--but I just can't right now! More's the pity . Will try to catch ya later.

Take care.

[George]

Yay, finally  

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WELCOME TO THE HEAVENS, DR GINNY!!

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[vixmom]

This made me think of JMK's comment the other day about being suproise at the language he heard at the high school

Kids say the foulest things
Anti-swearing efforts fall on deaf earsBy Valerie Strauss

Updated: 8:47 p.m. ET April 11, 2005Dan Horwich's English class is a bastion of clean language, where students read the classics and have weighty discussions free of invective and profanity. But when the bell rings and they walk out his door, the hallway vibrates with talk of a different sort.
 
"The kids swear almost incessantly," said Horwich, who teaches at Guildford High School in Rockford, Ill. "They are so used to swearing and hearing it at home, and in the movies, and on TV, and in the music they listen to that they have become desensitized to it."

In classrooms and hallways and on the playground, young people are using inappropriate language more frequently than ever, teachers and principals say. Not only is it coarsening the school climate and social discourse, they say, it is evidence of a decline in language skills. Popular culture has made ugly language acceptable and hip, and many teachers say they only expect things to get uglier.
 
Horwich said he won't tolerate vulgarity in his classroom, and he tells students on the first day of school what he expects. But the 31-year-old teacher said he feels as though he is waging a losing battle -- and he isn't alone. Many teachers say that even if they can control their own rooms, only schoolwide efforts can make a real difference.

Teachers say their principals often don't give them support on the issue, and principals say they can't because administrators are worried about "bigger" problems. Many parents are no help, cursing themselves or excusing their children's outbursts, teachers say. And though many school systems ban profanity, not much happens to most offenders. Many teachers say they no longer bother reporting it.

‘Somebody has to call them’
"Nobody turns their head anymore on the whole," said veteran teacher Pauline Carey of Mount Rainier Elementary School in Prince George's County, noting that her school is an exception in that all the adults are on the same page in demanding respect.

"Somebody has to call them on this language and not just pass it off," Carey said.

George Parker, a D.C. elementary school teacher and president of the Washington Teachers' Union, agreed. "In the same way we teach students math and English, we have to say that you can't come into our schools and use profanity," he said. "And we have to have a systemwide program to deal with it."

But there isn't one, Parker said. Some D.C. teachers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared repercussions, said they had been told by their principals to "get used to the cussing" because officials downtown had more pressing concerns. A survey last year by Parker's union showed discipline was the leading concern of D.C. teachers.

Profanity, in the large sense, is defined as words that others consider offensive, although it originally was restricted to words that were blasphemous. Once heard mostly in whispers, today it is inescapable. "I never thought I would say this -- once being a hard-core anti-music censor -- but I understand why [young people] are doing this: You almost can't find a song, video game, television show, anything, without a curse word," said Laura Lee Cox, a seventh-grade teacher at Cedartown (Ga.) Middle School.

Children ages 4 and 5 often go through a phase of using inappropriate language they hear but can't understand, child-rearing experts say. Parents are advised against reacting too strongly because the youngsters soon learn from adults that the words are inappropriate.

The problem, said James V. O'Connor, director of the Cuss Control Academy in Lake Forest, Ill., is that when children learn that the words are inappropriate, they enjoy using them all the more to get a rise out of their parents.

Soon it becomes "cool" behavior at school, even if many children don't understand what they are saying. Anne Ryan, a music teacher at Half Day School, a third- and fourth-grade public school in Lincolnshire, Ill., asks students to bring in favorite music lyrics to discuss.

The students constantly question: 'Is this a bad word?' 'Is that a bad word?' " she said. "They hardly know what constitutes profanity."
 
High school students know, but by then the habit has formed, experts say, and the teenagers know they can get away with it. Said Kevin Shaigany, 17, a student at Walter Johnson High School in Montgomery County: "What can they really do [about it] in high school?"

Ivette Lopez, 18, a freshman at Montgomery College, said most of the time students aren't trying to be offensive. Seth Kroll, a 21-year-old American University student, agreed, saying: "It's part of our lexicon."

Lazy language
Others see it as lazy language, especially when the same word is used as different parts of speech. "People use it instead of articulating what they want to say," said Naomi Schimmel, 21, a George Washington University student.

Horwich said constant use of profanity reveals a poor vocabulary, and O'Connor lamented the toll it is taking on the language.

"There are words virtually disappearing from our English language," O'Connor said. "When people are mad, what do they say? They say they are pissed off or [expletive] pissed off. No range. There is a big difference between being upset or livid. There is a big difference between irritated and infuriated."

Parents can exacerbate the problem, teachers say, by defending children caught swearing in school.

"As soon as the kid gets suspended, or has a detention, or whatever the consequence, you have the parent come running down to the school, yelling and screaming and swearing, saying they are going to fight it and saying they are going to call their lawyer, and the school administrators back down," Horwich said.

Many teachers and administrators still put up a fight against foul language.

George Ferguson, a teacher at Big Cypress Elementary School in Naples, Fla., said he sometimes has children write class rules repeatedly, or he talks to an offender's parents.

Deborah Alford, a sixth-grade special education teacher at Cedartown Middle School, tells students "on a daily basis" what language is appropriate.

Yvonne Morse, a veteran D.C. educator, advises strategies such as counseling, peer mediation and problem-solving sessions, parent conferences, in-school suspensions and letters of apology written by the offender.

Bonnie Tryon, principal at Golding Elementary School in Cobleskill, N.Y., said a schoolwide standard is key. "If you don't stop the little things," she said, "the little things become big."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

   

[vixmom]

Gosh! I din't realize how looooong that article was!

[Ginny]

DR vixmom - It occurred to me on the drive to work that Mamma Mia would be the perfect show for the HHW Girls to see together this fall!  How 'bout it, Jane and Danise?

[George]

This has been going through my head all morning:

AH, EVERYONE'S A VICTIM
OF THIS DUCKY LITTLE DICTUM:
THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER
IN SOMEBODY ELSE'S YARD.

"The Grass Is Always Greener"
Lyrics by Fred Ebb, Music by John Kander
from Woman of the Year

[bk]

I'm up, I'm up.  

DETRITUS!

That was a fine movie, too - DETRITUS AND THE GLADIATORS.

Beautiful sky and day.

You'd think one of you clever photoshop types could come up with Liza AS Dolly, or any other of our wonderful casting suggestions.

[vixmom]

DR vixmom - It occurred to me on the drive to work that Mamma Mia would be the perfect show for the HHW Girls to see together this fall!  How 'bout it, Jane and Danise?

Sounds good to me!!

[vixmom]

my front lawn is covered with the DETRITUS left behind my an ill-driven SUV

[William F. Orr]

This made me think of JMK's comment the other day about being suproise at the language he heard at the high school  

Ah, yes.   When my Joe's older sister (known hereinafter as DoDo) had her firstborn (now a college freshman), she became very strict about language, which was curious, as she could swear a sailor under the table any day.  A younger sister (known hereinafter as Pix) was living upstairs, and she had a habit of peppering her conversation with the S word.  To which DoDo would always reply, "Not in front of my daughter!  I don't want her to pick up bad language."

This rule was strictly enforced for about the first year of the girl's life.  Once she actually began to learn to speak, however, DoDo forgot all about the rule and went back to her old potty-mouthed ways.

Oh, at times she and her husband tried to substitute "euphemisms".  Until the child's teacher told them she had called a little boy a "rectal orifice".

Her son, born later, used to shock all (and amuse his mother) by using the f word at the age of three.

And then, on his first day of school, his mother felt she had to warn him, because of a recent case of inappropriate behavior by a school-bus driver.

When the young lad returned home, he got off the bus and said quite loudly in the driver's presence, "He didn't try to touch my penis."

What Stephen Sondheim song is going through my head?

[William F. Orr]

Since this site is becoming the unofficial Jessica Skerritt fan site, here is another picture:



And here is a link to a review of Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens on Talkin' Broadway.

[William F. Orr]

And speaking of campy rock musicals, have all of y'all been seeing the ads for the HBO version of the musical Reefer Madness?  I've never seen the show, but--heavenly days, McGee!--the story takes place in the 1930's.  Do we really need it to look and sound like MTV?

Much better in my book is DR J. Kauffman's Going to Pot, based on the same source material, but with a score appropriate to the era.  (See "Chapter 35:  Much Better Adaptations of Reefer Madness".)

[JoseSPiano]

Good Morning!

Well, it's practically Good Afternoon for almost everyone here on HHW, but...

Me?  Sleep In?



Whew!

I need to run an errand, and then I shall come back and read and post...

But, I'm Up!  I'm Up!

Laters...

[William F. Orr]

DR Elmore:

Does this young man look familiar?



And btb (by the bye in Internet Lingo), good health vibes.

[MBarnum]

Since this site is becoming the unofficial Jessica Skerritt fan site, here is another picture:



And here is a link to a review of Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens on Talkin' Broadway.

And imagine her with a short blonde Jean Harlow doo, and you will see the cuteness that I saw last Friday...and she seemed to be a very sweet gal!

[elmore3003]

DR Elmore:

Does this young man look familiar?



And btb (by the bye in Internet Lingo), good health vibes.

When was that fantastic photo of Joe taken?

[elmore3003]

Lord!  I hope I'm right!  I'm sure I am.

[Jennifer]

Fun: How well can you spell test.

I am sort of bummed cause I got 13/15.  

http://encarta.msn.com/quiz_36/How_Well_Can_You_Spell.html?GT1=6428

[MBarnum]

Young up-and-coming singer-actor Jessica Skerrit performs her one woman cabaret MEN I'VE HAD at Thumper's Cabaret, located on 15th and Madison in Seattle, Washington, produced by Contemporary Classics.


The cabaret features songs from her four favorite male composers (Kander & Ebb, Jason Robert Brown, Stephen Sondheim, and William Finn), presented with a through-line of love, regret, disappointment and hope. The cabaret will feature such songs as "Getting Married Today," "Infinite Joy," "Everybody's Girl," and "Letting You Go." Skerrit, a native of Washington, has appeared in CLO's production of ON THE TOWN, understudied in Village Theatre's HOW TO SUCCEED..., and is currently seen in SOUTH PACIFIC. She has appeared at Thumpers before in BLAME IT ON MY YOUTH, HERE'S TO THE LADIES, LIVE BY REQUEST and many showcases with Ann Evans.

[William F. Orr]

First on weightier topics:

Angel Jim has received his papers from the Parole Board, and they are full of major errors.  He is listed as pleading to a Felony D, a violent crime, use of a weapon.  He actually pled to a Felony E, nonviolent, and there was never any hint of a weapon.

It seems to me that this cannot be a simple typographical error.  Given the actions of the police and the general state of corruption in the Town of Crookville Brookville, not to mention our belovèd county--something seems quite rotten here.

His lawyer is looking into the matter, and I am supposed to speak to her this afternoon.

[William F. Orr]

Lord!  I hope I'm right!  I'm sure I am.

So is your guess the same as mine?  The name's the same (although with no jr.), and he is in medical school in Chicago.

[William F. Orr]

Happier news:

I have been contacted by an editor of a major national magazine who is planning to write, quit unconnected with his job, a biography of a friend of mine who passed away some twenty years ago.

This will be a Tell-All biography.  We plan to meet in the next couple of weeks, and I will Tell Some.

Isn't that exciting?  Isn't that just too too?

For now, I don't think I should give more details until I have spoken with the gentleman.

And hhw was instrumental in his contacting me.

[Charles Pogue]

I remembered someone else who was at the French Film thingie last night:  Henry Jaglom seemed to be Ms. Vacarro's escort.  I've never seen a Henry Jaglom film.  We also met the national president of AFTRA, who was complimenting The Lovely Wife's hair.  Very nice man.

BK, this LeLouch film was actually combined what had been intended to be two films (I think the first had already been released...but did badly) that were supposed to be part of a trilogy initially into one film.  He said when it gets released on DVD, the extras with excised footage from the two intended film will probably be as long as the actual film.

[JMK]

I have to say that with copious amounts of horse tranquilizer and the proper director, I think Liza would actually make a pretty good Dolly.  

WFO, thanks for your kind comments re:  Going to Pot.  Virtually everyone who has listened to our version has said our score is head and shoulders above the grandiose LA version.  But of course they're usually sitting face to face with the composer when they say that.    Our recording was made in the worst possible circumstances, with a cast of mostly teenagers (and very young ones at that, some kids as young as 13 and 14), most of whom had never set foot in a recording studio before.  So the fact that we got the performances we did is something of a minor miracle.  Our version is available for licensing (cheap!) for any of you out there in community theater land.  

[Charles Pogue]

I see where Pillowman has opened in New York.  I advise all our New york folk to go see this play.  It's the most devastating play I've read in the last year.