Haines His Way
Haines His Way => Daily Discussions => Topic started by: bk on February 11, 2022, 12:12:17 AM
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Well, you've read the notes, the notes went down the rabbit hole, and now it is time for you to post until the rabbit hole cows come home.
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And the word of the day is: COLLABORATE!
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Ginny, my sympathies to you and your entire family.
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Topic of the Day: the aforementioned Japanese cast recordings of Frozen and Mamma Mia!
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Woof!
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Very funny, Ron! ;D
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Tonight, for the first time in FOUR weeks, I'm going to my mom's to play Friday night Phase 10! I did go to my mom's on Sunday, but that was the family dinner and this will just be cards with her friends.
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And now, I must hie myself to bed.
Good night, Ron, and have a good day, all!
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Good morning, friends.
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And 0 Guests.
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That is all. For now.
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But I'm sure there will be more. Anon.
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Hither, Thither, and Yon went into a bar....
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Stop me if you've heard this one...
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:)
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Friday morning greetings!
Ginny, my sympathies to you and your entire family.
Thank you, DR TCB.
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Good morning, all!
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DR Ginny, my condolences to you and your family.
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The anti-inflammation steroids Dr Blacksburg put me on seem, to be helping. There are fewer bathroom breaks, and I had a pretty nice night od sleep.
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I have my fingers crossed that today goes as smoothly as yesterday did, but ya never know.
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DR Ginny, my condolences to you and your family.
Thank you, DR Elmore. I had a real “Our Town” feeling at Woodside yesterday.
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I have my fingers crossed that today goes as smoothly as yesterday did, but ya never know.
I hope so, too :-*
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Trouble in River City:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marchershberg/2022/02/09/music-men-sue-the-music-man-after-their-broadway-dreams-are-dashed/?sh=720e49ee7fd6&fbclid=IwAR3fMCjNpqWMGE7X_g7Sx8UiYot9eyocJaL0PKQyQFebLyEmczGUgtjF9Lw
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The Music Man opened last night. I haven't seen any reviews yet, but I understand the NY Times was not fond. If the Jesse Green wrote the review, I'm not surprised. The ass really dislikes "old" shows. He panned Encoeres! regularly.
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The review is, indeed, by Jesse Green. Sorry, there's some missing paragraph breaks.
There comes a moment in the latest Broadway production of Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” when high spirits, terrific dancing and big stars align in an extended marvel of showbiz salesmanship.
Unfortunately, that moment is the curtain call.
Until then, the musical, which opened on Thursday night at the Winter Garden Theater, only intermittently offers the joys we expect from a classic revival starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster — especially one so obviously patterned on the success of another classic revival, “Hello, Dolly!,” a few seasons back.
The frenzy of love unleashed in that show by Bette Midler, supported by substantially the same creative team — including the director Jerry Zaks, the choreographer Warren Carlyle and the set and costume designer Santo Loquasto — has gone missing here, despite all the deluxe trimmings and 42 people onstage. Instead we get an extremely neat, generally perky, overly cautious take on a musical that, being about the con game of love and music, needs more danger in the telling.
That’s something I’d have thought Jackman would deliver. His previous New York outings, especially in musicals like “The Boy From Oz” in 2003 and a “Back on Broadway” concert in 2011, were unbuttoned affairs, sometimes literally, threatening at any moment to spill over the lip of the stage. As such, Harold Hill, the traveling salesman who dupes Iowans into buying instruments for an imaginary band, would seem to be a perfect fit for him — or at any rate an impossible fit for anyone else.
But Jackman mostly suppresses his sharky charisma here; this is not a star turn like Dolly Levi or, for that matter, Peter Allen in “The Boy From Oz.” Instead, he seems to see Hill as a character role: a cool manipulator and traveling horndog who in being unprincipled must also be unlovable.
But the casting of Foster introduces a problem even she cannot solve. With its outpouring of musical styles and counterpoint numbers, Willson’s score is brilliantly designed to push different worldviews into proximity and sometimes into harmony. Soaring above the more pedestrian sounds of the townspeople with their lowdown dances, thickly harmonized barbershop quartets and crisp civic anthems, Marian’s soprano literalizes the idealism at the heart of her character and conflict. Her lilting “Goodnight, My Someone” and Hill’s raucous “Seventy-Six Trombones” could not be more oppositional — until it turns out they are in fact the same melody, in different octaves and at different tempos.
Unfortunately, that flatness is endemic to the production. The central element of Loquasto’s set is a full-width barn wall whose doors occasionally slide open to reveal vignettes played out against drops painted in the style of Grant Wood (another Iowan). But even when the barn disappears completely, the staging feels two-dimensional — and so old-fashioned (except for the astonishingly good dancers performing Carlyle’s athletic choreography) that it might have come straight from 1957, when “The Music Man” premiered on Broadway. Or even 1912, when it’s set.
I suppose you could argue that an old-fashioned show deserves an old-fashioned staging like the kind that worked for “Dolly” — and it’s certainly true that “The Music Man,” as written, includes some antique elements that give us pause today. This production rightly omits, for instance, the “Wa Tan We” girls of the “local wigwam of Heeawatha” and their “Indian war dance.” Even though such ludicrous appropriations are authentic to the setting, a musical comedy need not be a documentary.
But omit too much and what’s left lacks texture. Running shorter than its advertised length, this revival cuts a lot, eliminating even minor details that might cause offense. The boy who is secretly dating the mayor’s daughter is no longer the son of “one a’them day laborers south a’town,” presumably because the suggestion of class prejudice is too hot for a comedy to handle in 2022.
Same with the show’s treatment of men’s casual harassment of women. You can’t really remove it from the main story; Hill’s modus operandi involves seducing piano teachers and leaving them flat. (At one point he refers to Marian as his “commission.”) In light of that, it seems foolish merely to change a lyric here or there; in the dopey dance tune “Shipoopi,” the couplet “the girl who’s hard to get … but you can win her yet” has become suddenly enlightened as “the boy who’s seen the light … to treat a woman right.”
What world are we in?
“The Music Man” can work today. I’ve seen it be thrilling as recently as 2018, in a Stratford Festival production that didn’t shy away from the chance it offers to explore class differences and, with a Black Harold Hill, even racial ones. In this production, too — a colorblind one — some performers manage the trick of making their characters, as Willson requested, valentines to small town folk, not caricatures. Jefferson Mays as the blustery mayor and Jayne Houdyshell as his imperious wife get all the humor out of their roles without diluting the way their ideal of civic culture is just another kind of con.
As, no doubt, is ours; one of the points Willson makes in “Rock Island,” the spoken-word number that opens the show, is that old products remain sellable even when old packages become “obsolete.” It’s just that if you’re a traveling salesman, you “gotta know the territory.”
No doubt that’s as true for musicals as it was for Uneeda Biscuits. If we’re going to keep selling classic shows, we have to find meaningful new ways to package them. Even for the best salesmen among us, and Jackman is surely that, the territory is changing fast.
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Good morning, all.
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Good morning, all.
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Thanks for sharing the review, Singdaw.
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And to think, I had my mouse pointer all poised and ready to click on the purchase of a $900 ticket ...
And then I woke up. 8)
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I wonder what BK's been up to this time!
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I had very vivid dreams inspired by The French Dispatch. I was trapped in a weird Anglo-French game involving a company called Schwa Airlines. “They never fly where you want to go” was their motto. I couldn’t figure out how to get out. They were not stressful dreams, though.
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Two!
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Green's review is actually better than I expected, and I agree with his points of politically cleaning up a period show. It's something I hate.
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I also don’t think Sutton Foster is ideally cast. She’d almost make a better Harold than Marian.
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TOD
Not much this week so far, but...
A couple of nights ago I took a movie off the shelf, Last Exit to Brooklyn, which I saw the week it opened in summer of 1990, and then only once a few years later when I got it on laserdisc. I'm not even sure I watched it all the way through that second time. But suddenly, out of the blue, I was ready for it this week, don't know what triggered that, but I ate up every frame. It's something of a miracle how this German director Uli Edel took it under his wing and shot it in what was then still a very dangerous part of the city. The translation of Hubert Selby's prose to the screen is incredible, and makes On the Waterfront look like the Disney version of a dockworkers' strike. And there's so much more. The cinematography and atmosphere are overwhelming. There's a vintage and worthwhile 45-minute "making of" doc on the Blu-ray, much of which is devoted to author Selby who appears in a bit part and talks about his life and the book and the locale, and after I've taken a few days away from it I shall listen to the director's commentary.
So where does one go from there? Requiem for a Dream? Same author, same incredible dark world...
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Green's review is actually better than I expected, and I agree with his points of politically cleaning up a period show. It's something I hate.
Absolutely. What he's pointed out, and what I've heard elsewhere, is an embarrassment.
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Good morning, one and all.
It's another beautiful day in Johnston SC.
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I simply do not understand the whitewashing, so to speak, of plays written about periods in history when ugly attitudes were the norm and are reflected in the stories being told. For the most part, the plays are poking fun, or condemning, those antiquated mores.
Today, it seems that folks are offended by truth at all turns.
Pretending that something didn't exist by eliminating it from plays or books -- and by banning movies, for pity's sake -- seems more a way to pave the path toward returning to those habits/beliefs/traits that are things that should be continuously referenced to prevent such returns.
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I watched, on Disney+, "Pollyanna" last night. The original with Hayley Mills.
It has been decades since I last saw it.
It remains a delight.
One of the things that stuck with me when I first saw it and which impressed me last night is the ending. There is no resolution about her future in terms of walking again, but her spirit was returned to her by the people she had touched.
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So many things to do...
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Hopefully, my two brain hemispheres will collaborate today so that something positive gets done.
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Good morning to all
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I plan to watch the movie of tick tick boom again this weekend I really enjoyed it
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:)
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It’s shaping up to be a Monday kind of Friday.
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I would swear that Sarah Palin every day looks more and more like Mother Bates at the end of Psycho!
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Val Kilmer IS Moses.
and
Sarah Palin IS psycho.
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Continued rabbit hole vibes for MR BK.
It is most exciting to hear that something's coming......
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Vibes for DR ELMORE today.
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Well.....I have been in a few productions of The Music Man - as I am sure many of us have.....
As a director I would never hire a Barbershop Quartet - I was choreographing a production wherein the director did that. They were insufferable.....everything was about them....they wanted to do all their numbers down center....they fought with the musical director about tempi....and they couldn't say a line for ****!
Build your quartet from folks who audition for the show.
Unless you want to go around in your drawers all day!
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I don't get me started on that group of bitches that locally go by the name:
The C*vered Br*dg* Cho*us. I did that so they can't find their stupid name here doing a search, which I am sure many of them do all day everyday.
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Well went and bought two nice sports jackets at the Goodwill today - somebody my size must have kicked the bucket.
Went to Pet Supplies Plus and got bird seed for Barnum. I buy two different kinds in bulk and mix them with sunflower seed kernels.
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And I am still eating the meatloaf and potatoes I made on Wednesday. Still good.....sometimes in a bowl and sometimes on a sandwich.
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There's nothing like a good leftover meatloaf sandwich.
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And I couldn't make myself any plainer if I was a Quaker on his day off.
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I've got the box. And you don't.
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I've got the box. And you don't.
Doesn't look like a happy camper, the kitty out of the box.
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It's a weird Friday.
That's all I can say about it.
Everything feels "off".
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I couldn't be any clearer if was a button hook in the well water!
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I would swear that Sarah Palin every day looks more and more like Mother Bates at the end of Psycho!
Tundra trash.
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My credit card statement came today. I went to pay it online and lo and behold my January 15 check payment was posted yesterday.
And my balance was that much less than the paper statement I received.
I hadn't received an email that the payment was received.....but anyway I went ahead and paid the balance online and will probably do so from now on.
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Page Three Online Payment Dance.
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I've got the box. And you don't.
Yes! This is how it is! The struggle is real!
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I've been paying all my bills online for several years. Actually, probably longer than "several". But I do NOT allow any of them to rope me into auto-pay.
Actually, I take that back. My home and auto insurance premiums get taken out that way, which supposedly also gives a bit of a discount. Likewise, a few subscriptions, but those come out of my AmEx card because I figure if I ever have a problem with them, AmEx can have the pleasure of dealing with it. But regular bills? I log onto each site every month and initiate the payment.
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I've got the box. And you don't.
Yes! This is how it is! The struggle is real!
However, it's also amusing to see them taking turns. One will sit in the box for however long, and when he/she has thought of something better to do, the other one is perfectly content to hop in and take it over.
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Ashes the cat, lost in Maine six years ago, was found in Florida this week. Here is Ashes being transported back to the original owner.
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Does that mean that Ashes is just another "snow cat bird"?
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;D
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My body did not want to behave today. I had several embarrassing moments including having to use the ER public restroom, which was a total mess. As soon as I got home, I threw all my clothes into the hamper and took a bath.
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I still hate my life.
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From DR John:
If I can't walk out on a glass platform over Chicago or Seattle. I ain't swimming in something like that.
;D
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Trouble in River City:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marchershberg/2022/02/09/music-men-sue-the-music-man-after-their-broadway-dreams-are-dashed/?sh=720e49ee7fd6&fbclid=IwAR3fMCjNpqWMGE7X_g7Sx8UiYot9eyocJaL0PKQyQFebLyEmczGUgtjF9Lw
Oh, my. :-\
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I'm up, I'm up - ten hours of needed sleep. Several telephonic conversations. Had the heat off yesterday because it was like summer - but today is cold so I'm heating up the home environment now.
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Condolences to Ginny.
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Those taquito things were just too spicy that late at night and I had trouble sleeping for the first hour - was in bed by one for a change.
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Many Pepcids later, I slept like a baby.
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I wonder what BK's been up to this time!
(http://www.haineshisway.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=6774.0;attach=13776)
Been there...done that. ;)
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Green's review is actually better than I expected, and I agree with his points of politically cleaning up a period show. It's something I hate.
Absolutely. What he's pointed out, and what I've heard elsewhere, is an embarrassment.
I simply do not understand the whitewashing, so to speak, of plays written about periods in history when ugly attitudes were the norm and are reflected in the stories being told. For the most part, the plays are poking fun, or condemning, those antiquated mores.
Today, it seems that folks are offended by truth at all turns.
Pretending that something didn't exist by eliminating it from plays or books -- and by banning movies, for pity's sake -- seems more a way to pave the path toward returning to those habits/beliefs/traits that are things that should be continuously referenced to prevent such returns.
Well said, all! I completely agree!
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Val Kilmer IS Moses.
and
Sarah Palin IS psycho.
:))
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I watched, on Disney+, "Pollyanna" last night. The original with Hayley Mills.
It has been decades since I last saw it.
It remains a delight.
One of the things that stuck with me when I first saw it and which impressed me last night is the ending. There is no resolution about her future in terms of walking again, but her spirit was returned to her by the people she had touched.
And all this time I thought she walked again.
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I need to watch Pollyanna again ;D
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My credit card statement came today. I went to pay it online and lo and behold my January 15 check payment was posted yesterday.
And my balance was that much less than the paper statement I received.
I hadn't received an email that the payment was received.....but anyway I went ahead and paid the balance online and will probably do so from now on.
I am relieved for you that the missing check was posted to your account.
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I've got the box. And you don't.
Cute :)
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I've got the box. And you don't.
Yes! This is how it is! The struggle is real!
However, it's also amusing to see them taking turns. One will sit in the box for however long, and when he/she has thought of something better to do, the other one is perfectly content to hop in and take it over.
;D
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BK - I just texted one of those cat cartoons to two people, and Apple somehow succeeded in replacing one person's name (which doesn't start with either B or K) with yours. So you're probably looking at it right now and saying WTF? Sorry! :)
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:))
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Last night instead of sleeping I finished reading The Sweetness of Water.
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Probably because I finished that, my brain wouldn't shut down and I was wide awake.
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I began reading The Bravest Voices, originally published in 1950 as We Followed Our Stars (a title I prefer).
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I simply do not understand the whitewashing, so to speak, of plays written about periods in history when ugly attitudes were the norm and are reflected in the stories being told. For the most part, the plays are poking fun, or condemning, those antiquated mores.
Today, it seems that folks are offended by truth at all turns.
Pretending that something didn't exist by eliminating it from plays or books -- and by banning movies, for pity's sake -- seems more a way to pave the path toward returning to those habits/beliefs/traits that are things that should be continuously referenced to prevent such returns.
There is a disclaimer at the beginning of The Bravest Voices, part of which states...
"The publisher has preserved the original language of the author to accurately represent those times and modes of expression, and to stay true to her story."
I cannot fathom why this disclaimer is necessary, or why anyone would consider changing any of Ida Cook's memoir.
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Those of you who read We Followed Our Stars, did it also include a disclaimer?
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I watched, on Disney+, "Pollyanna" last night. The original with Hayley Mills.
It has been decades since I last saw it.
It remains a delight.
One of the things that stuck with me when I first saw it and which impressed me last night is the ending. There is no resolution about her future in terms of walking again, but her spirit was returned to her by the people she had touched.
And all this time I thought she walked again.
Have never read the book, but perhaps it was more explicit. We are left knowing that an operation will occur in Boston and her Aunt Polly and the young doctor who will operate will be together, happily ever after.
According to Wikipedia:
"The novel ends with Aunt Polly marrying her former lover Dr. Chilton and Pollyanna being sent to a hospital where she learns to walk again and is able to appreciate the use of her legs far more as a result of being temporarily disabled and unable to walk well."
In the novel, she is struck by a car rather than falling from a great height.
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Val Kilmer IS Moses.
and
Sarah Palin IS psycho.
True dat.
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I watched, on Disney+, "Pollyanna" last night. The original with Hayley Mills.
It has been decades since I last saw it.
It remains a delight.
One of the things that stuck with me when I first saw it and which impressed me last night is the ending. There is no resolution about her future in terms of walking again, but her spirit was returned to her by the people she had touched.
And all this time I thought she walked again.
Have never read the book, but perhaps it was more explicit. We are left knowing that an operation will occur in Boston and her Aunt Polly and the young doctor who will operate will be together, happily ever after.
According to Wikipedia:
"The novel ends with Aunt Polly marrying her former lover Dr. Chilton and Pollyanna being sent to a hospital where she learns to walk again and is able to appreciate the use of her legs far more as a result of being temporarily disabled and unable to walk well."
In the novel, she is struck by a car rather than falling from a great height.
Thank you. Yes, I did read the novel.
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No text here :)
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Probably because I finished that, my brain wouldn't shut down and I was wide awake.
Stays with you, doesn’t it?
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Elmore, please remember this. Tom said it better than I ever could:
Elmore, no matter who or what may upset you, or humiliate you in any way; always remember that you have HHW to come home to, and we are always here for you!
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Some jerk named Adam Feldman in his TimeOut review for The Music Man referred to Winthrop as Marian's illegitimate son. I am so sick of these assholes conjecturing things that do not exist in the text.
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Some jerk named Adam Feldman in his TimeOut review for The Music Man referred to Winthrop as Marian's illegitimate son. I am so sick of these assholes conjecturing things that do not exist in the text.
WTF?? :o
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WHOA!!
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Well that'll give the pickalittle ladies something to talk about!
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Don't you just hate it when you get "attitude" from an inanimate object?
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Some jerk named Adam Feldman in his TimeOut review for The Music Man referred to Winthrop as Marian's illegitimate son. I am so sick of these assholes conjecturing things that do not exist in the text.
WTF?? :o
He did "correct" himself in the same sentence...with an ugly sniggering tone.
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Adam Feldman used to be a regular on the Usenet rec.arts.theatre.musicals group.
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Well that'll give the pickalittle ladies something to talk about!
;D Since they didn't talk, it did not happen ;)
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Picked up a little package, went to Gelson's and got some stuff from the hot food bar as well as a chicken Caesar for later - all pretty calorie friendly.
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Wrote the dedication and acknowledgements for the new book and now it's on it's email way to Grant.
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Listening to two masters - sound great, so those can get sent in.
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Wrote the dedication and acknowledgements for the new book and now it's on it's email way to Grant.
Nice :)
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My nephew is playing first French horn in Mahler’s first symphony tonight. Live cast starts at the top of this hour.
https://www.youtube.com/c/UofLSchoolofMusic?fbclid=IwAR1kOVaQeXq-A2BwBuNxUZk93tfq53AH06E6JiVq9CcdqGRZvRBAPq83O_g
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I wish him a great evening.
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Condolences to Ginny.
Thank you, BK.
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My nephew is playing first French horn in Mahler’s first symphony tonight. Live cast starts at the top of this hour.
https://www.youtube.com/c/UofLSchoolofMusic?fbclid=IwAR1kOVaQeXq-A2BwBuNxUZk93tfq53AH06E6JiVq9CcdqGRZvRBAPq83O_g
We have a great-nephew who plays French horn, too! He’s a junior in high school and was just cast as Mr. Applegate in “Damn Yankees.” His Methodist minister mom is quite amused by this.
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Amused is good :)
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Well that'll give the pickalittle ladies something to talk about!
;D
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My nephew is playing first French horn in Mahler’s first symphony tonight. Live cast starts at the top of this hour.
https://www.youtube.com/c/UofLSchoolofMusic?fbclid=IwAR1kOVaQeXq-A2BwBuNxUZk93tfq53AH06E6JiVq9CcdqGRZvRBAPq83O_g (https://www.youtube.com/c/UofLSchoolofMusic?fbclid=IwAR1kOVaQeXq-A2BwBuNxUZk93tfq53AH06E6JiVq9CcdqGRZvRBAPq83O_g)
Hats off to him! Horn players have to have nerves of steel!
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Tonight we might watch the original 2013 movie, vs the 2018 tv show, MYSTERY ROAD.
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We also have the last episode of season 1 of THE BOOK OF BOBA FETT to watch.
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No movie tonight, just Boba and Resident Alien.
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'night
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Here's to the french horn players!
And one for Mahler.
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:)
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Good night, friends.
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My nephew is playing first French horn in Mahler’s first symphony tonight. Live cast starts at the top of this hour.
https://www.youtube.com/c/UofLSchoolofMusic?fbclid=IwAR1kOVaQeXq-A2BwBuNxUZk93tfq53AH06E6JiVq9CcdqGRZvRBAPq83O_g
We have a great-nephew who plays French horn, too! He’s a junior in high school and was just cast as Mr. Applegate in “Damn Yankees.” His Methodist minister mom is quite amused by this.
Great casting mind at work.
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Wrote the dedication and acknowledgements for the new book and now it's on it's email way to Grant.
Congratulations!
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Had dinner on the River Walk tonight.
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It was warm enough to eat out on the patio.
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A little shaggy.
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Dinner was excellent.
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I actually made it through a movie tonight! And I liked it.
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I Can Get It for You Wholesale arrived in the mail today. The sound really isn't an improvement over the previous CD release, at least on my sound system, which admittedly isn't the greatest.
But I love this score. I love the performers, the orchestrations, the vocal arrangements. Definitely a desert island disc.
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And now to get to bed. Tomorrow will be busy. I have to get the bird to the Tweet Suites, then get ready for Florida.
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Good night, all.
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I also don’t think Sutton Foster is ideally cast. She’d almost make a better Harold than Marian.
They call it acting, my boy.
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No movie tonight, just Boba and Resident Alien.
I'm recording this, but I haven't watched any episodes from season 2, yet.
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:)
(http://www.haineshisway.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=6774.0;attach=13785)
:))
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Wrote the dedication and acknowledgements for the new book and now it's on it's email way to Grant.
Very good news!
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It was warm enough to eat out on the patio.
Nice photo.
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A little shaggy.
But still a very nice picture. :)
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I Can Get It for You Wholesale arrived in the mail today. The sound really isn't an improvement over the previous CD release, at least on my sound system, which admittedly isn't the greatest.
But I love this score. I love the performers, the orchestrations, the vocal arrangements. Definitely a desert island disc.
Mine came a couple of days ago, but I haven't had time to listen to it yet. :P
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Hi, Tom.
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Glory be! I received my income tax refund today!
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I just filed it on Sunday or Monday.
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Glory be! I received my income tax refund today!
Congrats, Tom!
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I always used to file the 1040EZ, but they got rid of that...I don't know why.