I'm planning a trip to back Chicago in next month, so I wanted to check what theater is going on in the city, since it's usually so vibrant. There are some interesting productions, including the Lyric Opera putting on a My Fair Lady (which is probably a wonderful stage, though I thought it was an odd choice when they announced it last year), and the Court Theatre putting on Harvey, one of my favorites. And two of their companies that have won Tony Awards for Best Regional Theaters have interesting productions -- the Goodman Theatre has Pamplona with Stacy Keach as Ernest Hemingway and the Lookingglass Theatre is putting on Moby Dick. (This must be their year for doing adventure shows about the ocean, since later in the season they have a stage version of, of all things, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. No word yet if they will be providing the audience scuba gear.) But it's another of the city's Tony winners for Best Regional Theatre, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater which has a play that most intrigues me. Not just for what it is, but that it's an ideal venue for it. A stage adaptation of the Oscar-winning film, Shakespeare in Love. This isn't a premiere -- it opened in the West End of London, and played at the Ontario Shakespeare Festival in 2014. But as far as I know it's the first production in the U.S. The stage version was adapted by Lee Hall, whose many works include the films War Horse and Billy Elliot, which he adapted for the stage musical. I don't know if I'll be able to make it to any of these shows -- or elsewhere -- since my schedule isn't all worked out yet. But here's a trailer of sorts of Shakespeare in Love, which got a very nice review by the Chicago Tribune's , critic who had also seen the show in Canada and hadn't liked the staging there but found this version much more lively.
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Alex Jones' conspiracy theory site, InfoWars, was just given White House press credentials. Well, bully for them, though it might be a challenge for their staff if they have to turn in their tin foil hats at the press room's metal detector. I just sent a tweet to their staff member who rejoiced over this on Twitter.
Several occurrences took place over the weekend that convinced me more than most anything else how the Trump administrations is spiraling into oblivion. And these events have nothing to do with Trump himself or even his actions, but rather are tangential.
It began on Friday when Kellyanne Conway tweeted about Anthony Weiner and then later about Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. When there are four investigations of your administration, when a Special Counsel has been named to investigate your administration and the person leading was FBI Director for 12 years, when you have calls growing from both sides of the aisle in Congress about how obstruction of justice could be impeachable, and the best defense your own official spokesperson can offer is to try and change the subject to Anthony Weiner and Joe Biden/ Hillary Clinton, that's the first massive hint of the unraveling. Then, later the same day, when the White House was confronted with news stories about Trump telling the Russian Foreign Minister and Russian Ambassador that he thought the FBI Director was a "nut job" and firing him would help put a halt to the investigation, the administration spokesman didn't even bother to deny it. And that's when social media took over. With four investigations now taking place looking into the Trump administration and then reports are published of a current, senior White House official close to Trump being a "person of interest" by the FBI, the best that the Far Right on social media, the first line of all-out crazy defense of Trump could offer was to keep bringing up that James Comey tried to blend into blue curtains and that this itself proved he really was nuts. This is not generally considered a persuasive argument in a criminal investigation or an impeachment hearing. Or a meaningful one. But it's two other head-exploding matters on Sunday that pretty much sealed the deal for my observation. I can't call what occurred as online "debates" because one couldn't take them even remotely seriously, nor did I spend much time replying, which is so unlike me. That's how lunatic they were. Though they did deserve being responded to, in order to shut them down, much the same way you turn the gas off when there's a leak so that it doesn't spread The first was someone trying to slam me by their insisting that Donald Trump had said or done nothing "as president" (a phrase they kept repeating as if it held some mystical meaning) that was anything but lovely towards Muslims. No, really. The other was someone else "trying to slam me" (tm) by their insisting that more jobs had been created by Trump than at any time during the Obama administration. No, really. Okay, so, we all know about Trump's Muslim travel ban that he's pushed..."as president." And Trump creating an atmosphere of hatred against Muslims that has allowed there to be beatings and mosque burnings. And never mind the hate-filled speeches for the past year before that, calling for Muslims to register themselves, since apparently that doesn't count for not being elected yet and therefore said "as president." And of course, we know too the fact that 15 million jobs were created during the Obama years, and Trump is at 317 thousand, most of that still the result of the Obama economy. The point is that all of this is the best I've seen from Trump supporters, official and otherwise. Crazy World stuff. Not even things to debate from an utterly unreasonable perspective. But rather the kind of outlandish rhetoric that shows a) you have zero to say in defense, b) are painfully desperate, c) are trying to change the subject, and d) are at risk of being locked up in a mental ward if you are overheard repeating them in public. The short version of my final responses to these people was that willful ignorance is no virtue, and it is not my job to educate them. (And yes, I then blocked them because...well, life is too short.) In fairness, I know that all of this is not the only response from all Trump supporters, whatever their status and stature. And there are official sources who, while still desperate, have better ways of responding. And there are people on social media who, while still challenged, are able to show themselves as rational in supporting Trump. But this is the foundation. And I'm only giving a mere handful of what I personally came across, let alone all what's out there. And it's not just the crazies (which after all is a substantive part of the Trump do-or-die base who he himself notes would defend if he shot someone in public on the streets of New York), but I'm including official White House sources who can only offer up Anthony Weiner and lack of denial. And when this is your foundation for defending an administration that has four investigations going on about you -- from the FBI, Senate, House and Special Counsel -- a groundwork of responses that aren't built on even a sense of what in reality is being investigated and at at stake and on the table, then you are spinning out of control. When you are under four investigations, you'd better have close to everyone not even on the same page, but for goodness sake at the very least using the same book...using the same library with actual facts and real evidence that show a wealth of very serious support. And instead, what we're getting from them is playing with papier-mâché. This week on the NPR game show, Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me!, host Peter Sagal's guest contestant is movie director Guy Ritchie, who among his many films has directed the current King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, both recent Sherlock Holmes films, Swept Away, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and came to fame with the well-regarded independent Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Yes, I know he's promoting his film, but it's one thing to do promotion, and it's another thing for the British Guy Ritchie of all people to so-unexpectedly appear on a radio popular culture game show. And for all his tough-guy movies, and tough early life, he comes across as quite charming and thoroughly self-effacing. And funny.
A month or so back, I posted a lovely rembrance by CBS about the wonderful Charles Kuralt's career. (If you missed it, you can watch it here.) I'd intended to start post some of his great "On the Road" pieces on a reasonably-regular basis, but life got in the way, and they fell through the cracks. Let's try again. Here's one on the Domino Theory, of sorts... From the archives, this week's contestant is Sara Tillotson from Tulsa, Oklahoma. As I wrote previously, at first, I was able to pick out the hidden song by focusing on the proper hand which was playing the tune, though eventually it became perfectly clear without that. As for the composer style, I didn't have a clue -- the same as the contestant. To my surprise, my one offbeat guess was bizarrely close. I wouldn't have ever gotten it, though. It's tough. But perhaps you can get the era and type of music.As
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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