Dead at the age of 46.
Archives for May 2015
KULCHA! Open Thread: Staging the Tudors
(h/t commentor Omnes Omnibus)
ICYMI, Hilary Mantel, in the NYTimes, on transferring ‘Wolf Hall’ to the stage:
Ten years ago, I started to build a theater inside my head. I wanted to tell — or rather, to show — a story about Henry VIII, the second Tudor king. It would be about his court, his country and three of his six wives: one sad, one serpentine, one sneaky. I would create — or unleash, for they were real people — a heaving mob of courtiers, who listened at doors, who opened each other’s letters. I would turn out their pockets and count their cash. I would look into their houses and their hearts. My focus would be the king’s fixer, the ferociously ambitious Thomas Cromwell.
I made my theater flat on paper, because I am a novelist by trade. As soon as “Wolf Hall” was published, there was an appetite to see it onstage. Flesh and blood actors would imitate the people who lived in my imagination. Would that, friends wondered, do violence to my inner world? In Stratford-on-Avon, in London, and now in New York, playgoers would ask the big question: How does it feel to see your characters come to life?
I answer with another question: When were they dead?…
There have been no days when my theater is dark. Even when I am half-asleep, Tudors charge in and out of my consciousness, banging the doors. I call them people, not characters. I make their costumes, but I call them clothes. I need to know the cost of the cloth, how to weave and dye it. Or at least, Thomas Cromwell needs to know.
On the page, I had created 159 characters. Someone counted. For the stage, we don’t need look-alikes, I said. We don’t need stars. Just a company of self-effacing shape-shifters who will play three and four parts, ripping themselves fiercely in and out of costumes and story lines, who will embody the vitality and passion of the Tudors inside my head. We need a director who is an expert in urgency, who will whip up magic and make the story fly. He was lurking in the wings for now, but Jeremy Herrin was the man…
Sports Open Thread: “The Not-So-Secret Shame of Sepp Blatter…”
I know, but someone’s gotta do it. Jeb Lund, at Rolling Stone:
As far as sports controversies go, you’d think blowing the whistle on FIFA’s alleged bribes and the open-air slave mausoleum being constructed in Qatar as a byproduct of erecting stadiums for the 2022 World Cup would be a no-brainer. Thankfully, the world, and sports fandom, will go and fuck that up for you…
Granted, the FIFA indictments are fun to read. The Swiss police arrested 14 FIFA executives and charged them with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering tied to over $100 million in bribes to assign rights to FIFA-sponsored soccer tournaments in Latin America. Deadspin excerpted all the funniest bits: there were literally people stuffing envelopes with cash and trading briefcases full of bribes….
All of this is shitty and stupid and funny, of course, but how we know about it and what it means in context takes some of the shine off the gleeful schadenfreude. In context, it’s almost nothing. FIFA is so grandiosely historically corrupt that busting them for this, finally, feels like ignoring reports on Jeffrey Dahmer for years and then raiding his kitchen for health-code violations. Hell, John Oliver kicked off the World Cup with a 13-minute celebration of how ludicrously evil FIFA is. (Go watch it; summarizing its contents would be unfair to comedy.) As much as people might want to liken this to busting Capone for income tax evasion because that’s “how we could get him,” it almost feels like this is the first time in America anyone chose to give a shit, which only brings up the unpleasantly convenient timing of this FBI investigation and the United States losing out on the 2022 World Cup bid to a Qatari armada of overstuffed briefcases. And just how far across this earth do potentially tenuous links to crimes committed by persons from the United States in places that might not be the United States enable the U.S. Attorney from the Eastern District of New York to arrest people? Is this how we flex now? We will ford any river and cross any expanse on this globe if it means revenging ourselves on those who deprived Anheuser-Busch of primo ad space in American cities that were destined to lose money on a quadrennial event most Americans still don’t care about?….
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That being said, what other events are on the agenda this evening, sporting or otherwise?
Sports Open Thread: “The Not-So-Secret Shame of Sepp Blatter…”Post + Comments (165)
Branding Challenge (Open Thread)
The goddess Isis faces the most vexing branding challenge I’ve seen since the Ayds diet candy product ran smack into the 1980s.
Open thread.
PS: A sweet boxer dog needs help. Click here to find out more.
Tiny Violins Open Thread: Poor Little Princeling
Rand Paul Can’t Find a Sugar Daddy http://t.co/RVNeKXiuvH via @politicalwire
— Taegan Goddard (@politicalwire) May 29, 2015
Has Rand Paul tried Grindr for a rich Republican sugar daddy?
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) May 30, 2015
From the Politico article:
… While his rivals cultivate wealthy backers who will pump millions of dollars into their candidacies, Paul has struggled to find a similar lifeline. It’s led to considerable frustration in his campaign, which, amid rising concerns that it will not be able to compete financially, finds itself leaning heavily on the network of small donors who powered his father’s insurgent White House bids.
It hasn’t been for lack of trying. In recent months, Paul has sought to woo a string of powerful Republican megadonors — from Silicon Valley executives to a Kentucky coal mogul to the billionaire Koch brothers — who, it was believed, would be philosophically aligned with his free-market views. In each case, he met disappointment.
At the top of the list was Peter Thiel, the eccentric Northern California venture capitalist who funneled $2.6 million to Ron Paul’s presidential campaign. But Thiel is being far less generous this time around, leaving Paul’s crestfallen advisers with the distinct impression that he won’t give them a dime. They’ve been left guessing as to why. One speculated that Thiel, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, was unhappy with the rollout of Paul’s policy platform. Another surmised he was skeptical of Paul’s 2016 prospects or that he’d become tired of political giving and would sit out 2016 entirely.
There was Sean Parker, the flashy Napster co-founder who was portrayed by Justin Timberlake in the hit 2010 movie “The Social Network.” But Parker, who has known Paul for several years and has met with him to discuss 2016, isn’t expected to endorse Paul — or any Republican candidate, for that matter. Those familiar with Parker’s thinking say he’s most likely to provide financial support to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
There was Larry Ellison, the former Oracle CEO known for his penchant for megayachts. In October, Ellison hosted a Silicon Valley fundraiser for Senate Republicans that Paul attended — an event that led to speculation that Ellison, whose net worth is said to hover around $54 billion, would get behind the Kentucky Republican. But he’s instead thrown his support to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and will host a fundraiser for him on June 9.
“It was love at first sight,” one person close to Ellison said of his feelings toward Rubio.
Not even two months into his presidential campaign, Paul is scrambling to compete with opponents who have established fundraising vehicles underwritten by well-heeled contributors. Jeb Bush has tapped his family’s formidable network of donors, a wide-ranging list of names that includes real estate developer Mel Sembler and Anheuser-Busch distributor John Nau, to fund a super PAC that’s expected to raise an historic $100 million by the end of this month. Rubio has won the backing of Norman Braman, a Miami auto dealer who’s expected to pour anywhere from $10 million to $25 million into his bid. Ted Cruz is expected to receive around $30 million of support from Robert Mercer, a New York hedge fund manager.
Even Rick Santorum, who barely registers in polls, is expected to have a deep-pocketed benefactor: Foster Friess, a businessman who helped keep Santorum’s 2012 presidential bid alive, has said he will donate again…
“Philosophical alignment” be damned, what the deep-pocket Silicon Valley disruptepreneurs like is winning, and when they look at Prince Rand they’re not seeing a winner.
Second best tactic for a political sugar baby, if you don’t look like a strong winner, is to provide that extra level of customer service so prized by the .0001 Percenters. Marco, Ted, Rick: those boys know how to please the most demanding customer. His foibles are their foibles, his philosophical alignment shadowed, whether it’s fetal-viability regulation or flat-tax celebration. Even Jeb, for all his family’s clout, has a proven track record of assiduously sucking up to guys with money — just ask Florida’s real estate developers or charter school owners.
But Rand, Son of Ron is used to being the crown prince of his daddy’s backwater little duchy. As long as he didn’t stray too far from the free-market serfs in their Objectivist kingdom, he was free to have advanced notions about substance deregulation and military defunding. The yokels were even proud of their free-thinking maverick and all those wacky proposals, bless his heart. Rand grew up considering himself a deep thinker, an eloquent orator, and probably (as the Yiddish proverb would have it) a better-than-karaoke level singer. Like a lot of aspiring conquerors before him, Rand Paul seems to have mistaken himself for a shark in the ocean, when he was just a pike in a pond…
Tiny Violins Open Thread: Poor Little PrincelingPost + Comments (182)
Friday Recipe Exchange: Recipes for Pups
From our Food Goddess, TaMara:
Have I mentioned I HATE my kitchen? The house hunt goes on…and on. But this week I braved the ugly, cramped space because one of my clients was having a tough week and I thought Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies would help (recipe here). They worked wonders. And I’ll add that since they are very chewy and crispy they are great frozen – cold, chewy and sweet.
I’d done a bit of cooking over the week, but most was for Bixby. As timing would have it, a few things fell into place that meant I had ideas for dog treats. And that became the idea for this week’s recipe exchange.
Jack bravely volunteers to test the final product.
First up, Mrs. J cooks up cheesy dog biscuits (photo above and below by JeffreyW). Recipe and step by step photos here.
Just a note, no Bixby update this week, but all his recipes include bonus photos of the Beast.
Friday Recipe Exchange: Recipes for PupsPost + Comments (36)
Friday Night Open Thread
This is the coolest license plate display thingy I’ve ever seen: The mister and I are taking a long weekend to celebrate our anniversary. If our marriage were a person, it would be old enough to join the military or buy cigarettes now.
It would still not be allowed to purchase booze. That hasn’t stopped us though!
Please feel free to discuss whatever — open thread!
PS: Please see the thread below to learn about a sweet boxer doggie in need, and click here to help.