President Obama released his summer day and night playlist this week. I’m so-so on the day playlist.
I am, however, enjoying his night playlist much more.
The recipe exchange will be delayed until tomorrow. I had to work a longer day today, so I didn’t get around to what I wanted to highlight this week.
This here’s a late summer early evening open thread. What’s up?
Yutsano
I’m currently on the campus of the University of Virginia looking for a friend so we can have dinner and get into much trouble. Don’t wait up for me.
Mnemosyne
The other day, rikyrah linked to a really funny piece at Very Smart Brothas about the nighttime playlist.
Let’s just say they’re pretty sure what Michelle and Barack are doing while that playlist is running. ?
TaMara (HFG)
@Yutsano: I expect a complete rundown of the events some time tomorrow. Unless of course you need us to get bail money together for you earlier.
gogol's wife
Waiting for today’s round of thunderstorms and hoping they don’t bring another outage.
FlipYrWhig
@Yutsano: I was in Charlottesville one summer and really enjoyed it.
redshirt
I want to have a fire tonight. Checked the forecast before I went out to prep: 1% chance of rain until 11 when it increases to 50%. I can work with that. And as soon as I started prepping, it starting misting, then drizzling, with thunder off in the distance. Then picked up.
I finished and came back inside and checked the forecast and not an hour later, rain all night.
Meteorology!
debbie
@redshirt:
How do those meterologists keep their jobs? I went food shopping on the way home tonight. In the 15 minutes I was inside, it went from sunny with a couple clouds to a total gully washer (as they like to say). It was a 10-minute monsoon, and then the sun burst forth. Not even a damn rainbow.
gogol's wife
I know you guys don’t want to hear this, but Hamilton is a great work of art.
I’m depressed that Miranda is so much younger than I am, so most likely I won’t get to experience everything he creates. I never had that feeling before — after all, Dostoevsky and Mozart died before I was born, so theoretically I can experience their entire body of work.
BR
Could someone who’s on Twitter please tell @SopanDeb and @AliVitali that Trump’s premise about Clinton’s emails is not surprisingly wrong — that this NPR story from a *year ago* points out that there are no missing emails because they recovered them.
Mary G
@gogol’s wife: Preach! I’ve listened to it pretty much every day since the 4th of July.
Michael Bersin
Today via Twitter Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill (D) tore Newt Gingrich (r) a new one over his attempted appropriation of Harry Truman for the Donald:
That’s our Claire
John Revolta
@gogol’s wife: Hamilton, you say? What’s that?
SiubhanDuinne
And in case anyone would like to know what the President will be reading on his summer vacation, the WH released this list:
I especially want to read “The Underground Railroad.” Heard a Fresh Air interview with author Colson Whitehead the other day, and it sounds really interesting. Has anyone here read it yet (or any of these books)?
Gin & Tonic
@gogol’s wife: My house was trembling and shaking about an hour ago.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: In the something I saw wrong on the internet department…in a previous thread you talked about Cal Worthington. It was ALWAYS Cal and his DOG SPOT. Now Spot could be a lion, tiger, elephant, or a boa constrictor; but Cal always said, “Hey it’s Cal Worthington and my dog Spot”.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Be glad you’re not our beloved commenter Suzanne. She has haboobs.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
I heard that interview and am on line for it at the library. With more than 200 ahead of me, it’ll be awhile before I get a copy.
I’ve heard “The Girl on the Train” is very overrated, but I know many literary snobs, so I won’t vouch for that opinion.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’ve seen those on the news. Horrifying!
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: Phrasing!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic: Around these parts, we call that an earthquake(or just a low flying helicopter).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne:
Has she consulted with a medical professional about that? Sounds dreadful.
Gin & Tonic
@?BillinGlendaleCA: We pretty seldom have earthquakes here. This was thunder and lightning — but, mirabile dictu, we still have electricity and Internet.
Iowa Old Lady
@gogol’s wife: Coincidentally, I have the Hamilton album on from Amazon Prime. I needed to hear a story about leaders with courage and ideals, even if they were flawed.
Mary G
I liked The Girl on the Train and I loved H is for Hawk. I think you would too. It’s a memoir about a woman who deals with losing her father by trying to train a goshawk named Mabel. It’s been on a million best books of 2015 lists. The language is wonderful, even if, like me, you have no interest in goshawks or hawking.
I’m usually a huge Neal Stephenson fan, but Seveneves was my least favorite of all his books. The Underground Railroad is Oprah’s book club’s latest. Off to check out A Surfing Life.
Iowa Old Lady
@SiubhanDuinne: I listened to “H is for Hawk”. I liked it. The material about hawking was new to me, and the writer entwined it with her reaction to her father’s death.
SiubhanDuinne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The Intertoobz Ethics Code precludes my divulging any confidential information about a fellow Juicer, bit I can tell you she is never thrilled when it’s haboob season. Further, you must consult with Suzanne directly.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne: There’s an Intertoobz Ethics Code? Who knew.
Next you’re going to tell me this is a family blog and I have to watch my fucking language.
(I’m bored since I was supposed to go to Century City and Beverly Hills; but went back to sleep after I turned off my alarm.)
dmsilev
@Mary G: I didn’t care for Seveneves either. Not sure why; just left me feeling meh about the whole thing. You’d think that a novel which starts by blowing up the Moon on page one would be more interesting, but oh well.
Truegster
Even some of the 4Chan and reddit kids are abandoning ship of Emperor Orange Meme. I randomly wade through the cesspool, the redpill pepe’s can smell the loser stench.
p.a.
@SiubhanDuinne: I’ve read H, and recommend it. I guess I would categorize it as memoir, but it’s more. Very lit-Brit, so I admit to needing the dictionary a bit.
MomSense
@gogol’s wife:
I’m a wee bit obsessed with it. Haven’t felt like this about a musical since I was a teen.
dmsilev
@Truegster: Are they going Libertarian, or just “fuck that, I won’t vote”?
redshirt
@Mary G: Have you read Anathem? I loved it.
Plantsmantx
@BR: The AG of Arkansas was on CNN as a Trump surrogate, and she also deflected to the “missing” emails when asked about Trump’s tax returns.
lollipopguild
@Truegster: I love your phrasing.
lollipopguild
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yee Gads, watch your Phraseology.
SiubhanDuinne
@Michael Bersin:
Pearls and a trucker hat for the mofo WIN.
Miss Bianca
@Mary G:
I must be the only one who loathed this book. The woman managed to kill her goshawk. During the period she was writing about. She never mentions it. I found that incredibly dishonest. She didn’t know what she was doing, but she doesn’t cop to it, and in the meantime she spends all this time criticizing TH White for all the mistakes *he* was making with his hawk.
Uncle Cosmo
@dmsilev: You’d think. Worse than Reamde? Subtitled “Aaaah, fuckit, I’m tired of writing this story, I’m gonna write that story instead”….
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m also bored.
Michael Bersin
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah, Claire dropped those hats on every attendee at the Jackson County (Missouri) Democratic Committee annual Truman Days dinner in May. It was her personal jab (it shows up as a personal in-kind contribution to the county committee from Claire) at the Donald. I have one of the caps.
Baud
Haha. Hillary is needling Trump on taxes.
MomSense
@SiubhanDuinne:
Word
satby
The rain keeps dissipating over the lake before it gets to the Michigan shoreline, so we’ve had no rain at all while there’s been several storm passes in Chicago and south in Indiana. I just want it to finally break and bring a cool front through.
Mary G
@redshirt: Anathem is my favorite Stephenson by far.
@Uncle Cosmo: I loved Reamde; I laughed all the way through it. It read like a Preston Sturges movie to me. Oh well.
Both of these have a lot less technical discourse than most of his stuff. It took me forever to get through Cryptonomicom.
Phylllis
@SiubhanDuinne: Barbarian Days was a great read.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: She needed to add “All of the above” as a choice.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Nah. Everyone would have picked that one and there would be no debate.
Roger Moore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Or a strong Santa Anna.
Truegster
@dmsilev: some have given up all hope, God Emperor wuz the last chance for them. Others are going Gary Johnson, even a random Green. They all still know that Killery randomly sacrifices an intern for her media control powers, etc.
gogol's wife
@MomSense:
I’m a wee bit obsessed too! Not only do I have the piano/vocal score, I just received the “easy” piano/vocal score.
Every morning I wake up and rap some fragment to my husband. He’s very patient. This morning it was “the ship is in the harbor now, see if you can spot him”
gogol's wife
@Mary G:
It’s addictive!
gogol's wife
@John Revolta:
Do you really want me to tell you?
Baud
@Truegster:
Duh. How else would you control the media?
Mary G
@Miss Bianca: I had no idea. SD, I withdraw my recommendation.
Barbarian Days is by a guy who writes for the New Yorker and won a Pulitzer prize. I’m on the waiting list at the library. The reviews are ecstatic. I hadn’t heard of it. Thanks, Obama.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: Speaking of PBO, however, I am listening with great pleasure to his reading excerpts of “Dreams from my Father”. I wish he had done the unabridged version for audio, but he probably didn’t have the time to commit to it!
@Mary G: They kept it really quiet. Her “mentor” (who really wasn’t) kind of let it slip on a TV interview. An English acquaintance who’s been a falconer for 65 years caught the interview and told me about it.
MomSense
@gogol’s wife:
I’m fond of rapping that while looking at motherfucking ships in the harbor!!
SiubhanDuinne
@Iowa Old Lady:
@p.a.:
It is way up there on my list. Nearly 22 years after the fact, I am still grieving my father’s death. And I fell totally in love with hawks (albeit a different kind of hawk) when I read Marie Winn’s wonderful Red-Tails in Love about the famous Central Park hawks.
(And FYWP seems to think, because I live in Atlanta, where the local basketball team is called The Hawks, that I want to capitalize “hawks” every time I type the word. Which I don’t.)
SiubhanDuinne
@Miss Bianca:
I have that, although it has been many years since I listened to it. Not all writers do a good job of reading their own works aloud. He is an exception.
MomSense
@gogol’s wife:
My oldest son, the musician, just didn’t like rap and I keep trying to convince him that combining the old school blues he plays with rap would be so good.
TheMightyTrowel
@Mary G: vive la difference! I hated anathem with an unholy fire. Put me totally off stephenson. I still love his earlier books – I’ve actually included the diamond age on the reading list for an MA seminar on technology and technoculture.
raven
I just finished “Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life”, Finnegan actually talks about a chat he had with Obama late in the book.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/books/review/barbarian-days-a-surfing-life-by-william-finnegan.html?_r=0
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
That post and the comments were hilarious, as always.
amygdala
@Baud: So’s Tim Kaine. Granted it’s shooting fish in a barrel, but it’s been amusing seeing Hillz and Tim K get under Trump’s thin skin via his medium of choice, Twitter. Good work by the campaign.
Roger Moore
@redshirt:
I think Anathem is a love it or
hatebe bored to tears by it book. I really liked it, but I can easily imagine somebody finding the extended explanations of scientific or philosophical theories too boring to read. There’s a passage where two of the characters are going on about some theory or other and somebody else complains about it, and I can easily see a lot of readers agreeing.redshirt
@TheMightyTrowel: How?! I mean, its a bit difficult to start, but once it kicks in it’s genius.
Mary G
@TheMightyTrowel: Funny how different people see things differently. I did like Diamond Age too.
raven
@Mary G: It’s really technical in terms of describing the surf at various spots around the world. I enjoyed it but I’ve been interested in surfing as long as he has. It will always be one of my biggest regrets that I never advanced beyond body and boogie board surfing but it too late now.
The one thing that is cool is that he includes real people in his story. John Seyla is one of his main surfing buddies
“John Selya is a professional dancer and choreographer. Selya was born in New York City and trained at the School of American Ballet. He joined the American Ballet Theatre in 1988, where he danced roles such as Birbanto and Lankendem in Le Corsaire, Lead Gypsy in Don Quixote, Head Fakir in La Bayadere, Dr. Coppelius in Coppelia, and an Ugly Stepsister in Ben Stevenson’s Cinderella. He choreographed several ballets for the company, including Moondance, Jack and Jill, Don’t Panic, Turnstile, and Disposition. In 2000, Selya joined Twyla Tharp Dance.”
Pogonip
@debbie: The two old fat guys on WCMH in Columbus, Ohio (who once sued each other, interestingly) are very accurate. They’ve both been in the area for 40 years or so; they are familiar with the local weather patterns. Often one would say something like “The national weather service predicts This, but based on what I’ve seen around here during the last 30 years or so when this pattern develops, I’ll predict that the weather for the next 5 days is much more likely to be That, with a slight chance of The Other Thing.”. And he’ll be right. I miss those old fat guys. The weather people on TV where I live now aren’t early as accurate.
Baud
@amygdala: Kaine’s is a little dull. Hillary’s invites audience participation.
Miss Bianca
@redshirt: I’ve tried two times to get into it with no success. This is another instance where I think I may have to go with the audiobook, because sometimes I have better luck with them than I do with print – particularly as my friend who turned me on to Stephenson keeps *insisting* that *this* one is the book for me.
Gin & Tonic
What’s that distracting background audio on the NBC coverage?
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: The commentators.
debbie
@satby:
I read your post from this morning. I hope the last thing you do before leaving town is report that burglaring jerk to the authorities.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T.
I arrived at my neighborhood bar a short time ago and sat at the bar next to people I had never seen before. A couple of minutes later, they showed me a photo on their iPhone which I swear to FSM looks exactly like me!
Turns out to be a picture of a long-ago (and long dead) editor of Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar or one of those. Same huge glasses as mine, same hairstyle, similar facial shape and features. A bit freaky.
(I am not nearly as stylish, and I think I’m a bit younger still than she was when the picture was taken — but if you Google image Carrie Donovan, you will know pretty much what I look like. Pretty much.
And there is method in my posting this. I’ll be in the Research Triangle of NC the first three days of next week, and in Charlotte-Davidson on Thursday and Friday. Anyone in the area, I’d love to get together for a quick drink, coffee, meal, whatever if we can work it out. Let’s not waste BJ threads, but feel free to email me at SiubhanDuinne (at) gmail (dot) com if you’d like to have a quickly-planned meetup. You now know how to recognize me :-)
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: Haboobs are awesome. My office is on the 17th floor of one of the buildings in midtown, and I just looooove watching them roll in. Though when I took my car to get washed last week, they had to run it through twice.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
What else would we do with them?
ruemara
I’m lying on a mat, trying to stretch before zumba class. 2 hours of weights was earlier and that wraps up my day. I think I’ll go home & start my week’s worth of cooking while I watch the olympics.
Helen
@satby: Hi Satby. I got an email this morning telling me that my Etsy order was shipped. When do I get my Walter? ;) Thanks again for making that so easy.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: it’s like there is another off-screen woman talking under the regular announcers.
Mike E
@Baud: gawd, I had no idea that NBC could be this bad at something this big…fabulous games; awful coverage
Mary G
@raven: I loved to body surf and would have loved to try it on a board, but everyone I asked in 1965 said that “girls can’t surf.” I blame LBJ. I’ve certainly listened to enough men go on about it over the years.
SiubhanDuinne
@Miss Bianca:
Oh, ugh. Not sure I want to read it now.
SiubhanDuinne
@Michael Bersin:
I gotta love her style. That’s a great way to jab Trump.
raven
@Mary G: The last time I was at the Manhattan Pier, it was October, all the women were able to surf without wetsuits and none of the dudes could!
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: The part that is brutal about haboobs is driving. They literally hit like a wall. All of a sudden, visibility is nil. I don’t like driving even in good conditions, so this fills me with a lot of concern. They are awe-inspiring, though.
And during our storm season, storms usually start in the late afternoon/early evening. Right at drive time.
Baud
@Mike E: I haven’t been watching a ton, but it seems no worse than in past years.
Shana
So I have been listening to Hamilton while in the car this week, shortish trips so it’s taking me all week to work through it and I had a thought that it would be somewhat hard for a high school to mount a production. Not the rapping, which the kids could do pretty well I think. I mean the language, the damns, the f**ks. I suppose LMM has figured out substitutes by changing the words they rhyme with so it still works.
Hubby on the other hand thinks the damns won’t be a problem and they’d just trail off on the f**ks.
What think you?
raven
@Baud: It’s not, it’s the same.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: I disliked it before I knew about all that – something about its style just struck me as really contrived and pretentious – which was disappointing because it had got such rave reviews that I had expected to love it. (In fact, I was the one who recommended that my local library purchase it, and that was the copy I took with me to Belfast!) Forced myself to finish it. Then I found out *that*, and I decided that I didn’t dislike it – I actually hated it.
ETA: I’d have thought so much better of the author if she had just included an afterword explaining that the bird had died, and why. But that would have fucked up the narrative, I guess.
Mike E
@Baud: Meh? Feh.
debbie
@Pogonip:
You’d be referring to Jym Ganahl and Bob Nunnelly (who sued Jym for racial discrimination). Jym’s retiring in early September due to ill health.
My favorite on that channel is Ben Gelber. Not so fat, but goofy enough to have had a rap written about him by a local radio station. Ben’s also the most accurate weatherman I’ve ever watched. Jym’s good for old timey stuff (like wooly bear worms’ predictive coloring), but Ben’s the go-to guy for real weather.
Bex
@debbie: I thought it was overrated. The heroine drove me nuts.
Helen
Apartment sale update for those of you who have been asking. I accepted an offer yesterday that is $20K over the listed price. So it looks like the broker under-pricing it worked. 3ish months to closing. I’m on my way! Come visit!
Baud
@Helen: Congrats!
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
It sounds, from what you’re saying, that it’s not easy to predict them. Can’t the weather people see them coming and give at least a few hours’ warning? I promise you, I wouldn’t enjoy driving through those things either.
debbie
@Suzanne:
It must be like those WPA photos of dust storms approaching a town. Taken from a high angle, they appear very terrifying.
MomSense
@Shana:
I think they could just add a content note to the posters, announcements, and programs to inform parents that these words are part of the musical and to use their own discretion about allowing young children to attend.
MomSense
@Helen:
Congratulations! You are on your way!!
Jeffro
@gogol’s wife:
We love it here – the Mrs, the little Fros, all of us. We OD on it for a week or two, then take a break, OD again, etc. My 11-year-old son is no longer my son, he’s my “Right Hand Man”. LOL
SiubhanDuinne
@Helen:
You needn’t ask twice!!
Jeffro
@SiubhanDuinne: he should definitely skip “The Girl On the Train” and read “All The Light We Cannot See” or “A Tale for the Time Being” instead. Or the new James Lee Burke novel that’s about to come out.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@redshirt:
@Mary G: Have you read Anathem? I loved it.
Anathem was the one I didn’t like. One summer I binged on Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Zodiac and the whole Baroque Cycle.
Reamde was very enjoyable but I wish he would get over his last 100 pages problem.
Iowa Old Lady
@gogol’s wife: Miranda says he thinks of Paul McCartney who, by the time he was Miranda’s age, had left the Beatles and formed Wings. Miranda feels like he’s dragging behind. I guess it’s all relative.
Jeffro
@Baud:
True story (and plz file under “texts from Jeffro’s RW dad): my dad broke the news to me that on Fox, they were speculating Trump paid 0-15% income tax for the past several years, ‘due to his status as a real estate developer’. Status. Oh my.
When I told him that us libs have been discussing this for the past 8 months or so…and still can’t figure out how the “deep bench” didn’t hammer the shit out of Trump on it…he had no answer.
When I noted to him that it appears that History’s Second Greatest Monster and her husband gave about 10% of their AGI to charity…while no one can find hardly any evidence of Trump giving to any charity, ever…no answer.
When I sent him a link to that “Wealth Inequality in America” video that’s gotten 20M views on YouTube…he finally said, “agree-we need a REAL Tea Party revolution in this country”
And then he said – I kid ya not – it stinks when you have to hold your nose to vote(!) I didn’t press it, it’s getting late. Not sure what he means exactly. But that sure is NOT a knee-jerk defense of Trump, oh no it’s not…
debbie
@Jeffro:
I almost stopped reading All the Light; it took much longer to grab me than most books. By the time I got to the end, though, it was one of the best books I’d read in quite awhile.
Jeffro
@Shana:
I think either way – substitutes, or trailing off on the f-words – would work. Damns aren’t an issue in HS.
When we listen to it in the car, I just dip the volume on the f-words. Old DJ trick ;)
What think you?
debit
Fucking A, Tower of Power. I defy anyone to listen to this song and not dance.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mary G: I loved Cryptonomicon; it’s the novel Thomas Pynchon would’ve written instead of Gravity’s Rainbow if he’d known a damn thing about encryption. Also loved Snow Crash & The Diamond Age. Haven’t gotten to Anathem yet. YMMV
gogol's wife
@Shana:
Hercules Mulligan is a bit of a problem.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Uncle Cosmo:
Agreed. Gravity’s Rainbow has been my favorite book for 37 years. Cryptonomicon is right up there with it. So many similarities.
Jeffro
@debbie:
It grabbed me pretty quickly and got me oversharing with quite a few people. Even though we are trying to thin out our bookshelves here, it’s back up there for a 2nd read at some point in the near future.
Mary G
@Helen: W00t! I’m jealous you are going to Dublin. Send photos.
Pogonip
@debbie: Gelber’s excellent. He too knows the local weather patterns.
Pogonip
@satby: you got burgled? I hope the insurance co won’t be jerks about it.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@gogol’s wife: I want to introduce my ninth grade students to the musical. What’s my best version?
Helen
@Mary G: Will do!
J R in WV
@SiubhanDuinne:
@Mary G:
I’m a huge Neal Stephenson fan, and Seveneves is my least favorite evah. Not bad, because he’s so gifted, but by far his least gripping, read it in one sitting (no that’s stupid, his books can have 2000 pages in 3 volumes!) – but you get my drift. Not his best work.
There are, if you stick around, some interesting things as you get closer to the end, to say the least… but no spoilers!
JanieM
@gogol’s wife: I feel that way about David Mitchell’s books, especially since he’s reported to be going somewhere with the interconnections among them. I never thought about this as one of the downsides of getting so much older!!
J R in WV
And one more thing:
Anyone around here who wants a fire right now is out of their mind!
Going on 10 pm and still steenkin’ HOT steam bath outside! 90% Humidity right now – hoping to go out later and see if there are shooting stars.
They closed schools here today because it was too hot for the A/C to cool the buildings – no climate change here!! No sirree bob!! Not here. Plus, the power company couldn’t guarantee power to the schools sufficient to run the A/C all day long. We are so screwed!!
satby
@Helen: LOL, my pleasure!
satby
@Helen: Congrats! I love Dublin, so enjoy!
Shana
@Jeffro: It’s not the audience I was concerned about but administrations at schools can be pretty leery about stuff like that. And there are always parents who get their panties in a twist about their little innocent angels being exposed to stuff.
@gogol’s wife: Yeah, his first rap is kinda bawdy, and his “Get the f**k back up again” line. Harder to work around than “That was my wife you decided to f**k”.
Off to bed. See you all tomorrow.
satby
@Pogonip: no, I didn’t; the jerk who removed the tree showed up last week thinking I wasn’t there, with some story about how he was sent to patch the roof. With no material to do so in his truck. I thought it was weird, but most people have been saying he and his wife were there to strip the light fixtures and whatever else they could carry.
J R in WV
OK, I going to recommend another book, not on our man Obama’s summer reading list. Walter Jon Williams’s “This is Not a Game” is a great near-future book with gaming taking place very close to in your face. I now learn that it introduces at least a couple other books, although I felt like it ended pretty well.
I will be looking for the other books, he’s pretty good.
Iowa Old Lady
@J R in WV: I once took a two-week workshop from Walter Jon Williams and Connie Willis. He’s a nice guy.
rikyrah
@gogol’s wife:
It really is.
Mnemosyne
Aw, man, I missed a “Hamilton” thread!
My imaginary future ex-husband Daveed Diggs is going to be at my friend’s office in 2 weeks, and she promised to have him sign my copy of the Hamiltome. I don’t actually want to meet him — I would probably blush and stammer like a 12-year-old meeting Justin Bieber.
Gwangung
@rikyrah: Yeah…my jaw drops every time I listen to a track. Great storytelling married to a great pop sensibility welded to a great urgency, covering a really great story that’s, by God, uplifting, great, true and damn patriotic.
And I think it will age very well through the years….
Mandarama
@Baud: Except I made the mistake of trying to READ that participation, and experienced a soul-crushing sense of futility at the reminder that so many people are so very, very stupid.
If anyone calls, I’ll be under the bed with my dog and the dust bunnies.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
You don’t actually want to meet him??? You owe it to us!!
Joel
Sinnerman is awesome. I like Peter Tosh’s cover too.
Also, Manu Chao! My man. Me Gustas Tu is a good choice.
Exurban Mom
I feel like Miranda is probably adapting his work slightly for the high school market. When it becomes available (not sure how long it will take), he may have removed all swear words, rewritten some of Mulligan’s raps, toned down the Maria number, etc. Being a former teacher, her will understand what’s necessary.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
It would be really hard for me to get there on a workday, so I’m *telling* myself that I don’t really want to meet him and those grapes are probably sour anyway. ?
The Lodger
@J R in WV: Second This is Not a Game. Books 2 and 3 in the series are pretty good too.
catclub
@Roger Moore: I liked Anathem a lot and its best feature was to motivate me to read A Canticle for Liebovitz.
My favorite Stephenson is the Baroque trilogy. And it sounds like I will like Reamde.
catclub
@J R in WV: I thought for a long time that the seven Eves were the seven shards of the moon.
Aleta
@redshirt:Bright side of life: fire hazard will be lower tomorrow now that the soil/roots are wetted down
eta Someone just told me you can make a fire pit out of a drum from an old drier. I like rocks though.