Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

How stupid are these people?

Let me file that under fuck it.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

American history and black history cannot be separated.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

You are here: Home / Popular Culture / KULCHA! / Monday Evening Respite Open Thread: Theatre Notes

Monday Evening Respite Open Thread: Theatre Notes

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Haven’t seen CODA yet (Gloucester, represent!), but I’m looking forward to doing so. King Richard, also!


(Srsly, South American prehensile-tailed porcupines really *do* look like Muppets!)


This performance is being staged in Tokyo, so it’s liable to be true to the spirit of the movie…

Reader Interactions

79Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    I’m feeling a little unsophisticated because I find Percy to be the most interesting item in the post.

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    Behind the scenes, the making of Percy:

    This two-story porcupine built by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop might be the world’s largest puppet

    Named Percy the Porcupine, the two-story creation is covered in 2,000 foam quills and has an articulated nose the size of a 2-ton Volkswagen. And that’s just the arboreal animal’s head. The five fabricators who spent more than 1,000 hours meticulously constructing the fantastical creature decided to leave the body out of the equation.

    Fabricators, including Tina Roland, labor on Percy’s 2,000 quills, which are hand carved out of pool-noodle-like foam using a variety of sharp knives, box cutters and razors. It will take more than 10 gallons of paint to give all of the quills their signature brown stripes.

    “I did get the process down to a minute-and-a-half for each quill,” says Roland, who uses barge glue (the kind you’d find at a cobbler shop for repairing soles) to attach the quills to Percy’s head. “But that was after a lot of practice, and it doesn’t include painting.”

    Her secret for success when tasked with such repetitive work? “A lot of podcasts,” she says, laughing.

    Percy’s whiskers are made from a thick monofilament, like fishing line, says Brooke. Those are punched into the muzzle and pulled through. The tongue, which fabricators have identified as pink thanks to Boris [the actual porcupine who was the model for the puppet], ends up being made from a piece of foam, as do the two beaver-esque front teeth.

  6. 6.

    Brachiator

    ‘CODA,’ a coming-of-age drama about the only hearing member of a deaf family, won the Screen Actors Guild’s top film award on road to the Oscars

    I remember as a kid watching the 1957 movie “Man Of A Thousand Faces” on TV. I thought it was about Lon Chaney, Jr, who played the Wolf Man, but it was about his famous father, who I knew nothing about. Good movie, starring James Cagney.

    Lon Chaney was the son of deaf mute parents. He was initially ashamed of them and tried to hide this info from his wife. I thought it very cool that the movie dealt with this.

    First look: Spirited Away on stage

    This might be fun for kids and families, like the stage version of The Lion King.

  7. 7.

    Alison Rose ???

    Forgive me for being a bit shallow and lesbian, but Emilia Jones in that dress, hellooooooo nurse!

    Also too, that’s fucking awesome that the film won!

  9. 9.

    MomSense

    I ❤️ Percy.

    We have a family joke about Percy from the days when youngest was obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine.  He couldn’t say r in the middle of a word very well when he was little.  The R in Percy sounded like a double S.  His older brothers would hold up the Percy train and get him to say Pussy excitedly.  They didn’t limit this stunt to home only…

  19. 19.

    Suzanne

    @MomSense:  Mr. Suzanne is a speech-language pathologist, and he has many stories about kids doing this. Like one kid couldn’t pronounce K sounds at the end of words, so when he said SHARK, it sounded like SHART.

  21. 21.

    call_me_ishmael

    Percy puts me in mind of Dinsdale Piranha’s “Spiny Norman”, and that’s both hilarious and terrifying.

  24. 24.

    BigJimSlade

    I hope Percy has soft quills. I would hate to see it fall on some children and impale 35 of them at once! lol.

  25. 25.

    CaseyL

    Spirited Away, the movie, was a completely transcendent experience for me.  So a live action play based on it… on the one hand, why mess with perfection? OTOH, there may be more insights and feelings to be had.

    …hmm, checked the website, and the production isn’t scheduled to come to the US.  Pity.

  27. 27.

    Kelly

    I had a beautiful paddle on the N Santiam this afternoon. Blue sky. Clear water. First trip in my new drysuit.

  28. 28.

    Dan B

    @MomSense: A designer who worked for me had worked at a wholesale nursery, C.R. Harnden.  The receptionist couldn’t pronounce r’s mid word, like your son.  My designer guy would crack up at the end result.  All day: C.R. Hardon.

  30. 30.

    Dangerman

    Dropping the THE because … well because … plus I get to see if this puts me in BJ Purgatory.

  31. 31.

    Dan B

    @Kelly: Sounds incredible.  I’ve only been over Santiam Pass once on a gorgeous day.  The variety of lovely scenery, and the lava fields, is a wonder.

  32. 32.

    NotMax

    @Dan B

    One of the cast members in an off-Broaday revival of Avenue Q which I attended a couple of years ago is named Imari Hardon.

  33. 33.

    Skepticat

    Jim Henson’s Creature Shop—one of the great business names of all time. I keep seeing little hedgehogs online, and if I hadn’t already been claimed by three born-feral cats, I’d have at least one. Perfect spirit animal for me.

    May we please be able to concentrate on things like this rather than the obscenity that is our current world?

  37. 37.

    UncleEbeneezer

    King Richard was really great!  All the main actors give incredible performances, especially Aunjanue Ellis who plays mother, Oracene.  The tennis is also fairly believable with Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton both doing excellent versions of Venus and Serena’s iconic swing techniques.  One of them had never even picked up a racket.  Anyways, it really is a superb film that highlights the extraordinary story of Venus, Serena and their proud father.  It’s the second best tennis movie, imo, after Battle Of The Sexes (the Billie Jean King film from a couple years ago), which is also very much worth watching.  You don’t have to be a big tennis fan to enjoy either of them.

  38. 38.

    Kelly

    @Dan B: It’s my home water. Mrs Kelly drops me off about 8 miles upriver. I paddle to a spot a few minutes walk from home.

  41. 41.

    Ken

    @Baud: Not so much “multistory puppet” as “giant robot combat vehicle”, but as they say, po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

  42. 42.

    japa21

    Apparently the SCOTUS disappointed Republicans in PA and NC by not allowing them to go ahead with their original redistricting maps and having to keep the court drawn ones.  At least for this year.  Maybe someone in those two states can provide an idea what that means on a Congressional and state level.

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    King Richard was really great!  All the main actors give incredible performances, especially Aunjanue Ellis who plays mother, Oracene.  The tennis is also fairly believable with Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton both doing excellent versions of Venus and Serena’s iconic swing techniques.  One of them had never even picked up a racket.  Anyways, it really is a superb film that highlights the extraordinary story of Venus, Serena and their proud father.

    Good review. Reminded me to put it on my “To Watch” list.

    Thanks

  44. 44.

    sab

    My goldfEish pitbull Ponyo feels like a soulmate of Percy.

    ETA Thankfully, Ponyo does not have giant quills.

  48. 48.

    prostratedragon

    Percy!!

    Second to Man of a Thousand Faces. Interesting story, and excellent Cagney. So sad that we’ve lost much of Lon Chaney’s work, it appears. (But you never know what might turn up in a basement in Buenos Aires.) I see King Richard streams in the usual sort of place, so I will certainly get to it in a few days.

    It’s the birthday of Maurice Ravel. Here’s the DePaul University symphony orchestra:

    “Rhapsodie Espagnole”

  53. 53.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Skepticat:

    May we please be able to concentrate on things like this rather than the obscenity that is our current world?

    Yes. A world in which a pleasant thread like this doesn’t need to be labelled “respite,” but is just … a thread.

  60. 60.

    columbusqueen

    Being a tennis buff, I wish I wanted to see King Richard, but I don’t.  Based on the clips I’ve seen, the film throughly sugarcoats Richard Williams’ sleazy streak, so I’m giving it a hard pass.

  65. 65.

    Kayla Rudbek

    So I’m getting ready to switch jobs (effective next week).  I have to write a bio and provide them with a head shot, which meant that I actually dressed up like an attorney, painted my face, and tried to do something with my hair to make it look professional.  Same overall employer and agency, but 1) they do things way, way differently on the other side of the house and 2) things might have changed since I started over a decade ago what with all the onboarding and training going to virtual instead of in-person.

  69. 69.

    Miss Bianca

    Oh, theater! Oh, puppets! *swoon*

    Yeah, I like big butts puppets and I cannot lie…so sue me.

  72. 72.

    CaseyL

    @Kayla Rudbek: Did you change specialties?  Sounds like you work for a pretty big firm!  Best of luck in the new position!

    I could never pull off the “do something with my hair to make it look professional.”  In my entire life, the only times my hair has ever looked remotely professional is for the first 20 minutes after leaving the salon. (And I stopped going to salons 30 years ago!)

  73. 73.

    Yarrow

    Puppets, you say? How about Peter Jackson’s second film, the puppet musical black comedy “Meet the Feebles.” Watch the trailer at your own risk. The film is currently available to watch on Tubi.

  79. 79.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @CaseyL: I am changing specialties and going from being part of a group of thousands overall to being part of a group of about 600 or so. So I can definitely understand that there’s a more personal aspect to a smaller part of the agency. It’s a bit scary as I haven’t dealt with this specialty in a while, but I was so burned out even before the pandemic that it’s going to be a relief to go do something else. And maybe I will have a chance to finally have a life again; I have been running the science career obstacle course since my freshman year in college and I am tired of it.

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