We’ve had a couple of encouraging signs in the last few days.
On Friday it was Jim Geraghty’s dismay at Obama’s supposed contempt for New Rochelle commuters. (If the lifestyle of Rob and Laura Petrie isn’t sacred, what is?)
Yesterday it was faux outrage at Obama quoting The Untouchables, showing that the Republican War on Metaphors continues unabated. See, for example, Flopping Aces: » Read more..
Banner Peak from near Davis Lakes, Ansel Adams Wilderness.
Q: How do you save the hallowed institution of marriage from being destroyed by gays getting married?
A: You stop doing marriages altogether.
That’s the answer of two California counties, anyway: » Read more..
Mariposa Lily (Calochortus venustus) along the Valley View Trail in Morgan Territory Regional Park.
No difficult ones this week, apparently.
It has been said that movies and literature go together like bananas and sardines1; that banana/sardine synergy is the subject of this week’s Tuesday Trivia quiz. Your task is to identify an actor who has appeared in adaptations of the work of all three listed authors; for example, if I gave you Tom Robbins, William Gibson, and William Shakespeare, you might answer Keanu Reeves (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Johnny Mnemonic, and Much Ado About Nothing or My Own Private Idaho). For extra credit: one of the actors I have in mind also appears in the work of a fourth (unnamed) author (who should be very familiar to Deborah’s readers).
Get it? Got it. Good.
Note: I have one person in mind for each of these, but if you identify someone else who qualifies you will of course get full credit (and the question will remain open).
1I just said it, so it has in fact been said.
All answered within a couple of hours. Answers below the fold… » Read more..
A while back Deborah did a few quizzes in which she listed a series of roles, and you were asked to identify the actor who had played them all. This is sort of the inverse of that one: I list three actors, and you have to identify the character they all played (note: the same character doesn’t always have the same name). Some are probably easy; others, I think, not so much. There is no unifying theme to this quiz, unless someone happens to discern one, in which case there is and I meant it all along.
Update: All solved.
Note: I’ll be in meetings for much of the day, beginning at 10:30 am PST, so if I’m not confirming your answers promptly, be patient.
Acting (belatedly) on Tim Goodman’s recommendation (spoilers there), we finally Netflixed the first three episodes of Slings and Arrows, a Canadian comic drama about a Shakespearean troupe (the “New Burbage Shakespeare Festival”) in turmoil. In the course of staging a production of Hamlet, they contend with the death of an indispensible character; an artistic director who was once driven mad by the play; a chirpily sinister corporate sponsor; long-festering hatreds among the principals; a clueless Gringolandian movie star; and much more.
As befits theatrical folk, everything is exaggerated and outrageous, and nobody is ever without an audience (if only in their own minds). It’s a world of outsized egos, petty jealousy, backbiting, and pretentious poses. In the middle of a rapier duel at a party (yes, there is a duel with rapiers–buttons off), the stage manager snaps at the assembled actors that they’re all a lot of insufferable children–and of course she’s right; but they’re immensely entertaining children, and their childlike love of theatre is the thing that redeems them.
It is exaggerated and at the same time nuanced. Lurking amid the manic farce are serious questions (about the relationship between art and commerce; about the purpose of live theatre in a world glutted on entertainment) and a pervasive sadness (at aging; at lost love, and long-ago betrayals; at becoming less than they had hoped; at the sense of their own obsolescence). The drama is never forced or heavy-handed, but simply human, inseparable from the comedy as it is in real life.
The cast is excellent, mostly not-quite-recognizable actors who I suspect are much better known in Canada (Paul Gross, from Tales of the City, Mark McKinney, from Kids in the Hall, and Rachel McAdams, from Mean Girls are the three I knew). The screenplay is consistently witty, and by ‘witty’ I mean ‘laugh-out-loud hilarious’. As in, you often have to rewind to get the funny line you missed when you were laughing at the funny line before it.
Highly recommended. Put it in your queue now.
Tehipite Dome from Tehipite Valley, Kings Canyon National Park.
