Michael Hopcroft

I love that even n a concert setting, Quast does not break character to acknowledge the rapturous applause.

Just saw the Legend of the Lone Ranger for the first time. And that is bad. So bad that the lead actor never made another film and neither did the director. Jason Robards who was established was exempt from anything happening. Christopher Lloyd was a bit restrained as the bad guy but really did nothing wrong. Michael Horse who played Tonto went on to do better work notably in Twin Peaks and the X-Files.
The film suffers from trying to do too much with the origin story and takes too long with it. The ending also feels a bit rushed. It does not help that the actor played the Lone Ranger was dubbed.
But what really hurt was banning Clayton Moore who played The Lone Ranger from doing signings or appearing in costume as the character. This generated really bad negative publicity and did the film in. 

"Gordon..."
"Who's this Gordon character?"
"That is your name, Gordon..."
"My mother calls me Sting. My children call me Sting."
 
(In case anyone wonders, that's from Michael Apted's documentary Bring on the Night, about the recording of Sting's seminal "solo" debut The Dream of the Blue Turtles.)

It was all due to a copier jam at the library next to the Hero Games offices.  We're still trying to figure it out.
 
NT:  Unforeseen consequences of suddenly having flying cars available to the general public.

Believe it or not, it is a desperate but plausible attempt to improve the average intelligence and rationality in the human population.

Star Trek's LeVar Burton to Receive Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award
 
"If I had a mission statement for LeVar Burton Reads, it would be to remind the Reading Rainbow generation how important reading is in their lives, and their imaginations," Burton says. "I guess more than anything else that's the message that I want. I want people to engage with their imaginations, with these stories. Because, especially as adults now, you guys are adulting. I don't want you to stop using your imaginations because you're going to need them going forward. Because there's a whole lot of sh*t we're leaving for you to clean up. I'm sorry about that. I apologize, but I am trying to encourage some of the skills and talents you're going to need going forward."

My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in April from a mammogram that was (scarily) pushed back a year due to Covid.  She has been undergoing chemo since then up until last month.  It decreased the tumor about 33%.  She decided to go with a lumpectomy.  They managed to remove the tumor and the really good news is that they biopsied her lymph node and the cancer did not spread.  She will still have to undergo targeted radiation for another month and obviously have regular monitoring for the next several years, but long story short she is now cancer-free. 

The Rockie Horror Pitching Show has given up 25 runs in 3 games to the sub-.500 Phillies. Ouch.
 
We'll see if Colorado can avoid the four-game sweep tonight. 

Went ahead and got mine yesterday.
Not having a great day today;  arm soreness is more acute this time, and I think a low-grade cold generally.
 
My feeling is that a booster is likely to be the norm...if a flu shot's advisable, then I think a Covid shot will also be advisable.  Hopefully *just* annually, but we shall see.

We can blame Agatha Christie for some of that. Most mystery writers of the day were all about the puzzle -- how could this seemingly impossible murder have been committed? What was the corpse of the local lord doing in the Vicarage Garden? But then along comes Christie, who while she could write an intricate puzzle with the best of them had her own goals in mind. Specifically, her gift for satire. We see Jane Marple, lifelong spinster, learning about the depths of human depravity by observing the goings-on in her little country village of St. Mary Mead. Then there is the Anti-Holmes, Hercule Poirot -- stuffy, arrogant, reveling in his own brilliance why baffling and irritating his Boswell, Captain Hastings.
 
Then there was the often-re-titled and edited And Then There Were None. A study in paranoia where a killer who is seemingly omniscient picks off the guests at an island hotel one by one with ruthless efficiency, even though the targets of their wrath are alone on the island. These are not cool-headed intellectuals solving a deadly puzzle -- these are men and women scared out of their wits and not knowing who among them is a murderer. If there is only one.
 
 
 
 

Because Fat-Bottomed Girls make the Rockin' World go 'round!
 
NT:  Social occasions that would be considerably improved by the insertion of Brian Blessed.
 
 

We can blame Agatha Christie for some of that. Most mystery writers of the day were all about the puzzle -- how could this seemingly impossible murder have been committed? What was the corpse of the local lord doing in the Vicarage Garden? But then along comes Christie, who while she could write an intricate puzzle with the best of them had her own goals in mind. Specifically, her gift for satire. We see Jane Marple, lifelong spinster, learning about the depths of human depravity by observing the goings-on in her little country village of St. Mary Mead. Then there is the Anti-Holmes, Hercule Poirot -- stuffy, arrogant, reveling in his own brilliance why baffling and irritating his Boswell, Captain Hastings.
 
Then there was the often-re-titled and edited And Then There Were None. A study in paranoia where a killer who is seemingly omniscient picks off the guests at an island hotel one by one with ruthless efficiency, even though the targets of their wrath are alone on the island. These are not cool-headed intellectuals solving a deadly puzzle -- these are men and women scared out of their wits and not knowing who among them is a murderer. If there is only one.
 
 
 
 

We can blame Agatha Christie for some of that. Most mystery writers of the day were all about the puzzle -- how could this seemingly impossible murder have been committed? What was the corpse of the local lord doing in the Vicarage Garden? But then along comes Christie, who while she could write an intricate puzzle with the best of them had her own goals in mind. Specifically, her gift for satire. We see Jane Marple, lifelong spinster, learning about the depths of human depravity by observing the goings-on in her little country village of St. Mary Mead. Then there is the Anti-Holmes, Hercule Poirot -- stuffy, arrogant, reveling in his own brilliance why baffling and irritating his Boswell, Captain Hastings.
 
Then there was the often-re-titled and edited And Then There Were None. A study in paranoia where a killer who is seemingly omniscient picks off the guests at an island hotel one by one with ruthless efficiency, even though the targets of their wrath are alone on the island. These are not cool-headed intellectuals solving a deadly puzzle -- these are men and women scared out of their wits and not knowing who among them is a murderer. If there is only one.
 
 
 
 

"How are you feeling, Darling?"
"Ahm- not all that good, Blackadder. Rather hoped I'd get through the whole show, go back to work at Pratt and Sons, keep wicket for the Croydon Gentlemen, marry Doris. Made a note in my diary on the way here. Simply says: "Bugger".

"How are you feeling, Darling?"
"Ahm- not all that good, Blackadder. Rather hoped I'd get through the whole show, go back to work at Pratt and Sons, keep wicket for the Croydon Gentlemen, marry Doris. Made a note in my diary on the way here. Simply says: "Bugger".

A story about an astronaut crash landing in Cimmeria is one I would read. Assuming he could survive with no weapons he knew how to use, a spacesuit that looks inconveniently like armor, and no first-contact training. It would be fun to see him try.

Just saw Turning Red with a couple from church (at my place, with a pizza that surprisingly wasn't touch much). Stylistically, it mixed standard Pixar with anime and CalArts styling. But the story it tells is about daughters and mothers and how often parents don't remember just what sort of teenagers they were. I was reminded of Brave, because while the setting and emphasis were different, it too was a story of the relationship and misunderstandings between mothers and daughters and the difficulties involved with them.
 
Mom commented after she saw Turning Red (a few days before I did) that so few coming-of-sage stories are about young women, compared to young men, that a film that examines the issues of girls growing up the way it did was refreshing, if not necessary. If my mother and I had seen this in a theater, we would probably have had some interesting discussions afterward.
 
 

Just saw Turning Red with a couple from church (at my place, with a pizza that surprisingly wasn't touch much). Stylistically, it mixed standard Pixar with anime and CalArts styling. But the story it tells is about daughters and mothers and how often parents don't remember just what sort of teenagers they were. I was reminded of Brave, because while the setting and emphasis were different, it too was a story of the relationship and misunderstandings between mothers and daughters and the difficulties involved with them.
 
Mom commented after she saw Turning Red (a few days before I did) that so few coming-of-sage stories are about young women, compared to young men, that a film that examines the issues of girls growing up the way it did was refreshing, if not necessary. If my mother and I had seen this in a theater, we would probably have had some interesting discussions afterward.
 
 

I am having a hard time with Netfliz' cartoon adaptation of the notoriously difficult video game Cuphead.  Which seems incredibly bizarre and at the same time pretty familiar.
 
I understood much of what was going on, not from playing the game (I didn't) but from a knowledge of the history of animation -- specifically the brilliantly flawed early soung cartoons of the Fleischer brothers (better animators than Disney, but terrible businessmen who were eventually at each others' throats).  The legacy of these shorts (which originated the character of Betty Boop, and don't get me started on how controversial she was) were among the first American productions to regularly feature the great black musicians of the day. But they also had issues with racial caricatures (one short, built around Luois Armstrong's recording "I'll be Glad When You're Dead (You Rascal You)" was placed with a cartoon about fleeing a "primitive cannibal tribe", a common racist trope in those days. (There were also anti-Semitism issues in other shorts, because stereotypes about "greedy Jews" were still considered funny, although the Fleischers were Jewish immigrants themselves).
 
That in itself made Cuphead the game controversial -- it used the Fleischers' stylings in art and music without really dealing with the racist times that generated them.
 
And it is the disconnection with the times that bothers me about The Cuphead Show. Not so much the racial issues, which strangely do not bother me as much since I know the producers were in no way making that a focus. NO, what bothers me is that I'm unclear who their audience is.
 
How many people starting out with Cuphead on Netflix know who Max and Dave Flesicher were? Or who Cab Calloway was? Although Calloway was one of the great cultural treasures of the 20th Century, we are now almost a quarter of the way through the 21st. So to have a major character modeled on him is one of many in-jokes that nobody outside a niche group of fans will get. There are also several snatches of Calloway-like music from the modern composer of the score, who could ape his style but not capture his genius. And while I am not at all into Satanic Panics... well, I don't think this will spoil anything.
 
The chief antagonist of Cuphead and Mugman is the literal Devil, who is drawn black from head to toe and voiced like -- well, you'll have to hear it to believe it.
 
 
(The actor is Luke Millington, and he everything he says comes out that way. I saw a clip of him recording that song, and he had a lot of fun!)
 
So while I am the sort of person most likely to appreciate The Cuphead Show, I am not its intended audience. So is the problem with the show or with me?

Petey says he'd rather be at the curling match. 

I'm with you, Michael. Grambling State has always had a noteworthy reputation in college football. That reputation is now stained, and it's going to take a lot of years for that stain to get scrubbed off.
 
As for the coaching question, maybe he was hoping that by staying out of the spotlight for a couple years he'd get a chance to rebuild his reputation. Clearly he didn't wait long enough. Try again in a decade or two, Briles.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote symphonies, concertos, quartets, solo sonatas for multiple instruments, and was in short a musical polymath. Yet perhaps the legendary composers' greatest contribution was to opera. He wrote many that have become not only staples of the repertoire but are viewed as nearly perfect musically as much as is humanly possibly. And interestingly, the play and film Amadeus has the tragic antihero Salieri view Mozart's progress (and the failure of his efforts to quash it) through his operas.
 
Don Giovanni, in particular, is an interesting case. The theme was the adventures of the fictional seducer Don Juan, a Spanish nobleman with a massive appetite for sex with as many women as possible -- will they or nill they. Most of his conquests blurred the line between seduction and outright rape. In the opera, Don Giovanni and his reluctant servant Leporello indulge in numerous exploits, and in one of them he kills the father of one of his victims, a well-connected former soldier. The man was so admired that soon after his death they erect a monument to him, a statue which Giovanni mockingly invites to supper. On a night when his "lovers" and enemies are converging on him, Giovanni has a lovely meal and ponders a way out. Then this happens:
 
One can only imagine how shocked audiences in 1787 must have been to see an admittedly dark comedy end in such a viscerally horrifying way. They were unprepared for it. The opera added luster to his reputation anyway, which has only grown with time and advances in stagecraft. Acting in opera has advanced as well, as each generation brings stars that come ever closer to the Platonic ideal of the singing actor.. What Samuel Ramey playing Don Giovanni is doing is very difficult!

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote symphonies, concertos, quartets, solo sonatas for multiple instruments, and was in short a musical polymath. Yet perhaps the legendary composers' greatest contribution was to opera. He wrote many that have become not only staples of the repertoire but are viewed as nearly perfect musically as much as is humanly possibly. And interestingly, the play and film Amadeus has the tragic antihero Salieri view Mozart's progress (and the failure of his efforts to quash it) through his operas.
 
Don Giovanni, in particular, is an interesting case. The theme was the adventures of the fictional seducer Don Juan, a Spanish nobleman with a massive appetite for sex with as many women as possible -- will they or nill they. Most of his conquests blurred the line between seduction and outright rape. In the opera, Don Giovanni and his reluctant servant Leporello indulge in numerous exploits, and in one of them he kills the father of one of his victims, a well-connected former soldier. The man was so admired that soon after his death they erect a monument to him, a statue which Giovanni mockingly invites to supper. On a night when his "lovers" and enemies are converging on him, Giovanni has a lovely meal and ponders a way out. Then this happens:
 
One can only imagine how shocked audiences in 1787 must have been to see an admittedly dark comedy end in such a viscerally horrifying way. They were unprepared for it. The opera added luster to his reputation anyway, which has only grown with time and advances in stagecraft. Acting in opera has advanced as well, as each generation brings stars that come ever closer to the Platonic ideal of the singing actor.. What Samuel Ramey playing Don Giovanni is doing is very difficult!

Calculate the amount of kinetic energy required to launch a baseball into geostationary orbit.