Pure Bliss

Thanks, Terry.

Avenue Q Alums Producing Dan Savage's "The Kid"

And it's going to be a musical! From USNewswire, and oddly missing on the Slog:

The season concludes with "The Kid," a musical based on Dan Savage's book "The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant," with book by Michael Zam, music by Andy Monroe and lyrics by Jack Lechner. New Group Artistic Director Scott Elliott directs this world premiere. The authors were honored with the 2009 BMI Foundation Jerry Bock Award for Best New Musical. This marks The New Group's return to musical theatre after producing "Avenue Q," which received the Tony Award for Best New Musical in 2004.

Dan hates it when I congratulate him for anything, so, CONGRATS DAN!

I Would Like to Start My Own Daily Show Where I Make Fun of Evening Magazine

Too bad this guy's gone:

What I Saw at The Puppet Show at the Frye

A picture of a housewife who appears to be in some sort of hell populated only by Muppets. A room full of wooden ventriliquest puppets dancing on the floor, their clomping so intense it sounds like an earthquake. Wooden furniture giving birth to baby furniture, dressed in Baby Gap. A video of the Harvard Arts Building, expanding and contracting and expanding, as its marionette architect looks away in distress. Go see it!

The Jack in the Box on 85th and Aurora

Do you ever get hella hungry at night? I know you do. And if you're out and about late at night, chances are good you probably think about getting some fast food at one of those all-nite drive thrus (Gross, I know, SHUT UP!) This is important: if you EVER find yourself at the Jack in the Box on Aurora and 85th at 4:45 in the morning, after a certain indescribable personal experience on the hill, DO NOT LOOK INTO THE DRIVE THRU WINDOW. I REPEAT: DO NOT LOOK INSIDE. The sight you will see will make it hard to eat your curly fries and spicy chicken burger in shameful silence in your car. It may make you throw up, violently, all over yourself. You've been warned.

Are You Going to the Comeback, er "Physical," Tonight?

No cover charge!

Orgy of Tolerance at On the Boards

What can I say that hasn't already been said before? Yes, women give birth to packets of M&Ms and bags of chips. Yes, there is a scene involving shopping carts that you will want to download off youtube and watch on repeat. There are also moments of extreme tediousness, where you will want to rip out your hair. I'm pretty sure that's the point. I loved it.

On the Boards supposedly videotaped this performance, and it should be online soon.

State of Play: A Review

Oh those blogtards! What do they know about real reporting? Why, I bet they couldn't tell a government conspiracy involving a Blackwater-look-alike from a Scarlet Johanassen boob-slip or a rumor involving a closeted TV star. Or could they!?

Rachel McAdams is the yellow-internet "journalist" in this movie, except (shocker!) she actually knows how to report. She accompanies seasoned vet Russel Crowe (scraggly, ailing star of printland) to investigate the death of a sub-committee member in Congress who may or may not have been killed by a gaggle of corrupt politicians hell-bent on murdermoney! As the two get thicker and thicker into the case there are lots of mysterious briefcases, threatening phone calls, and dark window frames which may or may not be hiding sniper shooters (you're going to play that scary music every time someone gets near a window? Whatever. If you need me, i'll be hiding under this chair).

At first, "State of Play's" plot feels like a very standard newspapers vs. police cadets vs. congressmen set-up ('The Wire'...anyone? Anyone?) but the tension generated between blogger and printdude make for some compelling moments (McAdams and Helen Mirren, the editah-in-chief, want to break the story earlier as blog fodder, Crowe, the truthy reporter, doesn't). And Crowe makes quite the improvisational journalist; trading sodas for sources, slipping scary notes to republican blowhards, interrogating an evil bisexual PR man (played by a drunk Jason Bateman) and speaking truth to power like he's trynna blow the next Watergate. Meanwhile, in subplotland, where shit is reallly going down, I've been given a headache by too many plot twists. Basically, Crowe is such a good journalist he almost dies a lot in pursuit of the most balanced story. Oy. So that's what journalism is supposed to look like? Now I feel guilty for not donating to KUOW last year.

Quote of the Day

Liz: "Listen, Jack. I don't have a lot of personal life experiences. But if I have learned anything from my Sims Family: when a child doesn't see his father enough he starts to jump up and down. And then his mood level will drop. Until he pees himself."

Liz Lemon to Jack Donaghy on '30 Rock'.

Birthright Israel: Free Drunken Sexfest? Propaganda Machine? Earnest Secular(ish) Pilgrimage? (All of the Above?)

My friend Neal Schindler has an article up on Jew-ish.com about Birthright Israel. I am quoted.

Of course, not all Birthright participants have quite as positive an experience. Steven Blum, who went in the winter of 2008-09, expected a fun trip that would also help him understand what it means to be a Jew, and might include some discussion of Israel/Palestine. What he found was a maze of “propaganda” that didn’t accommodate critical thinking. In his view, participants were told what to feel at major stops along the way, like Masada, where Israeli soldiers talked about their experience defending the contested land.

This is still how I feel. I wish someone would re-vamp this program and make it more like these programs.