Hasta La Gadget!

You can hear the conversation when the folks at the York Theatre Company started thinking about their current You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown revival.

Someone said, “What can we do to make it really fresh?” After a few suggestions that didn’t catch fire, someone else said, “Since Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts is about children, why not let’s do something that maybe has never been done before–an all-children cast?” Someone else jumped on the notion and said, “That’s it.” And off they went.

Except that’s not it. That’s exactly what Peanuts, which still runs in newspapers as repeats, is not. A comic strip for children isn’t what Schulz was offering. Sure, the characters we all know and love–Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy, Schroeder, Sally, Linus–were/are ostensibly children.

Yes, they’re precocious children, but they’re more than that. They’re the inner child with whom adults connect. That’s the audience Schulz was addressing. When, for instance, Sally moans that her life is “a Shakespearean tragedy,” she’s not expressing a sentiment that any typical 7-year-old or 8-year-old is likely to utter. An adult, however, might hear it from an inner 8-year-old.

So Michael Unger, who directs this new version (based on Michael Mayer’s 1999 Broadway revival, which made Kristin Chenoweth a star), has it all wrong. Perhaps if he were working with a cast of six intellectually precocious kids, he’d be able to pull it off. He isn’t. He’s working with youngsters, a few of whom are precocious as performers, which isn’t the same thing, Mrs. Worthington.

The one who comes closest to understanding what he’s required to do with the songs and dialog that bookwriter-composer-lyricist Clark Gesner made of Schulz’s material (with two songs Andrew Lippa added) is Joshua Colley as, luckily, Charlie Brown. He sings with clarion clarity and even gives the impression that he understands Charlie Brown’s incipient depression. (Is it going too far out a limb–or just embarrassingly late?–to say that Charlie is Charles Schulz’s adult version of his childhood self?)

The other cast members, all of whom have impressive resumés listing roles in which they’ve played actual children rather than Schulz’s exaggerations of children, come off as in over their low-to-the-ground heads. Too often they race through lines they don’t quite comprehend to the point where they’re unintelligible. They’re doing what Unger and choreographer Jennifer Paulson Lee have asked them to do but not necessarily getting the why of it.

The last two You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown numbers–“Suppertime,” sung by Aidan Gemme as Snoopy (with the cast), and “Happiness Is,” sung by the entire cast–are straightforward. They have a joyfully childlike appeal that at last lifts the musical to higher heights. Until then, the revival doesn’t boast the sort of élan that Schulz or Gesner, neither of them still with us, would approve. Good grief!
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In the Write-About-What-You-Know Department there must be several subdivisions. One has to be labeled “Experiences-as-Artist.” This is the sub-division in which Sofia Alvarez slots Friend Art, directed capably enough by Portia Krieger at Second Stage Theatre Uptown’s McGinn/Cazale.

This reviewer would be willing to place a bet that Alvarez, searching for a subject, as well as to write about what she knows, said to herself that she’s an artist who knows about others calling themselves artists in one way or another.

Thus her 85-minute four-character finger exercise in which: Nate (Constantine Maroulis, cast in part for type) is a past-his-chart-days rocker with as least one monster hit; Molly (Zoe Chao) is a failed actress now working in a law firm; Lil (Anabelle Lemieux) is a shockingly bad, self-proclaimed performance artist concentrating on revealing her deepest psychological fears to audiences through her monologs; and Kevin (Aaron Costa Ganis) is a corporate art curator who’s fed up with his no-future position.

Alvarez intros the foursome (versions of her friends?) when Lil has just finished a poorly attended performance of a poorly written piece. Supposed good friends Molly and Kevin come to congratulate her as best they can. Arriving seconds after them is Lil’s now estranged boyfriend Kevin with an apparent reconciliation agenda in mind.

The four friends–or incipient frenemies, as Alvarez develops matters–decide on drinks. Over them drug-free Molly not only learns the others are sniffing cocaine somewhere else in the establishment but also responds truthfully about Lil’s act when repeatedly coaxed. She finds–no surprise–that Lil doesn’t want the truth, after all.

From then on, the four buddies(?) meet mostly in various locations all over Daniel Zimmerman’s confusing two-level set to complain about each other. Often the pairings suggest that in the final analysis Kevin could end up with Lil and Molly could end up with Nate–not that Alvarez reaches a final analysis. Instead, she schedules the final blackout when it appears she can’t think of anything else to say or anywhere else to go.

Watching Nate, Kevin, Molly and Lil be their irritating, self-absorbed selves for even 85 minutes is extremely patience trying. (Maybe these millennials won’t be so irksome to other perennials.) A particular eye-bugging development occurs when Kevin, who’s always been candid about not liking Lil’s work, decides he admires her courage for sticking to what she loves no matter how deficient she is at it.

Convincing himself this is his entry into show-biz and his exit from looming law school, he offers to help her improve her latest material, a sketch in which Lil wears a snake glove and natters on about her unfortunate relationships with snake-like men. (Presumably costumer Asta Bennie Hostetter designed the two snake pieces used.)

Kevin’s main contribution is introducing Lil to (unseen) musician Mike, who tarts up the snake bit to the point where it’s a hit. At least, that’s what she and Alvarez think. McGinn/Cazale audiences won’t agree. And Kevin’s in for a jolt when Lil declares her favored collaborator isn’t Kevin.

In the proceedings, Alvarez has Kevin explain the title as referring to art that only friends support. This raises a thought the playwright must have considered and then dismissed when Second Stage got behind her opus: Will only her friends congratulate her on it? Put another way: Is Friend Art a shining example of friend art?
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Marin Mazzie and Daniel Dae Kim are now playing, in reverse order, the title characters of the Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein II classic musical, The King and I. With few other cast changes, the Bartlett Sher revival (choreography by Christopher Gattelli) remains the emotionally moving spectacle it was in 1951 and has been ever since–but is possibly even more so now. At one point the conflicted king considers building a wall around his Siam. That piece of dialogue probably never elicited the laughs it gets today. Kim is strong, hugely articulate and sexy, and Mazzie is, uh, a-Mazzie-ng.

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A fellow American told me that he & his buddies, “a group of old white guys” returning home in a private plane from a golf vacation, decided prior to landing that although they, to a man, “hated Hillary”, they were all going to vote for her anyway. They’d shaken hands on their unanimous H- loathing, yet there was no explanation forthcoming – the “old white guys” (middle-aged successful businessmen) offered no facts, no reasons as evidence, they just knew that Hillary was hateful, period.

Scott Adams, creator of the satirical comic strip “Dilbert” and a self-described trained hypnotist, gave the nation a startling new perspective on the presidential candidates while a guest on Bill Maher’s show last Friday night.

Adams said that hypnotizing people was a snap (sorry) – since most of us are “irrational”, we do not have carefully-thought-out reasons for what we do or believe, therefore we can be very easily “persuaded”.

Trump, he said, in these terms, was a “master persuader”, essentially hypnotizing his followers. Hillary Clinton, Adams opined, has little chance against Trump’s level of manipulation – he has taken “a flamethrower to a stick fight”.

According to Adams, Trump insinuates himself into popular subconscious, via outrageous observations that cannot be backed up or verified: thus he provides no targets, no policy details for his rivals to strike back at. Trump is fact-less, on purpose. He’s not interested in information, he’s interested in focusing attention on mesmerizing negative-trivia. (Think Kardashian-thrall, think reality TV.) Wielding the Velcro insults he makes up (& invites his audiences to make up with him) he unforgettably invents a “crooked Hillary”, a “goofy Elizabeth Warren”, a “crazy Bernie” – thus pinning the targets on his rivals.

Of course Hillary is the most qualified candidate for President.

She is the only candidate with a track record in high office, she has highly-specific economic plans, plans for dealing with student debt and the minimum wage, women’s rights and foreign policy. She has solid experience, she’s skilled and brilliant. You don’t have to agree with every statement she’s ever made or stands taken, but she is unarguably the best candidate for president.

Do you really care whether she used a private server for her emails? Do you really think this makes her unfit for the presidency? Colin Powell also used a private server – how many people would rise up, outraged, after hearing about his State Dept. email habits? But since she’s been dubbed “crooked Hillary” by Dumpable Trump her email habits somehow morph into questions of personal character.

Second-Place (you see how this works?) Bernie Sanders’ insistence on her connections to Super Pacs, & speeches to Goldman Sachs, etc. works some of this same hypnosis. Candidates for office raise money wherever they can raise it. They always have. Why doesn’t anyone ask Second-Place Bernie why he still hasn’t released his taxes, why he only became a Democrat (the party he’s managing to tear apart) a few days before he declared his candidacy – why the promises he is making to the young can never be realized? Why aren’t we discussing the fact that his cockamamie budgetary proposal would put the country 18 trillion dollars in debt – according to a nonpartisan committee’s conclusion? Why did he once refer to his former teachers as “old bitches”? Do his followers realize he voted bigtime for the 1994 Crime Act he blames Hillary for? Because Second-Place Bernie too is swinging that “you’re feeling sleepy” bauble in front of his followers’ eyes.

Hillary once described “a vast right-wing conspiracy” against the Clintons – & voila! it’s here! Dumpable Trump has created a vast conspiracy of hypnotized Americans, as he stealthily empowers the impassioned worst and plays on embedded misogynistic and xenophobic terrors.
Snap! Wake up! You think there’s no misogyny among the candidates? Dumpable Trump followers along with Second-Place Bernie fans encourage personal attacks on Hillary for being a woman. “Burn the witch” shows up on signs, along with calls for sexual assault.

Recently Dumpable Trump commented (playing to a vicious misogynist internet campaign attacking the new all-woman cast of “Ghostbusters”) “Now they’re re-making Ghostbusters with only women. What’s going on?” he asked. “Only women”, (those objects of derision) – how can they take the lead, carry a film? What’s going on indeed – there’s Trump Slime covering everything!

I’m a poet – so here’s a cursory (nursery) rhyme : Trumpty-Dumpty sat on his Wall, but his Tiny Hands caused him to Fall! Then all the dark forces, bad racist men – couldn’t put Trumpty together again!

Trumpty-Dumpty’s got America in a trance – time to shake awake & push him from each fake wall he’s erected among us.

Scott Adams faulted a Hillary slogan, “Love Trumps Hate” as counterproductive – bad word order – why begin a slogan with “Love Trump”, why use his Dumpf last name as the main verb?
Syntax matters in the wars of hypnosis — in this age of instant forgetting.

But back to the “old white guys” on their private plane. If they’re half-hypnotized by hate (Half-hate !) it’s still beats being completely narcoticized by Trumpery. At least they’ll vote for Hillary in the end. In the end, they know it’s the only way to wake us up from this nightmare.

Last chance to push Trumpty-Dumpty off his wall, shatter his fake shell, spill all that orange goo – till he can’t slime anyone with Hypno-Hate ever again. Snap! Wake up, America!

– Carol Muske-Dukes

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If the Internet has taught us anything, it’s that we can’t even get along when we don’t have to be physically near each other. There’s no shortage of trolls, and that includes on Periscope. The company has announced a new comment moderation system that allows other users to vote on comments (like downvoting) that are trollish or spam, as well … Continue reading

It has been a while since Apple last refreshed their Thunderbolt Displays. It was last released in 2010 which means that it has been 6 years since Apple has paid the device any attention, and if you’ve been looking forward to a refresh, you could be getting your wish, at least according to a report from MacRumors.

The report claims that Apple Stores around the world like in North America, Europe, and Australia are apparently low on stock on Thunderbolt Displays, or just outright do not have them in stock anymore. This has led to speculation that maybe Apple has not bothered issuing new stock as they are planning to introduce new hardware at the event.

It is also entirely possible that Apple might decide to kill off the display, but we reckon a refresh seems more likely of the two. It will also be interesting as in the past few years, WWDC has become less about hardware and more about software, whereas previously Apple would announce hardware like the iPhone at the event, so it remains to be seen if Apple could announce new displays at the event or just refresh them quietly in the store.

It has been speculated that the new Thunderbolt Displays could be of the 5K variety to match the 27-inch iMac. In any case take it with a grain of salt, but WWDC is around the corner so check back with us in the coming weeks for the details.

Thunderbolt Displays In Low Supply Ahead Of WWDC , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

Last week it was reported that Jawbone had stopped production of their UP fitness trackers, and that all remaining inventory had been sold off to third-party companies. With such a drastic move, it was easy to assume that this meant that Jawbone was planning to exit the fitness tracker market, and given the stiff competition from the likes of Xiaomi and Fitbit, it wasn’t hard to imagine.

That being said, Jawbone has since released a statement in which they refute the claims that they are exiting the market. It reads, “Speculation that Jawbone is exiting the wearables business or going out of business altogether is false. Jawbone remains wholly committed to innovating in and building great wearables products. The company has never been more excited about its pipeline of technology and products and looks forward to sharing them when ready.”

While they might have shot down rumors of them exiting the market, they weren’t so quick to deny that they have sold off a bunch of inventory. Their statement regarding that particular rumor reads, “We manage our inventory positions according to internal business processes, and strategic product lifecycle objectives. This situation is no different and we will continue to support all of our products in the marketplace.”

So it looks like Jawbone isn’t completely out of the game yet, but at the same time it has been a while since we’ve seen anything new from the company. The last we checked, the company redesigned the UP2 and introduced new colors to the UP3 back in August.

Jawbone Denies They Are Exiting The Fitness Tracker Market , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.