#Mike Isaacson

[virtualdavis]

What Makes a House a Home?

At the root of Rosslyn Redux is a question: what makes a house a home? Simple question. Less simple answer. A look at what defines "homeness"…

What Makes a House a Home? (Photo: Geo Davis) At the root of Rosslyn Redux is a question. What makes a house a home? Simple question. Less simple answer. More precisely, the answers to what makes a house a home are diverse and possibly even evolving — slowly, perpetually — as we live our lives. What defines “homeness” as a child likely differs as a young, independent adult, nesting for the first…

[broadwayworld]

Video: Mike Isaacson Shares Highlights of the MUNY's 105th Season https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Video-Mike-Isaacson-Shares-Highlights-of-the-MUNYs-105th-Season-20230608

[hatingwithfears]

BOOKS READ IN 2022

Here’s the complete list of books I managed to read in 2022.

168 books. 54,494 pages.

Renata Adler- Speedboat

Kendra Allen- The Collection Plate

Jonathan Alter- His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life

Kenneth Anger- Hollywood Babylon

Jason Bailey- Fun City Cinema: New York City and the Movies That Made It

Peter Baker, Susan Glasser- The Divider: Trump in The White House 2017-2021

JG Ballard- The Atrocity Exhibition

Julien Barnes- Elizabeth Finch

Brit Bennett- The Vanishing Half

Charles M. Blow- The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto

Anthony Bourdain- Medium Raw

Anthony Bourdain, Laurie Woolever- World Travel: An Irreverent Guide

Box Brown- Cannabis: The Illegalization of Weed in America

Mariah Carey, Michaela Angela Davis- The Meaning of Mariah Carey

Nick Cave & Sean O’Hagan- Faith, Hope, and Carnage

David Chang- Eat a Peach

Dan Charnas- Dilla Time

Leonard Cohen- A Ballet of Lepers

Lee Cole- Groundskeeping

Teju Cole- Black Paper

Ray Connolly- Being Elvis: A Lonely Life

Brian Contoir- Practical Alchemy

Antoine Cosse- Metax

Charles R. Cross- Here We Are Now: The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain

Daniele Cybulskie- How To Live Like a Monk

Travis Dandro- King of King Court

John Darnelle- Devil House

Michael Deforge- Heaven No Hell

Rita Dove- Playlist for the Apocalypse

David Duchovny- The Reservoir

Jennifer Egan- The Candy House

Robert Evans- The Kid Stays in The Picture

Scott Eyman- Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise

Nicolas Ferraro- Cruz

Mark Fisher- Ghosts of My Life

Mark Fisher- Capitalist Realism

Johnathan Franzen- Crossroads

Harry Freedman- Leonard Cohen: The Mystical Roots of Genius

Matti Friedman- Who By Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai

James Gavin- George Michael: A Life

Lizzy Goodman- Meet Me in The Bathroom

Andrew Sean Greer- Less

Dave Grohl- The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music

Joseph Hansen- Troublemaker

Joy Harjo- Poet Warrior

Robert Harris- The Ghost Writer

Noah Hawley- Anthem

Wil Haygood- Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Film in a White World

Clinton Heylin- The Double Life of Bob Dylan

Andrew Holleran- The Kingdom of Sand

Michel Houellebecq- Serotonin

Sean Howe- Marvel Comics: The Untold Story

Dorthy B Hughes- In a Lonely Place

John Irving- The Fourth Hand

Walter Isaacson- Leonardo Da Vinci

Kazuo Ishiguro- Klara and The Sun

Junji Ito- No Longer Human

Robert Jones Jr- The Prophets

Saeed Jones- Alive at The End of the World

Stephen Graham Jones- My Heart is a Chainsaw

Rax King- Tacky

Stephen King- Billy Summers

Katie Kitamura- Intimacies

Chuck Klosterman- The Nineties

TJ Klune- Under The Whispering Door

Karl Ove Knausgaard- The Morning Star

Hideo Kojima- The Creative Dream

Milan Kundera- Slowness

Wally Lamb- I Know This Much is True

Yiyun Li- Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

Thomas Ligotti- The Conspiracy Against The Human Race

Roger Lipsey- Make Peace Before the Sun Goes Down

Patricia Lockwood- No One is Talking About This

Ling Ma- Bliss Montage

Stuart B MacBride- Halfhead

Michael Mann & Meg Gardiner- Heat 2

Greil Marcus- Dead Elvis

Mike McCormack- Solar Bones

Jennette McCurdy- I’m Glad My Mom Died

Janelle Monae- The Memory Librarian

Ottessa Moshfegh- Lapvona

Leila Mottley- Nightcrawling

Alan Moore, Melinda Gebbie- Lost Girls

Grant Morrison- The Invisibles

Mannie Murphy- I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Sequoia Nagamatsu- How High We Go in The Dark

Joyce Carol Oates- Blonde

Joyce Carol Oates- American Melancholy

John O’Connell- Bowie’s Bookshelf

Ryan O’Connell- Just By Looking at Him

Jenny Offill- Weather

Paul Ortiz- An African American and Latinx History of The United States

Hiroko Oyamada- The Factory

Hiroko Oyamada- The Hole

Helen Oyeymi- What is Not Yours is Not Yours

James Patterson- Hear No Evil

Larissa Pham- Pop Song

Brian Phillips- Impossible Owls

Stephanie Phillips- Why Solange Matters

Keith Phipps- Age of Cage

Michael Pollan- This Is Your Mind on Plants

Richard Powers- Bewilderment

Questlove- Music is History

Kristen Radtke- Seek You

Sue Rainsford- Follow Me to Ground

Claudia Rankine- Just Us: An American Conversation

George A Romero, Daniel Kraus- The Living Dead

Karen Russell- Orange World

George Saunders- A Swim in a Pond in The Rain

George Saunders- Liberation Day

Samantha Schweblin— Fever Dream

Leonardo Sciascia- Equal Danger

Mark Seal- Leave The Gun, Take The Cannoli

Seth- Clyde Fans

Alan Sepinwall- Breaking Bad 101

Zadie Smith- Feel Free

Won-Pyung Sohn- Almond

Bob Spitz- Led Zeppelin: The Biography

Elizabeth Strout- Oh William!

J Randy Taraborrelli- The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

Herve Le Tellier- The Anomaly

Manjit Thapp- Feelings

Olga Tokarczuk- The Books of Jacob

Jia Tolentino- Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self Delusion

Leo Trezenick- The Confession of a Mad Man

Stanley Tucci- Taste

Una- Becoming Unbecoming

Ocean Vuong- Time is a Mother

Chris Ware- Rusty Brown

WC Ware- Jimmy Corrigan

John Waters- Liarmouth

Peter Weiss- The Shadow of The Coachman’s Body

Missouri Williams- The Doloriad

Antoine Wilson- Mouth to Mouth

Sarah Winman- Still Life

Laurie Wollever- Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography

Kenneth Womack- Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and The End of The Beatles

Hanya Yanagihara- To Paradise

Ed. Jelani Cobb & David Remnick- The Matter of Black Lives

Ed. Sinead Gleeson & Kim Gordon- This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music

[mthguy]

Songs for a New World is a work of musical theatre written and composed by Jason Robert Brown. This was Jason Robert Brown's first produced show, originally produced Off-Broadway at the WPA Theater in 1995. 

In his analysis of the show, author Scott Miller states, “One of the characters in Songs for a New World says "I don't want to philosophize. I just want to tell a story." And that line describes Songs for a New World perfectly; in fact, it tells a whole collection of stories. It's not a book musical – there is no over-arching plot and no consistent characters throughout the evening. In its construction, it owes much to Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and living in Paris and the theatre experiments of the 1960s. It’s a collection of independent scene-songs but it’s also more than that. In a 1998 review in St. Louis’ Riverfront Times, Mike Isaacson wrote, "Songs for a New World is that very rare beast: an abstract musical. There is no specific location other than the natural ambiguity of the human heart and mind." And yet it has a very strong sense of unity about it. Even though many of these songs were actually written for other projects over the span of several years, this show feels like it was planned as a unified whole from the beginning.”

[allthingsdarkanddirty]

Liz Isaacson’s HIS FIFTH KISS is out now! Check out the sweet contemporary romance and be sure to grab your copy today! 

Amazon: bit.ly/3FttSi7 

~*~

They once had a few summers together. Now, Michael Hammond is back in town after a devastating injury overseas. He's looking to reset and recover...not to fall in love.

Of course Mike looks for and hopes Gertrude Whettstein will be on the farm. She was so much of Ivory Peaks and so important to him when they were teens. He'd once thought they'd take their summer puppy love into adulthood, but life got in the way. Gerty and Mike haven't seen each other for almost fourteen years...until she walks up behind him while he's admiring her horses.

Gerty returns to the safety and security of Pony Power, the Hammond Family Farm, her family, and horses after a devastating split from her fiancé. She's been north and south across the country, working with horses and competing in the rodeo, but Ivory Peaks is where she goes when she needs to heal.

Face-to-face with Mike, the boy she'd once relied on and liked so much, she wonders if they've been brought back together after all this time for a special purpose. Her wounds are all internal, while Mike's are on the outside, but the spark between them as adults is as hot as ever.

Can Gerty and Mike make their second chance romance into a happily-ever-after?

[fuckyeahstephensondheim]

Stephen Sondheim was the recipient of the 2018 St. Louis Literary Award from Saint Louis University, the first lyricist to receive the honor in the history of the award. St. Louis Muny Artistic Director and Executive Producer Mike Isaacson interviewed Sondheim, which was captured by HEC Media.

[stllimelight]

Many St. Louisans Met at The Muny This Summer: Attendance Figures Released

Many St. Louisans Met at The Muny This Summer: Attendance Figures Released

100th Season Included Two Regional World Premieres

The numbers are in: 393,398 people attended the Muny’s Centennial season under the stars at America’s oldest and largest outdoor musical theater.

It is a six percent increase over 2017, and that includes an 11 percent growth in season tickets. Nearly 100,000 guests experienced a Muny production at no cost through The Muny’s free seat and…

[antifainternational]

Cue the music!

[alwpoomau]

[machetelanding]

[ephyjeva]

Things AOD missed

Rupert Pickton

Libby’s sons

more of Laszlo’s relationship with kids and the triumph at making Clara Hatch speak again

Matt Lintz as STEVIE FUCKING TAGGERT I MEAN WHO IS THAT OFF-BRAND REPLACEMENT WITH A LOUSY ACCENT

more Isaacson brothers in general

Libby portrayed as a nightmare to anyone who’s ever crossed paths with her and not as some poor victim of circumstance

Sara Howard being vicious toward John AND I QUOTE Miss Howard took a piece of chalk from the board and flung it at Mr. Moore's head, catching him very nicely between the eyes and making him yelp. "You know, John", she said, "if the Times won't take you back, you can always open a new business kicking injured dogs or knocking the crutches out from under cripples."

Roosevelt saving the day

El Niño aka the most wholesome of all

Mike the freaking ferrett

Joseph (why save him in the first season only to abandon him in this one???)

Ezra, what the fuck was his purpose. Foreshadowing Paulie? Paulie was also supposed to die. Not that I hate the kid or anything, just saying.

and most importantly

where in the fuck

is my girl

KAT

[hannaswritingblog]

Fandoms

→ The ❌ emoji means that as much as I am open to write NSFW fics, I don’t write those for marked fandoms/characters. I may write romantic fics for all characters, but I’ll be cautious with younger ones. → Every fandom has a note about what I can take into consideration. I try to make my fanfics generic enough to fit with all of the fandom universe, but sometimes the ideas go better with different version of the character (book vs movie, season 1 vs 5, different timelines etc.). → I take suggestions for fanfiction (for all listed characters), as well as both character and fandom suggestions. ~ The list will sometimes change. Last update: 29/01/2024.

Current fandoms

Alice in Wonderland

2010 Tim Burton’s movie

Alice Kingsleigh / Tarrant Hightopp / Mirana Crimms / Iracebeth Crimms / Ilosovic Stayne

Animations (Disney/Pixar, Dreamworks, and other) ❌

Anastasia

Anya / Dmitri / Vladimir

Bolt

Penny Forrester

Big Hero 6

Hiro Hamada / Tadashi Hamada / Fred / Go Go / Wasabi / Honey Lemon / aunt Cass

Brave

Merida

Coraline

Coraline / Wybie

Lilo & Stitch

Lilo / Stitch / Nani / David

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Quasimodo / Esmeralda / Phoebus / Clopin

Treasure Planet

Jim Hawkins / John Silver / doctor Doppler / captain Amelia

Back to the Future ❌

first movie of the trilogy

Marty McFly / Emmett Brown / George McFly / Lorraine Baines (McFly)

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

seasons 1-4

Sabrina Spellman / Ambrose Spellman / Zelda Spellman / Hilda Spellman / Nicholas Scratch / Harvey Kinkle / Prudence Blackwood

Gotham

seasons 1-5

Jim Gordon / Harvey Bullock / Bruce Wayne ❌ / Alfred Pennyworth / Selina Kyle ❌ / Ivy Pepper ❌ / Edward Nygma / Oswald Cobblepot / Barbara Kean / Fish Mooney / Lucius Fox / Lee Thompkins / Butch Gilzean / Victor Zsasz / Theo Galavan / Tabitha Galavan / Jervis Tetch / Jonathan Crane / Jerome Valeska / Jeremiah Valeska

Harry Potter ❌

7 books + 8 movies (original series)

Harry Potter / Hermione Granger / Ron Weasley / Fred Weasley / George Weasley / Ginny Weasley / Bill Weasley / Charlie Weasley / Percy Weasley / Lee Jordan / Neville Longbottom / Luna Lovegood / Seamus Finnigan / Dean Thomas / Oliver Wood / Nymphadora Tonks / Remus Lupin / Severus Snape / Sirius Black / James Potter / Lily Evans

Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)

Phase One movies

Tony Stark / Bruce Banner / Thor / Loki / Steve Rogers / James “Bucky” Barnes / Natasha Romanoff / Clint Barton

Once Upon a Time

season 1

Rumplestiltskin (Mr Gold) / Jefferson (The Mad Hatter) / Snow White (Mary Margaret Blanchard) / David Nolan (Prince Charming) / Ruby Lucas

Pirates of the Caribbean

movies 1-3

Jack Sparrow / Hector Barbossa / Joshamee Gibbs / Will Turner / Elizabeth Swann / James Norrington / Cutler Beckett / Davy Jones / Pintel / Ragetti

Stranger Things

seasons 1-4

Mike Wheeler ❌ / Dustin Henderson ❌ / Lucas Sinclair ❌ / Will Byers ❌ / Eleven Hopper ❌ / Max Mayfield ❌ / Nancy Wheeler / Steve Harrington / Jonathan Byers / Joyce Byers / Jim Hopper / Bob Newby / Murray Bauman / Alexei / Robin Buckley / Eddie Munson / Dmitri Antonov / Martin Brenner

The Alienist

season 1

Laszlo Kreizler / John Moore / Sara Howard / Lucius Isaacson / Marcus Isaacson

The Book Thief ❌

the book + the movie

Liesel Meminger / Rudy Steiner / Max Vandenburg

The Chronicles of Narnia ❌

7 books + 3 Disney movies

Peter Pevensie / Susan Pevensie / Edmund Pevensie / Lucy Pevensie / Caspian X

The End Of The F***ing World ❌

seasons 1-2

Alyssa / James

The Hunger Games

book trilogy + the adaptations + the prequel

Katniss Everdeen / Primrose Everdeen ❌ / Peeta Mellark / Haymitch Abernathy / Johanna Mason / Gale Hawthorne / Finnick Odair / Coriolanus Snow ❌

The Rain

seasons 1-3

Simone Andersen / Rasmus Andersen / Martin / Patrick / Jean / Lea / Beatrice

Possible future fandoms

→ fandoms in italics were recommended to me in some way

American Gods

Dark

Fear Street

Fleabag

Lord of the Rings

Peaky Blinders

Shadow and Bone

The Haunting of the Hill House

The Queen’s Gambit

The Witcher

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Hunt The Flame/We Free The Stars

Old fandoms

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Maniac

Ragnarok

The Umbrella Academy

Tribes of Europa

[with-a-martyr-complex]

With A Martyr Complex: Reading List 2020

Adapted from the annual list from @balioc​, a list of books (primarily audiobooks) consumed this year. This list excludes several podcasts, but includes dramatizations and college lecture series from The Great Courses, which I consume like a disgusting fiend. Rereads of things I haven’t read since my youth are marked with an asterisk (*)

1. Strategy: A History by Lawrence Freedman (begun 2019)

2. The Golem and The Jinni by Helene Wecker

3. A World in Disarray by Richard Hass

4. Making the Unipolar Moment: US Foreign Policy and The Rise of the Post-Cold War Order by Hal Brands

5. The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis

6. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

7. The Wise Men: Six Friends and The World They Made by Evan Thomas and  Walter Isaacson

8. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris 

9. The Silence of The Lambs by Thomas Harris

10. So You’ve Been Publically Shamed by Jon Ronson

11. Turning Points in Middle Eastern History by Eamonn Gearon (from The Great Courses)

12. The Soldier and The State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations by Samuel P. Huntington

13. A History of Eastern Europe by Vejas Gabriel Liulevicus

14. Whore Carn(iv)al by Shannon Bell

15. Redeployment by Phil Clay

16. The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146 BC by Adrian Goldsworthy

17. Great World Religions: Judaism by Isaiah M. Gafni  (from The Great Courses)

18. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (Translated by Christine Donougher)

19. Why Honor Matters by Tamler Sommers

20. The Surveillance State: Big Data, Freedom, and You by Paul Rosenzweig (from The Great Courses)

21. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien* (read first 2 stories in High School)

22. Too Like The Lightning by Ada Palmer

23. The Making of The Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes

24. Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer

25. The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order by Sean McFate

26. The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

27. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

28. The Will To Battle by Ada Palmer

29. Genghis Khan and The Making of The Modern World by Jack Weatherford

30. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and The Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein

31. Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980 by Rick Perlstein

32. Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

33. The Renaissance, The Reformation, and The Rise of Nations by Andrew C. Fix  (from The Great Courses)

34. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

35. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

36. What It Is Like To Go To War by Karl Marlantes

37. The Rescuer by Dara Horn

38. Faust: Parts I and II by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Part I translated by Charles T. Brooks, Part II translated by Albert G. Latham)

39. The Machiavellians, defenders of freedom: A doctrine of political truth against wishful thinking by James Burnham

40. Animal Farm by George Orwell

41. The Storm Before The Storm: The Beginning of The End of The Roman Republic by Mike Duncan

42. The Complete Book of Five Rings by Miyomoto Musashi (edited and translated by Kenji Tokitsu) 

43. A History of Russia: From Peter The Great to Gorbachev by Mark Steinberg  (from The Great Courses)

44. Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum

45. If This Isn’t Nice, What is? Advice for The Young by Kurt Vonnegut (assembled by Dan Wakefield)

46. [Redacted]

47. The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

48. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky 

49. The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis

Incomplete (not counting those from the 2019 list):

International Relations: Brief Sixth Edition by Joshua S. Goldstein and Jon C. Pevehouse

Several study guides for various government exams.

--

Great Courses consumed: 5

Non-Great Courses nonfiction consumed: 26

Fiction: 17

Remainder: Don’t ask me to categorize The Things They Carried

--

Works consumed in 2020 by men: 42

Works consumed in 2020 by women: 7

Works consumed in 2019 by both men and women: 0 (1 work of a woman translating a work by a man)

Works that can plausibly be considered of real relevance to Foreign Policy: 13 (including several histories)

--

With A Martyr Complex’s Choice Award, fiction division:  Too Like The Lightning

>>>> Honorable mention: Redeployment, [Redacted], The Golem and The Jinni

With A Martyr Complex’s Choice Award, nonfiction division: Nixonland: The Rise of a President and The Fracturing of America

>>>> Honorable mention: The Fifth Risk

>>>> Great Courses Division:  A History of Russia: From Peter The Great to Gorbachev

The Annual “An Essential Work of Surpassing Beauty that Isn’t Fair to Compare To Everything Else” Award: Les Miserables (but just the good parts)

>>>> Honorable mention: Mother Night

The “Reading This Book Will Give You Great Insight Into The Way I See The World” Award:  What It Is Like To Go To War

>>>> Honorable mention: The Fifth Risk

The “I’m Sorry That The Acknowledgements Page of Your Book Was Better Than The Book Itself, Because Your Book Was Quite Good” Award: Seven Surrenders

The “Nice Try At Stabbing Me, But I’ve Grown As A Person and You Are Only Dealing Glancing Blows” Award: Notes from Underground

The “Please Stop Talking About Internecine Drama Between Obscure Feminist Organizations of the 1980s and 90s and Go Back To The Really Insightful Stuff” Award: Whore Carn(iv)al

The “I Need To Go Through This In a Different Format and with a Different Translation Because this Did Not Work for Me” award: Faust: Parts I and II (especially part I)

--

I originally thought I’d hit 50, but my math was off by one. I think all of us can agree that this was a disruptive year. A lack of work messed with my reading a good deal. I hit quite a few things that have been on my list for a while, used these books to both get a boyfriend and a fandom, and used a lot of these during many bouts of exercise. 

My foreign policy focus for the year strayed after the first few months, but a focus on history kept being useful and relevant. 

Goals for 2021: Actually hit 52, more books on the nature of war, more philosophy.

[rose30890-blog]

Official Pogue life shirt

I got Sarah but this high key made me want an Official Pogue life shirt, Courtney Mulley. Well, they aren’t called Crusty-bois for anything. Does that also mean cucumber sandwiches for new LT’s? Kenneth, I’ll have ham, cheese, lettuce, and mayo. Make sure you cut it in half for me too. Actually think I still owe an Official Pogue life shirt to the crusty pricks. Ray Musgrove, I don’t remember seeing this ever happen. Mike Mclean just like I use to when you were a little baby. Haven’t changed hey? And honestly, the favorite Official Pogue life shirt was the hardest decision I have had to make. Amber Isaacson just got JJ. most would be concerned, I am honored. Alicia Hack Brockway, I got ki when I was aiming to get JJ. it’s rigged. Alicia Hack Brockway not a cool man but still least season 2 is confirmed!!

Buy this shirt: Official Pogue life shirt

Home: https://outfitshirt.com

[nicolesrollins]

T. Rowe Price's investment in WeWork is their fault: Walter Isaacson

CNBC's "Closing Bell" team discusses the problems plaguing WeWork with Walter Isaacson, advisory partner at Perella Weinberg and CNBC contributor, and Mike Isaac, technology reporter with The New York Times. from Real Estate https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/02/14/t-rowe-prices-investment-in-wework-is-their-fault-walter-isaacson.html via IFTTT