#belasco buy out

[friendlessghoul]

Do you happen to know if there is a film that Buster made that he didn't liked?

When it came to his silents he didn't exactly hate any of them, but there were times he didn't like the source material he was forced to use (Seven Chances), or something didn't turn out the way he wanted (Go West).

Seven Chances he did not want to make. "[It] was not a good story for me," Keaton explained. "That was bought by someone and sold to Joe Schenck with out us knowin' it. As a rule, Schenck never knew when I was shootin' or what I was shootin'. He just went to the preview. But somebody sold him this show that was done by Belasco a few years before... And he buys this thing for me and it's no good for me at all" - A Filmmakers Life pg 265 When filming ended he thought it was "fair"

With Go West - Keaton always struggled with Go West, and in later years tended to distance himself from it. "Some parts I like," he allowed in 1958, "but as a picture, in general, I didn't care for it." He always looked upon the roundup with disappointment - A Filmmakers Life pg.281

Talkies is a whole different thing. I don't think he really liked any of them. (aside from maybe Doughboys (though he did watch it and thought it wouldn't do well) and possibly Parlor Bedroom and Bath even though it was a farce)

Free and Easy -

Keaton never said publicly what he thought of free and easy-not at the time, not later. He seemed, in fact, to avoid talking to the press. - A Filmmakers Life pg. 390 Sidewalks of New York - "I knew before the camera turned on the first scene that we had the perfect foundation for a stinker," Keaton said. "And by now I couldn't tell anyone anything." A Filmmakers Life pg 412 What-No Beer? - Keaton thought the script awful, a "one hundred percent turkey." pg.434

Also Buster on Durante, who he had to do 3 films with - "Durante just can't keep quiet," Buster complained. "He's going to talk no matter what in the thunder happens. You can't direct him any other way." Pg.419 I'm sure there's probably more information on others but those are the ones that come to mind. Thank you for the ask!

[xplainthexmen]

In which we recommend against having a birthday in the Marvel Universe; Shinobi Shaw was a proto-Quentin Quire; Lee Forrester returns under the best possible circumstances; Bloodscream lives his best unlife; Belasco is apparently master of the cat people now; and a former Marvel intern returns to solve a mystery.

X-PLAINED:

Bloodscream (again)

X-Force/Cable Annual 1995

Spider-Man Team-Up #1

X-Men Unlimited #9

The Impossible Man (and his slacker kids)

The Clone Saga

Benedict Kine

A really superlative insult

The continuity box

Still more Bloodscream

30-50 feral hogs

GHOST PIRACY

Belasco (more)(again)

The N’garai (more) (again)

A follow-up to a mystery from Episode #323

NEXT EPISODE: X-Factor vs. the Adversary

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

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Buy rad swag at our TeePublic shop!

Illustration by @davidwynne! Wanna buy the original? Drop David a line.

[papermoonloveslucy]

LIZ BECOMES A SCULPTRESS

October 7, 1950

“Liz Becomes a Sculptress” (aka “Liz the Sculptress” aka “Liz Turns Sculptress”) is episode #100 [some sources say #99] of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on October 7, 1950.

This was the fifth episode of the third season of MY FAVORITE HUSBAND. There were 31 new episodes, with the season ending on March 31, 1951.  

This program was the basis for “I Love Lucy” episode titled "Lucy Becomes a Sculptress" (ILL S2;E15), first aired on January 15, 1953.

Synopsis ~ Liz decides that she needs a hobby, and the proprietor of the local arts and crafts store convinces her she's a natural artistic genius when it comes to sculpting clay.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury / Miss Crawford) was considered the front-runner to be cast as Ethel Mertz but when “I Love Lucy” was ready to start production she was already playing a similar role on TV’s “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” so Vivian Vance was cast instead. On “I Love Lucy” she was cast as Lucy Ricardo’s spinster neighbor, Miss Lewis, in “Lucy Plays Cupid” (ILL S1;E15) in early 1952. Later, she was a success in her own show, “Petticoat Junction” as Shady Rest Hotel proprietress Kate Bradley. She starred in the series until her death in 1968.

It is not unusual for radio performers to double up on voices, especially if they have very little to do as their principal character. Iris only has a brief phone chat with Liz before Miss Crawford’s entrance. It would not make sense to hire another actress for the role when Benadaret was under contract. 

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph Atterbury) and Ruth Perrott (Katie the Maid) do not appear in this episode. 

GUEST CAST

Hans Conried (Carl, Art Store Owner) first co-starred with Lucille Ball in The Big Street (1942). He then appeared on “I Love Lucy” as used furniture man Dan Jenkins in “Redecorating” (ILL S2;E8) and later that same season as Percy Livermore in “Lucy Hires an English Tutor” (ILL S2;E13) – both in 1952. The following year he began an association with Disney by voicing Captain Hook in Peter Pan. On “The Lucy Show” he played Professor Gitterman in “Lucy’s Barbershop Quartet” (TLS S1;E19) and in “Lucy Plays Cleopatra” (TLS S2;E1). He was probably best known as Uncle Tonoose on “Make Room for Daddy” starring Danny Thomas, which was filmed on the Desilu lot. He joined Thomas on a season 6 episode of “Here’s Lucy” in 1973. He died in 1982 at age 64.

The Professor (aka Sam) and Muscles Malcolm the model are played by uncredited performers. 

THE EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on 321 Bundy Drive, Sheridan Falls, it's late afternoon. Liz is just arriving home from her club meeting, and is met at the door by George.” 

Liz has had a very educational day at the club today. They had a lecture on older people and how they can be kept happy and useful, but as Liz has no hobbies, the lecturer pointed out that she's on a slippery slope to being lonely and unhappy when she gets older. So she's going to get a hobby!

On “I Love Lucy,” the motivation for Lucy Ricardo to take up art as a hobby is so that her baby will be born into a cultured household. Lucy shows Ricky a portrait of her great-grandfather (above), who she says was was a great artist. In reality, this is a photo of writer Bob Carroll Jr., who co-wrote both the radio and television scripts!

After some conversation about who will pre-decease whom (and whether they will re-marry), Liz vows to go down to the art store first thing in the morning to get a hobby.

Liz enters Carl’s Arts and Crafts shop and is welcomed by Carl. 

CARL: “I have all media. What do you usually like to work in?” LIZ: “Oh, just an old housedress.”

On TV, Lucy is confused by the term ‘media’ and likes to work in ‘an old smock.’ On TV the art store clerk will be played by Russian-born Leon Belasco (right) who had done three movies with Lucille Ball between 1939 and 1944. William Abbott, the shop owner, is played by Shepard Menken.  

Liz flirts with the idea of finger painting. After all, she already has fingers!

LIZ: “Are these the right kind of fingers?” CARL: “You can start with those. Later on I’ll sell you some better ones.”

Instead, Carl convinces Liz to try sculpting with their in store clay display. Carl suddenly is taken aback by her handling of the clay!  It becomes apparent to the listener that Carl is more salesman that art lover. He gushes over her primative squeezings.

CARL: "All the world is waiting for a squeezer like you!” 

Carl calls over an art critic (whom he calls “the Professor”) who just happens to be browsing in the shop. They both fawn over her lump of clay, even falling to their knees in admiration. Liz is convinced to spend $25 on clay and leaves the shop feeling she is destined for greatness.  Once she is gone, the men drop their pretense and we learn that “The Professor” is really a clerk named Sam.

CARL: “The next aspiring artist to come in I get to be the Professor. You have all the fun!”   

The idea of a convincing a customer to make a purchase by staging a deceptive scenario will also be used on in “The Girls Go Into Business” (ILL S3;E2) in which dress shop owner Mrs. Hansen (Mabel Paige) tries to convince Lucy and Ethel her shop does a booming business by recruiting two ‘shoppers’ (Kay Wiley and Barbara Pepper) to buy lots of merchandise while Lucy and Ethel look on in amazement. The scam works and Lucy and Ethel buy the store. 

George comes home from work to find Liz has set up an art studio in his den. To George’s surprise Liz is wearing an artist’s smock and a tam. 

LIZ / LUCY: “This is the official outfit of all us sculptressessss.” GEORGE / RICKY: “All us whatressesessss?”

Liz proudly shows off her latest work to George, who teases her about not knowing exactly what it is. Finally, he says it is a bunch of grapes and Liz bursts into tears. She’s sculpted a man’s head! 

On TV, Ricky guesses Lucy’s first sculpture is supposed to be a boy and his dog or a girl and her dog but Lucy says it is a child at its mother’s knee.  Ethel guesses it is the nose on somebody’s face.   

After Bob LeMond does a commercial for Jell-O (”You can turn out a work of art with Jell-O!”), the story resumes with Liz sobbing and George comforting her. Liz says she’d do much better if she could hire a model. George volunteers as her model but Liz quickly rejects him. George asks why.

LIZ: “Your muscles. They’re all in your coat.”

George takes off his coat and shit to prove he has what it takes to model.

LIZ: “Well! Gypsy Rose Cooper!”

Liz is referring to the famous strip tease artist and burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee (born Rose Louise Hovick, 1911–1970), whose life was the inspiration for the Broadway musical and film Gypsy in 1959. Above, Gypsy Rose Lee visited the set of “I Love Lucy” during the filming of “Hollywood Anniversary” in February 1955. 

Liz unfavorably compares George’s physique to the Discus Thrower, a Greek sculpture completed at the start of the Classical Period, depicting a youthful athlete throwing discus, circa 460–450 BC. Liz measures George’s ‘bicups’ (biceps) but they fall short.  

On “I Love Lucy,” Ricky avoids being a model, but Fred is recruited to pose as the Discus Thrower - and throws his back out in the process! 

George scolds Liz for spending so much money on her ‘hobby’ - $50, which is equal to more than $500 in today’s economy. George demands she return everything to the art store and Liz bursts into tears again. 

The next day, Liz telephones Iris to tell her that she has hired a model anyway.  The doorbell rings and it is ‘Muscles Malcolm’ from the modeling agency. To Liz’s surprise he wants to pose ‘au naturel’ but Liz convinces him to wear a tiger skin. 

George comes home early from dinner so Liz quickly stashes Malcolm in the closet. George sees Malcolm’s street clothes.  Liz tries to convince him that they are his clothes!  Malcolm suddenly sneezes from inside the closet. 

LIZ (quickly): “I didn’t hear anything. Nobody sneezed!”  GEORGE (suspicious): “I didn’t say anyone did.” 

In “The Saxophone” (ILL S2;E2), Ricky stashes a handsome man in the closet to turn the tables on Lucy. Writer Madelyn Pugh remembers: "For some reason, Bob [Carrol Jr.] and I liked the idea of people hiding in a closet. We used it in this show, and in a couple of other 'Lucys.’ We even used it in the pilot of 'The Mothers-in-Law’ fifteen years later – and it always got a laugh!”

The jig is up and Malcolm emerges from the closet. Surprisingly, George is not mad at all.  He leaves the house calmly, but Liz smells a rat.  

George returns with a giggly girl named Miss Crawford (also Bea Benadaret). George is going to take up painting and Miss Crawford is his model. 

MISS CRAWFORD: “Do you want me to pose draped or undraped?  I usually pose undraped.” LIZ: “Draped. You’ve got a bad enough cold already.”

NOTE: This line gets the biggest audience reaction of the entire episode, perhaps because of the intimation of nudity or because Bea Benadaret’s voice sounds very scratchy. Perhaps the audience knows that she is under the weather and feels in on the joke?  

In the live Jell-O commercial, Lucille Ball, in a seductive voice, tells Bob LeMond claims she always wanted to be...a ballet dancer!  Instead, Ball switches to her “Professor” voice; a deep, husky, and blunt tone. 

LUCILLE BALL: “I ain’t gonna do the Jell-O jiggle. I had an accident. I had on my new shoes; they’re kinda sharp. I spun six times. Once for strawberry like this. Once for raspberry like this. Once for cherry, like so. And once for orange, lemon and lime, like this. Darn that Jell-O jiggle, I dun it again. I dug myself right into the ground!” 

ANNOUNCER: “Lucille Ball can currently be seen in Columbia’s laugh-fest ‘The Fuller Brush Girl’.  Watch for it when it comes to your city.”

A recorded commercial for Instant Sanka coffee and the Jell-O jingle ends the broadcast. 

FAST FORWARD!

The television version of this script ends very differently. Lucy tries to pass off her own head as an example of her art work. Ricky invites an important art critic to assess it, and he attempts to buy Lucy’s head and take it with him!  The highly visual ending, with Lucille Ball’s head stuck through a table and covered with clay, works much better than the radio conclusion. 

This isn’t the last time Lucy had a brush (pun intended) with the visual arts. 

In “Lucy Goes To Art Class” (TLS S2;E15) in 1964, Lucy Carmichael also visited an art store and took a drawing to meet an eligible bachelor (Robert Alda).  

In “Lucy and Uncle Harry’s Pot” (HL S5;E21) in 1973, Lucy Carter took up pottery in order to recreate a vase she’s broken which had sentimental value to Harry. 

[dukereviewsxtra]

Duke Reviews Xtra: A Kid In King Arthur's Court

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Xtra Where We Continue Our Look At Disney...

And Last Sunday, I Reviewed The Sword And The Stone, So, Since There's No Direct To DVD Sequel Or Remake To This...Yet..., I'm Reviewing The Only Other King Arthur Film Made By Disney That Wasn't Made By Jerry Bruckheimer, A Kid In King Arthur's Court...

This Film Sees Merlin's Ghost Sending A Dude From The 90's To Camelot To Save It From King Arthur's Evil Advisor Who Wants To Marry Rose From Titanic...

And Believe Me When I Say Billy Zane Was The Better Suitor Compared To This Guy...

Will Calvin Be Able To Save Camelot And Get Arthur Back To His Heroic Self?

Let's Find Out As We Watch A Kid In King Arthur's Court..

The Film Starts With Merlin's Ghost (Played By Fagin From Oliver) Summoning A Great Knight Which Is When We Cut To The 90's Where We Meet Calvin Fuller, A Nerdy Young Boy Who Plays For A Baseball Team Called The Knights...

But As We See He's Not Quite The Best Player On The Team...

However, An Earthquake Happens Causing Calvin To Fall Down...

(Singing)

Down...

Deep Below...

To The Late...1800s....

Landing On A Black Knight, Calvin Scares Him Off And Gives Back The Money The Guy Stole To Some Of Arthur's Knights As He Runs...

Arthur (Played By DeNomolos From Bill And Ted's Bogus Journey) Wishes To Thank The Boy So He Sends The Knights To Find Him, Eventually Finding Calvin In The City They Bring Him Before Arthur And His 2 Daughters, Katie And Sarah (Played By Winslet)...

Who Invite Him To Have Dinner With Them, But Arthur's Aide (And Our Villain For This Movie) Lord Belasco Believes Calvin To Be In League With The Black Knight, So Giving Calvin A Chance To Defend His Honor By Combat...

But While Belasco Chooses A Sword, Calvin (Realizing He's Not Good With Weapons) Uses The Only Thing He Does Like, Rock And Roll And Wins...

Dubing Him Calvin Fuller Of Reseda, He Discovers The Round Table Is Non Existant As Sarah Asks Her Father To Let Sir Kane (Played By James Bond)...

Which One?

Daniel Craig

Oh...

Train Calvin In Fighting, And He Agrees, And Let's Calvin Stay In Their Castle...

But He Doesn't Exactly Get Any Rest As When He Goes Exploring The Castle, Belasco Nearly Kills Him, So He Practices His Karate Only To Catch Arthur's Daughter, Katie Watching Him...

They Get To Know Each Other Through A Bunch Of Exposition...

Before Katie Takes Calvin To Merlin's Quarters In An Effort To Get Him Home...

Hearing A Noise, Katie Leaves With Calvin And Has Him Escort Her Back To Her Room, But He Returns To Merlin's Quarters Afterwards And Merlin's Ghost, Who Believes He's Made A Mistake When He Looks At Calvin..

But Realizing That He's The Knight He Summoned, He Tells Him That Arthur Is In Trouble With His Kingdom Being Shattered By The Fist Of Lord Belasco, Who Intends To Steal Camelot From Arthur And It's Now Up To Calvin To Stop Him...

I Bet He Wishes He Was Obi Wan Kenobi...

With Calvin Believing Merlin Has The Wrong Person, Merlin Makes A Deal With Him That If He Helps Arthur He'll Send Him Home...

The Next Morning, Calvin Begins Training With Sir Kane By Starting Out With Attacking On Horseback, (Where He Throws An Axe Out Of A Window) Before Moving On To Archery Where...

Well, Let's Just Say Calvin Won't Be As Good As Oliver Queen Any Time Soon...

Meanwhile, Lord Belasco Talks With Sarah To Try To Seduce Her In An Effort To Drop The Tournament And Marry Him, But Sarah Refuses, Stating That The Tournament Will Decide For Her...

Visiting A Blacksmith, Calvin Asks If He Can Make Him A Pair Of Roller Skates For Katie, And In Doing So, She Absolutely Loves Them...

Meanwhile At The New "Round Table" Belasco Talks With Arthur To Make Him Cancel The Tournament And Let Sarah Be His Wife, As Katie And Calvin Arrive To His Displeasure...

Later At Training With Kane And Katie, They Are Interrupted By Belasco Who Is Tired Of Calvin And Decides To Fight Him Again, But When Calvin Is Basically Beat, He Kicks Belasco In The Jewels...

Giving Him A Grand Supper For Winning, Calvin Says Fine As Long As He Does The Cooking...

Yeah, Even I Admit That Pork Head Can Get Tiring After A While..

So, He Makes Them 2 Big Macs...

Meanwhile, In The Throne Room, The King Tells Katie That She Will Marry Lord Belasco, However Sarah Is Determined To Let The Tournament Decide But The Next Day It Is Revealed That Katie Is In Love With Sir Kane...

I Don't See James Bond As Your Type, Sarah, But I Can Suggest An Artist Named Dawson For You...

With Katie And Calvin Seeing The Entire Thing, She Makes Calvin Swear Not To Say A Word To Anyone On Her Honor...

With Kane Believing That Calvin Is Ready To Joust, Calvin Isn't So Sure, So He Places Super Glue? On His Saddle And When He Hits The Target, The Saddle Falls Off The Horse...

Katie Goes To Check Calvin Who Looks Injured Only For Calvin To Slip Her A Kiss, To Her Displeasure...

Realizing He Might Have Made Katie Mad...

No, Really?

Calvin Visits The Blacksmith Again, Only This Time Calvin Wants Him To Make A Bike For Katie...

While Katie Talks With Sarah Who Figures Out That She's In Love With Calvin Even Though She Doesn't Realize It...

(Start At 9:52, End At 10:33)

Really, Man, They're Sisters! Get A Grip!

Anyway, The Next Day, After Calvin Teaches Arthur How To Eat Bubble Gum, He Tells Belasco That The Tournament Is Still On And That If He Wants To Win Her He Must Do It There, But Not Wanting To, He Moves To Plan B...

But Before I Go On To That, Let's Check On Calvin And Katie...

Seeing Calvin In The Garden, He Gives Her The Bike So They Can Go On A Picnic Together...

On Their Way Back To The Castle Calvin And Katie Discover That The Black Knight Is Actually One Of The Good Guys, When He Gives The Townspeople A Cart Filled With Food...

Taking Katie Back To Her Room, We Meet Belasco's Plan B: Kidnap Katie As A Barter For Sarah To Marry Him...

After Telling Sarah About Katie, Belasco Visits Calvin And Frames Him For Kidnapping Katie (Oh, Sorry Murder), But When Calvin Gets Away, He Runs Into Sarah Who Tells Him What Happened To Katie And What Belasco Wants...

Eventually Going To Arthur's Chambers, Calvin Tells Him Everything But He Still Believes That Belasco Wouldn't Hurt A Fly However, When Calvin Shows Arthur Something That Sarah Gave Him, He Buys The Story And Protects Calvin From Belasco...

Escaping With Calvin Into The City, They Go Undercover, As Arthur Discovers That He's Not As Loved Throughout The Kingdom As He Thought As Belasco Has Been Stealing From Them For Years...

Vowing To Be A Better King, Arthur And Calvin Go To Save Katie From Belasco's Dungeon, But Before Going In Calvin Renews Arthur's Will To Fight By Giving Him Excalibur (Which Was Given To Him By Merlin)

However, When They Release Katie, She Gets Kidnapped Again By Belasco's Second In Command And Is Held Hostage Over A Moat, This Leads Calvin To Use The Laser On His CD Player To Blind The Guard And Cause Him To Fall To His Death...

Now, I Hate To Say This But I Got To Agree With The Nostalgia Critic When He Said That A Laser On A CD Player Doesn't Work Like That...

Escaping The Castle, Arthur Knights Calvin As A Knight Of The Round Table, Before Returning To The Castle And..,Letting Belasco Go?

Yeah, Even I Kind Of Think Letting Him Is Kind Of Stupid...

However, Arthur Has A Point, With The Guards Loyal To Belasco And The People Believing Arthur To Be An Idiot, The Best Thing To Do Is To Bide Their Time So When The Time Is Right They Can Nail Him...

Later At The Tournament, Arthur Makes A Speech That He Never Betray His People Again And Declares That The Tournament Shall Be Open To All Free Men (Mainly So Kane Can Enter The Competition)...

Defeating Every Opponent That Comes His Way, Kane Ends Up Facing Off Against Belasco In The Final Battle, But Using The Crystal On His Armor, Belasco Blinds Kane And Knocks Him Out...

But Seeing How Kane Did Not Fall Off His Horse, He Is Still In The Competition, However, When Kane Returns The Joust Continues....

But Everyone Soon Gets A Scare, When Belasco Hits Kane In The Head And Discovers He Has No Head...

Well, How's He Going To Have His Vodka Martini Now?

With A Now Headless Kane Continuing, He Ends Up Winning And Knocking Belasco Off Of His Horse...

Which Leads To It Being Revealed That It Wasn't Kane, But Calvin All Along. Pissed Off At His Defeat, Belasco Attempts To Kill Calvin, But Luckily, Calvin Is Saved By The Black Knight Who Is Revealed To Have Been Sarah This Whole Time..

So, With Calvin Forfeiting His Victory To Sarah, Arthur Grants Her The Right To Choose Whoever She Wants To Marry And Banishes Belasco From His Kingdom Forever As Merlin Keeps His Word And Sends Calvin Back To His Time, Saying Farewell To Arthur And Katie..

Arriving Before The Earthquake, Calvin Goes Up To The Plate And Hits A Home Run. Arriving Back On Home Plate, He Is Greeted By His Teammates, Including A Girl Who Looks Like Katie, As A Spectator Who Looks Like Arthur Watches In The Crowd As Our Movie Ends..,

And That's A Kid In King Arthur's Court, And While It Does Have It's Stupid Moments, It Is A Decent Movie...

The Story Is Good, The Comedy Can Be Funny At Times, And I Liked The Fighting Scenes In It, So, Yeah, I'm Going To Say See It...

Tune In To Duke Reviews Next Week As We Look At The Jungle Book, But Then, This Is Duke, Signing Off...

[djinmer4]

Bargain (Evil Belasco AU)

The walls blurred around her and when she’d recovered, Kitty found herself in the throne room of Limbo.  She didn’t know why Belasco wanted her here, but she had no intention of taking part in any of his sick games.  But before she could slip away, a clawed hand clamped down on her shoulder and steered her to the dais.  “Another rescue party has come for you.  I thought you might want a chance to see them-”

“-before you dispose of them,” Kitty finished.  Despite her intent, she turned around to face her own personal demon.  Belasco’s smile was as terrifying as ever, despite the lack of exposed fangs.  Shuddering, she turned to look at the four figures cowering in front of them.  Looking them over, she frowned.  “I don’t recognize any of these people.”

“I’d be very surprised if you had.  They’re a bit after your time.”  One red hand casually swept over the four.  “These are the S-Men.”

“S-Men?”

“Scott’s little,” The smile twisted into a sneer.  “rookie group of X-Men replacements.”  He used the blade of his tail to point out each one.  “Dogface, Tower, Mermaid, and Double-Header.  Oh, but there’s one missing.  Where is Charmer?”  When none of them answered, he made another swift pass of his hand and Mermaid started to choke on thin air.

Dogface immediately started speaking.  “She called this venture a waste of time and refused to participate.”

Kitty interjected at this point.  “Why are they even here?  Everyone knows what you did to the first group of rescuers; Scott would never have approved of a suicide mission like this.”

“Oh, I highly doubt any of these children have permission to be here.  No, I think they’ve heard one too many tales from the Czar about the time the X-Men went and bearded the dread Belasco in his own den, and they thought they’d have a chance to prove themselves to Scott.”  The ruler of Limbo released her and settled on his throne.  The four S-Men (really Scott?) were magically restrained.  Stone tentacles reached out from the walls and wrapped around  Double-Header, pulling so hard around their throats the two whimpered in pain.  Silver wire appeared out of thin air, binding Dogface’s hands, feet, and muzzle, digging into his skin.  Mermaid started gasping again like the air had turned thin and poisonous for her.  And finally, Tower swayed and collapsed on the ground, shaking the entire castle.  “Fortunately for them, I’m in a generous mood.  I’m going to give you, Liebling, a chance to buy their freedom.”

Kitty quickly got to her knees in front of the throne.  She knew better than to think the Demon Lord would be satisfied by a walk around the castle this time.  As she settled back on her heels, she flashbacked to the first time she had done this, ironically with the exact same person, under nearly the same circumstances.  Leaning forward, she placed her hands on his knees, bracing herself and preventing him from choking her this time.  Kitty angled her head and swallowed him down as deep as she could but still couldn’t take all of him in.  Belasco shuddered and she pulled back, letting her tongue dance around the head.  Displeased, he grabbed the back of her head with his hand, pushing her down as far as she could stand, stopping just before her gag reflex kicked in.  Kitty intensified her efforts, starting a tuneless hum that shot electricity through her tormentor and when he softened his grip on her head, she moved her right hand away from his thigh and down to fondle his sac and then slipped to his perineum.  Belasco’s grip tightened again, this time pulling her off his cock just in time for him to drench her face and chest with his semen.  She cringed back, barely closing her eyes in time.  “That’s one life,” he panted.  “How do you plan to buy the rest of them free?”

She didn’t bother to answer him verbally, standing up and hiking her dress up.  But before she could settle on his lap, he gripped her by her waist, spinning her around and ripping the skirt off the dress with his claws.  “Oh no, meine leibe.  They are going to look you in the eye and see the price paid for their recklessness.”  Indeed, Dogface was visibly straining to turn his head away and Double-Header seemed to try to close his eyes, but except for Tower, who was unconscious, all of the S-Men were focused on her.  At least he allowed Kitty to close her own eyes, perhaps with some effort, she could pretend they weren’t there.  As Belasco’s cock slid in, something soft yet sharp pressed against the seam of her mouth.  “Don’t bite or I’ll retract my offer of letting them go free.”  Her lips parted and she suckled on the spade of his tail, focusing on not cutting herself on the edge.

Belasco kept his hand on her head, petting her hair and stroking her ears, occasionally slipping down to caress her neck.  Despite herself, Kitty started getting aroused, and the wet noise of their coupling informed the captive audience of that fact.  His thrusts sped up and then finally he came, flooding her cunt with hot cum and tipping her over the edge into orgasm.  She screamed and her walls convulsed, milking him for everything he would give her.  Even as she recovered, he whispered in her ear, “That’s two.  Two more to go.”

Unable to relax, she concentrated on the feeling of his cock inside her.  She clenched down rhythmically, amplifying the aftershocks of her orgasm.  Belasco’s cock barely softened from the previous coitus, began to harden again.  She reached up behind her and guided his hand towards her still covered breasts; then he took the lead by slicing what was left of her dress to pieces with his tail.  The lack of a hand proved no hindrance as he teased her previously neglected breasts.  Still sensitive from her first orgasm, it took very little time before she was coming again, dragging him with her.

This second orgasm left her reeling, legs like jelly and vision blurred.  This time Belasco pulled out of her, supporting her weight easily with one arm.  “Exhausted already?  Too bad, I guess one of you,” he addressed his remarks to the S-Men.  “Will be a permanent guest in Limbo.”  Yellow eyes scanned the four rookies.  “Now who shall I pick?  The animal?  The freak?  Or the one who was rude enough to ignore our negotiations?”  Even as he said that though the restraints loosened on the three men Mermaid started turning red again, her panting breaths turning into wheezy gasps for air.

Kitty didn’t think she could take another round, but there was one thing they hadn’t tried yet, and she knew how much Belasco loved ‘corrupting’ her.  She lifted herself up on shaking arms, leaned back just a little, then let gravity (or whatever Limbo’s equivalent was) pull her down so that he penetrated her ass this time.

It hurt.  It hurt a lot.  Despite the fact she was nearly boneless from the two previous orgasms, despite the fact he was still a little soft and covered in both their juices, the lack of preparation meant she felt like an iron poker had just been rammed into her.  Unlike the previous times, this was not going to be pleasant for her and the best she could hope for is that she hadn’t injured herself too badly.  But the groan Belasco let out, and the way his hips thrust up, hilting himself within her body showed her she had made the correct choice.

She had no leverage in this position, and Belasco took full advantage of it, bouncing her on his lap and fucking her raw.  Kitty gritted her teeth and endured the burn hoping the novelty of the situation would have him cumming quickly.  She did slide one hand down between her legs, to massage his balls in hopes of speeding up the process.   Thankfully, this time he wasn’t inclined to prolong the experience, Belasco soon tensed then released a flood of boiling cum within her ass, adding an acid sting to the friction burn she was experiencing.  Finally satisfied, he withdrew from her body and Kitty slipped to the floor, semen dripping from her used holes.

“Well done.”  Despite what had just happened, Belasco’s tone remained imposing and authoritarian.  He chuckled as he looked down at all of them, the S-Men and her.  “I look forward to future negotiations with you, Muschi.”

[kurtty-drabbles]

Swan au (intimidation)

N/A: The animals are very bitter at Kitty, she´s clearly Evil Wizard Kurt´s favourite. As for their relationship baby steps.

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @discordsworld

The sound of children gushing at the circus´s attraction is actually the only sound to be heard if someone really pays attention, as parents indulge in their kids' imagination. A nice woman with curly hair and a kind smile(and a graceful way of speaking and move resembling the most beautiful swan) captivate the hearts and minds of everyone who enters in the circus.

"Lady, Lady," one of the kids asked free from their parent´s supervision "you´re very pretty, like a swan" the kids replied in unison.

"Oh, that´s cute, would you said I´m the most beautiful swan ?" the kids' nods and the woman identified herself as Kitty smiles pleased and gave two tickets, for free, to the kids, but make them swear to not spread this little fact to anyone else.

She can´t give free tickets. That´s not the job of a ticket office. The kids' solemn swear. Happily to being able to see more of the circus.

Once the kids are out of her view, lost in the crow of people gushing and talking excitedly about the attraction of the moment, so much, that no one seems to noticed a blue fur little creature bamfing next to her. Playing with her free lock of hair absently to the world.

"Hello, little one, " Kitty replied using her middle finger to caress his fur and chubby belly. "Does Kurt has all he needs?" the creature nods affirming her question and Kitty let a lazy smile reaches her face, her job is done now, "So, if your part of the job is over, do want to come with me to the city? I want to buy more milk and ...I´ve seen enough of the main attraction, what do you say?" the little creature readily agrees to jump in her shoulder. As Kitty is leaving the circus she can hear the screamings. _____________________________ Kitty returns later with milk and the bamf as Kurt explains, in such tender and soft way, what really happened. Kitty nods and pipes a few questions here and there as Kurt does answers honestly. A pair of eyes look at the scene with anything but fondness for this new guest.

Their names hardly matter now, but, they go for what they used to be. A wolf, a snake, an owl and a possum. All caught Kurt´s attention in a way or another and they must all obey and live with their consequences.

Yet, Kitty is treated so gently and kind. Offering free tickets? She can do it with no repercussion. Kitty can take as many days offs she pleased, she can win presents too.

The snake remembers oh so vividly the time Kitty´s feet were burned because of the inane creature didn´t comprehend that some places have an amount of heat which can burn the skin of her feet. Kurt was tender and kinder with HER. The snake did have to improve once she experiments with the burning sensation.

Wolf, Snake, Owl and possum know Kitty is a Swan, never was a secret from the circus, but, is a secret why Kurt cares so much for this little Swan. A free Swan chooses to be here.

"Who does she think she is?" Snake replied letting her tongue be the only indication she is not fully human. Wolf eyes the Swan as now she is walking side by side with Kurt and his minions.

"A swan needs to know this is not a place for her kind" the word was spoken with utter disdain as his cup is being filled by the possum.  The owl decides to throw her two cents as well.

"If the master favour her, then, it would be best to let it go, if he gets tired of her...she´ll get the same fate as the others, for the time being, let us not make any hasty decision as this will backfire for us" the owl lift her cup as possum pour more beverage for the owl. The group as an odd dynamic, Possum is more of a servant than a true member of the group, yet, they still let the creature roams in their territory and sometimes offer protection. The keyword here: sometimes.

"You´re a symbol of wisdom, Owl, how come you ended up in this situation?" mock the snake lifting her cup to the possum to fill again, "I said ...it won´t hurt to just introduce ourselves to the new girl" the snake now drinks her beverage pleased with herself.

Wolf take the lead role as speaks with a final tone in his voice "yes, Snake is right, let´s have a chat with the Swan"

Possum is the only one who didn´t contribute to the conversation.

_____________________________ One day, Kurt informs Kitty he needs to go to the city to gather more supplies for the living a few materials for his....plans. Kitty nods and bides him farewell, she spends part of her time helping the human(a small percentage on the circus) and gets to know them a little better.

Once their chore is over. Kitty is walking by the tents used for the attractions. Her elegant fingers touch the fabric of the tent, the red with yellow lines, gingerly. The fabric seems so soft but at the same time, it feels impossible to rip.

Of course, Kitty realized that she´s not alone as a pair of eyes make itself know in the darkest corner of the tent. Wolf, Snake and Owl all show up ready to have a small chat with the Swan.

"Hello, little Swan" Wolf shows his canines in his small talk and Kitty let go of the fabric to gaze at his eyes "we see you walking around, thinking you own this place and we don´t like this"

"Oh, really?" Kitty crosses her arms " I don´t think I ever walk as if I own this place, if I do, I would employ wolfs and snakes that love to get drunk each night, I would fire you if I was the owner...but, of course, Kurt is and if you have complains go after Kurt, not me"

She makes a motion to walk away but the wolf hurls and groans as his kin did when asserting dominance. His fangs are visible and Kitty has the flashback of her encounter with the Fox. Her reaction was noticed by the Wolf who primes himself as being the leader of the pack and continues.

Steady steps. He wants to teach her a lesson. A swan needs to know who is in charge, where she is in the hierarchy.

"I´d think I dislike you, but, as a kind leader of this pack, I can help you. First" wolf is getting closer and closer of Kitty, "I think you need to learn, humility and the first step for that is ...." Wolf jump to bite Kitty or to hurt her or even scared the poor Swan. That was the plan, however, the reality was not kind with the wolf as Kitty take from her pocket a knife and stuck on his right eye hard. The knife practically enters from his eyeball in such a way that the knife is stuck there.

Wolf scream with anger, fear and pain. Kitty takes the Wolf and throws at the Snake. By the sound of "crek," something was broke to Snake or Wolf. Kitty takes another knife, from her other pocket, and aim to the owl who is too fearful to move.

Owl was sure the Swan would either run away or someone would come to her rescue.

"Owl! we´re birds here, right? So, let´s be friends, Owl...because I don´t have to hurt another bird, but I´ll if that happened again, got it?" Kitty replied with the knife in hands. Owl nods and Kitty leaves the other animal behind.

Later, when Kurt is back, the only questioned made was why she is cleaning bloody knives.

"...Kurt? your wolf has an accident and now lost an eye, will that be a problem?" she asked now facing him. Kurt shurgs mentioned he could either heal him or get a new Wolf.

"Am I replaceable to you? There´s many birds and women out there....if you want ...There´s a peacock" she speaks but trails off in her sentence and Kurt takes her face, tenderly, as his golden eyes gaze into her brown eyes. "I know you´re evil...so if you want to replace me"

"Who said I want to replace you? I can get any wolf without a problem, but you? Is a rarity that I want to keep to myself, so, don´t think I can get another you like you. That´s impossible and never gone to happen"

"Good to hear that"

"Katzchen, are you the reason for my wolf have an accident with his eye?"

"Yes"

"Ok, just checking"

___________________ In Xarxon, the new king regent is named Proteus. In a short period of 6 months, Xarxon morphed into a new place, get a new social-economic status and get an upgrade in their political affairs.  Good news for the people of Xarxon that does not want to see the old king not even painted in gold. Another good news is that princess Illyana Rasputin is finally back.

They may hate Piotr, however, they love the princess and her presence back makes be akin to a white pigeon of peace.

Illyana is currently in her room. The First Born princess of Genosha is visiting Proteus, a royal courtesy as Xarxon is a neighbour of Genosha. Princess Lorna, the middle child and second princess(Pietro and Wanda are twins) have the task of making a polite talk with the beloved princess, Illyana Rasputin.

Illyana is with her faithful friend, Rhane Sinclair, getting dressed to talk with the princess. No, in fact, they already are ready. Yana just wants to make a few points clears before going to the meeting.

"Are you sure?" Rhane asked for the last time. "I mean, Genosha has some flaws, I think we all know what I´m talking about"

"I know, but, they are best as allies than enemies" Yana assured her friend "Proteus is a student from the necromancer...you can be sure my brother´s insanity was caused by him...well, my brother was never sane or a nice person...But his sudden case of wanting to marry a swan or hurt a swan and then Proteus being the regent...has his finger" Yana respond putting her royal crown " I know that our mines produce gems and the Necromancer, that son of a bitch" Rhane speaks about language " Is getting a fair share of gems for free. Sure as payment"

"But you won´t do anything against Proteus ....?"

"No, because he´s useful to me ...for now" Yana´s tone is sombre and in moments like this Rhane remembers she was raised by Belasco and his wife.

"Well, you sure won´t do this alone, me and the New Mutants are here to help, you can count on us" Rhane declares fierce

"Thank you" her tone is soft now "I´ll need all the allies I can, I send letters to Dani, Sam and Paige, Roberto and Amara and Doug"now she ponders for a moment "he´s with Excalibur now and I think I would like to meet them, if they are trustworthy maybe they can help"

Rhane nods and opens the door for the princess to go. Both girls are now ready to face Princess of Genosha, Lorna Dane.

Lorna Dane heard many tales about Princess Illyana from Wanda. The girl is sharp like a sword, don´t cross her or you won´t have a second chance.  Wanda is one of most powerful witches Lorna knows(not being biased here) so, if Wanda is speaking highly of Yana...then Lorna is expecting great things from this Princess.

Except, the fearsome Illyana is still a child. Still has baby fat on her features. Lorna can´t believe this is the deadly witch from hell Wanda speaks so highly. She is just a child.

Then again, Lorna was just a child when she killed for the first time.

"Princess Illyana Rasputin is an honour to finally meet you" Lorna make the right measures and bows to this occasion. The other Princess laughs amused and dismissed the formalities "I´m here to express my sorry for the condition of your brother and to offer a friendly hand to Xarxon"

"Are you sure?" Illyana speaks calmly and amused at the same time " Because Genosha never offered a friendly hand to Xarxon before" she speaks and walks like a prey seizing his victims and Lorna is impressed and terrified that this girl can´t act like her age.

Actually, Lorna never could act like her age.

"Yes, we never offer a hand before, that was because of old politicians and rules, now, we have a new start ahead of us, new possibilities" Lorna replied politely.

"Yes, the possibility of an alliance to help dethrone Magneto" Rhane answers and Yana calms Lorna´s spirits telling they are inside a magical barrier of her. No one can hear their conversation.

"In that case, yes, there´s this possibility as well" Lorna speaks now understanding why Wanda is often praising Yana. "I suppose that if you didn´t kill me now or snitch me...you want to enter in the rebellion?"

"Is very convenient for the first Princess to talk with the king regent, instead of Yana, no one will suspect our talk" Rhane explained joining the conversation " Proteus is a former student or still is a student from the Necromancer and the payment to be able to sit in the throne is a good share of gems...half of what the mines produce goes to the necromancer" Rhane finishes and Lorna now can understand where this is going.

"Help Genosha may open doors to me as well, I want a few favours in return, we all deal with the Necromancer in a way or another. Our sister made a terrible....lack of judgment many years ago and now, Genosha has a tie with him...I want to explore this tie. I want to get rid of any trace of the Necromancer"

"You´re extremely powerful. Powerful enough to defeat him?"

Yana looks at Rhane then at the ceiling. The image of the founders of this kingdom seems a copy-paste to Yana. She remembers Belasco, she remembers her time in Limbo, the New Hell.

"Yes, I´m"

[khiphop-discussions]

I was about to change my mind and just go to that B.A.P concert but chile....it’s a damn mess. I don’t even know how to get to Indio, Even if you take a plane to Palm Springs (expensive as hell even though it’s in the same fucking state, both in SoCal too! Not even like it’s to NoCal!) it’s still a ways away from Indio so I’d have to pay for THAT too. So traveling there is complicated but also I’d have to pay for a hotel. Then the fucking TICKETING is a mess. A) That venue looks WAY too big, there’s still front row seats left (and MANY seats left in general) and it’s literally been on sale for nearly a month. They should have just booked the fucking Novo, microsoft theater, Wiltern? Belasco? SOMETHING in LA that holds between 1500 and 3000 and called it a day. B) the “special tickets” are separate from the concert. The”special tickets” have all these fucking perks (which are nice) but by themselves they are either $450 or $250 depending on which is chosen then you STILL have to buy the concert ticket (up to $200 for VVIP) otherwise you can’t even GET the special ticket perks! C) you have TWO different portals selling tickets at once depending on where you want to be seated. Every other row is a different portal, alternating on each row.

I could have just gone to Berkeley even though it’s in NoCal it’s way easier to get to than Indio tbh which is...WOW. I guess cause Indio is some city most people haven’t heard of while, Berkeley is in the Bay Area. 

It’s a mess. TS is a mess and they are trying to milk every last dime they can get out of B.A.P. It’s sad, I can’t wait until these boys jump ship and reform on some Block B shit. Unless they are on their MBLAQ shit and lowkey don’t even want to be INVOLVED with the industry anymore after dealing with TS. Let’s hope not.

EDIT: Berkeley is ways away form the Bay Area too tbh so IDK why they advertised it as Berkeley/Bay Area and LA/Indio. Like bitch where? Palm Springs and Coachella aren’t even IN LA county. Indio is between the two. Whew chile, the MESS.

[ghostcultmagazine]

We recently caught up with Death Metal legend Barney Greenway of Napalm Death to discuss their current tour with GWAR and Eyehategod. The band is supporting their 2020 release "Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism" which is out now via Century Media Records. On the eve of the tour Barney was pleased to chat about many topics including playing with GWAR and GWAR fans, his career in music, the current climate of the world following the pandemic, his pre-show rituals, performing at the Decibel Metal and Beer Festival, the return of touring, books he is currently reading, and new Napalm Death music coming soon. Interview by Ghost Cult Keefy (https://ift.tt/2VHaeIF). Video editing by Omar Cordy of OJC Photography (https://www.instagram.com/ojcpics​​​​). Theme music by Salted Wounds (https://ift.tt/2RZhEoZ). Remaining Dates for GWAR with Napalm Death, Eyehategod: x - with Napalm Death / Eyehategod supporting # - Festival 11/10/21 - Asheville, NC - Orange Peel x 11/11/21 - Cincinnati, OH - Bogarts x 11/12/21 - Atlanta, GA - The Masquerade x 11/13/21 - Daytona Beach, FL - Welcome to Rockville # 11/14/21 - Pensacola, FL - Vinyl Music Hall x 11/15/21 - Houston, TX - Warehouse Live x 11/16/21 - Dallas, TX - Amplified Live x 11/18/21 - Albuqueque, NM - Sunshine Theater x 11/19/21 - Tuscon, AZ - Rialto Theater x 11/20/21 - Las Vegas, NV - House of Blues x 11/21/21 - Los Angeles, CA - The Belasco Theater x 11/22/21 - San Francisco, CA - The Regency Ballroom x 11/23/21 - Ventura, CA - Ventura Theater x 11/24/21 - Santa Ana, CA - The Observatory x 11/26/21 - Reno, NV - Virginia Street Brewhouse x 11/27/21 - Boise, ID - Knitting Factory x 11/28/21 - Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom x 11/30/21 - Seattle, WA - Showbox SODO x 12/1/21 - Vancouver, BC - Commodore Ballroom x 12/3/21 - Calgary, AB - MacEwan Hall x 12/4/21 - Edmonton, AB - Midway Bar x 12/6/21 - Billings, MT - Pub Station 12/7/21 - Denver, CO - The Oriental Theater x 12/8/21 - Lawrence, KS - Granada Theater x 12/9/21 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue x 12/10/21 - Lincoln, NE - The Bourbon Theatre x 12/11/21 - Sauget, IL - Pop's x 12/13/21 - Washington, DC - 9:30 Club x 12/14/21 - New York, NY - Irving Plaza x Get Napalm Death Tickets: https://ift.tt/3kg2xpK Buy Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism: https://ift.tt/3CZpuF7 Gear we use: (These are affiliate links and Ghost Cult makes a small profit from a sale) Set up A: Sony A7 III - https://amzn.to/3tQm422 Tamron 17-28 - https://amzn.to/3ePrlTd Tamron 28-75 - https://amzn.to/3fqCjgY Desview Mavo-P5 Monitor- https://amzn.to/33LlTub Manfrotto Befree Travel Tripod - https://amzn.to/3hxbL0e Set up B: Canon 80D - https://amzn.to/3ye8WqV Sigma MC-11 - https://amzn.to/3brZdU2 Sigma 18-35 - https://amzn.to/3tLlEd7 Tokina 11-16 - https://amzn.to/3bty9Uk Feelworld T7 Monitor - https://amzn.to/2Re9hta Audio: Sound Devices MixPre-3 - https://amzn.to/3tKkJd2 Gearlux XLR Mic Cable - 3 Pack - https://amzn.to/3w3zN6Y Deity D3 Microphone - https://amzn.to/3tRa6W2 Fifine Usb Mic - https://amzn.to/3w8JHEG Lighting: YONGNUO YN600L - https://amzn.to/2QkNrn5 YONGNUO YN300 Air - https://amzn.to/2QjN5gu Dfuse Softbox - https://amzn.to/3uQq4AN Aputure MC - https://amzn.to/3oirFgx NanLite PavoTube II 6C - http://bit.ly/NanLitePavoTubeII Lightstands - https://amzn.to/3uSBl3x 5 in 1 Reflector - https://amzn.to/33KHdjo And our iconic Rope Light https://amzn.to/3ycdmyz For the full list of Ghost Cult gear: http://bit.ly/OJCPicsKit This video includes a shoutout to Corvid Corpus (https://ift.tt/3EYMdSh) Get your shoutout by visiting our pinned post on Twitter! https://twitter.com/GhostCultMag/status/1142861626590355456 by Ghost Cult Magazine

[thisislizheather]

September Shenanigans 2021

So long, September! I can’t believe it’s finally here. And look, I try not to base my entire personality on the fact that I love this time of year so much but every year it’s getting harder and harder to deny it. There’s just something so electrifying about rainy nights and pumpkins on stoops, I’M SORRY. In any case, here’s what went down in September.

You can find my favourite tweets of the month over here and here.

I’ve been using the greatest eyebrow growth serum OF LIFE and wrote a bit about it over here (with photographic proof!).

I recapped what I did from my summer list.

So obviously I had to create an autumn list because this is my life.

New podcast alert!

I made this chocolate zucchini banana cake with coffee frosting for Nathan’s birthday and we both fell in love with it. This will now be the only birthday cake I ever make for him, it’s incredible.

I went to the Italian restaurant Lilia in Brooklyn again because they always have the best focaccia (right now it’s cherry tomato with green garlic butter), so I got that as well as the corn-filled cappelletti with black pepper and pecorino and yes it was good but the pasta definitely lacked some sort of different textual element which would have sent it over the top in deliciousness. Am I being harsh? No. If you’re paying upwards of $20 for one plate of pasta, there has to be standards.

Above Photo: Cherry tomato focaccia with green garlic butter

Above Photo: Corn-filled cappelletti with black pepper & pecorino

I tried the pumpkin cream cold brew at Starbucks (with one pump of vanilla instead of two because they go nuts with their pumps) and it was only okay. Why do people love it so much? The salted caramel one looks good but I can’t bring myself to go back and try it. I have such a hate-hate relationship with Starbucks, so what the hell am I even doing going in there? The last time I brought my laptop in to work in a Starbucks was in 2019 and they played the whole Hamilton soundtrack on a loop TWICE and I almost lost my mind it’s such a terrible album. I feel like an alien for not being mesmerized by Lin-Manuel Miranda, but like… he sucks?

I ate at Forsythia again and it only confirmed its place in my mind as one of the best new restaurants of this past year. I finally tried and loved the short rib agnolotti as well as the pappa al pomodoro, which was like a beautiful tomato tartare, so summery and perfect.

I bought these pajamas from Banana Republic Factory because they’re soft as hell and I haven’t had matching pajamas since… never.

Links I’m Loving:

Okay, this is the cutest autumn sweater on the planet, COME ON.

Untold Horror is “a behind-the-scenes look into development hell to find the most frightening horror movies that never were, from unmade Re-Animator sequels to alternate takes on legendary franchises like Frankenstein and Dracula!” - this sounds like such a great read.

I Never Knew How Golden My Summers Were - a great piece on remembering the best summer of your life.

Creative Ways To Start Your Morning On A Good Note

Halloween Craft Idea For Kids: Pumpkin Stamps with Apples

Reason #214 Never To Get CoolSculpting

Tuesdays at Regal Cinemas are now offering $6.25 movie tickets! This definitely can’t last, so I’m going to make the most of it while it’s offered.

New seasonal candles are finally at Trader Joe’s.

Above Photo: Autumn candles at Trader Joe’s, September 2021

So it’s been established how much I love and support Milk Bar… but the new funnel cake soft serve is truly one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever ingested. Just shockingly gross. If you’re nearby, get a free sample and tell me how right I am.

I went for a late summer walk through Central Park and why don’t I do this once a week.

I can’t get over how beautiful this song is (thanks for introducing it to me, Jessie!), it’s toooo good.

There’s a sale on Aerie underwear right now IF you’re into that sort of thing.

I made a zucchini lasagna that was very good but in no way better than a meat lasagna.

Speaking of zucchini, if you own a deep fryer: please make this zucchini spaghetti or these cider battered chicken fingers and then ask me over.

I took this (free) (actually helpful) intro to SEO class online if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

I made these apple pie bars that are ridiculously easy, fast and incredible. I was feeling ambitious, so I made this quick caramel to pour on top.

I fell down a rabbit hole of researching all of the Broadway theatres in New York and I might get tickets to Girl From The North Country purely to sit inside the gorgeous Belasco Theatre.

Finally had the steak at L’Artusi and it was delicious. Best steak ever? God no, but good. They will, however, hold the title of best steak tartare in all of NYC though.

Above Photo: The steak at L’Artusi in the West Village

Above Photo: The best steak tartare in NYC at L’Artusi

New things I’ve watched and rewatched:

Searching For Italy: so, so great. I already wanted to travel around Italy and eat everything so watching this was a delight. It’s also just so enjoyable to watch people who love their jobs. The Tuscany episode was my favourite one, mostly because I love any and all panzanella talk.

I attempted to watch Basic Instinct but I was in a very specific mood and had to turn it off after the rape scene. Nah thanks.

Never Have I Ever (season two): Love that Common is in it, hoping he becomes a regular. I can’t stand the way the writers write the teen dialogue, it’s so cringeworthy, but if you can get past that it’s an absolutely okay show. That scene in episode nine with her & Paxton when he comes in from window? Shiiiiit.

Broken: it’s an episode about makeup and the lesson? Watch out for counterfeit cosmetics. Got it.

The X-Files (The Squeeze episode): Someone told me to watch this one because it’s supposed to be scary, but it wasn’t anything special. A waaay better episode is Pusher. Watch THAT one.

The Witches of Eastwick: How the hell have I never seen this before? So many parts are good. Would definitely rewatch. I’ll never get over how gorgeous Michelle Pfeiffer is. Just maddening.

Scanners: boooooooooo. They shouldn’t make the cover look so good, it’s terrible.

Nightmare on Elm Street: Really holds up well. Always love it.

I’m rewatching Sabrina the Teenage Witch and kind of loving every minute of it. The episode where she becomes addicted to pancakes? A gem.

Was Dharma & Greg, like, a great show? I never cared about it at the time because I think I was too young to get into it but I just watched their Halloween episode and it was so good. Might look into this further.

Awkwafina is Nora From Queens (season two): With the exception of the blackout episode and the extremely hot cameo from original Reggie (Ross Butler), this season has really sucked. And this is insane to me because I loved the first season, what the hell?

Some things I’m looking forward to this month: I created an autumn highlight on my Instagram incase you care to see the fun things I’m planning on doing this month, excited to read Stanley Tucci’s new book, definitely going to make these pumpkin scones with a maple glaze, I will likely buy something from this year’s Halloween Lush collection, I’m gonna do a post about my recent trip to Salem (!), and I’m in the final stages of costume planning. God, I love this month.

If you have any interest in reading what went on in August, come on over here.

[strahd-von-asthmavich]

The Dread Lands of Ravenloft - Mod Van Richten’s New England In - Table Campaign [Session 4]

Session Highlights

This is the first of several posh dinners that this lovable (and very chaotic) gang is about to have! Let’s see what they get up to at dinner with Vasili von Holtz.

Side note: Any art that I share of NPCs within these highligh posts is my (Mod Van Richten’s) original and fan art. Any art that I use for my players that wasn’t created by myself but by other artist is kept private and within our friend circle.

Abrascus Barbarian (4) Path of the Ancestral Guardian Race: Tortle Background: Haunted One

Direthorn Rogue (4) Swashbuckler Race: Drow Background: Urchin

Flopsy Barbarian (4) Path of Wild Magic Race: Rabbit Man Background: Experiment

Mangus Monk (4) Way of the Open Hand Race: Half Elf Background: Urchin

Neracahne Wizard (4) School of Evocation Race: Eladrin Background: Noble

Nyra Rogue (4) Phantom Race: Fairy Background: Noble

CW for sexual themes

Dinner is served under the cut.

The party had four courses for their meal, but they were pretty picky with what they ate. Vasili was a little offended that they didn’t want the food that he was offering.

**Granted, Flopsy and Direthorn are still highly addicted to pies, so they wouldn’t have wanted the food offered anyway.

He almost cracked his charismatic demeanor when Flopsy decided to try playing his… wonderful music. However, instead of outright saying that his music was terrible, Vasili made a beeline for the library and grabbed a book of sheet music for Flopsy to look at.

Escher told a little more about himself to the players and about how he doesn’t get paid for his work as a servant. He’s paid through lodging and having everything he needs provided for him.

So, Flopsy so eloquently referred to Vasili as Escher’s “sugary daddy,” which made Vasili choke on his wine.

At bedtime, Mangus wanted to learn more about how to talk to women, since Ismark had a hard time explaining attraction to him in a way he would understand. Such lessons involved a bare bones lesson on how to talk to a girl, emphasising repeatedly on the importance of consent, and referencing the act of sex as “bumping uglies.”

Mangus instead found the 6th edition of One Night in Ravenloft, and Escher picked out a much better book for Mangus before realizing he was trying to figure out how to talk to his daughter best. So, Escher gave him a picture book to replace it with.

Escher flirted with Neracahne some more. He also told Direthorn that they’d better keep an eye on Mangus’ room and threatened him with the most vulgar things if Mangus did anything to his daughter.

Highlight: Escher: “If he touches my daughter, I will gouge out his eyes. And I will shove his hands so far up his arse that when he shits, it will come out through his fingers.” Direthorn: “Are you taking his eyes to replace your fake one?” Escher: “...You know, I never thought of that. Thank you, Direthorn!”

Direthorn, Nyra, and Neracahne end up spending time together that night before going to sleep.

Meanwhile…

Flopsy and Abrascus decide to go outside to the orphanage. The guards were already onto Flopsy, and the two of them were brought to the Reformation Center for questioning.

The captain of the guard, named Izek Strazni, comes into the interrogation room. He proclaims that Headmistress Belasco was like a mother to him and accepted him after he was orphaned and dealt with his arm being amputated when no one else would. She was also there for him when he got his demonic changes to his new arm.

Izek saw no signs of wights being near the orphanage, after looking into Flopsy’s claim. So, he intimidated him into telling the truth. While Flopsy skewed the truth in a way to get the two of them to sympathize with each other, Izek still accepts this claim as the truth.

Because of the confession, Izek makes a deal with Flopsy. There have been tips of suspicious activity at the town’s coffin shop, namely that there’s strange lights and noises coming from the second floor at night. Izek threatens Flopsy with death and feeding him to his friends if he doesn’t accept the deal.

The next day, Flopsy’s addiction breaks. However, he’s going through a withdrawal where for the day food just doesn’t taste as well as pies do. Direthorn is still addicted and has run out of their supply of pies.

Escher suggests that the party should buy fine clothes. If they’re going to a burgomaster’s mansion for dinner, then they’d better dress accordingly. They decide that they’re going to use their reward from Vasili (100 gp, 50 sp) to go to the shopping district. It’s when they go to the shopping district that they realize that the economy in this town is similar to the economy that they once knew. The value of gold is placed higher than silver, like how it is in the material plane.

Before the session highlight comes to a close, Abrascus and Flopsy have received two very prominent books from Vasili’s library.

Abracus gets a book titled Van Richten’s Guide to Werebeasts. Abrascus knows of Van Richten from him beginning his life as a monster hunter. While very rare, Van Richten’s books on monsters from his many years of research and hunting them himself were in the material plane. However, Van Richten had disappeared a couple years ago. He’d simply vanished, not one trace of his whereabouts found in Mordentshire, which was commonly known as his home base.

Flopsy tells Vasili about how he dealt with Doru back in the Village of Barovia. For this, Vasili decides to give him a book, as well. “If you want to better understand your enemy, you should read about them,” he says. He then gives him a very worn copy of Van Richten’s Guide to Vampires.

In this book, Flopsy sees the introduction, where Van Richten talks about how his career as a prolific monster hunter began. He sought revenge against a vampire called Baron Metus, and the introduction is a reenactment of the night that he finally killed him. Flopsy now also knows about different physiological vampire traits, the age groups of vampires, and how vampires are created. However, there is no information about their weaknesses or how to kill them.

It seems that the sections of the book that were saying these things were ripped out of it.

[quaxorascal]

All questions for Taber and co!

actuallyaltaria said: (co being Belasco, Aracelli, and any NPCS you think are relevant here)

Sure thing! Though I’ll only do odd-numbered questions I think! (from here)

1) What’s their favorite types of art? Do any of them make any art themselves?Taber appreciates all forms of visual art but doesn’t make any herself, and idk about the rest of the party. As far as NPC, Zuzanna is a jeweller, and Helia is pretty damn artful at killing people to death

3) Who will buy the others candy and treats if they’re feeling down, and who will comfort them emotionally?Esovera once gave Taber a bottle of whiskey as a “sorry you got crushed by a dragon and nearly died” gift, so I think she counts for the first category. As for the second, Aracelli is good at voicing her emotions and comforting others when their emotions are out of whack, though she doesn’t let others do the same for her, whoops

The rest goes under a cut!

5) What does everyone do in their downtime?Belasco’s most likely to sell shit, solve puzzles, and design new weapons; Aracelli does target practice for hours on end and pets her bird; Taber spends time with her girlfriend and reads; Esovera and Nate fuck behind Esovera’s bar

7) What superpowers would they pick?I’ll just answer for Taber for this one, but I think she’d choose either invisibility or the ability to take wounds from others. She could, you know, heal those wounds instead of taking them for herself, but uh

9) Can one of them bake well?Nobody in the party has tried while in-game, but I imagine Esovera and Zuzanna can both bake decently well

Gonna skip 11 actually

13) Who enjoys parties? Who would rather stay at home?Lmao the gang is neutral leaning negative toward parties in practice, but Taber does like the idea of being at a party. Zuzanna seems to enjoy parties though, and Esovera likes throwing them! Nate would rather be at home I’m sure, and Helia is more of a rave sorta girl I think

15) Who wears cheesy, cliche, embarrassing underwear?Please please please @theraveninhisstudy​ tell me that Nate would wear heart-print boxers

17) How would they react to a call or text from a wrong number?Belasco would probably fuck with whoever called him and keep them on the phone to know what it is they’re calling about, unless he doesn’t know who they are and they aren’t important. Aracelli would probably just hang up immediately, as would Taber

19) Who has the worst puns? How do the others react?God I hope this is Helia

21) Who would dye their hair/dye it again? What color would they go for?The closest I can think of would be Belasco donning the Disguise Cloak to actually give him hair, otherwise I’m not sure anyone would?

23) Who is the biggest nerd of all? What makes them a massive nerd?Your fave is a nerd: Belasco [last name confidential]. Receipts:

Mama’s boy

Loves puzzle books

Thought sending a dragon tooth home to his mom was a great idea

It was not a great idea

Once won a spicy food eating contest by cheating bc crows can’t taste spicy food

Avoids swimming lessons by cheating bc he’d rather invest in a pair of Shoes Shin Guards of Water Walking

Once came down from a dissociative episode by remembering that his tiny kitten loves him

Hates shoes

Runner-up is Esovera, who gets immensely excited for holidays and decorates her bar appropriately a month in advance

25) Who is the most likely to be called an edgelord? -Yml switches campaigns just for this question-

27) What did they get made fun of for when they were younger?Aracelli got made fun of by her clan because she comes from a clan of druids but isn’t a druid herself despite all best efforts; Taber was made fun of by her cousins for her height and heritage; Belasco was probably also got made fun of by his asshole cousin for his height but he was made fun of because he was short lmao

29) Who is the most ticklish?My gut tells me either Helia or Zuzanna and either way I need it

31) One of them buys one of those custom T-shirts where you can choose what words are written on it. What does it say? What do others think?Helia would totally have a shirt that reads “I flexed and the sleeves fell off” and Mason, you can’t argue with me about this because I won’t believe you

33) Who eats tons of plates at an all-you-can-eat buffet? Who gets one small plate, and not much more?Depends on what’s being offered! Aracelli will eat lots if it’s not fancy food, meanwhile Taber will do the same if it Is fancy. Honestly I think Belasco would eat a medium-sized plate of whatever

EDIT:Shay: aracelli is absolutely a five dollar all you can eat buffet kind of girlShay: she’d eat a plate of ten slices of pizza at cicis no problem

35) How would one of them react to another getting them flowers?Taber has already given her gf flowers, specifically silk flowers because Zuzanna is allergic to the real deal. Zuzanna was delighted when she learned who her secret admirer was ;0

37) Who would eat ghost peppers without breaking (too much of) a sweat?Belasco, see point 23

39) Who’s that one person who loves candy corn?Taber probably likes it, and I can see Esovera liking it too if only during Halloween Nightmare’s Eve season

41) Who gets hassled the most to fix computers/technology?I feel like that’s probably Aracelli in a modern AU, since she’s so good at fixing things

EDIT:Shay: also aracelli Isn’t a tech person so: she could fix your car, not your computer ;0

I will thus edit my statement to say probably Belasco ;0

43) Who would be the crazy cat person?Belasco

45) How do they tell their crushes they like them, if at all?Taber gave Zuzanna a flower through Zuzanna’s best friend, disappeared for like two weeks, then came back and honest to god meant to tell Zuzanna herself that she sent the flower, but she’s a bi disaster and wasn’t able to get the words out, leaving Zuzanna to spot the flower on her own. That went pretty well though all things considered

Helia meanwhile is a pan disaster who made a bit of a show of stammering out that she liked Aracelli, and could they go out together sometime? Aracelli thought it was cute though

47) Who stims? What’s their favorite method of stimming?Aracelli stims with archery practice, petting her bird, sitting upside down and occasionally by lying facedown on her bed

49) Who is the sassiest of all?Belasco “Are you just going to tell me to go fuck myself? Because if so, you’re derivative and boring” Belasco

51) What is that one interest they could spend hours talking about? Who listens?Aracelli’s special interest is bows/ archery!! Honestly if she wants to talk about it Taber would be happy to listen as a fellow admirer of weapons, but the problem is it hasn’t come up yet. God damn that would be cute

53) Who makes lunch for who?The gang buys food at Esovera’s bar on the regular, which I say should count toward our rent

55) Who’s not strong enough to open tight jars? Who has to open it for them?

Belasco: 9 STR

Aracelli: 11 STR

Taber: 18 STR

Take a guess

57) What’s their ideal first date? What was/will their actual first date be like?I’ll just answer she second question of these! 

Aracelli and Helia’s first date was an attempt to eat at a fancy restaurant, both of them bailing because it was too uppity for both of them, then going to Helia’s favourite bar and kicking ass in the fighting pit because why not. Aracelli kicked the most ass and I’m so sad I wasn’t actually present for that

Taber’s and Zuzanna’s was also an outing to a fancy restaurant, less fancy than the one the other two picked but still a good choice for these two rich kids. They chatted over wine and Taber walked Zuzanna home and got a kiss on the cheek before Zuzanna left. It was very cute

59) Who would study for days for a test? Who doesn’t do a lick of studying?Honestly I feel like all of our kids would be pretty good as far as studying!

61) Does anyone have an unusually loud or quiet voice? Does anyone never speak sometimes/at all?Aracelli has gone nonverbal a couple of times, and in general her voice is pretty quiet. Taber keeps hers quiet too, as well as pitching it up. Belasco kinda just talks normally, not loud or quiet

63) Who comes to an event super late? Who comes to it super early?Just gonna answer for Taber for this one too! She’d rather be early to an event than late, she’d definitely be super early if given the chance. Also if Nate is late for an event it’s because he didn’t want to come

65) What’s the most annoying thing about living with these characters/people?Aracelli sometimes just doesn’t wear a shirt, and Belasco is cool with joining in on the naked party, too. That’s just how it is sometimes. Taber is always flustered when this happens. Also Belasco will be subtle and pull personal info out of you/ eavesdrop on all sorts of stuff he shouldn’t. Taber sometimes chills in her full suit of paladin armour for no gd reason other than that she likes wearing it, and it baffles the other two so much

67) Who sees an empty playground and can’t resist playing around for awhile?Probably Aracelli and Helia tbh, and that would also be a really cute date

69) Who’s the one that “you can’t take anywhere”?You can’t take Taber to anyplace where you wanna be stealthy, you can’t take Belasco anywhere if you want him to mind his own business, and you can’t take Aracelli anywhere where there’s no trees

71) What’s the dumbest thing they own, and the story behind it?Taber has a bottle of cheap and shitty perfume that she won at a carnival by playing one of those strength games with the mallet, Aracelli has arrows with heads full of peppercorns meant to be fired in people’s faces (and she made them all by herself!!), and when I asked Nidoran what the dumbest thing Belasco owns is they said “a cat” and that’s fair (and then they later added “6 stolen lemons”, which Belasco stole because Ulrich wouldn’t tell him where he got the lemons in the first place)

73) Who wears/would wear the most colorful or extravagant clothing?Out of everyone in the party, Taber and Belasco both, and Belasco might be a little more extravagant. As far as extravagantly fancy, that would be Zuzanna; for just plain extravagant, Esovera, see point 23

75) What’s a secret one of them have been hiding from the rest?For the longest time Aracelli had been hiding the fact that she was spellscarred, and Taber had been hiding the fact that Deniel is her brother and not her cousin. She’s also hiding the details of what she had to do under the Broker’s servitude, and Belasco is not only hiding as much personal information as he fucking can, but he’s hiding it by lying about it

[chiseler]

Theater of War

Towering at six and a half gangling feet, with a long face that drooped like a pensive sunflower over everyone he met, playwright Robert Sherwood loomed large in New York culture, in more than one sense, from the 1930s through the war and beyond. Between 1936 and the coming of war in Europe he gradually transformed from a writer of Pulitzer-winning antiwar plays to a gung-ho war propagandist and speechwriter for Franklin Roosevelt. In his shift from isolationist to interventionist, he helped prod the rest of America in the same direction.

New York theater in the 1930s had a long conversation with its audiences about isolation and intervention, war and pacifism. Elmer Rice wrote what are said to be the first two Broadway dramas responding to what was happening in Hitler's Germany: We, the People, which ran at the Empire Theatre on 42nd Street in 1933, and Judgment Day, which opened at the nearby Belasco the following year. Rice -- born Elmer Reizenstein on East 90th Street in 1892 -- graduated from New York Law School in 1912 but preferred courtroom dramas to actual courtrooms. On Trial, his first play (1914), was a giant hit, as was the 1929 Street Scene, a realistic drama about tenement life in New York, which earned him a Pulitzer and was adapted as both a film and later an opera, with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Langston Hughes.

In 1932 he visited Germany and was appalled by the fascism and anti-Semitism. He came home to write the sprawling We, the People, which dramatized the lives of working class and farm families being pulled under by the Depression. Rice's message was that unless the businessmen and politicians who ran the country did something, America could be heading for a German-style revolution and fascistic crackdown. Audiences who could still afford Broadway tickets in Depression 1933 didn't go to the opulent Empire Theatre to be hectored and depressed. The show opened in January and closed in March after only 49 performances.

We, the People was in the middle of its short run when the Reichstag in Berlin burned on the night of February 27. The Nazis arrested four Communists and tried them in Leipzig for arson and treason. In the internationally publicized trial, one of the last displays of a free court in Hitler's Germany, only one of the men was convicted (and soon guillotined). Rice used it as the inspiration for Judgment Day, about a show trial in a fictionalized Eastern European country where members of the "People's Party" are accused of trying to assassinate "our leader, Minister-President Grigori Vesnic" of the National Party. Unlike the Leipzig trial, this one ends with an appearance by the dictator Vesnic himself, and his assassination there in the courtroom. Judgment Day fared little better than We, the People, closing after three months.

One of the first Broadway plays to address the Nazis' abuse of Jews -- and the only one of the period that depicted Nazi violence onstage -- was Clifford Odet's one-act Till the Day I Die. The Group Theatre presented it and Odets' Waiting for Lefty at the Longacre Theatre on West 48th Street for 136 performances in the spring and summer of 1935. It was set in Berlin, where Nazis have rounded up some Jews and Communists. They smash one prisoner's fingers with a rifle butt, and kick and beat others. Audiences were shocked and horrified. In addition, Odets flirted with the idea, widely promoted by the left in the 1930s, that the Nazis' brutality and cult of extreme virility were twisted expressions of their homosexuality. One officer tells another that "it might be much better for both of us if you weren't so graceful with those expressive hands of yours. Flitting around here like a soulful antelope. I'm lonely, I've got no one in the whole world." The other replies, "You've got me, Eric."

Two of the most talked-about plays of 1936, when Americans were still almost unanimously isolationist, were outspokenly antiwar: Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead and Sherwood's Idiot's Delight. Shaw, whose actual surname was Shamforoff, was born in the Bronx in 1913 and raised in Brooklyn, where he graduated from Brooklyn College. He was 23 when he wrote Bury the Dead, a bitterly absurdist antiwar fantasy that ran from April to July 1936 at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre. It was set in "the second year of the war that is to begin tomorrow night." The corpses of six young soldiers who died in battle stand up in their shrouds and refuse to be buried. This causes all sorts of problems for the army brass, the warmongering businessmen, and the clergy, while the news media spin it as a sign of "the indomitable spirit of the American doughboy." In the play's best scenes, the corpses' wives and mothers try to convince them to lie back down. A twenty-year-old soldier tells his mom that he lived too little to be content with death. An angry wife berates her husband for only standing up to the generals now that he's dead. When no one can convince them, a frustrated general grabs a gun and tries to kill them all over again, but they simply walk off.

Bury the Dead was a critical sensation. In the Times, Brooks Atkinson raved about "the genius of Mr. Shaw's lacerating drama. It is a rebellious dance of scabrous death on the battlefield. Take it also as a warning from the young." Eleanor Roosevelt had just begun writing a nationally syndicated daily newspaper column, "My Day," which, amazingly, she would keep up until a few months before her death in 1962. After seeing Bury the Dead in May 1936, she wrote that "the thoughts hit you like hammer blows," adding that it would be "long be remembered by anyone who sees it and its strength lies, I think, in the fact that it is the expression of the thought and feeling of thousands upon thousands of people today."

She was right about its longevity: Bury the Dead remains one of the best-known of all American antiwar plays, and continues to be performed in revivals as the country goes from one conflict to the next.

Idiot's Delight followed Sherwood's first bona-fide Broadway success, The Petrified Forest. Sherwood grew up in Manhattan at the beginning of the century, son of a prosperous Wall Streeter and an artist. Just as the Great War broke out in 1914 he went off to Harvard, where he wrote for the Lampoon and the Hasty Pudding Club. When America entered the war in 1917 he volunteered for the American Expeditionary Force, but he was rejected as too tall for combat -- the standard depth for front line trenches was only six feet. So he crossed the border and joined the kilted Canadian Black Watch. On an infantry charge in France he was gassed and got hung up in barbed wire. Like many other young Americans, he went Over There convinced of the righteousness of the war, and came back shocked by its obscene futility.

In 1919 a family friend got Sherwood an entry-level job at Vanity Fair, where Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker took a shine to him. Despite an apparently complete lack of their flair for cunning repartee -- Parker called him the Conversation Stopper -- he joined them in the Algonquin Round Table, the "Vicious Circle," with regulars who included theater critic Alexander Woollcott; Harold Ross, who would start The New Yorker in 1925; the leftist journalist Heywood Broun; and novelist Edna Ferber.

It was Ferber who encouraged Sherwood to write plays. His first work on Broadway, the 1927 The Road to Rome, was a light historical fantasy in which Hannibal is talked out of sacking Rome by the emperor's amorous wife, who convinces him that love, sex and joy are preferable to war, death and pain. Sherwood assayed various topics and styles over the next few years before finding his mature voice with The Petrified Forest, which opened at the Broadhurst Theatre in 1935 with Humphrey Bogart and Leslie Howard in the roles they would reprise in the Warner Bros. movie that appeared the following year.

Sherwood's Idiot's Delight opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre in May 1936, when Bury the Dead was still running nearby, and ran for 300 performances. In a set-up similar to the one in Forest, an international gaggle of characters gets stuck at a ski lodge in the Italian Alps. Principle among them are a down-at-heels American showman named Harry Van, a wealthy arms merchant named Weber, and the mysterious Russian countess Irene, who is really a show girl and con artist Harry spent a night with years ago. Just as they congregate, war breaks out again among the European powers, giving Sherwood the opportunity to have the characters voice different points of view, from Harry's feckless American optimism to Weber's worldly cynicism.

Irene says to Weber, "I'm so happy for you. All this great, wonderful death and destruction, everywhere. And you promoted it!"

"Ask yourself: why shouldn't they die?" Weber replies. "And who are the greater criminals -- those who sell the instruments of death, or those who buy them, and use them?" He argues that she shouldn't blame men like him for war, but the millions of "little people" who allow themselves to be goaded into fighting with cheap appeals to patriotism and duty.

Sherwood was citing an idea that was central to the antiwar movement in the mid-1930s: the notion that international munitions dealers like Weber, the "merchants of death," had used propaganda and political influence to manipulate the world into the Great War. The remarkable Marine Corps General and twice Medal of Honor recipient Smedley Butler put this notion succinctly in his pamphlet War Is a Racket, published in 1935. He argued that modern war was choreographed by the arms dealers, steel companies, bankers and other capitalists for their own immense profit and everyone else's terrible loss. In 1934 this idea led to a Senate Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, better known as the Nye Committee for its chairman, the isolationist North Dakota Senator Gerald Nye. The later-infamous Alger Hiss served as its chief counsel. The committee not only put an official stamp on the antiwar movement; it helped prod Congress into passing a series of Neutrality Acts beginning in 1935 that prohibited the export of arms to warring nations; banned loans to warring nations; and forbade U.S. merchant ships from carrying arms to belligerents, even if manufactured elsewhere.

Idiot's Delight won Sherwood his first Pulitzer. He wrote the screenplay for the MGM film adaptation that appeared in 1939, with Clark Gable as Harry Van and Norma Shearer as Irene.

The situation in Europe had changed a great deal between 1936 and 1939, and the film was dated the day it opened. Hitler and Stalin had, each in his own way, made their intentions unmistakably clear, forcing Sherwood and Shaw to reassess their antiwar stances of just three years earlier.

Shaw's The Gentle People: A Brooklyn Fable premiered at the Belasco Theatre in January 1939, with Harold Clurman directing an extraordinary cast that included Same Jaffe, Franchot Tone, Sylvia Sidney, Karl Malden, and Lee J. Cobb. Shaw transposed events in Europe to the Brooklyn waterfront, where a pair of middle-aged fishermen, Jonah and Philip, are preyed on by a Hitleresque thug named Goff. He shakes them down for weekly pay-offs, and for a long while they give in, in effect appeasing him the way England and France appeased Hitler. "We are not all made out of the same material," Goff explains to them. "There are superior people and there are inferior people. The superior people make the inferior people work for them. That is the law of nature. If there is any trouble you beat 'em up a coupla times and then there is no more trouble. Then you have peace."

Eventually, Jonah tells Philip that the only way to rid their neighborhood of Goff is to murder him.

"All my life I wanted only peace and gentleness," Philip counters. "Violence. Leave it to men like Goff."

Jonah replies that "if you want peace and gentleness, you got to take violence out of hands of the people like Goff and you got to take it in your own hands and use it like a club. Then maybe, on the other side of the violence, there will be peace and gentleness."

They kill Goff, and not only get away with it, but get back all the money he extorted from them. In an introduction, Shaw wryly notes: "This play is a fairy tale with a moral. In it justice triumphs and the meek prove victorious over arrogant and violent men. The author does not pretend that this is the case in real life."

When the U.S. went to war two years later, Shaw would enlist in the Army and serve as a warrant officer. He'd put his wartime experiences into two later novels, The Young Lions and Rich Man, Poor Man.

Robert Sherwood was "sickened" when the Soviets invaded Finland late in 1939. Although he still considered himself a pacifist, he had now come to equate isolationism with escapism, reluctantly concluding that sooner or later the United States would be forced to defend itself and "save the human race from complete calamity." He had "consistently tried to plead the cause of pacifism," he wrote in a letter that December. "But the terrible truth is that when war comes to you, you have to fight it." As the outgunned Finns mounted a splendidly courageous defense that humiliated the Red Army through the winter, Sherwood churned out a play about a Finnish family and assorted others who join the resistance. His friends Alfred Lunt, who was of Finnish descent, and Lynne Fontanne agreed to star, and Lunt asked to direct. Montgomery Clift and Sidney Greenstreet were also cast. They were still in rehearsals when Finland finally capitulated in March 1940, but all felt the play should go on.

There Shall Be No Night opened on Broadway at the Alvin (now the Neil Simon) Theatre that April. In the Times, Brooks Atkinson was critical of the play's dramatic weaknesses but not its message, declaring that "the best parts of it speak for the truth with enkindling faith and passionate conviction." Life praised the "simple, poignant story" and said it had "chances of being an important hit."

Isolations from the left, right and middle attacked the play. The Washington Post assailed it as "a rank inflammatory job, pleading for intervention." The Daily Worker denounced Sherwood as a "stooge of the imperialist warmongers," while conservatives called him a stooge of international Communism (because the play theorized that the Soviets were merely Hitler’s tools).

The same month that Sherwood's play opened, Hitler's Blitzkrieg devoured Denmark and Norway. In May German armies poured into Belgium, Luxembourg, and Holland. Sherwood wrote a full-page ad that appeared in the New York Times and other newspapers nationwide, asserting that only "an imbecile or a traitor" could fail to see that if Britain and France fell too, America would find itself "alone in a barbaric world – a world ruled by Nazis."

France fell in June, and Hitler's Luftwaffe began bombing England to soften it up for a planned invasion. By the fall of 1940, Sherwood was helping to write Franklin Roosevelt's speeches explaining to the American people why the U.S. had to get involved. After America did enter the war at the end of 1941, Sherwood would run the foreign branch of the government's Office of Wartime Information, including the Voice of America, as well as continuing to help write FDR's speeches. He would not write another Broadway play until the war was over.

by John Strausbaugh

[justfollowmyhansel]

Bowie Museum Pt. 2 — May 17th through May 19th, 2018

When I was initially planning my spring vacations, it was largely around a monthly cycle of Bowie Exhibit and Mattachine experiences. Since the Exhibit was scheduled to run from early March to the middle of July and since I had been enamored of Bowie the majority of my life, this was an expense I was more than willing to take on. In fact, now that David was no longer alive, this would be the closest I would be able to get to seeing him perform live — a pale comparison, I was certain to actually being in the same venue as the man….

But…as with the last travel experience, plans change. They have to. Either by a change in financial status, a change in emotional status, or a change of larger plans. For me, larger plans meant going to Australia to see John. By this time, four of the five dates had been announced and the tickets released for purchase. The first and second being the absolute bookends for the trip with Adelaide and Brisbane. Naturally I had tickets to all of them, but I knew that when push came to shove, I’d have to pick whichever grouping of dates gave me the most concentrated amount of shows for the least amount of time. I didn’t think that I had been with my current job long enough to justify taking that much time off — even with the explicit reassurance that I knew perfectly well that I would be taking a significant part of that time as unpaid. Even if I had been with that job long enough to justify taking what would amount to five weeks, I wasn’t sure that I would want to.

So plane tickets were booked and budgets adjusted around the understanding that my first show would be on July 6th in Sydney and I would have what more or less amounted to a show a week for three weeks (even if they weren’t quite spaced like that.)

In lieu of the extra couple of weeks in Australia, when it was announced that Mason and Mimi would be bringing back their Taboo staging, I jumped at the chance to go again. I confirmed the tickets were available and then a couple of days later booked the plane ticket. The first time the show had sold out, but only within a couple of days of the actual date. I had felt confident that it wouldn’t sell out that quickly this time and that I could secure a good rate for the plane tickets before purchasing the show tickets. When I went to book them though, something had come up. The original link that had been posted for the tickets routed to a dead end that wouldn’t allow the tickets to be finalized and the website for both the venue and the production company had been all but scrubbed of the existence of a second show.

I thought about cancelling the trip, refunding the money, and having more money to play with when I got back to Australia. But instead, Risa and I planned a trip that would be an extended stay at David Bowie Is where we would take a full afternoon at the show, bringing both Advil and water into the exhibit and then later take in a live talk with one of David’s most prominent designers. The one that had designed the first outfit you saw when walking in. And the second day, instead of being spent seeing Mason would be spent taking an informal tour of Hedwig history, one where we would visit the now-remodeled Jane Hotel, the Belasco, the West Village that featured so prominently in JCM’s videos, but not Mattachine now that the ticket had been booked for the week before the Thursday we were expecting it to be.

This time going up to New York, I came into the Philadelphia airport and witnessed a much longer drive up to Brooklyn. The flight in had free wifi for the majority — a pleasant surprise given that a child on the plane was having what sounded like the worst experience of its young life. Instead of screaming baby, I was able to listen to nonstop David Bowie music. Just the thing to set the mood for the afternoon.

Risa and I took great pains to stress that we were capable of walking to the museum ourselves. The last time, we had been a little…escorted and given that we were both adults within the very safe confines of a museum, we were safe in the assertion that we got this. The only thing to call that into question was my nice new, still weeping thumb scar — a product of my being relatively careless with a craft knife while shaping a custom Funko Pop doll.

After we convinced her parents, we went upstairs to the exhibit. This time having untimed tickets, we were able to go in whenever we pleased. I checked the time on my phone and deemed it far enough away from the start of a fifteen minute block to go in. We received our headphones, but this time paid significantly less attention to them. Being the Bowie enthusiast of the pair of us, I gave Risa a mini-tour, filling in some of the information left off of the exhibit cards, disputing information that rang false (which given that the exhibit was put together from Bowie’s archives, but not his fact checkers was necessary at times), and tying things back not only to Hedwig and John, but to other cultural touchstones that Risa might have known.

Without the urging of her parents to take less time exploring the minutiae, we spent more time examining the video footage and getting close to the items we wanted to see. And since we had already been there before, we were able to be more confident that we were seeing every section of the show as opposed to passing over rooms due to crowd movement.

We left after inching our way through the exhibit, we made our way out to the gift shop. I took the chance to ask what the difference was between the hardbound and softbound versions of the catalogue other than the obvious one was hardbound and the other wasn’t. It took two different exhibit workers to get an answer but apparently in terms of content, they were the same. I had a list of memorabilia that I had purchased the last time and a list of things I had wanted to buy the first time, but they had run out. Originally, I had placed a $300+ order through the website, but it had been cancelled after a few days due to a high volume of sales.

After the last time, the lady in charge of upstairs merchandising recognized me. I wasn’t sure if it was the fussiness of asking over a $1.50 button or the amount that I had spent. This time, she helped me find a record that I had rethought my position on buying and telling me the price of a t-shirt that was significantly higher than the other ones the exhibit had on offer. After some difficulty getting checked out, we exited.

Immediately getting into the more traditional museum fair, it felt like the building’s fever had broken. We sat down in the relative coolness. Risa texted her parents that we were out and I texted my mom. Her parents wanted to know what we were going to do for lunch as they were going to come and get us if we were going someone. The last time we had eaten in Brooklyn, it took us close to forty minutes to find a restaurant that wasn’t crowded and even then, it wasn’t one that I had an easy time finding something to eat at. My position was that Risa and I could find one on our own. And we did, agreeing that Popeye’s sounded nice as we passed a gentleman eating a box of chicken in the downstairs café.

Her parents thought it was too far to walk compared to the time we had to be back for the talk. Regardless of whether it was or not, after significant back and forth over what to do it became too late to leave the museum for food at all, let alone to leave and come back for dessert like had been my plan.

A few more moments of quibbling over whether or not we’d want to actually at the overpriced café, the overpriced café with items specifically designed to go along with this exhibit, we just stood up and decided it would be then or never. Good timing because if we had waited any longer, we would have missed out on that night’s talk for sure.

In the café, we ordered a Blackstar cake — a dark chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and an orange glaze with little dark chocolate cookies spelling out David’s name in the Blackstar font — and a Thin White Duke drink for me that comprised a coconut rum, vodka, lime juice, and a cherry. We were both thrilled with the food selection and the well-timed service of our very nice waiter.

Just on time, or perhaps a touch late, we went down to the auditorium where the talk was being held. Kansai Yamamoto, the designer we were seeing, had more than a few antidotes memorized in English that he told at the start of the talk with impeccable timing. He was less interested in answering the host’s questions and more interested in delivering interesting stories tangentially related or on topics that he wanted the audience to know about. He told us about his design history outside of working with David, what his inspirations were, how proud he was of his daughter…. He talked about his first impressions of David and the ones he held later as they worked together on more projects. He talked about hosting David when both of their children were small and showed a photo of Duncan with his own daughter.

After the part that he had preprepared, he turned the English talking over to his translator, a very attractive and funny man in his own right to whom he had been introduced to only that morning. While he was able to understand the majority of the English around him, he explained that his brain wasn’t fast enough to translate the sentences he wanted to say, which was why he used the translator. Kansai also admitted that he was answering the questions in ways that interested him over more straight forward answers.

At the end of the speech, Risa and I chose to wander around the museum looking for things of interest. They were having a Bowie ball of sorts with dozens and dozens of people dressed up. We walked past where they were setting up and when we ran into him, personally thanked the translator for what he added to the talk.

Walking around, we looked at exhibits centering around Egypt, again with less than impressive captions and saw the tiniest mummy figure, a miniature dildo, and some of the pages of the Book of the Dead. That was the sort of thing that if I knew more about Egyptology, I would have been highly interested in studying at length.

We meandered our way downstairs, checking out the final part of the museum that had caught our eyes — the exhibit on Korea. That one again the captions were lacking, but added context that in terms of how anthropologists looked at Korea, they have only recently started to have their own cultural relevancy with the majority of their history being under the reign of China, Japan, or other Asian forces that had invaded them over the years.

We went downstairs and caught up with Risa’s parents. While we were seeing Kansai Yamamoto’s talk, they saw the free talk downstairs talking about David’s influence in fashion. Both had sounded appealing. The last thing we bought at the exhibit was a grapefruit margarita that Risa bought for me before we headed back to her car. The majority of our things were already in the car from earlier, which made a very easy post-event depositing into the car.

On the way back, we got McDonald’s and once we were back at Risa’s house further discussed David and the museum, this time with added youtube links for songs and photos that hadn’t been exhibited when we went to go see. Another few hours and we didn’t even make it out of the 70s in terms of content.

The next day, we chose to sleep in late. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before the flight and was up more or less for 24 hours before I was able to get into bed. Plus after the lack of agency we had at the museum, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to take a New York tour that very much would have to be guided by her parents.

Instead, we chose to go to Risa’s favourite Asian market. Knowing my fondness for the Asian grocers near me, Risa was eager to show off the shopping plaza that she and her anime group often went to. I agreed and late in the afternoon, we left for Mitsuwa.

Once we arrived, we got lunch and I found one of the things I had been missing most from Japan — coffee jelly. The coffee jelly in Japan was cut up into cubes and placed into a nice milky base as if the cubes were acting like ice cubes in a drink. The one here was a denser selection of jelly with soft serve ice cream swirled on top.

Among the other food I purchased was three additional drinks I’d never had before with the idea that three was reasonably the limit I could get through before going home, a bag of gummy lychee candies because I’d wanted to try them for awhile, and a box of my other favourite Japanese food, raisin sands.

We looked at the makeup, cookware, booze, and other sections of the store, sometimes with me explaining what a product was or could be used for and other times with Risa pointing out that she had seen something before or that it was something she had tried at the anime mart. We found no end to things that would have to be tried later either for a lack of immediate funds or, more often, a lack of time in which to do it.

We stepped outside of the food market portion of Mitsuwa and back into the food court. Risa insisted that I try a fish shaped waffle with red bean paste called taiyaki. I was surprised at how well the flavours went together.

The next place we went was the bookstore. At the very back of the store was a separate paper and stationary store set up not unlike how Borders used to have their stationary, but with greater detail and actual variety of items and not just casings. I could have bought the entire tiny store with its brightly coloured papers, meticulously lined notepads, rainbow of ink selections in gel and ballpoint and all manner of cute. I limited myself to a floral plastic folder for papers, a small lined notebook to make my attempts at learning Japanese and Korean seem more authentic—and so that my letters didn’t dwarf the page, and a small corn shaped eraser for my mother since it reminded me of the Dekalb corn signs that she’s so fond of.

In the outer bookstore, there was less of interest. It was a beautiful store, but given that whatever I bought I would have to carry on my back back to Kansas and the high prices in a real bookstore as opposed to my usual used bookstores, there were automatically less appealing options. I did find two books on Yuri!!! On Ice, one of which I bought to make up for the lack of show merch I was able to find when I was in Japan.

Last was the general items store. Again, Risa and I spent a long time looking over times like sushi themed socks and cute luggage that might have made travelling easier had I not already had my obnoxiously unique purple hearted luggage. We stayed until the store was ready to close, apologizing that we hadn’t realized that it would be closing so soon and I picked up another button for my coat jacket — a pink Hello Kitty produced by a drink company I was familiar with. It soon found a spot next to the Bowie pin and the clay Hedwig pin that I had bought off of Etsy.

We went back to Risa’s, me eating on some of the food I had acquired at the Asian market and carefully trying to balance starting a new drink so that I could have a different new one at Rocky Horror and the last in the morning before my flight.

For evening plans, Risa’s mom had suggested either a live performance of Cabaret, which neither Risa nor I was super enthused about or a shadow cast version of Rocky Horror. We opted for the Rocky Horror experience.

In between goings on, I created a new punk/glam makeup look, applied a fake tattoo to my stomach, and changed into the blue Origin of Love shirt I had brought with me. I figured why not combine my two favourite musicals?

We drove out slightly past midnight to a dead looking strip mall movie theatre. Risa’s mom dropped us off and said to text her when the film was over knowing from past experience that the show started at eleven, but the actual film could start anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half later than that.

We bought our tickets and another pin for my jacket and Risa and I went to sit down. We picked the back row, naturally.

The show started and they had an “impromptu dance party” that lasted a few seconds, a Rocky Horror baptism where they placed rice on the new baby of two former shadow cast members, and a few quick announcements before having their virgin activity and starting the show. The shadow casters and the audience weren’t exactly the stuff of legend that I’d been hearing about for over a decade in regards to Rocky fandom. The cast didn’t know their lines and the audience seemed to be going through the motions of “this is what we do on Friday night.”

So I decided it was a sing along. And I decided that whichever songs I wanted to get up and dance to, I would. I shouted a few new things or things I’d read in my Rocky Horror books to liven up our experience with the showing. For the most part, it didn’t interfere with the other movie goers since we were seated so far back and the things people did observe were met well. We left very happy and I felt like I had mentally reclaimed a film that had been tarnished by a bad experience with an ex and the atrocity that was Fox’s attempt at a remake.

We went back to Risa’s house again for a few hours before we all had to leave for the early morning flight back to KC. Given how much trouble we had had getting me back the first time, we left extra early to make sure I actually got on the damned plane the first time around. Naturally, I was almost through security as soon as I got there.

For airport food, I chose a coffee and some Popeye’s fries and during my layover, I grabbed a bagel and lox. From the moment I got off the plane in Kansas City, I would have to be up and awake until at least one in the morning due to volunteering to take the late-late shift to avoid missing any work. It took until I got back to Kansas City since the airport one was only serving breakfast, but I finally got the Popeye’s I had wanted for three days.

[mastcomm]

Netflix Spent Big on Oscar-Worthy Films. That May Not Be Enough.

LOS ANGELES — Ballots for the coming Academy Awards are still being tabulated. But it already seems clear: This will not be Netflix’s year.

The streaming giant will arrive at Sunday’s Oscar ceremony leading the field, with 24 nominations. That’s up from 15 last year and eight the year before, a trajectory that highlights the success that Netflix has had in building a prestige film operation with a minimal presence in actual movie theaters. But the company could end the evening with only two wins, according to Gold Derby, which compiles the predictions of 28 awards handicappers, despite dumping truckloads of cash into awards-oriented marketing campaigns. Competitors estimate that Netflix has spent at least $70 million, a startling sum even by Hollywood’s profligate standards. Netflix declined to comment.

“The Irishman,” Martin Scorsese’s gangster character study, nominated for 10 Oscars and relentlessly hyped by Netflix as “one of the best films of the decade,” is expected by awards forecasters to get shut out completely. Prognosticators like Mark Harris of Vanity Fair and Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter base their opinions on how films have performed at predictive awards ceremonies leading up to the Oscars.

At the same time, Oscar voters are poised to shower statuettes on films from old-line studios that received traditional runs in theaters, including the late-arriving World War I drama “1917” (Universal), which is the front-runner to win best picture.

It raises unpleasant questions for Netflix. Spending freely on awards campaigning is one of the ways it has been able to woo marquee filmmakers like Mr. Scorsese. But with some analysts starting to question the return — Netflix already had a poor outcome at the recent Golden Globe Awards — will the streaming giant change its ways?

While there are those who would argue that competing films like “1917” and “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” (Sony) are simply better, the film establishment has been wary of Netflix. Could the lack of statuettes be a backlash to a tech giant that is upending entertainment-industry business practices and threatening Hollywood power hierarchies?

Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer, said losses at awards shows leading to the Oscars in no way represented an uprising against the company.

“A pushback? Nobody can say that with a straight face,” he said last week at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences annual nominee luncheon. “We got 24 nominations, the most of any studio. Our films have been honored across the board.”

The academy’s old guard has resisted a dogged push by Netflix to join the best picture club, arguing that, since the streaming service does not release its films in a traditional theatrical manner, its offerings should be better considered by Emmy voters. (Helen Mirren, onstage at the most recent National Association of Theater Owners convention, used an expletive to refer to the company.) Some longtime academy members say that Netflix’s campaigning has turned them off, in part because it reminds them of the days when Harvey Weinstein solicited Oscar votes with no-stone-unturned vigor.

“Obviously, there is one company that is spending more than the others, but that’s not going to affect how I will vote — nor do I think it will affect other members,” said Hawk Koch, a producer and former president of the academy, who recently wrote a memoir about his long career in Hollywood. “There is an awful lot of wasteful money being spent that could be used for making movies rather than trying to win an award.”

Netflix made its Oscar ambitions clear in 2018, when it hired one of Hollywood’s top awards campaign strategists: Lisa Taback, who cut her teeth at Miramax with Mr. Weinstein in the 1990s and whose résumé includes best-picture winners like “The King’s Speech” and “Spotlight.” She orchestrated a costly Oscar push for Netflix’s black and white “Roma” for last year’s Academy Awards. That film received 10 nominations, including one for best picture (Netflix’s first), and won three: director (Alfonso Cuarón), cinematography (Cuarón) and foreign film. It was a very solid outcome, one that seemed to signal the academy’s warming to Netflix.

This time around, Netflix seemed to be holding an even stronger hand. It had a living legend in Mr. Scorsese. His ambitious “Irishman,” which cost at least $160 million to make, brought Joe Pesci out of retirement and paired him with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Netflix also had “Marriage Story,” Noah Baumbach’s unnerving portrait of divorce; “Dolemite Is My Name,” a flamboyant comeback vehicle for Eddie Murphy; and “The Two Popes,” a well-reviewed drama about Vatican politics starring Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins.

“Marriage Story,” with six Oscar nominations, is expected to win for Laura Dern’s supporting performance as a formidable divorce lawyer. “Dolemite” did not receive any Oscar nominations. “The Two Popes” received three nods, but is not expected to win any on Sunday.

Another win for Netflix is expected to come from “American Factory,” a documentary backed by Michelle and Barack Obama that looks at a clash between a Chinese entrepreneur and blue-collar Ohioans.

“That’s a lot of campaigning for not a lot of hardware,” said Sue Fleishman, the head of September Media, a corporate communications consultancy, and the former communications chief at Warner Bros. and Amblin Partners.

In truth, no film wins the top Oscar without spending. All nine of this year’s best-picture nominees have been draped in for-your-consideration campaigns for months. Sony has certainly not been stingy with its “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” get-out-the-vote effort, which included a 28-minute special about its themes (“a love letter to making movies”) that ran on two Los Angeles television stations. Neon, the scrappy indie with the potential best-picture disrupter “Parasite,” has been spending money like a major, hopeful that the love for the genre-defying South Korean film will help it make Oscar history.

But Netflix has taken campaigning to a new level. Most studios put their firepower behind a couple of contenders. Netflix pitched eight films to awards voters this year, including two that received nominations for best animated film: “Klaus,” a hand-drawn holiday story that triumphed at the BAFTAs, Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars, and “I Lost My Body,” about an amputated hand. About 60 people work in Ms. Taback’s department, which also includes talent relations.

“Think of all of our awards work as a really smart way to make us the best home for talent in the world,” Reed Hastings, Netflix’s chief executive, said during a quarterly earnings call last month. “The business benefit is that we will win deals that we wouldn’t have otherwise.” Netflix may be spending a lot on awards campaigns. But the sum is a rounding error when you consider the company is poised to spend $17.3 billion on content this year.

Like all studios, Netflix flies stars to ceremonies that are seen as campaign stops, advertises in trade publications and sends swag to reporters (a pair of red slippers to support “The Two Popes,” for instance). But Netflix has also gone a great deal further, promoting films in ways that have raised eyebrows.

Rather than rely on trade news outlets, Netflix has opted to create its own, including a thick, expensive-looking magazine called “Queue,” filled with glossy photos and essays from high-profile contributors like Roxane Gay, and two separate podcasts from the former entertainment journalists Kris Tapley and Krista Smith (now consultants for Netflix).

The company rented out the famed Belasco Theater on Broadway to screen “The Irishman” and reopened the defunct Manhattan single-screen theater the Paris with a long-term rental deal. The company is still conducting talks to buy the historic Egyptian theater in Hollywood.

In December The Washington Post revealed that Netflix courted members of the Broadcast Film Critics Choice Association, which puts on the Critics’ Choice Awards, with free trips to Los Angeles and New York for private access to filmmakers and stars. Members of the association who accepted stayed in luxury hotels like the Four Seasons. The group awarded Netflix films and television shows with nine trophies, including best acting ensemble for “The Irishman.”

In a statement this week, Netflix responded to The Post article, saying, in part: “Promotional tactics like junkets, screenings and festivals are standard industry practice and not just for awards.”

“Netflix is not violating any rules. They just have lots of resources,” said Joe Pichirallo, a producer and a professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. “They do it to gain credibility and legitimacy and to let skittish auteur directors know that if you make a movie for Netflix, they will go all out to get you an Oscar, just like the studios.”

Even without winning big on Sunday, the company has already won. Netflix’s many nominations mean that 30 million people in the United States will watch a celebration of a lot of movies that they have not seen in theaters. Netflix will have succeeded in creating an emotional and intellectual shift — high-caliber original films associated with television sets and computer screens.

The streaming giant’s bruising night at the Globes certainly didn’t cast a pall over its after-party. Many of the night’s biggest stars made the soiree their first — and perhaps only — stop on the evening’s celebration circuit.

Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio huddled alongside “The Irishman” cast in a cordoned-off corner of a tented structure in Beverly Hills as waiters offered fried-chicken sandwiches, mini corn dogs and specialty Casamigos cocktails. Scarlett Johansson, Ms. Dern and Jennifer Aniston all showed up to pay their respects to the town’s deepest pockets, and that was before Tiffany Haddish grabbed the DJ’s mic and started rapping.

“We ready,” Ms. Haddish shouted into the microphone, while holding a glass of white wine in her other hand. “Netflix putting food on people’s tables.”

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/netflix-spent-big-on-oscar-worthy-films-that-may-not-be-enough/

[dougmeet]

The Epigraph Poem of The Great Gatsby The novel is prefaced by this four-line poem: Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!" —Thomas Parke D'Invilliers First, let’s analyze the poem, and then we can talk about who this D’Invilliers fellow is. “Then Wear the Gold Hat” In the most basic sense, the poem is a piece of advice. We know this because the first words, “then wear,” make it sound like we are hearing the middle of a conversation. Someone has been complaining about his romantic problems with a specific “she,” and the poem’s speaker is answering with some tips on what to do. The advice the poem is: go out of your way to impress her with your wealth/status (“gold hat”), and with your derring-do (“bounce high”). Whatever you can possibly do to attract her attention is worth it if she ends up won over, because then she will be insatiable (“I must have you”). Of course, this image of a ‘gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover’ is clownish at best and completely absurd at worst. The poem echoes the novel's plot and characterizations: Gatsby’s approach to winning over Daisy is exactly that of the gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, desperate to try anything - including buying a giant mansion next door and throwing weekly parties in the vague hope that she would show up. The idea of putting on a hat as a way of burnishing your image is exactly what Gatsby has done in adopting his “Oxford man” persona, and relates to the way he is sometimes described as an actor or charlatan. (Nick calls Gatsby a "turbaned "character" leaking sawdust at every pore" (4.31), while owl-eye glasses party guest compares Gatsby to David Belasco, a famous theater producer in Chapter 3). At the same time, the clear mockery of the image of this lover points to the craziness of Gatsby’s obsession and the absurdity of his monomaniacal quest for Daisy’s heart. There is no dignity in the approach the poem recommends, as there is none in Gatsby’s as well. This idea is further reinforced when we consider that Fitzgerald originally wanted the novel to have a more satiric flavor (check out our article on The Great Gatsby's title for more details). The poem also connects with novel through the character of “she,” who stands in for Daisy. It's important to note that the "she" in the poem is someone to impress and win over, and not someone to learn anything about. Just like Daisy in the novel, the poem's "she" is a prize or an objective rather than a person.

Understanding The Great Gatsby First Line and Epigraph

[newyorktheater]

My annual New Year’s Eve last-minute guide to events that are still available to do on New Year’s Eve 2019 (when 2018 turns into 2019) in New York City

New Year’s Eve in New York means the dropping of the ball in Times Square, the fireworks in Prospect Park and Coney Island, the annual concert at St. John the Divine, the midnight run with fireworks in Central Park  — all FREE, and all things you can decide to do at the last minute. It also can mean obscenely expensive shows and extremely loud parties, an annual arena concert featuring Phish and a new cabaret act from Aaron Tveit, a cruise in the harbor, or a dinner for two in your favorite eatery — not all of which are sold out weeks in advance. You can pretend to converse with 200 celebrities carved out of wax, or stay at home and watch the festivities online — on this very post.

Below:

Broadway show schedule for the week,+ other theater

parties  concerts intimate dinners cruises quiet or healthy alternatives

TV listings. 

Only eight percent of Americans reportedly plan to go out on any given New Year’s Eve, and I suspect the percentage is even lower when it occurs on a Monday, as it does this year. For those New Yorkers (and New York visitors) who haven’t made those plans yet, here are some ideas:

Bebe Rexha, headliner

Post Malone, live and on some devices

TIMES SQUARE

The New Year’s Eve tradition in Times Square began in 1904 with a rooftop celebration to greet the New Year. Three years later, they started lowering a ball.

From the organizers comes this overview of New Year’s Eve in Times Square, so you know what is in store for you if you decide to stand at the Crossroads of the World on December 31st. Revelers start arriving late in the afternoon. By approximately 3:00 PM., the Bowtie of Times Square (42nd to 47th Sts. between Broadway & 7th Ave.) is fully closed to traffic. The crowd, which in the past has reached in the millions, could go as far uptown as Central Park, 17 blocks away.

Another way of saying this: If you want to be within naked-eyesight of the Times Square ball, arrive in the afternoon, and be prepared to stand immobile until the ball drops at midnight.  Huddle with friends and loved ones for warmth – or make new friends.

Bebe Rexha and alt-pop band lovelytheband will be among the performers during the countdown.

Times Square offers an outdoor evening of entertainment, culminating in confetti, “2019” sign in lights, lots of hugging and wishing for a Happy New Year

    I’ve spent three New Year’s Eves in Times Square, which is probably two more than necessary, but found each memorable. Do remember that the highlights will be televised. See What’s on TV, below.)

You can also watch the festivities online

DINING OUT ON NEW YEAR’S EVE

Open Table lists some 700 restaurants  with “New Year’s Eve offers” Most of them offer a choice of seatings – either earlier in the evening, so that you can make it in time elsewhere for the stroke of midnight, or party-hat-equipped seatings that lead up to midnight, where you can often turn on a TV so that you can watch the ball drop in Times Square. Open Table provides all sorts of filters — you can look for a table for 2 at a “charming” French restaurant at 7 pm in your specific neighborhood.

Have a favorite neighborhood eatery that’s not listed on Open Table? Go to the place NOW, and ask them whether they will take reservations.

THEATER ON NEW YEAR’S WEEK

No Broadway shows will be offering performances on New Year’s Eve, which falls on a Monday this year, normally the dark day for most shows.  But 25 of the shows will offer performances on New Year’s Day, all of them in the evening. 

Show Run Time Theatre Mon 12/31 Tue 01/01 Wed 01/02 Thu 01/03 Fri 01/04 Sat 01/05 Sun 01/06 Aladdin 2h 30min New Amsterdam 7:00 1:00 & 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 1:00 & 6:30 American Son 1h 20min Booth 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 Anastasia 2h 25min Broadhurst 7:00 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 The Band’s Visit 90min Barrymore 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 Beautiful – The Carole King Musical 2h 15min Stephen Sondheim 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 7:00 The Book of Mormon 2h 30min Eugene O’Neill 7:00 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 7:00 The Cher Show 2h 20min Neil Simon 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 Chicago 2h 30min Ambassador 8:00 2:30 & 8:00 8:00 8:00 2:30 & 8:00 7:00 Choir Boy Samuel J. Friedman 7:00 7:00 8:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 7:00 Come From Away 100min Schoenfeld 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 Dear Evan Hansen 2h 25min Music Box 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 The Ferryman 3h 15min Jacobs 7:00 1:00 & 7:30 7:00 7:00 1:00 & 7:30 3:00 Frozen 2h 15min St. James 1:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 1:00 & 6:30 Hamilton 2h 40min Richard Rodgers 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two 2h 35min Lyric 2:00 Prt1 7:30 Prt2 7:30 Part 1 7:30 Part 2 2:00Prt1 7:30Prt2 2:00 Prt1 7:30 Prt2 Head Over Heels 2h 15min Hudson 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 7:00 King Kong 2h 30min Broadway 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 Kinky Boots 2h 20min Hirschfeld 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 The Lifespan of a Fact 1h 35min Studio 54 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 7:00 The Lion King 2h 30min Minskoff 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 1:00 & 6:30 Mean Girls 2h 30min August Wilson 7:00 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 7:30 My Fair Lady 2h 55min Vivian Beaumont 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 Network 2h 0min Belasco 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 3:00 The New One 1h 20min Cort 3:00 & 7:30 7:30 8:00 3:00 & 8:00 3:00 & 7:30 Once on This Island 90min Circle in the Square 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 & 7:30 The Phantom of the Opera 2h 30min Majestic 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 The Play That Goes Wrong 2h 0min Lyceum 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 Pretty Woman: The Musical 2h 30min Nederlander 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 The Prom 2h 15min Longacre 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 School of Rock The Musical 2h 30min Winter Garden 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 Summer: The Donna Summer Musical 1h 40min Lunt-Fontanne 7:00 2:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 To Kill a Mockingbird 2h 50min Shubert 1:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 1:00 & 6:30 Torch Song 2h 30min Hayes 7:00 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 7:30 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 True West American Airlines 8:00 8:00 8:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 Waitress 2h 30min Brooks Atkinson 7:00 2:00 & 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 The Waverly Gallery 2h 15min Golden 2:00 & 8:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 3:00 Wicked 2h 45min Gershwin 7:00 7:00 7:00 8:00 2:00 & 8:00 2:00 & 7:00

(If tickets are not available through the box office, try buying tickets here)

Of course, New York theater is far more than just Broadway, and some Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway shows are not just happening, but getting into the whole excess thing that means New Year’s Eve to so many in New York. Prime example is Sleep No More, which for New Year’s Eve adds a “New Year’s Eve Feast” and something called the McKittrick King Masquerade,  with live performances and an open bar (“All guests should come in their finest attire in shades of gold, silver, and black, suitable for a King’s Masquerade.”) The cost is astronomical.

Similarly XIV Company offers its  “Nutcracker Rouge,”  (a “baroque, burlesque” not-for-children take on Nutcracker Suite) at a new theater in Bushwick, Brooklyn, followed by a party with the cast.

FAMILY SHOWS NOT ON BROADWAY

Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular (two performances on New Year’s Eve, at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m..)

Big Apple Circus> (noon and 9:30 p.m.)

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NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTIES

AT NIGHTCLUBS & WEIRD PLACES (including home)

There’s a New York for almost any taste, so why would it be surprising that Eventbrite lists some 1,000 New Year’s Eve parties? More than 100 of those are listed as free (that’s my taste.) Others are obscenely expensive.

You can dance at parties set up in Times Square venues, such as the Marriot Marquis and the AMC 42nd Street movie theater, “six floors of fun” for as little as $49 (that’s after 12:30 a.m. admission) and as much as $3,300. Here’s an odd one offered at a discount through Goldstar

Party With the Stars at Madame Tussauds — which is to say, “with over 200 life-sized wax figures.”

Most promote a great view of the ball dropping (which — do you mind my pointing out? — is an insane pitch, but apparently an effective one)

Then there are the super-hip parties in Brooklyn and Queens.

BangOn!NYC has moved its annual bash this year to Maspeth, Queens, at the (aptly named?) Knockdown Center, with three musical stages, a silent disco, live painting, interactive art installations and performances, a bartering blackjack table, and more cosmic creations to transcend time and space.” (Their promotional material still claims the show is in Brooklyn — perhaps they mean it as a state of mind.)

Purple Rain Dance Party. For the fifth year in a row, Syndicated, a movie theater, bar and restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn will project the 1984 movie” Purple Rain” on the wall while dj/vjs The Hogstad Brothers spin Prince classics like “Raspberry Beret” and “Cream.”  Purple Rain or Prince-inspired costumes/attire “strongly encouraged.”

Many suggest throwing your own New Year’s Eve party, and offer vaguely insulting step-by-step tips on how to do so. The most memorable advice for throwing a party came from Joan Crawford, who was quite a partier in her day (see above). Her advice (see below)  can be summed up as:

Have a mix of people as your guests, but nobody with dirty feet.

Secretly drug them.

(P.S., don’t do this.)

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CONCERTS

Some concerts that will be sold out or too expensive will be available in your home, live, depending. (See TV listings below.)

St. John the Divine Concert for Peace.

An annual FREE event since 1984, when it was founded by Leonard Bernstein. Along with the music of Mozart and Bach, this year’s concert includes a choir singing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I have a dream speech.(You can pay in advance to reserve a seat. Otherwise it’s first come, first served.)

  The soprano Renee Fleming will accompany the New York Philharmonic in performing Broadway and film hits, Viennese waltzes, and operetta gems. For those who can’t make it to Lincoln Center, it will be presented Live from Lincoln Center on PBS. (See TV listings below.)

  Phish at Madison Square Garden for the 12th year in a row! The bad news is that their New Year’s Even concert is sold out. The good news is 1. (as of this writing) tickets are still available for their three earlier dates. 2. see TV listings below.

Margo Price and Lilly Hiatt Music Hall of Williamsburg (country)

The Lone Bellow and Courtney Maries Andrews Bowery Ballroom (folk, country and blues)

Oteil and Friends, Brooklyn Bowl (Southern rock)

Gov’t Mule,Beacon Theatre (indie rock)

Snoop Dogg, Terminal 5, Hell’s Kitchen (hip hop and r&b)

Post Malone, Barclays Center, Brooklyn (hip hop and r&b). See TV listings below.

CABARET

With the repeal in 2017 of the hated 91-year-old Cabaret Law, which banned dancing at all but a handful of licensed venues (fewer than 100), you could argue that life is a cabaret (or at least could be) at all 25,000 eating and drinking establishments in New York City. But “cabaret” has come to define specific genres of intimate entertainment at just a few, relatively small venues, such as those below.

Tip: Most cabarets offer two seatings on New Year’s Eve. The one earlier in the evening is far less expensive. Many of these performers return to these venues every New Year’s — a wonderful tradition that makes last-minute tickets chancy, but worth trying.

Sandra Bernhard: Quick Sand at Joe’s Pub

Natalie Douglas: A Very Natalie New Year at the Duplex — her 19th New Year’s there

New Year’s Eve with Charles Busch and Friends at Feinstein’s/54 Below (early show)

Aaron Tveit on New Year’s Eve at Feinstein/54 Below (late show)

The Birdland Big Band at Birdland Jazz Club

FIREWORKS

Annual Prospect Park Fireworks – free. at Grand Army Plaza

Coney Island New Year’s Eve Celebration -5th annual celebration, with free fireworks on the boardwalk

HARBOR CRUISES

Big selling point of all these cruises — a close-up of the New Years Eve fireworks over the water. Most include a buffet, open bar, and dancing with a dj. Drawbacks: These cost hundreds of dollars, and many are already sold out. (But there are cruises during the day on New Year’s Eve”

Circle Line New Year’s Eve Cruises

Queen of Hearts Cruise

New York Water Taxi New Year’s Eve Cruise

Cornucopia Yacht at Pier 81

New Year’s Fireworks Cruise at Pier 15

Fireworks Cruise at Pier 62

HEALTHY ALTERNATIVES

A MEDITATIVE ALTERNATIVE

The Kadampa Meditation Center in Chelsea, $50 for non-members, provides a way for you to “ring in the New Year “with compassion and beneficial intentions!” — hors d’oeuvres, meditation, and no alcohol. (Pre-registration is required.) Also one this year in Williamsburg

WALKING AND RUNNING AND BIKING

New York Road Runners’   Midnight Run in Central Park

Shorewalkers Happy New Years Day Hike — Hiking the shores and parks of upper Manhattan starting at noon on New Year’s Day, which gives you a good excuse to go to bed early.

Annual Bike Ride and  Party, from Time’s Up environmental action organization. This year they’re doing it a little differently:  The ride will begin in three different locations (one in Brooklyn) and end up indoors at Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space in the East Village for what they’ve renamed the “Future Positive New Year’s Eve Dance Party” which will feature a multimedia presentation by activist artists and then live music.

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WHAT’S ON TV (and other home devices)

ABC: Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2019.  Co-hosts include Jenny McCarthy, Ciara and Lucy Hale. Performances from Christina Aguilera and Post Malone (who’s also performing at Barclay Center that night, so he’s busy), as well as Florida Georgia Line, Maren Morris, Ella Mai, The Chainsmokers, Lauren Alaina, Bazzi, Kane Brown, Camila Cabello, Ciara, Halsey, Shawn Mendes, Charlie Puth, Dua Lipa, Macklemore, Kelsea Ballerini and Foster the People.

CNN: Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen will be back together as hosts of CNN’s New Year’s Eve special for the second year (Cohen last year replacing Cooper’s decade-long partner Kathy Griffin.) They will be in Times Square live, while Brooke Baldwin and Don Lemon will be presenting the countdown from New Orleans. (I can’t help quoting what Anderson Cooper said in 2013: “I don’t know anybody who has a fun time at a party at New Year’s Eve. That’s why I work on New Year’s Eve.”)

Fox: Fox’s New Year’s Eve with Steve Harvey: Live from Times Square will feature performances by . Sting, Robin Thicke, Florence + the Machine, Jason Aldean, Juanes and Why Don’t We.

NBC: Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb will preside over a year-end special A Toast to 2018! featuring a look back at the highs and lows, followed at 10 p.m. NBC’s New Year’s Eve with hosts  Carson Daly hosts, Chrissy Teigen and SNL‘s Leslie Jones, and musical performances by Jennifer Lopez, Bebe Rexha, Urban, Diana Ross, Kelly Clarkson, Andy Grammer, Brett Young, John Legend and Blake Shelton

PBS: Live from Lincoln Center with Renee Fleming and the New York Philharmonic, followed at 10:30 by Great Performances: Leonard Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood.

  TV Marathons

Most of these start in the evening of New Year’s Eve and then go all New Year’s Day

AMC: “The Walking Dead”

FXX: “The Simpsons.”

IFC: “The Three Stooges”

SYFY: “Twilight Zone”

WPIX: “The Honeymooners”

 And, in a nod to a new era,

1. SiriusXM plans to air live New Year’s Eve concerts by artists including Post Malone, Phish, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Willie Nelson, on various stations — eg Malone on Hip Hop Nation, Phish on Phish Radio.

2. “100 Best Movies currently on Netflix”

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  New Year’s Eve in New York City 2019: Last Minute Plans My annual New Year's Eve last-minute guide to events that are still available to do on New Year’s Eve 2019 (when 2018 turns into 2019) in New York City…