#and there's also like no better image of how musicals are often treated by broadway than a parrot in a dirty too-small cage

[leporellian]

So like understand my thinking here

#specifically chose musicals to be a -live- animal unlike the others bc musical theatre does have much more of a stronghold #than something like opera which largely sticks around out of stubbornness and also having never actually been with 'the times' anyway #i also think parrots are the closest thing we have to biological dragons (although i think opera and puppetry are the closest we get to Rea #dragons so ymmv) #and there's also like no better image of how musicals are often treated by broadway than a parrot in a dirty too-small cage #opera tag #theatre #dramaturgy #rambles

[mab1905]

84 Questions

original: 

https://fuckyeahsurveys.tumblr.com/post/61049002526/84-questions

1. Put your music player of choice on shuffle and list the first 10 songs

Someone New (Hozier)

Cactus Tree (Joni Mitchell)

Budapest (George Ezra)

And Dream Of Sheep (Kate Bush)

Nancy Mulligan (Ed Sheeran)

And Then She Kissed Me (St. Vincent)

Level of Concern (Twenty One Pilots)

Lovefool (The Cardigans)

Best For Last (Adele)

Video Killed The Radio Star (The Buggles)

2. If you could spend a week anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? Would you take anyone with you?

Japan. I travel a lot and it’s been on my list for a while, I would really want to go to the Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli theme park, if it ever opens that is. I would bring my best friend, Layla. I also would love to go to Amsterdam again.

3. What is your preferred writing implement? (eg. Blue pen, pencil, green pen) 

My ink nib cartooning pen (similar to a quill, but without the feather)

4. Favourite month and why? 

October, not too hot, not too cold, and of course, Halloween!

5. Do you have connections to any celebrities (even minor)? List them.

Nope, met several, got to true connections though. 

6. Name 3 items you could pick up from where you are.

My iPad, my Leatherman Multitool, my collection of David Bowie postcards.

7. What brand logo is closest to you currently?

The Apple logo

8. Do you ever play board games or other non-computer games? Got any favourites?

Chess. Card games like Solitaire, Black-Jack, and Castle. A game that I can’t remember the name of but it’s essentially a board-game version of Capture The Flag. Mostly Chess.

9. A musical artist you love that isn’t well known

St. Vincent? I’m not sure if she’s well known or not.

10. A musical artist you love that is well known

David Bowie. 

11. What is your desktop background currently?

A picture of Apollo 11 accompanied by the words “It won’t fail because of me”

12. Last person you talked to, and through what you talked to them

My best friend Layla, through the iMessage app.

13. First colour name you can think of that isn’t in the rainbow

Salmon

14. What timekeeping devices are in the room you are currently in?

My iPad, my computer, my collection of vintage stopwatches

15. What kind of headphones do you use?

Sony, wireless, noise canceling, over-the ear 

16. What musical artists have you seen perform live?

Twenty One Pilots, Sylvan Esso

17. Does virginity matter to you?

I guess? I think it’s important, it’s certainly some kind of ‘milestone,’ but I don’t think it should be treated like the scale of a persons ‘purity.’ It’s important because it’s sex, and (hopefully) that means that you’re sharing a consensual, intimate experience that feels fucking great for both (or all, if it’s more then two) participants.

18. What gaming consoles do you or your family own?

Z e r o, although I’m hoping to buy a PS4 at some point so I can play Detroit Become Human.

19. What pets do you have? What are their names?

Juno is my cat, she is an adorable grey tiger-striped shorthair. She’s got little white mitten-paws and it’s absolutely ridiculous.

20. What’s the best job you’ve ever had?

Doing tech at a local theater

21. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

Teaching art to little kids (I like kids but it was just exhausting)

22. What magazines do you read, if any?

The New Yorker, and the National Geo if I’m like, waiting in my doctor’s office or something.

23. Inspiration behind your URL?

It’s just my initials and a year from the Edwardian era

24. Inspiration behind your blog title?

It’s just my initials 

25. Favourite item of clothing?

My reddish-brown knit sweater vest and my floral bow-tie (often paired together)

26. Are you friends with any exes?

I made a very conscious effort to cut my exe out of my life… we were not happy for a very long time to say the least

27. Name at least one book you loved as a child.

Strega Nona, it’s about an Italian witch that makes great pasta in a magic pasta pot. My dad would read it to me and my sibling in Italian.

28. What’s your native language? If that language has distinct regional variations, which variation? (eg. AU English, US English)

US English

29. What email service do you use?

Gmail

30. Is there anything hanging on the walls of the room you are currently in?

So many things. Here's the list:

A giant David Bowie poster, a plaque that says “David Bowie IS,” five David Bowie postcards, a giant Abbey Road poster, all of my patches from summer camp, polaroids of me, my friends, and my family (including my cat), ticket stubs from concerts and plays, two trail markers that I took off of fallen trees on two important cross-country backpacking trips I went on, playbills from a bunch of broadway shows I’ve seen, a poster that says “Stonewall was a riot,” a DC Comics poster, a Pink Floyd poster, a few paintings of mine, and a painting that I got for free from a street artist I befriended in Rome when I was twelve

31. What’s your favourite number, and why?

16, 24, 21, and 8, some numbers make me uncomfortable, but these are just very soft and light and nice 

32. Earliest moment in your life you can remember? 

A rocking chair with fruits painted on it sitting in a dark room and my great grandfathers brown leather loafers (I remember early early stuff in just images or stills, not full moments)

33. What did you have for dinner yesterday?

Pasta with shrimp

34. How often do you brush your teeth?

Usually twice a day, but I’ve been waking up later and later and sometimes forget in the mornings

35. What’s your favourite candy/chocolate?

I don’t know the name of it but it’s this chocolate bar that is stuffed with caramel, hot chili flakes, and crunchy bits of baked tortilla. It's one of the greatest things I’ve ever tasted.

36. Have you had other blogs on Tumblr? Do you have any other blogs currently?

I used to have one but I deleted it because I never used it

37. If you were suddenly really hungry, what would you choose to eat?

I would probably walk into the kitchen, realize that too eat something I would have to muster the effort to cook something instead, and then decide to just have a glass of milk instead.

38. What fandoms would you consider yourself a part of?

Downton Abbey (primarily Thommy)

Chernobyl HBO (as well as the Leonid Toptunov/Sasha Akimov subfandom)

Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit (books and movies)

CrankGamePlays

Buzzfeed Unsolved

Star Trek TOS

Philosophy Tube

The Dark Crystal and The Dark Crystal: Age Of Resistance

39. If you could study anything, what would it be?

If I had the energy to fully wrench my life in a completely different direction I would like to become a professional scuba diver and study the ocean. I already am a scuba diver, but it’s a hobby and not something I’m able to do very often at all.

40. Do you use anything on your lips? (eg. Chapstick, gloss, balm, lipstick)

I’ll wear chapstick if I have a cold

41. How would you describe your sense of humour?

Intellectual and dry

42. What things annoy you more than anything else?

People who think they’re better than everyone else and people who recognize a fault in themselves and then refuse to work to change it

43. What kind of position are you in at the moment?

I’m laying on my bed, hunched over my laptop

44. Do you wear much jewellery?

Occasionally I’ll wear a necklace or a few rings. I have a lot of non-traditional bracelets (I literally just have pieces of canvas and industrial tie-line wrapped around my wrist). I’m a gay guy and I like to sort-a walk the line between feminine and masculine (often leaning more towards the masc side), so it really depends on my mood.

45. Who is the leader of your country, currently? Any other levels of government with leaders? (State, region, province, county, district, municipality, etc)

A cheese-pizza flavored pringle is currently POTUS and every day the thought of that tears away at a piece of my soul. 

46. Last 3 blogs on your dashboard, not including any of your own

@shochmonster @velvet-of-the-night @panicsheerbloodypanic

47. What do you carry your money in?

My pocket, I have a wallet and I don’t use it

48. Do you enjoy driving? Why or why not?

It’s fine, don’t love it don’t hate it

49. Longest drive you have ever been on?

Three days

50. Furthest away from home you have ever been?

Went on a trip to Switzerland to visit family, I think that’s the farthest but I’m not entirely sure.

51. How many times have you moved house?

Twice

52. What is on the floor of the room you’re currently in, not including furniture?

Five paintings, stacks and stacks of books, boxes filled with stuff (mostly more books), plates, glasses, cutlery, clothes

53. How many devices do you own which can access the internet?

2, and iPad and a computer

54. Is there is anything that is guaranteed to always make you happy?

Listening to music

55. Is there anything that always makes you sad?

Thinking about my past for too long

56. What programs do you currently have open?

Google drive, I’m writing

57. What do you associate the colour red with?

Blood and fire

58. Last strong smell you can remember smelling?

Shrimp and butter

59. Last healthy thing you ate?

Three green olives and a handful of bean sprouts

60. Do you drink tea or coffee, and how much per day?

Used to drink coffee like it was life support (which it essentially was), now I’ll have the occasional cup of tea.

61. What do you associate the colour blue with?

Birds and rain

62. How long is the closest ruler you can find?

I don’t think I own one

63. What colour pants/skirt/etc are you currently wearing?

I am wearing olive green corduroy slacks

64. When was the last time you drank water?

30 minutes ago?

65. How often do you clear your browser history?

Never

66. Do you believe nude photos can be artistic, rather than erotic?

Nude anything can be artistic, it can also just be normal, eroticism is in the eye of the beholder.

67. Ever written fanfiction for anything?

Yes dear god so much fanfiction.

68. Last formal event you attended

I genuinely can’t remember, I am have extreme social anxiety and don’t go to events like that unless I absolutely have too

69. If you had to move your birthday to another date, which one would you choose and why?

I don’t care about birthdays

70. Would you prefer to be at a beach or in the countryside?

Beach, I love to swim, I’m also a surfer

71. Roughly how many people live in your town?

Uhm… eight times the number of people who live in the state of Montana and that doesn’t count daily commuters and tourists (New York City is essentially just a tin of sardines, except inside are 8.399 million sardines)

72. Do you know anyone with the same birthday as you?

No, but three of my friends were born on the day just after my birthday.

73. Favourite place to shop? Can be a certain store or a place where there are multiple stores

The Strand Bookstore, L Train Vintage, any antique shops in the town of Hudson, New York 

74. Do you have a smartphone? What kind? If you don’t, do you want one?

I used to have an iPhone 5SE but then it stopped working after a few weeks of quarantine and I haven’t gotten a new one (I’ve had it for about 5-6 years so it makes sense)

75. What is your least favourite colour, and why?

I don’t have a least favorite color, but my favorite color is prussian blue

76. How do you spell grey/gray?

Grey

77. Go to your dashboard and describe the image shown in the radar section (below the “Find blogs” link)

It’s anime fanart for a show I’ve never heard of

78. What difference is there between how many followers you have, and the number of blogs you follow?

3

79. How many posts do you have?

219

80. How many posts have you liked?

619

81. Do you post mainly reblogs, or your own content?

Mostly reblogs but I do my own content as well

82. Do you track any tags?

No, just blogs

83. What time is it currently?

10:39

84. Is there anything you should be doing right now?

writing

I’m not quite sure who to tag so it’s just open to anyone I guess?

#i love questionaires #they're so much fun

[wydmariana]

well hellooooo beautiful people !!  my name’s dani, i’m one of the admins on the main! i’m 20, i’m from toronto & i also play the hailey fc alanna !! i’m so fkn excited to have wealthy back up & running and to bring my baby mariana back ! she’s the same old girl and if you don’t know anything about her...everything u need is under the read more ! i rly need all the connections rn so like this & i’ll hit you up for plots !!!!

❛ new york’s very own mariana cavello was spotted on broadway street in  christian louboutin’s. your resemblance to selena gomez is unreal. according to tmz, you just had your twenty-third birthday bash. while living in new york, you’ve been labeled as being reticent, but also quixotic. i guess being a gemini explains that. three things that would paint a better picture of you would be fishnets, tequila shots, notebooks filled with lyrics. & ( cisfemale & she/her ) + ( dani, 20, she/her, est )

☇   ❪    ˚･ﾟ ❛ STATISTICS :

full name: mariana marisol cavello

nickname(s): mari

age: twenty three

date of birth: june 4th

hometown: new york city

current location: upper east side, new york city

ethnicity: half mexican

nationality: american

gender: cisfemale

pronouns: she/her

parents names: tanner hastings, liliana cavello

orientation: pansexual but she doesn’t like labels

religion: grew up catholic, undecided

political affiliation: democrat

occupation: singer/songwriter

living arrangements: lives in her own mansion in the upper east side

language(s) spoken: english, spanish

accent: american

face claim: selena gomez

hair colour: x (most basic/accurate/but it changes)

eye colour: brown

height: 5″5

weight: 120lbs

build: petite

tattoos: mostly selena’s canon, but x instead of the music note

piercings: x (both ears)

drugs/alcohol/sex: yes/yes/yes

pets: one cat, 5 years old, named sergio - x

astrological chart: gemini sun, cancer moon, scorpio rising

☇   ❪    ˚･ﾟ ❛  BACKSTORY/CURRENT :

mariana was born to tanner cavello (famous hotel owner, entrepreneur, multimillionaire, been on forbes, think bart bass) & lilliana cavello (hispanic model/socialite)

her parents marriage was very much settling, the two of them cared about each other & were excited to start their life together in effort to please their parents and keep their images pristine

they were quick to fall out of love though, if you could say they were even ever in it

once mariana and her brother became teenagers, their dad started having affairs with his employes, the hot, young ones of course. & their mom found out, but confided in a 16 year old mariana about her father’s actions

( sexual abuse tw ) this infuriated mariana, especially considering the hours she would spend waiting outside her father’s office doing homework while his business partners molested her in the empty conference room starting at the age of 14

she never told anyone about it, although she knew her father had known the whole time, remembering how many times he’d interrupt it by summoning his partners for work or a meeting

mariana began absolutely hating her father, while still yearning for his approval, & this went on for 4 years until she turned 18 and got revenge by sleeping with one of her dad’s business partners & allowing his wife to find out

so his wife threatened to tell the media about this little scandal, unless mari’s dad paid them off, which is exactly what he did but not before taking his anger out on mariana & blaming her for the whole mess

she has barely talked to her dad since & moved out right as that whole situation went down. she does her best to avoid family gatherings, doesn’t visit the house to see her parents too often. she does have weekly phone calls with her mom & tries to see her as often as she can, no matter how much she resents her

she got into the party scene around 17/18 as well, and became new york’s resident “wild child rich kid/socialite” in her teen years, so she has that reputation in the media still to this day

her parents have been rich as fuck since the day she was born, so she’s definitely a spoiled brat, never worked a day in her life, had daddy’s credit card whenever she needed it

music had always been a passion of hers though, being her favorite class in school(on days when she would actually attend)

so when she was 20, she started getting back into writing, sold a couple of her songs to artists like zendaya, the weeknd, etc

when she turned 21 she released her first single & album within the same year, began touring, and got to the top of the charts almost right away & gained a huge fanbase, whom she loves

she’s now 23 and has two studio albums out !! she’s v successful and happy w her music <3 she releases things very sporadically & im probs gonna  release random selena songs along with other voice claims maybe IDKDKKD hope yall dont mind  my  messy ass kskffsk

she works hard though, & loves writing and releasing music now and never wants to stop. it’s truly the thing that makes her most happy in the entire world and keeps her sane

☇   ❪    ˚･ﾟ ❛  PERSONALITY  :

mariana can be a brat, to put it simply. she thinks she’s always right about everything & it’s rare you’re ever gonna get an apology from her when she’s done something wrong (unless she really cares about you which….)

she’s lowkey a softie, bc of her cancer moon tbh. she tends to get herself into relationships and then mess them up for the sake of it or because she stops trusting herself to be in the relationship at all

but when she loves someone, she LOVES them, like w every fibre in her body u know?

and she cares fiercely about people, it ends up being a problem for her a lot of the time

she hasn’t worked through her trauma & probably never will, she bottles that shit up tight & doesn’t let anybody know it’s there. the only way she’s ever opening up is if she’s writing, cause she wants that shit to be real

but she’s still gonna hoe it up, catch her in the club trying to get some dick for the night, u know what i mean?

super depressed if we’re being real here. she’s sad, and she has abandonment issues because of her dad. so her mindset is- there’s no forming attachments, because everyone leaves me anyway

( drugs tw ) she loves cocaine, is most definitely an addict (but who isn’t in this city), tequila is her alcohol of choice, but she’ll drink anything you give her & weed is her creative saving grace

she started popping pain pills on her 21st birthday, opioids occasionally & mostly xanax, stuff like that, is most definitely also addicted to those

we love a bitch who doesn’t care about her health!

her management team frowns upon it, but she does smoke cigarettes pretty often, but mostly only when she’s stressed

mariana’s the type of bitch to call the paparazzi on herself, she loves attention. but with her music career now it’s been 10x harder for her to keep her life private, not that she cares. but at least she doesn’t have to call the paps on herself anymore lol

she thinks it’s important to treat people w kindness and respect, but no doubt she’ll be ready to fight a b*tch if she has to…

catch her at any protest that involves saying “fuck you trump”

her instagram is a big mix of stories of her cat, dumb selfies, ig model posts, her friends, career stuff & political posts. she’s very active on the gram & snapchat lol

honestly thank U for reading this trash if u didnt…i understand. catch her pinterest board for more here & i have a wanted connections page here ! ok bye i love u, plot w me <3

#wealthyhq:intro

[hellyescharlesedwards]

The Range in Spades.

By Peter Craven. 

As with everyone, My Fair Lady is an ancient memory for Charles Edwards, who seems to oscillate from the Rex Harrison repertoire to Shakespeare – Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit with Angela Lansbury in the West End and America, but also Oberon to Judi Dench’s Titania, directed by Peter Hall. 

“I was fascinated by it as a child,” he says. “The LP of the original with Rex and Julie [Andrews] I found – I can’t remember how old I would have been, but quite little – but I remember being really fascinated by the wit, even at that stage. I knew it was very clever and very sharp and very English, particularly the way Rex did it.” 

Edwards is the new Henry Higgins in Julie Andrews’ production of My Fair Lady. It’s the Hamlet of high-comedy roles and arguably the greatest of all musicals. So what does he do with Higgins’ sprechgesang? Does he follow the notes or does he do what Rex Harrison did on Broadway in 1956, opposite Andrews’ Eliza Doolittle, hitting a note every so often but speaking his way through? 

“I follow that,” Edwards says, of the latter. “I personally find if you follow the notes in Higgins’ songs, what is revealed to you is that they’re not nearly as much fun. They actually become rather leaden. And what you need with those songs is great lightness and dexterity. 

“I’d been playing around with doing it slightly off the beat, trying to maybe be a little bit clever with it. But Guy Simpson, our brilliant musical director, says it’s much better if you can speak as much as you like but just stick to the beat. It’s more real, there’s more of the character. Higgins knows what he’s saying, he doesn’t have to dither either side of the beat.” Frederick Loewe, after all, wrote it for Harrison, knowing he couldn’t sing. “I think that’s perhaps why if you try to sing more than one should it’s less interesting because it is written for the man who was going to do it like that.” 

Michael Redgrave famously refused the role of Higgins because it meant committing to a long run. How does Edwards feel about a longish stretch of phonetics and feminist musical comedy? “Oh, I could do it for a while,” he says. “I arrived, performed it in Brisbane, and now I’m rehearsing it in a way… for my own satisfaction. Something which would happen in four or six weeks of rehearsal is now happening to me, internally, just myself, finding my way. I feel like I’m still starting out even though the performance is there. I could do it for a bit longer because there is a lot more to explore.” 

I tell him I’ve just watched the recording of him playing Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing – the one role Harrison recorded for Caedmon, which is largely in prose and the Bard’s most Shavian play. “It was really fun,” Edwards says of his stint opposite Eve Best at the Globe in the role with a family resemblance to Higgins. “Julie [Andrews] likes comparing Shaw as the natural successor to Shakespeare in terms of that kind of comedy. I’m very drawn to both of these roles. That was a joy to do.” He adds that he learnt something from the Globe, because it’s rougher, more extroverted theatre. “If it’s done with wit,” he says, “it can be a great crowd-pleaser, without being naff. And I think it has informed my work to such an extent that often since I’ve been told, ‘Just calm down, Charles.’ ” 

When I tell him he was very good as the Tory whip in This House, the parliamentary play by James Graham, done by the National Theatre, he says of the author, “I don’t know how old he is, he’s something annoying like… he’s probably hit 30. I hope he has.” But he adds that at 47 himself he’s probably a bit younger than the received image of Higgins from the film of My Fair Lady, even though Shaw describes him as a pleasant-looking man of 40. It must be odd to inhabit a role with such a powerful acting ghost in the background. 

I once saw Harrison – very, very old – at an airport sweeping past in what looked exactly like the hat and coat he – and Edwards – wears in the opening scene of My Fair Lady in Covent Garden. “There’s a lot, I’m sure, in the production we’ve inherited that he insisted on,” Edwards says. “I’m sure that will be true of the hat … And here we are now, probably wearing the very weave he ordered from a particular tailor.” 

Of course, everyone likes the cut of Higgins’ cloth and would like to make it their own. George Clooney, of all people, is said to have had an eye on the role when Emma Thompson wanted to make a new film of it with Carey Mulligan as Eliza. And with the old George Cukor film, Alan Jay Lerner, treacherously, wanted Peter O’Toole, still in his 30s, rather than Harrison. Like O’Toole, Edwards does both ends of the acting spectrum: the light-as-air prose comedy of Shaw and the poetic majesties of Shakespeare. He worked with Peter Hall, the founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company. 

“I’ve done quite a lot with him,” he says. “I think I auditioned one year when he used to run the season at Bath and he took a shine and kept wanting me back to do this and that.” His work with Hall included another Much Ado, where he played Don Pedro. “He got it into his head,” Edwards says, “that Don Pedro at the end was like Malvolio or Antonio, the man who gets left alone.” So Edwards’ Don was a bit in love with Claudio and something of “a real devil”. 

His Oberon to Dench’s Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream came from another of Hall’s bright ideas. “Peter put it to me, ‘Look, I’ve got this idea, it’s like Elizabeth and Essex…’ They did a prelude to the evening where the players were assembling to put on a play for Elizabeth I and then Elizabeth/Judi arrives and selects me.” He says that Dench, like Andrews, is great to be with and “just as nervous and scared as the rest of us all are. They’re very great company people; their fun is being in the company.” This was the second time he’d worked with Dench because he’d been her fancy man, Sandy, when she played Judith Bliss in Coward’s classic comedy Hay Fever. He loves the lightness of My Fair Lady and the way it can modulate into the gravity of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face”, with its utterly moody interplay between hilarities of exasperation, and something else, something at the edge of heartbreak. 

Of course, acting careers have their light and dark. Harrison, high comedian though he was, did Preston Sturges’s Unfaithfully Yours, that demon study of jealousy. Marcello Mastroianni, in many ways his European equivalent, made some of the more serious masterpieces, everything from 8 ½ to La Notte. And Edwards went straight from acting with Olivia Williams in Harley Granville Barker’s Waste to doing a chocolate-box soap TV drama, The Halcyon, with her. He says Granville Barker stands up very well when you prune him back and you know he thinks this of Shaw, too – the way “The Rain in Spain” crystallises something Shaw takes for granted and talks around – and does so operatically. “I find it very touching, that bit,” Edwards says. “It’s wonderful to do.” 

And he’s at pains to defend Higgins, the man who – at Harrison’s insistence – was given another Act II number, “A Hymn to Him”. “He’s not a snob,” Edwards says. “He’s trying to remove the social gaps. He’s trying to erase them, in a rather perverse way by wanting everyone to speak the same and dismiss regional accents – but he’s not a snob. He’s an egalitarian.” 

It’s always a fascinating thing to listen to an actor let his mind roam about the ins and outs, the winding staircase of his career. Charles Edwards went to a preparatory school named Amesbury in Surrey, which he says was “pure Decline and Fall, full of eccentrics, some of them quite dangerous eccentrics”. His salvation was Hamlet. “I was invited by – you know, we all have these teachers who encourage us – his name is Simon Elliot and he’ll still come and see me in shows now. ‘I’d like to talk to you about Hamlet,’ he said. ‘Oh yeah?’ ”

From there, a career. Here he is on Angela Lansbury: “She is in every way fit. In Blithe Spirit she did this extraordinary dance with these jerky movements as she was preparing for a séance. I don’t know what it was but I know every night she loved doing it and changing it.” And on Maria Aitken, brilliant as the wife of John Cleese’s Archie in A Fish Called Wanda, who directed Edwards in The 39 Steps: “With comedy she immediately knows, ‘That’s what I want for this show.’ And that it has to be taken very seriously. She’s the person you need at the centre, taking it absolutely seriously.” She insisted that Edwards – who was the production’s original Hannay in The 39 Steps – had to play the role when it transferred to Broadway. “She was lovely. She fought for me and she said, ‘You need the Englishman. You need the backbone.’ And they brought me over even though the rest of the cast was two Americans and one Canadian. It was great, I was thrilled. But it’s the kind of humour that can tip. It’s got to be tasteful, it’s got to have taste. Taste is the key with humour that involves an audience.” 

All of which brings us round to the ending of My Fair Lady where Eliza comes back to Higgins. She has sung that she can do “Without You”. “Absolutely,” he says, “and this is heightened by the ending, the fact that some people would ask why does she come back to him. But there has to be a meeting of minds, a meeting of souls, and that’s what he realises right at the end. She comes back to show him that she has to be there, but she is in charge. And he sees that and accepts that. And all of that we try to do in three seconds of the show.” 

Edwards laughs. 

So what is it like to work with Julie Andrews as she re-creates the original production of My Fair Lady by the legendary Moss Hart? “It was a real treat, it’s an extraordinary thing and very touching to see her remembering it,” Edwards says. 

Obviously the production is a blueprint, which he had to fit himself to, but the man who is best known here for his stint in Downton Abbey adds, “But you have to imbue it with a new texture.”.

Taken from The Saturday Paper, published Jul 15, 2017.

#Charles Edwards #my fair lady #interviews

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Glenn Close: You lose power if you get angry

From vengeful mistress to Agatha Christie matriarch: the actor talks about Harvey Weinstein, mental illness and growing up in a cult

Glenn Close and I sit at the corner of a large boardroom table in an intimidatingly minimalist office on the 14th floor of a Los Angeles talent agency. Its the kind of environment in which Patty Hewes, the ruthless lawyer Close played in Damages for five seasons, would feel at home and Im almost waiting for her to stand up, slam both hands on the table and shout, Ill rip your face off or any of the other terrifying put-downs that defined her double Emmy award-winning performance.

But Close is in high spirits and radiates such warmth I barely notice the chill from the tower blocks air-con. After we fiddle with the settings on our swivel chairs, which are so high they make anyone under six foot kick their legs like a child on a swing, the 70-year-old, six-time Oscar nominee and star of stage, television and film starts telling me about her dreams. I have had a lot recently, full of this wonderful love for a younger man. The dreams just keep coming and I wake up thinking, that was wonderful! It wasnt necessarily us doing the sexual act, just the feeling of love.

With her white hair cut to a sharp crop, and wearing a relaxed navy blazer, chinos and black scarf on account of the arctic corporate temperature, she looks stylish and fit. I have never felt better in my life, and I am, like, 70, she says. Im really a late bloomer.

She says she feels a disconnect between how she sees herself and how people may view me when I walk down the street, like: Theres an old lady. You know, there is now this cult of the model. Everyone on the red carpet is made into a model. That is very hard to not play into I have a bit of podge I am trying to get rid of, but its hard. I just think, Oh fuck, Ive been doing this my whole life! But the irony is, you just get better and better with age. You dont feel less alive or less sexy.

In Agatha Christies Crooked House. Photograph: Nick Wall

We are here to talk about Crooked House, the Agatha Christie adaptation debuting on Channel 5, before its theatrical release, in which Close plays Lady Edith, a matriarch of a very dysfunctional family. Close says, Christies grandson came to the set and he validated the fact that it was her favourite book, and the one that had never been adapted. He said when she handed it to the publisher, she was told she had to change the ending, because it was too upsetting and controversial. She refused. Its still pretty controversial.

This production, co-written by Julian Fellowes, might not be as spendy as Kenneth Branaghs $55m Murder On The Orient Express, but the ensemble cast is equally starry: joining Close are Gillian Anderson, Max Irons, Terence Stamp and Christina Hendricks. Close presides over her co-stars with gravitas and grace, in an understated performance that finds the humour in an otherwise bleak setup. But youd expect nothing less from the actor whose 40 years in the business started with star turns in Broadway productions (she won a Best Actress Tony in 1983 for Tom Stoppards The Real Thing). Her first film role, at the age of 35, was with Robin Williams in The World According To Garp, for which she received an Oscar nomination as she did for her supporting roles in The Big Chill and The Natural. Her performances in Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons and Albert Nobbs, about the life of a transgender butler in late 19th century Ireland, which she also co-wrote, racked up further Oscar nominations but still no win. This is seen by many as a travesty: Close brings a precision to her film work, honed through her years on stage. She has that rare taut quality Jack Nicholson also has it where you believe that beneath the steely control she is capable of snapping at any moment.

It was this that led Andrew Lloyd Webber to cast her in 1993 as the tragic silent movie star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard on Broadway. Close reprised the role 23 years later, getting her old costumes out of storage (she has kept all her costumes and recently donated the collection to a university in Indiana) for its revival in Londons West End.

As Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction: Clearly she had mental health issues. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

But it was her Oscar-nominated turn as Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction in 1987 that proved career-defining. Thirty years on, Close still counts Forrest as the character of whom she feels most fond; she has admitted to fighting tooth and nail against the films eventual denouement, which turned the character into a bunny-boiling psychopath and Close into the casting directors go-to woman on the verge for years afterwards. Now we have the vocabulary to talk about these things, clearly she had mental health issues, she says.

Close sits regally still as she speaks, emphasising her points by leaning forward and locking eyes. Shes comfortable with silences and often takes a theatrical beat or two before answering questions. Shes all poise and control, but does she ever lose her temper?

I express my feelings quietly. I am not afraid of confrontation, but I am not particularly good at it. If I get attacked, I am not good at attacking back. There is fight, flight and freeze and I tend to freeze. That is not a strength of mine. I love the fact that my daughter Annie [Starke, an actor] is more of a fighter than I am. She doesnt let people get away with shit. While she agrees that women have a harder time being angry, publicly, than men, she says, I have played a lot of characters, and actually anger makes you lose power. Patty Hewes [in Damages] she hardly ever lost her temper, but when she did, it was very specific. I have always felt you lose power if you get that angry.

The collective outpouring of anger among women in Hollywood right now is something of which Close is acutely aware. She says that sexism in the industry has shifted more slowly than it should have done throughout her career: It took Harvey Weinstein and someone calling him out [for real change to happen]. I know Harvey, and he has never done that to me, but people would say he was a pig. I never knew that it was that bad and I dont personally know anybody who has endured that. I would like to think that I would have done something about it.

We discuss whether its possible to separate the work from the personalities involved in it. News has just broken that House Of Cards will be back for another series without Kevin Spacey, after it was originally canned because of harassment claims brought against its leading man. Close wraps her scarf around her chest and fixes me with her electric eyes. Artists, to make a huge generality, walk on a very thin line. Sometimes, like my beloved friend Robin Williams, who was one step away from madness, whatever makes them a great artist also makes them very complicated human beings. Again, that doesnt mean they can prey on and abuse people.

With Harvey Weinstein in 2013. Photograph: Mike Coppola/Getty Images

At the root of the problem of sexism in Hollywood right now is, Close says, biology. I think the way men have treated women, from the beginning of time, is because they have different brains to women. So I am not surprised by it at all. I say to a guy, Tell me the truth, if you see a woman walk into a room, what is the first thought that goes through your head? His answer, always, is, Would I fuck her? It doesnt mean they act on it. If you can evolve into a society where men know that they should not always act on it then there has been a positive revolution. But you cant just say that theyre not going to have the thought that is ridiculous. It also has to be the women, who are not powerful, to be OK to say no and leave the room. I think its unrealistic to say were going to change but we have to evolve.

I ask Close who she thinks is a great man today. She is silent, thinking, for what feels like a full 60 seconds in which I am so tempted to throw out some options: Barack Obama, the Pope, the friendly security guard on reception who let us in

Nelson Mandela, is her final answer, but Im not sure shes convinced. I guess for me, she says, greatness is taking your humanity and still doing the good thing. Its sad to say that there are very few men, who are leaders, who have some sort of moral code that they dont deviate from because of popular opinion.

She thinks we are undergoing a crisis of masculinity: In the public mind, yes. I was outraged when I heard that there was a war against men I was like, are you joking? What do you think has been happening against women for centuries?

Close knows all too well about the misuse of power, because her own upbringing was, as she puts it, complicated. When she was seven, her parents joined a cult. Moral Re-Armament or MRA was a modern, nondenominational movement founded by an American evangelical fundamentalist which extolled the four absolutes: honesty, purity, unselfishness and love. Her father, a physician working in the Congo, sent Close with her brother and two sisters from the family home in Greenwich, Connecticut, to live at the MRA HQ in Caux, Switzerland (Closes mother, Bettine, was a socialite).

She is vague on the details but clear on the impact this experience had on her as a teenager: I was repressed, clueless and guilt-ridden. The timeline is patchy, but Close travelled with MRA in the 60s as a member of their musical groups, and spent time back in Connecticut at an elite boarding school. I had a wonderful time at Rosemary Hall, a girls school, she says. I was in a renegade singing group called the Fingernails: A Group With Polish. But she remained, as she calls it clueless. A lot of my friends knew boys youd have these horrendous dances with boys schools and they would get the guys they wanted and I would just stay with the person I was with.

As Patty Hewes in Damages. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

She was briefly married before going to university. It is a complicated story for me. I was married before college, and kind of in an arranged marriage when you look back on it, and my marriage broke up when I went to college, as it should have. I was 22. But my liberal arts school had a wonderful theatre that was my training, my acting school.

Was that where she finally learned about sex, popular culture, the ways of the world? Not really, she says. I still am learning.

Close has two sisters, Tina the eldest, and Jessie her younger sister; and two brothers, Alexander, and Tambu Misoki, who was adopted by Closes parents while living in Africa. At the age of 50, Jessie spent time in a psychiatric hospital and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a weight that had been hanging over the family, undiscussed, for years. Talking about mental illness just wasnt done, Close says. You dont have a vocabulary for it and youre also very aware of appearances. You dont want to appear a crazy family.

In 2010 Close founded Bring Change to Mind, a charity that aims to end the stigma around mental illness by talking openly about it and its effect on families. It was my nephew who was first diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. This is basically schizophrenia with an ingredient of bipolar. And when that happened, it was like, What? My sister Jessie, his mother, didnt know what was wrong. He went to the hospital for two years and that saved his life. Then Jessie was, finally, correctly diagnosed herself.

With sister Jessie in 2009. Photograph: Getty Images

Close felt a duty to her family to give them a high-profile person who is not afraid to talk about it publicly. It affects the whole family. We always knew my grandmother and mother had depression my sister does, I do to a certain extent. But I didnt know my great-uncle had schizophrenia. I knew my half-uncle died by suicide. There was a lot of alcoholism addiction, self-medication. Nobody ever talked about it. I knew my grandmother was depressed, but at first I thought she lived in a hotel, not a hospital, because she always said how good the food was.

Close says she and her siblings are of one mind politically, but admits she does have members of her family who voted for Trump. I tried to understand that. Theyre not crazy people who have been brainwashed by Fox News, but I try to understand the anger, because I think that has been building up ever since Watergate. It was watching that scandal unfold that made her realise Americans have always been naive, we just take for granted what we have, and we always thought of our leaders as good people. With Watergate, people became cynical about government.

Today, she says, Washington is a bunch of self-serving She searches for an expletive and after a second settles on men. She says, Its hard to believe that people are so out for themselves. It goes against what you would like to believe about your country. I feel eloquence is incredibly important for a leader, and we had that with Barack Obama, who made his initial impact because he gave that incredibly eloquent speech, but he lost his eloquence in his presidency. We always need someone to say, I hear you, someone who can put their words into unity and hope and we dont have that. I think the last person may have been Robert Kennedy.

And now you have Trump tweeting nonsense.

Its devastating. Social networks are now like our nervous system, and if you keep pumping that kind of crap into the nervous system, it is going to have an effect on a population.

With Kevin Kline in The Big Chill. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

Close doesnt talk politics with her friends because she doesnt really have many friends. I have always forced myself into situations I am not comfortable in. I am an introvert, and I was painfully shy as a child. I think I still have a big dollop of that in my persona. I read a book called Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Cant Stop Talking and it was a real comfort to me I realised I was that person I had always been. And it was at that point I told myself to stop pushing myself into situations that I dont enjoy. I dread cocktail parties.

She tells me shes pretty reclusive and can count her closest friends on two fingers. I ask if shes still good friends with Meryl Streep.

I have never been close friends with Meryl. We have huge respect for each other, but I have only done one thing with her, The House Of The Spirits.

I apologise for assuming they were pals, being of a similar age and stature in Hollywood, and admit this negates my next question: Who would win in an arm wrestle, you or Meryl?

Close laughs. Oh, I would, because I am very strong.

***

The tightest bond Close has is with her only daughter Annie, 29. Annies father is the film producer John Starke whom Close dated for four years from 1987, but never married. Annie was never a door-slamming, difficult teenager. Close tells me: When my Annie was three, she looked at me, and said, I want you. I knew what she meant. I, at the time, was a single working parent, sometimes even when I was home, working or producing something, I was there and not there.

With daughter Annie Starke in 2010. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

She doesnt think its any easier for working mothers today and acknowledges, I had it easy because I could afford to have help think of the women who cant afford it and have to put their child in some shaky childcare centre. No, I think it is incredibly hard for women. Any person, in any profession, feels that tug [of guilt]. We discuss the intimacy of the single-parent, only-child bond. Once, I went to vacuum Annies car seat as we were moving house, and a lot of life had happened there, so I was crying. She said, Mummy, are you OK? I said, Yeah, Im OK. And she said, Here I am.

She was married to businessman James Marlas from 1984 to 1987 and then, following other relationships, including that with Starke, she married again, in 2006, to venture capitalist David Evans Shaw, divorcing him nine years later.

Would she marry again?

I dont know.

Does she think marriage is important?

I think it is a positive evolutionary component that we are better with a partner. I think to have a partner that you can go through life with, creating a history with, that you can find a comfort with, have children with there is nothing better. This is an opinion I have come to very late in life, at an ironic moment, where I dont have any of that. I dont know if I will again. But I do think its a basic human need to be connected.

Despite this, shes happy on her own right now. This is a good time in life. I do think, what would it be like to have a partner again? But it would have to be very different from what I had before. Then I have that great dream and wake up happy.

Crooked House is on Channel 5 at 9pm on 17 December.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/16/glenn-close-harvey-weinstein-mental-illness-cult-fatal-attraction

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[suzie81blog]

It’s been just nearly seven weeks since lockdown began, and I’m getting used to a slightly different way of living. Granted, compared to many people my daily life hasn’t changed that much – I’ve worked from home for the last 4 1/2 years and so I’m used to my own company and being self-motivated enough to stay productive – but I have to regularly remind myself that I can’t just hop out to the local shops for things I need, visit a friend or organise a date night somewhere fun in the city.

However, if these are the only things I have to worry about then I count The Bloke and I incredibly fortunate. Our families and friends are healthy, our jobs are consistent, we have food in the cupboards and the bills are paid, and we have taken to expressing daily gratitude for this to each other in conversations should one of us feel a little low.

In an effort to remain positive, I have started to keep a log of everything that I see and do during the lockdown period – TV programmes I have watched, food places I have ordered from, things that have made me smile online, quotes that I find – anything and everything that has made my day better has been added to a specific Bullet Journal spread that will serve as a memory if and when things start to go back to some sort of normal, whatever the new normal may be. Considering I’ve pretty much stayed indoors for nearly seven weeks, I’ve actually done more than I thought.

A few weeks ago I was invited to participate on the Whistle While You Work podcast with entrepreneur, businesswoman and author, Sheryl Miller and Emma Howard (check out the podacst on Spotify here), in which we talked about social media during lockdown – it was one of the most fun conversations I’ve had in ages! I’ve been participating in my fitness classes via Zoom (although not as often as I would like), did a really fun Zoom quiz and have indulged in the absolutely glorious weather by walking in the woods a few times a week.

I need to have the TV on in the background while I’m working in order to concentrate (sounds a little strange, but the silence is too loud) and so I’ve smashed my way through various series and films that I have wanted to watch but not had the time. I binged the entire nine seasons of The Office US in about 3 weeks (which I can’t believe that I’ve waited for 15 years to watch and now I love John Krasinski even more), Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Tiger King (who hasn’t) and I’m currently awaiting the next episodes of Ru Paul, The Last Dance, Grey’s Anatomy and the final season of Modern Family. I’ve been highly entertained by Tom Hardy reading the bedtime story on CBeebies for the last week and The Bloke and I have started one of my 40 Before 40 tasks but watching all of the Marvel Universe films in order. We’re currently up to Thor.

It has been amazing to see how many people have turned to creativity and fundraising in an effort to make the loves of others better – baking, crafting, art, music, dance – Instagram has be a plethora of inspiring people and projects. Captain Tom’s fundraising efforts for the NHS (£30 million and counting) has been a daily source of pride, I’ve developed an obsession with Hamilton after seeing the original Broadway cast perform via Zoom on John Krasinski’s SGN YouTube channel and The Bloke and I have loved seeing how popular Nat’s What I Reckon has become recently (The Bloke has been a huge fan for a while).

I’ve tried to support local businesses over the lockdown too, and so have ordered some fantastic meals from one of my favourite Chinese restaurants in Birmingham – Chung Ying – and treated The Bloke and I to some truly incredible cupcakes from From Kimmie’s Kitchen yesterday. Seriously, the nicest cupcakes I’ve ever had. (Cake image courtesy of From Kimmie’s Kitchen – I couldn’t do them justice).

Like many, I have taken a long look at the material possessions that I own and decided that I need to get of a lot of it… again. For May my challenge focuses on simplicity, completing one task a day to make life a little less cluttered. For tips on how to make life more simple, visit my How to Live a More Simple Life post here.

As for now, we continue to take life day by day, remaining thankful.

What about you guys? What have you been doing during lockdown?

You can also find me on Twitter @suzie81blog and you can also find me on my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/suzie81speaks, my Pinterest page http://www.pinterest.com/suzie81speaks and my instagram page http://www.instagram.com/suzie81speaks

Seven Weeks in Lockdown It’s been just nearly seven weeks since lockdown began, and I’m getting used to a slightly different way of living.

#Birmingham #blog #bloggers #blogging #ideas #inspiration #life #Lockdown #thoughts #writing

[theladythecla]

Rant: LN Whales Encouraging Spending Need to Quit Doing That

I’ve seen this attitude for a while now and decided now, at 1:32 AM, is the right time to rant about it. LN players who pay a monthly amount for diamonds or whatnot are fully in their rights to do so, but when they encourage others to spend money those players might not have, that’s where my problem lies. We know that all game developers use microtransactions to prey upon gamers’ sense of insecurity. Unsurprisingly, this nonsense has the impact of dragging gambling addicts back into the throes of their addictions. I don’t have the research on this, but the awesome Jim Sterling is always calling this crap out, and he’s right.

LN does the same thing other, predatory game developers do: make us fear missing out by making the suits seem exclusive (many times they are, if they’re collabs, and if they’re not exclusive, often we don’t know when/if we’ll get a given event back), make it seem like a particular pack is a good deal when it’s really not, baiting us in by telling us what an item is worth in the premium currency (diamonds). Now, I’ve spent some money on the game (a very large amount once that was close to $200, and yes, it’s money I didn’t have and money I fully regret spending even though I love the suits I got with it). I still think that regret is a good thing as it encouraged me to better budget and it’s a good wake-up call because this is a game, not a tailor-made commission from an artist I adore or a craftswoman on Etsy. In other words, I spent money on things that are not tangible. They are things I can keep as wallpapers and avatars long after the game is done, but I could also have just googled them for that purpose later on. The joy of those images is temporary and the utility of them is absolutely tied to the game (competitions and rankings in the arena).

If you can spend, life’s great and the sky is the limit for you on events. The rest of us aren’t that fortunate. My plea is simple: quit encouraging people to spend. The game does enough of that. To get an automatic completion button (”done 10″/”done 3″) on Maiden and Princess stages, you have to at least spend to a V4 status, which is around 260 diamonds, and as of this writing, that is $5.00. Most people would wonder what the big deal is about $5.00. If you’re making $12 an hour at two jobs, $5.00 is often a meal, and LN wants you to spend that money on fictional gems so you can buy nonexistent outfits for your avatar on a mobile game. Moreover, that’s not all they want you to spend. LN’s latest update put a recharge thing up at the top of your daily sign-in screen so that people without a V status are sure to be reminded that they should be spending by misclicking that “recharge now” button on the way through their dailies.

“But the poor corporation must earn money.”

The poor corporation makes more than enough money from the debutantes with cash to burn. I seriously can’t stress this enough: you, the individual and occasional $5.00 recharger is a drop in their vast bucket of money. They just want to milk more from you (i.e., they want you to be a whale). Their company will not go bankrupt from you not spending.

“It’s your choice.”

I hate this logic. I understand it, of course, as this is how the world works, but it’s… patently untrue when in this situation. You have to pay to complete sets, and often you never have enough of a free currency during a free event for a suit (the recent brushwork suit comes to mind with its ridiculously difficult selections between outfits and themes). Moreover, LN knows this and they know how people work (ad execs are paid to figure out how to milk money from us to keep us enthralled). They are counting on you not wanting to leave a suit unfinished until or if it ever returns for crafting. They are relying on your impatience in crafting the last item in that lifetime suit or whatever else you have in your queue. And yes, that’s why they always have those “recharge now” or “user boutique” popups in the lull between events. They want your money and then some more.

“What about shareholders?”

Corporate boards must be more realistic about returns. Seriously, that’s the problem with this whole model: shareholders are given unrealistic expectations, which leads to them demanding more as money rolls in, and the corporation then has to try wringing pennies from the rest of us consumers.

“Would you rather the game be a PAID game?”

Yes? It’s a product, not a service. Or, it should be a product and not a service for many reasons. It should be a product because shit like this just shows how badly things go when a game tries to be a service (it’s not like legal advice or a doctor’s appointment, after all… it’s a game and other games, such as tabletops, are permanently yours once you buy them). The way we used to do things was you bought a license for the game and it was yours through the accompanying hard disk. I think mobile games should follow this model… but that would require having a finished product as opposed to something barebones they are constantly updating (and charging us all money for in the process, essentially making this a paid game anyhow but worse as it’s potentially a subscription).

“Haven’t you spent money?”

Yes, and the $5.00 I spent recently to get Royce and Neva’s suit in the present event was well spent. However, even if I hadn’t gotten that suit, I would’ve been able to quit because I don’t have a gambling addiction. (I reigned myself in after that shockingly large purchase a year or so back... and that was just about $100-$200, not the thousands some people spend on this game.) An addiction means that the choice is literally not yours to make as addiction is a disease that you should be treated for, rather than encouraged in. That’s my problem here: people with money are basically encouraging anyone to spend money on this game (including the addicts and people who don’t have that money to spend). It’s such a selfish, naïve worldview that we really need to staunch.

“Should whales be ashamed?”

Yeah. No one should spend a $100 on this game or $200 or, as I know is the case, far more than that. It’s a mobile dress-up game. Let that sink in. It doesn’t mean I’m going to shame you personally if you are a whale, but objectively, someone who spends loads of money on this game should be personally ashamed. I was ashamed and I haven’t spent half what some people have on this game.

“Isn’t it just like the opera or Broadway?”

Are you comparing a mobile game to a work of musical theater? A show is an experience. A bunch of pixels in a game is a bunch of pixels in a game that you will, likely, store and forget about until/if this game goes offline.

“But... quarantine means I’m bored.”

I am too, but I’m also broke and scared shitless for my future. Don’t make your financial situation worse by burning money on this. I’d say, take this time to indulge in a hobby you already had (and/or one less expensive than LN… knitting or macramé or hand-sewing a quilt out of old t-shirts) or pick up a language on Duolingo (Spanish, French, German, anything but Klingon and High Valyrian, unless you’re after nerd cred and even then I’m going to side-eye you). Now’s a good time to network too, since people are actually answering emails. Phone your buddies… text them… Zoom/Skype them. Don’t just spend money because you’re bored. That is the worst decision to make now.

“Any tips?”

Delete your card/Paypal from Google or Apple. Laugh at people who are spending $100 on that ridiculous recharge (our only recharge suit, I might add)… just not on the Reddit since you can’t shame people for making bad decisions there (or for relentlessly bragging about their purchases [it’s not an investment, that’s something different, JFC]). Never feel bad for not being able to spend or being unwilling to spend or both. It is what it is, and frankly, you should be proud that you have a low/no V-level.

I am sorry if this is incoherent. It’s 1:30 AM. If you disagree and have cash to burn, good for you, go ham. This post isn’t for you; it’s for the rest of us who are normal people. My main message to people with money to burn is to quit encouraging others to spend money on this game as that’s not healthy and often is more harmful than helpful.

#microtransactions and mobile games #LN rants and diamonds and universe tide

[njawaidofficial]

Why Katy Perry Can’t Save “American Idol”

https://styleveryday.com/2018/03/13/why-katy-perry-cant-save-american-idol/

Why Katy Perry Can’t Save “American Idol”

American Idol judges’ giant head display takes over the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard, March 12, 2018, in Hollywood.

Brandon Williams / Getty Images

Since the announcement early last year that American Idol was coming back on ABC, after wrapping up its supposedly final season on Fox in 2016, most of the excitement about its return centered on the new panel of judges. The trio that ABC ultimately selected is a motley assortment, plucked from across the musical celebrity spectrum: contemporary pop queen Katy Perry, throwback R&B legend Lionel Richie, and the “King of Bro-Country,” Luke Bryan. The controversy over Perry’s $25 million salary probably made the most news, and since the show’s debut, Perry’s antics have garnered most of the attention. But the overall focus on these celebrity judges speaks to a larger problem for Idol that helps explain why the onetime ratings giant lost steam and seems unlikely to regain its former glory.

It’s hard to remember now how Idol grew into a groundbreaking ratings juggernaut, outperforming the Oscars, peaking at 36 million viewers in 2006, and inaugurating a new wave of old-fashioned talent competitions, from America’s Got Talent to The X Factor. It did so by making stars, not hiring them. The original judges — producer Simon Cowell, ’80s pop star Paula Abdul, former A&R executive and bassist Randy Jackson — became iconic as judges, not for bringing their own pop star brands onto the show. But once Abdul, and later Cowell, left the franchise, it was reduced to relying on outside celebrities to attempt to bring audiences in — losing ratings, its own star-making power, and some of its identity as a forum for pop democracy in action. The show’s producers started trying to generate ratings by moving the focus from the contestants to the judges, in a way that distracted from the show’s musical focus and inspirational aura, as the legendary 2013 blowout between Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj proved.

The show’s uplifting brand became tarnished through these “reality” tactics, which began to seem increasingly desperate as the show’s ratings fell — ending its run on Fox with 9.3 million viewers, a quarter of the audience it drew at its peak — and the later winners failed to graduate to successful (or even visible) careers in the music industry. In contrast, NBC’s The Voice, the kind of competitor that Idol’s success opened the door for, found a more organic way to center its celebrity judges. They were reframed as down-to-earth “coaches” who could relate to the singers onstage, in a role that allowed them to keep their own brands intact (and be replaced, as celebrity schedules inevitably demand, without upsetting the fundamental dynamic of the show).

The fact that Kelly Clarkson, arguably the face of Idol, chose to join The Voice this season as a coach — as well as Idol’s ratings loss to The Voice in its premiere — underlines that the fresher competitor now better represents the earnest authenticity that Idol is struggling to recapture. Everything about the reincarnated Idol, besides the judging panel, is nearly unchanged from its first life — down to the set and Ryan Seacrest’s blinding white smile. And relying on the star power of Katy Perry or her fellow judges to bring in viewers is at best a temporary patch over the changing realities of television and music that made Idol’s promise of blockbuster pop stardom impossible to keep.

Winner Kelly Clarkson embraces fellow contestants during the American Idol Season 1 finale on Sept. 4, 2002.

Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Even if you didn’t watch the first season of American Idol in 2002, you might have seen Kelly Clarkson’s coronation from the first finale. It is, by design, one of the most compelling moments of reality television history. YouTube is full of bootleg videos of the moment; one has over 5 million views. Clarkson had just been selected — through 15.5 million phone calls, pre-texting — as the first American Idol. Like a pop Miss America in prom-night curls, she immediately went on to sing the perfectly crafted pop power ballad “A Moment Like This” — cowritten by one of the Swedish pop wizards who helped launch Britney Spears to stardom — which was supposed to become everybody’s prom and wedding anthem. As the song builds, Clarkson makes it her own with her big, belting voice, which begins to crack as she sings “I can’t believe it’s happening to me.” She apologizes for her tears, the camera often turns to her own crying mother, and it all culminates with the other contestants coming in for a group hug and helping her finish the song as her voice breaks.

Clarkson cry-singing “A Moment Like This.”

Fox

That one moment represented what made early American Idol great: a brilliant mixture of pop perfection, unembarrassed sentimentality, and reality television surprise. With its promise of a major label recording contract at the end, it was less amateurish than Star Search, yet it still flourished on the underdog appeal of its contestants. After Clarkson’s win, the entertainment press raised questions about how “amateur” she really was, but the focus and excitement was entirely on her, and such questioning was still entirely in line with what the brand was selling.

Clarkson wasn’t the only previously unknown quantity whose stardom was minted during that first season. Throughout the process of auditions, “Hollywood week,” public voting, eliminations, and results shows, the public also came to know and love (or love to hate) the judges. Cowell, with his be-sweatered pecs and performance of snooty Englishness, seemed almost like a parody of American ideas about critics as effete Europeans. Paula Abdul had disappeared from the music scene, clearly done with her pop moment, and had never really had a defined public personality beyond her brilliant dancing and music videos, so she was a revelation. Witnessing her loopy attempts to frame feedback in positive terms was almost like watching Hallmark spoken word poetry. Randy Jackson was the seemingly objective, level-headed judge, giving practical feedback on singing — often describing performances as “pitchy” — and coining an iconic catchphrase/meme (“gonna be a no from me, dawg”).

The original trio established the perfect template of commentating chemistry: the good cop, the bad cop, and the neutral tiebreaker.

After the auditions phase of each Idol season, the judges acted more like sports commentators than active participants in shaping the contestants’ personas — they were central to the show, but not the center of it. And in retrospect, that original trio established the perfect template of commentating chemistry: the good cop, the bad cop, and the neutral tiebreaker. There was a delightful quality to all this perfect, cheery fakeness, which could be enjoyed both sincerely and as camp. The show, initially itself an underdog, turned unknowns into stars at every level and remained on brand, and growing, for a decade.

The show’s growth was aligned with its mission of launching pop stars, and the drama it generated was primarily about the contestants — both the clashes of different musical styles and their fates on the charts after the show. The second season had the show’s highest-rated finale ever, followed by eager speculation over whether runner-up Clay Aiken would end up outselling winner Ruben Studdard. Season 3’s Jennifer Hudson went on to win an Academy Award and star on Broadway, and Carrie Underwood emerged as the show’s country star in Season 4, which pitted her folksy appeal against Bo Bice’s rocker style.

Idol ratings peaked in Season 5, in 2006, as sexy-sad rock singer Chris Daughtry was upset by Taylor Hicks’s drunk-uncle-at-karaoke act (much to Cowell’s annoyance), though Daughtry ended up massively outselling him. From there, the show’s winners began to blur into a forgettable hegemony of white guys with guitars, punctuated by the spectacle of Season 8 runner-up Adam Lambert as the show’s first not-yet-openly gay pop star in 2009 — arguably the last season the show made news for the right reasons.

Judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson on the set of American Idol, broadcast live July 16, 2002.

Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Paula Abdul uttered one of the great truths of our time when she declared, on her masterpiece Bravo reality show Hey Paula, that people don’t treat her like the gift that she is. On Idol, she was the gift that kept on giving: a tireless engine of train wreck television and sweet platitudes. But when her salary demands weren’t met for the ninth season — she reportedly wanted a raise from $4 million to $12 million — she tweeted her goodbye. “I’ll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all being a part of a show that I helped from day one become an international phenomenon.”

It’s impossible to pinpoint one cause for Idol’s struggles in its later years, as it failed to produce pop stars and ratings declined, but songwriter Kara DioGuardi’s addition as a fourth judge during Abdul’s final season (she was most memorable for her singing battle with “Bikini Girl”) certainly upset the existing balance and chemistry of the judging panel. The show’s falling ratings fell further once Abdul left, and even more tellingly, that was the first season that none of the top four finalists achieved noteworthy singles or sales success.

Ellen DeGeneres joined the panel for Season 9, in what she later called the biggest mistake of her career. Like Abdul, she didn’t want to be mean, but as a professional comedian she gave harsh critiques wrapped in humor (“the line between sexy and scary is a thin line”) without any of Abdul’s loopy charm. (Though she did jump on Cowell’s lap to dispel persistent rumors of a feud.) Ellen’s stint on the show made clear that Abdul was impossible to duplicate, and probably worth every penny. But more importantly, it highlighted the difficulties of bringing established celebrities onto the show in an organic way.

Some critics have argued that Cowell’s departure after Season 9, which both diluted the Idol brand and contributed to TV’s singing-competition overload by bringing The X Factor to the US, put the nail in the coffin of the show’s ratings. But X Factor and post-Cowell Idol both had the exact same problem: They were trying to bring in ratings and recapture the magic of watching no-name artists become big stars, while leaning on static formats and the attraction of famous judges who would inevitably distract viewers from actually paying attention to the contestants.

Big pop stars like Jennifer Lopez have no incentive to pollute their existing brands by becoming a mean Simon or a compellingly zany Paula.

Idol tried to solve the problem by hiring Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler for the 2011 season, but neither were distinctive or compelling judging personalities, and even their big names weren’t enough to prevent a major 13% ratings drop. They played their already existing pop personas and seemed more interested in boosting their own careers than adding to the show. As CNN noted, it was unclear if Tyler was promoting Idol or himself. Lopez debuted new videos on the show, performed her own songs, and used the job to launch a further TV career. But big pop stars like Lopez have no incentive to pollute their existing brands by becoming a mean Simon or a compellingly zany Paula. Idol offered these stars in need of a career boost a huge platform, but the celebrity judges got more than they gave, and Idol only slid further into irrelevancy.

While Idol and The X Factor (which recruited Britney Spears, with disappointing results) were struggling with their judging problem, The Voice appeared in 2011, and seemed to find the best role for itself in the new pop landscape by giving the judges, and their interactions with contestants, as much screentime as possible. Featuring Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine, and Blake Shelton in its first season, The Voice purposely framed the judges as coaches and co-conspirators, and made their relationships with the contestants the point of the show: They work together on teams. Because they didn’t have the specter of any original, archetypal judges to compete with, The Voice’s pop star coaches basically played themselves, and the format still worked.

The show also benefited from viewers coming to accept that TV competitions are — for numerous reasons having to do with the way the music industry has shifted — no longer a viable way to instantly mint stars. The Voice’s very name doesn’t promise pop stardom, but rather the chance to craft a style based on “pure” vocal talent, as the famous chair-swiveling shtick of the show’s blind auditions suggests. The turn to live television for the public eliminations on Voice does send some of their songs rushing to the top of iTunes, and this more modest success somehow seems like an acknowledgment of the way that pop stardom — in the age of Spotify playlists and SoundCloud indie rap — can no longer be a big destination predetermined from the top down, but an ongoing process of tiny wins. The complaint against The Voice has always been that it has never launched a star, but arguably, after Adam Lambert, neither did American Idol.

The Voice Season 8 coaches, from left: Adam Levine, Pharrell Williams, Christina Aguilera, and Blake Shelton.

Nbc / Getty Images

[strictlywaffles]

An Inside Look at the New Vans HQ in Costa Mesa

Last week, Vans hosted a media day event at their new HQ in Costa Mesa, CA and we were invited. The event consisted of meet and greets, a tour of the new digs, interviews, and a few surprises along the way. If you weren't able to follow along on our Instagram, take a look below for a recap of what we saw and maybe even few things we didn't. We teamed up with Bill from Under the Palms for this visit, so be sure and head over to his page to see his perspective too.

Introductions and Caffeine

Once we checked in, we were treated to the staff lounge with a full service coffee bar with Stumptown coffee literally on tap. Laura Doherty was our chief handler during this event and mentioned that prior to moving in, the employees at Vans were asked what was most important to them at work. "Gym, coffee, and Wifi," was their reply, and the coffee is definitely taken care of first. There is actually a coffee bar on every floor so nobody at Vans is more than just a short walk to refuel. The whole building is also wireless friendly, even the courtyards, so employees are encouraged to get out of their spaces and find motivation in other places. And the gym? More on that later.

We met Steve Van Doren and his sister Cheryl out in the courtyard. They each spoke a little bit about the history of Vans and what having their own building and HQ means to them. As a company, Vans really cares about its employees and this was reflected by Cheryl and Steve. The addition of the now-famous exterior red stairs was integral to their vision, linking every floor to the exposed, central courtyard (and more coffee!).

From there it was off to tour the rest of the building. We were shown the concept retail store where Vans gives looks at the best ways to market new and old styles in store. This is also where they are looking to implement the newest Customs addition (but more on that later). We were fortunate enough to get hands on with the upcoming KARL LAGERFELD collaboration in here as well. Did you know that there are over 1 billion current design combinations for the Slip On? But that's nothing compared to what's around the corner...

Waffle Works Innovation Center

in 1966, Vans began as a factory and store front selling $3 shoes at 704 East Broadway. They were down the road from a fabric store, and customers would often bring in their own swatches and ask for custom made shoes. They would leave the fabric and come pick up their shoes in the afternoon. Since then, that has been what Vans is known for. Now, at 1588 South Coast Dr in Costa Mesa, just 16 miles away from that original shop, Vans can offer the same service again. This time you only need to bring yourself. 

The Waffle Works program has been 2 years in the making. Vans commissioned a special heat vacuum machine to built from the ground up in London. The process is simple. Take an image you'd like to have on a pair of shoes, upload it to the program, print, press, and wear. From concept to product in 15 minutes of less. We were shown this amazing new process by Safir Bellali, the Director of Design Innovation at Vans. Safir and his crew snapped a photo of Steve Van Doren's shirt and had a custom pair of perfectly matching Authentics before he even finished describing the process. Even the film transfer paper use is something new. The proprietary blend is made of recycled polyester film which is heat transferred to the shoes in the specially designed vacuum machine.

Remember how I said there are currently over 1 billion custom combinations for the Slip On? Well, multiple that by infinity because that's the reality with Waffle Works. Imagine walking into Vans with a painting you made, a photo you took, or your daughter's latest crayon portrait of you. You walk up to the new Waffle Works Kiosk and airdrop your image to the interface. You position it how you want and hit "Print!" Then you go can go grab a pretzel or a coffee while the employee in the back does the work. One grande latte later, you walk back into Vans and pick up your very own, one of a kind custom Vans.

The machine itself is on wheels, so it has the ability to travel to House of Vans, go on Warped Tour, or just hop from store to store. There are still some kinks to be worked out, but Safir says we should be seeing this rolled out in 2018 sometime. Nike iD, eat your heart out.

The Vans Jam Room and Lunch

Now it was break time and we were lead back to the coffee bar and the adjoining jam and game room. We walked right into the middle of a jam session between Vans GM of North America Mitchell Whitaker and Vans legend and musician Ray Barbee. Soon after, Steve Caballero joined the duo and I had to pinch myself. The room itself is adorned with selections of past Vans music collaborations like No Doubt, Iron Maiden, and Social Distortion. I think I could've leaned against the air hockey table and listened to those three improvise and share stories all day, but it was time to eat.

Bob Provost and Steve Van Doren were grilling up the burgers and dogs and Vans laid out the full spread for us. This was a great time to discuss the politics of the culture and we did a lot of that between bites. Under the Palms, Nice Kicks, and Strictly Waffles all at one table just chopping it up. And don't think Kristy Van Doren was going to let us escape without dessert, either.

The Offices, the People, and Secret Stuff

We continued on the tour and hit up the gym, one of the top priorities at Vans. The facilities were better than some of the military gyms I have been to. While we were there, employees were taking advantage of what was offered. There is also a bike and surfboard storage and many Vans employees ride in and surf in the mornings since they are only a few blocks from the coast. Right down the hall is the yoga room which smelled like really, really good bubble gum.

We spent some time in the library/reading room which is a quiet area on the second floor with curated items from Vans' history on display. It seemed like a great place to get away or take a break when you've been staring at your screen all day. Speaking of those screens, the layouts of the offices aren't cubicles. Employees at Vans aren't relegated to hamster life in cuboid, carpeted walls like many offices we've seen (and worked in). They are laid out in open, parallel rows of natural wood, all adjacent to windows. Everybody here has a view.

OK, now we get to the juicy stuff that everyone wants to see: the design floor and showrooms. What did we see while we toured the super secret third floor? Not much. We were kept very close and only taken to the lobby of the design floor and not allowed to wander. This is pretty understandable since there are some crazy things being worked on in those halls. This didn't keep us from asking, though. The showrooms were another story. Vans took the time to set up a showroom full of future 2017 and 2018 releases. The women's apparel marks the return of some of my favorite Vans Off the Wall graphics. We also got to get hands on with a Vault by Vans collection of tonal leather silos that are all handmade. These are really gorgeous and we think you'll be impressed.

Steve Van Doren, Customs, and Wrap Up

We chopped it up in the PR spaces for awhile before catching Steve during some free time. It's been a dream for a long time to meet and talk with SVD and it was just what I wanted it to be. Bill, Joey, and I got to hang out in his office with him and just chat about what we do and the company. Did you know Steve's favorite model is the Slip On? I could probably go on for pages about the collectibles around SVD's office, but I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

It was time to head back to Waffle Works and grab our shoes. We got to spend a lot of time with Safir and his crew and watch the process of the shoes being made a dozen or so times. It was really great to really get into the minutiae with the crew in the bunker. You really get the feeling that they love what they are doing and it comes through in their work. Out customs were finished we all got to compare. Those T&C Surf designed Under the Palms shut the show down, though. We hung around for a but longer and shared a bottle of Ace with the PR crew before heading out.

The Van HQ is incredible. It's a little piece of Silicon Valley in Orange County. The thoughtful and considered design of the spaces empathetic which is sadly not something we see from many companies these days. While it's true that Vans has a bottom line and board members to answer to, it's apparent by this new building that they care about the people they employ. Without getting too political, Vans understands that happy employees leads to a better quality product. Other companies would do well to take note.

Thanks for having us, Vans. Can't wait to come back.

#Vans HQ #Vans Customs #Waffle Works #Steve Van Doren #Strictly Waffles