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Tuesday June 14, 2016
Lancelot Links Goes to the 2016 Tonys
“Immigrants: We get the job done.”
- Lin-Manuel Miranda's first acceptance speech (for best score) was the highlight of the 70th Tony Awards for me.
- Here's that opening “Hamilton” parody for James Corden. Anthony Ramos killed it, but then he had the best line. Also like Corden's “No! Just you wait...” to the cast, RE: the Tonys.
- The ratings were up 35% from last year and posted the best overall numbers for the Tonys since 2001. What happened in 2001? “The Producers.” But back then, remember, YouTube hadn't been invented yet. So if you wanted to watch the Tonys you had to sit and watch the Tonys. You couldn't wait for it (wait for it).
- James Surowiecki on how scalpers set a true market value for “Hamilton,” allowing producers to double the most expensive seats; also a GOP Texas congressman attempts to undo Dodd-Frank. Of course.
- Adam Gopnik on what Hamilton and Burr checked out of the New York Society Library. “Slipping back out onto the noise of East Seventy-ninth Street, three tentative conclusions suggest themselves: art alone makes old things new; the more you read, the less you know for certain; and self-government, of every kind, is hard.”
- Gopnik also wrote about “Hamilton” back in February: “'Hamilton' is the Obama-era musical. At the simplest presentational level, it shows previously marginalized people taking on the responsibility and burden of American history.”
- Oh, and that opening number to the Tonys I love so much that Neil Patrick Harris did a few years back? The “Now we're bigger” thing? Apparently Lin-Manuel Miranda helped write it.
- John Oliver on the Orlando shooting: “That terrorist dipshit is vastly outnumbered.”
- Jiayang Fan's New Yorker piece on Chinese racism and that racist Qiaobi detergent ad begins well (great opening graf) but gets bogged down in handwringing and vague finger-pointing. The last graf begins, “Learning to live in a pluralistic world requires...” Too bad.
- The whole Qiaobi controversy reminded me of “Darkie” toothpaste from Taiwan, whose named changed to “Dakkie” when I lived there in the late 1980s/early 1990s, and then, apparently, “Darlie.” Researching, I came across George McKibbons' article on the history on “Darkie.” More than I ever knew.
- How do the movies differ from other art forms? Nora Desmond had the answer, and Vimeo has the video: “Every Face Tells a Story.” But I like dialogue, too.
- Slow Jamming the News with Pres. Obama. There will never be a cooler leader of the free world. I like the band cracking up behind him on “You know me.”
- Billy Crystal's eulogy at Muhammad Ali's funeral was as pretty as Ali was. Particularly love the anecdote about Cossell's funeral.
- Silent film trope: A history of women being tied to RR tracks. Except: 1) it rarely happened, and 2) when it did, it wasn't women.
- A Vulture Q&A with Louis C.K., who gets better with age.
- David Remnick lets loose on Donald Trump. Gloves are coming off all over the place.
- Speaking of: If this helps Liev Schreiber reprise his role as Marty Baron, I'm all for it.
- What's the matter with Twitter, part I, via The New York Times (it's the virulent racists).
- What's the matter with Twitter, part II, via Vanity Fair (it's the left-wing outrage machine).
Posted at 06:18 AM on Tuesday June 14, 2016 in category Lancelot Links