Going in, I was most scared for Sean Hayes, but dammit, the boy can sing! (He does mug a bit in the middle, but not all the way through.)

Kristen is miscast. She’s neither young enough nor vulnerable enough. But she sounds great!

“A House Is Not A Home” has no place in the musical and should not have been added, but “I Say A Little Prayer” is a nice way to give Kristin a big number early on and helps even out the ballad/uptempo balance for her.

The male dancers are great! Very athletic and joyful.

But the biggest surprise was Katie Finneran! She was my favorite part of Wonderfalls on TV, but damn. She steals the show in the first scene of Act II. She should get another Tony for this performance.

Finally, I’m very glad that no one wore pink and orange together. I was worried when I saw the show logo. That color combination nearly made me ill in the Sweet Charity revival.

P.S. I was so excited by the music that I had to go home and download two Jill O’Hara albums. She was the Fran in the original show and I have always dug her voice.

You’ll see a comment by me… two, if they approve my last one. Not that I doubt it’s rationality, but it’s close to the 2,000 character limit they put on comments, so it may be held in moderation. Or then again, it may have been flushed down the toilet. It’s in response to a commenter named Adriana who takes me to task for bringing up the taboo of the “facts” Prof. Chapman’s economic publication lacks.

Here is my follow up, in case they don’t publish it:

Adriana,

The facts Prof. Chapman presents, but does not cite are:

1. Not only does he not cite his source of data, but Prof. Chapman attributes US Government expenditures on AIDS to a support of what he deems “a homosexual lifestyle.” Though he recognizes that the disease is spread by many means, he still presents it as a moral issue. But regardless, a librarian must state where his numbers come from and what “expenditures on this disease” encompass.

2. He cites as fact that behavior he deems immoral taints our blood supply without support of fact.

3. Chapman also claims that rape of male inmates by fellow males is a drain on taxpayer dollars. Does he cite how many of the offenders are homosexual? It may seem unthinkable to you, but heterosexual males rape men. I see no citations to established facts to support his claims that homosexual men are draining US tax dollars in this way.

4. At long last, the educated librarian cites an external work, “Do Domestic Partner Benefits Make Good Economic Sense?” by The Corporate Resource Center. He claims that it is available on a web site, but does not provide a URL. He does not even qualify where this center is or what affiliation it has, if any, to a larger organization. I challenge anyone to find this work available on the web. For this fraud alone, Prof. Chapman should be censured, at the very least.

5. Finally, the learned professor closes with a long list of ways that heterosexual entitlements may be diminished by the acknowledgment of same-sex relationships. There are no numbers given. There are no longitudinal studies cited. There is only the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) tactics of a frightened man with no other defense. The last paragraph reminds me of the FUD tactics of white families in the 1960′s who would incite neighborhood hatred against black families moving in, in the name of “decreased property values.”

I am not arguing against Prof. Chapman’s points. He has none.

The student furor over his blog post has led to calls for his dismissal from the university. Not surprisingly, this isn’t the first antigay blog post he’s written.

Update: I totally forgot to thank the dude who alerted me to this fiasco! Rob at wakingupnow.com is a really great blogger who has a fierce, but reasoned approach to civil action. Thank you, Rob. You set a good example.

• Michael Cunningham – dashing, elegant, hilarious author of The Hours and A Home at the End of the World, of which I personally hand sold hundreds of copies when I worked at Books & Company in the early nineties
• Thrity Umrigar – a surprisingly frisky Indian novelist and memoirist who wrote The Space Between Us and more recently The Weight of Heaven
• Lynda Barry – the iconic cartoonist and author who, among her many achievements, inspired the best musical theatre song of the 21st century (so far)
• Barbara Hoffert – Library Journal book review editor, super-smarty, and uncanny Tracy Wright lookalike
• Our awesome publishing friends Talia Scherer and Virginia Stanley

I am so lucky that my husband is so fearless and is such a big dreamer. He gave me the wonderful gift of the opportunity to chat with Lynda and Thrity about menopause and to smoke with Talia and Michael Cunningham in the rain. Does that rock or what?

Someone please turn this into a music video.

***UPDATE***

Since this post has been picked up by a few other blogs, I really guess I better be sure to point out that it’s entirely tongue in cheek. Well, not entirely. We do want to offer more user-participatory services on the BPL web site. But dating services and personals are not part of our current goals.

See?      

Valerie ---------------------> Tallulah

I’m just ecstatic hearing that Valerie Harper (yeah, Mary’s Rhoda) is playing Tallulah Bankhead in a new play entitled Looped. Apparently, the title comes from the idea that the whole play takes place during an ADR session for Tallu’s classing Hammer horror film, Die! Die! My Darling!

I lost some respect for Valerie after she walked off the set of a show named after her. Jeesh, during the first season, even. Pretty freaking sad if you can replace her with Sandy Duncan and still manage to keep the series running for five more seasons. And that union president race against Laura Ingalls got pretty nasty. But this just may make up for all of that.

What? You haven’t seen Die! Die! My Darling!? Holy frijoles, get over here quick. I’m itching to watch it again, especially since Tallu plays a bible-thumping vegetarian who — once upon a time — was a … well, a loose, jazz-loving woman. Okay, she was a whore. And Stephanie Powers plays the mod girl Tallu kidnaps. And a very young Donald Sutherland plays the retarded groundskeeper. What’s not to love?!

But Maureen McCormick was a bulimic, depressive, sex addict, fetus-killer, junkie who dated Michael Jackson.

Yeah, it’s the last part that hurts.

Oh yeah, and she made a C&W album. That’s not so cool either.

[Afterthought: The C&W album was really BAD. I have nothing against C&W as a concept.]

AND MORE:

Oy. I had no idea that “Peter Brady”, Christopher Knight (the only one to actually grow up HOT) had a new show!

But since this “news” keeps on coming, I think it’s time to take this offline. Contact me if you have Brady love to share…

Remember this?

Strikingly similar to this, isn’t it?

But if I had a bird that could sound like a monkey (or sing, or pss-pss-pss whisper, or “Oh my God oh my God oh my God!”), I might change my mind.

This is from the TED2006 (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference where all the smarties were.

Seems to be the week for catchy YouTube ditties. Earlier this week, I saw a post about this one on geeksarsexy.com. The video is the 2007 award winning fan anime music video from the conference Animazement. It’s very nicely done, but the real treat is the song Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton. I’m not a programmer, but who can’t related to a song about unrequited love and a soul-killing workplace? Plus, I like Fritos too.

I was also tipped off this morning to the next gem, “I Hate Everyone” by Vinnie the Bitchen Barista. I’m not normally a fan of terribly negative songs, but the joyful video totally makes it fun. The song is so bouncy too. I think it may get me through the next several weeks at work, which are likely to be trying. The language in the song is … well, a tad strong … so don’t blast this at work. And I won’t even tell you which phrase sticks in my head, but I bet you can guess.