These are my favorite cookies and the only way to my heart.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Bangin' It Out
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang comes to Boston in the form of a musical stage performance. How on earth do they make that car fly?
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had a permanent home in VCRs across the country when most Americans were growing up. Now the musical production is coming to the Citi Wang Theater.
Apparently this isn't the same dog and pony and funny moustache show that we're all used to. According to cast member Steve Wilson, this production is more like our favorite Chitty Chitty on some Chitty Chitty speed.
Wilson plays the part of Caractacus Potts, patriarch of the all-singing, all-dancing Potts family who are known for driving around in a flying car. A myriad of other colorful characters are involved in the two-and-a-half-hour, action-packed production, but Wilson knows the real reason people fill up the seats every night.
“Obviously, when the name is ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,’ everyone is waiting to see how we’re gonna make the car fly,” he says. “When the car does in fact leave the ground and the headlights are pointed out into the audience, looking over the faces of not only children but their parents and grandparents, they all have the same face: their jaws in their laps and their eyes all lit up.”
“We know it’s a show about a car, but I wanted to make sure that I held up my end of the story line, which is playing a father who is trying to raise his two kids after having lost his wife.”
Photo courtesy of www.BroadwayMusicalhome.com
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had a permanent home in VCRs across the country when most Americans were growing up. Now the musical production is coming to the Citi Wang Theater.
Apparently this isn't the same dog and pony and funny moustache show that we're all used to. According to cast member Steve Wilson, this production is more like our favorite Chitty Chitty on some Chitty Chitty speed.
Wilson plays the part of Caractacus Potts, patriarch of the all-singing, all-dancing Potts family who are known for driving around in a flying car. A myriad of other colorful characters are involved in the two-and-a-half-hour, action-packed production, but Wilson knows the real reason people fill up the seats every night.
“Obviously, when the name is ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,’ everyone is waiting to see how we’re gonna make the car fly,” he says. “When the car does in fact leave the ground and the headlights are pointed out into the audience, looking over the faces of not only children but their parents and grandparents, they all have the same face: their jaws in their laps and their eyes all lit up.”
My one problem with Wilson is that he hasn't even seen the movie the whole way through. What's up with that? I don't think you can truly channel Dick Van Dyke without studying hours of his tap dancing skills.
Wilson confesses that though he hasn’t seen the movie all the way through, he plays the Caractacus Potts character with the same honesty and sincerity that Dick Van Dyke did in the 1968 cinema
classic.
classic.
“We know it’s a show about a car, but I wanted to make sure that I held up my end of the story line, which is playing a father who is trying to raise his two kids after having lost his wife.”
Bummer. Hopefully this won't be a typical move to stage show and totally blow. Although considering it's about a car, it probably will.
Perhaps I'm just not going to see it because I'm still terrified of the kidnapping scene. That's reason enough not to see it, right?
Last Week's Column: The Boss Hurts His Boss
Here's my column from last week. You can view it online, with all the snippity user comments HERE.
SHANFIELD: The super suggestive bowl
Published: Wednesday, February 4, 2009
I don’t know Bruce Springsteen at all, but I can imagine how his day began on Sunday. He woke up, removed his silk pajamas, wiggled his toes on his tiger rug and then fed a Snausage to his pet tiger. He looked in a gold-rimmed mirror and massaged the Botox injection puncture holes on his temples. He blew a kiss to a black and white photo of Courtney Cox Arquette, and then opened his walk-in closet full of tight pants and plaid shirts with the sleeves cut off and said, “I think I’ll wear a vest today.”
Bruce had to be well aware of the repercussions of the 2004 Super Bowl’s spill onstage with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s unexplained hand spasm. Bruce knew the Super Bowl halftime show is now a place for non-sexual females like Faith Hill and asexual males like Prince. He knew all this and still tried to push the envelope. Bruce did what most Super Bowl performers do: he acted like a 12- to 28-year-old boy and tried to give us as many sexual innuendos as possible.
The E Street Band was barely a minute into their first song when Bruce held the microphone stand between his legs and threw his head back in ecstasy. We’re unsure if this was an homage to Flashdance, a creative stretch that only rich people with Pilates machines can do or just Bruce’s way of getting America hyped. Regardless, the microphone pole took on the role of Bruce’s wiener, and young men everywhere rejoiced in giggles while the Federal Communications Commission went to the books to measure the move’s offensiveness.
If that wasn’t enough, Bruce then ran to a camera on the side of the stage, hoping to slide toward it on his knees. He misjudged the slipperiness of his leather pants and rammed his crotch into the unsuspecting lens. He quickly got up on his feet and giggled about his suggestive display of pelvic muscle, and then danced away, leaving us mesmerized that he could still walk after such a collision.
In the grand tradition of using the Super Bowl halftime show as an outlet for immaturity, Bruce wanted to show us that he’s still got it. But why? Has it always been like this, or did Janet set a trend of naughtiness? Her sagging behavior was so deplorable that the Super Bowl performance planners vowed to have uncontroversial musicians from then on. The problem is that these noncontroversial musicians know they are being asked to perform because they are old, safe and boring, and so they find the need to prove their controversy. Take Prince, for instance. He spent a good minute behind a giant sheet placing his guitar in a certain erect position so that the light would catch it just right. Then again, this is the same Prince who wore pants with butt cheek cutouts to the MTV Video Music Awards.
Perhaps it’s us. No performer ever comes out and says that a certain gesture or dance move was meant to be sexually suggestive, but at this point, I think we’re looking for it. You have to give Janet credit for cutting out the middleman and just showing us the sun –– literally.
I saw a Madonna concert recently and she spent the majority of the three hours struggling to strum a black Fender Stratocaster. I really thought someone had given her the guitar and not plugged it in, sort of like how as a child my older brother would give me a detached Super Nintendo controller and tell me I was Bowser. But halfway through the concert she followed the cord from her guitar to the amp and proceeded to hump the speaker with short pelvic thrusts, sort of like a shih tzu puppy.
At the time, I ignored it, but now I see that she was just doing what we were all asking for: make a reference to sex so we could giggle and pretend we’re more mature than Madonna. But we’re not more mature than Madonna, Prince and definitely not Bruce. As a society, we search for references to our private parts, bodily functions and other illicit behavior. Is it wrong? It can’t be if we all do it, but it’s definitely something that should be considered at the next FCC meeting. Perhaps Jenna Jameson should perform, or Ron Jeremy can sing Louis Armstrong covers next year. Why beat around the bush, literally?
I don’t think I’ll ever watch a Super Bowl performance again without the 12-year-old boy in me acting up and looking for phallic symbols. It’s simply un-American to deny the immaturity of the audience that watches the Super Bowl and those who talk about it for months after. Perhaps the FCC is a commission trying to get us to grow up and have more refined senses of humor, but come on –– that’s un-American. What? Do they expect us to laugh at British stuff? Have some loyalty.
Therefore, I commend Bruce on his attention to detail and zest for youthful, immature phallic symbols. He’s just working on a dream, people. I hope he enjoyed himself at Disneyland.
SHANFIELD: The super suggestive bowl
Published: Wednesday, February 4, 2009
I don’t know Bruce Springsteen at all, but I can imagine how his day began on Sunday. He woke up, removed his silk pajamas, wiggled his toes on his tiger rug and then fed a Snausage to his pet tiger. He looked in a gold-rimmed mirror and massaged the Botox injection puncture holes on his temples. He blew a kiss to a black and white photo of Courtney Cox Arquette, and then opened his walk-in closet full of tight pants and plaid shirts with the sleeves cut off and said, “I think I’ll wear a vest today.”
Bruce had to be well aware of the repercussions of the 2004 Super Bowl’s spill onstage with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s unexplained hand spasm. Bruce knew the Super Bowl halftime show is now a place for non-sexual females like Faith Hill and asexual males like Prince. He knew all this and still tried to push the envelope. Bruce did what most Super Bowl performers do: he acted like a 12- to 28-year-old boy and tried to give us as many sexual innuendos as possible.
The E Street Band was barely a minute into their first song when Bruce held the microphone stand between his legs and threw his head back in ecstasy. We’re unsure if this was an homage to Flashdance, a creative stretch that only rich people with Pilates machines can do or just Bruce’s way of getting America hyped. Regardless, the microphone pole took on the role of Bruce’s wiener, and young men everywhere rejoiced in giggles while the Federal Communications Commission went to the books to measure the move’s offensiveness.
If that wasn’t enough, Bruce then ran to a camera on the side of the stage, hoping to slide toward it on his knees. He misjudged the slipperiness of his leather pants and rammed his crotch into the unsuspecting lens. He quickly got up on his feet and giggled about his suggestive display of pelvic muscle, and then danced away, leaving us mesmerized that he could still walk after such a collision.
In the grand tradition of using the Super Bowl halftime show as an outlet for immaturity, Bruce wanted to show us that he’s still got it. But why? Has it always been like this, or did Janet set a trend of naughtiness? Her sagging behavior was so deplorable that the Super Bowl performance planners vowed to have uncontroversial musicians from then on. The problem is that these noncontroversial musicians know they are being asked to perform because they are old, safe and boring, and so they find the need to prove their controversy. Take Prince, for instance. He spent a good minute behind a giant sheet placing his guitar in a certain erect position so that the light would catch it just right. Then again, this is the same Prince who wore pants with butt cheek cutouts to the MTV Video Music Awards.
Perhaps it’s us. No performer ever comes out and says that a certain gesture or dance move was meant to be sexually suggestive, but at this point, I think we’re looking for it. You have to give Janet credit for cutting out the middleman and just showing us the sun –– literally.
I saw a Madonna concert recently and she spent the majority of the three hours struggling to strum a black Fender Stratocaster. I really thought someone had given her the guitar and not plugged it in, sort of like how as a child my older brother would give me a detached Super Nintendo controller and tell me I was Bowser. But halfway through the concert she followed the cord from her guitar to the amp and proceeded to hump the speaker with short pelvic thrusts, sort of like a shih tzu puppy.
At the time, I ignored it, but now I see that she was just doing what we were all asking for: make a reference to sex so we could giggle and pretend we’re more mature than Madonna. But we’re not more mature than Madonna, Prince and definitely not Bruce. As a society, we search for references to our private parts, bodily functions and other illicit behavior. Is it wrong? It can’t be if we all do it, but it’s definitely something that should be considered at the next FCC meeting. Perhaps Jenna Jameson should perform, or Ron Jeremy can sing Louis Armstrong covers next year. Why beat around the bush, literally?
I don’t think I’ll ever watch a Super Bowl performance again without the 12-year-old boy in me acting up and looking for phallic symbols. It’s simply un-American to deny the immaturity of the audience that watches the Super Bowl and those who talk about it for months after. Perhaps the FCC is a commission trying to get us to grow up and have more refined senses of humor, but come on –– that’s un-American. What? Do they expect us to laugh at British stuff? Have some loyalty.
Therefore, I commend Bruce on his attention to detail and zest for youthful, immature phallic symbols. He’s just working on a dream, people. I hope he enjoyed himself at Disneyland.
Labels:
brucespringsteen,
superbowl
Monday, February 2, 2009
Last Week's Column: A true Story
"Stolen identity, stolen heart"
Published: Wednesday, January 28, 2009
"K, update: I got a wink from ClownsRreal and an email from someone named Possums4. This is clearly not going the way I’d hoped.”
My roommate is on Match.com and it’s not going well. She had a string of flirtatious emails with DarcPitt (whose picture was a Dementor) and Dre Ghost (also a Dementor), but otherwise she’s finding the same creeps that one would find in an AOL chat room. Perhaps she shouldn’t have listed science fiction as an interest.
I’m on a dating Web site too, and have been for several weeks. I just wasn’t aware of it until now.
On Saturday I got a call from a man named John. He was calling from under his bedcovers in his home state of Colorado, clearly very excited that this would be the first time we spoke on the phone in our six-week iChat relationship. Unfortunately, I was unaware of this relationship.
“What are you doing today?” John asked.
I was spending the day with a burrito at Qdoba, and found it no business of an unknown caller to know that. “Who is this?” I demanded.
“Are you seriously asking me that?” John giggled and fluffed his pillow. Something about his tone told me that he was propped up on his elbows, laying on his bed with his feet pointed in the air, talking on some sort of novelty fuzzy telephone, all while slowly twirling the cord in his fingers.
I heard an earthquake on the other line and realized it was just John shifting his weight on his mattress. Something was not right about this conversation, and I was not amused. This didn’t sound like a John I knew, it sounded like a John that was bedridden and lonely. I mentally listed all the Johns I knew in my head. All I could think of was my ethics professor and I wondered if this was some sort of test.
“Who is this?” I demanded, still casually shoving tortilla chips into my mouth.
“It’s John, of course. From Dateline, Dateline.com.”
At first I thought it was a prank. It wasn’t. Then I thought that John had misdialed. He didn’t. Then John said something that made me put down the burrito for good.
“This is Sarah, from California, right?”
Yes. I am. My roommate, who was with me, demanded I get off the phone. Someone had not only given my number out to their iChat lover, but he or she had used my name, home state and entire life to build a cyber personality. I tried asking John what he thought I looked like, but my roommate insisted I end the conversation before I gave away our location and John showed up at Qdoba in the flesh.
“I’m sorry John, you’ve got the wrong Sarah.” I heard a sinking ship sound, and I realized he was just sitting up in bed.
“Well, are you dating anyone?” John asked. “You sound nice enough.”
Overwhelmed with flattery, fear and genuine confusion, I hung up on John and ran to the nearest computer. There, I discovered that Dateline is a platinum dating service for people with very high incomes. I tried to call John back but he had called from a blocked number. I was devastated; I had missed out on a potential sugar daddy, and someone else had already done the seducing for me.
I fully believe in finding love by any means possible. Last year I waited in the lobbies of Student Health Services to catch men at their most vulnerable state, and it worked for the most part. So I appreciated John’s gesture, albeit after the fact. Calling an unsuspecting person on the phone and soliciting them should be considered an act in the name of love as well.
John was just looking for someone to talk to, someone to share his hopes, dreams and fears. Maybe he wanted someone with nice eyes to stare into. Or perhaps what he really wanted was someone for whom he could offer to pay rent or cover tuition. I feel awful that I denied John of that, and I wish I had a six-figure salary to join Dateline, find him and straighten things out.
I don’t know who was using my identity on Dateline, but I think he or she was trying to do me a favor. I am angry with myself for passing up on what could have been my opportunity to buy myself a new iPhone.
If you’re out there John, I’m sorry, and I promise I won’t hang up on you this time. It wasn’t me on the website, but we can take the time to see if we’re 86 percent compatible and share an interest in swords and Spike Lee movies. I promise to be “flirty, energetic and fun” to match your “thirst for adventure.” I also promise to act in any commercials Dateline.com may invite us to be in. So if you’re out there John, my number’s the same. Call me.
You can see this article and more published on the Daily Free Press's website here.
Published: Wednesday, January 28, 2009
"K, update: I got a wink from ClownsRreal and an email from someone named Possums4. This is clearly not going the way I’d hoped.”
My roommate is on Match.com and it’s not going well. She had a string of flirtatious emails with DarcPitt (whose picture was a Dementor) and Dre Ghost (also a Dementor), but otherwise she’s finding the same creeps that one would find in an AOL chat room. Perhaps she shouldn’t have listed science fiction as an interest.
I’m on a dating Web site too, and have been for several weeks. I just wasn’t aware of it until now.
On Saturday I got a call from a man named John. He was calling from under his bedcovers in his home state of Colorado, clearly very excited that this would be the first time we spoke on the phone in our six-week iChat relationship. Unfortunately, I was unaware of this relationship.
“What are you doing today?” John asked.
I was spending the day with a burrito at Qdoba, and found it no business of an unknown caller to know that. “Who is this?” I demanded.
“Are you seriously asking me that?” John giggled and fluffed his pillow. Something about his tone told me that he was propped up on his elbows, laying on his bed with his feet pointed in the air, talking on some sort of novelty fuzzy telephone, all while slowly twirling the cord in his fingers.
I heard an earthquake on the other line and realized it was just John shifting his weight on his mattress. Something was not right about this conversation, and I was not amused. This didn’t sound like a John I knew, it sounded like a John that was bedridden and lonely. I mentally listed all the Johns I knew in my head. All I could think of was my ethics professor and I wondered if this was some sort of test.
“Who is this?” I demanded, still casually shoving tortilla chips into my mouth.
“It’s John, of course. From Dateline, Dateline.com.”
At first I thought it was a prank. It wasn’t. Then I thought that John had misdialed. He didn’t. Then John said something that made me put down the burrito for good.
“This is Sarah, from California, right?”
Yes. I am. My roommate, who was with me, demanded I get off the phone. Someone had not only given my number out to their iChat lover, but he or she had used my name, home state and entire life to build a cyber personality. I tried asking John what he thought I looked like, but my roommate insisted I end the conversation before I gave away our location and John showed up at Qdoba in the flesh.
“I’m sorry John, you’ve got the wrong Sarah.” I heard a sinking ship sound, and I realized he was just sitting up in bed.
“Well, are you dating anyone?” John asked. “You sound nice enough.”
Overwhelmed with flattery, fear and genuine confusion, I hung up on John and ran to the nearest computer. There, I discovered that Dateline is a platinum dating service for people with very high incomes. I tried to call John back but he had called from a blocked number. I was devastated; I had missed out on a potential sugar daddy, and someone else had already done the seducing for me.
I fully believe in finding love by any means possible. Last year I waited in the lobbies of Student Health Services to catch men at their most vulnerable state, and it worked for the most part. So I appreciated John’s gesture, albeit after the fact. Calling an unsuspecting person on the phone and soliciting them should be considered an act in the name of love as well.
John was just looking for someone to talk to, someone to share his hopes, dreams and fears. Maybe he wanted someone with nice eyes to stare into. Or perhaps what he really wanted was someone for whom he could offer to pay rent or cover tuition. I feel awful that I denied John of that, and I wish I had a six-figure salary to join Dateline, find him and straighten things out.
I don’t know who was using my identity on Dateline, but I think he or she was trying to do me a favor. I am angry with myself for passing up on what could have been my opportunity to buy myself a new iPhone.
If you’re out there John, I’m sorry, and I promise I won’t hang up on you this time. It wasn’t me on the website, but we can take the time to see if we’re 86 percent compatible and share an interest in swords and Spike Lee movies. I promise to be “flirty, energetic and fun” to match your “thirst for adventure.” I also promise to act in any commercials Dateline.com may invite us to be in. So if you’re out there John, my number’s the same. Call me.
You can see this article and more published on the Daily Free Press's website here.
Labels:
dateline.com,
dating,
love
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