So, we had a hiatus for various reasons, between “A Weird Spring” and our entry of “The Revisit” for this year’s 72 Hour Shootout. I figured I’d do a post on some pop culture stuff during that hiatus without hopefully being too overbearing about it.
We got into how LeVar Burton got on Kickstarter to take Reading Rainbow to the next generation (umm, next level). LeVar really surpassed the expectations with the raising of the money, so the next question for him is how to use it well. I noted over on my tumblr that I didn’t begrudge LeVar for not making Reading Rainbow a not-for-profit, since I doubt that there’s that much of a profit out of it anyway (unless you’re at the level of JK Rowling, I’m not sure how much of a cash cow would there be in trying to get kids to read and giving them book recommendations). (oh, and I’m referring to him as LeVar since I grew up on “Reading Rainbow” and I’m a Trekkie, so…).
With the fall tv season of the 2014-2015 year coming, there are some shows to check out when they get aired. We triscribers are getting curious about how “Fresh Off The Boat” will be; I was thinking about how it’s kind of annoying that an Asian American sitcom comes to broadcast tv once every 20 years, like they’re the NY Rangers in a Stanley Cup final… (check out Randall Park’s commentary on how unfair it is to be the 2nd APA sitcom in 20 years, and hoping to break the bamboo ceiling already (h/t Angry Asian Man’s blog post). As another sidenote: I am curious to see how ABC’s experiment in expanding diversity on broadcast network tv will work (hopefully!).
Oh, yeah, the NY Rangers – they made it to the finals, but didn’t win, losing it to the LA Kings. One of those “damn it, they have to get something for Henrik Lundqvist someday!” moments. It was very cool about how NYC got into it, with people coming out to Bryant Park to watch a game.
I really thought the USA got more into the World Cup because the World Cup was in our hemisphere, so we got to see a bunch of games and Team USA had a nice run. The spirit really was exciting. Otherwise, I still don’t understand soccer. (umm, “football,” to the rest of the world).
During this summer, I caught an outdoor showing of “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” in Park Slope. Fun rock opera on Andrew Jackson’s rise to power. I liked it; more poignant than I thought (AJ’s wife’s misery – always sad; but that AJ’s ego was just right. Of course he thought he could save the country, putting aside how many people died or who stood in the way). The actor playing Jackson was better that I expected. There were some mic problems but not too bad. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the nat’l bank & tax issues, not that they were covered well at all (not musical worthy). The other old American legends got the “get your own musical” treatment (I don’t remember JQ Adams or Martin Van Buren as that bad in history). Almost made me want to go back to read up on that period again, with rock/pop music in the background.
Of course, the Andrew Jackson musical is totally making me exciting for the upcoming “Hamilton” by Lin-Manuel Miranda at the Public Theater in January/February 2015 (with Miranda as Alexander Hamilton!). This was previously The Hamilton Mixtape project and was quite a thing when Miranda started it with a presentation at the White House. (see here for my previous post on that!).
Ok, I know not everyone likes prosecutors, but I sure give US Attorney Preet Bharara a lot of credit for taking on a whole bunch of challenges. Good profile of him back in August in the NY Times, by Ben Weiser and Ben Protess.
This was a very selective notation of stuff, but it was nice that the summer had no heat wave and was generally pleasant, weather-wise. Current events are weird as ever; we still live in interesting times.
