This Is Why The Dems Will Keep Losing Elections

Pretentious, narcissistic, batshit-insane bio from the program at Everyman Theatre for a play we saw recently. 

There are so many things wrong about this it's hard to know where to begin. But then I guess I don't have to. Anyone with more than two synapses snapping will see it. And this person is getting paid for this shit. 

P. T. Barnum was right: there's a sucker born every minute. 

In Mourning

A fascist buffoon elected to the White House and the death of Leonard Cohen all in one week -- less than one week -- is about more than I can bear. If I believed in reading symbolism into everything, I'd say that Cohen died as an act of mourning for what's going on in this country. So rather than pile on with analysis and with facts, which don't mean anything in this age of blind rage and uncontrolled id, I'll let the man speak for himself. RIP, great man, great poet, great prophet:

Anthem 

by Leonard Cohen 

The birds they sang 
at the break of day 
Start again 
I heard them say 
Don't dwell on what 
has passed away 
or what is yet to be. 
Ah the wars they will 
be fought again 
The holy dove 
She will be caught again 
bought and sold 
and bought again 
the dove is never free. 

Ring the bells that still can ring 
Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack in everything 
That's how the light gets in. 

We asked for signs 
the signs were sent: 
the birth betrayed 
the marriage spent 
Yeah the widowhood 
of every government -- 
signs for all to see. 

I can't run no more 
with that lawless crowd 
while the killers in high places 
say their prayers out loud. 
But they've summoned, they've summoned up 
a thundercloud 
and they're going to hear from me. 

Ring the bells that still can ring ... 

You can add up the parts 
but you won't have the sum 
You can strike up the march, 
there is no drum 
Every heart, every heart 
to love will come 
but like a refugee. 

Ring the bells that still can ring 
Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack, a crack in everything 
That's how the light gets in. 

Ring the bells that still can ring 
Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack, a crack in everything 
That's how the light gets in. 
That's how the light gets in. 
That's how the light gets in.

R. I. P., Alan Rickman

More sad news to add to the start of this year. First David Bowie, and now Alan Rickman. Both 69, both died of cancer.

Rickman was simply one of the greatest actors of our time. And a great humanist. Marvelous actor, marvelous man. Why do such beautiful people have to go, while monsters like Dick Cheney still walk about? 

Fashion Is Art

All the people who ooh and aah over great works of art in museums yet turn up their noses at fashion make me laugh. They are pretentious and supercilious and profoundly ignorant. 

I, too, love to look at paintings and sculpture and listen to music and read literature. I, too, swoon over da Vinci and Raffaello and Ghirlandaio and Caravaggio and Rodin and Turner and Vermeer and Manet and Goya and Mozart and Mahler and Beethoven and Verdi and Wagner and Strauss and Wharton and Fitzgerald and Whitman and Frost and Baudelaire and Lampedusa and on and on and on. 

Down the Drain

Single Carrot Theatre Gala May 2014

Dawna Cobb (in red) and Lisa Simeone (in white) at the Single Carrot Theatre gala in May 2014. Are we rockin' it or what?! 

Jean Paul Gaultier and Joel Rosenthal

I was in New York a few weeks ago and had a chance to see two stunning exhibitions that are still going on, one until February 23rd and the other until March 9th. They’re completely different from each other and completely captivating, each in its own way. Warning, though, that the crowds can be a turn-off, a problem with blockbuster shows in general. So if you can swing it, better to go during a weekday, particularly early in the day.

Glamour Girl: Paris Haute Couture

New Glamour Girl post is up, here.

Hopscotch Crosswalk -- another in the continuing series of Why I Love Baltimore

I love my adopted hometown, for many reasons -- the architecture, the low cost of living, the lack of pretention, and yes, the much-vaunted and authentic quirkiness. Baltimore is full of characters -- John Waters didn't have to make anything up for those in his movies -- and I think it's one of our strengths.

So of course I flipped over this story about a Hopscotch Crosswalk downtown. It's just one of many artistic crosswalks being painted as we speak.

I wonder how many people will actually use it? I would. I will, next time I'm down there.

Luv ya, Charm City.

(Photo courtesy of Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts and the Baltimore Sun)