Interesting "puppeteer" became the career shorthand for loser in pop culture. They do good work! If you can make puppets, a world they live in, and a story that is entertaining to people, you're imaginative, hard-working, and smart—attractive qualities.

And now, about Grover Cleveland and his wife, Frances Folsom Cleveland. He was 300 pounds. She was the daughter of one of his friends and 27 years his junior. She became First Lady at 21, the youngest ever. They looked like this, respectively:
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http://www.firstladies.org/…

It dings respectability because we've agreed that "realism" is the main vessel for art. At his talk I went to, Viet Nguyen said about the same thing, when he talked about how in other cultures, there is more acceptance of different literary forms as artistic; he wrote his book heavily inspired by those novels.

Viva Eva Green!

I don't know what a "real TV show" is anymore, as a lot of (prestige) TV shows have abjured the traditional one completed story an episode structure. I don't care that a show can be just cut into arbitrary chunks, if the story and its rendering are good. Sounds like this one isn't.

Going downtown I saw a giant vertical billboard for the movie of Eva Green, which I immediately wanted for my home, even though it is far bigger, in height, than my walls. But I'll build a bigger wall! For good, not evil! For Eva Green!

I don't know if it's still on Netflix, but someone here recommended a documentary by a communications engineer stationed there for a year, called Antarctica: A Year on Ice. It was visually gorgeous (duh) and fascinating to listen to the countries' stations' workers talk about how to live in Antarctica for a year,…

Yes, that is what one should do.

Grey Gardens, Penny Dreadful and its music, The Sympathizer, Come Down in Time

I can't see any actor now in their right mind agreeing to play Robin Williams, because no one could do it, and people would hate him for agreeing to impersonate such a legend. But since he will be remembered for a long time, a movie far off in the future, when his death and its pain have receded, and he has become…

This to me sounds like a very selfish form of empathy, which is not how empathy works, quite the opposite in fact! People thinking of others and their suffering—good! People using that to completely misunderstand the nature of your suffering, devaluing it, in essence thinking of other people not as people themselves…

New Yorker article on the Upright Citizens Brigade, where the writer took the beginning multiweek class, the first on the ladder of courses, like getting a university degree, and you pay along the way. I didn't know the UCB made so much money from so many people wanting to do improv; it's a comedy big business.
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My favorite piece of music this year starts at the 39th second and goes on to the 1:27th minute of the main title theme, "Deminmonde" and is repeated in "Never Say No", "Closer Than Sisters" especially, and "In Peace"— in Abel Korzienowski's very beautiful, very lovely score to Penny Dreadful. I just finished the…

Thanks, Caroline.

Hey, just an unnecessary request that you guys don't spoil anything in the review headlines and pictures for those of us who aren't binging. Thank you.

No, though I do like art that comments on the real world, because I have a naive faith that that kind of art would be beneficial to society if only enough people experienced it. That's not really true, but one can hope. But, no, my criteria for good superhero films would to be eschew formula, do something more…

What do you think? Will the blunt Handler pick a fight with Coulter? I hope so.

Steve's periodic reminder that I am old. Thanks, Steve!

Not romantic comedies per se, but any "modern look at the difficulty of finding love and being in relationships." Netflix has a new show called Easy which is purportedly in that genre, and I only saw like a minute of it before deciding to pass. Maybe I'll give it a go later. Same reason I hate relationship standup.