Cindy Adams is so old, her first job paid her in fire.

“Atlanta’s nice but has different vibes. New York is the tops of everything.”

Look, I’m still not entirely sure what the difference is between Ansel Elgort and Alden Ehrenreich, but the more I hear about Baby Driver, the more I read the reviews for it (currently at 98% on Rottentomatoes), and the more Guillermo Del Toro praises it gets, the more I admit that I don’t really care who Ankle Elbort…

As someone turning 30 pretty damn soon, the idea of paying hundreds of dollars to go to a crowded festival that may involve sleeping in tents just... doesn’t cut it anymore. The only festivals I’ll go to are the ones that are in/around major urban areas, and there are more than enough of those that I can see major…

Unvaccinated people can also kill people with compromised immune systems, and not even know it. Modern medicine has allowed those with serious health conditions - conditions that would have killed them only decades ago - to live at home, go shopping, attend school, etc. almost unnoticed. But all it takes is some idiot…

Do vaccines cause autism? Of course they don’t. Don’t be a dumbass. Seriously, vaccines are safe, please use them. Don’t listen to a bunch of uneducated cockwombles spouting bullshit.

“torture porn”— that’s not well-defined.

Yeah, people gotta have the new PlayStation, $100+ Adele tickets, pay hundreds to travel to Times Square to freeze to death in a packed crowd to watch the ball drop on New Years (New York residents avoid Times Square like the plague) or pay hundreds to go watch NBA or baseball playoffs, but you’re elitist if you pay…

Thank you for making this point. I live in a major metropolitan area - you can see a symphony orchestra concert or an opera for under $30. People still have this impression that classical music (and by extension, musical theater) is for the snobby rich asshole people. The reality is that MANY pop/rock/etc acts command…

There is some awesome dark theatre out there. A lot more than you’d think. If you live in a city with lots of theatre (and not just commercial touring productions), keep your eyes open for anything by Martin McDonagh! Pretty frequently produced and usually wonderfully fucked up.

I looked it up, they start at $35 and go on up to a couple hundred dollars. But so do most concerts and sports tickets. Why is it people only express contempt for the ‘privileged’ choices of people who go to the theater (to see a damn timely play btw) and classical music, but rarely express the same for someone going…

It is NOW *gestures to thugs to drag you away*

I obviously can’t speak for other people’s tolerance levels of certain dramas or traumas. I will say that this play was intense. It does the book justice, IMO, particularly the second half.

Sweeney Todd is basically a cartoon, though. If you have the opportunity to see near anything by someone like Martin McDonagh, Caryl Churchill or Suzan-Lori Parks (just three favorites who have had similar articles written about performances of their plays within the past decade or so) and you’re almost sure to see…

I’ve never really understood the whole “fainting from surprise” thing. I’ve fainted out of dehydration or after giving blood. But I can’t imagine fainting over something I’ve seen. Are they fainting while sitting down? Because I feel like that’s somewhat impressive.

In the 1980s, Richard Posner wrote ‘Amusing Ourselves To Death’, in which he suggested that, with the rise of TV (this was pre-Internet), the U.S. was in much more danger of tyranny via the path of ‘Brave New World’ than it was from a ‘1984' scenario. His point was that ‘1984' required a condition where a dictator…

That’s true, but a paperback copy of 1984 is like $10.

Sounds like the 120 Minutes Hate.

But, of course, he didn’t actually suggest BMX bike to Simon Pegg subconsciously; that’s just the fake explanation that makes it entertaining. Simon Pegg originally wrote BMX bike, just as he thought, but Derren Brown managed to swap out the note ahead of time and put another one in its place. That’s how magic works;…

One of my favorite Derren Brown specials was the one where he “taught” a woman how to be a world-famous concert pianist in less than a week. He told her not to practice the piano at all, but just to perform a series of odd tasks, and occasionally hum the song to herself. She went on stage and performed flawlessly.