There is nothing really wrong with The Libertine — it’s just that, like a few other movies that advertise themselves was being transgressive and fun but really aren’t [Bad Santa], it’s just too tame to capture the source material adequately, and it wound up being a slightly more smutty costume drama. Rochester’s…

Shit like this happens — thanks for nothing, Donald — and regardless of how fucking moronic it is, there is a still small voice in my head that says, “uh...deep game?”

Thank you for mentioning the way afflicted people were treated like utter lepers in addition to having their families taken away — there was all of that too and it’s too easy to forget the paranoia. Just awful.

Yes, and one of the great outcomes was the gay community’s response to the crisis — there were enough leaders on the ground to take it seriously, and made tremendous efforts to keep people safe. They disseminated an enormous amount of information quickly and were able to create a public health network of sorts…

Oh God yes. There’s something else that’s hellishly difficult to understand, but...at least Mississippi leads the country in one thing, and that’s vaccination compliance.

My students do not have meaningful memories of the AIDS crisis at its highest pitch — before the “cocktail” treatment was introduced in the 90s, for sure, HIV/AIDS was an automatic death sentence with a very short horizon. So I have to explain things like ACT UP, Larry Kramer, etc. It’s not as if AIDS went away, of…

Yes, yes, absolutely. There are lots of little details in the book that underscore its credibility: for me, most of them seem to have to do with famous dudes treating Marianne shabbily. Aside from Mick, there’s Bob Dylan showing up in her hotel room in the late 70s, wanting to connect with her, somehow, but only…

Came here to mention Marianne’s book also — really is amazing and I’m sure she’ll say something soon publicly if she hasn’t. Apparently, they were close for decades after they had moved on from the Stones, who really started coming apart after Goat’s Head Soup (once Mick got married to Bianca and started spending a…

It seems so. In that deposition from the mid-2000s, he comes off as utterly aphasic, though all of his public appearances (on Conan, and so forth) put the lie to that. He seems to know what the hell he’s doing.

I am more inclined to agree with your reading of this—the forced confidentiality of these meetings, where Comey was always walking unexpectedly into a situation where they were talking one-on-one, is itself enough of a red flag, whether or not they were being taped. (I just don’t think Trump can think that far…

Also, my doctors usually explain to me what they are about to do and why, ask if that is all right, and wait for a response before doing any probing. It sounds like this doctor didn’t care to do that.

I’m glad to hear you say that. I have no idea how all this works, never having been party to anything like intelligence gathering, criminal justice, or the workings of the federal government, but I was, simply, convinced by Comey’s testimony a few weeks ago. He and the bureau were totally fucked when it came to…

Okay, well, we saw this movie this morning and I’ve gotta say, really, it, uh, meets expectations (sorry), at least for the thing that one watches Baywatch for. You should be putting your brain in neutral anyway, and as long as you make sure to do it, it’s okay. Ilfenesh Hadera (whom I hadn’t seen before) is…

Yes, exactly. But then of course writers are always gonna favor fidelity to the text. Tom Stoppard wrote something for the New York Review of Books a while back, where he described giving a talk to some students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and someone asked him what he was looking for in an actor.

It’s not just particular to Beckett, but the precision he demanded with regard to his theatrical work was there from the beginning, and everybody close to him got on board. Not surprised that Albee saw it the same way, and at least for now, the estate does too.

The Beckett estate is similarly and famously hard-assed about handing out permissions to people who want to change anything about the plays as they’re written, even down the parameters of a stage set. I remember reading about a production that wanted to set Endgame in a subway tunnel, and Beckett personally said hell…

This was my reaction also. It may be a little pie-in-the-sky, but for now this is something that everyone seems to agree is needed, and takes the heat off of the Republicans in Congress. Whatever Muller finds out might compel them to impeach, and in that, isolate their party from further damage. Or if Trump fucks…

I can’t reassure you, of course—all this bullshit is stressing me out too. For me, since I live in Texas, Greg Abbott’s annoying me a lot worse than Trump is now. The more this goes on, well, just think of Watergate—Nixon was very popular, more so than Trump, and had a lot of loyalists at his disposal, and somehow we…

Yeah. But I have the feeling if they turn on Trump now, like right now, then more of them will have deniability. Including Ryan — they certainly have never been that close. Obviously I don’t think much of the Republican party, but at some level, I’m sure ONE of them will step up and be responsible to the country…

I get the feeling it has to begin now. But I’m sure most of us here have had that vibe for awhile. As far as the US intelligence apparatus goes, everyone except Trumpvoter knew he was going to be a liability, or perhaps they knew but didn’t think it was going to be that bad. Regardless of the severity of Trump’s…