Like any professional writer, I love word play—whether on the page, in the scene, or on the board. Yet in all my years of reading, writing, and playing Scrabble, Boggle, and Yahtzee (I know it's about numbers/dice, but it's fun TO SCREAM!), I've never encountered this word.
I'm fairly certain that Scramble made it up. Scramble is a terrible, terrible game with lots of quirks—like it won't even recognize the word "slut"—and yet it's dictionary produces this. People, trust me, DO NOT put this game on your phone as you will lose hours of your life and gain an inaccurate vocabulary.
Today, in celebration, you could give your Pop a basket of hand-decorated cookies; although, I'm fairly certain that "Stop Dad" is not the sign you want to send. Unless your Papa really, really—like REALLY!—loved you ....
With the Oscars this weekend, there's a flood of James Franco on all media outlets. Thankfully, being James Franco, it's easy for him to be everywhere at once—print, online, red carpet ... as we know, he can do it all.
And over at New York Magazine—the ultimate caption:
See Photographic Evidence That James Franco Actually Sleeps … while also reading and listening to music, because he is James Franco. (Now is the time to pause and squeal about the cats, if you must. Let it all out.)
Listed on Craigslist sites around the globe, the Missed Connections is a curious read that can easily suck in a voyeuristic reader. One such web peeper is artist Sophie Blackall. Although normally earning her income through illustrating children's books, she found herself perusing the personals for entertainment—c'mon, admit, you've done it—and discovered inspiration. Behold her collection of illustrated "Missed Connections" at the New York Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn.
Along with the "Love in Transit" party that featured MTA-sanctioned subway singers, the museum itself is a great date option as it playfully conveys the history of this city and how deeply it's tied to getting about. To think, only two hundred years ago the population of NYC was 191,000; whereas, today it's over 8 million. And to watch as it evolved from horse-drawn carriages and omnibuses to motorized contraptions was not as "duh?" as you might think ... for instance, one piece that inspired the great need to find something other than horses was an equine influenza epidemic in which nearly 20,000 horses were slaughtered within a week to prevent spreading.
But, back to the hilarity of many of the MCs, such as the above, is the fantastic honesty found within the writing and the imaginitive POV of Ms. Blackall's illustrations. Luckily, along with her Etsy store, all will soon be collected and published in a book titled, "Missed Connections: Love Lost and Found."
Greenpeace is on tour. Literally. They took their famous Arctic Sunrise ship on a tour of the Eastern seaboard so that people like you and me could tour the boat. And, let's be clear, touring a boat is always awesome (says the girl who, no exaggeration, never leaves home without dramamine). The irony of the Greenpeace vessel is that it's an old seal-hunting icebreaker ship from the 1970s that two decades later was recommissioned into a stop killing seals, whales, and other beauties of the oceans. And what's also cool is the ship looks like it's nearly 40 years of age with cool steampunk contraptions like this talking piece:
Oh, I know it looks like a movie prop, but it's a legit form of communication between the bridge and the guy up in the ice house at the top of the mast. Even with radar, someone's gotta look for the appropriate cracks in the ice because how the ship breaks it up is it essentially goes up onto the cracked ice and crushes it on its way down. This is a very sea-sick inducing round-bottomed ship. Other neat contraptions are the gyrocompass:
What was most amazing about the tour was talking with a member of the crew about pirates. Turns out that even for Greenpeace, they have to have continengency plans for being attacked, and in fact spoke of stories about barely escaping. It makes you realize how much these folks put their lives on the line for the causes they believe in because beyond the legal skirmeshes of protest, they now have deadly pirates as an issue.
Greenpeace fights for a lot of causes that I personally believe in; however, what was interesting was how mixed I felt about the one for which the boat was on tour about: The coal industry. Coal mining is what puts food on the table for members of my family, plus even Jonathan Franzen will tell you how strip mining actually better protects the land in the long-term (because replanting has long-been a requirement) for the animals and the birds as the land will revert back to forest. However, as Greenpeace points out, coal is the number one polluter of greenhouse gases and it is coal that powers our homes. So, how do we change that? We find way to make alternatives more affordable, such as solar. And we recognize that these alternatives can offer a lot of jobs—turns out that wind now employs more people than coal in the United States.
I'm still not sure I am clear on the coal issue; however, I know that touring that boat did inspire me to renew my membership, which is still great news for Greenpeace.
Prince said it himself in that he could be playing at The Garden all night and into the morn because he's got "TOO MANY HITS!"
The only song that I think he didn't at least riff (if not sing in full) was "Sexy M.F.".
By his second song, the man had everyone involved singing and dancing—the party had started! In fact, he insisted we sing along! And even though we've heard all of the hits before, he found a consistent way to bring in fresh energy, such as the exquisite "Purple Rain" that every single person standing and singing. And it was better than the original.
From the moment opening act Cee Lo Green hit the stage at 7:30p, we danced (Prince played from 8:30-11p). And the way that Cee Lo's big Gnarls Barkley hit "Crazy" got woven into one of Prince's encores—the best way to get a post-Superbowl Monday night crowd to lift the energy factor ... keep saying "good night"—that then turned into "Let's Go Crazy." As one Twitter post noted, "Prince is serene when backing another singer (like tonight, on guitar for Cee-Lo's "Crazy") - just part of the band, carefree."
In fact, there were so many encores, I can't quite recall if "Insatiable" was the last song of the night or not, but it's true, he could play a 5-hour set and everyone would still just dance.It's amazing to think that this is the guy who was churning out hits when he was still a teenager, and that in this age of ever-on media, we still barely know nothing about the prolific musician. For both those things, I have immense respect for such an amazing artist who has so carefully crafted his super-sexy image.
If the Welcome 2 America Tour ever adds venues beyond NYC, get yourself a ticket—and wear your dancing shoes.
Oh, I know it's likely to be flat, but the trailer seems punchy enough <sigh>.
