Down with Integration

I am a musical segregationist. Or at any rate, I never want to deal with integration again. Do I sound like a horrible person? Let me explain.

Yesterday I spent something in the neighborhood of 18 hours integrating the score of my show. This means going through the score and libretto, copying and pasting the dialogue into the score, making sure all the fonts are right, making sure everything's legible, making sure all the little changes are up to date, taking great care to get the page numbering right (which I still screwed up), and generally being tedious and fussy. It's an incredibly painful process. Fortunately, now I have a 159 page pdf version of my show, albeit with some screwy fonts and bizarre page numbers.

If anyone ever makes a plug-in that makes integrating and tracking changes between Finale and Word, they will be canonized. I don't know if there are enough of us to make them rich, but I think we can at least petition for them to get a special place in heaven.

Bizarre

Okay, we have another round of DVD-bashing, presented by the curiously bearded Jake Gylenicantspellthis. So let's think about this. The only people who are SEEING this montage-that-can-only-be-enjoyed-on-a-big-screen are the 5000 or so people in the theatre. The other 3 billion of us are not appreciating it all. I'm sorry. If you make obscure crappy movies, there's no chance in hell I'm going to give you $12 and two uninterrupted hours. Make good movies, and then we'll talk. Until then, I will get my movies on DVD.

Jon Stewart: "I can't wait until later when we see Oscar's Salute to Montages."

(Corrected for spelling. Thanks!)

Excuse me?

I'm sorry, are they using Aaron Copeland for this montage of how important Hollywood is? Becasue that's not okay.

UPDATE: And then Jon Stewart saves the day: "And none of those issues were ever a problem again. [...] Congratulations to us."

Hello, Dolly!

I'd just like to point out that Dolly Parton by sheer force of being Dolly Parton, was infinitely more interesting than whoever it was that just sang, despite the fact that that chick had the Looming Firey Car of Doom and Fire Dancers in her performance.

UPDATE: Nor did Dolly require pimp-dancers and a gawdy room wallpapered in drink-carriers. Then again, given that this song has about 25 discrete words, some level of spectacle is required. I'm still voting for Dolly.

FURTHER UPDATE: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOO! Dolly did NOT just lose to the pimp song. Good grief. It was probably the 'Hallelujahs' that did her in.

Ask the Mango

Every now and then, I, like everyon else, get really odd search strings. I've never completely understood why people phrase their searches as questions. Google is a search engine, not an oracle. Anyway. I mention all this to say:

To the dear reader who was wondering, "Did President Bush trade nuclear secrets for mangoes [sic]?" I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, "No." One of the few benefits of continuing to allow South Florida to be in the Union (for good reasons why we shouldn't, see the collected works of Dave Barry) is that we have a strategic reserve of domestic mango growth, and are not forced to pimp out our national secrets to fulfill our collective craving for a juicy, juicy mango.

Next week on Ask the Mango: Is Dick Cheney really a duck-billed platypus?

(P.S. -- Dear Reader, what you're looking for is this statement. First, Prime Minister Singh says,

I'm particularly pleased that we have reached an understanding on the implementation of our agreement on civil nuclear cooperation of July 18, 2005. I have conveyed to the President that India has finalized the identification of civilian facilities to which we had committed. I was also happy to hear from the President that he now intended to approach the U.S. Congress to amend U.S. laws and the Nuclear Supplier Group to adjust its guideline. We will discuss with the International Atomic Energy Agency in regard to fashioning an appropriate India-specific safeguards agreement. You will appreciate I cannot say more now, while our parliament is in session.

And then, deep into President Bush's section of the joint remarks, after all of the references to serious things, we find this:

And, oh, by the way, Mr. Prime Minister, the United States is looking forward to eating Indian mangos. Part of liberalizing trade is to open up markets. And as a result of your leadership, and our hard work, we are opening up markets. Our agricultural knowledge initiative is an important initiative for both countries, where we'll fund joint agricultural research projects.

You're welcome.)

UPDATE: Another Dear Reader asks the Google Oracle, "Can I see a picture of a mango?"

Well, Dear Reader, today is your lucky day. Not only you can, you may. And you will!



In fact, you can see lots of mangos!



However, you cannot see a picture of THIS mango. I'm sure you understand.

Thank you for Asking the Mango.

Michael John!

The New York Times has a great article on Michael John LaChiusa today, complete with adorable picture. I saw his Bernarda Alba today (Thanks!) and it was incredible. Like nothing I've ever seen, really. Anyway. Go look.

Also, See What I Wanna See is now available on iTunes, and completely worth the $9.99. It's actually worth far more than that, but all they'll take is $9.99.

Danish Rally NYC!

I went down to the Danish Embassy for the rally today, and it was a pretty good time, despite the fact that I'm still defrosting.

Let me tell you, if you ever want to set a record for the quietest, most orderly rally ever, get a group of Danes together. Nonetheless, we got moved across the street to the Dag Somethingnorwegian plaza. I a There, anyone
who wanted to speak was given the chance. This was very interesting because the group turned out to be very politically mixed, leading to some lively debate between speakers. And that was cool, because it was free people speaking freely. As much as people might have disagreed with each other, everyone agreed that it was vital that we be able to do so.

People had signs, one guy had his face painted to look like a Danish flag, one lady was handing out "Freedom Cheese," lots of people had Danish flags, and a few people seemed confused by the difference between Denmark and Norway and had Norwegian flags and Viking horns. (I realize that Norway published the cartoons too, and has also suffered repercussions.) Also, a man was brandishing DAK ham impaled on a stick.The group was probably 65% male, for whatever it's worth. Lisa Vincent, Stephen Vincent's widow, was there and spoke, along with everyone else. The whole speaking arrangement wound up feeling very much like a middle school dance. You know, everyone stands in a circle and boogies a little in place and then one person goes in the middle and demonstrates, say, The Flamingo, and then everyone claps, and then someone else goes in the middle and does the Running Man. (Is it now clear exactly when I was in middle school?) All it all, a good time of freedom-loving Danes (I'm 1/16th!) and Dane-lovers.

Here are photos I took, as I get them uploaded. (These are thumbnails. Click through for the full-size image.)















UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers!

Sammenhold

I'm heading down to the Danish Embassy rally soon. I'll post pictures later. It's a pity that the only phrase of Danish my grandpa remembers is, "I love you, pretty girl." Although maybe I should have him teach it to me, in the event some hot Danish guy wants me. Because that's likely. Anyway...

Freedom!

Rally at the Danish Embassy

Friday, March 3rd
12 Noon
The Danish Consulate
885 2nd Avenue
Solidarity with Denmark

Bring appropriate cheese, legos, clever signs, ancient and traditional cookies, flags, whatever, as long as it's respectful and not amplified. And probably wear something warm, given how the weather's been this week.

And if you're going to be there, drop me a comment and we'll try to run into each other, swap cheeses, etc.

I'll try to post pictures. Unless I don't. I make no promises.