BREAKING

Shocked. I am just shocked.

Also: wake me up when you’ve got something I didn’t already pretty much know. You know, like Satanic rites and goat sacrifice, something like that.

How is that even possible? What, were they up in my colon or something without my knowing about it?

TIA & Ass.

Pleez pleez pleez just tell me that no one will ever be held accountable for any of it!!

They’re not? No one? Not ever ever ever? Whew, that’s a relief!

Our kleptocracy itself is at stake.

@nojo: You clever basterd.

@Benedick: Chorus Line never fails me.

@nojo: You are One singular sensation, sir.

@Mistress Cynica: I always loved the New Yorker review blurb (from memory): “A group of dancers assemble for a show in rehearsal, and before the night is over we know everything about everybody.”

EWWWWWWW …

@nojo: @Mistress Cynica: As honorary gay men this will interest you.

When A Chorus Line (the ‘A’ was made part of the title so it would show up first in the The Times’s ABC listings: let us now pause while Cyn’s head explodes and then comes back together) was in preview and said number was being received with polite applause. The writers reckoned, correctly, that it should stop the show. What could be the problem? Then some bright spark looked at the program. The song’s original title was Tits and Ass as quoted by noje. Which gave away the joke of the song. You see? So it was retitled Dance: Ten, Looks: Three – its official title when next you dine with any members of the Lollipop Guild and want to discuss with them the finer points of Paul Gemigniani’s conducting – which is when it brought down the house. It’s an important cultural signifier which I thought you would want to know without provoking sniggering from the ibdb crowd. This is not unlike that cave/fire thingy in Plato except it’s got a score by Marvin Hamlish.

And I offer this posting – which has thankfully taken me away from my work – as evidence to cuthbert (hot name. I bet you get into wrestling) that there is no such thing here at Stinque as too boring or too arcane.

@blogenfreude:

That Larry Craig! Always the scamp!

@blogenfreude: My eyes! My eyes!!!!!!!!!!

@blogenfreude: David Brooks was an intern?

@blogenfreude: OK, so Brooks didn’t punch his lights out whe he saw his hand going for his leg?

@Benedick: I didn’t know that. I’m forwarding this info to my daughter, who took classes on musical theater in college but could just as well have taught them.

@Dodgerblue: I witnessed the (disastrous) previews in London. I was also part of the union drive to ban the American cast. I witnessed the American cast falling over on stage because they were unused to a raked stage. I also got felt up pretty thoroughly by one of the authors while watching standing up in extremely tight jeans at the back of the theatre. If your daughter needs to know more…

Five, six, seven, eight…

One! Singular sensation…

Do we know that dancers count one to eight? That almost all Broadway dances are counted thusly? Good. Carry on.

@Benedick: We do know that, courtesy of my wife who studied dance for many years and who dragged me to so many dance events that I began to learn a little something. Her mother, btw, was a pro dancer, ballet trained, and a longtime movie extra who knew and danced with Kelly, Astaire, Cyd Charisse etc.

@blogenfreude: Brooks can’t imagine a single woman, slobbering like a St Bernard? I’m guessing he rather liked that hand on his inner thigh…

I think if I had a Republican senator’s hand on my inner thigh for any length of time, he’d get one politely whispered warning that I would cut it off before there’d be the sound of clicking leatherman. There’s a good, good reason I’m not anywhere near politics.

@blogenfreude: I see Brooks is using the same tan-spray salon as Boehner.
@IanJ: I’ve always found “Remove your hand or pull back a bloody stump” to be remarkably effective.

@IanJ: HF has fifteen minutes to respond to “clicking leatherman” before I can no longer contain myself.

@Mistress Cynica: Nice. A subtle variation on, “Imagine being beaten to death with the wet end of that arm after it’s torn from your body.”

@nojo: HF is, erm, otherwise engaged today. Go for it.

@nojo: Fire at will. I got my asbestos undies on today!

@IanJ: You funny straight men with your funny straight men ways.

@IanJ: Team Sarah likes tasers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_ZJm5ftTqA

Hi kids! I don’t know where to start. Benedick, Ian, oy vey

@Mistress Cynica: I hope he’s ok.

@rptrcub: Doing fine.