Monthly Archives: February 2015

The Americans — Beyond the Frosted Glass Door

What revisionist bullhockey will The Americans try to shove up our butts this week? (And yes, I’m using bullhockey because I would like  recaps of The Americans to be a thing on The Rachel Maddow Show, kind of like the way Keith Olbermann used to read Thurber stories on Friday only more better.) The answer is: The Boland Amendment! That’s right for those of you old enough to remember who weren’t too stoned to care! For you young ‘uns, the Boland Amendment was a weak compromise that made it a little harder to give money to the right-wing death squads to overthrow the democratically-elected leftist government in Nicaragua. This led to Reagan and his cronies finding other ways to fund them, which gave us the Iran/Contra scandal and  CRACK COCAINE. What the Boland Amendment was NOT was a communist conspiracy from the Soviet Union except maybe in the wet dreams of Dick Cheney. SO PLEASE SHOW SHUT UP ABOUT THE POLITICS BECAUSE YOU ARE MAKING MY HEAD EXPLODE.

If you’d like to catch my complete ‘cap of the episode or any of my fine writing about television, please head over to Happy Nice Time People.

(If you want to help pay my cable bill, please buy something for almost nothing.)

Alert: NY Opera Exchange This Weekend: Lucia di Lammermoor!

Just wanted to let you know that the NY Opera Exchange, a small company that showcases emerging singers and musicians, will be performing Donizetti’s Lucia Di Lammermoor this Friday, February 27 thru Sunday, March 1st. All tickets are only $25. The venue is a midtown church with excellent acoustics. For info and to purchase tickets, just click the above link.

Better Call Saul S1 E4 “Hero” A Religious Experience

Surely, a nice Jewish girl like me is not the only one to have caught the Catholicism refs scattered like Easter Eggs on last night’s show? It was like The Sting — if The Sting had been written by Jesuits. You can go over to Happy Nice Time People to read my recap and tell me if I’m just hallucinating.

(And if you want to thank me later, buy one of my books or this one that maybe I also wrote.)

Downton Abbey — London Edition RECAP S5 E8

We’ve time-jumped two months from the unfortunate dinner with Dickie’s devil-spawn. Doesn’t look like he and Isobel will be tying the knot anytime soon, but Rose and Atticus are about to get hitched. That is, if a certain someone doesn’t stop the wedding.  Tune in at your local PBS station, or skip that part or relive the experience over at Happy Nice Time People the folks (like me) who bring you the bestest recaps on the net!

(Hey, when you finish over there, please come on back and look around! Also buy one of my books maybe?)

The Unexpected Ascendence of the Text Message

Watch an old movie from the 1920s and you’ll see the telephone was already fully integrated into people’s lives, but it was not yet in everyone’s home. Often there would be a coin operated phone in the corridor or a communal one in the parlor of a boarding house.

But by the end of World War II, certainly any aspiring middle class home had at least one telephone line. We had ideas about phone usage. Women loved to gossip on the phone. Teenagers were positively addicted to it. Remember this from Bye-Bye Birdie:

(To get to that video and read the rest of this possibly life-altering post, please head over to VM’s Blood Diva blog.