Some bloggers are upset because on a morning news show today, Arlen Specter said, "I did not say I would be a loyal Democrat." Well, when has Arlen Specter ever been a loyal Anything? I mean, apart from loyalty to himself, which kind of goes without saying. For a long time, Specter was a Republican who sometimes voted with the Democrats and before that, he was a Democrat who sometimes voted with the Republicans. He's probably back to that again...and you know what? I don't think that's the worst thing in the world. The problem isn't that Specter breaks party ranks. It's that almost no one else ever does. I think Specter's a frequent weasel but I'm not sure that's worse than mindlessly following your party's line.
Matt Yglesias writes about the unconvincing case for torture. I keep reading arguments, many of them from folks with solid experience in this area, who say torture does not produce useful intelligence; that its only real value is the way it was used on John McCain: To try and extract false confessions for political advantage. And I keep reading arguments for torture from folks who act like it's inarguable that torture is a great tool, especially for quashing "ticking time bomb" scenarios. What I'd like to see is the latter group seriously address the assertions of the former.
As you probably know, I've organized the "Let's Restore Len Wein's Comic Book Collection" Project. My buddies Len Wein and Chris Valada lost their home in a recent fire — the remnants of the structure are being demolished tomorrow — and among the losses were Len's stash of comics he's written. Through the good graces of friends and fans donating copies, we're attempting to amass one of everything for him.
Len has written a lot of comics...and I think he did this just to make my task more difficult. Anyway, we're off to a grand start. Yesterday, for the first time since we started this, I sent my assistant to my mail drop to bring home the first wave of packages. There were about two dozen there...some containing a comic or two, some containing hundreds. It'll be a few days before we can catalog them all and update our online list of what we have and what we still need...but know that the response has been magnificent. I never again will be able to make my little jokes about how comic fans are the cheapest people in the world.
One of the show-stopping numbers in the Broadway musical, Promises, Promises, was "Turkey Lurkey Time," a largely off-story song 'n' dance performed by three secretaries at an office Christmas party. Once upon a time, it was an odd convention of musical comedies that if possible, you had to have one big dance number that was supposed to take place at some sort of amateur show and it seemed to be required that it never have anything whatsoever to do with the plot. Other examples of this would be the "Steam Heat" number in The Pajama Game and "Who's Got the Pain?" in Damn Yankees.
Anyway, not long ago there was a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit in L.A. that saluted the work of Burt Bacharach. For the Act One closer, director Bruce Kimmel and choreographer Adam Cates decided to present the original "Turkey Lurkey Time" number, and they even re-created the original choreography by Michael Bennett. Here's that performance...
May 4, 2009
