Category Archives: Link

How Game of Thrones Lost Its Way as a Political Drama

I’ve spent the entire last week being upset about this epic television show’s finale, indeed the entire final season. I’ve read dozens of articles, tweetstorms, memes, and hot takes, discussed it with many people. There is a lot I could say, but I’ll just post this one article that sums up some of my key frustrations, and leave it at that.

Slippery When Wet

Elle revisits the “Kayak Killer,” Angelika Graswald. In addition to everything else weird about this story, I’m struck by how much misunderstandings about kayaking contributed to a presumption of guilt. Investigators fixated on a missing drain plug and that she rescued his paddle while ignoring that he was intoxicated, wearing inadequate clothing, sans PFD, in dark, windy conditions, and he hit 40Âş water.

The Hard Lessons of Dianne Feinstein’s Encounter with the Young Green New Deal Activists

“Politics as usual” does not matter when the fate of the world is on the line. You either believe it or you don’t. If you do, you recognize the need for radical action:

[I]n the case of the environment, the opponent is not the Chamber of Commerce. The opponent is physics, and physics doesn’t negotiate. It’s not moved by appeals to centrist moderation, or explanations about the filibuster. And it has set a firm time limit. Scientists have told us what we must do and by when, and so legislators must do all they can to match those targets.

No offense to Feinstein, but she is 85 years old – she won’t have to live through the consequences. But her grandchildren will. Or, put another way:

Performers And Staffers At “Sleep No More” Say Audience Members Have Sexually Assaulted Them

I saw the original production of Sleep No More in Boston twice, as well as the New York production. The show is immersive and charged and incredible, one of the most amazing theater experiences I have ever witnessed. I was pulled aside into private spaces by actors, given objects, told by actors to go places and to do things. In one scene, an actor handed me his clothing as he undressed. I never once, not for a second, would have considered touching the actors. There is immersive theater, and then there is assault. The line, actually, is pretty clear.

I guess it is not shocking how some audience members behave, because so many human beings are terrible. But it is absolutely shocking and abhorrent the way the show management treated these incidents, and the ways in which they allowed their actors and technical staff to be abused by patrons night after night. Even worse are their feeble but repeated denials of responsibility.