(no subject)

Been listening to the cast album of Hamilton and it's really frigging good, which is coming from someone who doesn't like Hip Hop or Rap.

Here's a link to the 60 Minutes special on IT

Some of the lyrics haunt you....

Hamilton: "I'm not throwing away my shot, I'm young, scrappy, and hungry, just like my country, and I'm not throwing away my shot."

Thomas Jefferson: "When Britain taxed our tea we got frisky, imagine what we'll do when you tax our Whisky."

Hamilton: "Thomas that was a real nice declaration, welcome to the present, we're trying to run a nation, would you like to join us, or run back to whatever it is you do in Montecello?"

See below - as done in the White House - which basically explains why we ended up with a Civil War 100 years later. After my mother read the book upon which this was adapted from, she stated, well it's not at all surprising we ended up in the Civil War.

Watch on YouTube

And...King George who sings a hilarious British style invasion love song from the 1960s..

"You'll be back, like before, I will fight the fight, and win the war for your love, for your praise and I'll love you till my dying days, when you're gone I'll go mad, so don't throw away this thing we had...cause when push comes to shove, I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love."

Highly impressed by the Cast Album. And I can see why people have gone nuts over it. It's not just Hip-Hop, he blends various Broadway and other musical forms and redefines them.

I'm also intrigued by the book by Chernow, which my brother told my mother he'd read in the space of a week and found to be a page-turner. Took her a bit longer.

(no subject)

1. Had today off because....it's Good Friday.

Co-worker: No clue why we have tomorrow off.
Me: We're working for an Irish-Catholic Union run organization dating back to the 1800s.

Unions in NY take Thanksgiving, Columbus day, Election Day, President's Day, MLK Day, Christmas, New Years, Good Friday, Labor Day, Memorial Day, and the 4th of July off. It's a union dictated thing.
Companies that I worked for that did not have unions, only got Thanksgiving, Presidents Day, MLK, Christmas, New Years, Labor Day, Memorial Day and the 4th of July. And not always President's Day or MLK.

Now if you are a professor or teacher - you get all those holidays, plus spring break, Christmas break, the summer, and half the Jewish holidays off...what you do with that time is another issue.
But you don't have classes, I know because the students get that time off. And the trains in NYC are blessedly empty of students and their teachers...during certain hours (basically my commute).

2. SIL conveyed a story to my mother about hunting a restaurant to eat dinner in NYC with her girlfriends. They went to five places before finally getting seated. The previous restaurants were nasty to them and/or ignored them in favor of hipsters - who they'd seat first. (SIL is 44 years of age.)

Okay, there are two definites in life:

* Youth is a temporary thing. You will grow old. And faster than you think.

Either that or...

* You die.

So...why?

Luckily, I've managed to avoid this problem -- mainly because I don't go out to eat at trendy places and tend to eat in Brooklyn.

3. Have discovered "Scrivener" which is a wickedly cool organizational tool and formatting program for writers of all stripes. I'm writing a sci-fi novel and this thing has space for my research notes, character notes, settings, details on space-ships, and splits the manuscript into chapters - so I can jump around and work on a section at a time without scrolling through the whole thing constantly, which results in the beginning getting edited to death.

You can even do a split-screen.

Much easier to track information, etc, than in word.

Now, I know how people like GRR Martin are doing what they've been doing for the past few years. Although I think he does it the old fashioned way...with index cards and action figures.

4. Saw the pilot of the new ABC/Shonda Rhimes television series "The Catch" starring Peter Krause (Six Feet Under/Parenthood) and Mirella Enos (The Killing). It's...okay. Interesting concept, and the casting is fairly realistic. Both characters are in their 40s. Krause looks enough like an everyman sort that I can believe he'd be a con-artist. Non-descript, doesn't stand out. Usually they hire hunks for these roles, which doesn't work -- because hello, they stand out. What you need is someone who is bland, a Matt Damon type -- which is Peter Krause. And the lead is tough but vulnerable in just the right way.
( spoilers )

It's sort of fun. But not really gripping. Actually, it's rare that I find anything gripping nowadays. I like it a lot better than the critics did and much better than How to Get Away With Murder - a)less violent, b) more likable characters and no annoying flashforward/flashbackwards. The cast is a bit older and diverse. We have a rather hot FBI agent by way of Interpol, who is African or sounds it.