| Is Hamlet Fat? |
[21 Sep 2015|12:11am] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/theater/2015/09/is_hamlet_fat_the_evidence_in_shakespeare_for_a_corpulent_prince_of_denmark.html Picture for a moment Hamlet, the melancholy prince of Denmark. Chances are, you’re imagining a dashing gentleman who looks like one of the many famous actors who’ve played him. Kenneth Branagh, say, or Laurence Olivier, or Jude Law or David Tennant. You might even picture Benedict Cumberbatch, who is drawing crowds to London to see him play the role. As the Guardian’s Michael Billington put it, “Cumberbatch has many of the qualities one looks for in a Hamlet. He has a lean, pensive countenance, a resonant voice, a gift for introspection.”
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| The Emmys: Game of Gowns |
[21 Sep 2015|01:58am] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/life/doonan/2015/09/emmys_red_carpet_fashion_best_trends_of_the_night_were_not_gowns.html Gowns, schmowns! Just because you’re gay does not mean that you love gowns. Me? Never liked ‘em. Formal, boring, and conventional, red carpet gowns epitomize everything that’s horrid in the universe. I realize that I am wildly out of sync with contemporary culture–the parsing of red carpet gown-choices now dominates the media landscape—but floor-length gowns always make me think of the crinoline lady who covered my granny’s spare toilet roll. The toilet roll had more fashion sizzle than that tired old frock.
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| Poor Dialogue |
[21 Sep 2015|01:24pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/09/paul_ryan_and_tim_scott_announcing_south_carolina_poverty_summit_kemp_forum.html Ever since he was tapped as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan has been trying to start a conversation among Republicans about poverty. As a candidate in 2012 he held an event in Cleveland with ministers to explore the roots of poverty but didn’t hold any more, in part because the Romney campaign wanted his focus elsewhere. After the campaign, he launched a low-key multicity tour of poor neighborhoods with the guidance of Robert Woodson, founder and president of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise. It became the backbone of his recent book The Way Forward. The people Ryan met became the characters in a seven-part documentary called Comeback.
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| The Muppets Reboot Ruined Miss Piggy |
[21 Sep 2015|06:58pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2015/09/the_muppets_on_abc_reboot_review_the_show_ruined_miss_piggy.html The Muppets, Jim Henson’s beloved felt creations, are 60 years old, but feelings for them still run high. The canny publicity campaign for their latest venture, ABC’s sitcom The Muppets, “leaked” “news” to the tabloids that Kermit and Miss Piggy had broken up, and Kermit had taken up with a pig named Denise, drumming up attention and ire in nearly equal measure. Rebecca Traister, in a piece last week headlined “The Muppets should not be having sex, people,” ably captured the sentiment that the Muppets, perfect and lovely (and, sure, fictional), should not be besmirched by tawdry gossip and innuendo. “Please stop talking, writing, and otherwise promoting the upcoming Muppets television reboot by alluding to them actually fucking,” she wrote. “They are Muppets.” But the new show spends far less time than the (highly effective) promotional materials on the unseemly prospect of Muppet boinking, committing instead a less salacious form of Muppet blasphemy: turning the Muppets into neurotic adults.
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| How Does a Barber Work? |
[21 Sep 2015|07:37pm] |
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http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/working/2015/09/eric_aleman_of_king_of_kings_barbershop_how_does_a_barber_work_a_working.html We’re posting transcripts of Working, Slate’s podcast about what people do all day, exclusively for Slate Plus members. What follows is the transcript for Season 4, Episode 2 in which Arun Venugopal, host of WNYC’s Micropolis series, interviews Eric Aleman, a barber at King of Kings Barbershop in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. In this episode, Aleman talks about how hairstyles have changed in his years as a barber and how gentrification is changing the conversation in his shop. Also, Aleman discusses his role as a therapist for some clients and why they trust him with their secrets and with sharp objects.
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