Pop Culture Bits and Pieces

A round-up of different blogs and online essays regarding "entertainment" that I've read over the past week.

A discussion on the sexiness of the latest Superman’s chest hair:

Favorite part? From writer Kyle Buchanan – “With that beard and that flannel and that Crossfit-jacked hairy chest, I expected Superman to eschew his usual secret identity at the Daily Planet and start a new life as Portland’s hottest artisanal-beer brewer.”  Hee hee hee

Oh, and BTdubs – don’t believe any negative reviews you read about Man of Steel. It was great! Very serious sure, but so well done. And it goes without saying – Henry Cavill is F*CKING HOT. Holy crap is he good looking in this movie!

Essay by NPR’s awesome Linda Holmes on the absence of women in films
I feel lucky to be rounding out my week by balancing the testosterone of "Man of Steel" with some estrogen from Frances, Ha.

And finally, a whole crapload of News about Musical Theater! -

NPH is bringing “Hedwig” to Broadway:
Everyone, including most importantly, creators John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask, seems to be ecstatic about Neil Patrick Harris bringing the iconic role of Hedwig to Broadway finally in 2014.

I…I just…um…FOLKS, I don’t get it. I LOVE NPH! He’s basically perfect at everything but…HEDWIG? No. Obviously I’m keeping an open mind and I wish him and the rest of the cast all the best, but I just cannot see Harris doing Hedwig justice. No offense. Again, I flove him! Don’t tell NPH I said anything mean about him!

Soul Doctor continues its course for a summer Broadway opening:

Along with “Matilda”, “Soul Doctor” is something that intrigues me enough to want to buy a plane ticket to NYC in August. August! I must be crazy.

Frozen cast keeps getting better:

You guys? I haven’t been THIS excited about an animated movie in years. Why can’t this be a live action show on Broadway?

Holy crap! They’re actually trying to do an “Air Supply” musical you guys. Ugh, with Constantine.

I Have A Dream...

NPR is doing a series commemerating the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
NPR's "Tell Me More" staff have asked readers/listeners to share their personal versions of the "dream" speech.

Here's mine -

I have a dream,


That when people meet me in person for the first time, after previously only hearing my voice, they won’t look so shocked that my skin color is so dark. And won’t immediately try to hide their shock by saying something ingenuous like “You’re older than I expected.” Really? That’s what's surprising to you? That I sound younger on the phone?

I have a dream,

That people will stop assuming that because of the color of my skin I have rhythm and can dance. While I am musical, and a very good singer, my sense of rhythm and movement is quite tragic.

I have a dream,

That when I speak fondly of my maternal grandfather, whose mother was a blue-eyed German immigrant who taught him all of the old German cooking secrets, and who inherited his height and stoicism from his Choctaw Indian father, people won't treat my memories like "stories"; fictional and fanciful tales that I've made up because there's no way in hell this dark-skinned woman before you could possibly have had a "white" grandfather who grew up next to an Amish farm in Pennsylvania. 
Or when I show people photos of my mother’s parents, grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and cousins, that for once I won’t see disbelief on these people’s faces or hear it in their voice as they say “THAT’S your great grandmother?”


I have a dream,

That even though I have learned to embrace an identity of a “black woman” because the color of my skin brands me so, I have not forgotten, nor do I deny the Native American, and European roots that represent actually the largest percentage of my DNA make-up.

I have a dream, a dream that I hope will come true in the future where the children I won’t have given birth to will know a world where a woman is just a woman. Or just an American. Or can be truly defined as what they are; someone like me – An African-American, Micosookee, Choctaw, Cherokee, German, Scottish hodgepodge.