From the Boston Globe, another article on how Justice Kennedy will be the new swing vote on the Court. This piece says that partial-birth abortion and affirmative action could go down the drain.
Category Archives: General
Alito and Crosswords
Alito will be great – for crosswords:
I mean, “Alito”? It’s a fantastic name for crosswords — a mere five letters long but brimming with regularly used consonants and vowels (and how generously alternating they are!). Alito, if confirmed, might find himself as the next Eero Saarinen (for years, the hottest architect on the crossword scene) or the next Ernie Els (the hottest crossword golfer, although Michelle Wie is creeping up on him).
Of course, cruciverbally speaking, everything would also have been just fine with a Miers appointment. Except that Miers, one could argue, was an even better find than Alito. Her last name, too, offers a compact, easy-to-intersect set of letters that would work well in crosswords, but the variant spelling of her middle name, Ellan, makes her the double threat that Alito is not.
Q in Vegas
Avenue Q is not doing too well in Las Vegas:
Steve Wynn, the casino and hotel magnate, paid $5 million for the exclusive North American rights to the Tony Award-winning show.
He built a theater especially for it in his new hotel, Wynn Las Vegas; hired, at very high salaries, several cast members from the original Broadway company; and revved up a nationwide publicity machine to hype its Vegas premiere last September.
The result?
An orchestra section in a 1,200-seat theater that’s half empty at most performances and a balcony section that Wynn hasn’t even bothered to open yet, theater people in Las Vegas and New York told The Post this week.
According to someone familiar with the balance sheet, “Q” either breaks even or loses money week to week. Advance ticket sales are well under $1 million.
One heavy-hitting Broadway producer, who’s sending one of his shows to Vegas, says Wynn has been grumbling about “Avenue Q.”
“He thinks it was a mistake,” this person says. …
One reason the show clicked in New York was that, from the very first preview, it had great word of mouth.
But theater people who’ve looked closely at Vegas say word of mouth is hard to generate in a town made up of people who are just passing through.
“There isn’t a permanent population,” says a Broadway producer.
“Q” may also be too sophisticated for Vegas audiences, whose tastes generally run to animal acts, Celine Dion and slot machines.