Cartoons Wednesday, Lucy Dacus, and 'Adolescence'
Plus: a fun look at the upcoming Kennedy Center schedule...
Greg Mitchell is the author of more than a dozen books and now writer/director of three award-winning films aired via PBS, including “Atomic Cover-up” and “Memorial Day Massacre.” Now watch trailer for acclaimed 2025 film “The Atomic Bowl.” Before all that, he was a longtime editor of the legendary Crawdaddy. At Blue Sky and Twitter: as @gregmitch. You can still subscribe to this newsletter for FREE. Sustain this newsletter by ordering one of his books.
Let’s open with what we (and many others) feel is one of the best series of the year so far and that’s the new four-part drama on Netflix, “Adolescence.” A travel day today so no time to write much, but in short it explores in a unique way the aftermath of the murder of a girl in the UK, with the apparent killer a 13-year-old boy. Each episode covers less than an hour in tick tock real time. The camera work for much of it is amazing. It stars co-creator Stephen Graham but all of the actors are great. Don’t miss it, although the final episode (in our view) came up short. Here’s the trailer and then below, the stunning close to episode #2, with a girls choir on soundtrack singing Sting’s “Fragile.”
Graham, the accused boy’s father, arrives to lay flowers at site of killing.
This week’s New Yorker has a profile of Lucy Dacus (of boygenius) who has a new album coming, by Amanda Petrusich. Funny, they hit two spots in Pasadena we may be re-visiting ourselves by the end of the week. Here’s a cut, live, from that new album.
We’ve covered a few times the Trump takeover of the Kennedy Center but this week The New Yorker (again) also has its say with predictions of next year’s spring and summer schedule. A few lowlights:
April 1 — A. R. Gurney’s “Love Letters,” with Lauren Boebert and Kid Rock
April 3 — Vocal group: Up with Goebbels
April 12-13 — “Crypto, Change-O”: A Magical Illusion Spectacular
April 15-16 — Clarence Thomas R.V./Camper Show
April 17 — An Evening with Stephen Miller (formerly “Stephen Miller and Friends”)
April 22 — Game-Show Night! (“Alt-Fact Jeopardy!” / “Win Jill Stein’s Money” / “Kennedy Family Feud”)
April 26-May 3 — Con Con
May 4 — Audience-Votes Talent-Show Night (“Dancing with the Tsars”)
May 5-10 — Pete Hegseth’s Five-Day Advanced Mixology Seminar (SOLD OUT)
May 11-13 — Gay-Conversion Band Camp
May 18-22 — All-Nordic adaptation of “The Wiz”
Last Monday in month — Book BBQ
June 3-7 — ICE Capades: An evening of hilarious bodycam bloopers of bungled busts and deportation hiccups
June 13—”Night of 100 Caving Journalists!”
July 4 — All-American Fourth of July Musical Salute to the Kremlin
July 5 — Roseanne Barr Sings Sondheim
July 8-11 —Exhibit of Brass Calf, made from returned Kennedy Center Honors medals
Labor Day Weekend — Hotel workers’ trade union sponsors the musical reboot “Visa Las Vegas”
ICE, Nein
All of the cartoons: Bill Bramhall, Ka..(?), David Pepper, Ann Telnaes, Brendan Loper, Mike Luckovich and Ruben Oppenheimer.
Republican legislators invented our immigration “problem” by refusing to move forward on immigration reform, even when reforms were proposed by a Republican president (G W Bush). They’ve created the “problem” and all its drama in order to distract us from the theft of our history, our civil rights, (in the case of women) our bodily autonomy, our retirements, our healthcare, our civil servants. Take a page from their book, Democrats. Invent an issue. Create foundations (funded with Dark Money) and hire “experts” devoted to ranting and raving about it - oops, I mean dedicated to educating the public). Remember, it doesn’t have to remotely resemble the truth. Fiction is much more exciting. For instance, the threat trans kids pose to women athletes. No “there” there, but a lot of distraction.
What could this issue be?
Come to think of it, we already did that. It was Covid. But the catch is, it was all true, the experts were real, and people actually died. And there wasn’t any hidden agenda. None.
Anybody got any ideas? How about bird flu? It’s got a delivery system designed in heaven! Let me know what you’re thinking.