Two things. First: It's taxes. Call them taxes. Not revenues. TAXES.
Second: "Pay their fair share" isn't "a phrase meant to evoke a gut response"? Come on. As if anyone's share is somehow more fair if it's drastically out of proportion with what the majority of people pay. Soaking the rich isn't fair. Fair is, Everyone pays the same rate. That's not what the Democrats typically want, and anyone being intellectually honest knows that.
Buffett may give as much of his excess earnings to the government as he likes. Nothing is stopping him, or anyone, from writing a check for as large an amount as possible and sending it to the treasury department. I'm sure they'd be happy to have it, since $4 billion or so would keep the government running for most of a day.
Warren Buffett may write a check any time he likes to make up the difference. A check to the U.S. government for $4 billion, say, would keep the government running for almost a day. If all the billionaires in the U.S. did that of their own accord, we might be able to keep the government running within its means for, oh, a month or two. Good times!
But at least they respected the Queen Spider. As a Catholic myself, I was terrified they'd mock that, but they treated it with great reverence. Go South Park!
Bingo. This is the most important thing to understand. In the "Cartoon Wars" episode, he just showed up at the door at the end holding a hat—and that was considered so incendiary that Comedy Central had to black it out. And in "Super Best Friends," he was actually a major force for good, proving instrumental in the defeat of the giant stone Abraham Lincoln that had been animated by Blainetology.
South Park has never to my knowledge portrayed Muhammad in a negative light. But the extremists don't care. That's the worst part about all of this—and why it's so incredibly important that someone do it. It doesn't surprise me at all that it's Parker and Stone. Hopefully they won't be the last. The extremists want to rule us by fear—we cannot let them.
I agree with everything you're saying, but there's at least a way to "collapse" it when you don't need it. Ctrl-F1. It'll come back if/when you have to do something, but until then you can at least recover some of that vertical real estate.
I don't understand. Why do we need newspapers in 2009? Please note: I'm not talking about "news-gathering organizations," but newspapers. Technology has moved on and newspapers have not: By the time they come out, the news in them is always old. Always old. That was one thing in the days before the Internet and before the 24-hour news cycle introduced by CNN and FoxNews and similar channels, but it's very much another thing now and not something that's required by dint of its very existence. Likewise, the costs of producing newspapers are so stratospheric, that producing them is not a smart business decision. Again, once upon a time, that didn't matter: because there were classified and print advertisements. Those are, for all intents and purposes gone.
Newspapers need to die. It's their time. This is not a bad thing. This is not a good thing. It's just the thing. There are other, better ways of distributing the news now. The idea that the only way for people to get news is to have a clump of newsprint pages thrown on your front porch (or in your driveway) every morning is ludicrous and has no relationship whatsoever to the society we live in.
News-gathering organizations need to give up newspapers and find a way to distribute their work profitably on the web. I do not know how to do this, and I realize no one does. But no one is going to figure it out as long as they cling to the idea that the production of the paper is more important than what's printed ON the paper. And that's something that much of the newspaper industry--and apparently you--are still confusing.
Frankly, I think it's best if news organizations remain for-profit. Not just because I don't want my tax dollars to have to subsidize the people who write The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times or any of the other publications that have nothing but contempt for me. But because it will force them to compete and offer better product. I find it more than a little distasteful that you advocate in favor of monopolies in your message; monopolies don't make anything better, they merely ensure that the status quo will never, ever change. But now it has to. And it will do so all the sooner--and much more effectively--if everyone is playing the game and figuring out the best way to one-up the other guy. That's how evolution in business happens.
Newspapers have been ignoring this for decades. News-gathering organizations no longer have that luxury.
You're right that a degree by itself doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it opens doors. I have a degree, but a number of friends of my same age (early 30s) who don't have had a lot more trouble finding good, lasting jobs--and even just getting interviews--than I have. This isn't a slam against my friends, mind you; they're smart, talented people who would do most companies proud. But a degree speaks to your ability (or perhaps just your willingness) to stick through the process, and for most jobs--not all, but most--that's something that a lot of HR and supervisor types want to see. If you have the right kind of experience, you might not strictly need a degree, but one certainly makes it a lot easier to get the notice and respect you and your abilities deserve.
Bush started with a surplus and went on to blow up the deficit in giving away huge tax cuts for the rich and lying us into a war of choice.
So many lies here, so little time to answer them all. Bush did not start with a surplus; the deficit for the final fiscal year of the Clinton administration was about $133 billion. And Bush's tax cuts affected everyone, not just the rich. And he didn't lie us into any war.
As has been proven multiple times in the last 5-6 years or so, the GOP and conservatives are not necessarily the same thing. Limbaugh was speaking to the latter at CPAC.
I never see where the general public even acknowledges that it has a clue what said liberal bias is.
Probably because you don't look for it. And why should you? You're quite obviously liberal. There's nothing wrong with that. But...
Was it liberal bias that the majority of the nation didn't give two shits about a blowjob yet the media harped over it for a year and a half because a certain party was pushing the story daily?
I do think there's something wrong with this. Because if a sitting president lying under oath and suborning perjury isn't newsworthy, what, prey tell, is? If the media convinced you that the entire Clinton thing was really about no more than sex, doesn't that prove that they weren't reporting the whole story accurately? Or is it just that you couldn't be bothered to pay close enough attention because, as a liberal, you didn't care? Which is better?
I basically agree with one of the parent posts that bias is inevitable, and the best way to deal with it is to admit it upfront and try to eliminate it wherever you can. But achieving utter and absolute impartiality is impossible for reporters--or anyone else.
Or perhaps the world will be a better place when people such as yourself grow up enough to accept that you're not better than others merely because you don't believe what they do. What's wrong with just having different opinions? Is it necessary to call religion "childish" and to refer to God as an "invisible sky daddy"? Because these things don't make it seem like you're not trying just as hard to inflict your beliefs on them as you claim they are trying to do to you.
If you're talking about rare Ultima games, isn't the king really Escape from Mt. Drash? I've known more people to drool over the merest possibility of owning one than just about any other PC game (including the plastic-mask Suspended and the flying-saucer Starcross).
Can you prove that FoxNews told them this? Because I watch FoxNews regularly and have NEVER heard this.
Of course, it's possible that you're not referring to FoxNews saying that on that particular issue as you are the oft-stated Republican belief that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, which exists because there was one, dating back at least two years before the September 11 attacks, and was documented on at least CNN and ABC at the time.
Re:The writing was on the wall when ...
on
RIP CGW
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Bingo. For all of the 1980s and the first part of the 1990s, Computer Gaming World was an exceedingly literate, exciting publication. The articles that "reviewed" games were true criticism, often the way books or politics might be assessed in academic journals. Didn't one of the top editors (was it Russell Sipe or Johnny Wilson?) have a doctorate in philosophy? That kind of thing infused the entire magazine with an intelligent, adult mindset that was utterly crucial for guiding computer games and audiences through the earliest stages of their development. Scorpia had a vast amount of knowledge, played everything, knew even more, and responded personally to readers for a long time. (I had an ongoing dialogue with her for many years, the memories of which I still cherish.) Whether you were looking for technical information about a game, or whether you wanted it assessed in a larger entertainment or political context, or whether you just wanted to know whether you were likely to enjoy it, Computer Gaming World would tell you all these things, and more.
The Ziff-Davis takeover was disastrous, the firing of Scorpia boneheaded, and just about every other change for the visible worse. But it's quite possible that the realCGW couldn't survive in the market that had popped up, one being driven by children and adolescents--and a publishing company being run by people with hardly more sense--who couldn't be bothered to actually read, consider, and absorb more about a game than a five-star rating or a shilly examination of its graphics, sound, whatever. I was a faithful subscriber all throughout the 1990s, hoping that it would reclaim a bit of its former glory, but when my subscription lapsed in late 2000/early 2001, I don't think I even noticed. For me, and for countless of others who were raised on the thoughtful, brilliantly composed, and engrossingly informative pieces that typified CGW during its best years, the magazine had left many years before.
I won't waste the time or the money seeking out the last issue. But I'll continue to search for the first one--and as many in between as I need to complete my collection of the best gaming magazine when it and the industry were at their zenith. Rest in peace, Computer Gaming World.
The entire film is meant to be satirical, an examination of the suppression of masculinity in contemporary culture. The narrator's "becoming" Tyler Durden, the ultimate man's man, is an expression of his own ability to live the "traditional" man's life he really wants. Everything else in the movie, from the support group (where men are having their very manhood stripped away from them at the biological level) through the creation of Fight Club and the eventual aftermath, is a reflection of this. That actual "fight clubs" are springing up only further illustrates the story's point, whether one agrees with it or not. But that the people involved are taking it seriously is highly problematic and more than a little scary; real men should know that there are other ways to solve problems. In the Fight Club book and movie, they aren't real men, they're fictional creations. Huge difference.
It's not a question of "Slashdot's chosen spin," but the review consenus. Many major media outlets--including The New York Times, the Toronto Star, Variety, theatre websites Broadway.com and TheaterMania.com, and a number of others I don't have time to look up right now were simply not thrilled with the adaptation. Yes, there were some that did enjoy it, and the show's press office fastidiously sent out those clips within hours of the show's opening. But overall, the reviews stated that the show was too long (at nearly three hours and 45 minutes) and that the technology dwarfed (sorry) the story. It's not exactly coincidental that much the same thing was said about the movie versions, but even they had over nine hours of time. The stage version, by its very nature, had to be painted in broad strokes, and doing so didn't allow the creators time to realize their grander vision for the material. It's sad, but likely true (I have yet to see the show); some top theatre professionals were working on this, but it's probably a job too big for anyone to do in three and a half hours of stage time. The "best" way to do it would probably be as an all-day event, along the lines of Trevor Nunn's early-80s adaptation of Dickens' The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, which famously ran eight hours. (And, though I didn't see it, they were apparently eight glorious hours.) When you scale down the story of something like this, and scale up the spectacle, how can the results be anything BUT disappointing?
I'm going to risk my excellent karma replying to this, but I can't just let this slide. If this discussion is about why Americans' trust in science is eroding, it's because of statements like this. I don't see why so many people find it necessary to promote their beliefs at the expense of others' beliefs in terms of religion. Deriding one's belief in God as a mere superstition is dismissive, intolerant, and borderline hateful, and I can't for one moment blame people who think that the culture that produces such attitudes isn't really worthy of their support. "These people aren't willing to respect my faith? Then why in the world should I take theirs seriously?" And I think, rightly or wrongly, they're equating your overarching belief in science with religious conviction.
The first step to getting people to believe in the importance and necessity of science is remembering that lines can be drawn between communities of science and faith. If either side looks at it as an us-vs.-them issue, the animosity will just continue. There is no need for it. Frankly, I don't care if no one else in the world believes in any kind of a God, but I do mind when they tell me that my belief, that my faith is no more than a petty superstition and that I should just be able to get over it. If it informs who I am, if it allows me to make intelligent decisions for myself, and it provides the foundation for the greater moral code I follow, how is that a bad thing? And why do I need to take heat from it?
Science and religion needn't be mutually exclusive anymore than society and religion should be. But people like you, whose holier-than-thou attitudes are aimed specifically at dividing people instead of bringing them together, aren't helping. Not every hardcore science person has to like every single thing that every hardcore religious person does, and vice versa. But when the respect for their beliefs, for what's important to them stops, then we have a problem. For you it already has. So why in the world should they do you the courtesy of respecting what you believe?
...if not the resident theatre geek on Slashdot, I feel compelled to comment.
The problem with this isn't Goldman (obviously). Nor is it the idea, which is solid musical theatre territory for a lot of reasons.
The problem is the composer, Adam Guettel. He won a Tony Award this year for his score to The Light in the Piazza, but is--and will forever be--better known for being the grandson of Richard Rodgers, of Rodgers & Hammerstein and Rodgers & Hart fame. Piazza had/has snob appeal in a way that generally only Sondheim musicals these days do, which means it's generally hard to get a fair reading on its quality from anyone. It's one of those "important" shows that "important" people see and even more "important" people like.
Or at least they're supposed to. Because that didn't happen in this case. The show won six Tonys, but it hasn't exactly taken New York by storm.
Because, for all his talents as a musician (which are considerable, though I don't believe any sensible person can consider them equal, or even close to equal, to his grandfather's), Piazza is very cold and distant. It's about love, specifically the romance between a young developmentally disabled girl and an Italian boy who speaks almost no English, but examines the subject in a lot of theoretical and intellectual ways that--for most people--don't really strike the heart. Richard Rodgers could do that without thinking, and his compositions resonate today and will probably long after we're all gone. They're universal, they're simple, they're true. Guettel's music is none of these things. His greatest claim to theatrical fame is Floyd Collins, semi-based on the story of a prospector who gets trapped in a cave and dies.
What does all of this have to do with The Princess Bride? Nothing. And that's precisely the point. Guettel is currently the "hot" thing, but he's not right for this. He can't write swashbuckling. He can barely write unbridled romanticism without resorting to tricks (nonsense syllables instead of lyrics or havng characters sing in Italian when they should be singing in English). He writes very heavy, he doesn't write light, he doesn't write fun. And what is The Princess Bride if not fun? It needs irreverence, it needs a devil-may-care quality about it that would make it (I would guess) more the purview of someone like David Yazbeck (The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) or Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (Once on This Island, Ragtime).
It's unlikely to get any of what it needs with Guettel writing the songs for it. So, everyone, don't get your hopes up too much--Goldman knows what he's doing, so his end of the bargain will no doubt be held up. But Guettel, as notorious for being a slow writer as he is someone who can't connect to his characters on the simplest, most heartfelt level, can't be expected to do the same. If we ever see this--which is a big if at this point; lots of shows have a way of getting announced and then vanishing--I have a feeling it will have a rocky road to success, if it even finds success at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Two things. First: It's taxes. Call them taxes. Not revenues. TAXES.
Second: "Pay their fair share" isn't "a phrase meant to evoke a gut response"? Come on. As if anyone's share is somehow more fair if it's drastically out of proportion with what the majority of people pay. Soaking the rich isn't fair. Fair is, Everyone pays the same rate. That's not what the Democrats typically want, and anyone being intellectually honest knows that.
Buffett may give as much of his excess earnings to the government as he likes. Nothing is stopping him, or anyone, from writing a check for as large an amount as possible and sending it to the treasury department. I'm sure they'd be happy to have it, since $4 billion or so would keep the government running for most of a day.
Warren Buffett may write a check any time he likes to make up the difference. A check to the U.S. government for $4 billion, say, would keep the government running for almost a day. If all the billionaires in the U.S. did that of their own accord, we might be able to keep the government running within its means for, oh, a month or two. Good times!
What the hell business is it of yours or the government's what anyone needs or doesn't need to survive?
The really funny part is that the story was on CNN.
And it wasn't even Muhammad! It was Santa Claus!
You could play it earlier today. I rewatched it this morning. By this afternoon, it was gone.
Scary times, and even scarier when people like those at Comedy Central are determined to prove their cowardice to the world.
But at least they respected the Queen Spider. As a Catholic myself, I was terrified they'd mock that, but they treated it with great reverence. Go South Park!
Bingo. This is the most important thing to understand. In the "Cartoon Wars" episode, he just showed up at the door at the end holding a hat—and that was considered so incendiary that Comedy Central had to black it out. And in "Super Best Friends," he was actually a major force for good, proving instrumental in the defeat of the giant stone Abraham Lincoln that had been animated by Blainetology.
South Park has never to my knowledge portrayed Muhammad in a negative light. But the extremists don't care. That's the worst part about all of this—and why it's so incredibly important that someone do it. It doesn't surprise me at all that it's Parker and Stone. Hopefully they won't be the last. The extremists want to rule us by fear—we cannot let them.
I'm not trying to argue here, I'm honestly curious. If something is "state-sponsored," as you say, how can it also be "independent"?
I agree with everything you're saying, but there's at least a way to "collapse" it when you don't need it. Ctrl-F1. It'll come back if/when you have to do something, but until then you can at least recover some of that vertical real estate.
I don't understand. Why do we need newspapers in 2009? Please note: I'm not talking about "news-gathering organizations," but newspapers. Technology has moved on and newspapers have not: By the time they come out, the news in them is always old. Always old. That was one thing in the days before the Internet and before the 24-hour news cycle introduced by CNN and FoxNews and similar channels, but it's very much another thing now and not something that's required by dint of its very existence. Likewise, the costs of producing newspapers are so stratospheric, that producing them is not a smart business decision. Again, once upon a time, that didn't matter: because there were classified and print advertisements. Those are, for all intents and purposes gone.
Newspapers need to die. It's their time. This is not a bad thing. This is not a good thing. It's just the thing. There are other, better ways of distributing the news now. The idea that the only way for people to get news is to have a clump of newsprint pages thrown on your front porch (or in your driveway) every morning is ludicrous and has no relationship whatsoever to the society we live in.
News-gathering organizations need to give up newspapers and find a way to distribute their work profitably on the web. I do not know how to do this, and I realize no one does. But no one is going to figure it out as long as they cling to the idea that the production of the paper is more important than what's printed ON the paper. And that's something that much of the newspaper industry--and apparently you--are still confusing.
Frankly, I think it's best if news organizations remain for-profit. Not just because I don't want my tax dollars to have to subsidize the people who write The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times or any of the other publications that have nothing but contempt for me. But because it will force them to compete and offer better product. I find it more than a little distasteful that you advocate in favor of monopolies in your message; monopolies don't make anything better, they merely ensure that the status quo will never, ever change. But now it has to. And it will do so all the sooner--and much more effectively--if everyone is playing the game and figuring out the best way to one-up the other guy. That's how evolution in business happens.
Newspapers have been ignoring this for decades. News-gathering organizations no longer have that luxury.
You're right that a degree by itself doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it opens doors. I have a degree, but a number of friends of my same age (early 30s) who don't have had a lot more trouble finding good, lasting jobs--and even just getting interviews--than I have. This isn't a slam against my friends, mind you; they're smart, talented people who would do most companies proud. But a degree speaks to your ability (or perhaps just your willingness) to stick through the process, and for most jobs--not all, but most--that's something that a lot of HR and supervisor types want to see. If you have the right kind of experience, you might not strictly need a degree, but one certainly makes it a lot easier to get the notice and respect you and your abilities deserve.
Bush started with a surplus and went on to blow up the deficit in giving away huge tax cuts for the rich and lying us into a war of choice.
So many lies here, so little time to answer them all. Bush did not start with a surplus; the deficit for the final fiscal year of the Clinton administration was about $133 billion. And Bush's tax cuts affected everyone, not just the rich. And he didn't lie us into any war.
As has been proven multiple times in the last 5-6 years or so, the GOP and conservatives are not necessarily the same thing. Limbaugh was speaking to the latter at CPAC.
I never see where the general public even acknowledges that it has a clue what said liberal bias is.
Probably because you don't look for it. And why should you? You're quite obviously liberal. There's nothing wrong with that. But...
Was it liberal bias that the majority of the nation didn't give two shits about a blowjob yet the media harped over it for a year and a half because a certain party was pushing the story daily?
I do think there's something wrong with this. Because if a sitting president lying under oath and suborning perjury isn't newsworthy, what, prey tell, is? If the media convinced you that the entire Clinton thing was really about no more than sex, doesn't that prove that they weren't reporting the whole story accurately? Or is it just that you couldn't be bothered to pay close enough attention because, as a liberal, you didn't care? Which is better?
I basically agree with one of the parent posts that bias is inevitable, and the best way to deal with it is to admit it upfront and try to eliminate it wherever you can. But achieving utter and absolute impartiality is impossible for reporters--or anyone else.
Or perhaps the world will be a better place when people such as yourself grow up enough to accept that you're not better than others merely because you don't believe what they do. What's wrong with just having different opinions? Is it necessary to call religion "childish" and to refer to God as an "invisible sky daddy"? Because these things don't make it seem like you're not trying just as hard to inflict your beliefs on them as you claim they are trying to do to you.
If you're talking about rare Ultima games, isn't the king really Escape from Mt. Drash ? I've known more people to drool over the merest possibility of owning one than just about any other PC game (including the plastic-mask Suspended and the flying-saucer Starcross).
Can you prove that FoxNews told them this? Because I watch FoxNews regularly and have NEVER heard this.
Of course, it's possible that you're not referring to FoxNews saying that on that particular issue as you are the oft-stated Republican belief that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, which exists because there was one, dating back at least two years before the September 11 attacks, and was documented on at least CNN and ABC at the time.
The Ziff-Davis takeover was disastrous, the firing of Scorpia boneheaded, and just about every other change for the visible worse. But it's quite possible that the real CGW couldn't survive in the market that had popped up, one being driven by children and adolescents--and a publishing company being run by people with hardly more sense--who couldn't be bothered to actually read, consider, and absorb more about a game than a five-star rating or a shilly examination of its graphics, sound, whatever. I was a faithful subscriber all throughout the 1990s, hoping that it would reclaim a bit of its former glory, but when my subscription lapsed in late 2000/early 2001, I don't think I even noticed. For me, and for countless of others who were raised on the thoughtful, brilliantly composed, and engrossingly informative pieces that typified CGW during its best years, the magazine had left many years before.
I won't waste the time or the money seeking out the last issue. But I'll continue to search for the first one--and as many in between as I need to complete my collection of the best gaming magazine when it and the industry were at their zenith. Rest in peace, Computer Gaming World.
Simpsons did it! Simpsons did it!
The entire film is meant to be satirical, an examination of the suppression of masculinity in contemporary culture. The narrator's "becoming" Tyler Durden, the ultimate man's man, is an expression of his own ability to live the "traditional" man's life he really wants. Everything else in the movie, from the support group (where men are having their very manhood stripped away from them at the biological level) through the creation of Fight Club and the eventual aftermath, is a reflection of this. That actual "fight clubs" are springing up only further illustrates the story's point, whether one agrees with it or not. But that the people involved are taking it seriously is highly problematic and more than a little scary; real men should know that there are other ways to solve problems. In the Fight Club book and movie, they aren't real men, they're fictional creations. Huge difference.
It's not a question of "Slashdot's chosen spin," but the review consenus. Many major media outlets--including The New York Times, the Toronto Star, Variety, theatre websites Broadway.com and TheaterMania.com, and a number of others I don't have time to look up right now were simply not thrilled with the adaptation. Yes, there were some that did enjoy it, and the show's press office fastidiously sent out those clips within hours of the show's opening. But overall, the reviews stated that the show was too long (at nearly three hours and 45 minutes) and that the technology dwarfed (sorry) the story. It's not exactly coincidental that much the same thing was said about the movie versions, but even they had over nine hours of time. The stage version, by its very nature, had to be painted in broad strokes, and doing so didn't allow the creators time to realize their grander vision for the material. It's sad, but likely true (I have yet to see the show); some top theatre professionals were working on this, but it's probably a job too big for anyone to do in three and a half hours of stage time. The "best" way to do it would probably be as an all-day event, along the lines of Trevor Nunn's early-80s adaptation of Dickens' The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, which famously ran eight hours. (And, though I didn't see it, they were apparently eight glorious hours.) When you scale down the story of something like this, and scale up the spectacle, how can the results be anything BUT disappointing?
The first step to getting people to believe in the importance and necessity of science is remembering that lines can be drawn between communities of science and faith. If either side looks at it as an us-vs.-them issue, the animosity will just continue. There is no need for it. Frankly, I don't care if no one else in the world believes in any kind of a God, but I do mind when they tell me that my belief, that my faith is no more than a petty superstition and that I should just be able to get over it. If it informs who I am, if it allows me to make intelligent decisions for myself, and it provides the foundation for the greater moral code I follow, how is that a bad thing? And why do I need to take heat from it?
Science and religion needn't be mutually exclusive anymore than society and religion should be. But people like you, whose holier-than-thou attitudes are aimed specifically at dividing people instead of bringing them together, aren't helping. Not every hardcore science person has to like every single thing that every hardcore religious person does, and vice versa. But when the respect for their beliefs, for what's important to them stops, then we have a problem. For you it already has. So why in the world should they do you the courtesy of respecting what you believe?
The problem with this isn't Goldman (obviously). Nor is it the idea, which is solid musical theatre territory for a lot of reasons.
The problem is the composer, Adam Guettel. He won a Tony Award this year for his score to The Light in the Piazza, but is--and will forever be--better known for being the grandson of Richard Rodgers, of Rodgers & Hammerstein and Rodgers & Hart fame. Piazza had/has snob appeal in a way that generally only Sondheim musicals these days do, which means it's generally hard to get a fair reading on its quality from anyone. It's one of those "important" shows that "important" people see and even more "important" people like.
Or at least they're supposed to. Because that didn't happen in this case. The show won six Tonys, but it hasn't exactly taken New York by storm.
Because, for all his talents as a musician (which are considerable, though I don't believe any sensible person can consider them equal, or even close to equal, to his grandfather's), Piazza is very cold and distant. It's about love, specifically the romance between a young developmentally disabled girl and an Italian boy who speaks almost no English, but examines the subject in a lot of theoretical and intellectual ways that--for most people--don't really strike the heart. Richard Rodgers could do that without thinking, and his compositions resonate today and will probably long after we're all gone. They're universal, they're simple, they're true. Guettel's music is none of these things. His greatest claim to theatrical fame is Floyd Collins, semi-based on the story of a prospector who gets trapped in a cave and dies.
What does all of this have to do with The Princess Bride? Nothing. And that's precisely the point. Guettel is currently the "hot" thing, but he's not right for this. He can't write swashbuckling. He can barely write unbridled romanticism without resorting to tricks (nonsense syllables instead of lyrics or havng characters sing in Italian when they should be singing in English). He writes very heavy, he doesn't write light, he doesn't write fun. And what is The Princess Bride if not fun? It needs irreverence, it needs a devil-may-care quality about it that would make it (I would guess) more the purview of someone like David Yazbeck (The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) or Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty (Once on This Island, Ragtime).
It's unlikely to get any of what it needs with Guettel writing the songs for it. So, everyone, don't get your hopes up too much--Goldman knows what he's doing, so his end of the bargain will no doubt be held up. But Guettel, as notorious for being a slow writer as he is someone who can't connect to his characters on the simplest, most heartfelt level, can't be expected to do the same. If we ever see this--which is a big if at this point; lots of shows have a way of getting announced and then vanishing--I have a feeling it will have a rocky road to success, if it even finds success at all.