Assassins was — and I guess still is — a Stephen Sondheim musical that a lot of Sondheim fans seem to forget about. They also forget that it was written by John Weidman, whose name rarely makes it onto the posters and ads when the show is now produced.

And it's produced a lot because it's good for small theaters or theatrical companies that have a lot of young actors who want to get on the stage. I've seen three mountings of the show in my lifetime and none of them had elaborate costuming or sets or more than a few musicians. It's not Sondheim's best show but it might be the cheapest to produce.

If you ever decide to do this, this video might be of value to you. It's Sondheim and Weidman basically telling you what to keep in mind…

Here's a clip from a year or so ago on The Daily Show.  It made me laugh at three in the morning…

The Park Avenue Synagogue is located on East 87th Street in the Upper East Side of Manhattan and it often incorporate show tunes into its services. Here is part of what they did last year for Rosh Hashanah…

We have here a look at a recording of My Fair Lady that came out last year.  It is of special interest because its makers put back some things that were cut from My Fair Lady as you and I know it…

I apologize for the bad audio and video here — and if you know of better copies, please let me know and I'll swap them in. But one of the many destructive things about the 9/11 tragedy is how it was compounded by much of this country shutting down. Restaurants were empty. Theaters were empty. Businesses were suffering and jobs were being lost.

Hit Broadway shows were playing to too many empty seats and something had to be done. A bunch of theater folks got together and something was done. Just about all of Broadway gathered in Times Square to shoot a 30-second commercial reminding people that it was time to "go on with the show." Here's a link to an article about how it was put together, here's a little "making of…" video and then below, there's the finished commercial. There's a great "Where's Waldo?" game in all this and a very strong emotional point. After 9/11, we did a lot of damage to ourselves — which I suppose is one of the goals of terrorism. I just love the spirit of fighting back in these videos…

Every time I see even part of a speech by Donald Trump lately, I think of this scene from the Woody Allen movie, Bananas…

Each year on 9/11, some of us — and I've done this — feel the need to get into the time machine that YouTube and other online sources give us and return to that morning. One friend of mine feels it's his patriotic duty, as well as being disrespectful to the memory of those who died or suffered on that day in 2001 not to revisit that morning.

I won't this year. If I feel the need to be horrified and outraged, there are plenty of recent events I can use for that. But if you feel the need for a spin in the WABAC Machine, here's a working portal to take you back to that awful day. No one should fault you if you don't…

Fred Kaplan — my guide to where we stand with Iraq — was appalled at the speech Trump gave at his campaign rally the other night. Here's an excerpt but go read the whole thing…

…the lesson that any world leader -— friend, foe, or in between — would draw from this speech is simpler still: I need to get some nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. Trump is telling the world's leaders that he might bomb the crap out of them at any moment, or treat them like crap as a whim — but he would kiss the hems of their garments, bestow them with whatever favors they request, if they got themselves some nukes.

Everyone has their own theory or bewilderment as to why Trump has as many loyalists as he has. I think his main skill is to look at the kind of people who would attend a Trump rally and tell them what will get them frightened and fired-up. The truth doesn't matter. What he promises doesn't matter. What he said yesterday doesn't matter. All that matters is getting them to cheer him and fear a world in which he is not King. That power hasn't served him well lately but he has no other tools in his toolbox.

Here's another installment of Everything You Need to Know About Saturday Night Live. This time, they're speed-dating Season 29 — for me, another year when I don't think I watched the show once, not even a day-after YouTube highlight. Nothing in this video makes me think I missed anything. If you want to watch the earlier episodes of Everything You Need to Know About Saturday Night Live, click right here.

A reader of this site, Nelson Ho, did me a large favor. He sent me a link I was unable to locate on the CookUnity website. With it, I could browse the selection of meals they offer without making a financial commitment to their service or sending them a lot of personal info. I just browsed through way more than a hundred of their entrees and found even fewer meals I could eat than I'd expected — mostly pasta marinara or pasta bolognese. I can get great pasta from a place near me that delivers in a flash for about the same price or less.

So the favor Nelson did me is that I can put these meal services completely out of consideration. I'm sure this one and some of the others are fine for folks who can eat all or most things. They just aren't for a guy with my dining limitations. The link, by the way, is here. Thanks, Nelson.

I was going to write something about Donald Trump's new promise to give every American a big check if the Republicans keep the House and Senate in the upcoming election. I needn't bother. Jonathan Pie has just delivered the definitive response to that act of desperation…

Surfing the 'net lately, I see an awful lot of ads for new food items that are tempting to try.  Im'peccable Chicken looks like something I might like but I haven't tried it yet.  Why?  Because at the moment, it seems like the only way to do that is to order a big package of them for $86.00. And I'm the kind o' guy who sometimes tries something new to eat, takes one bite, spits it out and never lets that substance near me again.

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I have a load of food allergies. I've developed a little spidey-sense that sometimes, when I put something in my mouth, I get a little warning signal throughout my body that screams, "Get rid of that immediately!" I can't always tell the difference between that Red Alert and simply not liking the taste of something.

I just plain don't like a lot of foods, especially ones that are spicy and/or smoked. The trend in barbecue restaurants these days seems to be to amp up the spice 'n' smoke so I've pretty much given up that cuisine. Avocado Oil also seems to be trending so I avoid that too. Actually, there are a lot of foods that might (might!) give me a problem but it's kind of a matter of "Why take the chance?"

I'd probably try some of these food items like Im'peccable Chicken if I could do it without gambling eighty bucks. And yes, I know they offer some sort of Money Back Guarantee but that's a hassle I don't need. I did gamble on True Nature Meats, a company that will send you steaks, chicken and pork that are cooked, then frozen. I was happy with the steaks but the chicken and pork are spicy and/or smoked.

In the same vein, I see numerous ads for firms that will send you fully-prepped meals you can heat in the microwave and eat. Their ads and websites give you an idea of a few of the meals they offer and the ones they show all contain foods to which I know I'm allergic. They say something like "We have X [a large number] different and delicious entrees from which you can pick" and they probably have some I could eat…but the sites I've investigated all expect me to sign up for a meal plan and give them lots of personal info and probably my credit card info before I can browse their many different and allegedly-scrumptious entrees.

I just looked at CookUnity, one of the more popular meal services. They say they have 300+ meals from which I can choose…but if there's a way to browse those 300+ meals before they charge my credit card, I haven't found it. And the fact that I must make any commitment to them before I can taste or even see a meal there I could perhaps eat makes me…well, let's say "suspicious." There's plenty of stuff in this world I can make or have Doordashed to my door that involves minimal risk. It's been over ten years since I had a full-out attack and I'd like to keep my streak going.

It's almost an hour of segments that 60 Minutes did on Jon Stewart, John Oliver and Trevor Noah. The first interview with Jon Stewart is from February of 2002 and it's especially interesting to see how he and The Daily Show evolved from there…

Why is there no end in sight for our war — it's a WAR, people! — with Iran? Or for that matter, the WAR between Russia and Ukraine? Fred Kaplan thinks it's because Trump's diplomat-negotiators don't know what the hell they're doing. Here's an excerpt of the whole article which you oughta read…

Yes, Trump doesn't trust the professional diplomatic corps or experts of any kind. But, as a self-proclaimed businessman, he must notice when aides don't get the job done, and the Kushner-Witkoff duo have not lured the combatants one step closer to peace; in fact, they've arguably intensified the war in Ukraine.

Their utter incompetence was on full display over the weekend, as they met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, then — in their first trip to the Ukrainian capital — Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. They carried what Trump touted ahead of time as new peace proposals, and concluded both sets of talks with boilerplate adjectives ("productive," "meaningful," "positive," "businesslike"). But in fact, they came away with zilch — and, once again, proved themselves far short of the task.

I'm guessing that Trump fears that if experienced diplomats bring an end to either conflict, they might get some of the credit…but who knows? He may not have any perceptible reason. He does so many things that don't.

Since the disasters of 9/11, Donald Trump has come up with story after story about what he did that day and subsequent visits to Ground Zero. No one seems to believe any of them are true…as CNN reports and as Politifact reports. Remember when people called Al Gore a congenital liar not to be trusted when he said he and his wife inspired the book Love Story and it turned out the story was only partially true?