Since this is the Off Topic Thread, I would like to post my views about posting & responses. What I think we all have to realize, is that none of this is or should be made personal. For a variety of people to write their thoughts & opinions on topics that can sometimes be touchy & emotional, everyone needs a thick skin.

I know I've been eager to respond to a post that intrigues me, so I quote that post & respond. Am I ignoring or insulting the posts that I chose not to respond to? No, at least that isn't my intent. On the same note, people overlook my posts & respond to others. Sure, we all want our thoughts recognized. I do too. But I don't take that personally, because I know that it isn't.

None of us "know" each other, really. I think 99% of the people on this Board are kind, considerate people. Anyone who loves CI (& especially the highly moral & heroic Robert Goren) appreciate goodness & what is right. We just need to give each other the benefit of the doubt, and this Board will flourish.

Sorry to preach, really. Thank you all for listening.

Beautifully put Donna! I agree completely! Part of what makes this board so wonderful is everyone sharing their thoughts and insights. However we all have to realize that someone disagreeing with a thought or insight does not equal to someone insulting or attacking a thought, idea, opinion or insight. Did that make any sense?

As you stated 99% of the members here are not 'putting someone's ideas down', simply giving their reasons for thinking or believing a certain way. So if all of us try to support each other and debate and NOT argue over different points of view, the board will continue to be a fun, interesting, and respectful place to visit and post on.

Agreed!

Who is ignoring who? i dont understand. i posted and then went out for the day,only just returned. actually we have been doing this jump skipping all day. Yes its done with a skipping rope,but you have two instead of one...its what Donna is describing. its incredibly difficult. at the moment i can hardly lift my legs and i am usually fit from walking,cycling and swimming.

So have you tried it recently KRodgers,Donna etc?
Ive been trying to remember all the rhymes that go with the skipping. Do people remember these?
"All in together girls
Never mind the weather girls
O-U-T sspells out!"

remember any others anyone?
I love all these playground games. i think they have been collected in books.

Very well put donna .

Totally agreed .

messages get lost sometimes in the shuffle of other messages .
I'm not ignoring anyone if I don't respond right away some times I mess a message or need to think clearly and thoughtoutfully on what I am responding to there are also times I've chosen not to respond to something that I could consider insulting or flamming ect.


That's not ingorance or insulting thats what I consider thoughtful .


to me thoughtless attacks are far more insulting than the latter of waiting and thinking before speaking with out knowing if a person is ok or a time zone difference ect. .


Have I myself slipped yeah I have .But I have learned from every slipp up .


I would hope that we all do here .


We can say our opinions,feelings,Ideas .
no one here is saying that you can't ...
but lets remember to be respectful in our wording .

also please do remember that alot of us live in different times zones so there's gonna be delays in responses .


and have fun .

Good Points, Not Saying.

Flatpack, I give you such credit for getting into the jump rope games with your girls! No, I haven't done long jump roping in quite awhile, although I have short jump roped at my gym. And I've NEVER tried the double jump rope - but I would love too. LOL, I probably wouldn't survive!

KRodgers just got confused between my post & yours, that's all. Everything has been straightened out. Just a small misunderstanding.

God, I do remember a rhyme that ends..O-U-T spells OUT! And then you must exit the rope. Can't for the life of me remember the rest. It's been at least 35 years....

I haven't skipped in about 100 years and I seriously think if I tried now, my heart would probably explode! Luckily skipping ropes don't really seem to be a boy thing, so maybe I'm safe for now.
When I was a young'un we used to play King Sting (2 people on either side of a group of people in the middle chucking a tennis ball (as hard as you can) to hit someone in the middle - if you get hit you go out and so on. Reading this makes it sound like a lot crueler than it was, but I can't imagine it would be allowed in the playground now.

Thanks for the info on that song about DS. I will check it out.

Why is it that children just skip naturally and adults find it so hard,i mean what happens to us that we forget to skip? Its about being nimble. I am making it my duty to long rope skip EVERY day until i get that lightness back in my step!!! I just want to feel that affinity again! Its like you have to DO it to let the body remember that childhood state. I can see its quite addictive.There is something evocative about childrens games in a playground.

Today even the cats were joining in.

Anyway there is a rhyme where about three people get into the rope and then jump out when their birth month is called out. And a rhyme about ladybirds i forget.

It has to be Luke Kelly singing the song, Scorn not my Simplicity. Its the contrast of this wild hairy rough looking man and this powerful emotional voice singing with tenderness about the mothers/fathers/childs feelings.

AstonMartin,this might be a game you remember from the playground that might cross gender divides!
"Join up for cowboys and indians". A few pals get together and link arms,moving round the playground calling out "join up for cowboys and indians"( you could do it with "astronauts and models" if you feel like being politically correct and LOCI friendly!!!Ha!). Eventually you have a long line of linked up children. then you start spinning round. Those in the middle who started the game are almost standing still. but the ones at either end are spinning faster and faster until they get flung off into the playground like bullets.

Did you play that game anyone?

These playground games never felt competitive to me, just a sense of bonding in the playground. Something in the group play that didnt degenerate into competition.

Im sure they have done sociological studies into playgrounds and the games that children play as opposed to the games that adults play!!!But unless the sociologists actually relive these games physically then the study is incomplete.

I'm aching all over just from reading Flatpack's posts. Double Dutch (what we called double long rope skipping) was popular when I was growing up in the inner city in the 70's but that was before sports bras and I developed very young so as not to knock myself out...you get the picture, right? My Jamaican classmates had a version with long bamboo poles that they tapped on the ground and you jumped in between them until you got your ankles caught. I liked the sound the poles made on the cement in that game and then you could do the limbo with the poles which amazingly I was pretty good at in my youth. I don't remember cowboys & indians like that but if you put on roller or ice skates and do that here, it's called the whip and the end people got flung into the railing. The game with the tennis balls sounds more brutal that our dodgeball with it's big, soft ball. I don't remember too many kids games because I lived across the street from a playground with basketball hoops, tennis court, a track and a baseball diamond, so we pretty much played there or went skating or swimming at the park that was less than a mile away. Actually, I should have been a lot more athletic given all my resources, but then, as now, it ain't easy to get me away from the TV.

Re: Double dutch It is amazing the things some of the kids can do. It could be an Olympic event with the degree of difficulty it involves.

Ahhh, dodge ball blaaaaaaaaaaah not a favorite childhood memory. It's banned now in a lot of schools as is "Red Rover". That is where there are two teams lined up across from each other with their arms linked. Someone calls out "Red Rover, Red Rover send (name of someone on the other team) right over" The person called runs over and tries to break through the line.

What do kids do during recessnow. Do they even still have reccess? I know Phys Ed has been cut someplaces or scaled back.

And another thing-LOL don't mean to sound like Andy Rooney- Why don't you ever see kids out playing in their yards, riding their bikes, walking to the corner store or playing on the swings at the playground etc. It's very sad that kids can't seem to go anywhere nowdays without their parents or some other adult.

Because they're all off playing in sanitized, plastic coated "McPlaygrounds" at Chucky Cheese and having playdates in hermetically sealed environments. And we wonder why so many of them have allergies. We don't let them eat mud pies like we did when we were kids and played in the same sandbox the neighborhood cats relieved themselves in.

So true. I remember when my kids were little, my friends who wouldn't let their kids in the ball pit at Mickey D's because "God forbid" some other kid's saliva may have gotten on the balls, those kids were the ones who were always sick with ear infections & the flu. I really believe that its better to expose kids to small, reasonable amounts of germs & bacteria, as it allows them to build up a natural immunity. At least it worked with my brood - they were hardly ever sick.

I am also a big advocate of kids drinking real milk. It could be 1% or 2% if you're worried about fat content (although no fat kids ever got fat on drinking whole milk ) I'm tired of hearing people say its bad for you, or you get the same amount of calcium with fortified orange jiuce...you don't.

If you want real milk you should try organic. I tastes so much more like the 'real deal' stuff I had when I was younger. I don't myself, but I know that some people are better off with goat's milk because the protein in it is smaller and easier to digest. Did you know that the fat in milk can actually help you lose weight? Some studies have shown that your body needs the milk fat to regulate some systems in your body.

Games when I was little I remember Marco Polo, and red light green light. Anyone else remember those?

To quote George Carlin" A little fecal material never hurt anyone!" His logic is actually quite sound. The more germs, bacterias, etc. that were are exposed to(with in logical reasoning, no ecoli or anything) the better. Our immune systems rely on being exposed to everyday icky things, that's how it learns to identify, destroy, and keep on file these bad guys. Then as adults when we are exposed to these and similar little bugs we have to ability to defeat them. Children that grow up in bacteria/germ a phobic homes tend to be sicker, and with worse illnesses than those who live in households that are clean but not sanitized to the hilt.

I almost never went to the doctor's when I was little. It had to be something really serious(like close to death) to go there, and my mom didn't insist on walking out with antibotics everytime either. I have been sick very few times, and haven't had to be on an antibotic in 15 years. Of course when I do catch a bug it's almost always a real dozsy!

Playgrounds, our consisted of a huge shinny metal slide, that if you weren't careful the skin on the back of your legs, stayed on the slide as you went down. Jungle Gym bars the were also shinny skin searing metal, and the ground beneath them was either stones, black top, or if you were lucky concrete(it was a tad cooler to your feet in the baking sun). There were no slip grips, cusioned floors, and rounded corners. In the end we wouldn't have had it any other way, we had the most fun, and didn't worry about hitting your nose that it bled. Scrapped knees, bruises, and assorted booboos were expected and revered. You would compare them to your buddies in school. Kids are too afraid to do anything now, and it shows later in life. There is so much that they do have to worry about, why not let them have fun and enjoy just being a kid.

Ouch! I remember those hot metal slides. Yikes! I can only remember going to the Dr. once and being given antibiotics when I was a kid. I totally agree about a little bit of germs being a good thing. No bike helmets, no car seats, being exposed to dirt and bugs it's a wonder we survived. The only thing that concerns me about when I was a kid was all the bad sunburns we used to get. I heard once that the burns you get when you are young like before 20 can cause the most damage. There was no sunblock back then.

I've been watching Mad Men on AMC. It's about advertising executives in NYC circa 1960. No seat belts, the kids were flying around the back seat of a car when their mother lost control and rode up onto someone's lawn. One of those same kids was playing quietly in the living room when her mother called her into the kitchen. The kid was wearing a plastic dry cleaning bag. The mother, horrified, told the little girl, "Young lady, I certainly hope my dry cleaning isn't in a pile on the floor in the closet."

HOW did we survive is an excellent question.

Not exactly sure where this might actually fit so I'm sticking it here. Found this article on the TV Guide website about how much people in television make. There are sections on television anchors, people who work in cable shows (The Closer), Daytime actors... You can read the rest of the article at this link. It's eye opening to say the least.

************************

You can make a nice living in TV. Just ask Simon Cowell, who pulls in $45 million per year (for American Idol and other TV projects). Even the folks who serve chow to the cast and crew can make $3,000 over the eight days it takes to shoot an hourlong drama.
Here's a sample of who makes what, from Oprah to a production assistant just breaking into the biz.

NETWORK PRIME TIME (salary per episode)
William Petersen, CSI $500,000
Zach Braff, Scrubs $350,000
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: SVU $350,000
Chris Meloni, Law & Order: SVU $350,000
Charlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men $350,000
Hugh Laurie, House $300,000
Patrick Dempsey, Grey's Anatomy $225,000
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Old Christine $225,000
Eva Longoria, Desperate Housewives $200,000
Ellen Pompeo, Grey's Anatomy $200,000
Jeff Foxworthy, Are You Smarter… $150,000
T.R. Knight, Grey's Anatomy $125,000
Chandra Wilson, Grey's Anatomy $125,000
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters $100,000
Special guest stars per hour episode minimum $6,527
Stand-ins per day minimum $145
Background actors w/ special abilities per day $140
Background actors or "extras" per day $130

Remember riding in the back of the station wagon, you know the trunk? No real seats, much less seat belts. We would sit on the floor in the back at times too, on long trips. One of my favorite memories was going to Summer Bible School with my aunt and uncle. They had a van, a real full-sized one long before the minivan. We would sit on a bench in the back, this wasn't screwed down or anything. We had to hold it upright as we were driving! It was a blast. You have to know that the backroads at the time were mostly traveled by bicycles, scooters, and horse and buggies, very few cars. Some still are, but the out of state population has skyrocketed. Now there are many once back roads that are bustling, much less the highway/main road traffic.

With a local population of 'plain' people, this can make for some hairy accidents.

The only sunblocks that were out when I was a kid, would make me burn! I never did, then once as a teenager I thought maybe I should put some on. I burnt so bad, it was the only blistering sunburn I ever had!

We had a station wagon .
at least when I was lil .
It D E A D now .lol

I can remeber us riding in the back of ours my sis and me .

I almost fell off the couch when the mother said that to her daughter about the dry cleaning. I like that show a lot so far. I love the sets, the clothes, and seeing how different things were back then. There's so much smoking and drinking even at work. There is nothing PC about that show and it's supposed to be true to that time period. I saw a program about the making of it and they were inverviewing the creator (who I believe was a writer for The Sopranos) and writers etc. They were talking about how things have changed so much in some ways since 1960 but in other ways they haven't. For example some people still have prejudices but just that they keep them to themselves now.

How sad--here's a two time Academy Award winning actress with 40 years of acting experience (starting on television) and she makes one-fifth of what Bill Peterson makes for his deadpan delivery. I'm sorry I read this list now.

I thought of a couple more games I played as a kid: stone school (which we played on actual school steps next to that playground) where you guessed which hand the stone was in and went up a step if you were right and down if you were wrong. The other one I think was called statues and all I remember was having to freeze in place when told and the first one who moved was out.

I worry about all those sunburns I had as a kid too. I especially remember my nose and shoulders peeling until they were raw red skin. And I got a burn on the top of my legs on a 40-mile bike trip that left a tan line on my legs for more than one year.

I'm not a good example of surviving childhood unscathed; I had a broken nose, arm and ankle before I was 10 years old and had a bacterial infection in my eyes from swimming in a stagnant pond. I didn't get colds though. I have a lot of kids playing around me, mostly in their back yards or in the middle of the street, but I'm still in the inner city so I don't know what the kids in the suburbs do. I think less kids are out playing because of the perverts more than because of germs though. I get nervous when I see kids playing alone in their front yards or walking down the street--too many SVU-type perps out there. Every year kids in my city get attacked walking to school. It's sad.

On a lighter note, I remember about 7 of us little kids riding in the back of a station wagon going out to the country for a picnic one year and bouncing around on those country roads that weren't even paved so the dirt came flying in the back window. Now that was fun. Now the kids have to have a dvd player in the back of their SVUs. I'll take the good old days of counting cows and then burying them when you went past a cemetary or singing 99 bottles of beer on the wall...

At last! Ive been trying to get online for ages unsuccessfully. Forgive me folks if i ever appear not to appear! its not for want of trying.

Anyway im here now. Playgrounds are such evocative places,eh? My girls playground is like something out of enid Blyton,the small rickety gate and the mountains behind it. But i am fascinated by your description of New york inner city playgrounds.

JMI, the sound of "poles on the cement"; i get that. The sound of the rope turning and hitting the cement has been affecting me here. It takes you back through the years and the experiences.

Red rover I remember too, Hullbound. I think we called it something else but it was the same game.

redlight,greenlight prods a memory. how do you play it Abfirefighter?

Oh and mudpies Stefanl. you would be proud of us. When our back field was turned over and flattened it was half and acre of mud. the girls went out in the rain barefoot and slid all over it,mud everywhere. then they cooked with it and served it up on a tray!

And i agree Donna,no sickness. You cant control everything in life,you have to let go and get sick or make mistakes or make a fool of yourself.Im learning to let go of my oldest daughter as she begins to explore more. i have to trust that she will make good choices,and if she doesnt that she will learn from her mistakes. Life is dangerous and fragile but you kind of have tyo bend with it. otherwise you break!


JMI,your talking took me back again to this moment i had lying on my back in the playground as a child, closing my eyes and listening to the childrens voices, thinking they sounded like seagulls squeeling and the confusion in my mind between being in a playgound and being by the sea so that the playground smelt of the seaside. Childhood memories are so evocative,so sensual. Children really live in their skin,every bit of them is alive. i think adults who retain that ability become artists!

"dirt flying in your faces from the truck"; i bet you can almost feel that now.


Ha! Stefanl,so how much is Richie in the Squad Room getting?

LOL! Speaking of Richie in the squadroom why isn't D'Onofrio's & Noth's cool $350,000 per episode mentioned on this list? Aren't they worthy? Or is it that it would upstage the SVU salaries?

Not that I think VDO wants his salary mentioned, I'm sure he would cringe if he saw it printed for gossip fodder.

William Peterson is also an Executive Producer of CSI, someone mentioned that on Board. That's why he makes so much, I guess.

Looks like they chose actors and actresses from the top 10 shows only. Although what Jeff Foxworthy is doing there is beyond me. Is that show doing that well?!

Read the rest of the stats in the article. The people working craft services also got a mention.

Wonder how they came up with the figures for the behind the scene people? Those salaries would depend on location & company.

Fore example, my daughter's friend was just hired as a production assistant at Showtime here on Long island, right out of college. She started at $20 per hour plus benefits.

Hi all !

Went to Mystic, CT for a few days last week. Dined at Mystic Pizza. Very disappointed. Not as many pictures of Vincent as there were last year. More pictures of other movie stars. But, the pizza was great, and there IS one picture of him I love - at JoJo's door with his pants down. I wonder how he would feel about that being one of the pictures they still have up! Walked where he walked in front of Mystic Pizza and on the pier where Bill's boat was.

Also did some shopping - very expensive. Liked a cotton vest with a ruffle along the front closure for a friend for her birthday, but the price was prohibitive - $239.00 !!! Fun to browse though. Food was great at Mystic Pizza, Abbott's Seafood (here you can actually eat at a table on the dock and watch the sailboats and yachts go by) - lobster, Sea Swirl - scallops, and Water St. Café in Noank (nearby) - trout. Visited a lighthouse museum in Noank too. Main attractions in Mystic are the Aquarium and the Seaport, but I have seen them so many times, I decided to pass on both this trip. Stayed at Hyatt Place hotel - very nice. First night there, saw a black Escalade parked in front - thought of you-know-who.

Now I'm home in my air-conditioned rooms, thankful that I don't have to go out in this oppressive heat and humidity today. Time to cook supper. Talk soon!

Sue

LOL. Wonder if he's ever taken his kids to Mystic Seaport? It's a popular site for school trips - every year our 6th graders go. Don't remember if they went to the pizza place.

I think Vincent would be embarrassed if he brought his kids into the place & they saw the picture hanging. Imagine being a kid & having a picture of your Dad posted with his pants around his ankles?

Probably not.

and I can picture that sweet face all red .

his daughter looking at him saying that was you .

I think Vincent would be somewhat embarrassed too. But if my dad looked that good in his underwear, I'm not so sure I'd be embarrassed ! (Who said that? What a shocking thing to say! Slap my face!)

Wouldn't you be MORE embarrassed if it was your dad, and he didn't look like VDO?

My father once got swimming trunks that were lt. blue, only when he went into the water it turned into bright flowers, LOL!

My dad was outstanding when he was younger. Arms like Popeye. Tall, great smile, real lady killer look to him. He wasn't still lookin' that way in his 70s. Why did he still insist on wearing the same summerwear?! Worse than the most vain woman imaginable.

Awwww, I'm sure that he thought he looked good. Lucky for me I guess that my Dad didn't like to go in the water so he never wore a bathing suit.

My husband bought a white bathing suit once when we were on vacation. Going in the water-Big Mistake! It made the thing practically transparent-talk about being embarrassed by your parent. Needless to say that while I was laughing my son was mortified! Ahhhh-famiy memories they're a precious thing

How is everyone today ?




I would probably be mortified and laughin if it were me .lol

Well you could swim in the weather here at the moment!! Dreadful summer!
Yesterday we were in and out of a music festival,pouring down with rain,people standing in it dripping,undeterred. Nothing stops the music! So in one corner of the village square was a 20th century rock band blasting out Green Day etc,and in the other corner were the Mummers from Armagh,enacting the earliest forms of drama,the Mummer Plays. Extraordinary isnt it? Where else do you get that combination and the same aufdience watching both together,young and old,accepting and enjoying both.

Sometimes i think all these statistics falsely force us into catagories and division when it does not really exist. In this square was a mixed audience enjoying mixed entertainment, all together and enjoying each other,all seeing the same thing but from different viewpoints. Now thats integration!

Mummers by the way are probably the first actors bringing us the first stories of heroes and combat to the people. But i also find the name curious because of it association to the other meanings of the word Mummy!!!

The whole thing is a spectacle. the mummers arrive as ordinary people with bundles of clothing and straw costumes. they dress up and joke about with the audience. They start to beat saucepans with a stick and drum up attention.They move amongst the audience...then they start to break into rhyme and begin their play. they break off into prose to tease the audience and pretend they dont know what they are doing. then they play music,the Uilleann Pipes and fiddle...then they pick up the rhyme again and the play goes on. Some of them are in these strange straw costumes with masks that cover their faces. there is something sinister and something ridiculous in this form of drama,and you never know quite how to respond. fascinating. This all goes back to the market squares of the 11C. bet they didnt take ratings then but its still going strong!!!!Hows that for longevity? tThey were tapping into something far more enduring than coca cola!!!!

Mummers make me think of the Mummer's Day Parade in Philadelphia. My fire company did a float to commerate the first anniversary of the September 11th attacks. It was the scene with the fireman raising the flag. We went into great detail, building a rubble pile of rebarb, concrete, etc. We even used a smoke machine to reproduce smoke rising from under the pile. Beside the three FF that were there, myself and one other FF were on the back with our helmets in our hands, kneeling in mourning. Then we played a mix of patrotic songs and interviews from people as it happened.

I'm not too proud to say it was very moving. At one parade some FDNY ff were there and they came up to us and told us how very much they appreciated it, and eeiry accurate it looked.
We were in 11 parades in three counties, winning 10 trophies.

Anyway we were invited to be in the Mummers Day Parade, in fact we were leading the entire thing! Then on New Years Day it SNOWED, GGGRRRRRR!!! So it was held the following week. Well let's just say that there were more homeless people watching than anyone else!! No one was in the stands, no one. Then we thought at least we will be on TV! Turns out that the officals started us off 3 MINUTES BEFORE they started showing it live on TV! Yeah well, at least we were given the chance, and we won a trophy for best float for non-commerical or something like that.

We're dry as a bone here in Upstate New York. Too bad Flatpack can't send some Irish mist this way. We're having our music festival in two weeks, so we'll probably get rain for then. I don't think the Mummers are coming but we'll have everything from Bluegrass to Alternative Rock, but they won't all be playing in the same area so we will have segregation.

I always wondered where the Mummers came from--11C. England, eh? Maybe one of them came over on the Mayflower. I know the local Mummers adapted the Native American headresses and drums.

I finally watched Rescue Me from 2 weeks ago and there was one scene at a hockey game where the bleachers were full of LOCI perps, victims and witnesses. Many moons ago I wrote that I'd like to see a reperatory company doing different genres, and it looks like that's what they've got in the New York acting community. I wish Vincent, Katie and Chris had time to guest star on Rescue Me for one episode as someone completely different. Damaged is another one filmed in NY and it has a lot of familiar faces too. And ABC has ads running for one of their Fall shows and the ad had Croydon and the street artist in it. It's so great to see New York City on television so much.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Summer. Write soon.

Yes,I love watching all this New York City stuff,even though I have never been there. I would send you mist if i could, JMI. Let us know all about that music festival when you go.

I was chatting to the Mummers,to get their side of the story,because although Ive researched back the history its always interesting to hear it from different angles since all knowledge filters through the subjective mind,even scientific knowledge (Eh,Stefanl!?)...anyway it concurrs that....

...Mumming goes back to ceremonies all over Europe celebrating the turning of the year,fertility celebrations to do with Mother Earth,so the wearing of straw costumes,the play between Good and Evil, the death and revival of the hero in combat,the forces of life and the forces of death,thye stock characters all over Europe,a sense of fun combined with a sense of fear,lots of noise to galvanise courage...etc etc...

Interesting story there Abfirefighter. That sense of ceremony is always powerful,makes the hair on your neck stand on end!!

The Mummers Parade on New Years Day actually goes back historically to the ideas of the European Mummers. Of course "our" Mummers aren't very well known outside of the immediate vicinity of the Delaware Valley part of south NJ and most of eastern Pennsy.

My sister went to school with a person from Philly who dressed in his Mummer costume one year for Halloween. He was a member of one of the Fancies and played in their string band. Did the whole Mummer Walk, which I'm sure Angy will know about. He didn't live down that walk for a very, very long time. Near me? Not a problem, we know from Mummers. Folks from the rest of the state? Oof!

Here's a link to their website.

I saw the Mummers at a festival in southern NY but it was many years ago. Maybe they were trying to recruit or expand their tribe. I knew about them from when I lived in Delaware so they didn't seem strange to me, but now that I think about it, that one time was the only time I've heard of them in New York State. Thanks for the link.

The Mummers can be a little off putting when you don't know why these grown men look like they've raided Liberace's closet.

Ha! Mummers everywhere!
At the end of the performance do yours open a bag for money or pass round the hat? Ours do. Guess there has always been that link between Drama and commerce!!!! Those early actors were outsiders,moving from village to village,and very eager to explain that they were not beggers or vagabonds.There was something a little dangerous and uncontrollable about these people who were outside the known community.

Did anyone participate in the National Night Out campaign this evening(Tuesday)? There was a church in town that organized one for our area, and the our fire company was there.

What is that,Abfirfighter?

Oh i forgot...all you GERARD DEPARDIEU fans! Guess what,we are in luck. there is a day devoted to his work on Sky Indie channel...but you have to live in UK or thereabouts! one of his latest,"36" is on,made in 2004. I am not a fan of his post 2000 work,prefer the earlier stuff,however this one is about cops and robbers so may interest others.

Regarding the Night Out, my inner city neighborhood (which has had 4 shootings in the last 8 months--one death) had a parade at 9 pm on the street we need to take back. Of course, the dry weather ended Tuesday afternoon and we had a downpour but it had stopped by 9 and I heard a bunch of kids whooping and hollering. I'm eating dinner at 9 and I'm off to work at 10:30 so I didn't see much, but a lot of people had their porch lights on. I'll hear about the events in a couple of hours when the early news programs go on.

And regarding Mr. Depardieu, Lincoln Center is showing all of his films in the month of August. I thought of you, Flatpack, when I saw it listed on their website: http://www.lincolncenter.org I superstitiously have not posted the fact that I am going to New York City for the first time in this millenium. My sister's health was good when I bought my tickets and booked my hotel (The Algonquin--no beating the Irish for class, eh?) and then my sister had a setback and I thought I wasn't going to be able to go. But her wonderful surgeon has set her right, for a while, and I am going next week, the 14th through the 17th. I wouldn't have picked August to go but the two plays I wanted to see, Nixon/Frost and The Year of Magical Thinking are both closing this month so it was now or never. Say a little prayer for this being the coldest August in NYC history for me, please.

I'm taking the laptop so I can post while I'm there. I don't think I'll go to Chelsea Piers because of my fear of having a psychotic break if I were to see the object of our obsession. But who knows who I might see in New York, certainly I'll see Vanessa Redgrave and Frank Langella and I was a fan of both of them before I'd ever heard the name Vincent D'Onofrio. And I have a ticket for Regis and Kelly for the 15th so I'll see them and their guests too.

Flatpack, I've bought a little notebook to write my thoughts and observations on my Manhattan adventure and I did it because of your descriptive posts on life on the West Coast of Ireland. I'll try to channel your creativity and see The City through an artist's eyes and post some just for you. The rest of you can read them too but don't expect me to be as illuminating as Flatpack at first.

Id really be interested in that JMI....your New York observations. Will you be going to that spot they used in the filming of Blind Spot,that subterranean street with rock facing. Somebody said it was near Wall Street?
Anyway you are a writer arent you,so you will see all the nuances.

And Depardieu as well? What a treat!
All you need now is a sighting of LOCI filming.

I am going now but good luck with that visit

Oh JMI, have a wonderful time in NYC!! .

If you want to feel close to VDO but be assured you won't run into him, do the NBC Experience Tour, or just visit the Store at Rockefeller Center. Hard to explain, but I felt connected to the show there, seeing where they had the DVD signing (it takes so little for me....... )

Hope you have great time JMI!!!
Re: Chelsea Pier-does anyone remember a movie (or it might have been a TV show) involving a kidnapping. I think the kid was taken when they were at Chelsea Pier.

JMI, have a great and safe trip!!

I hope you have a wonderful trip to NYC. I laughed right out loud when I read your comment about having a psychotic break if you saw VDO. I think it's worth the risk. Psychotic breaks are highly underrated. A good one can get you lots of rest and dreamtime. Enjoy the city!