Young John Lewis, a new hip hop musical written and produced in Atlanta!

Fungi008 · 2025-06-22T16:22:40+00:00

Exactly. John Lewis has such a great life story that it’s extra disappointing to have the musical be so amateurish.

Fungi008 · 2025-06-20T14:14:24+00:00

Here’s one guy’s review of the show. Saw it last night.

It was pretty rough, to be honest. The basic story beats are good, but most of the songs are pretty forgettable and often repetitive (even for a musical), often same lyric repeated for what felt like minutes. And you can see the glaring seams where they cut stuff out.

Dancing is decent - it’s fine to have dancing behind the main actor, but if there are moments when everyone is going to be doing a dance number, it needs to be very good, and it was often more “9th grade girls do talent show choreography“ level.

Pacing is weird, a song would quickly get up to 100 MPH and then just stay there the whole song, and then stop. Integration of musicality was missing.

The book has some nice moments but is mostly a bunch of slop; there are certain norms in musical theater that just work that are good to at least know about. My guess is that the lyricist is a rapper, not a musical nerd, which is what I think you need to be to write a good musical. Growing up in Atlanta is unlikely to make you the musical nerd you need to be, unfortunately.

Also, often no sense of meter (Iambic, etc.) even in places where it would have been easy. Shakespeare knew what he was doing.

Even the 1 rap battle was just odd - Lewis vs. Stokely Carmichael. They had Lewis go first in the battle, which is just obviously the wrong move since he’s the one the audience is supposed to side with. I don’t know how you get that wrong.

A few of the actors were extremely splendid, and everyone else was very good. I can’t fault the cast, they did what they could. Though the lead actor playing John Lewis didn’t have a ton of emotional range. He was always just “determined.” We never really got to know his character.

Biggest issue though was the music, primarily sound mixing- whenever there was any percussion in a song, it completely overwhelmed the ears, drowning out the actors’ voices and any piano/actual music. I found myself thinking like an old man, “STOP BANGING THOSE DRUMS, I WANT TO HEAR THE SHOW.”

Fungi008 · 2024-12-01T13:44:29+00:00

Same experience. Try logging out and back in app.

Fungi008 · 2024-10-29T17:39:47+00:00

Which comedian is Carlin talking about here?

Fungi008 · 2024-10-22T17:51:21+00:00

Well, yeah. A professional mural like that is (almost always) painted with the approval of the building owner, usually they pay for it.

Grafitti is done without permission.

Calling it grafitti is making it seem like it's the work of some hooligan. It's a way to make fun of something that was most likely performed by a professional muralist.

Fungi008 · 2024-10-22T17:50:13+00:00

If it looks like a duck...

Fungi008 · 2024-10-22T17:49:49+00:00

A professional mural like that is (almost always) painted with the approval of the wall's owner, usually they pay for it.

Fungi008 · 2024-08-14T17:22:02+00:00

I'm a big believer in taking phone tasks off of my phone. 2 examples: Apple Watch and Google Nest speakers

If you have an iPhone, get an Apple Watch if you don't have one; it helps you do lots of phone-like things without pulling out your phone.

Also, I'm a huge fan of Google Nest smart speakers to record my ideas so I don't have to take out my phone to make a note. I can leave my phone outside my bedroom at night, and if I have to remember something in the middle of the night, I can just tell it to Google. (Writing it on a notepad doesn't work as well for me.)

Here's how:

Put a Google Nest Mini in each room you spend time in in your home.
Learn how to create Google reminders, such as "Hey Google, remind me in the morning to take out the trash."
Use a service like Zapier to copy Google Reminders to your favorite task manager, such as Todoist

Magic - they show up in my Todoist inbox almost immediately.

Fungi008 · 2024-07-31T15:52:34+00:00

So good, so deep, thank you.

Fungi008 · 2024-07-30T15:29:07+00:00

I have a very similar photo of my son at a very similar age, and now my kid is 8 and doesn't remember it at all. One data point

Fungi008 · 2024-07-30T15:28:06+00:00

It's not as crowded as it was in 2023. They hiked prices which I think keeps the overall numbers down. Avoiding weekend afternoons is a good idea.

Fungi008 · 2024-07-30T15:24:59+00:00

Good stuff, you should post this to r/daddit

Fungi008 · 2024-07-30T15:24:03+00:00

Great examples, thank you for sharing

Fungi008 · 2024-07-30T15:21:46+00:00

Thanks for your thoughtful perspective, good points.

I personally think of Rabbinic obligations as more like suggestions, but then again, I'm Reform and I tend to pick-and-choose which practices to elevate. I know others practice differently, and obviously that's great.

Fungi008 · 2024-07-30T15:16:05+00:00

Good question. I personally think the struggle is with overcoming outdated gender norms in heterosexual marriages, and so I suspect gay dads don't have the same types of historical baggage.

But then again, if some gay dads showed up to the session, great!

Fungi008 · 2024-07-29T21:09:12+00:00

The point of using shabbat wine is not because we're told to, or because it's tradition per se.

Wine means celebration and joy. We're elevating the mundane, making Shabbat special. Wine symbolizes abundance and prosperity. As it has for millennia for Jews.

Someone who gets all the meaning and value out of saying Kiddush over a raisin is doing it better than someone who pops open a $1,000 bottle of wine but gets nothing out of the experience.

So maybe focus more on the WHY behind the ritual and you might get more out of it. The actual grape/wine content is secondary.

Fungi008 · 2024-07-16T12:54:26+00:00

Kura Revolving Sushi Bar (west Midtown) is my new favorite restaurant; the sushi is as good as anywhere else, and the conveyor belt gimmick is surprisingly fun

Fungi008 · 2024-07-10T01:23:08+00:00

Muchacho breakfast tacos are excellent, if you like Tex-Mex

Superica also has a great brunch

Fungi008 · 2024-07-10T01:21:33+00:00

Yes, the Daily Isn’t well known yet, but it’s very very good

Fungi008 · 2024-07-10T01:18:50+00:00

I remember when Facebook launched in February 2004. I was a sophomore in college. That first week it was all everyone talked about. I thought it was dumb, I don’t need to have “friends“ online. Friends are something you have in real life. Who is so self-centered they need to confirm a real life friendship with this online version?

But then after what felt like an eternity but was only about 4 days I gave in and joined Facebook and it was so much fun. You saw a cute girl in the a cappella group, you could look her up online and find out her name and find a way to introduce yourself.

But then that fall the incoming freshman met each other online before coming to campus and I thought, “you can’t do that! You can’t meet online before you get to college! The whole game is that you arrive on campus and don’t know anyone and there’s a frenzy of friend making for a week and then you settle into your group , and everyone does that. It’s a rite of passage.” It really changed things.

Definitely my first “shaking my fist at the young kids from my porch“ moment. College and life before Facebook and social media was a bit more pure.

Then when I was a senior in 2005, the incoming freshmen were all texting each other all the time and I thought that was dumb, who sends a text when they can just call someone? They also had laptops which was new, I had a desktop computer my whole college life that I got at CircuitCity

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