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    Stephen Colbert: QAnon Supporters Suffer From ‘March Madness’

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBest of Late NightStephen Colbert: QAnon Supporters Suffer From ‘March Madness’Colbert poked fun at the group’s latest conspiracy theory that March 4 would be Donald Trump’s true Inauguration Day.“I see patterns where none exist,” Stephen Colbert said, imitating QAnon conspiracy theorists.Credit…CBSMarch 4, 2021, 2:04 a.m. ETWelcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. We’re all stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘Clinically Insane’Security is being ramped up in Washington, D.C., as law enforcement officials fear more violence based on a QAnon conspiracy theory alleging that March 4 will be Inauguration Day for Donald Trump.“Now, I’m no psychologist, but you could say they’re suffering from ‘March Madness,’” Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday night. “Also, they’re clinically insane.”“You see, Q followers were heartbroken on Inauguration Day, which was supposed to be the day that the ‘storm’ came that would keep their guy actually in office. So they’ve moved the date of the storm — when all the arrests and the celebrities and the Democrats happen — to March 4, which was the date of presidential inaugurations up until 1933. [Imitating QAnon follower] ‘Yes, follow me down the rabbit hole. They ended it in 1933, but add up one, nine, three, three. Add up one plus six, you get seven. What is seven? Three plus four — three, four, March 4th, when we shall march forth! [Whispers] I see patterns where none exist.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“How many more times are these people gonna prepare for a victory that doesn’t come? I don’t know who ‘Q’ is, but he’s definitely a Clippers fan.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Still, where there’s a will, there’s a way to cash in, because the former president’s hotel in Washington, D.C., has been jacking up prices around March 4. Sounds cynical, but they are offering premium services: If you’re exhausted from travel, you can just call the front desk and ask the concierge to hang Mike Pence.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Oh, man, what a grift. Honestly, I don’t even blame Trump. If I was him, I would milk the [expletive] out of this thing. I’d be charging my guests for things that they didn’t even buy: ‘Wait a minute — I never bought the Toblerone.’ [Imitating Trump] ‘I guess the Dems stole that, too. I feel your pain.’” — TREVOR NOAH“In a way, I understand — the deeper you fall into something, the less you want to admit you were duped, you know? Which makes you even more desperate to keep the fantasy going. I mean, that’s why I’m sure that the next Kanye album is gonna be great again. It has to be great.’” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Big Hats, No Masks Edition)“After Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced yesterday that he was lifting coronavirus restrictions, California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted, ‘Absolutely reckless,’ but I don’t think it helped that he tweeted it from the French Laundry.” — SETH MEYERS“Businesses are now completely open and even the mask mandate has been lifted, to which most Texans replied, ’What mask mandate?’” — JAMES CORDEN“Corona’s not over yet. I mean, Texas is still getting over 7,000 new cases a day, but their governor got vaccinated and now he’s like, ‘Get those clubs back open — I’ma get lit. Aw yeah!’” — TREVOR NOAH“You know Governor DeSantis from Florida is like: ‘Oh. Oh snap. Oh, oh! You’re gonna try to out- Florida Florida?’”— JIMMY FALLON“Texans were like, ‘Fix our electrical grid!’ And the governor’s like, ‘OK, no masks it is.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Plus, I’ve got to be honest: I’m surprised politicians that are so pro-cowboy hat find masks uncomfortable. Maybe it’s my weak neck, but I’d rather wear 100 masks than one of those big old hats.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingSamantha Bee explored whether women can “have it all” during a pandemic.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightSacha Baron Cohen, the star of “Borat,” will appear on Thursday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This Out“I felt I was born with an absence of some sort, and I think that I’ve spent much of my life trying to fill that void,” said Derek DelGaudio, addressing a major theme in his new book.Credit…Calla Kessler for The New York TimesFans of the magician Derek DelGaudio’s theater show “In & Of Itself” should appreciate all the magic in his memoir, “Amoralman.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    A ‘Rent’ Reunion Measures 25 Years of Love and Loss

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeFall in Love: With TenorsConsider: Miniature GroceriesSpend 24 Hours: With Andra DayGet: A Wildlife CameraAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookA ‘Rent’ Reunion Measures 25 Years of Love and LossA fund-raiser, a tribute, a documentary — and a reminder that Jonathan Larson’s musical remains especially inspiring in hard times.Members of the original cast sing “No Day but Today” during New York Theater Workshop’s “25 Years of Rent: Measured in Love.”Credit…via New York Theater WorkshopMarch 3, 2021Is “Rent,” Jonathan Larson’s 25-year-old groundbreaking musical, somber or celebratory? When I was in high school, in the early throes of my “Rent” obsession, I made my aunt see the show. “That’s so depressing!” she wailed afterward. “No it isn’t!” I insisted. She looked at me like I was crazy.I often think of that exchange, now 14 years later. For me, the adjective “depressing” never fit this musical, which was about so much more than its tragedies: a generation fighting AIDS, poverty, gentrification and the everyday drama and griefs of those 525,600 minutes that make a year.On Tuesday night the New York Theater Workshop hosted “25 Years of Rent: Measured in Love,” a virtual fund-raiser commemorating the show, which premiered there in 1996 before going on to Broadway, Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and international renown.It is well known that Larson died just before the musical’s first preview performance. So even though this was a tender, even intimate celebration, the “Rent” event, hosted by the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” contestant Olivia Lux, also embraced loss.Olivia Lux hosted the show, which was at once a documentary, a telethon and a tribute to the “Rent” composer Jonathan Larson.Credit…—-, via New York Theater Workshop“25 Years of Rent,” directed by Andy Señor, worked as a tribute to Larson, a contemporary telethon packed with stage celebs and, most touching, a documentary about the making of the beloved show. The theater summoned him back to life through archival images and footage — a broad-grinned waiter making milkshakes at the Moondance Diner; singing “Will I” on a cassette tape — as well as via recollections from friends, family, performers and the show’s director, Michael Greif.The names involved were impressive enough to light up a marquee: the original cast members Taye Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Adam Pascal and Daphne Rubin-Vega, as well as Lin-Manuel Miranda, Annaleigh Ashford, Neil Patrick Harris, Ben Platt, Anaïs Mitchell, Telly Leung and so many more.Some teared up recalling Larson’s exuberance and talents, and described the burden of carrying on with a show whose success he would never see. Of course, this is part of the tragedy of “Rent.”The saying goes that for every death in the world there’s a birth. And as “Rent” was born and grew, so did the careers of the cast members, many of whom were unknowns at the time. Anthony Rapp described working at Starbucks and auditioning with an R.E.M. song, while Idina Menzel, before jumping over the moon or defying gravity, had made a living as a bar mitzvah singer.Fredi Walker-Browne, who played Joanne in the original production, described hearing the lyric to her song “Take Me or Leave Me” for the first time.Credit…via New York Theater WorkshopThe night was also about how Larson’s work helped open people up to themselves. Fredi Walker-Browne, the original Joanne, spoke about first hearing “Take Me or Leave Me,” which Larson wrote for her and Menzel, and feeling that he laced her personality into the lyrics: “I look before I leap/I like margins and discipline/I make lists in my sleep.”Others, like Lux, hailed the show for portraying queerness and drag at a time when many productions didn’t.Winners of Jonathan Larson Grants, awarded to promising early-career musical theater artists, spoke to his legacy. And theater notables who weren’t in “Rent” at its beginnings took on pieces of the score in their own styles. Christopher Jackson’s hymnlike “One Song Glory,” Eva Noblezada’s coquettish “Out Tonight” and Billy Porter’s explosively baroque “I’ll Cover You” were standouts.Among the performers inspired by “Rent” was Billy Porter, who sang “I’ll Cover You.”Credit…via New York Theater WorkshopIf Larson’s death is one side of some karmic exchange, another side is the audiences who used — and continue to use — “Rent” to excavate some hidden part of themselves, and to inspire their own art.So much of this last year has been marked by things unmade: the people unmade by a pandemic, the innocent Black lives unmade by brutality, the planet unmade by a changing climate. My own tiny bubble of a life has gotten smaller, without the chance to see some of my closest friends and where the outside world seems newly and inexplicably dangerous.And yet in recalling the making (and remaking) of “Rent,” the event helped quiet the grief that creeps up on me every day. In the chat box next to the stream, which reached over 6,000 viewers, “Rent” fans confessed to crying; a final group rendition of “Seasons of Love” seemed to push many beyond comforting.It took me a few viewings before I could watch “Rent” without bursting into head-aching, snot-falling ugly crying, but eventually the show became my joy, my comfort. As much as Roger and Mark, a songwriter and filmmaker, hoped to make something of themselves through their art, so did I make myself — in whatever facile way — through “Rent,” using it to shape myself as an artist and an outcast and a New Yorker.At the end of “Rent,” Angel has died but the rest of the bohemians live, and Mark has finally finished his movie. You can read the signature lyric “No day but today” as fatalistic, as the characters’ existential cry, as Larson’s prescience about his sudden death.But I’ve always read “No day but today” — which gets woven into “Seasons of Love” in the show’s finale, and was this event’s final heart-rending hurrah — as a promise: Today I wake up to a new version of myself. I will be magnificent. I account for the losses of yesterday, but today? Today is alive. There’s no tragedy in that.25 Years of Rent: Measured in LoveThrough March 6; nytw.orgAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Derek DelGaudio and the Great Unburdening of Secrets

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDerek DelGaudio and the Great Unburdening of SecretsThe magician explains how he worked up to “In & Of Itself” in a new memoir, “Amoralman,” a prequel of sorts to the show.“I felt I was born with an absence of some sort, and I think that I’ve spent much of my life trying to fill that void,” said Derek DelGaudio, addressing a major theme in his new book.Credit…Calla Kessler for The New York TimesMarch 3, 2021If anything in Derek DelGaudio’s appearance and demeanor sets him apart, it’s that little sets him apart. Soft-spoken and presenting a beguiling, open face — one might call it “innocent” — the modern conjurer was unfailingly polite and forthcoming in a recent video interview.Yet DelGaudio, 36, spent two years scrambling audiences’ expectations, often bringing people to tears, in his Off Broadway show “In & Of Itself,” a feat anybody with a Hulu subscription can now experience via the documentary film of the same name.The most obviously attention-grabbing part of DelGaudio’s new memoir, “Amoralman” (Knopf), explores his six-month stint as a bust-out dealer (a sleight-of-hand expert hired to secretly favor specific players, i.e. a professional cheat) at an exclusive weekly poker game, when he was in his mid-20s.It’s a wildly entertaining, thriller-like set piece — yes, there is a gun — though, as with the show, it is shot through with heady existential queries. Plato’s cave, which involves illusion and manipulation, is a driving allegory in the book, which is also undergirded by the cultural thinker Jean Baudrillard’s theories of the relationship between reality and simulation.“Amoralman” now joins “The Matrix” in proving you can turn French philosophy into compelling entertainment. This places DelGaudio, who also makes up the conceptual duo A. Bandit with the artist Glenn Kaino, at a crossroads between favorites of the museum world like Marina Abramovic and hustlers with such names as Titanic Thompson.Performances of DelGaudio’s one-man show, “In & Of Itself,” were captured for a documentary that is available on Hulu.Credit…Hulu“After seeing the show, I concluded that Derek is not a magician, but not a performance artist either,” Abramovic, who is glimpsed in the Hulu film, wrote in an email. “He is on his own in a category he created himself. In some abstract way he reminds me of Marlon Brando. He establishes trust between the audience and himself, which allows emotions to get in. We are not looking at him; we are together with him.”Speaking via Zoom from his Manhattan home, DelGaudio explained that the new book is a sort of prequel to “In & Of Itself,” going back to his childhood with a lesbian mother, his discovery of magicians, swindlers and con men, and those nerve-racking poker nights. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.“Amoralman” is subtitled “A True Story and Other Lies,” and it features something we could call a plot twist that upends the reader’s perspective. Did those set off alarm bells with your publisher, considering the fraught history of memoirs taking liberties with facts?They were very, very uncomfortable. They said, “Have you heard of a book called ‘A Million Little Pieces’?” I hadn’t heard of that story. It’s complicated because I have a background as a magician: You think I’m going to fool you. So I use that to reveal something true that you can’t believe is true because you think that I’m here to deceive you. There’s things in the book that are so fantastical, they either couldn’t possibly be true or they could be. The answer is, they are true. But it’s the artist’s job to present them in a way that’s so fantastical, you can’t possibly believe them.Most of the time, audience members are just props in magic shows, someone to pick a card, but you go much further. How do you think of your relationship with viewers and readers?The audience are genuinely part of the equation. Despite what the movie shows, which is a very emotional arc, that was not part of it for me. I never tried to make anyone cry. I never tried to have a reaction. I just wanted to create the gestures, say the things I came to say, and let them interpret it however they want. I think that empathy is weaponized, often, especially by magicians, in a way that is not necessarily healthy or generous.A major thread in the book is your friendships with male mentors: Walter from the Colorado Springs magic shop; the virtuoso card cheat Ronnie; even Leo from the Hollywood poker games, who treats you like a son. How did they connect with your interest in magic?I felt I was born with an absence of some sort, and I think that I’ve spent much of my life trying to fill that void. That void was created by external sources: I lived in a world that told me explicitly that I’m supposed to have a father — a mother and a father. I was aware of that need to have a male influence in my life, but then there was also this feeling, a real need, to keep secrets to protect my family. So I found this very interesting world that not only was male-dominated, but it trafficked exclusively in secrets.Part of the book is about how you had to prove yourself to these guys. How tough was it?To earn my seat at their table, I had to become better than anything they had ever seen before. I felt like the kid in those samurai movies that sits on the porch for a week before he even gets led into the dojo.Do you feel the show and “Amoralman” are part of an effort to define yourself?I’ve been trying to free myself from the burden of secrets and from the burden of feeling so attached to an identity that I adopted early on in life — without even realizing that’s what I was doing — which was of a deceiver, a magician, a trickster. And trying to create work that lives up to Pierre Huyghe, Francis Alÿs, Marina with the tools that I’ve had is very, very difficult. But it’s only difficult because of perception, because of frameworks and contexts — it’s not actually the work, it’s everything around it.With the show, the film and now the book behind you, it feels as if you’re closing a chapter of your life. What are your plans?I don’t feel the need to do anything anyone’s seen me do before, and I’m excited to have that discomfort of staring into the abyss of what’s next. Maybe in 20 years I’ll reveal that I’ve been working on a show and didn’t tell you.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Making Black Lives, Not Just Black Deaths, Matter Onstage

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookMaking Black Lives, Not Just Black Deaths, Matter OnstageThe tragedy of racism is only part of the story in two very different plays from London that carry a dimension of meaning not usually seen in this country.Richard Blackwood in “Typical,” about a man who died while in police custody after a night out.Credit…Franklyn RogersPublished More

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    Theater to Stream: Star-Studded Digital Shorts and Escape Rooms

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeFall in Love: With TenorsConsider: Miniature GroceriesSpend 24 Hours: With Andra DayGet: A Wildlife CameraAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTheater to Stream: Star-Studded Digital Shorts and Escape RoomsThe past year has made us rethink the boundaries between theater and film. Many of these shows are a little bit of both.From left, Vicki Lee Taylor, Tom Bales, Marc Pickering, Ryan Pidgen and Kayleigh Thadani in a musical adaptation of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” at the Southwark Playhouse in London.Credit…Geraint LewisMarch 3, 2021It used to be easy to tell theater from film from streaming. The first was live, physical and by appointment; the others were not. But this past year has made us rethink definitions: Theater is not necessarily live or physical anymore, and film might be a little bit of both.Qui Nguyen, who is taking part in the New Ohio Theater’s NYC Indie Theater Film Festival. Credit…Bethany Mollenkof for The New York TimesIf anybody knows how to straddle the physical and virtual, it’s the playwright and screenwriter Qui Nguyen. On March 10, Nguyen, the author of the hit show “She Kills Monsters,” will participate in a Q. and A. for the New Ohio Theater’s NYC Indie Theater Film Festival — which will present over 30 pieces by theatermakers exploring new mediums. March 10-14; newohiotheatre.orgThe Young Vic in London inadvertently anticipated this change a few years ago by beginning to make digital companions to some of its shows, with crackerjack casts. Happily, they’re online for free. Directed by and starring Gillian Anderson, “The Departure” imagines Blanche DuBois in the few days before her fateful visit to Stella in “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Juliet Stevenson appears in “Mayday,” a postscript to Beckett’s “Happy Days”; while Hattie Morahan gives us a contemporary “Nora” in Carrie Cracknell and Nick Payne’s update of “A Doll’s House.” If you like Peter Brook jokes — and you well might if you are reading a column about theater — click on the dryly funny “The Roof,” whose cast includes Natalie Dormer, Noma Dumezweni, Jude Law and Ian McKellen as fans of the illustrious director. youngvic.org‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’During the past year, the Southwark Playhouse in London has emerged as a dynamic force in British theater, not letting lockdowns get in the way of new shows. After its well-received production of Philip Ridley’s “The Poltergeist,” Southwark is presenting the premiere of Richard Hough and Ben Morales Frost’s gender-flipped — and very, very loose — musical adaptation of the Goethe poem about a young inventor (now a girl, played by Mary Moore) who gets lost in magic. Through March 14; southwarkplayhouse.co.uk‘To the Moon’It’s unfortunate that Kathryn Grody has a lower professional profile than her husband, Mandy Patinkin, because she is a very fine actress in her own right. Here is a chance to watch her in action through the Creede Repertory Theater, a Colorado-based company with which Grody and Patinkin have a long history. She is slated to appear in Beth Kander’s docu-play about survivors of domestic violence. Live on March 5 and 6, then on demand March 15 through April 11; creederep.orgKathleen Chalfant, the star of “The Year of Magical Thinking.”Credit…Marc Deliz‘The Year of Magical Thinking’The pandemic has seen a surge in solo shows, for obvious reasons. Joan Didion’s adaptation of her memoir was a Broadway hit in 2007, starring Vanessa Redgrave. Now, Kathleen Chalfant tackles this haunting evocation of grief in a fund-raiser for the Keen Company. March 13-17; keencompany.orgFrom left, Saffron Coomber, Clare Perkins and Adelle Leonce in “Emilia.”Credit…Helen Murray‘Emilia’A recording of Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s “chiaroscuro fantasy of a bio-play,” as The New York Times put it last year, is available again. The Olivier Award-winning comedy is set in the Elizabethan theater scene, where men played women — except here women play the men playing the women, opening up a whole bunch of new opportunities. Through March 31; emilialive.comMax Chernin, center, in “Passing Through.”Credit…Diane Sobolewski‘Passing Through’Goodspeed, a company in Connecticut, is among the greatest champions of American musicals old and new, and it has finally set up an on-demand arm to offer archival recordings of its past productions. The first is this capture of the 2019 developmental production of Brett Ryback and Eric Ulloa’s show about a young man (Max Chernin) who walks from Pennsylvania to California. March 15 through April 4; goodspeed.orgTwo Playwrights Go CampingFood for Thought Productions continues its run at Theater 80 St. Marks with a double bill that should be catnip to connoisseurs of theatrical camp. The program includes the Tennessee Williams one-act comedy “Lifeboat Drill,” set on the Queen Elizabeth II, and Christopher Durang’s “For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls,” a wicked parody of “The Glass Menagerie” in which Laura becomes Lawrence, who collects glass swizzle sticks. Durang and the actress Carroll Baker are expected to turn up for a post-show Q. and A. March 8 and 13-14; foodforthoughtproductions.comPhoebe Hyder in “Dream.”Credit…Stuart Martin, via RSCInteractive ExperiencesAfter its concert of the 1930s Broadway flop “Swingin’ the Dream,” the Royal Shakespeare Company is involved in another experiment inspired by “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” A multimedia, choose-your-own-narrative, high-concept show — in other words, it’s unclear how this will look — “Dream” is led by Puck and the Sprites and involves motion-capture technology, as well as a score including the Gestrument, an app that allows for composition through movement. March 12-20; dream.onlineThe New York-based playwright Aya Ogawa’s 2015 play “Ludic Proxy” dealt with virtual reality and incorporated polling. And now Ogawa has adapted part of it for the new “Ludic Proxy: Fukushima,” presented by the Japan Society and PlayCo, with the audience polling conducted online. Live on March 6, 7 and 11, then on-demand March 12-26; japansociety.orgBathsheba Piepe in “Plymouth Point.”Credit…Matt HassThe London Stone TrilogySwamp Motel’s Clem Garritty and Ollie Jones (of Punchdrunk, the immersive-theater company behind “Sleep No More”) have created a tripartite project that is not so much theater as theatrical experience — think virtual escape room, but with actor Dominic Monaghan. In “Plymouth Point,” you and your friends must unravel a sprawling, maleficent conspiracy by summoning all your combined wits and the internet’s resources to crack passwords, solve riddles and search social media. (Full disclosure: My bumbling team put on a display of pitiful detective skills. Who would have thought watching hundreds of hours of cop shows could be so useless?) The next installments, “The Mermaid’s Tongue” and “The Kindling Hour,” will be available in the United States soon. You can already do the British versions; but they are live, so just keep the time difference in mind. plymouthpoint.co.ukAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Jimmy Kimmel Skewers Andrew Cuomo Over Sexual Harassment Allegations

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBest of Late NightJimmy Kimmel Skewers Andrew Cuomo Over Sexual Harassment Allegations“In the span of one month, Andrew Cuomo has somehow done the impossible: He made Bill de Blasio the second-most-hated politician in New York,” Kimmel said.“And the craziest part is there’s a photo of it,” Jimmy Kimmel said of a woman’s allegation that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York made an unwanted advance at a wedding. “Very rarely does a wedding photographer capture anything interesting at all, but this one did.”Credit…ABCMarch 3, 2021, 2:16 a.m. ETWelcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. We’re all stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.The Opposite of ‘I Do’On Monday, a third woman accused Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York of sexual harassment, saying he made an unwanted advance on her at a wedding in 2019.“And the craziest part is there’s a photo of it,” Jimmy Kimmel said. “Very rarely does a wedding photographer capture anything interesting at all, but this one did.”“In the span of one month, Andrew Cuomo has somehow done the impossible: He made Bill de Blasio the second-most-hated politician in New York.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Sweet Jesus, man, what are you doing? I mean, on the one hand, asking a woman for consent before you kiss them is what you’re supposed to do. But the other part of consent is waiting for them to answer. You don’t just grab them by the face like a bear yanking on a beehive.” — TREVOR NOAH“And it’s not like this happened in 1992, and he could be like, ‘Well, it was a different time.’ This was in 2019. If you’re a public official doing this kind of thing after the #MeToo movement, either you just can’t help yourself, or you’re so dumb you shouldn’t be in office anyway.” — TREVOR NOAH“So now I want to know, was he doing this the whole night, you know? Are the bride and groom going to be looking at their wedding photos like, ‘Aw, honey! Here’s the picture of you smearing the cake on my face. Oh, and there’s the one of Governor Cuomo licking it off.’” — TREVOR NOAH“So in light of these allegations, Cuomo is now facing even more calls to resign. Although, if these allegations prove anything, it’s that Cuomo doesn’t go away when you want him to.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Horton Sees a Problem Edition)“Wow, OK, so what? We’re just going to cancel Dr. Seuss books just because they’re racist? Uh, then what are the racist kids going to read, huh? You didn’t think of that, did you?” — TREVOR NOAH, on Dr. Seuss Enterprises ceasing publication of six Dr. Seuss books because of offensive imagery“And I can understand why they’re pulling a small number of his books. ‘If I Ran the Zoo’ shows racist depictions of Asian characters, saying they’re ‘from countries no one can spell.’ So, ‘China,’ too difficult to spell, but ‘Solla Sollew’? Spelled like it sounds.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The real problem with Dr. Seuss is that all of his made-up words sound like they could be racial slurs. I mean, ‘a Zelf on the Shelf’? ‘The Nupboards in the cupboards’? [expletive], I don’t know what that means, but if a white person called me a Nupboard, we’re throwing down.” — TREVOR NOAH“But still, there may be room for compromise here. Like maybe instead of getting rid of the books completely, they can just update the imagery. For example, take that offensive drawing of the two African men, and put it in a Tucker Carlson thought bubble. That way we all understand, ‘Ah, this is racist.’” — TREVOR NOAH“And not only are they pulling some books out of print, they’re also tweaking some of the books that are in print to make them more inclusive. For instance, we now have ‘The Cat in the Problematic Headdress,’ ‘How the Grinch Appropriated Native American Culture,’ ‘Hop on Pop, With His Consent,’ ‘Horton Hears a They,’ ‘Horton Hears a Misogynist Joke and Reports It to H.R.,’ ‘There’s a Wocket in My Ethically Sourced Sustainable Pocket,’ ‘No Eggs or Ham’ — that’s a vegan thing, I guess — and ‘Yertle the Gender-Fluid Turtle, and Other Stories.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“There hadn’t been an earth-shattering outcry, but they recognized the impact that these images might have on readers, especially kids, and they’re trying to fix it, because Dr. Seuss books should be fun for all people: Black, white, straight, gay, Sneetches — both star-bellied and plain — Loraxes, Barbaloots, all the Whos down in Whoville, and the strange angry creature named Foo-Foo the Snoo.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“And it’s especially important to be responsive like this, because Dr. Seuss has also so many books that are lovely and teach vital lessons that resonate to this day. ‘Horton Hears a Who’ is about listening to underrepresented voices. ‘The Butter Battle Book’ teaches tolerance. ‘The Lorax’ teaches environmental ethics. And ‘Hop on Pop’ warns against the dangers of pop-hopping. The next thing that pops might be his aorta.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingAmber Ruffin, a writer on “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” couldn’t get over Texas’s latest troubles and the Free Britney movement in Tuesday night’s “Amber Says What.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightElizabeth Olsen from the Disney+ series “WandaVision” will sit down with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutSue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 movie “Lolita.”Credit…MGMThe actress and screenwriter Emily Mortimer contemplated “Lolita” and its notorious ability to escape obscenity laws.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Now You See It: A Magician’s Memoir Promises Truth and Other Lies

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to ReadNew Books to Watch For This Month25 Book Review GreatsNew in PaperbackListen: The Book Review PodcastAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNonfictionNow You See It: A Magician’s Memoir Promises Truth and Other Lies“My mother had taught me the value of truth,” the magician Derek DelGaudio writes in “Amoralman,” his memoir, “but she neglected to teach me the cost.”Credit…Calla Kessler for The New York TimesAmazonApple BooksBarnes and NobleBooks-A-MillionBookshopIndieboundWhen you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.March 2, 2021AMORALMANA True Story and Other LiesBy Derek DelGaudioLying is ubiquitous. Why should it be otherwise? There are far more reasons to lie than to tell the truth. Isn’t lying beneficial? Often, it is. And the importance of truth-telling — is it a fiction we tell ourselves? A fairy tale? A form of self-deception? Our original lie?And yet we have this absurd belief that we are truth-tellers, or at least that we’re capable of occasionally telling the truth.In “Amoralman,” Derek DelGaudio’s masterly memoiristic account of lying and self-deception, we start life fully capable of truth-telling. Man in the state of nature or in infancy (take your pick) revels in telling the truth to others. In his epigraph DelGaudio — a sleight-of-hand artist and stage performer — quotes Ecclesiastes: “We are born knowing only truth. Then we see.” Maybe we retain this ability later in life. But it seems unlikely. We may know the truth, but quickly realize no good can come of it. So we give up on it.“Amoralman” offers up successive parables. Central among them is the parable of the cave from Plato’s “Republic.” In the parable, men are in shackles. They can turn neither to the left nor to the right, nor can they look behind them. They spend their lives looking at the shadows of things — not the things in and of themselves. (Not so coincidentally, the title of DelGaudio’s Off Broadway play and its subsequent screen adaptation is “In & Of Itself.”) They are prevented from seeing the truth and when shown the things in their real and substantial form, prefer to return to shadows and shackles. It is summed up in DelGaudio’s maxim: “I lost sight of reality just enough to glimpse the truth.”The book is in two parts. The first part, a bildungsroman, introduces DelGaudio’s family, his mother’s lesbian lover, Jill, and then Ryan, the boy next door. Their Colorado neighborhood comprises two different religious groups: conservative Christians and ultraconservative Christians. Ryan and his family are members of the latter. DelGaudio’s happy childhood is permanently interrupted when he tells Ryan about having two mothers. “My mother had taught me the value of truth, but she neglected to teach me the cost,” he writes. “She told me that honesty was always the best policy, but now I had evidence to the contrary.”The second part of the book is an extended poker game. Hired to cheat others, DelGaudio imagines he’s in control. After all, he’s the one involved in false dealing. It turns out differently than he might have expected.This is a story of unending ironies and misconceptions. That which we expected to be the truth is a lie, or at least a partial fiction. Anecdotes could be true, but falsely attributed. Intentions could be and are misrepresented or misunderstood. Good guys turn out to be bad guys and vice versa. And the purpose of magic and sleight-of-hand in such a universe? It goes back to Plato’s cave, which reminds us that things are always different than they seem. We misunderstand context. We confuse shadowy representations for the things in and of themselves. We live in a shadowy, fictional world.DelGaudio believed when he was a boy that the puppeteers in Plato’s cave were trying to dupe the prisoners. But he couldn’t answer why. By the end of his story, he realizes that the puppeteers may have been themselves deceived. And yet, grafted onto what might at first seem like a despairing vision — a vision I would not be at all unsympathetic toward — is a belief that life is not less than what it seems, but more. We are limited by how we see ourselves, and once we shed those blinders the possibilities are endless. Once we realize we are all slaves dealing in a world of shadows, we can imagine (or even confront) almost infinite possibility. So, is this ultimately about deception? Or is it about truth?Why not both? “I am not interested in fooling people,” DelGaudio tells us. “It’s about truth. To know illusions is to know reality. … I want to be the prisoner that returns to the cave.” He imagines an escapee who “picks up the tools of the puppeteer and teaches himself to cast shadows, with the hope of using those illusions to set the others free.”His deepest epiphany comes when he realizes that the game of duplicity that he’s running is being run on him. He is duping others, but he is also duping himself. Like Plato’s cave, nothing is as it seems.“Amoralman” can be seen as a series of illustrations about how we deceive ourselves into believing that whatever we’re doing is right and good. There’s the sense that the only thing we can be certain of is that we’re being deceived. But also, that the real Amoralman, the most amoral man of all, is ourselves.There is a much-told anecdote sometimes attributed to William James. It concerns the little old lady who on being told that the Earth revolves around the sun, said, “I’ve got a better theory.”“And what is that, madam?” inquired James politely.“That we live on a crust of earth which is on the back of a giant turtle.”“If your theory is correct, madam,” he asked, “what does this turtle stand on?”“You’re a very clever man, Mr. James, and that’s a very good question,” the little old lady replied, “but I have an answer to it. The first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger, turtle, who stands directly under him.”“But what does this second turtle stand on?” asked James.To this, the little old lady replied, “Oh, Mr. James — it’s turtles all the way down.”In DelGaudio it is turtles all the way down. Turtles on top of turtles on top of more turtles without surcease. Certainty leads to uncertainty and then more uncertainty.For me, the shadow of Ricky Jay runs through much of this. Ricky was a friend of mine, a master magician, an incredible archivist and raconteur. DelGaudio is a less misanthropic version of Ricky. Not necessarily nicer, but less misanthropic. What we don’t know about man doesn’t lead us into a pit of despair, but perhaps to a future of enlightenment and to greater possibility. We are opening our eyes not to slavery but to infinite possibility. Such an optimistic vision almost gives me the heebie-jeebies. But it’s the end of the Trump era, and we deserve to turn over a new leaf, no?In the first part of the book, there’s an exchange between DelGaudio and his mother where he tells her he wants to be a Christian. Then he learns that Christianity can be as much about intolerance as about forgiveness. But there’s this additional irony in DelGaudio’s presentation of himself. At times he seems like a Pentecostal revivalist. He often has the air of a disappointed true-believer. This is the stuff not of nihilism, but of someone searching for true belief. Perhaps searching for something beyond belief.It reminds me of one of my favorite lines in literature — the last line of Huysmans’s “À Rebours”: “O Lord, pity the Christian who doubts, the skeptic who would believe, the convict of life embarking alone in the night, under a sky no longer illumined by the consoling beacons of ancient faith.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    in Television

    Late Night Recaps CPAC and the Golden Globes

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBest of Late NightLate Night Recaps CPAC and the Golden GlobesThe conference was billed as the largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world, Stephen Colbert said on Monday. “That’s if you don’t count their last gathering” at the Capitol. “It was a Murderers’ Row of people who were OK with Mike Pence being murdered,” Stephen Colbert said of the CPAC lineup.Credit…CBSMarch 2, 2021Updated 3:00 a.m. ETWelcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. We’re all stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.PAC of LiesThe hosts shared some of their favorite bits from the weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual assembly of the American right. Among the featured speakers was former President Donald Trump, who attacked his successor and insisted that he won the 2020 election. “This weekend was the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, billed as ‘the largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world.’ That’s if you don’t count their last gathering.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I watched CPAC and ‘WandaVision’ this weekend, and I’m not sure which characters are living in a more warped reality.” — TREVOR NOAH“South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem attacked Anthony Fauci, Representative Matt Gaetz attacked Mr. Potato Head, and the C.E.O. of Goya Beans said Donald Trump is still the ‘real, legitimate and actual president of the United States.’ Now he can get away with saying that because what are you going to do — buy generic black beans?” — TREVOR NOAH“It was a Murderers’ Row of people who were OK with Mike Pence being murdered.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The headliner of the weekend was the former president. His speech was pretty light on substance and energy, but there was one major revelation: He told the audience that he would not start a third party. Of course he isn’t going to start a new political party — he already owns one.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yep, it was 90 minutes of rambling followed by Trump supporters storming Epcot.” — JIMMY FALLON“Trump said ‘Did you miss me?’ which is literally what every movie villain says when they come back.” — JAMES CORDEN“As you would expect, the crowd to see Trump was very white. They basically made the Hollywood Foreign Press look like the cast of ‘One Night in Miami.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Golden Globes At Home Edition)“The Golden Globes are the opposite of CPAC in every way, except for they don’t have any Black people on the board. That’s what they have in common — otherwise they are very different.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You know you’ve got representation problems when the Proud Boys have more Black members than you.” — TREVOR NOAH“Explains why in past years they’ve given Golden Globes to ‘Green Book’ and Hellman’s.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It was kind of fun to see where celebrities set up their zoom. Some were in their living room, others were in their study — Jeff Daniels was in the door section of Home Depot, apparently.” — JIMMY FALLON“You know, some celebrities spend their money on fancy cars and jewelry; Jeff Daniels spends his money on doors. I respect the hell out of that.” — TREVOR NOAH“This year’s looks ran the gamut from Cynthia Erivo in Valentino and Nicole Kidman in Louis Vuitton all the way to Jason Sudeikis in tie-dye hoodie. You can shop Jason Sudeikis’s look by digging into the bottom of your hamper and then taking that edible you’ve been saving for an emergency.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The 78th Golden Globe Awards were held last night after being delayed for nearly two months by the coronavirus pandemic, though you didn’t have to wait the whole two months in front of your computer, Al Pacino.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Fallon and John Legend performed their timely new tune “March Again” on “The Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe comedian and actor Fortune Feimster will appear on Tuesday’s “A Little Late With Lilly Singh.”Also, Check This Out“Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell” is mainly a prehistory of the Notorious B.I.G.Credit…NetflixA new Netflix documentary chronicles Christopher Wallace’s rise from the streets to becoming the rapper Biggie Smalls, otherwise known as the Notorious B.I.G.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More