Who is Alison Sheehy? Beats the hell out of Bloomblog. But we do know that, though she receives credit for it, Ms. Sheehy did not take the photograph (right over there on the left) of Smoking Bloomberg's smashing lead Jiyhen Park that takes up nearly half of the NYMF preview article page in Time Out New York magazine. We don't mean to be churlish--after all, it's hard to buy publicity like this (though a certain Mayor could surely buy it, and more). It's just that the photo was in fact taken by a member of the Bloomblog staff, and he desperately needs the credit to beef up his barren photographer's resume, which currently consists of nothing but worthless candids of Suri Cruise and Thomas Pynchon.
Meanwhie, in other publicity news, the Fall Arts Preview in the Sunday September 10th New York Times features two brief blurbs about NYMF, neither of which has the common courtesy to mention that Smoking Bloomberg "is anticipated to be a favorite at the third annual New York Musical Theatre Festival, the country's largest showcase for independent musicals" (how do we know as much? Because it says so in the September 6-12 Village Voice, right there on page 50!) Given that the Times has not exactly covered itself in glory these past few years (Miller, timing), Bloomblog will let the slight slip. And the Times giveth even as it taketh away: the Magazine arriving with the paper on the 10th features a lengthy article called "The Bloomberg Vista" (with photos credited to one Dan Winters--will the injustice never cease?) on the Mayor's plans for lower Manhattan. This article cries out to be the basis for yet another Bloomblog Quiz, but alas we're not going to come up with one right now because we don't have the: a) time; b) gumption; c) requisite wit; or d) all of the above.
Okay, so this is a little embarassing. We recently made a very public announcement that we were writing Stuart Loeser, Mayor Bloomberg's press secretary, into SMOKING BLOOMBERG. Which we did. Really. There was a lovely little scene where Kim tried to get past Stu to get into City Hall, and Stu kept reading irrelevant doublespeak off of note cards, and they went back and forth, and Kim finally grabbed the note cards, and Stu was completely lost without them, and he turned into a golem-like mess and sort of slithered off. Brilliant, right?
As I said, we told Mr. Loeser that we wrote him into the show, and I have no doubt that he's since been gloating all over town--I can't actually confirm this, as we move in slightly different circles--but he probably told his parents, and that cute girl he's been eyeing in the cafeteria, and I'm sure he mentioned it to some of the City Hall press corps, and he's most likely been exercising a bit so he looks good for opening night, and he's maybe lost a couple of pounds, and he had his tux brought in a little so it would fit the new, slimmer and soon-to-be dramatized Stuart Loeser.
All of this is why I'm extremely sad to report that, ahem, we... gulp... well, we had to cut the scene. I know, I know, we feel absolutely terrible about it, but it just wasn't working. Why not, you're asking? Perhaps, you might think, the scene disrupted the flow of the story and felt like padding or some obscure inside joke for the writers. That would be a reasonable assumption, as that kind of thing happens all the time, but I'm sorry to say, that wasn't it.
Okay, then maybe it was the actors, you propose. Maybe no one could possibly tap into the enigmatic essence, the complicated simplicity of that beacon of humanity that is Stuart Loeser. Unfortunately, wrong again. We've got top notch actors who can tap into humanity beacons like nobody's business.
So, why then? Why couldn't we make the thing work? Why do we have to go back on our word? Well, the truth is, and I know this is going to sound callous, but I blame Stu. No, no, hear me out. To our deepest dismay, it seems that Stuart Loeser is, quite unfortunately, 100% dramatically inert. It's true. But don't let that hurt your feelings, Stu. Some of history's greatest men were lions in reality, but shrivel when dramatized. Think Antony van Leeuwenhoek or Spiro Agnew. Great men, both, but you can't put them in a musical. So, you're in good company, Stu.
Now we had also said that we would comp Stuart a ticket, and even though we sold out so quickly--no, not like that--and he has made no overtures to accept our most generous invitation, we are going to keep that promise. So once again, we're very sorry about cutting you, Stu. But just let us know when you plan to attend.
Oh, and would you mind bringing Mayor Bloomberg?
That's right. We're total sell-outs. No, not like this. Or this. Or even like this.
No, no, no. We sold out our entire NYMF run in about 48 hours.
Oh, and be sure to check out this article in Time Out New York this week, which features SMOKING BLOOMBERG and a great picture of our lovely leading lady, Jihyen Park, with a bunch of cigarettes in her mouth.
The article will really make you want to see the show, but I hope you have tickets already, since we're sold out. No, not like this. Like this. But on a slightly different scale.
But first: did we mention that tickets are ON SALE NOW? For only $23.50 each (including service charge)?
And speaking of large sums of money, on to the matter at hand...
Unwitting cog in our mammoth media marketing machine, Rolling Stone magazine has published an extensive profile of guess who in its September 7th issue. A quiz based on the article follows. You can test your powers of precognition by taking the quiz before reading the article; test your powers of cognition by taking the quiz after reading the article; or skip both the article and the quiz in favor of doing something more productive (or this is good too).
#1. Mayor Bloomberg said the following when asked if he's ever smoked pot:
#2. Which of the following is NOT the dollar value of one of Mayor Bloomberg's homes:
#3. Which of the following does Mayor Bloomberg consider a greater risk to the lives of Americans than terrorism? [more than one answer may apply]
#4. How does Bloomberg feel about being a Republican?
#5. The large, wall-free City Hall space where Bloomberg and most of his staff work in open cubicles and at long, shared desks is known as:
#6. Which of the following large-scale, visionary initiatives has Bloomberg failed to achieve since taking office?
#7. BONUS QUESTION: Why were there only six questions on this quiz?
Answer Key. The answers to most quizzes are printed upside-down, but that appears to be beyond the technological (not to mention intellectual) capabilities of The Bloomblog. However, laptop computer users can pretend the answers are printed upside-down by inverting their laptops--a good idea anyway if you happen to own a Dell or Apple laptop with Sony-manufactured batteries, since the searing flames from the exploding batteries in these machines will now shoot harmlessly into the air above you instead of shooting harmfully into your groin.
The answers: #1 [1]; #2 [4]; #3 [2,4 & 6]; #4 [5]; #5 [2]; #6 [1, 2 &--so far as we know--3]; #7 [because the are only six performances of Smoking Bloomberg during the New York Musical Theatre Festival--better get your tickets while you can]
Carcinogen of the Week is back in full effect, and our resident scientist, Dr. Andrew, has whipped up a doozy for us. There's lots of juicy info here, although the doctor strangely makes no mention of the italicized and bracketed letter a in the middle of the name: benzo[a]pyrene. Perhaps the years he spent in a lab studying slime molds and fudging results to make evolution look valid--I'm a young-earther, myself--have blinded him to the fact that non-scientists tend not to insert differently-fonted parentheticals in the middle of the names of things.
It is kind of stylish, though. In fact, from now on I think I'm going to go by W[a]rren.
Benzo[a]pyrene
The first known chemical carcinogen, benzo[a]pyrene was originally isolated from coal tar, and it is one of the many polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) found in cigarette smoke. PAHs are formed during the incomplete burning of coal, oil, gas or other organic substances, including tobacco or charbroiled meat. The chemical formula of benzo[a]pyrene is C20H12, and its molecular weight is 252.31 g/mol.
Role in carcinogenesis
Strong evidence for the role of benzo[a]pyrene in the development of lung cancer comes from the in vitro examination of bulky adduct formation along exons of the p53 tumor suppressor gene.1 The formation of benzo[a]pyrene diol epoxide (BPDE) adducts in BPDE-treated HeLa cells and bronchial epithelial cells occurs preferentially at guanine residues in codons 157, 248, and 273; these same positions are the known major p53 mutational hotspots observed in human lung cancers. This evidence provides a direct etiological link between a component of cigarette smoke and the occurrence of human cancer.
Recent studies have also revealed that levels of benzo[a]pyrene in burnt toast are significantly higher than once thought, although it is unproven whether burnt toast is itself carcinogenic.
1 Denissenko MF, Pao A, Tang M, Pfeifer GP. Preferential formation of benzo[a]pyrene adducts at lung cancer mutational hotspots in P53. Science. 1996;274:430-432.
For those of you who missed the musical YODUK STORY in its South Korean run earlier this year, we have good news. It's coming to the US!
This not-to-be-missed tale of torture, death and redemption in North Korea's most famous prison camp will play 10 performances at the National Theatre in Washington D.C before it heads out on tour. Don't worry, it's making a stop in New York.
As Sam mentioned in a previous post, musicals are very hard to write. YODUK sounds especially tough since writer-director Jung Sung San had to put up his kidney for collateral to get a black-market loan in order to finance his production. His kidney!!! Hopefully, it won't come to that with SMOKING BLOOMBERG, but I would like to take this opportunity to say "Not it!!" to the other writers.
At any rate, we haven't been this excited about a new musical since Saddam Hussein's anti-Zionist, song-and-dance extravaganza ZABIBA AND THE KING, based on his novel of the same title.
Need we say more?
First it's palm trees that are out to get him, and now this. The Glasgow, Scotland, City Council is investigating allegations that Keith Richards smoked on stage during a recent Rolling Stones gig. This would put him in violation of a ban on smoking in public places that took effect throughout Scotland on March 26 of this year. (Why do these bans always go into effect in March?) The ban has also led to controversy over an actor's portrayal of Winston Churchill on stage. (We can relate: two and half weeks away from Smoking Bloomberg's first performance, and we're as yet uncertain whether or not smoking will be allowed on stage during the show. We'll keep you posted. And by the way did you know the theater for our NYMF performances is in a church? Truly we are nearing the End of Days.)
We also learn from the BBC article detailing the above that the acronym of a group opposed to the smoking ban is FOREST, while that for a group supportive of the ban is ASH. Smokey Bear can't be happy about that.
Meanwhile, also across the pond, it seems the British branch of Turner Broadcasting is going to go through old Hanna-Barbera cartoons and edit out any "cool" depictions of smoking (that is, "good" characters smoking, which is bad because they're role models and we all know that kids do absolutely everything they see cartoon animals doing). This action is being undertaken due to a single complaint from a single anonymous viewer. Emboldened by the effectiveness of this single voice, Bloomblog has placed a call to the FCC asking that all traces of Ann Coulter be removed from the airwaves.
Musicals are hard work. They're hard. Hard work. Really hard. The version of Smoking Bloomberg you'll see at the New York Musical Theatre Festival is only the latest in a long and arduous--i.e., hard--line of drafts, many of which sucked and many of which sucked even more. Along the way, inevitably, favorite lines and moments have been sacrificed for the sake of clarity, plot and character changes, and offensiveness (too much or not enough--you be The Decider). One hates to see them go to waste, so here, in a perhaps never-to-recur recurring Bloomblog feature, is but one favorite lost line, the context of which we leave to your imagination:
"Smells like brisket."
Kim, the dry-cleaning heroine (is there any other kind?) of our show, knows from dictators. Before escaping to America to pursue the American dream as an American alongside other Americans pursuing the American dream, she lived under the regime of the missile-launching, movie-loving, pompadour-sporting Kim Jong-Il. America being a democracy and all, Kim naturally believes she is free of dictators and their axis-of-evil habits of seflishness, repression and unaccountability. But are there dictators here in Kim's U.S. of A. as well? Are we all dictators? And most importantly, are YOU a dictator?
Well, are you? To answer that question and put your mind at peace (or war), Bloomblog presents the following quiz. Please have a #2 pencil handy, and don't drop it. (That's an inside joke--you'll have to see the show to get it. Go buy tickets. Now.) (The author of the preceding parenthetical is definitely a dictator.) And you must answer all questions or the quiz will have as little credibility as Pluto's planethood.
THE OFFICIAL SMOKING BLOOMBERG "ARE YOU A DICTATOR?" QUIZ
Please choose only one answer for each question.
1) Will you accept the results of this quiz as a fair indication of whether or not you're a dictator?
a) Yes.
b) No.
And...pencils down, please.
Scoring:
--If you chose A, subtract 100 points from your life, assume a prostrate position, and never pass Go. No Dear Leader are you!
--If you chose B, Congratulations: You're a Dictator! (Just like the song says you are!) To celebrate, we recommend buying a ranch and clearing some brush. And why not light up a cigar while you're at it? (Another inside reference which you'll have to see the show to get. Go buy tickets. Now.)
We've been stewing over Stewie for a few days. For those who need a reminder, Stuart Loeser is Bloomberg's press secretary who had this to say in the recent NY Sun article:
"The mayor doesn't have that much time to go to the theater in the first place, and I don't think he's going to be spending the limited time he has at this play."
Blast, we thought. How can we get past this City Hall Cerberus?
Now we read Freakonomics, and if there's one thing we learned it's that Roe v. Wade just might be responsible for the drastic decrease in inner-city crime rates. Unfortunately, that's horribly controversial and utterly inapplicable to our present problem. But, diligent readers that we are, we actually learned TWO things from Freakonomics, and the second thing had something to do with incentives.
So we set about turning incentive into a verb, and after a few hours we came up with incentivize. Okay, great. Then we started brainstorming about how to do just that--incentivize Mr. Loeser. Think, we thought. What does a guy like Stuart Loeser want? But to answer that, we needed to know what kind of guy Stuart is.
We turned to google, and what should pop up right at the top but this link to the recent NY Sun article. Scrolling further down the page, we found link after link to his brief statements re: the mayor, but no clues to the man himself. Wanting to get a clearer picture of what we're up against, we checked for an image. Nothing. And we started to feel bad for Stuart. As the mayor's press secretary, he's constantly in the news, but always as a sidenote. A mouth piece. He never gets any press himself.
Bingo. We found our incentive. Stuart, we're gonna get you some press of your very own. How?
We wrote you into our show.
That's right. Stuart Loeser is officially a character in SMOKING BLOOMBERG with a nice little scene towards the end of Act I. And even though we're not exactly rolling in dough over here at the BloomBlog, we're gonna comp your ticket as well. Surely you can't resist coming to see yourself immortalized in the annals of drama. Can you? And don't you want the mayor to know that you're more than just his spokesperson? You, Stuart Loeser, are somebody important. Someone worth dramatizing.
You're welcome. We'll see you and the mayor both on the front row.
A smoking ban in France? C'est impossible, n'est-ce pas?
It's times like this I'm glad I don't keep my car in Paris.
Hopefully it'll only take some minor revisions, and we'll be exporting SMOKING CHIRAC by January when this will potentially take affect.
Via newyorkology via gothamist, there are eight bars left in Manhattan which still officially allow smoking. Not quite enough to fuel the dry cleaning industry, but it's better than nothing. We heard rumors of a ninth bar, the Smoldering Phallus, but it's possible we just made that up for the climactic scene in our musical. Can anyone confirm?
What's up with carbon monoxide and nicotine stealing all the press from the 79 other known carcinogens in cigarette smoke? Huh? You never hear the surgeon general mentioning anything about acrylimide. Or furan or hydrozine. And who knew there was chloroform in a Camel? That's awesome. Why haven't I heard about it?
Responsible citizens that we are over here at the BloomBlog, we've contracted a scientist to give us a weekly rundown on the lesser-known poisons that allegedly kill not just smokers, but the people who hang out in bars with smokers as well. Our scientist--he asked not to be named--started out with the innocuous sounding 4-aminobiphenyl (4-ABP). But just ask the rats and mice that got subcutaneous injections of the stuff, 4-aminobiphenyl (4-ABP) is nothing to laugh about. Check it out.
Physical Properties:
Just one of the aromatic amines found in cigarette smoke, the chemical formula for 4-aminobiphenyl is C12H11N and its molecular weight is 169.22 g/mol.
Carcinogenic potential in humans:
4-Aminobiphenyl is a known human bladder carcinogen, based on epidemiological studies of occupationally exposed workers who reported a high incidence of bladder cancer.
Carcinogenic potential in animals:
4-Aminobiphenyl is carcinogenic in mice, rats, rabbits, and dogs. Bladder and liver tumors have been observed in mice, and bladder tumors have also been observed in rabbits and dogs following oral administration. Mammary gland and intestinal tumors have been reported in rats exposed by subcutaneous injection.
Mutagenicity:
Bulky adducts at guanine nucleotides are the main mutagenic product of exposure to 4-ABP and its metabolites.
Check back next week for another informative ride through the exciting world of the carcinogens in cigarette smoke.
