Tableau Your Mind's 200th Post!

It took a little under two years to make it happen, but Tableau Your Mind has finally reached its 200th blog post. You're reading it RIGHT NOW! They say it only takes a person 16-21 times to make doing something into a habit, and it definitely feels like, after 200 posts, we have moved beyond "habit" and into "psychopathic fanaticism." Over these 200 labors of like, we have written about topics covering all elements of popular culture, including food, movies, music, television, and so much more. We've done posts on Hollywood "It" Couples, Hipster Babies, and Pedophilia in Film. We've compared the stars of Tangled and Salt and looked at what would happen if Mr. Feeny suffered a "Wardrobe Malfunction." We've doted on 30 Rock, Kristen Bell, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, and Batman, and hated on Kristen Stewart, Slow Motion in Indie Movies, and Easy Mac. We've even learned how to pronounce Gotye, just in time for him to become culturally irrelevant. We really wouldn't believe that there were 200 posts if it weren't for the photographic evidence:

Hanging Out With Tina Fey

...or, rather, hanging out in close proximity to Tina Fey. That was the wonder experienced by Tableau Your Mind when I went to the Delacorte Theater in Central Park to see Stephen Sondheim's Into The Woods. Since the musical doesn't open until today, I don't want to dwell on the show (the three leads are great, Amy Adams' comedic timing is a little off, the metaphors can be a little heavy-handed but the musical is nonetheless beautiful, etc.). Instead, I want to dwell on the amazingness of an actual sighting of Tina Fey, TV's most prominent female comedian and showrunner as well as a woman who shies away from public appearances. Because she's just like us!

It all happened because I Don't Feel Bad About It happened to use the restroom at the same time as her. I, on the other hand, shared a restroom with the guy who wrote Hair, who I assumed was a homeless person. Anyway, it's incredible the excitement that a public sighting of Tina Fey elicits. Not just in me, but in everyone around her. Vendors she spoke to, women she passed on the way to her seat, ticket takers, little boys and girls in glasses who wanted a picture with her. Obviously, I knew all of this because I was passively stalking her. Which was easy, since I was sitting 4 rows behind her for the entire 3 hour show.

PROOF

I felt like Greta on 30 Rock, when she tells Liz Lemon that 'I know how much you like TV. Sometimes I watch you watching it.' There I was, sitting in Central Park, with Donna Murphy and Denis O'Hare acting up a storm in front of me. And I was watching Tina Fey watching it. After a few minutes I turned away, afraid of the stalker I'd become. And as I did so, I saw at least fifteen other people do the exact same thing, the moment of creepazoid clarity occurring at the same time, like how those two dudes invented calculus simultaneously. We were suddenly aware of our own voyeuristic tendencies, and it was just as terrible as calculus. Worse, maybe.

It's a weird culture we've built, that's for sure.

Music Review: Ethan Lipton + His Orchestra

Ethan Lipton

Ethan Lipton and His Orchestra had their first of four performances at Joe's Pub as part of the Pub's new initiative to commission works that represent the Joe's Pub audience and the Joe's Pub artists (original, varied, eccentric, amazing). This initiative, sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts and appropriately titled the New York Voices series, kicked off with shows by Toshi Reagon and Lady Rizo, continues with Ethan Lipton and His Orchestra.

I'm a little biased in this review, as I un-apologetically love Joe's Pub, its director Shanta Thake, and Ethan Lipton and His

Theater Review: Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark

Day-Breaker: Sassy as all get out

There has been a maelstrom of rumors, delays, injuries and unbridled creativity swirling around the production of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. And with each new writer spat, bone break, and opening delay, our anticipation level of the most Crap-tacular musical of all time has risen (like the tide during a maelstrom, if you want to continue the analogy). So, when Guest Blogger Day-Breaker had a chance to attend said musical, we here at Tableau Your Mind couldn’t pass up the opportunity to ask her how it went. Here, without editing or restraint, is her review:

Theater Review: The Motherf**ker With The Hat

Who is the Motherf**ker who left a hat in Veronica's apartment (and, by extension, who is f**king Veronica)? This is the question that sets up the action in THE MOTHERF**KER WITH THE HAT, the Stephen Adly Guirgis-written and Anna D. Shapiro-helmed play which opened tonight at the Shoenfeld.  It's a quick, breathless ride that carries with it themes of infidelity, alcoholism and addiction, the limits and rules of friendship, and the trials and tribulations