Ephemerality

As [director] Lonny Price always says to me, Musicals have to be ‘north of the floor.’ The reason people sing must be larger than life. Musicals have to raise you up, there’s an emotional lift they have to bring you. You have to say, Yes, this sings. This is a musical. People give me stuff all the time and say, ‘I want to make a musical out of this.’ Most of the time, I don’t agree. I’m always saying ‘Metaphor, metaphor!’ The lyrics aren’t ‘Look how old we are,’ the lyric is ‘Send in the clowns.’ Imagery that illuminates a character in a wonderful way — imagery you can sing. It’s ‘defying gravity’ not ‘I’m hoping I can fly and can get off the ground.’ I hate the expression ‘a hook,’ but … It’s not a hook, it’s a metaphor. Something poetic that takes the emotional state of the character and lifts it into song.

—Robyn Goodman, producer (‘Avenue Q,’ the upcoming reimagining of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Cinderella’)

(Source: vulture.com, via dumloud)

This possibility was not flattering to me; it was terrifying. There were other things a guy could think I was, and he wouldn’t be entirely wrong - nice, or loyal, or maybe interesting. Not that I was always any of those thing, but in certain situations, it was conceivable. But to be seen as pretty was to be fundamentally misunderstood. First of all, I wasn’t pretty, and on top of that I didn’t take care of myself like a pretty girl did; I wasn’t even one of the unpretty girls who passes as pretty through effort and association. If a guy believed my value to lie in my looks, it meant either that he’d somehow been mislead and would eventually be disappointed, or that he had very low standards.

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Curtis Sittenfeld, Prep

(via diamondsummer)

‎Don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit, things that are easy, things that are free, things that you can do every day. Civility, respect, kindness, character. You’re too good for schadenfreude, you’re too good for gossip and snark, you’re too good for intolerance, and you’re too good to think people who disagree with you are your enemy.

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Aaron Sorkin, 158th Syracuse University Commencement (via notabadday)

(whole speech here)

(Source: jilliangetsripped, via hopefulvoice)