Starxme - Starxme

one of my favorite this american life segments of late is about the people who played orchestra pit for phantom of the opera on broadway and how, like, a sizeable majority of them had literally been playing the show since it opened in 1988 (on broadway. I know it opened in 86 on the west end, you random pedants, but I am specifically talking about broadway musicians) because their contracts stipulated that they'd have jobs throughout the show's entire run... but nobody anticipated that phantom would become the longest-running broadway show of all time.

and none of these people wanted to walk away from a guaranteed job, so very few of them ever quit. they just kept doing the same show eight nights a week... for twenty or thirty years... and by the time it finally closed last year most of these musicians (who had been working together for DECADES) hated each other and really really fucking loathed phantom. I can't stop thinking about it. it's indescribably hellish to imagine but also the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life.

bingewatching will never come close to bingereading. there is nothing like blocking out the entire Earth for ten hours to read a book in one sitting no food no water no shower no bra and emerging at the end with no idea what time it is or where you are, a dried-up prune that's sensitive to light and loud noises because you've been in your room in the dark reading by the glow of a single LED. it's like coming back after a three-month vacation in another dimension and now you have to go downstairs and make dinner. absolutely transcendental

🐱

“Bruce Wayne’s superpower is money” Bruce Wayne’s superpower is the ability to actively have a full-fledged panic attack and still look Superman himself dead in the eye without any of his vitals changing. Heart rate is a solid 60 BPM. You can’t even see him breathing. Put some respect on my man’s name.