It's Christmas, Carol! (Sadly not the movie, the Theater Play)

I went to Ashland recently, just the weekend from the 9th to the11th of this month in fact.  For those of you who have no idea what that is, Ashland is a small town in Oregon that has many theater groups in it.  It however denies it's a theater town, but anyway.  The point of this is I saw a play, and I'm going to review one of the two plays I saw.  This is "It's Christmas, Carol!"

What the...and this is only part of the image I cropped, people.

I should note that there's a hallmark movie of the same name, with a similar starting point but set in modern time.  Also as you might have guessed from the title, I would've preferred to watch that one.  This one is a Marx Brothers inspired version, with, as you might've guessed with Groucho there, them staring as characters, even if the original actors are long dead.

Anyway, this is also a musical.  The musical parts....weren't that bad actually, even if most of them had nothing to do with the plot and sometimes the lyrics were hard or impossible to understand.  The acting also was fine, with one exception, but we'll get there.  

One last thing: This is an exception to my usual 'No spoilers whatsoever' rule, as I will be talking about the plot in depth.  Why?  Because unlike my other reviews here, this is not something you can buy easily, you would need to be in a specific location, at a specific time, to see this.  

The play starts with a narrator talking about what The Christmas Carol story will be, if the major players were woman instead of men.  Hey, that's not a bad idea.  The titular Carol Scrooge is a noble woman who actually loves Christmas just fine.  But she only does actions that benefit her some how or stroke her vanity.  So her best friend in life, who got her hitched with a rich husband, comes back from the dead to warn her that her actions will earn her eternal damnation.  

But that's about as far as it gets, because the first ghost to arrive is in fact Groucho Marx.  And so the Marx brothers invade the play, with no regard to the story.  Hey, that's not a bad idea.

Of course there's wit and humor around, and it's mostly very good, but unfortunately most of the jokes or gags are used too much or go on too long.  

Anyway, Groucho completely derails the plot until he's given a time machine to go travel in time with.  Hey, that's not a bad idea.  And then there's dinosaurs for some reason.  And later zombie future.  Don't ask question, please, wait until the end of this.

After the first act, the plot literally stops mattering because the narrator, who is a character, says "Screw it!" and just goes along with the Marx brothers running amok.  There is no plot after that, no follow through, and not even a thread of consistency.  

But dear god are there puns, and bad puns are my jam.  I loved every terrible pun.  Seriously, I was practically raised on the Muppets and Monty Python.  I can't get enough of them.

Anyway, this is also a musical, and most musical numbers aren't that bad, even if they're obvious parody's of Christmas songs.  But the last one was just "What's it to ya" as a parody of "Hallelujah".  And it made no sense and I couldn't understand the lyrics and was just confused over how the play didn't have an ending, but just stopped with no resolution whatsoever.

Now that I (badly) talked about the play, I will say there are four major problems in it.  As I said before, one is reusing or going on too long with the same joke.  Second is the lack of a plot or any consistency at all.  Third is that while the acting was great, the actor playing Harpo had the stupidest expression on his face.  I mean, I watched the Marx Brother films at age of Too Young to understand, so Harpo was my favorite character because of all the physical gags, but his expression was usually normal or varied, not constant one of "I just got a lobotomy."  

The fourth and final major problem is that there are actually several ideas here that could work as a full play.  Female main characters for Christmas Carol?  Great!  Time machine for time shenanigans in the Christmas carol?  Awesome!  The Marx brothers crashing a play?  Brilliant!  But combine these three together, and even more I didn't mention, and you just get a confusing mess.

So the too long, didn't read version is basically just...everything was good, but the script wasn't.  I give this 2.5 stars out of 5.  Why?  Because I enjoyed it and don't regret seeing it, but I wouldn't see it again.

Anyway, see you all, next time.

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

I reviewed this book awhile back, when the COVID pandemic was just in its first year.  It's an old one, but without further ado, enjoy these words.

What the-A book review?  I read books?!  When did this happen?!  I don't read anything that isn't related to video games, obviously.  Besides, nowadays I read primarily non-fiction.

...Wait, it's about dinosaurs and is non-fiction?  Well...I guess I can review it then...this is The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A new history of their Lost World by Steve Brusatte.

The front cover!  Look at the Dinosaurness!

 The cover arts good, and on my edition it claims it was a New York Times Bestseller...not that really means much, so was Twilight.  Anyway, to me I think the cover is the least important part of the book, but the words on the back, well, that's what draws you in really, at least, it does for me.

Holy crap, there's a lot of -words- back here.  Mostly other authors or organizations saying how awesome this book is.   There's also a brief blurb of the author, Steve Brusatte, who is a paleontologist at the university of Edinburgh, a graduate of the university of Chicago and Columbia, and has named fifteen new species and led pioneering field work through the world.  That's...about it, except that he would also really like you to to buy his book, but that goes without saying. 

Anyway, while the about the author blurb barely exists compared to most books I've read, the amount of people saying 'this is a good book' is astounding. The words actually describing the book also drew me in, basically saying that 'The things you learned about dinosaurs 20 years ago is now wrong and learn what people think they are now today by reading this book.' though it takes about three or four paragraphs to get that point across and in a much better way then I could've.  

I got this book as a birthday present after my mom and I stumbled across it in a shop a good...either a year ago before the pandemic really started or two years ago before that, I am unsure.  Either way, I mentioned I'd love it, left the store and forgot about it immediately.  My mother however bought it for my coming up birthday, and I read it soon after I got it.  So I'm going off memory here a lot of the time.  But I really wanted to review something and since I'm -apparently- allergic to finishing anything, I decided to review this book.

 The book starts with the Triassic period, when dinosaurs first appeared, all the way to their end and even beyond it a little.  During this book, the author talks about the proto-dinosaurs, their rivals as it were, the sauropods in the Jurassic, the tyrannosaurs in the Cretaceous , and even T. Rex, of course.  

They cover dinosaurs all over the globe, from Europe to the Americas to Africa.  Not much is said about Antarctica because, well, yeah.  It's not exactly easy to dig for fossils in frozen soil, even if it had more habitable conditions millions of years ago. 

They cover new techniques used in fossil finding and data gathering, mostly dealing with computers but said in layman terms enough that the uninitiated into dinosaurs can understand.  Honestly, I was surprised how good this book was.  I loved it, and it's easy to understand for me, at least.   

Easy to understand, gives what it says it will on the lid, and an enjoyable read filled with interesting real life people and dinos, I give this book a 4 stars out of five.  I feel slightly guilty with this, it might deserve a 4.5, but, eh. 

Anyway, that's it for now, stay safe peeps!