Paywalls and Lucy

This is a word new to our collective lexicon. When you visit a site for news, like the New York Times or Washington Post or Daily Beast, after you read one article, the reader will be informed that a subscription to the site will be needed to continue.  It starts out as an inexpensive trial, migrating to a monthly subscription with auto payment of maybe twelve bucks a month.  This is the definition of a Paywall.  The cost of the Sunday Free Press is about 3.00 a pop.  The physical paper does not have the quantity of news stories as before.  
 

Column inches have been replaced by ads.  Local bylines have been replaced by syndicated stories owed and operated by Gannet or Time Warner.  But at the very least there is not long term commitment. You pay once. That's it.

This is a poem composed by my grand daughter Marie.  She printed it at our place.  I think it is a very insightful piece for an eleven year old.  Needless to say we are very proud and will do all we can to encourage her to continue.

Our gift from Korner Kottage arrived yesterday, filled with treats, popcorn and spices I love to add to my cooking.  Gifts like this are wonderful because you don't know what they will contain.  The surprise makes it more special.

I feel compelled to make a comment about Being the Ricardos viewed yesterday afternoon.  My family watched all the episodes of this program growing up.  We all had our favorites,  whether it be Vita-Vita-Vegamin or the candy conveyor belt or Lucy stomping grapes in Italy.  Good friend Tom can to this day recite the speech for the booze filled supplement.  It was look at what we thought life in NYC was in the fifties.  We were equally attentive to Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton in The Honeymooners 

This production was good, not great in my estimation.  Javier Bardem was nearly perfect as Desi but Nicole Kidman even though a remarkable actress, was miss cast.  She seemed to have a flat affect in the beginning trying to lure Desi in.  Her scenes with the Vivian Vance character were more heartfelt especially when she told Viv that American women wanted to see a woman that looked more like them, not too slim and attractive.  The most telling scene was at the end when she confronts Desi about cheating and abruptly switches the conversation smiling saying we've got a show to do and moving forward.  I many ways I think she was playing him like a violin.  Lucy filed for divorce directly after the last performance in 1960.

all for now, the sun is shining 

stay safe