Ummm.... I don't really have any suggestions, but I will share my complaints. I have Comcast/Xfinity, and I'm the only person using my connection. My speed is 800Mbps—I think they've increased the speed several times since I first subscribed. I don't do a lot of streaming, but I do a lot of uploading and downloading—backups to the cloud, files to and from clients' FTP sites, etc. In my area, I have a fair number of outages, and I'm not happy with those or with Comcast's customer service. I've actually found their app to be pretty user friendly and helpful, unlike their phone tree. And they have been reliable about texting me when there's an outage, and how long they expect it to be.

I suppose that I've mostly stayed with them due to (1) inertia and (2) not realizing if there's anything else out there. I haven't gotten pissed off enough with them to switch.

I do rent the equipment from them. 

I am interested in your search and what you find out.

I want to switch internet providers.  I think I can get away with only 100Mbps since I am the only person using it.  I stream all my TV and then have my phone, computer, iPad, smart speaker.  I currently have AT&T but my "guaranteed for life" price went up.  The basic cost didn't change but they've added fees.  I'm thinking about getting Spectrum or T-Mobile.  Sprectrum gives me the choice of renting their router or getting my own. I haven't paid attention to this sort of stuff for years so I'm doing research.  Any suggestions regarding any of this are appreciated!

I meant to post this long ago, but it slipped through the cracks: a fairly significant rejigger of the Winged Victory that I worked on with my friend Kis, several months after the charity event for which it was originally designed, when one of that event's organizers commissioned us to spruce it up for an encore appearance at a private party at her summer home in Connecticut.  My work schedule meant that I'd only been able to offer peripheral help on the original sculpture, but the union strikes later freed up my time for some serious sprucing: I reworked Nike's drapery from scratch, while Kis gave her a new and much grander pair of wings.  Both of these elements had been improvised in gold paper under a tight deadline for the original event, so we were happy for the chance to go back and sculpt them in much more refined detail, in epoxy clay over a base of foamboard, armature wire and aluminum mesh.  The goddess's head and body got a slight glow-up as well.



So that was about two years ago now.  But it's been on my mind over the past few days because it arose briefly as a conversational topic at an alumni party Kis and I both attended this past Wednesday evening: an annual drinks thing for four or five decades'-worth of Design graduates from our alma mater (only a tiny fraction of whom actually show up in any given year, but still: fairly crowded, for a gorgeous-but-not-huge NYC apartment).  This tradition was begun over a decade ago by the MFA program's department chair (now emerita) Susan Hilferty — who burst into a chorus of "Agony" when shown a photo of me looking comically miserable, for some reason, while at work on the WV.  (Alternative caption: "I just can't even," which, come to think of it, would also accurately summarize my NYU years).

I had never been to one of Susan's do's before, but after all these years I'm glad I finally bestirred myself.  It was a pleasant enough evening that I might actually be inspired to go to a Friday-night USA829 union mixer later this month as well.

Quote from: AmyG on Aug 13, 2025, 01:55 PMI saw that production! It was my introduction to Follies since sadly I missed the Broadway production when it played in LA. This was a dinky production in a tiny theater, which of course, is all wrong for Follies but I was glad to have a chance to see it.

And can I just say, that is such a strange thing for you to be aware of.

Oh, I wasn't (aware of it)!  Not until writing that post, that is.  The proliferating links are the giveaway that, as with many of my posts on this forum, I'd been fact-checking my own musings and/or just internet-rabbit-holing the topic in question, and was overeager to share my findings.  I do try to integrate them in a readable manner, with variable success — but if I sometimes overshoot and end up sounding strangely encyclopedic in my "awareness" of this or that, don't be fooled: I just spend too much time Googling stuff.

The note about that production's near-synchronicity with the Lincoln Center concert was suggested by the above-linked L.A. Times review of the former, which mentioned the latter in passing and sent me haring off to compare their respective dates.  In recent years (over the past decade or so – a middle age thing, maybe?) I've developed a mild obsession with placing things in time relative to one another, so it was weirdly satisfying to find just how close, literally just a couple of weeks, Nelson's production (which I'd only just discovered the other day) had been to the concert (which I'd known of for almost forty years, since receiving the concert CD — my introduction to Follies — for Christmas as a teen in either '85 or '86).

ANYway: that's so cool that you saw his production!  Do you remember anything about it?  Performances?  Design?  (That review writes off the sets and costumes as "make-do" but cites no specific details — although the program credits various folks for "opening and mirror costumes", "styrofoam sculptures", and "Buddy's car and special stage designs".  It also suggests that the band consisted of piano, drums... and harp).  How much did you know about the show before seeing it?  Dinkiness aside, was it at all what you were expecting?

Speaking of internet rabbit-holes: someone on eBay is selling this xeroxed script from the Nelson/Melrose production, marked up by its lighting designer Joseph Taggart and including additional handwritten followspot notes, along with a copy of the program signed for him by Nelson himself.

Okay, I'll stop...

Quote from: scenicdesign71 on Aug 12, 2025, 03:11 PM(Though it's not mentioned in this clip, Nelson later directed a shoestring 1985 revival of Follies in Los Angeles, opening just a few weeks after the glamorous Follies In Concert on the opposite coast).

I saw that production! It was my introduction to Follies since sadly I missed the Broadway production when it played in LA. This was a dinky production in a tiny theater, which of course, is all wrong for Follies but I was glad to have a chance to see it.

And can I just say, that is such a strange thing for you to be aware of.

On Monday I left work early so I could get to my doctor's appointment.  I even took the toll roads into Dallas because the traffic was bad.  After I parked my car and was on in the building, I checked my phone see which office was his.  (He is a new doctor and this was my first appointment.).  An email caught my attention.  The subject line said something about my appointment on Tuesday.   .  Yes, I got all mixed up and was nearly 24 hours early for my appointment.  (I ended up being late.  The traffic into Dallas at 15:00 is worse than I thought.  I checked the timing several times today and every time the drive got a couple minutes longer.) I am looking on the bright side and considering that a dry run for my actual appointment today.  

I hesitate to start such a thread, but can't think of a better place for this:

You cannot view this attachment.

"This first volume in a series of deluxe Hirschfeld poster books contains art drawn from life before the opening night of each of Sondheim's productions. On the reverse side are rare, ancillary images from the archives, as well as an introduction by Bernadette Peters, an essay by Ben Brantley, and text by David Leopold, Hirschfeld's archivist and creative director of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation."

https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/hirschfelds-sondheim_9781419784156/

Publication date: Sept. 9, 2025

This YouTube bioclip has made me somewhat less vague about Gene Nelson's life and career than I was 25 minutes ago:


It also cemented, for me, the logic of Tony Yazbeck's showstopping performance of "The Right Girl", at an athletic barely-38, in Prince of Broadway eight years ago.  I'd previously been only hazily aware of Nelson's own tour-de-force rendition of that number in 1971, at 50 and likely battling the painful wear and tear of his youthful acrobatic virtuosity.  (Though it's not mentioned in this clip, Nelson later directed a shoestring 1985 revival of Follies in Los Angeles, opening just a few weeks after the glamorous Follies In Concert on the opposite coast).

I just purchased my ticket for Merrily We Roll Along at the Vintage Theatre on September 20. This is not on my Sondheim bucket list because I have seen a production of Merrily in Los Angeles, starring the lovely and talented Aileen as Gussie.

I am sick of the latest PBS pledge drive already, and it's only been going on for two days. The last one only went one week, but I bet this one goes the full 16 days. 

We had a lovely reprieve from the hot weather yesterday, when the high was 70-something. Today it was 84°, and starting tomorrow it's going back into the 90s for the rest of the week. This is all according to the Apple Weather app, which was WRONG about last week, when the highs were in the upper 90s all week, but never officially cracked 100°.

My Sondheim bucket list is too embarrassingly long... I am happiest to have crossed Anyone Can Whistle and Do I Hear a Waltz off of it.

Hmm... I guess perhaps that URL isn't meant to be shared directly (although it still works for me when I click on the link above)?  I got there from the Broadway Records page for Floyd's MP3 release, so hopefully if you take the same route it should work:

https://www.broadwayrecords.com/products/floyd-collins-original-broadway-cast-recording-mp3

Scroll down to the link that says "DOWNLOAD DIGITAL BOOKLET", which should take you to the Dropbox file without making you request access.

I tested this just now with a friend, who encountered the same problem you did with the original direct-to-Dropbox link but was successful when I sent her through the BroadwayRecords one.  It's just one extra click, so I'll go ahead and change the originally-posted link accordingly.