DramatistDreamer

That McConnell "tell-all" book by his first wife would make for some interesting reading, I bet.

And I just came across this article. https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/markets/coronavirus-pandemic-death-of-the-department-store-very-few-are-likely-to-survive/ar-BB131abl?li=AAgfW3S

I've always loathed malls and a very big part of me has always believed that the shopping mall has not helped, but in fact, chipped away at the health of retail, the way that the likes of Home Depot chipped away at the local mom and pop hardware store. The shopping mall, for me, was a place of last resort, if I couldn't get what I needed anywhere else. It was a place to get in and out of as quickly as possible. I much preferred a good shopping district where I could duck in and out of stores, get fresh air in the meantime and didn't have to smell the overwhelming odors wafting in from the food court while trying on clothes.

There is an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times by Dr. Levitan about this topic.

So, what is the truth??

It's floating around since I didn't even see Tur's social media and had no idea she had tweeted this. I wouldn't put it out there publicly either.

There are rumors that Kim is brain dead. It's weird that his sister has been spotted around more than ever lately--guess this explains why.

Laura Harrier (Destiny Evans, TOLN/One Life To Live) is co-starring in Hollywood, a Netflix series.

Reading this story in the paper this morning was heart-rending. Those fools who are protesting for the "right" to infect and spread to other people surely don't care about beautiful little children like Skylar Herbert.

Not on the planet where the rest of us live, clearly.

Wow, Naomi Campbell is doing a livestream with Venus and Serena!

Ew, they did that? I remember the backlash at the redesign but I didn't know that the designer behind the Apple store was behind it? Why would anyone think that was a good idea?? Lord & Taylor has already been facing hard times. They have had to downsize their flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and in contrast to the big splashy window displays that they used to do for Christmas, this past year, they had to settle for something far less ornate. Saks Fifth Avenue has bought the license to recently liquidated Barney's New York, just so they can sell off-loaded merchandise and stick the Barney's label on there. So far, Bloomingdales and Nordstrom are probably the only brands that haven't had to downsize or downscale in some way (at least, that I know of). It's hard times all around, that's for sure, which always makes me irritated that Y&R botched what could've been a really compelling story with Fenmore's decline.

Anti-Netanyahu protests in Israel.

For some reason, I immediately thought of Sophia mentioning Neiman Marcus when I saw this too. It made me giggle. I think people have been waiting for JCPenney to be forced to liquidate for about a decade. JCPenney was never fancy fare but it used to be a place where you could at least, get the basics. Years ago, I remember venturing in there on the hunt for a crisp white shirt/blouse and couldn't find one. I knew this store was headed for trouble. JCPenney and Macy's started bleeding out at about the same time but everyone was focused on Macy's struggles due to their prominence. Then everyone started to focus on Sears because of the pathetic state of their stores. All during those times, few had noticed that JCPenney had become a zombie retailer with little to offer inside its walls.

This time it's Neiman Marcus. I'm also told that JCPenney is also set to file for bankruptcy next week.

This sound like a really good lineup. I'd love if Locher could get Rachel Miner and Ellen Parker sometime down the road but for now, it will be good to hear from these folks. Anticipating hearing Clarke play the raconteur about Billy and Vanessa's storylines. Should be good.

Such a sad story but it is important to remember that there are human faces behind these grim statistics. In case you don't want or can't get onto the NYT site, an alternative link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/she-visited-her-husband-every-day-then-the-visits-stopped/ar-BB12LTU0

Saw a link to the blog with this article in my inbox and thought you all might be interested. https://www.wgfoundation.org/blog/2020/4/15/the-lone-arranger-meet-jean-rouverol-butler

Maybe he can rely on Martha and Don Hastings to connect to some of the other actors. If someone could get John Wesley Shipp on, that might lead to Julianne Moore since they're still in touch (at least on social media they are) and Moore has talked at length about her working in soaps on podcasts and TV, so I don't think she's completely unreachable. I wonder if Gregg Marx keeps in touch with anyone? I think he'd be fascinating to have on the show. Last year, I remember watching an uploaded episode on YT and in the comments someone claiming to be Bill Shanks' nephew posted a comment, lol. I'd love to hear from some actors we haven't heard from in a long time. I bet they'd have some interesting perspectives.

Even if/when they do have chemistry, if you look closely, you can often see brief moments where there is some occasional awkwardness. I was only occasionally watching at that point but I remember when I found that out, I thought it seemed fairly pointless. It seemed as if they were trying to get some sort of tension out of that situation (because his relationship with Barbara, I guess) but it just pretty much generated a shrug. James had already gotten a surprise son years ago, so giving him another one and one who lacked any gravitas seemed especially weird. Also with James only being on the canvas occasionally, it would have had more dramatic impact if Maddie and Henry discovered they were somehow related to Grant Coleman, one of Lisa's ex-husbands, it would've given Lisa something to do in those last years of the show.

So, are there no music rights issues when an actor sings a song rather than hearing the recording of the song? I noticed that Patty Weaver sang Masquerade and nobody tried to block it or dub in generic canned music over it (thank goodness).

Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist but part of me wonders whether those protesters may have been paid by right-wing groups. There is a very unseemly connection between some of these right-wing groups and the coronavirus. We've also seen articles discussing how white supremacists groups have been using the pandemic to try to recruit people. It just seems a bit suspicious. Also, At the risk of sounding like a scold, I think it's very dangerous to speculate about knowing or thinking we know what COVID-19 is all about, especially while scientists and researchers who are doing the very hard work of trying to decipher the characteristics of this virus are, have yet to fully get a grip on what this all is. None of us here are scientists or researchers. I have scientists and researchers (and the odd one or two doctors) in my family and I don't want to diminish the real intense work surrounding this, so I'd like to hold off on playing amateur researcher/scientist. I hope that doesn't come off as b*tchy but this is a novel virus, so what we know is very little right now. Something to keep in mind though is that this novel coronavirus seems to have more in common with MERS and SARS, two viruses that the Western world had very little knowledge about since the Western world was largely unaffected by it. Another thing to keep in mind is that we have people who live with mysterious viruses/diseases all the time. MS, Sjogren's, RA, Hashimoto's are autoimmune diseases that people live for years, sometimes decades with. One person can go into remission, while another can become frail and still another can go into a degenerative state. Just like this virus and any other virus does not affect two people the same way, none of us here can say what will happen from one person to the next. There is no blanket set of behaviors for everyone infected with this virus. Just read the recent news about patients who have been 'cured' of sickle cell after decades of researchers grappling with the disease. Many people resigned themselves to people with the disease going from one crisis to the next but thankfully researchers have not given up. They are a very small group but they exist. Something similar has happened with a few HIV patients.