SPIDER-MAN ON BROADWAY

The show is open. People are lined up every night outside the box office. It costs between $70 and $190 for a ticket.

Discount tickets for $79 to $99 are available on week nights. In "Variety" magazine's weekly gross announcements for last week, Spider-Man Turn off the Dark grossed $1.9. million, with $121 as the average price for a seat.

Touted as the most lavish musical ever mounted on Broadway, the show has mechanical lifts, flying machines, and very high-tech costumes. It's dangerous, some of the "kinks" apparently have not yet been ironed out.

An onstage accident December 20, when the leading actor, felt 35 feet, has left Nick Wyman, the head of the Actors' Equity Association, "disturbed and distraught." Aside from the leading man, another performer has broken both wrists; another has fractured both feet; the leading actress, hit by a rope, suffered a concussion that took her out of the show for more than ten days.

Responding to criticism that the producers of the musical, haven't done enough to protect the show's performers, Wyman said, "Equity members have insisted on further safety protocols, backups and fail-safes."

Christopher Tierney, dancer-actor, leading man, who suffered a fractured back four broken ribs, concussion, and other abrasions, attended the show on January 7th. He was able to walk in, visit fellow actors backstage, and embracing them, Tierney promised that he will be back in the show "very soon."

Tierney has just completed an initial course of physical therapy treatments at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine. (When my back was broken in an automobile accident, I went to Rusk Institute three times a week for a year.) Tierney wears a back brace, and has 10 screws in his spine. Many months of therapy will be necessary before the 32-year-old Tierney can discard the brace. Yes, he may be able to dance again, but his playing the lead again in this show is unlikely.

Spider-man Turn off the Dark is in previews, and is set to open February 7, 2011.

Each night, before the curtain goes up, the stage manager announces that representatives from Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, (the main federal agency), are on hand backstage to make sure the stunts are in full compliance with safety requirements, and that New York State Department of Labor has okayed the production,

The show is framed by four teenagers, who appear to be working on a script in front of the stage. As they talk about the story, actors appear and perform what the kids are discussing -- acting out what the audience may have seen in comics, or in the "Spider-man" films.

Director Julie Taymor has delivered some splashy, whimsical, creative numbers, similar to what she did in Broadway's The Lion King. The most spectacular number, at present, is the dance of the golden spiders, who swing from 40-foot golden curtains (but it's similar to Cirque du Soleil acrobats). Fights between "Spidey" and "Green Goblin," as they fly above the audience, are unexpected and breathtaking, but only half the audience can actually see them, since the fights take place high at the back of the theater.

Right now, in terms of music, songs, and production numbers, the show needs more work. A trusted director-friend of ours said he was impressed for ten minutes or so, as he could be at Circe du Soleil, but then, he was restless --"There wasn't a story or numbers to keep me involved."

Will we see it? We might, but based on the reports we've heard. I don't think "Spider-Man the Musical" is our cup of tea.

THAT'S LIFE (video)

Give it a minute; don't let the foreign language turn you off.

When this video started, I thought, "What in the world does this have to do with me?"

WHAT CAN I DO ?

<---- This is the porch of the gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, who is accused of shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford and 19 others in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday, the 7th of January.

It's a skull sitting atop a pot filled with shriveled oranges. It suggests a chilling occult dimension in Loughner's mind.

Today feels like yesterday.

There are bulletins on the Congresswoman's condition -- hopeful quotes, though at best, she'll probably be another Jim Brady, the aide who was shot in the head when an attempt was made to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.

Brady and his wife have spent the last 30 years fighting for gun control, working with therapists, trying find ways to help him get back into the world.

What's happening right now? Lots of speeches, lots of comments. The kid/man/boy who is being arraigned for the shooting, appears to be one more mentally ill child, who's responding to the way the world is -- the ads, movies, media, TV, and famous leaders-celebrities-politicians in our country and around the world.

Who hasn't been affected by the violence, the horrifying behavior that's infected, continues to infect/affect everyone?

Meanwhile, there's very little "let's-fix-it " talk about gun control. Representatives Mike Lee and Senator Rand Paul, (Republicans), are already defending our current gun laws. Paul quoted the usual line on CNN -- "Weapons don't kill people; it's the individual that kills these people."

Caroline McCarthy, a Democrat, is working on new gun-control legislation, but it's unclear if the nation will get behind it -- an October poll showed 44 percent of Americans favored stricter gun control laws, down 78 percent in 1990.

I'm having a bad day. I'm remembering "Fort Hood." Perhaps the name echoes in your mind the same as it does in mine, and suggests another similar disaster -- murder -- a lot of people murdered by a man who was "off his rocker" crazed, mentally ill.

It happened November 2009.

Has anything been done, or changed since then? Has anything really changed since 1999, and Columbine High School? We've had how many murderous school kids -- bringing weapons to school, planning rape, attempting murder?

How many riveting local terrorist dramas have we experienced vicariously, with headlines, comments, lurid photos, gory details infecting us -- affecting me, affecting kids?

You can become very famous if you attempt to murder a celebrity -- you'll be in encyclopedias. Maybe your life story will be told in a movie with a star playing YOU.

What can I do? Everything I'm saying here you've heard. You know the commandment -- THOU SHALT NOT KILL.

Hey guys, everyone who reads this -- talk up gun control. chant it, write a song, or a poem, tell your friends, neighbors, put a comment, a shouting declaration anyplace you can find on the Internet or in the supermarket -- THOU SHALT NOT KILL.

We need gun control.

If you can't get anyone to listen, what should you do? Pray.

MICHELLE OBAMA

First lady Michelle Obama is a major person in our lives, who moves quietly, always gracefully, with utter skill and intelligence, as she's providing what's needed and what sustains her family and our president.

I think of her ... no, I sense in her ... no ... I've seen her and heard her. I've observed her words, her behavior as a queenly, high level, highest level executive, who could be in politics, or head a major department in our government. That won't happen -- I think Michelle and Barack have a pact, an agreement they made, and Michelle is fulfilling her part in their covenant, doing what they decided would be best for our First Black President.

I don't like the "First Black President" phrase, but I feel that's how Obama is seen by Democrats who more or less support him, and Republicans who are determined to bring him down -- those who think of him as black, and have a deeply ingrained sense of what "black" means, based on their own growing up years in race-prejudiced America.

If Barack Obama's wife were too important -- if she spoke up -- if she showed her brains, her education, her independent thinking -- whoa -- it's fuel for the bonfire that people "Obamites" -- people who don't like Obama want to ignite.

I think many Obamites don't like him, don't trust him, are compelled by their upbringing as children -- what they learned from their parents -- to destroy this black man as their leader.

Michelle and Barack, with deep sensitivity, feel it, know it, and accept the race-prejudiced thinking -- not with hate, or fear, or anger -- but with empathy.

Obama said, in the books he wrote before he ran for president, "Our differences are important, not trivial," and, in-depth, author Obama has explained that his opponents hold principles and ideas as deeply rooted in American history, American tradition, as his own. Therefore, he strives to understand and deal with Republicans (as well as Muslims and others with opposing religious beliefs and political convictions), with empathy.

Barack Obama says that by identifying with his opponents, he is able to understand their feelings, and work constructively with them.

So, there Michelle is -- in the White House. Surely, there are a hundreds of major and minor chores to handle. Aside from the White House staff whom she guides and supervises, Michelle runs the Obama family.

Whew! It's more than an ordinary wife's job. It's a partner's job. There's a daily social-personal-political agenda -- dinners, lunches, guests, special occasions, holidays, celebrations. Michelle's mother, Marian Robinson, lives with them. Her being there was a wise move the husband and wife partnership made -- Grandmother Marian enables the Obamas to function as the "first couple" more freely.

Michelle's projects -- her vegetable garden, eat-healthy, exercise, fight obesity -- her supporting education, and Military families -- her attending the annual Democratic women's conference, her appearance in Nevada with Harry Reid, her presence at the NAACP convention in July -- all this is important, but does not divert or interfere, in any way, with the President's work -- even Michelle's trip to Spain with Sasha and a protective staff that created the furor about so much money spent protecting them -- I can find no fault in Michelle's behavior.

I would vote for her. I vote "yes" for her, and Obama, to keep on being what they are -- the First Black President and First Black First Lady to be scrutinized by everyone in our country as well as the world -- they are making our country a better home, and land for us all.