[Magdalen] Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton...

[Scott Knitter]

Today, it seems, the Broadway musical Hamilton has exploded here in
Chicago. Is it opening night or something?

Anyway, I was at Barnes & Noble (they still exist!) in Evanston, and
they started playing the original cast recording throughout the store.
Not the way I prefer to be introduced to a musical (I'd rather just go
and see it, but I haven't got the sort of money it takes right now),
and my impression was that it was some tight singing with frequent
inserts of spoken historical context. I've seen some parodies of bad
local musical productions where students write a play like that: sing
a couple lines, declare something. Of course the quality of the
recording was high, but it didn't make me want to see it. And at every
turn in the store there was suddenly some Hamilton-related display.
Overkill!

I guess I'm glad it wasn't an explosion of Christmas. Macy's is
handling that annual chore. Oh, the insipid "carols" (about reindeer
and snowmen, not the Oxford Book of Carols variety) are already
a-crooning. Can't there be new ones? Does the whole "holiday season"
have to be about vapid nostalgia?

-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA