It’s Memorial Day weekend and not only does this mark the unofficial start of summer, it also marks my third SEASON PREMIERE! This blogumn officially kicks off my third year on F & N. Since we’re 93 blogumns in (plus 5 filling in for Ryan Dixon’s Fierce Anticipation), it’s time to update some of the great things we’ve talked about over the past two years. MOUNTAIN DEWMOCRACY May 7, 2010 [FIERCE ANTICIPATION: THE JERSEY JOE EDITION III] In my third blogumn filling in for Ryan, PepsiCo, the bottlers of Mountain Dew released three test flavors for the summer of 2010, allowing fans to vote on which they liked best to join the line permanently. They had tried this experiment in 2008 and it was a huge success. Mountain Dew White Out was the winner and went on sale on October 4th and is still on sale now.  For a brief time, Wal-Mart Supercenters also sold 2 liter bottles of Mountain Dew: Typhoon, one of the losing flavors.  In addition Mountain Dew: Game Fuel Cherry Citrus and Mountain Dew: Game Fuel Tropical were also on sale last summer to tie into the video game release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.  They were discontinued in December. PepsiCo has hinted that it has no plans to test more flavors, but a few new releases have gone on sale.  Mountain Dew Xtreme (grape flavored) in available in Saudi Arabia and Mountain Dew Grape is currently on sale in Japan. For summer 2012, a new flavor will appear in stores: Mountain Dew: Dark Berry as a promotion for the movie The Dark Night Rises.  It will have a mixed berry flavor and the cans will change color when chilled.  It goes on sale June 18th. THE SMURFS MOVIE May...

“The Ancient Greeks reserved a special word for the sort of arrogance that makes you forget your own humanity. That word was Hubris.” — From an introductory essay included in the Playbill of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Note to Julie Taymor, Bono and The Edge: When creating a $65 million dollar musical beset by more accidents than those found in the diapers of my nine-month old niece, it’s not a good idea to feature an essay in your show’s program about Hubris. But then again, the entire production history of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark reeks of Hubris. And Hubris was at the heart of what I saw on the night of December 20th when, during a preview performance, Christopher Tierney (one of the many actors who portrays the flying Spider-Man) plummeted 30 feet into an orchestra pit, causing the performance to come to a premature end with seven minutes left. In truth, I was there to see an accident. Not an accident that endangered the life of an actor, mind you, but a theatrical one.  I had missed the opportunity to feast upon such legendary Broadway turkeys as Dance of the Vampires, Lestat, and Carrie: The Musical. And the larger-than-life elements and Jupiter-sized egos involved with Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark seemed to ensure that the show was either going to be a unmitigated disaster or a genuine work of theatrical genius like Taymor’s The Lion King. I know what you’re thinking now– Aside from the stage accident, how was the show? To assist me in answering this question, I’ve enlisted my buddy Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher who knew a few things about Hubris. As anyone who’s taken a freshman year theatre class knows, Aristotle broke down Greek Tragedy (and thus...