Belated Tim Curry Post

 Like everyone else, I first met Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He was also the reason to watch Times Square, Congo and Earth Two. He almost salvaged The Three Musketeers. Here are the items I collected for this post from last week.

‘He could arch both eyebrows and curl his lips in every direction all at once’: Tim Curry’s five best screen roles (The Guardian)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show review – the campfest that became a cultural colossus | Movies (The Guardian)

Tim Curry (The Guardian) 

Tim Curry, 1946–2026 - by Sonny Bunch (The Bulwark)

An Ode to the Gleeful Terror of Tim Curry’s Pennywise (Literary Hub)

 

Back in the day, I picked up his albums on the advice of Sheila Brown. I did not see these mentioned in his obits.

 

 

 

 And what might have come close to a hit for him:

 sch 9/2

Indiana The Cost of Living, Religion & Politics, Reliable News Sources, A Clueless General Assembly

Why do we put up with how the Republicans run this state? Ask Sheila Kennedy wrote, time for a change. Before they sell us off entirely.

Mapped: The Cost of Living in Every U.S. State (2026) makes me wonder why it is so cheap to live in Indiana that everybody seems to be having a hard time making a living.

The hardest-working states in the US, ranked 

CONTESTED HISTORY: League of Women Voters’ event examined meaning behind ‘separation of church and state’ (THE INDIANA CITIZEN) embarrasses me because I had no idea it was happening in Muncie. People are not buying Christian nationalism, and the least interested seem to be Christians.

Is Indy news biased? Here’s my advice for finding reliable sources (Indiana Capital Chronicle )

Indiana asked about new SNAP rule. Here’s what people said. (Free Press Indiana).

Indiana’s abortion ban has ‘chilling effect’ in the ER. 

Doing Business (Sheila Kennedy)

A legislature at war with education sends a signal to potential employers that they will have trouble finding a skilled workforce. Siphoning money from public schools that teach accurate science and introduce children to the diversity they will encounter in the workforce in order to fund religious academies is one bad sign; waging war against once-storied public universities by insisting that vetted scholarship is really “liberal indoctrination” ensures that intellectually curious students will either depart Indiana upon graduation or avoid the state entirely and enroll elsewhere.

A legislature that ignores both medical science and women’s rights by banning abortion (and effectively criminalizing medical assistance for emergency pregnancies) sends a message to doctors and women considering employment in the state. In the wake of that travesty, even companies that are already located here are finding it difficult to recruit workers–male or female–from families still in their childbearing years.

Flooding devastated swathes of Indiana but response is hampered by politics  (The Guardian) 

 sch 9/2

 

State Constitutional Law

 Excuse the raw data dump. These are articles and cases that I have been reading lately for my research project on state constitutional law. I need to clear out my tabs!

SOME THOUGHTS ON BLACKSTONE, PRECEDENT, AND ORIGINALISM 19VtLRev5.pdf 

McKinster v. Sager, 163 Ind. 671 (Ind. 1904) | HallApproved.com

State v. Gerhardt, 145 Ind. 439 (Ind. 1896) | HallApproved.com

State ex rel. Sonneborn v. Sylvester, 26 Wis. 2d 43 - Wis: Supreme Court 1965 - Google Scholar

Terry Carpenter, Inc. v. Wood, 129 NW 2d 475 - Neb: Supreme Court 1964 - Google Scholar

Rudeen v. Cenarrusa, 38 P. 3d 598 - Idaho: Supreme Court 2001 - Google Scholar

Maine Pharmaceutical Ass'n v. BOARD OF COM'RS, 245 A. 2d 271 - Me: Supreme Judicial Court 1968 - Google Scholar

The Legacy of Slaughterhouse, Bradwell, and Cruikshank in Constitutional Interpretation - The Legacy of Slaughterhouse Bradwell and Cruikshank.pdf

Sears v. Board of Commissioners, 36 Ind. 267 (Ind. 1871) | HallApproved.com

Collins v. Day, 644 NE 2d 72 - Ind: Supreme Court 1994 - Google Scholar

Privileges and Immunities Clause - Wikipedia

REHABILITATING THE SLAUGHTER-HOUSE CASES          

State v. Gibson, 36 Ind. 389 (Ind. 1871) | HallApproved.com

Indiana Constitution (as amended 2024).pdf  

Madison & Indianapolis Railroad v. Whiteneck, 8 Ind. 217 (Ind. 1856) | HallApproved.com

State v. Labine, 733 NW 2d 265 - SD: Supreme Court 2007 - Google Scholar

Bailey v. Jones, 139 NW 2d 385 - SD: Supreme Court 1966 - Google Scholar

Article 6, § 1 of the South Dakota Constitution - Inherent rights. :: South Dakota Constitution :: Justia

NATURAL LAW IN AMERICAN COURTS: FROM THE CIVIL WAR’S END TO THE PRESENT 49.Helmholz.pdf     

Infringed 

Sanders v. State Personnel Com'n, 677 SE 2d 182 - NC: Court of Appeals 2009 - Google Scholar 

sch

More rejections

 Saturday, where did you go?

I got a bit walking in, but missed the bus twice so gave up on a trip to Payless.

Worked on the research project.

Went  to the convenience store in the afternoon and met a dog named Tex.

 Got tired after eating a pizza from Domino's and slept from 6 to a little after 8 PM.

Wrote this post. 

After Making Landfall rejected: 

Thank you again for submitting your work to The Ex-Puritan.

As editors, we’re forced to select an extremely small number of works from the hundreds of great submissions we receive each quarter. Submissions for this issue were once again excellent, and numerous. Although we have to pass on your submission this time around, we’re truly grateful that you thought to send it our way. 

All the best in your future writing. Warm wishes and good luck!

Sincerely,

The Ex-Puritan Editorial Staff

Agnes:

Samuel, thank you for sending us your work. We appreciate the chance to read it, but it's not right for us at this time.

Keep writing. Keep reading. Keep being awesome. And best of luck placing this elsewhere.

We kindly ask that you wait one month before submitting again, regardless of which genre/category you submitted. Submissions that do not follow this guideline will be replied to unread. 

Sincerely,

The Editors

trampset 

sch

 

 

A Week of Best Laid Plans Going A-Gley: Rejections, PO Visits, An Honorable Mention

 I meant to go to this morning's liturgy, only I woke feeling nauseous and then slept late. That is pretty much the story of this week.

 Monday ended with a lot of pain, the surgery seems mostly past, but some side effects remain. I can walk a little faster, except for the limp on my right. Tuesday continued with the pain being apparent. Wednesday, I got out to the writer's group and Walmart; afterward all I wanted to do was sleep. Yesterday, I was up early and my back locked up.

All I have done is work on my research project. I did not have any energy for anything creative.

The PO visited yesterday. The new one and the old one. This is the second time they came as a pair. The old one id his usual glare and glower, stayed silent, and left the same old impression of someone needing antacids. Of course, they came when I had been trying to sleep and was neither awake or asleep. I do not understand being questioned about the monitoring software; it runs in the background and I ignore it. The new guy confused me when he asked about the upcoming polygraph; that is in January. Either he forgot that or just did not know. I feel that I let them down: there has never been any contact with minors, and this year since I rarely leave the apartment, I am not sure how it is expected for me to have some. He asked about an email to Paul S without knowing that I am free to contact felons, so long as we are not engaged in criminal activities. As usual, it was like a visit from aliens. It seems the government expects some sort of maniacal behavior breaking through rather than I am living the life I want to live. They have assumed much about me, have neither questioned their assumptions, and their assumptions are not relevant to how I live my life. The government thinks their court order must chafe me when it is irrelevant. I guess no one understands that the supervised order does not me restricts my life. Oh well, everybody needs to make a buck. It keeps people with no discernible job skills employed.

But getting my nap interrupted did annoy me. 

More importantly, I received an email that I got an Honorable Mention in the William Faulkner Literary Competition for my short story, The First Day of Feeling Free! I cannot attend the award ceremony; I worry about my bowels between here and the convenience store, let alone a trip to Mississippi. It has been a good year for publishing my stuff.

And against that, rejections were received.

Thank you for sending us "After Making Landfall" for consideration. We appreciate the opportunity to read your work and regret that it does not fit the needs of TriQuarterly. We wish you success in placing it for publication.

Sincerely,

The Editors of TriQuarterly

Thriller Magazine rejected “One Dead Blonde” 

Now, I need do something about getting ready for the group session.

sch 

 

How The United States Supreme Court Smiles and Smiles and Is A Villain

The maker of any good con is that the thing offered sounds too good to be true. The same goes for judicial theories. Originalism sounds fair and reasonable until a closer look shows it is just another way for the United States Supreme Court to take rights away from Americans.

The Supreme Court’s Archaeology of Authority (The Bulwark)

The idea that constitutional questions can—and should be—answered via historical analysis is simple enough (and echoes the conservative movement’s longstanding embrace of originalism). According to this view, judges should not impose their own values on the Constitution or decide cases according to their own moral or political commitments. They should instead look backward: asking whether a right or interpretation of a law is deeply rooted in the nation’s historical practices, language, and traditions.

History, in other words, promises to do what judicial philosophy long has not: remove judgment from judging.

The term just finished reminds us once again how central appeals to “history and tradition” have become to the Roberts Court’s constitutional project. Rather than promoting judicial restraint, however, key cases reveal how the “history and tradition test” has been weaponized to enable one of the most radical revisions to this nation’s constitutional order since the New Deal. It has been used not only to overturn previous decisions and precedent, but also to fundamentally shift the way the Court engages in judicial review.

Take the Court’s Second Amendment decisions as an example. On June 25, 2026, the Court issued its opinion in Wolford v. Lopez, striking down Hawaii’s restrictions on carrying firearms on private property that is open to the public.

Typically, when considering the validity of the Hawaii law, the Court would ask a familiar set of questions. For starters, does the state have a rational basis for regulating the issue in question (the basic question in the rational basis scrutiny test applied to all law)? Taking things a step forward, the Court often then asks whether there is a fundamental right at issue. And, if so, whether the law in question served a compelling government interest (national security, for example) and whether the law was narrowly tailored in service of that interest. This framework of tests does not eliminate judicial judgment, but it does make that judgment explicit. Courts weigh interests, assess evidence, and openly confront competing constitutional values.

In Wolford, however, the Court opted to adopt its new preferred methodology. Under the historical methodology announced in the 2022 decision New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Hawaii’s law stood or fell on an entirely different basis: whether the state could identify sufficiently analogous restrictions from the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

To put that in plain language: The question was not whether the law served a compelling governmental (or public) interest. It was whether a sufficiently similar law existed at some point during the nation’s founding.

sch 8/18 

More Ball State Theater for 2026-27

 2026-2027 Season | Ball State University for the full list.

Let us see if I can get to the ones that interest me:

Tartuffe

By Jean-Baptiste Molière, adapted by Richard Wilbur
Directed by Karen Kessler and Kathy Logelin

February 12-13 and 17-20 at 7:30 p.m. | February 14 and 20-21 at 2:30 p.m. | Performing Arts Center - Proscenium Theatre

Sharp, witty, and bitingly relevant, Tartuffe is a masterclass in comedic satire. When the wealthy Orgon falls under the spell of Tartuffe—a sanctimonious fraud posing as a man of great piety—his entire household is thrown into chaos.

As Tartuffe schemes to marry Orgon’s daughter, seduce his wife, and seize control of the family fortune, the rest of the household races to expose the truth. What follows is a fast-moving comedy of deception, hypocrisy, and willful blindness. With razor-sharp language and enduring insight, Tartuffe reveals the dangers of believing what we want to believe—even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

TARTUFFE (WILBUR) is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Dramatists Play Service. www.concordtheatricals.com

Holmes is Where the Heart Is

By David Taylor Little
Directed by Veronica Santoyo

October 1-4 and 6-8 at 7:30 p.m. | October 3 at 2:30 p.m. | Arts and Journalism Building, Room 225

In postwar London, a sharp-witted private investigator finds herself haunted by voices from her favorite Sherlock Holmes radio broadcasts—clues that may be guiding her toward the truth… or pulling her further from it. As she and her sister race to solve a high-stakes mystery, they must navigate a world that doubts women detectives at every turn. But when instinct, intellect, and imagination collide, the line between inspiration and obsession begins to blur. Suspenseful, witty, and full of intrigue, Holmes Is Where the Heart Is is a clever homage to classic detective stories—reimagined through a fresh and fiercely determined lens. 

Fall Short Play Series
The Fall Short Play Series features multiple short plays performed in repertory directed by junior-level students. 

• Apocalypse Road Trip
  By Wren Aubrey Latham
  Directed by Mason Luellen
  October 20-25 at 7:30 p.m.  | Art and Journalism Building, Room 225
  
  When the world ends, Mitchy and Quinn hit the road in a battered 2011 Jeep Wrangler they call ‘The Big Lebowski.’ With humor, heart, and plenty of detours, their journey through a ruined landscape becomes a search for meaning, connection, and a reason to keep going—even at the end of everything. 

• The Proposal
  By Anton Chekhov, Julius West
  Directed by Tyler Bennett
  October 20-25 at 7:30 p.m. | Art and Journalism Building, Room 225
  
  A marriage proposal goes wildly off the rails when a nervous young farmer and his intended bride spiral into a series of ridiculous arguments over land, pride, and family honor. Tempers flare, nerves fray, and the engagement teeters—yet somehow, love (or stubbornness) wins out. Fast, sharp, and delightfully absurd, The Proposal is a comic classic about how romance and conflict often arrive hand in hand. 

 

sch