Latest news with #BookofMormon
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sick of online dating, NYC singles are looking for love via PowerPoint presentations
They've got some hot pitches At the buzzy new dating event Pitch and Pair, Gothamites try to sell the audience on their single friends with three-to-five minute PowerPoint presentations. 'I have a lot of shy friends who are single who are really great catches, and they kind of don't flourish in the typical dating apps or speed dating because they're introverted,' said the event's founder, Joe Teblum, a 33-year-old who lives in Chelsea and works in tech marketing. 'I also saw that there was this trend of people wanting to meet in person especially after Covid.' At an event last week at Slate in the Flatiron District, 16 locals gave presentations to a few hundred in the audience. There were bullet points, short videos and tickers. 'He can explain things without making you fall asleep,' Kedar Venkataramani's cousin told the audience of the 30-year-old, 5-foot-8 intellectual property lawyer who lives in NYC. 'He has a sharp mind, a sharp suit, and zero ego.' The cousin also praised Venkataramani as a soccer enthusiast and tasting menu aficionado. 'He will take you to a Broadway show including 'Hamilton' or 'Book of Mormon',' she said. 'He also Citi Bikes everywhere like it's his personal Tour de France.' The crowd was especially excited about the presentation for Chris Puch, a 33-year-old firefighter who lives in Staten Island and is a pseudo-celebrity on Tik Tok for being a hunky public servant. 'He will cook healthy for you even though I've seen him eat $50 worth of Taco Bell in one sitting, so you don't have to worry about him being too healthy,' said his matchmaker friend, laughing. 'If you guys like to travel, he loves it. He's a world traveler, and he's been all over the world, and he's looking for someone to go with besides himself.' Anand Tamirisa, a 33-year-old who lives in Chelsea and works in investment banking, was another one of the singles on offer. He admitted that he had authored much of the presentation himself, even though it was given by a dating guru buddy. 'I'm working in PowerPoint all day so it's easy for me,' he said. 'I made it in two hours. I even have a ticker on the top and stuff.' His deck included information such as 'Moved to NYC in 2018 after being inspired by Jay-Z,' 'Works in investment banking but doesn't wear a vest,' and, 'Has performed stand-up comedy at world-class dive bars.' It proved effective. By the time he walked off stage, Tamirisa had five new 'follow' requests on Instagram. (At the end of each presentation the matchmaker friend tells the crowd how to reach the single, whether it's via Instagram, email or text.) 'If I end up with one of them it would be a really good story,' Tamirisa said. Pitch & Pair takes place twice a month at venues round town, including City Winery in the Meatpacking District and Second City in Brooklyn. It costs $40 to $60 pitch — with two tickets to the event included — and $15 to $25 to sit in the audience. The next event is August 4th at Caveat on the Lower East Side. Events regularly sell out shortly after being announced — in as little as 34 hours. When Teblum first came up with the idea about a year ago, interest was limited. 'Only one person wanted to do a presentation,' he said of the first event, which was held at Kilo Bravo bar in Williamsburg and only attracted a few people beyond his friends. ts some early iterations, people tended to roast their friends in an attempt to be funny. Audiences sometimes erupted into 'boos.' Now, Teblum tells participants to keep it positive. 'The crowd gets so into it,' he said. 'Like the matchmaker shows a picture of someone's dog or hobby and everyone breaks out cheering.' Still, Sophia Demetriou, who was the first single presented at last week's event, said the experience was slightly uncomfortable. Her former roommate extolled her virtues, including the fact that she has never lost a game of backgammon, can 'serve looks' and is a Pizza Hut connoisseur. 'It was terrifying,' said Demetriou, a 26-year-old fashion designer. 'But I do think this is how people are going to date in the future. It just makes sense.' Solve the daily Crossword
Express Tribune
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Mel Brooks returns in ‘Spaceballs' sequel, set for 2027 theatrical release
Legendary comedian Mel Brooks is officially returning to reprise his iconic role as Yogurt in the long-awaited Spaceballs sequel, scheduled for a 2027 theatrical release from Amazon MGM Studios. Originally released in 1987, Spaceballs was a sci-fi spoof that parodied Star Wars, Alien, and other blockbuster franchises. Brooks not only wrote and directed the cult classic but also starred as Yogurt and President Skroob. The upcoming sequel promises to bring his trademark humor back to the big screen. Josh Gad (Frozen, Book of Mormon) is leading the cast and co-writing the screenplay alongside Benji Samit and Dan Hernandez, the writing duo known for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and Pokémon Detective Pikachu. Josh Greenbaum (Will & Harper) will direct. While full plot details remain tightly under wraps, the film is teasing its tone with a deliberately absurd working logline: 'A Non-Prequel Non-Reboot Sequel Part Two but with Reboot Elements Franchise Expansion Film.' Gad will also produce the film with Brian Grazer and Jeb Brody of Imagine Entertainment. Brooks, Greenbaum, Kevin Salter, Adam Merims, Samit, and Hernandez are on board as producers and executive producers. The original Spaceballs featured a cast of comedy legends including Bill Pullman, John Candy, Daphne Zuniga, and Rick Moranis. With Brooks returning and Gad's creative team at the helm, fans can expect a revival filled with classic satire, fresh laughs, and plenty of Schwartz.
NZ Herald
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Explore the hidden gems of NSW
Many Kiwis think they know Sydney – but with new experiences and attractions on offer, there's undeniably more to explore. Our nearest global city is a favourite go-to for a long weekend away, and it's well worth staying longer to uncover the hidden gems beyond the Harbour City. The good life, the night life – there's no arguing that Sydney has it all, and the city's vibe has been transformed in recent years by the traffic calming, greening and pedestrian-friendly makeover of George St. This includes a new light rail, a revitalised Rocks precinct and the harbourfront buzz of the Barangaroo precinct – think Wynyard Quarter, but on a whole other level. You might have been to Sydney often enough to have a favourite bistro in Surry Hills or boutique B&B in Woolloomooloo. But have you tried the dozens of new dining experiences and upmarket accommodation options that have emerged? Then there are the musicals that often have their Australian premiere in Sydney and iconic sporting spectacles. Sydney's jam-packed upcoming events calendar includes direct-from-Broadway spectaculars like MJ the Musical, inarguably one of 2025's hottest tickets. It'll have you moonwalking in your seat as it takes the audience behind-the-scenes of Michael Jackson's 1992 Dangerous World Tour. The Book of Mormon is also returning to Sydney. The irreverent and side-splitting comedy about two mismatched missionaries on the adventure of a lifetime has multiple Tony, Olivier and Grammy awards under its collars and ties. Kiwi travellers can take in Sydney's glorious beaches and bluffs – with bonus art – at Sculpture by the Sea, where a section of the spectacular Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk transforms into a free 2km sculpture park featuring over 100 sculptures by Australian and global artists from October 17 – November 3 2025. Auckland FC might have shown the way in trans-Tasman football but Wahs fans – and followers of other NRL teams – are thirsting for the NRL Grand Final, returning to Accor Stadium on Sunday, October 5, with the men's and women's premiership deciders. For motorsport devotees, the legendary Repco Bathurst 1000 is more than a race; it's a celebration of speed, skill, determination (and several ounces of good luck) at the adrenaline-pumping Mt Panorama circuit. And there's much more to see, do and enjoy in New South Wales than just Sydney – the state is, after all, bigger than Texas. Visitors should take the time to explore more of the good life in regional NSW. There are food and wine offerings in Orange or the Hunter Valley; wildlife experiences like a Zoofari in Dubbo; plenty of relaxing beach holiday destinations like Port Stephens; or nature retreats in the Blue Mountains. You could hire a car and drive south, north or west – the options are so vast that you're better advised to plan a Sydney and New South Wales holiday with the experts at YOU Travel & Cruise. It's fair to say that one of Australia's many charms is the smaller towns and cities outside its state capitals, and high among those is Orange, an enjoyable 3.5-hour drive from Sydney's CBD. It was once to be Australia's first capital, and its rich heritage is reflected in the buildings lining its main street. Surrounded by orchards, wineries and cellar doors, a centre for fine dining, shopping and strolling, Orange makes for an unforgettable country break, the kind of place where you're going to want to linger a little longer. Justifiably world-renowned, the Hunter Valley – Australia's oldest wine region – boasts more than 150 wineries, so it could take a lifetime and possibly the odd headache to get to know them all. A two-hour drive from Sydney, it's the perfect place for a foodie escape. Many of the country's best dining and regional produce are found outside the main centres, and in this beautiful region it's all about good food, great wine and switching off. The Lucky Country is home to many unique creatures, but why stop there? Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo (a five-hour drive or just over a one-hour domestic flight from Sydney) adds an African wildlife experience. Its Zoofari Lodge is set beside a stunning savannah, which provides sanctuary for hundreds of rare and endangered species including big cats, bigger elephants, giraffes, rhinos, zebra and antelope. The safari-style experience includes accommodation in the unique lodge, dinner, breakfast, exclusive tours and bike hire. The Port Stephens region, a 2.5-hour drive north of Sydney, promises to change your perspective on the Aussie beach experience. It's home to the Stockton Bight Sand Dunes, the largest moving coastal dunes in the Southern Hemisphere; as well as the Great Lakes Marine Park, home to a large population of resident dolphins as well as turtles, seabirds, fish species and the passing parade of whales. To that, the town adds a choice of Hamptons-esque luxury accommodations to rest your head, as well as waterfront gourmet dining including seafood menus from Rick Stein at Bannisters, or modern Australian cuisine at the Little Beach marina. The Blue Mountains, an easy 1.5-hour drive west, are world-famous, and not just for the millennia-old, World Heritage-listed landscapes: there are grand gardens, fabulous food (much of it with equally fabulous views), crisp mountain air, heritage hotels, galleries and artisans, and a string of townships sparking with individual charm. The perfect place to disconnect from the world and reconnect with who and what matters to you: like all of New South Wales, it's probably time to explore somewhere new.
Time Out
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
A massive summer West End theatre ticket sale is now happening in London
From the people who brought you London Theatre Week – which is actually a month long, and happens twice a year – here comes the Summer Theatre Sale, which is, by most definitions, running in late spring. But who cares when you once again have an opportunity to take the sting out of the cost of West End tickets? As with all these sales (which Time Out is a partner on), the basic deal is very simple: many if not quite all of the West End productions in London participate. Some, established shows like Book of Mormon and Matilda are offering a few quid off, which is obviously totally worth it. Others, you can get some pretty stonking savings: there's 43 percent off prices for Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, which has recently announced that it'll be calling it a day in September. You can get a walloping 75 percent off for the last few weeks of Ryan Calais Cameron's excellent new thriller Retrograde. And if it is undeniably taking place before most definitions of summer, it is a very good sale for actually getting your summer in order and snapping up tickets for what will hopefully be extremely popular shows before the reviews come out and ticket sales go nuts: highly recommended shows with big savings now that probably won't soon include wildly acclaimed US drama Stereophonic – a fictionalised account of the making of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours – the return of the Bridge Theatre's excellent immersive A Midsummer Night's Dream, and another chance to see acclaimed Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country at the Old Vic. In other words whatever your taste in theatre, and whatever your definition of British summer, there should be something for you in the Summer Theatre Sale.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Filler vs. action engine: ‘It came to pass' carries more weight than you think
This article was first published in the ChurchBeat newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Wednesday night. Like most believers, most Latter-day Saints learn early and often how to take a joke about their faith. After all, Mark Twain made fun of the Book of Mormon in 1891, writing that if someone removed the phrase 'it came to pass' from that book of scripture, it 'would have been only a pamphlet.' When Elder Quentin L. Cook was a young college student, a university professor that he enjoyed quoted that bit of Twain in class 'with great glee,' Elder Cook said recently at BYU Women's Conference. In the footnotes of his talk, Elder Cook made some notable observations about Twain's words and how they are used against the Book of Mormon and believers. 'Each new generation is presented with Twain's comments as if it is a new significant discovery,' he wrote. 'There is usually little reference to the fact that Mark Twain was equally dismissive of Christianity and religion in general. When this kind of remark is done with humor, it is probably best to join in the amusement.' Elder Cook's story didn't end in his college class. Months later, he was serving a mission in London, England, when he met an Oxford-educated teacher at London University who took a position opposite to Twain's. Dr. Ebeid Sarofim was a native Egyptian and expert in Semitic languages who discovered the Book of Mormon by accident and sent a letter to President David O. McKay asking for baptism. When Sarofim met with missionaries, he told them that 'it came to pass' was part of his intellectual belief in the Book of Mormon because it mirrored the way he translated phrases commonly used in ancient Semitic writings, Elder Cook said. The missionaries told him it was essential to have a spiritual testimony, too, Elder Cook said. The professor gained a spiritual witness and was baptized. 'So, what one famous humorist, Mark Twain ... saw as an object of ridicule, a scholar of Semitic languages recognized as profound evidence of the truth of the Book of Mormon which was confirmed to him by the Spirit,' Elder Cook said at Women's Conference. That anecdote, which has a resolution I'll come back to, didn't fit in my original coverage of Elder Cook's talk, but it drove me to look at some of the research about 'it came to pass' over the past 60 years. The first place I went was my copy of 'Charting the Book of Mormon,' which shows that 14% of all the instances of the phrase in the 1830 edition were in 1 Nephi. So, if 2 Nephi actually were the first book in the Book of Mormon, with far fewer instances (3.5%), would the phrase stick out as much to casual or first time readers like Twain? Second, King James translators faced the same redundant phrase, which in Hebrew is ויְהִי (vay-yihi). It shows up about 1,200 times in the Hebrew Bible, which contains most of the Old Testament. Those British translators sometimes ignored it and regularly deployed a variety of expressions in its place, such as 'and,' 'and it became' or 'and it was,' according to the BYU Religious Studies Center. Still, there are 727 examples of 'it came to pass' in the King James Version of the Old Testament, the RSC reported. You can find plenty of jokes online about all of those uses of the phrase in other faith traditions, too. (The best of all, in my estimation, is the use in the title of a book on BYU quarterbacks, 'And They Came to Pass.' Yes, I own that one, too.) Of course, the same phenomenon happens in the New Testament. Just think of two famous instances in Luke 2: 'And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.' 'And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.' So, why was this Hebrew phrase so popular in Semitic writings in that age? Because it was 'an engine of narrative storytelling' in its day the same way quick visual cuts drive action movies today, BYU professor Taylor Halverson has noted. In fact, Halverson says the phrase contains a deeper spiritual driver as a representation of Jesus Christ. 'It came to pass,' he says, is built on the same root word for God, Yahweh, the source of all things and the one who drives forward the narrative of each life. 'When we read 'it came to pass,'' Halverson writes, 'we see God's presence, his love, his concern, his energy, his knowledge, his direction, his guidance.' That is certainly more challenges to Twain's suggestion that 'it came to pass' could be cut out without losing any meaning. Elder Cook's underlying message for both of his anecdotes also pointed to deeper personal action. 'Dr. Sarofim's true account is interesting,' Elder Cook said, 'but I would suggest the best approach for gaining a testimony is to immerse ourselves in the Book of Mormon so we can repeatedly experience the ongoing witness of the Spirit.' (Note: Similar to the KJV translation, the number of uses of 'it came to pass' was reduced in the Book of Mormon, too, between the 1830 and 1837 editions," according to Royal Skousen's work in 'History of the Text of the Book of Mormon.') Church of Jesus Christ begins 10-day public open house for Antofagasta Chile Temple (May 13) The pioneer ethic that is a key to thriving companies, communities and the Church of Jesus Christ (May 7) The members of the First Presidency offered their 'heartfelt prayers and greetings' to Pope Leo XIV. President Russell M. Nelson released social media posts on Mother's Day. Here's what he and other leaders said, in case you missed their Mother's Day messages. How a prayerful surgeon — Dr. Russell M. Nelson — helped ensure many joyful years for BYU coach Heather Olmstead and her family. Sheri Dew, a former member of the Relief Society General Presidency and now executive vice president and chief content officer of Deseret Management Corp. was Southern Virginia University's commencement speaker. She encouraged graduates to 'stack wins.' Two apostles and the leader of the Relief Society spoke at a BYU-Pathway Worldwide devotional and answered students questions. Church leaders broke ground Saturday for the Lagos Nigeria Temple. The First Presidency announced that the Singapore Temple groundbreaking ceremony will take place on June 28. Baseball has decreed that tainted star Pete Rose, who died last year, now will be eligible for the Hall of Fame. Here's a smart look at the issues. BYU has a new athletic director, Brian Santiago. This is what he said at the news conference where he was introduced. BYU's Jewish quarterback and Latter-day Saint wide receiver are in Israel with other team members to work out with the Israeli national football team as part of the Athletes for Israel program. This is just an enjoyable story about another terrific player with his own controversial past but a love for the game and a desire to generously share it with others.
