Pop Culture Roundup: This Week

How Hamilton Uses History ByJoanne B. Freeman

SEATTLE, WA - Planar Systems, Inc today announced a one-of-a-kind video wall installation at Seattle’s Space Needle, where the Space Age heritage of this World’s Fair icon is seamlessly integrated with leading-edge digital signage technology of today.
Named SkyPad, the 135-square-foot interactive Clarity Matrix MultiTouch LCD Video Wall showcases the history and evolution of the landmark spire as it provides visitors an opportunity to become part of its future. The result is a stunning visual immersion that highlights both past and present, educating visitors as it enhances their connection with the Pacific Northwest’s best-known architectural landmark. 

Amazon’s new show asks what life would be like if the Nazis had won 

It is the second best show that Amazon has ever made, which I mean both as a compliment—it’s pretty watchable!—and faint praise: It’s pretty watchable. Based on the Philip K. Dick novel, The Man in the High Castle has a gripping alt-history premise—what if Germany won the second World War?—upon which it riffs acceptably, if not virtuosically. The showis yet another entrant in the fast-growing category of TV good enough to watch and enjoy, but not quite good enough to make specific time for. These shows are the TV equivalent of the microwave burrito: tasty, but best consumed in the absence of options. 

Set in 1962, The Man in the High Castle imagines an America divided between the Germans and the Japanese. The East Coast has become the Greater Third Reich, the West Coast the Japanese Pacific States, and a buffer “neutral zone” runs between them, down the spine of the Rockies, all of which is illustrated by an artful opening credit sequence. As the show begins, the fuhrer is ailing. When he dies, his successors are likely to make a move on Japan and its territories.