The Time Warner service is gearing up for a battle for consumer dollars with video-streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon. That's because HBO is no longer just a cable network, and, as such, "Sesame Street" is no longer something just for kids. 16, the first time its new episodes will not be seen initially on PBS.Īs it does so, it will function not just as one of America's best-loved tools for teaching preschoolers their first words, but also as a pillar in HBO's strategy to win new subscribers during one of the most confused times in media-industry history. "Sesame Street," the revered program that has taught preschoolers about letters, numbers, and even how to handle the death of a loved one over the course of nearly half a century, debuts on the Time Warner pay-cable service on Jan. Now they must also answer to HBO – and many other forces beyond their control. I tried to place the baby carriage.Then I had to turn and run.Ĭookie Monster, Elmo, and Abby Cadabby, three of the most popular residents of Sesame Street, have long talked to children. I imagined Eisenstein instructing the dozens of extras, the Cossack soldiers, the young mother. I had to move fast.As I viewed the steps, I wondered about the history that had occurred there. And he had a friend.The next day, Sophia met us at the military checkpoint near her parents’ apartment inside the off-limits area. I bought an old yellowed postcard featuring the grand steps at a Sunday flea market instead.This trip I was determined things would be different.The steps are still off-limits, but Oleksandr Naselenko, who guides and supports Monitor reporters in Ukraine, had an idea: Residents living inside the restricted area couldn’t be prohibited from having visitors. For unexplained “security” reasons, the area near the site was closed. Last August, I’d tried, and failed, to reach the steps. But with an air raid siren wailing and a Ukrainian soldier ordering me back, I had less than 10 seconds to take it all in.My quest to see the steps had taken much longer than that.This was my second reporting trip to Odesa for the Monitor. In perhaps the most iconic moment, a mother pushing a baby carriage is shot, with her fallen body sending the carriage down the victim-strewn steps.Last week, I found myself at the top of the Potemkin steps. If the words “stairs” and “baby carriage” together leave you shuddering, you know what I’m talking about.In Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 silent film “Battleship Potemkin,” the 192 steps leading from the port are the setting for czarist Russia’s murderous repression of Odesans greeting the mutinous sailors of the film’s namesake ship. You don’t have to be a film connoisseur to know the Potemkin steps in the Black Sea port city of Odesa are the setting for one of cinema’s greatest scenes.
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