EPISODE 609: EASTER PARADE
Look Who's Here
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Happy Easter and/or Sunday, April 4th! I’m sitting in my bedroom/office/pandemic quarantine no contact chamber, where comedy goes to die, having just binged two episodes of the new season of Flash (very zippy) and the first episode of the final season of Supergirl, which is actually really the season finale of last season (see: pandemic). It made the watch kind of hilarious because it’s one of those episodes where The Team Becomes A Voltron of Actions and Saves Everything, so there’s that de rigueur scene where they each announce to the others, Well Here’s What I’m Going to Do, like they’re all middle schoolers playing pretend hero – not popping on Supergirl here, it’s part of the genre; also see: pandemic.
But because their plans all involve referencing things that we watched a year ago, it’s just this sea of magic soup science words which keeps growing and growing because at this point Supergirl has virtually a football squad of players on her team, and the end result was I went from being overwhelmed to laughing out loud at it all. Really they could have ended the episode right there, it had given me all that I could have needed.
So yeah. Pandemic-era network TV seems to have two settings: PANDEMIC, which is a nightmare to watch; or, REMEMBER THAT THING WE DIDN’T GET TO WRAP UP LAST YEAR, which No, we don’t, we’ve been too busy surviving, but please, do exposition it all at me, it helps level me out after watching Meredith Grey almost die for another week.
So people are getting vaccinated. Which means they’re starting to be able to do stuff. And yet, who exactly is the they doing that stuff?
To put it another way: Who the hell are we all now?
Am I still the guy who gets a cup of coffee and hunkers down in a Tanner’s coffee shop for half a day?
Am I someone who can carry on an actual sustained conversation a) over dinner with a friend I haven’t seen in a while; and b) some place whose health parameters have not been rigorously controlled by me for the last 13 months?
I’m having dinner outdoors with a friend on Wednesday. It’s the first thing I’ve done in a public space other than walk in a year, and I’m excited to do it. But also I’m imagining myself having in my pocket a panic button that I can press if it gets too freaky.
Am I this guy now?
The New York Times did this piece a few weeks ago interviewing artists about how they spent the pandemic. A lot of it, well, hmm… how to say it.
There were a couple tremendous gems, though. For instance, novelist Karen Russell on what she made during the pandemic:
I made a googly-eyed owl out of toilet paper rolls. It was supposed to be a collaboration with my 4-year-old son, but we had artistic differences and he left to be a Ninja Turtle. My baby daughter pulled the wings off, and now the owl looks the way we all feel. We’ve got our fingers crossed for the Whitney Biennial.
Or actor/writer Sharon Horgan on catching up on all the films she’d never seen.
I started watching all the films I should’ve watched, trying to discover old classics and dig into new directors. I was really delighted with myself. I was like, “This is how you use it.” Then I went off the rails. I switched to, “What I really should be doing is watching murder documentaries.” When the world is grim like that, you look for something that is even worse.
And most of all the playwright Tracy Letts, who it turns out is all of us.
I’ve made nothing. On four separate occasions, I arranged my schedule with [my wife] Carrie so I could have six uninterrupted hours a day to write. All four times, I emerged from my office after two or three weeks, rattled, defeated, feeling lousy about myself. My wife finally said, “Here’s what you have to do: read books, watch movies, cook dinner and take care of our boy.” That is what I’ve done. And while my family is my focus and my joy, from a creative standpoint, this year for me has been a dust storm. I’m normally involved in a number of creative endeavors, in different forms, but the theater is my lifeblood and I don’t know who I am without it. The plug getting pulled on “The Minutes” was truly devastating for me. I feel like a heel even saying that since so many people in this country and around the world are suffering as a result of this pandemic in ways I can’t even fathom. But it’s the simple truth. I can’t do the computer theater, it’s too depressing for me, and I’ve turned down a couple of on-camera jobs because I am just as scared of this virus as I was a year ago. Creatively, I’m lost. It’s why I’m doing this interview. I’m guessing there are some other artists who identify.
This week I also came across this:
Elsa Charretier is a brilliant comic book artist. In this video she takes one panel of a comic book that she loves and breaks down how each element in the panel guides the reader’s eye. Check it out. It’s kind of mind blowing.
I so love reading and learning about craft.
Garbage Day also sent me down a wonderful rabbit hole this week. This is a livestream of an intersection with a stop sign where no one stops. (The stop sign is directly in front of you, just to the left of the stream of comments—yes, people watch this and judge the people who don’t stop.)
THREE TWEETS (PLUS ONE FOR JESUS)
In honor of Godzilla vs Kong, which came out this week and is a thing 10 year old me would be going crazy about and not-10 year old me is like, meh, is it good tho, please take a moment today to pour one out for the kaiju who never gets invited to the prom:
Now, I don’t want to judge how you prepare Easter dinner, but these two are definitely doing it better.
(Btw, if your Easter does not involve hot peppers, you are doing it wrong.)
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, smart padawi do not ride the subway alone.
And lastly, for me this tweet is a lot like the story of Jesus…
…as you’re going through it, you think it’s one thing, and then you get to the end on Easter and you’re like oh damn, this is not the story I thought I was in AT ALL.
Follies, one of the great musicals of the 20th century, opened 50 years ago today.
For those who have never heard of the show:
But also, you have definitely heard songs from it. Let me just give you two:
And this, which might be the greatest song ever.
Follies tells the story of the reunion of a bunch of Ziegfeld-type show girls many decades later. Like most of Stephen Sondheim’s shows, people didn’t really appreciate it until many years later.
If you need a pick me up, it’s a great show to listen to right now. It’s the story of a bunch of people confronted with their own imperfect lives, but also the fact that those lives are not over. It hasn’t been easy, but they have survived what they’ve been through. They’re still here. And that’s something to celebrate, wounds and flaws and all.
See you next week.