EPISODE 923: NOT A DAY WILL GO BY
Merrily We Go Along closes, the UK gets a new prime minister, and Star Wars makes me love the villain.
Hi and welcome back to Pop Culture Spirit Wow, the newsletter that can’t quite believe Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez have finished their groundbreaking run at the Hudson Theater. (For more on that, see below.)
I’m test driving some fun new segments today. Hope you enjoy them. Let’s get into it!
THE WOWND UP
But there isn’t, TodayTix! Because Merrily We Roll Along closed yesterday. I wrote a bit about the show’s closing at Theater Wow. It was such a great experience to spend two and a half hours with three tremendous actors who enjoyed each other so clearly and completely.
Elsewhere, the Catholic Church named its first millennial saint. 15-year-old Italian boy Carlos Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006, liked cars, Super Mario Brothers, and, I guess Jesus? I’ve got some complicated feelings about the naming of children as saints. In fact, come back later this week for my new segment, Complicated Feelings, in which I’m going to talk about just that. (See a little teaser below.) Suffice to say, while I know all of my nephews and nieces are the greatest, I would be a little nervous to see the Church swooping in to turn any of them into objects of devotion. I appreciate the impulse, but maybe just leave kids alone…?
And in the United Kingdom, Larry the Cat has new roommates at Number 10 Downing Street, after Keir Starmer, who has served as head of the Labour Party since 2020, led his party to a downright thrashing of the Conservative Party, taking 412 seats to the Conservatives’ 121. Apparently Larry will be joined by the Starmers’ cat Jojo, a rescue that the Starmer kids love. Larry has not always enjoyed the presence of other animals at Downing Street. Pretty much every story about JoJo has included this very reassuring photo of Larry attacking the last cat who came to stay.
The British press, they love a fight story.
REASON #373 THAT BRITAIN IS GREAT
Speaking of the British press, in putting together the Wownd Up I discovered that Larry’s visits outside Number 10 are regularly covered by the press.
“He will always try to be in the frame of the picture of an important event.” Uh-huh.
I love that Larry eating in front of the Ukrainian ambassador constitutes greeting him. It gives 100% cat.
The “Ooh”s of the press when Larry attacks that pigeon tells you everything about what it is like to have to sit outside 10 Downing all day.
This is just video of Larry waiting to go inside. And it has 3.6 million views.
COMPLICATED FEELINGS ABOUT…AGING PRESIDENTS
From President Biden’s interview on ABC Friday:
I don’t know what to say, honestly. I’m glad Stephanopoulos said how grateful people are for Biden. It’s astonishing just how much he restored a sense of order and justice to the country. The most destabilizing things we’ve faced these last four years have come from the Supreme Court, which is basically the Trump cancer that metastasized before we could cut it out.
I also agree with Biden, polls and approval ratings are no gold standard for evaluating one’s chances, especially 5 months out and when your opponent is a crazy person and a convicted felon. And Stephanopoulos knows all that, too.
But approval ratings amongst your supporters and comments from your allies are clearly important to consider. And it sounds like Biden and his team are going to receiving lots more feedback like that in the days and weeks to come.
Honestly, I refuse to believe that Biden, his family and his team do not recognize how much he is struggling physically right now. It’s taking them a minute to face that and deal with what it means, yes, But that should not be a surprise. This is the same big, messy, human stuff that we all face, on top of all the big, messy political stuff.
I say give him a second. He’ll get there.
OBJECT D’FART
For those who have enjoyed my previous installments of Things a Middle Aged Man Discovers When He Lives On His Own For the First Time, I’ve got a new one for you.
Yes, that’s right, it’s the plunger. To be clear, this is not something I’m discovering for the first time. But most of my life in the Jesuits, when you needed a plunger, you went down the hall to the utility closet to get it.
(Narrator: It was often not there.)
But also, living in a community connected to an institution like a college or a high school, when it came to any kind of bathroom trouble, there were staff for that. Not for plunging, ideally. But honestly, I’m sure they have stories.
The first couple times I needed to use a plunger in my apartment, helplessness immediately set in. There’s no one in this building to help me. What I am supposed to do if this doesn’t work?
But then of course it did work. And when you consider what you are sometimes confronting, the idea that pushing a wooden stick with a rubber semicircle on the end into that mess can clear it all up instantaneously is kind of a miracle, isn’t it?
(Fun fact: The plunger was invented 150 years ago by a Staten Island inventor, real estate mogul and candy maker named John Savage Hawley. He also held a patent for chocolate cigars.)
HOW DO THEY DO THAT?: LEARNING TO LOVE THE BAD GUY
Last week on the Acolyte, we met our villain and he killed pretty much everyone. And yet in this week’s episode I found myself rooting for him. I’ve been wondering, how did they do that?
As I talked about in my post on the episode, the writers fill the section with things familiar to us that read as good. The music is very Dagobah, the setting is half that and half Ahch-To, baby (Luke’s hideaway). The bad guy wears white (and kinda looka like Jesus).
Also, the show has repeatedly set up the Jedi as bad. They lied to Osha about what happened to her sister and family. And the lot of them are horrible. With the exception of that padawan Jecki, there is not one likable person in this whole bunch. (Honestly, they make the cold fish bunch from the prequels look downright delightful.)
But the other thing is, the writers know that all of us going into the show are coming with this sense that the Jedi way of things is not fully right, that in general the Lock Your Emotions Away path is not a good way to go. So we come into the series already entertaining some of Darth Mendoza’s take on things. As I wrote, I’m very much hoping that at least some of what he says gets supported by the show. This constant “Ooh, watch out, strong feelings are the Dark Side” stuff is just bad.
To be clear, our Sith friend does skeevy stuff too. He stands in front of her naked. For a while. And his hair gives nothing but creep.
But you have to admire a story that can take a murderous crazypants who wears an insane helmet with metal teeth and get you to legitimately root for him to the point that you think, maybe I’d like to learn from this guy, too.
Okay, the fact that he’s pretty darn hot does not hurt, either.
SCENES FROM A PARISH
Alongside Complicated Feelings, every other week I’m starting a new segment which features some of the wackiness of parish life. Think The Vicar of Dibley, 2024.
I’m test driving it here the next couple weeks. This week’s is a great get from the wonderful Steve Millies.
MOMENT OF WOW
As I said, Merrily We Roll Along closed yesterday after a glorious run. And of course someone was there to tape the closing bows. It’s really special. I especially recommend around 13:40, when the director speaks to the cast and then talks about making the show. Wonderful stuff.