SHORT:
They should kill u and cook u at the end of a “turkey trot”… would be more fun!
MEDIUM:
As the saying goes: “You either die young, or live to see your friend Kyle and your therapist fight over whether the new House Of Gucci movie is ‘camp’ or not.”
That saying was coined by me.
Because it is what is happening in my life right now.
My friend Kyle wrote an essay about camp and H.O.G. here.
He quoted my therapist in it, so at the end of today’s session, I said, “did you see you were quoted in Kyle’s article about H.O.G. ?” and my therapist said “Yes” and then expressed something about not liking the movie and how “if you can’t find any pleasure in something, it’s definitely not camp”.
And then I said, “yeah the movie’s really long”.
Genius vibes!
Adding to the discourse!
Incredible contribution by me!
One invitation 2 the gay media semiotics rhetoric lovin’ mafia please!
For the record, I have been thinking about how these days, the internet, turns shows and movie premieres (especially ones starring giant ppl like Gaga) into ~cultural events~ that often feel exciting to be a part of (whether it be live-tweeting, meme-ing, or just watching the discourse unfold on your timeline) but definitely skew people’s consumption of the actual source material. In this way, I feel that the ~online cultural event~ is “camp”? Maybe? Or maybe wrongly positions everything as “camp”? When, in reality, most things are probably just Lady Gaga being Italian in a long movie?
Who knows.
The other day I told my therapist that my new haircut makes me look “bald in a beanie” and he said “bald is bad?” and then I screamed “I’m not shaming bald people!!!”
And that’s sort of what WE discuss in our sessions
should i write an article about THAT for W Mag?
could b revolutionary…
LONG:
When I was in 12th grade, I stood in my voice teacher Mary’s living room and performed an hour of vocal material in front of family and friends. On the cover of my voice recital program was the quote: “If I cannot fly, let me sing” – a Stephen Sondheim lyric (that I had found a month prior when I googled “name for singing feeling”).
As a kid, every time I sang, I felt like I was flying.
Every time I sing now, I feel like I’m flying.
To see the power and simplicity of the feeling written out so lucidly in that lyric still moves me.
I was never in a Sondheim show. My sister was. In high school. She played Cinderella in Into The Woods. I was across the country when she played the part, so I had to watch her performance on DVD when I returned home for the holidays.
This holiday weekend, I sat down in a similar fashion to watch a group of Broadway performers perform Sondheim’s “Sunday” on the big red steps in Times Square. I hummed along to the shaky iPhone livestream footage and cried – at the gesture and the moment and the life of the man who wrote the song.
I’ve been down many a Sondheim video rabbit-hole, and what continue to set me off are the videos of him talking about the joy of teaching and constructing art – full stop.
Making and consuming art for art’s sake.
Two days before Sondheim died, he went to see Dana H. and Is This A Room at the Lyceum theater.
Decades after he wrote Merrily We Roll Along, he attended high school productions and tapped his toes along in the audience.
He showed up to things. He lifted people.
He laughed at his own jokes and mouthed along to people’s performances, enthralled by the creativity of the productions and the actors' interpretations and elevation of the work. He loved and understood the beauty of theater as a collaborative form.
Community.
Company.
Etc.
It is what I want to do and am trying to do…
…
…
I like how Sondheim’s work explores contradictions with clarity.
I like how he tries to parse paradoxes.
His carefully crafted lyrics on loneliness and community and interiority land so powerfully amidst today’s sea of diary-entry “I feel” tweets (of which I am a culprit… to the most extreme degree).
I like how he wrote about Jewish neuroses and how frustrating and isolating it is to try and make things.
I like that there’s a new version of Company on Broadway starring a woman (who is so hot and inexplicably not gay despite playing so many gay-ish roles).
I like the scene in Lady Bird where Saoirse Ronan sings “Everybody Says Don’t”. I think she should do more movies where she’s funny and singing like that and less of ones where she plays a sad 17th century lesbian in a bonnet who just lays in bed all day.
I like the scene in Lady Bird where they’re performing the titular song from Merrily We Roll Along and then pan to the audience and everyone watching looks miserable. it’s such a perfect encapsulation of the magic and vulnerability and chaos of high school theater and Sondheim and community and love.
I do not like the scene in Marriage Story where Adam Driver sings “Being Alive”, I think he sounds like Kermit The Frog (no offense to Kermit, Kermit rocks, but ppl shouldn’t copy!)
Sondheim did a million things and people wrote a million beautiful tributes to him and you can google and read all of them or none of them after clicking out this tab.
I don’t really have a ton of additional/new information to provide on the man, but I’ve spent the weekend revisiting his work, and it felt like a disservice/ lie to not mention something about it in this newsletter.
Also if anyone knows if my voice teacher Mary is alive or dead let me know.
My mom and I check the obits and drive by her house every now and then (her car’s still in the drive away but the jury’s still out on her alive-ness).
Bonus points if u find her and send me a video of her aptly titled “Being Alive”.
I miss voice lessons and when her two terrier dogs would attack and eat my toes as I tried to be a soprano.
Those were the days.
Also my same friend Kyle sent my therapist an email telling him that he should watch Company or Follies because Sondheim died (and he hyperlinked the bootleg videos of both productions that are on YouTube).
He might kill me for putting all this in the newsletter, but I think it’s so funny.
What else is new…
Oh! My gay senior citizen Ric called me the other day and I had to pause what I was watching (The Jonas Brothers Roast On Netflix), and explain to my gay senior citizen that "yeah, i'm doing alright, i just was watching the jonas brothers roast special where dr. phil shows up for no reason" and he said something about how Joe Jonas was a slut back in the day “he heard”.
I want to know where he heard this.
I love that I didn’t have to explain who the Jonas Brothers were.
I hate that he didn’t want to discuss Dr. Phil more.
Why was Dr. Phil on The Roast of The Jonas Brothers!? 8th wonder of the world...
I also watched (and live tweeted) all of the new Selling Sunset season while I was in Brooklyn alone for Thanksgiving. I won’t bore everyone with the details here, but it’s an incredible show that I thought I only liked because I was on oxy the first time I saw it but actually it holds up when you’re alone in your apartment sober during Thanksgiving break!
I keep telling everyone “it’s back and better than ever”.
There’s a baby in it who wears Gucci stuff and when he first popped up on the screen I said, out loud, “there it is… baby’s first televisual frame!”
I also want to marry the show’s music producer who puts songs in it that go, “Boss Queen Boss Queen Queen Boss Queen Boss”. I googled her and she did the music for The Real L Word, so there’s hope that she’s a dyke.
After watching all of Selling Sunset, I went on a walk, and my coffee shop was open even though it was a holiday, and a holiday miracle happened where the man in front of me asked the barista a huge question that I've been thinking about for months but was too scared to ask!!!
(why they stopped selling sticky buns)
I did not hear the answer because the music was too loud.
I hate everything I’m writing rn for school and even this newsletter! :) But I’m sure the feeling will pass. It always does :)
Today in class, someone said he writes his plays in the order of, “skeleton, head, heart, skin”. I write mine “toe, cardiovascular system, then cry and vomit” I think. Who knows. One time the same guy asked me “if I still get sad”. And I was like “ya”.
See you next Tuesday!
Thank you for subscribing. If this is your first time reading the newsletter, read the archives. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not – it’s very much like when people slip on ice.
Sincerely,
Reid
Venmo: @rpope-venmo-26
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