Stop what you’re doing and read THE BODY IS NOT AN APOLOGY. Right now.

Advertisements

In which I am not kidding

Many of us have just wrapped the first workday of the new Gregorian calendar year, post-holiday. Congratulations. Whatever you did, you did it, and I’m proud of you.

I’m now going to order you to leave off even thinking about work and go read Sonya Renee Taylor’s The Body is Not an Apology. I read it between 31 December and 1 January, and I’m not the fastest reader.

Taylor, a renowned activist and workshop leader, first published the book in early 2018; it’s only taken on new and more urgent dimensions of significance in the wake of a pandemic that has isolated us with ourselves and from one another. The tract’s guiding principle is what she calls radical self-love: a process of self-liberation—because the first and crucial freeing occurs within the self—from the body shame we encounter in intimate settings and the body terrorism we’re subjected to (some much more blatantly than others) in society.

The important distinction she makes is that this is not self-confidence or self-esteem. It is self-love. Love is radical, and it radicalizes from the inside out. Through the act of extending the compassion, attention, and priority to ourselves that we hope others will extend to us (and that we already seek in structures like religion), she argues, we can create a world in which racism, misogyny, and other social ills have no place, a world in which all human beings have access to the highest version of themselves. Radical self-love begins with the self, then continues, and really comes to fruition, with the community. Which, naturally, makes it anti-capitalist as well.

Sound like a lot? It’s really not. I’d had the title in the back of my mind for probably a year or so, and when I finally arrived at it, its message was simpler and more revolutionary than I could have anticipated. Everybody from Kimberlé Crenshaw (coiner of the term intersectionality) to Alicia Garza (co-founder of the Black Lives Matter organization alongside Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi) has endorsed it, which is not necessarily the reason you should read it, but certainly doesn’t hurt. Taylor herself, a queer fat Black woman, has a voice you instantly trust. I believed from the start that she spoke from a lifetime of experience, and by the end I saw that she had been proven right: radical self-love consists not of embarking on some journey but on tapping into what is already inside you. You, personally. Everything that makes you who you are.

Please read this book. Not in any new-year-new-you sense (God, no) but maybe in a new-year-new-way-of-looking-at-you sense. Above all in an awareness sense. We can’t make provisions to guard against the onslaught of media or uproot the internalized self-hatred meant to keep us subservient if we can’t recognize those attacks for what they are as they happen. Nor can we recognize the dangers of transphobia- and homophobia-related violence (including measures like anti-trans legislation) without knowing their causes.

As has been said in many iterations, none of us is free until the most marginalized and oppressed people among us are free. Taylor’s book addresses this matter on an individual and a collective level. It’s more than worth the little time you will spend.

Happy 2022, all. If Britney got free, so can we. ⭐️

Image: first edition from Barrett-Koehler, February 2018

My Year in Song

Advertisements

In which I do just what I did last year

Songs either that I listened to a lot or that represented my state of mind that month. Spotify can do its best, but to wrap me up? Can’t be done.

January: “De Noite na Cama,” Erasmo Carlos

February: “Cruel Sexuality,” La Roux

March: “I Know There’s An Answer,” The Beach Boys

April: “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings,” Caroline Polachek

May: “Never Let You Go,” Third Eye Blind

June: “From a Buick 6,” Bob Dylan

July: “Cherry Wine,” Hozier

August: “Hair Body Face,” Lady Gaga

September: “I Think We’re Alone Now,” The Rubinoos

October: “You Oughta Know,” Alanis Morissette

November: “High Horse,” Kacey Musgraves

December: “Águas de Março,” Elis Regina & Antônio Carlos Jobim

Album of My Year: (do I really need to say it?) Pet Sounds

Image: Christmas vibes, 21 December

My Favorite Christmas Songs (Hymns & Carols Edition)

Advertisements

Or, part 2

Yesterday I covered the pop stuff, but I must say, I feel the carols and/or hymns are where the portrayals of the holiday really get interesting. A much wider range of artistic license is taken. “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” for example, is about harassing people into handing over their figgy pudding, while “The Twelve Days of Christmas” endorses the idea of flooding your significant other’s house with (mostly) birds.

Christmas cheer as coercion tactic aside, here are twelve of the traditional tunes and sacred songs I’ve loved most over the years.

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

Technically an Advent song, sue me. Each verse is structured around one of the antiphons referring to Jesus (Dayspring, Rod of Jesse, Key of David, etc.), which, although the hymn was composed in Latin, I think makes more sense in English translation. It’s beautiful, and it also evokes the genealogy of people and events that brought about the birth of Jesus. It takes a village, right?

“Personent hodie”

The text of this chant first appeared in 1582 and is thought, ironically, to have been a parody of an earlier chant celebrating the 6 December feast day of the Russian gift-giver St. Nicholas. So it seems it was always destined for Christmas as we know it. It’s a good old-fashioned church-Latin chant, one I was only introduced to in college, but which quickly became dear to my heart.

“Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming”

Another atypical time signature, and a melody that doesn’t shy away from switching between major and minor modes. The melody is lovely, really befitting the rose metaphor; the harmony lines, especially the alto, might be lovelier.

“There is No Rose of Such Virtue”

No pastime more beloved to early Catholics than personifying the Virgin Mary with flowers. This Middle English carol has been arranged many different ways over the centuries, and I’ve yet to hear one I don’t like. (Okay, I’ve heard like two, but that’s an RBI of 1.0 right there.)

“The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)”

Yeah, I’m throwing in another contemporary one. It’s just the epitome of timelessness. Have you ever roasted chestnuts? Have I ever roasted chestnuts? Maybe?? Who cares! You’re overcome with nostalgia even for memories you might not actually have.

The “Coventry Carol”

This is the one that goes “lully-lullay thou little tiny child,” although if it still doesn’t ring a bell I won’t be surprised. It’s not the most festive of carols—it describes the slaughter of the innocents, on King Herod’s orders, in hopes of preventing the child Jesus from growing up and assuming whatever kingship he was rumored to possess—but that’s precisely what I admire about it. The way the haunting melody complements the violent lyric reminds us that there is some darkness inherent even to Christmas.

“Christmas is Coming” (sometimes known, according to my research, as “The Goose is Getting Fat”)

The most important thing about this one, of course, is the ha’penny. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had one of those in about two hundred years. Specifically in my past life as a chimney sweep in Victorian London. It could only be an English children’s rhyme; America would never accept a currency equivalent to 1/480 of a pound sterling. What even is that exchange rate?

“Here We Come a-Wassailing”

The particular kind of merrymaking known as wassailing is something I believe humans will always do in some way, shape, or form, but the gerund wassailing adds a lot of romance to what is essentially going around greeting people and drinking. Wassail can also refer to the drink itself, usually a mulled cider—there is another carol dedicated to it, which I like even more, but which isn’t quite as season-specific and sounds a bit out of place outside, oh, certain places I haunted as a teenager. I’ll tell you about it sometime.

“How Great Our Joy”

Remember the shepherds? Yeah, they’re a part of *gestures to everything* too! This hymn, I was delighted to discover, is a translation of an old German carol. It has a baroque feel to it, reminiscent of the Messiah, with another very nice modal mix. It’s also one, chorally speaking, that you need a bit of skill to conduct well, and I do love a challenge.

“Every valley shall be exalted”

Speaking of the Messiah, this recitative from the oratorio, originally written for solo tenor, is some of my bestie George Händel’s finest work. Not only is it melodically virtuosic, it’s immensely entertaining to watch a vocalist tackle—particularly on the word crooked, not oft-used in classical texts.

“Stille Nacht / Silent Night”

And speaking of German carols, this is one I’ve taken to singing exclusively in German, because, being the language of origin, the text is more singable. It’s got range, it’s got enough verses to last a while but a short enough structure to make its point if you’re only going to sing one. A pretty perfect carol.

“O Holy Night”

A contender for my favorite religious Christmas song. I’m moved whenever I hear it, let alone sing it. It began life as an abolitionist anthem, an origin referenced most directly in the “Truly he taught us to love one another” verse. So although the refrain may be “O night divine,” it’s even more a meditation on what it means to be human, and how the message of Christ’s birth can empower us to make a better, kinder world. The divinity of humanity, if you will. (The text is also in iambic pentameter, which never hurts.)

What are your favorite Christmas musical moments, secular or sacred?

Image: another local tree, this one in a barbershop

My Favorite Christmas Songs

Advertisements

Or, FS for CS (if ya know ya know)

It’s that time of year when the world outside of my bloodline suddenly cares about Bing Crosby again. Christmas music has a special power; there’s a reason some people don’t reserve it solely for the season (definitely not me though haha). Here are just a few of my faves to put you in the spirit—we’ll call this the pop edition, and I’ll dedicate another post to more traditional carols.

“Jingle Bells?”, Barbra Streisand

A Christmas Album (1967) is unquestionably one of the great Christmas albums—further proof that no one does Christmas better than the Jews. Babs makes the most that I think could possibly be made of a relatively simple song. When she’s on, she’s really on, like the light at the top of the tree. Or whatever you use to top your tree.

“The Christmas Waltz,” Frank Sinatra

Famously written by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn to fill the waltz-shaped hole in the Christmas songbook. I’m thinking of the version on A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra (1957), featuring a choir bookending the song with “Merry Christmas, merry Christmas / may your every New Year dream come true.” The musical effect that those practically whispered a cappella chords create is something I have yet to describe adequately. The emotional effect is just that I cry really hard, particularly in the third holiday season I’ve spent apart from my family.

“The Christmas Waltz,” Jane Krakowski & Cheyenne Jackson

As performed on 30 Rock. Danny (Cheyenne) is the newest cast member on TGS, and he’s paired up with the always-performance-ready Jenna (Jane) to do the song. Jenna is used to being the star, and Danny’s got a gorgeous voice—so she makes him sing off-key to accentuate her talent. Great stuff.

“Little Saint Nick,” The Beach Boys

My BFF Brian based this one on a piano part he’d originally written for Phil Spector’s compilation A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector. We’re lucky it was left on the proverbial cutting-room floor. And it manages to sound so Christmassy without the use of sleigh bells.

“Talking Christmas Goodwill Blues,” John Wesley Harding/Wesley Stace

It makes total sense to have a Christmas-themed talking blues. It also makes sense, in retrospect, that we didn’t have one until Stace revived the tradition, because the last person to do talking blues on a regular basis was named Zimmerman, and he hadn’t found Jesus yet. You’ll be cleaning up pine needles in July!! (In the house I grew up in, we took that line literally.)

“Sleigh Ride,” The Boston Pops, conducted by John Williams

Yes, this version specifically. I always go for the orchestral composition, as Leroy Anderson and God intended, sans dumb lyrics, but the video of the performance says more than I ever could.

“Merry Christmas (I Don’t Wanna Fight Tonight),” Ramones

Joey sings a song it sounds like the ghost of Buddy Holly helped him write. And it’s longer than most Ramones songs. Didn’t see that coming, huh?

“Christmas,” Leslie Odom, Jr.

Notably okay tunesmith Pete Townshend wrote this one for Tommy, and you’ll recognize Leslie’s golden tones—he made his Christmas album in 2016, likely while recuperating from the back surgery he needed after carrying the Broadway production of Hamilton. The arrangement suits the understated, relaxed atmosphere of the album; but because it’s a musical number with dramatic tension, part of a larger plot, there’s more heft and urgency to it.

“Santa Baby,” Eartha Kitt

As I have said before, Eartha’s version is the only version allowed. I will not be taking questions at this time.

“Close Your Mouth (It’s Christmas),” The Free Design

This is one of those late-‘60s bands I  know nothing about, except for their fine Christmas tune in an unusual time signature. “Get to know the people in your house / You might like them!”

“Feliz Navidad,” José Feliciano

And a prospero año! Obviously.

“What Christmas Means to Me,” Stevie Wonder

I’ve met people (in Europe) who don’t know this one, and I wonder what they even call Christmas. The spirit of the season is captured here more completely than in just about any other single song, right from that wonderfully layered intro.

“Christmas All Over Again,” Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

A pop contribution that’s come to be an adulthood favorite of mine. The chord structure is a little different from what you’re used to, and the melody is lots of fun.

“The Christmas Can-Can,” Straight No Chaser

Not even sorry. Offenbach is proud. I’m gonna go grab some Chinese food.

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” Judy Garland

I go for the Medium Sad one—that is, the first rewrite, which doesn’t make you want to die but also isn’t the farthest removed into everything’s-dandy-ville. Either way, I think it exists apart from the Christmas canon as one of the highlights of the Great American Songbook in general.

“Mele Kalikimaka,” Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters

An underrated classic.

+ everything the Vince Guaraldi Trio did (but you already heard that from me)

Image: one of the many storefront Tannenbäume on the main street adjacent to my neighborhood

Notes on Photography

Advertisements

Or, look at me all Susan Sontag with my titles 🥰

There is a difference between taking photographs and making photographs.

I’d picked up on photographers saying something to this effect across years of reading—photographers were inevitable in the nonfiction I read—but I truly understood it this past Sunday when I was thrust into the role.

I’m not sure if the kindly host of the event (2G+, meaning we were all vaccinated AND recently tested) asked me to step in for the original no-show photographer because she had seen my growing interest—proficiency, even?—in the medium on my socials, or because I was the only attendee she knew personally besides the performers she’d booked. Either way I was glad to be trusted with the responsibility, and took full advantage of it.

Most of my aforementioned reading concerned the early days of Rock & Roll As Industry: a DIY culture which basically consisted of people wandering around with cameras snapping pictures until they were offered money for one of them and thus commenced their Official Careers, just as the people playing the music had wandered around noodling on their instruments until somehow becoming the Elder Statespeople we know today. I thought, I can do that.

The evening in question was a variety show featuring musicians, comedians, slam poets, and dancers—plus a DJ at the end—and I knew my job would be to capture not only human forms but the spirit of the gathering. Nothing was off-limits as a subject: the audience, the stage, the venue, the bar, the afterparty, even the lighting. Each component deserved its moment, and I would do my best to create a worthy one.

It was strange to be mobile, sometimes the only moving thing besides the performers, over the next three hours. After all, I’d been steeped in Mahler’s rule that all attention be focused solely on the performance, and that anything less was not only distraction but detraction. The experience pushed me beyond the limits of this rule in many ways: one musician even asked the crowd to talk through one of his songs to establish atmosphere. Needless to say, the more possibilities I saw, the more eager I became to shoot whatever I could.

Once I had the snapshots, the images I wanted, the process of editing and styling began. First I had to take them; now I had to make them. What level of exposure best suited the scene? What filter? Would something about the moment come through more strikingly in black and white? What about the contrast between shades? What tweaks and tricks would best convey the particular truth I was seeking to get across? What were those truths, anyway?

Bear in mind I was shooting on an iPhone: as excited as I am about all this, I was given a German camera a while back that I have yet to learn how to use. If I’m going to level up, I might just have to embrace my full potential and accept the fact that I am capable of wielding an Actual Camera. Hello, New Year.*

Meanwhile, I like to think the results turned out well. I absolutely intend to shoot more events in 2022, in addition to the cityscapes I’m used to, and maybe even get into portraits. These people were great subjects; they gave me a lot to work with. My favorite part of the night, in hindsight, was mingling with them and being asked why I hadn’t performed. I’m the photographer, honey, I almost said. I was performing the WHOLE TIME.

*to be read as Jerry says “Hello, Newman” on Seinfeld

Image: taken while waiting on a train home late Sunday night

Who is Hot Girl?

Advertisements

In which I strike up a new friendship with myself

I conducted a workshop last month where I guided a series of short writing sessions with a corresponding series of prompts. One great thing about the work I do (paid and unpaid) is that it allows me to exercise the lessons I learn from other writers and workshops. The adage that good artists borrow and great artists steal is an adage for a reason: if I’m gonna be one of the greats, there’s just no two ways about it.

Another thing I get to do is cross disciplines and draw from my other interests. You might chalk it up to my recently-diagnosed inability to settle on one thing—100% accurate btw—but it was inevitable anyway, because all art informs other art. My love of theatre has lately manifested in more of a costume/cosplay tendency, inspired either by specific personages or a general desire to express different sides of myself. In light of that, I prompted the writers at this workshop to probe an alternative identity or personality they dream of inhabiting.

I wrote on the prompts as well, and the identity that came to me called herself Hot Girl.

I never used to think Hot Girl would, or could, be part of me. She was not what I was slated for. In my teen years I saw Hot Girl as an inaccessible identity, one with which some girls were destined to be gifted and others, myself included, were not. It didn’t matter that I found plenty of people attractive for reasons other than (or at least in addition to) their looks. Nor did it matter how people saw or responded to me. Our own view of ourselves can be so arbitrarily limiting.

There would be times when I would hang out with the girls I perceived as the hot girls and wonder, does this make me a hot girl too? But I had also been conditioned, as at least the past couple generations have been, to believe that a woman could not be intellectual and put a premium on physical appearances at the same time. Brains and beauty were mutually exclusive; you chose a camp and you stuck to it, reaping the rewards and dealing with the drawbacks. I believed I fell into one camp by nature, and so I leaned into it.

But a hot girl is not Hot Girl. Hot Girl is an ideology, and she can exist within anyone.

Thankfully I’ve since come to understand how nonsensical (at best) and dangerous (at worst) those high-school mentalities were. If I’m honest, I was already beginning to understand it at the time, judging by the reactions I got on the occasions when I crossed into the other camp. But I lacked the self-confidence to really internalize the message that I, like Walt Whitman and all humans, contained multitudes, and that my personality could accommodate all those sub-personas and identities. I was master of myself and didn’t know it.

I have a better picture of it now, and better self-confidence to boot. Reading back over my musings at the workshop, the disconnect seems to be that I once regarded hotness as something beyond the self, something to be gained in the external world, as opposed to my more recent realization that it comes from within, from the choices one makes about and for oneself. Hot Girl is no passive identity bestowed on some and denied others: she is agency, one’s own agency. I can dress up and put on the makeup I’ve been steadily training myself to get comfortable with, and I’m perfectly legitimate. I can be the life of the party one day, and just because I’m not always like that doesn’t mean I can never be like that. Hot Girl is available and waiting for me to call upon her just as much as she is available to anybody else. I’ve been enjoying getting to know her, the ways she presents in me, and I hope to know her even better as time goes on.

Here is an edited version of what I wrote that night:

…Could I be a Hot Girl? Growing up I hardly considered that a real or reasonable possibility. First of all, the asymmetry of my face put it out of reach from a physical standpoint; second of all, being hot seemed to be about having social power, and I was powerless in nearly all social situations. ‘Hot’ was off-limits to those of us who had been deemed unacceptable. It didn’t even matter what we looked like, not really—‘hot’ was a state of agreement with the world, distributed in a limited supply. Even if I fit the mold physically when I reached that point, I could not accept myself as existing within that framework. It was easy, comfortable even, to be aesthetically oppressed.

Now, with a little help from my therapist, my friends, myself, and (yes) Edie Sedgwick, I have begun to embrace the Hot Girl in me. I am hot, temperature-wise: I burn with the energy of my life—sometimes I flare, sometimes I simmer. Hot Girl has been waiting inside me for quite a while and I happen to have stumbled into enough circumstances with enough people who enable her to step out and show her face.

She loves it here. She has a ton of fun. She isn’t concerned about those who don’t care for her. She’s far too busy filling her days and nights with things that please her. Hot Girl dances with other people AND with herself, and she doesn’t apologize for how she’s convinced herself it might make someone else feel. Hot Girl takes her sweet time: hers is the only schedule she operates on. Hot Girl takes my love of life and cranks it up. She invites me to let go a little, and I find fewer and fewer excuses not to surrender. I like Hot Girl; I like what she does to and for me. I think I’ll let her come around more often and stay longer.

(P.S. Hot Girl loves podcasts, obviously, so check out the episode she just released today)

Is INTO THE WOODS the Great American Musical?

Advertisements

Or, an unexpected farewell

Let the WordPress record show that I had planned this post long, long before the sudden death of Stephen Sondheim a week ago Friday. As I told my family when I called them thirty seconds after reading the news, there are those figures whose deaths you prepare for, and those figures whose deaths you don’t think to prepare for. Sondheim was 91, but my mind wasn’t on the closing of his last and greatest show. It just…didn’t seem like a thing that was going to happen in any real way. Even though everybody dies sometime. It’s surprisingly easy to forget.

But here we are. There really is a giant in the sky.

It may come as a surprise to people who know me well that I first knew Into the Woods as something to be mocked. It was a Gigliotti family running joke long after we first saw it at a community theatre, summer 2006. We found Sondheim’s intricate, wordy, and very long pièce de résistance, which opened in San Diego thirty-five years ago today and went on to shake Broadway, tough to take seriously.

How things change.

As I learned over time, but definitely over the past week, that was just Sondheim’s lyrical approach cranked up to its highest pitch of intensity. I have realized I’m not intimately familiar with the vast majority of his repertoire. In high school I was given a copy of his lyric collection Finishing the Hat—named after a number from Sunday in the Park with George, which I’ve neither seen nor heard in full—and I read and reread the libretto of Sweeney Todd. The full libretto, including the cut songs. My friends were big into Sweeney Todd, and thus I was bound to be too.

But this isn’t about any of those shows, it’s about Into the Woods. Also in high school, my sophomore year, I was cast as Cinderella in the school’s production, a role that no fifteen-year-old has any idea how to play realistically. I like to think I did my best, and many of my close friends were in the show with me (either that or the people in the show became my close friends), and when our voices blended as we sang “No One is Alone” we seemed to be truly tapping into something greater than the sum of our parts. By and large, a success.

I did another production six years later, in the same role, at the school where I would soon enroll in full-time graduate studies. This time I had some life experience to lend Cindy, and enough character-analysis experience to examine her a little more critically. She spent a lot of time passively wishing for things, she struggled with decision-making, and despite the centuries-old mythology enshrining her as the paragon of virtue there was nothing especially virtuous about her. Were we…even supposed to like her?

This is a question we ask of all the principals in the show, and of the principals of most Sondheim shows. He understood better than anyone that protagonists do not heroes make, and that moral ambiguity—sympathy for a bloodthirsty barber, a girl pointing a gun at the gang members whose skirmishes killed her true love, a bunch of neurotic city-dwellers doubting their marital bonds—spoke to everyday Americans and the dreams they cherished. Everybody makes choices that bring the judgment of others (characters and audience) upon them. Nobody ends up ‘on top.’ Some may or may not be responsible for the deaths of others. It’s hard to know which way is up.

‘The Woods,’ as a setting, are a convenient metaphor for America: a no-man’s-land where the rules are constantly changing and promises cannot possibly be lived up to. (Not to mention where you’re up after midnight all the time and insurance won’t cover the damages to your house after a ‘baking accident.’) They’re a metaphor for life in general, sure, but as to the idiosyncratic comedies and tragedies of American life…the shoe fits a little too well.

I think the answer to my titular question is no. Into the Woods is not the Great American Musical any more than The Great Gatsby is the Great American Novel. Also, maybe the fact that we keep compulsively creating Great American Categories should tell us something about ourselves. But Sondheim could well be the great American musical composer. Not musical number composer, for all ye who will protest in defense of Irving Berlin and Cole Porter and the Gershwins (#Gershwinning). I mean that, by the time he was writing—and by the point of development the American musical had reached, largely thanks to him—he was able to address his soliloquies and anthems and ballads and group numbers directly to the people in the seats, and to the hopes and fears in their hearts. He could do this as no other composer could, because he was in the right place at the right time with the right skills.

Maybe he knew his path through the woods better than some. Maybe not. Either way, he put it best:

“Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood. Do not let it grieve you. No one leaves for good.”

In memoriam Stephen Sondheim, 22 March 1930-26 November 2021.

Image: via TheaterMania, the original Broadway cast—but mostly Bernadette Peters—presumably gazing up at the Giant

NaNoWriMo???

Advertisements

In which I take a month’s inventory

November is National Novel Writing Month, as the US-based organization attempting to bully us into drafting 50,000 words would have us believe. I’ll mention it in passing to non-Americans who look at me as if I’ve just thrown in a dialect word, and, in a way, I have.

I’ve never done the NaNoWriMo challenge in its pure form. I may someday, although I don’t feel in any rush. I do try to take the moment to recommit to my writing goals and priorities: for me it’s more of a NaReVaStaShoProMo (National Resume Various Stalled Shorter Projects Month). I have friends who use their own blogs to meticulously track their efforts, and seriously, all the power to them. So far that has not been me. I get the sense it is not a lot of people, and that they think they might as well give up if their work doesn’t fit into a quantifiable framework of success.

But not cranking out 50,000 words, either on one project or across several, is hardly synonymous with having made no creative strides. As a case in point, here is a rundown of November events in my corner of the writerverse.

  • A flash fiction piece included in an anthology
  • Two (out of three submitted) poems accepted into the debut anthology of a small press, both of which I wrote a number of years ago
  • A rejection letter regarding a short story that, despite its failure to make the journal, was “the source of much conversation among the editors,” and the fact that they enjoyed my writing enough to tell me
  • A couple other such rejections, really encouraging with their genuine praise and letting me know—to paraphrase somebody—that sometimes, instead of getting the outcome you want, you get the outcome you need
  • (Regarding the previous two points, I have generally regarded fiction as my weakest genre, so to hear this feedback about my short stories meant a little extra to me)
  • A playwriting workshop that introduced me to yet another community of aspiring local writers in a genre we all want to learn more about, and that has already pushed me out of my comfort zone in my approach to character and story arc

A writer’s work is never done, no matter their successes. And progress is progress, no matter how humble it looks. Whatever you’re working on right now, of any sort—a quilt, a spreadsheet, a model airplane, a novel you started reading ages ago that’s been collecting dust on your nightstand—keep going!

Get back, JoJo!

Advertisements

In which I dig a pony (and a lot of other things)

On Saturday, from mid-afternoon to midnight, a friend and I marathoned Peter Jackson’s new three-part documentary The Beatles Get Back. This is supposedly (and I do suppose) the entirety of the footage from which the original Let It Be film was culled.

You guys.

I would say we have to rewrite history, but the history was written correctly all along and it’s just that we now have the opportunity to see it with our own eyeballs. The band aren’t at one another’s throats the entire time, and nary a tension boils over (except for the period where George walks out, but even that could be remedied; watch the thing and you’ll see). There are no mean-spirited jabs at Yoko. Read that again. She is present but not at all intrusive or interfering; Paul even tries joking around with her, which in this group is the ultimate demonstration of a desire to include someone. Old buddy George Martin is there, looking far too smart to be hanging around the likes of these long-haired weirdos. Linda and Heather Soon-To-Be-McCartney get some screen time, and let me tell you, five-year-old Heather knows how to work a room. Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the director of Let It Be, who got all this footage to begin with, is constantly in dialogue with the band about how they want these sessions to go: when to rehearse? When to record? Will they do a TV special? No, a concert! Where will the concert be? On a boat? In Libya? No, on the roof of 3 Savile Row! Everyone is excited to lay down the new songs and perform them live.

So it would seem that the whole urban legend is in fact just that. Still, as someone pointed out to me, it came together to at least some extent because the people on the inside wanted us to believe it—that is, the stories weren’t simply fabricated by the press or other external sources. The band members needed that myth just as much as the public did, if not more. They couldn’t have walked away from the most successful band in the world by saying “#selfcare” and peacing out. There had to be some justification to the legions of heartbroken fans. And it was easy to weave those stories out of the fabric of their final days together: they were credible, if not true. Not that none of it was true. I think the White Album sessions ended up being more of a strain than these. (That said, although they probably did not intend to hurt Yoko, she got very hurt in the process, and I believe someone owes her an official apology if one has not already been issued.)

Of course, we’re all drawn to juicy drama, and acrimonious band breakups—especially in the upper echelons—hold a Schadenfreude kind of allure for ordinary people. But after the bleakness of the nearly two COVID years we’ve had, I couldn’t have been happier to see four guys who are obviously best friends and obviously remember how important they are to one another just jam out and have the time of their lives creating music. They began their joint career with a live act; they knew they had to end it with one. That’s the uplifting content we need right now.

And here’s where I must say, because it’s a documentation of recording sessions: prepare to hear the same songs over and over again. I’m lucky I love “Don’t Let Me Down” and “I’ve Got a Feeling” as much as I do, because those two are ever-present. I was reminded again that the songwriters were only getting stronger: I’ve always liked “I Me Mine,” one of the two Harrison contributions to the album, but “For You Blue” is pretty darn good too, and I loved watching them rehearse it. We also hear snippets of solo Harrison, Lennon, and McCartney tunes which would surface on their respective releases within a couple years. And there’s just so much to see—I’ll definitely be returning and watching each segment more slowly, to digest it thoroughly and catch the many details I missed.

One thing I remember vividly about first getting into the Beatles is all the smiling. I couldn’t wipe the ear-to-ear grin off my face whenever I listened to their songs. The Beatles were, ultimately, a story of joy and friendship. They help me to continue to choose those things for myself and my life, both at times when the choice comes easy and at times when it takes a toll. It was so affirming to see their love for one another and their people and their music reflected in this expansive (and very well-restored) collection of material. As John said on “Dig a Pony,” you can radiate everything you are.

Some favorite moments:

  • George muttering “maybe we should learn a few songs first” at the beginning (he is frequently seen having fun during the sessions, clearly against his will)
  • John forgetting the words to a verse of “Don’t Let Me Down” on the rooftop and singing nonsense (and the look on his face during the playback of the tapes)
  • Paul’s sweaters (solid colors, on point the whole time honestly)
  • The genesis and evolution of “The Long and Winding Road,” truly one of the finest McCartney compositions
  • The lady who, when asked about her feelings as the rooftop gig is going on, grumbles “they woke me up from my sleep and I don’t like it”
  • All the goofing off during rehearsing and recording, really—it just looks like so much fun!

So Long, Freddie

Advertisements

In which I prolong the goodbye

Today marks thirty years since Freddie Mercury, or the former Farrokh Bulsara, left us for a world where everyone’s inner ear finally matches his. He had something like a four-octave range, he could play the piano upside down, and he rocked a fur coat better than he had any right to. He was one of those flares that are brief and so, so bright.

I didn’t really take Queen seriously for the first twelve years that I knew them due to certain influences (though nothing could stop “Seven Seas of Rhye” being my jam), so it was only post-Bohemian Rhapsody that I began to appreciate just how much we lost.

He was a Performer, in the sense of Plato’s ideal. Even within the format of those silly lip-synced TV spots he drew you in (seriously, watch that link). I wish our existences on this plane could have overlapped; in lieu of that I’m thankful to be able to share in the cultural memory of him, which I’m sure will not fade for a very long time.

He became a symbol of the movement for HIV/AIDS awareness, though the real problem was that the powers that were had plenty of awareness and no willingness to help. And while he never spoke on the record about his sexuality, he was such a high-profile figure that sooner or later the advocates who had been organizing all along for those affected by HIV—both inside and outside the LGBTQIA+ community—had to be acknowledged (if less than vindicated) on a larger scale.

He honestly changed the world. I know as a culture we place way too much emphasis on individuals who supposedly do that when it’s the collective that makes true progress. But he was one of the greatest ambassadors for the belief that music has the power to change the world. A lot of people have come, and will come, to believe it because of him.

We still miss you, darling.

Image: from best of queen, one of my favorite Twitter accounts. A killer queen if ever there was one.

Exit mobile version