#and judi isn't quite that alone either

[episims]

Household: Root

I kinda want to have informative summaries but I realized that I rarely share my thoughts of what's going on (apart from occasional blabbering in the tags) and eh. Who cares about that, even. But I have a feeling that not many care that much about who got a promotion and whatnot during the last round, either.

So I'll try this kind of commentary thing out.

During the last round, Judi and Ally broke up after Judi got pregnant. She wanted to keep the baby, Ally really truly did not. What they had in common was a total inability to understand each other's views.

Tbh I wasn't a huge fan of their dynamics to start with. Ally likes to be the center of attention, which frankly is impossible to do when Judi's in the same room. And Judi needs someone who sees through her facade, which I don't think Ally ever wanted to do.

So I wasn't sure what to do with them, but I sure didn't plan for Judi to get pregnant either! That was about the messiest possible way for them to part ways, sigh. But what's done is done, and now Judi is in this alone, which... might not be a completely bad thing?

[stalemateserial]

50

Linda Schechter had always told her daughter that good things come to those who wait. It was hard for Ruth to feel like anything good would come from waiting this time, other than the relief of its swift end. The trouble was that it would be an end to everything else. She teetered between feigned and sincere resolve, divided in her will to fight and her desire to admit the truth. Would Judy realize it was all pretend? Could things stay cordial, let alone sane, until the number on that display hit zero?

It seemed ridiculous, that they'd found a way to make their computer remind them of how long they had. But they both knew that they'd preoccupy themselves with it either way. The chess moves would be a way to track the days, or remembering to change clothes, or properly rationing out food. It felt grounding, leaving the strain of numbering their days to a machine that had no other stance but neutral. It let them focus on other things.

Like how you're a liar, Ruth thought to herself. It was true but unkind, an acid and a base that traveled from her head down to her stomach, souring it. She was a liar, but it was for the sake of someone important to her. If it was to be wrong, she'd embrace being wrong.

"Ruth?"

"Hmm?"

Judy retrieved the pad from a strip of velcro on the top of a counter to note her statement. "Pawn to D3"

"Leaving your Queen quite exposed, aren't you?"

"Leaving it a lot of options, is more like it."

"That is what makes the game so interesting, isn't it. Hmm… That doesn't much affect what I wanted to do next, so go ahead and make a note of my move as well: Bishop to E7."

"Planning on castling now that I've done it?"

"What can I say, copying the British is our new pastime."

"Your new pastime, is it?"

"Certainly. Why, just think about if we were to take the Programme across the Atlantic. We'd launch rockets from all the coastal towns, dump half of the military budget into it…"

"And your government would only send men up there."

"… True, they would."

They busied themselves with their routine, their work, their notes and data entry. The whole thing was ridiculous. Ruth didn't know what to say, how to convey everything she was feeling. The silence built up in the cabin like carbon dioxide, waiting for the cork to pop. There were only small pleasantries until they were both sitting at the dining area's table, not quite ready for bed. Judy was the one to finally break the silence.

"Do you believe in God?"

"Do I believe in God?"

"That's what I asked, yes."

"I don't know. I'd certainly like to. I don't much believe in the Bible, or in the clergy. But it'd be a comfort, wouldn't it? He sounds cruel in the book, but I get why the idea of him is popular. I guess I believe in the concept, not so much the execution."

"I suppose that isn't too far off for me, either. So you don't really believe in the rules of the Bible?"

"I mean, I certainly believe in some of them. Killing, stealing, lying, I'd say all those are wrong, but some of them are just silly."

"I agree. I guess I just found myself wondering. Wanting to believe there's still a way out of this."

"I think if you want to believe there's a way out of this, you should. Maybe we will get a miracle."

Judy moved her hand across their table, putting it over her sole companion's. Ruth's hands were a bit rough, the spots between her knuckles scaled up from dryness.

"Do you think miracles happen up here?"

Ruth let the searching fingers twine in the spaces between her own, finding that Judy's skin was softer than her own.

"I guess we'll find out."

[droughtofapathy]

"Welcome to the Theatre": Diary of a Broadway Baby

someone spectacular

August 5, 2024 | Off-Broadway | Signature Theatre | Matinee | Play | Original | 1H 30M

Six people gather for their weekly grief session, but when their counselor is a no-show, things go a little off-the rails. I'm a big fan of stories of grief and mourning. The visceral ache of it is a feeling I love to experience secondhand. While I didn't get much of that here, I still really enjoyed the concept and the characters, all of whom are distinct and familiar. It's not a particularly revolutionary show in terms of what it does and says (and while I got a good snicker about the flagrant Sondheim "No One is Alone" references, it was a little too precious). Some of the acting came off uneven at times, with line deliveries falling flat, which isn't unusual during summer theatre. It's off-season. Most established companies are dark. Experienced stage actors either pick up a few TV guest spots or travel for summer stock. I don't want to say that there's no high-quality actors in new shows left in NYC this time of year, but like... And the direction too wasn't quite strong enough, though I chalk that up to a young director still finding their footing. The ending was, apparently, changed late in previews, and while I don't know what it was before, I do know that this wasn't the answer.

In all, I liked it. I enjoyed myself. I'm glad I saw it, and I'm glad I was able to get a comp ticket. I'd like to see this show go through another round of workshopping, have a more experienced director and cast, and capitalize the title.

Verdict: A Lovely Night

A Note on Ratings

Unrelated, but one of the actresses looked strikingly like a younger Judy Kuhn stretched vertically.

[insanelydeadlybookcollector]

Chandler Bing Slowly Growing: As Told Through Acceptance of Thanksgiving

Pre-Show - Boycots the holiday altogether. Typically celebrates alone eating junk food.

Season 1 - He watches the parade alone in his apartment. Chandler also tells the Thanksgiving Story and Monica insists he join them at the table even if he isn't eating the same food as them. He manages to take part because he is thankful for them and as long as they don't celebrate traditionally he can take participate. In fact, he manages to ensure they all have a good time - he makes everyone grilled cheese sandwiches and a pretty dang sentimental toast. He might not like the holiday but he loves his found family and wants to make it known.

Season 3 - Other things exacerbate the situation but Chandler is quite upset on Thanksgiving. He can take part in the festivities but only insofar as playing football and eating ice cream because none of those are typical Thanksgiving traditions.

Season 4 - He appreciates the parade but isn't involved in the meal part of the celebration. [ungiffed].

Season 5 - According to Joey, the Thanksgiving Story is "tradition" so you know he told it every year prior. For the first time, Chandler has few things to be thankful for and you can bet he tells Monica that.

Season 6 - The Thanksgiving Story is not told this year. This episode spans a whole day and there is no space for him to tell the group about it. Jack and Judy and telling them about their coupling take up most of their time, Chandler isn't going to be telling the almost in-laws about his parents when they don't even know about him being in their lives yet. And then the group splits off so the boys can go dancing and I can't imagine Chandler, who now has the acceptance of Jack and Judy bringing up this crazy story he has when he wants to make a good impression and they have so much more to talk about. Another stand out moment, is, while Chandler isn't hosting Thanksgiving by any stretch of the imagination, he appreciates and protects Monica's efforts, insisting that Ross and Joey stay for the meal he hates.

Season 7 - Chandler helps cook - just by putting things in ovens. And has tried (either in taste testing this year, or in season 5 [the last time they had a traditional dessert]) or is going to try, Pumpkin Pie.

Season 8 - Chandler still loves the parade and watches the game and is still not taking part in the meal eating, but he'll say what he's thankful for and stays silent about how much the holiday sucks. Because it doesn't really. Not anymore.

Season 9 - Thanksgiving Parade! Chandler helps decorate the table, setting plates, yes, but also the apartment. he's in Tulsa most of the time and he'd rather help Monica decorate the place than whatever Joey and Phoebe are doing because they don't get to spend all their time together anymore. The Thanksgiving Story is a funny little anecdote by now and he tells it to get them laughing but it doesn't define him or hold him back anymore.

Season 10 - Thanksgiving Parade is watched again this year, he doesn't even hide his joy about it. Chandler actively takes part in the holiday by asking for, not being given a, job to help Monica cook. He asks to help cook. He knew she didn't want to host this year, they've been under enough stress as it is, and that's why he insists she doesn't need to cook him chicken this year. He'll stick to the vegetables if it turns out he hates turkey. Not only does he eat the turkey and his "chanberry" sauce, because not much else survived Joey, but the day turns out to be one of the best of his life.

[ifuckinglovestvincent]

Switching Lanes With St. Vincent

By Molly Young

January 22, 2019

Jacket (men’s), $4,900, pants (men’s), $2,300, by Dior / Men shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Rings (throughout) by Cartier

On a cold recent night in Brooklyn, St. Vincent appeared onstage in a Saint Laurent smoking jacket to much clapping and hooting, gave the crowd a deadpan look, and said, “Without being reductive, I'd like to say that we haven't actually done anything yet.” Pause. “So let's do something.”

She launched into a cover of Lou Reed's “Perfect Day”: an arty torch-song version that made you really wonder whom she was thinking about when she sang it. This was the elusive chanteuse version of St. Vincent, at least 80 percent leg, with slicked-back hair and pale, pale skin. She belted, sipped from a tumbler of tequila (“Oh, Christ on a cracker, that's strong”), executed little feints and pounces, flung the mic cord away from herself like a filthy sock, and spat on the stage a bunch of times. Nine parts Judy Garland, one part GG Allin.

If the Garland-Allin combination suggests that St. Vincent is an acquired taste, she's one that has been acquired by a wide range of fans. The crowd in Brooklyn included young women with Haircuts in pastel fur and guys with beards of widely varying intentionality. There was a woman of at least 90 years and a Hasidic guy in a tall hat, which was too bad for whoever sat behind him. There were models, full nuclear families, and even a solitary frat bro. St. Vincent brings people together.

If you chart the career of Annie Clark, which is St. Vincent's civilian name, you will see what start-up founders and venture capitalists call “hockey-stick growth.” That is, a line that moves steadily in a northeast direction until it hits an “inflection point” and shoots steeply upward. It's called hockey-stick growth because…it looks like a hockey stick.

Dress, by Balmain

The toe of the stick starts with Marry Me, Clark's debut solo album, which came out a decade ago and established a few things that would become essential St. Vincent traits: her ability to play a zillion instruments (she's credited on the album with everything from dulcimer to vibraphone), her highbrow streak (Shakespeare citations), her goofy streak (“Marry me!” is an Arrested Development bit), and her oceanic library of musical references (Kate Bush, Steve Reich, uh…D'Angelo!). The blade of the stick is her next four albums, one of them a collaboration with David Byrne, all of them confirming her presence as an enigma of indie pop and a guitar genius. The stick of the stick took a non-musical detour in 2016, when Clark was photographed canoodling with (now ex-) girlfriend Cara Delevingne at Taylor Swift's mansion, followed a few months later by pictures of Clark holding hands with Kristen Stewart. That brought her to the realm of mainstream paparazzi-pictures-in-the-Daily-Mail celebrity. Finally, the top of the stick is Masseduction, the 2017 album she co-produced with Jack Antonoff, which revealed St. Vincent to be not only experimental and beguiling but capable of turning out incorrigible bangers.

Masseduction made the case that Clark could be as much a pop star as someone like Sia or Nicki Minaj—a performer whose idiosyncrasies didn't have to be tamped down for mainstream success but could actually be amplified. The artist Bruce Nauman once said he made work that was like “going up the stairs in the dark and either having an extra stair that you didn't expect or not having one that you thought was going to be there.” The idea applies to Masseduction: Into the familiar form of a pop song Clark introduces surprising missteps, unexpected additions and subtractions. The album reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200. The David Bowie comparisons got louder.

This past fall, she released MassEducation (not quite the same title; note the addition of the letter a), which turned a dozen of the tracks into stripped-down piano songs. Although technically off duty after being on tour for nearly all of 2018, Clark has been performing the reduced songs here and there in small venues with her collaborator, the composer and pianist Thomas Bartlett. Whereas the Masseduction tour involved a lot of latex, neon, choreographed sex-robot dance moves, and LED screens, these recent shows have been comparatively austere. When she performed in Brooklyn, the stage was empty, aside from a piano and a side table. There were blue lights, a little piped-in fog for atmosphere, and that was it. It looked like an early-'90s magazine ad for premium liquor: art-directed, yes, but not to the degree that it Pinterested itself.

Coat, (men’s) $8,475, by Versace / Shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Tights, by Wolford

The performance was similarly informal. Midway through one song, Clark forgot the lyrics and halted. “It takes a different energy to be performing [than] to sit in your sweatpants watching Babylon Berlin,” she said. “Wherever I am, I completely forget the past, and I'm like. ‘This is now.’ And sometimes this means forgetting song lyrics. So, if you will…tell me what the second fucking verse is.”

Clark has only a decade in the public eye behind her, but she's accomplished a good amount of shape-shifting. An openness to the full range of human expression, in fact, is kind of a requirement for being a St. Vincent fan. This is a person who has appeared in the front row at Chanel and also a person who played a gig dressed as a toilet, a person profiled in Vogue and on the cover of Guitar World.

The day before her Brooklyn show, I sat with Clark to find out what it's like to be utterly unstructured, time-wise, after a long stretch of knowing a year in advance that she had to be in, like, Denmark on July 4 and couldn't make plans with friends.

“I've been off tour now for three weeks,” she said. “When I say ‘off,’ I mean I didn't have to travel.”

This doesn't mean she hasn't traveled—she went to L.A. to get in the studio with Sleater-Kinney and also hopped down to Texas, where she grew up—just that she hasn't been contractually obligated to travel. What else did she do on her mini-vacation?

“I had the best weekend last weekend. I woke up and did hot Pilates, and then I got a bunch of new modular synths, and I set 'em up, and I spent ten hours with modular synths. Plugging things in. What happens when I do this? I'm unburdened by a full understanding of what's going on, so I'm very willing to experiment.”

Coat, by Boss

Jacket, and coat, by Boss / Necklace, by Cartier

Like a child?

“Exactly. Did you ever get those electronics kits as a kid for like 20 bucks from RadioShack? Where you connect this wire to that one and a light bulb turns on? It's very much like that.”

There's an element of chaos, she said, that makes synth noodling a neat way to stumble on melodies that she might not have consciously assembled. She played with the synths by herself all day. “I don't stop, necessarily,” she said, reflecting on what the idea of “vacation” means to someone for whom “job” and “things I love to do” happen to overlap more or less exactly. “I just get to do other things that are really fun. I'm in control of my time.” She had plans to see a show at the New Museum, read books, play music and see movies alone, always sitting on the aisle so she could make a quick escape if necessary. But she will probably keep working. St. Vincent doesn't have hobbies.

When it manifests in a person, this synergy between life and work is an almost physically perceptible quality, like having brown eyes or one leg or being beautiful. Like beauty, it's a result of luck, and a quality that can invoke total despair in people who aren't themselves allotted it. This isn't to say that Clark's career is a stroke of unearned fortune but that her skills and character and era and influences have collided into a perfect storm of realized talent. And to have talent and realize that talent and then be beloved by thousands for exactly the thing that is most special about you: Is there anything a person could possibly want more? Is this why Annie Clark glows? Or is it because she's super pale? Or was it because there was a sound coming through the window where we sat that sounded thrillingly familiar?

“Is Amy Sedaris running by?” Clark asked, her spine straightening. A man with a boom mic was visible on the sidewalk outside. Another guy in a baseball cap issued instructions to someone beyond the window. Someone said “Action!” and a figure in vampire makeup and a clown wig streaked across the sidewalk. Someone said “Cut!” and Clark zipped over for a look. It was, in fact, Amy Sedaris, her clown wig bobbing in the 44-degree breeze. The mic operator was gagging with laughter. It seemed like a good omen, this sighting, like the New York City version of Groundhog Day: If an Amy Sedaris streaks across your sight line in vampire makeup, spring will arrive early.

Blazer (men’s) $1,125, by Paul Smith

Another thing Clark does when off tour is absorb all the input that she misses when she's locked into performance mode. On a Monday afternoon, she met artist Lisa Yuskavage at an exhibition of her paintings at the David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea. Yuskavage was part of a mini-boom of figurative painting in the '90s, turning out portraits of Penthouse centerfolds and giant-jugged babes with Rembrandt-esque skill. It made sense that Clark wanted to meet her: Both women make art about the inner lives of female figures, both are sorcerers of technique, both are theatrical but introspective, both have incendiary style. The gallery was a white cube, skylit, with paintings around the perimeter. Yuskavage and Clark wandered through at a pace exclusive to walking tours of cultural spaces, which is to say a few steps every 10 to 15 seconds with pauses between for the proper amount of motionless appreciation.

The paintings were small, all about the size of a human head, and featured a lot of nipples, tufted pudenda, tan lines, majestic asses, and protruding tongues. “I like the idea of possessing something by painting it,” Yuskavage said. “That's the way I understand the world. Like a dog licking something.”

Clark looked at the works with the expression people make when they're meditating. She was wearing elfin boots, black pants, and a shirt with a print that I can only describe as “funky”—“funky” being an adjective that looks good on very few people, St. Vincent being one of them—and sipped from a cup of espresso furnished by a gallery minion. After she finished the drink, there was a moment when she looked blankly at the saucer, unsure what to do with it, and then stuck it in the breast pocket of her funky shirt for the rest of the tour.

A painting called Sweetpuss featured a bubble-butted blonde in beaded panties with nipples so upwardly erect they actually resembled little boners. Yuskavage based the underwear on a pair of real underwear that she'd constructed herself from colored balls and string. “I've got the beaded panties if you ever need 'em,” she said to Clark. “They might fit you. They're tiny.”

Earrings, by Erickson Beamon

“I'm picturing you going to the Garment District,” Clark said.

“There was a lot of going to the Garment District.”

As they completed their lap around the white cube, Clark interjected with questions—what year was this? were you considering getting into film? how long did these sittings take? what does “mise-en-scène” mean?—but mainly listened. And she is a good listener: an inquisitive head tilter, an encouraging nodder, a non-fidgeter, a maker of eye contact. She found analogues between painting and music. When Yuskavage mourned the death of lead white paint (due to its poisonous qualities, although, as the artist pointed out, “It's not that big a deal to not get lead poisoning; just don't eat the paint”), Clark compared it to recording's transition from tape to digital.

“Back in the day, if you wanted to hear something really reverberant”—she clapped; it reverberated—“you'd have to be in a room like this and record it, or make a reverb chamber,” Clark said. “Now we have digital plug-ins where you can say, ‘Oh, I want the acoustic resonance of the Sistine Chapel.’ Great. Somebody's gone and sampled that and created an algorithm that sounds like you're in the Sistine Chapel.”

Lately, she said, she's been way more into devices that betray their imperfections. That are slightly out of tune, or capable of messing up, or less forgiving of human intervention. “Air moving through a room,” Clark said. “That's what's interesting to me.”

They kept pacing. The paintings on the wall evolved. Conversation turned to what happens when you grow as an artist and people respond by flipping out.

“I always find it interesting when someone wants you to go back to ‘when you were good,’ ” Yuskavage said. “This is why we liked you.”

“I can't think of anybody where I go, ‘What's great about that artist is their consistency, ” Clark said. “Anything that stays the same for too long dies. It fails to capture people's imagination.”

Coat (mens), $1,150, by Acne Studios

They were identifying a problem with fans, of course, not with themselves. It was an implicit identification, because performers aren't permitted to critique their audiences, and it was definitely the artistic equivalent of a First World problem—an issue that arises only when you're so resplendent with talent that you not only nail something enough to attract adoration but nail it hard enough to get personally bored and move on—but it was still valid. They were talking about the kind of fan who clings to a specific tree when he or she could be roaming through a whole forest. In St. Vincent's case, a forest of prog-rock thickets and jazzy roots and orchestral brambles and mournful-ballad underlayers, all of it sprouting and molting under a prodigious pop canopy. They were talking about the strange phenomenon of people getting mad at you for surprising them. Even if the surprise is great.

Molly Young is a writer living in New York City. She wrote about Donatella Versace in the April 2018 issue of GQ.

A version of this story originally appeared in the February 2019 issue with the title "Switching Lanes With St. Vincent."