#janice may magdalene

[juudaz]

Some notes on Jesus Christ Superstar (Swedish production 2022)

First I just wanna apologise for the extremely poor quality of the photos, hope you still find them interesting. My phone’s camera is no the best.

What I really enjoyed:

- First and foremost: Dilfssssss *cough couch* what I mean is... I love Peter Jöback and Ola Salo, they looked absolutely GORGEOUS. I only wished their hairs were long(er)...

- The High Priest’s and Pharisees’ makeup game was ON POINT

Look at those eyebrows! Magnificent! I also really liked their costumes. All the costumes of the show were a nice mix of modern and like “accurate” style. (I don’t know how to explain that, sorry)

- Caiaphas’s voice was amazing (as usual). Maybe a bit higher than in some other productions but still super nice!

- ANNAS MY LOVE OMG!!! He was so smol and angy and bratty all the time!! XD And he walked like a lil gremlin all crouchy and stuff?! I love him, protect him at all costs

- Caiaphas was played by Kristoffer Hellström and Annas by David Lindström

What are those faces, I can’t

- SIMON THE ZEALOT WAS PLAYED BY A WOMAN

I repeat she was played by a woman!!!! (by Janna Yngwe I think?)

My gay heart almost exploded!! I wanna be her and I wanna be with her (sadly, I didn’t get any good photos of her, damn my camera)

- Mary’s voice was phenomenal, 10/10. She was played by the singer Janice. She was so pretty!

- The outfits were a really nice mix between modern and the “og” 1973 movie outfits. Like you could very easily tell who was a priest and who was a king etc. But then the outfits had like a little modern twist to them, e.g. Simon’s leather body harness-thing.

I LOVED Judas’s final outfit. With all the fringes it felt like an homage to what Judas wears in the 1973 movie. Except now it was also sparkly golden.

Overall the “outfit gayness” was like around 6/10. Chest hairs visible? Yes. Shiny and sparkle? Yes. But it could’ve been more gay. (I’m looking at you 2014 Swedish production) 

Daddy... I mean *cough* Ola!<3

- The set was interesting. At the start of the show all the support pillars(? idk what they are called) were lying on the ground and slowly one by one they were raised to the ceiling as part of the choreography. In fact (my queen) Simon the Zealot climbed up one of them during “Simon the Zealot”.

Look at her go!<3

Also, at all times there were 1-3 wild ensemble cameramen running around and filming the main actors with their little cameras. Most of the time what they were filming was being showed on the big screens at the back of the stage. It was interesting to see the scenes play out from multiple directions and a bit more close up.

- The Temple song was ummmm quite something... omg. The ensemble was strip teasing, grinding and twerking in front of the aforementioned little cameras they had there and that was quite something to experience..

- King Herods omg, the outfit, the SLIPPERS, the pig!!

(that’s exactly what I had written in my notes and tbh it’s quite accurate)

I always love to see the different ways different productions do King Herod. The more erratic, the better, imho. And this one was no different. Anton Lundqvist did an amazing job!

First of all, he was only wearing a pair of swimming shorts? And on his feet he had SLIPPERS that looked like TIGERS?? He also had a sparkly blue cape with a sparkly golden H on the back. (that he at one point used as the swimming pool) Not only was it all very shiny and glorious, it also reminded me of the Swedish flag. I think he also had messy over-lined red lips?

And then there was the giant inflatable pig?? First King Herod just sat on it but at the end he threw a tantrum and threw the pig around...

Also, that blue little sled you can see in the second picture? That was part of the “change my water into wine”-thing but at the end King Herod sat in it and one from the ensamble dragged him off stage as if he was a kid refusing to walk. XD

- Pilate did in fact spit everywhere during “Trial by Pilate”. That passionate monologue at the end would not be the same without all the spitting. (No papayas tho) XD His and the Roman soldiers’ costumes were also pretty interesting with all the cutouts. (Pilate was played by Patrik Martinsson)

- Disco ball Jesus. Yes, you read that right. When Jesus was crucified, Mary pulled some rope that revealed a weird reflective thing on Jesus’s chest? And then some lights were shined to it and he looked like a disco ball. Amazing.

What I wish was better:

- As I mentioned before, Jesus and Judas’s hairs should have been longer!

- Peter was wayyyy too chill about everything that’s happening around him. I wished he’d shown more emotion, especially during “Could we start again please?”. (As with everything) I once again like to compare everything to the 2012 UK Arena Tour production, but just because I think that version of Peter showed soooo much more emotion and actually seemed distressed about denying Jesus etc.

- The betrayal kiss was PATHETIC!! Pathetic, I tell ya!!

Dear Swedish productions of JCS, in 2014 you gave us (one) of the best betrayal kisses known to mankind and now what?? Just a little peck on the cheek??? Like c’mon!! And It was Ola Salo himself as Judas! I was very disappointed to say the least.

I think that concludes my little review of the 2022 Swedish Production of Jesus Christ Superstar. If you read the whole thing, awesome and thank you! I hope there aren’t many spelling mistakes. I have some extra photos I took, so I might share them here later.

[latterdaysystem]

"What's with the names anyway??"

I'll be honest. Some things about this condition were very off-putting to me at first.

Especially the names.

I am one person. And I have one soul. And I know that this soul is eternal.

Because spirituality is such a big part of my life, the idea of having more than one personality sharing my body felt way too close to the biblical description of "having a devil." Like Mary Magdalene and her seven devils.

The vague sense of "not being me" and feeling like I was watching someone else say and do things I normally don't do and say was also worrisome to me, before I understood what was going on.

Also...don't only crazy people not know who they are??

So choosing to name and label these different parts of my brain took some acceptance work for me.

Hearing me use these names also takes acceptance work for those around me. Which is why I wanted to tell you how I feel about it.

Let's start with some basic grounding information.

My name is Kelsey.

That's still who I am.

I am still the same person you have always known.

We good there?? Okay.

Anchor that one down as the most important point. Don't let it get lost in the rest.

Okay, so what's with calling myself a "system" then?

I chose a system name as a necessary convention to refer to the way my brain works when I talk about my condition. It's a common thing for people who choose to be "out" about their dissociative disorder, and gives us terminology we need to be able to talk to each other about ourselves.

It gives me a way to separate and designate my condition in a linguistic way. I feel like I can get a handle on it... contain it in a way... and have a life outside of my dissociative disorder where I can be *just* Kelsey.

The same thing goes for the alter's names.

Can you imagine trying to refer to the apps on your phone without naming them?

"it's the app that you use to send videos to friends... then they can send you a video back... It's like a face to face conversation, but it doesn't have to be in real time..."

Do you have any idea what I am talking about?

There is so much overlapping function between apps, yet they all do things differently and for different reasons. Differentiating between apps on your phone would be a miserable affair if you could not name them.

The app I was referring to is named Marco Polo by the way.

When you don't have a brain that automatically does it all... the separate functions or parts of the dissociative brain are kind of like apps on a phone. You have to look at what you are trying to do and ask yourself if you have an app for that.

And in order to describe what is going on with those parts of your brain it is necessary to have a name for them.

That's why I say "I was being Janice today" instead of "I was using the part of my brain that loves creativity and working on technical skills, but can also be responsible enough to get things done, not like the part that is creative, but gets sucked into rabbit holes and forgets the entire world."

The descriptions are completely inadequate to describe what I need to. A name gives a way to define the mode my brain was in a way that I can get a handle on it, and can work with it and explain what is going on.

But I am still Kelsey.

And even though the apps in my brain are named with (mostly) people names, they are still just different iterations of myself...

...the version of myself that wants to make right choices.

...the version of myself that was hurt when I was young

...the version of myself that wanted to fit in

...the version of myself that was trying to figure out her identity

...the version of myself that wants to excel and contribute

I am still a version of myself no matter what. It may be an outdated version, or an anxious version, or a version that likes disco, or a version that wants to chew bubble gum and wear a tutu... but it's still a version of me.

Kelsey.

[shutupcrime]

Coming back to this because these are all the other musicals that should be recast with muppets:

1. Rent

Everyone is a muppet except the evil landlord, self explanatory, done. (I don’t know enough about rent to cast this one tbh but I think Scooter would be an excellent mark)

2. The Phantom of the Opera

The count is the phantom (join me in a fantasy world where the muppets and Sesame Street gang cross over- or it could also just be Gonzo I guess I like the idea of him as a homewrecker) miss piggy is Christine, kermit is raoul and the only humans are Meg and her mother. Additional cast members could be scooter as the stage manager, per the usual, Fozzie Bear as that one Italian opera singer but instead of singing he just wants to tell his jokes, Gonzo as Carlotta in a wig and statler and Waldorf as themselves heckling the opera

3. Jesus Christ Superstar

Hear me out ok, this one may be controversial, but miss piggy is Jesus, the slightly jaded, undeniable star of the show, and kermit is Judas, undeniably in love with her, but tired of her hogging the spotlight and feels she’s turned her back on what the muppets are really about. Beaker is Peter because he also looks like he would nope out when shit goes down and deny miss piggy, and Mary Magdalene should be played by renowned Broadway actress Philips Sousa because I just think that would be really cool if she hasn’t already played that role

4. Sweeney Todd

In which the animal plays unhinged sweeney todd, judge Turpin is Sam the eagle, miss piggy is Johanna, kermit is Anthony, and miss Lovett is played by Janice, who while I think lacks the manic energy needed for the role, would be a good chilled out foil to animal and bring a new flavour to the character of the crazy character who’s so deluded they make their actions seem almost sane

5. Little Shop of Horrors

I’m sorry I know I keep casting them as the two leads but kermit and miss piggy were born to play Audrey and Seymour, it is a pair that cannot be topped. The only change this makes to the original is that we all know miss piggy takes no shit so I think the stuff with the dentist (still played by Steve Martin because you can’t improve upon perfection) is a misinterpretation and she actually beats the ever living shit out of him for disrespecting her. Rizzo the rat should play the slimey businessman who buys Audrey Two, Statler and Waldorf are collectively mr mushnik, the chorus should also be human but I think the piece de resistance would be the Swedish chef as Audrey two and all the world is his chicken, and all the world should be deeply, deeply, afraid.

Tell me in the comments if I missed anyone or you have any casting ideas yourself!!

This has definitely been pitched before, but petition for a remake of les miserables where everyone is a muppet except Javert

[inmomorium-blog]

Episode 2:A Wild One in Every Generation of Women

Hello, I’m Matthew. This is In Momorium, a punnily named podcast about grief.

On this episode, we’re going to learn more about Debbie’s background by listening to her talking about her grandmother and then her mother. There are some digressions on mom’s part and some interruptions from me, both in 2009 and today.

A quick disclaimer, this recording was initially meant as notes for a writing project, and there are a lot of irritating background noises, including an obnoxious lovebird and some banging noises. I’ve cleaned it up as best I can, and it gets vastly better around the two-minute mark. There are some digressions on Mom’s part and some interruptions from me in 2009 and today, so please stick with us.

Now in her own words, here’s Debbie telling a tale of my two favorite mean old ladies.

 “Ninny was born on a farm near Paul’s Valley either 1904 or 1906 I don’t remember but she was born before Oklahoma became a state, it was still Indian Territory, and her daddy was a rancher, and her mother had a millinery shop, she made and sold hats, so Ninny always really liked hats, she always wore hats… So, um, her dad’s name was Lloyd, her mother’s name was Natti, her name was Cincinnati, and they called her Nattie, or Nat. and she had a uh, her older sister Alma, was the oldest and then she was the second child… and her father really wanted a son, and because the boys didn’t start coming until after Ila was born, he kind of made granny his boy, and they called her Bill or Billikins, although her name was Ila Inez, and she got out and rode horses and branded horses and raised hell and beat the hell out of all her brothers, and subsequently a good many of her husbands… She had six brothers and a younger sister.  

 Alma had two daughters, she had Magdalene and Lena Mae, and Magdalene was my hero, I always wanted to grow up and be like Magdalene, and I thought Magdalene was so tall, and as an adult I was way more than a head taller than Magdalene. There was a wild one in every generation of women, Ninny was the wild one in her generation, then Magdalene was the wild one in her generation, I was the wild one in my generation, then Audra was wild, now I guess Courtney is catching up, so something is happening to the generations.   

Granny lived at the farm, grew up at the farm, and left as soon as she could. She married Floyd (Charles Floyd Rushing) and they’d had Indianola when Ila was 18 or 19, I don’t remember. My mother lived with her dad and her grandmother, because Ila took off, she decided she didn’t want to be married anymore, and when Indianola was about three, she just left and left her there with her dad and her grandma, and lived the life of a flapper, she had all kind of neat stories about all these scrapes she was in, and these adventures that she had, she went from one end of the country to the other end of the country. Granny was, claimed to married 17 times, and I don’t recall her ever having gotten a divorce, but back then, I guess, If you were gonna party with her, you had to marry her, so she was married a whole bunch of times.       She would come and live with us for a while, then she and mother would get crosswise and so she’d pack her stuff up and she’d go away, then she’d come back. When I was small, mother worked in Doctor’s offices, and had to leave me at a nursery, and I never did like the nurseries and for whatever reason I would become annoyed with the nursery people, and then I would call my grandmother, who would come and get into a cuss fight with the people that owned the nursery, and get me thrown out and they wouldn’t take me back, but granny wouldn’t keep me, so she just would come and break me out of the nurseries and mother would have to find another nursery, so I went to a lot of nurseries when I was little …     Ninny owned restaurants and boarding houses, she always talked about being an “ole restrunt woman” and I remember one time when I was probably nine or ten years old, mother worked at the cigarette counter at a drug store at Jones-Balou drugstore that was at Britton road and May avenue… So granny picked me up after school and took me up to the drug store where mother worked, and was gonna buy me a hamburger, and they had a lunch counter that only was built up about half way, so that you could see the people sitting in the booths and you could see behind the area where they cooked, where the grill was, it was open, and we ordered my hamburger and I’m sittin’ there, and, granny hops up and says “You nasty son of a bitch you’re not cook a hamburger that I’m gonna by god eat!” and so she gets up and gets behind the counter and makes our hamburgers, and during that time, everybody in the store is running back there to get a look, because when she said that, she said it loud enough for them to hear it from down the block. And I was probably as mortified as I have ever been; I wanted to slink down out the booth and into the floor, that’s one of my most embarrassing moments. 

 But Granny was full of embarrassing moments; she would always do really strange things. She didn’t care who was around when she did, and some people thought that was her charm.    

“What about when your mother was little?” … She grew up on the farm, and “had to walk a mile to school with a potato in her pocket to keep her warm on her way to school and then it was her lunch” and when she was six, her dad remarried, and she never liked her step-mother, she thought her step-mother was just horrible, but I thought she was really nice. Bertha. The last I heard, she was still alive, and she’s 93 or 94. And with Bertha, Floyd had three more children, he had Willis Andrew, and Willy Calvin, and the daughter who was the youngest, was named Lila Clementine, when Lila married, she married a fellow named Bill Tinpenny, so her name was Lila Clementine Rushing Tinpenny, because of that, they called her “Sis” ...  They used to go all the time to the farm when Joey and Janice were little, I remember being drug down there a time or two, but I was always the city cousin that come visitin’ and all the little country cousins would make fun of because I didn’t want to roll around in the cow shit, and I was afraid of all the farm animals, and when we went down there I always stayed as close as I could to Bertha, because I didn’t want to be aggravated by all those other people. By the time I was ten or 12 years old, I put my foot down and said “I am no longer going to the farm” and I didn’t. The last time I went was when grandpa passed away…     

   When mother was 13, she made up her mind that her mother needed her, that she needed to go and live with her mother, and so she did. Living with her kind of consisted of them being “on the road”, they’d hitchhike one place then another or they’d go on the train, and there was a lady whose name was “Boots” she was married to uncle Gus at one time, now Marilyn wasn’t Gus’s child, but he was the stepfather she was the closest to, she was real fond of him and she kept in touch. They kinda ran with mother and granny for a while, the lived in Colorado for a while, they lived a few places.  Ninny and Boots Stayed buddies even though boots didn’t stay married to Gus.

Her first husband was Joe. She either got married at 14 and had Janice at 15, or married at 15 and Janice at 16. Mother had become sexually active and Granny pushed her into marrying Joe. She always contended that she didn’t love Joe, but between Joe and Granny, Granny was afraid she’d get pregnant and then Granny would be stuck having to raise the kids. So she coerced and urged her and kinda forced her into marrying Joe.

“Where’d she find him at?”

He grew up in Lindsay; they were all in Lindsay, that’s where Mother grew up. And, uh, I guess he was a Fuller brush man or something and he would come and visit her and bring her candy bars and sit on the porch and they would spark. But they got married and in the beginning, I know, she only stayed with him for maybe 10 year, 11 years, something like that. There were several times he beat the hell out of her. He beat her up one time when she was pregnant. And of course he was real demeaning. In order to keep her under his thumb, he was all “You know, nobody is gonna want you, and you’re stupid, and the only kinda job you’ll ever be able to get is slinging’ hash somewhere, you’re fat and dumb and ugly..” and all those kind of things. 

She went to work when Joey and Janice were in school. For a time she worked at Jackson Cookie Company, there was a cookie factory that was right by the house and she worked there. Then she went to work at the Capitol. She had made her mind up that she was ready to get loose from Joe about the time she got this job, and uh, she went out and got him an apartment and helped him get his linens and his dishes and all the things he was gonna need and packed his ass up and moved him out. 

Mother was quite a looker- I never saw that, but apparently she was extremely attractive when she was young. She had the real Lana Turner, kinda voluptuous sweater girl type of figure. I saw a picture of an office Christmas party when she was young, and the women were sitting along a sectional couch, and the men were standing behind the couch to pose for this picture, and every single one of the men were clearly, visibly ogling mother, and the other women they weren’t even looking at.

One time, Mother, we had a little friend I had fallen in love with when I was real small that worked as a soda jerk at the neighborhood drug store. That was a real popular place to go when I was young, that was where people would go to the lunch counters or go there for ice cream or sodas. This characters name was Wally, and he was crazy about Janice, and I was crazy about him. He carried me around on his shoulders and let me get back behind the bar of the drug store. Mother was sitting at the counter with, uh, somebody, and this guy came up to her and said “Lady, are you leavin’ pretty soon? Are you gonna be here for a minute?” and she said that she was. So he come back a little while later dragging this little girl, and drug his little sister clear over to the counter to see Mama, and told her to “Say hello to the purty lady!” and that’s a line we always used for everybody...

And she worked, and Mother, bless her heart, got involved with an awful lot of men who were married, and their wives never did understand em, and they were always gonna leave their wives and come and marry her, and they never did. 

After she passed away, I was always real close to Magdalene but I had spent a lot of time on the phone with her as mother was ill and when she died. Magdalene told a story about some guy they had known when they were young, and he lived out in the area where she lived, and she had gotten reacquainted with him, they talked, and they’d go out to dinner... by this time Magdalene was in her late 60s and so was this guy... and the guy had asked her to marry him, they were thinking about getting married. During one of their conversations he happened to mention that one of the most memorable afternoons of his lifetime was a rainy day that he was in a motel room above Kachi’s dance studio with Indianola. I guess Magdalene knew that he knew mother, but didn’t know that he knew mother quite that intimately. After that she broke it off with him, wouldn’t talk to him no more, wouldn’t have nothing to do with him, and obviously didn’t marry him.

Mother was real busy, and of course, back then women didn’t have, they didn’t get divorced as a general rule, and Mother and Granny both entertained quite frequently. Joey and Janice were embarrassed and shamed by the neighbors who had known Joe, and knew that they were married, and would keep track of the cars that would be spending the night with mother, and they’d asked the kids when they caught them out alone, you know, “Who was that that spent the night?”

Mother was real busy with her, uh, dance card.”

Next time on In Momorium, things take a darker turn as Debbie tells some family legends involving kidnapping, murder for hire, and murder for incestuous necrophilia.