Kangaroo birth (at the end)

Bonsoir and happy new year! (or is it too late to say it?)

My favorite day 1 tradition involves making vision boards (cancel me) with the guidance of my more artistically inclined friend Sahar- though this year I did (sue me) accidentally use my landlord’s copy of New York Magazine. Someone advised me to gift her a new one and show her my collage- still working on that one lol.

Though I mostly escaped the APAP/Under The Radar frenzy (basically fashion week for dance/theater but in a conference type setting so overwhelming and unsexy)- I caught two really amazing shows. Janine however caught one and it was apparently awful- if she was writing she would strongly discourage you from seeing Otto Frank.

PERFORMANCE

The Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner was a trip and masterfully performed. The whole play is a hard conversation between two best friends and a tweet saga centered around Kylie Jenner’s unwarranted title as a “successful business woman” and the glorification of her unnatural body modeled after Black women. It’s both thrilling and hard and actually does the work ( including an entire production team of Black women). It is up there if not even more interesting in its integration of social media than Circle Jerk imo.

Photo by Helen Murray of The Seven Methods of Killing Kiley Jenner

I was also elated to catch 600 Highwaymen’s  Part Three: An Assembly with Andi. I feel like my covid experience was framed by An Encounter (The overarching work that compiles Part One, Two and Three). I did Part One in July 2020- which basically consisted of a phone call in which we were paired with another audience member. A robot voice “narrated” our “performance” and prompted us to answer questions throughout- which built the play. Some created an indelible level of intimacy (example: asking us to describe where we were seated during the call or to talk about our childhood), without at any point enabling us to find out the other person’s name. There were no performances/art/people for several months prior to this so sharing this, with a stranger, who is from my only knowledge in her 60s and living in Montana (and not being able to find out more because it just hung up at the end), was so fulfilling.

Photo for The Encounter

That same year, as things reopened, Sarah and I went to Part Two, which was the same concept, except that we were all placed in different rooms of The Public with a stranger. Both of us ended up with older audience members and had really wonderful experiences that involved at times bringing our hands to touch theirs through the plexiglass. And then again we had to exit at different times, with no way to find each other again.

Part Three was, with the phone call, a spiritual experience. It took place in the public library- Andi and I were among maybe 12 strangers. The prompt to start the show is just for anyone to grab the first card onstage once everyone is seated. Some people were invited because they just happened to be at the Library that day and had no idea what this was- it made the experience better. In 90 minutes among other things, we found out that one of our fellow audience members had cancer, who could fit the most blueberries in their mouth and Andi and another woman had to ask each other if they could see each other as friends. I didn’t realize how much I needed a group experience like this and it’s kind of wild that theater did that.

I hope that my play (this is my plug and the only one I swear) can bring togetherness in this way. It’s at The Brick February 10th and 11th and at the WOW Cafe Theater February 12th. I am so proud of this one and my collaborators- they have really made my dreams come true.

Cast photo of my show by Maksim Akselrod

FILM

You’ve probably all seen MEGAN by now and if you haven’t please do- it’s hilarious, even though dancing robots terrify me. 

If you want to keep up the robot humor content, may I recommend Brian and Charles? Watched it on the plane to Florida during the holidays out of all places and it’s SO funny in a wow this is so obviously not a robot and british humor kind of way.

But there are so many amazing films right now that are also wildly depressing but insanely beautiful.

This winter, Alice Diop has become my favorite director- it all started with streaming “We” up to “Saint Omer” which came out this week. No one makes films like Alice anymore- she feels like 2022 version of the French New Wave but pushing boundaries way past any of them could dream of. Her movies are slow- but in a way that really allows you to get into the psychology of her characters, and they all evoke a complicated portrait of France, and national high academia that excludes the cultures that make it what it is today. Saint Omer is hard and you should read all the content warnings before diving in. In 2016, Alice sat in a courtroom in Saint Omer and listened to the troubling testimony of Fabienne Kabou, a fellow French-Senegalese woman who was accused of killing her infant daughter- as Diop was pregnant at the time. The film poses more questions than answers and looks at the complexity of everything.

Guslagie Malanda in “Saint Omer”

Along the same lines- Aftersun. Also look at the content warnings but it is also about parenting in a way and figuring out what you bring from your own childhood and memory. It’s also slow and somehow manages to say a lot without much dialogue- but it’s really stunning and pinpoints so many feelings that can’t quite be described in words.

Documentary-wise, if you live in New York or have lived in New York- Sunshine Hotel is a great portrait of the residents of the last flophouse in the city (on the Bowery). 

OTHER

I don’t have much listening time right now but have slowly been listening to The Evaporated podcast, it’s an incredible account of disappearances in Japan- otherwise known as “Jouhatsu”. In 2019, 87,000 people were reported as missing which people attribute to how badly it is seen to quit a job there and pressure related to gender roles.

If you want to be entranced in a story about a multiyear friendship and the gaming industry- coming from someone here who is not into gaming- I highly recommend reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.

Photo of Nick Cave’s show by Nathan Keay

If you want to see an amazing art show I really recommend checking out Nick Cave at the Guggenheim- I find it way more interesting than the Alex Katz show that is on at the same time and that people are talking way more about.

I will leave you with a lesson on how a kangaroo gives birth- shared with me by my <3 - speechless.