The Weekend Special

Pieces are given up to three Ellises (for fiction), McClellands (for essays), or Whitakers (for random picks). As with restaurant stars, even one Ellis, McClelland, or Whitaker indicates a generally positive review.

⏰ Fiction

“The City Is a Graveyard” by Addie Citchens. Two Ellises. sign, sight, signalling. A gorgeous second-person character study, perfectly modulated. Slips in a nuanced exploration of Southern Xillenial gender politics, which are aware of third-wave feminism but perhaps not quite invested in it. The central character forgives herself for what she terms her irresponsibility – she’s had a number of abortions and variously troubled relationships – but she still views it as irresponsibility; the result of “yearning… hard” and choosing oneself is not freedom from guilt but the recurring thought that she is “a callous woman, a freak, a murderer”, something the random man she encounters seems to confirm with his rejection. There is a wonderfully woozy, floating quality to this story, fitting its many ghosts and visions, and it’s to Citchens’ credit that she doesn’t feel the need to tidy up at the end. Seconds will pass.

⏰ Weekend Essay

“The Most Beautiful Freezer in the World” by Cree LeFavour. No McClellands. coldest, committing, cookies. An overwritten travelogue about a baking job in the South Pole. There’s a weirdly self-pitying tone – she bursts into tears a few times – but little to no discussion of whether the labor conditions are actually unfair and if so how they might be ameliorated. Even the couch is “dejected”. ‘The Pole was beautiful, and/but my job was hard’ does not a thesis make, and LeFavour never finds a reason why she needs to tell us this story.

⏰ Random Pick

“Living Large” (Profiles) by Susan Orlean. (June 17, 1991.) One Whitaker. experiences, expression, extra. Your patience for Orlean’s deliberately ironic, litany-heavy, anthropological-ish tone will vary; she is definitely translating Fab Five Freddy for the magazine’s audience in a manner that now comes across as ethnographic and thus arguably condescending or paternalistic, but her obvious enthusiasm and admiration for Freddy makes it clear that the joke is on the presumably ignorant reader, not the man being profiled. Freddy’s aesthetic and the cartography of his social sphere are chronicled with Orlean’s now legendary witty detail; this aspect has only improved with time, since her running into “a rapper named Queen Latifah… in the entranceway” serves as a lot more than local color. Freddy, a proto-influencer, has shaped our era not only culturally and aesthetically but by helping change the whole flow of media culture; his thorough vindication in the present also keeps Orlean’s gestures toward skepticism (“There is no such job listed with the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics”) from feeling like snobbery. Have a little patience and this is good fun.

⏰ Something Extra

Not mad at all at going 19/24 for the Oscars, including some correctly-picked non-chalk (Doc Feature, Animated Short), some stuff that swung to chalk after I’d picked it (I’d been on Jordan for Actor since before SAG) and one instance in which my sticking to my guns despite the guild award paid off (Sinners for Cinematography).

Last Tuesday I took the train up to SUNY New Paltz, a trek rendered worthwhile by a phenomenal performance of Sky Islands, by flutist Clare Chase, pianist Alex Peh, and composer Susie Ibarra who jumped around the stage playing all sorts of percussion, from giant bamboo tubes to tiny bells to a normal drum set to plants (which were apparently electronically programmed in some manner.) There was a parade through the audience at the end. It was joyous and full of movement, and the setting’s casual, college-campus vibes really helped activate the piece. Ibarra won the most recent Pulitzer for music for the composition; richly deserved. Also in the world of new music: I saw my friend Sean McFarland play a chordal, hyper-distorted solo electric baritone guitar piece – think Sunn O))) with no fog machine – as part of a trio of solo guitar pieces by James Romig (the other two were acoustic and only-barely-amped electric). It was one night only, but if you’re in south Harlem and like ‘new music’, I highly recommend the venue, Mise-En Place, which is newish and feels underdiscovered. It’s a converted bodega, it’s intimate and has good sound.

A few compelling performance pieces from around town: I caught the latest installment of Offerings, which pairs three performance pieces in a church venue in Times Square. It was fun to see the brilliant Lena Engelstein and Lisa Fagan, of my show-of-the-year-so-far Friday Night Rat Catchers and lots of other stuff, do something a bit less rehearsed and of-a-piece (although it was also playing with the codes and phrases of under-rehearsed disjointedness, so for all I know it was actually extremely tight and intentional); an unsettling tourist-clown runway dance by Evan Ray Suzuki; and an uncharacteristically disarming set of guitar songs from one of my longtime favorite comedians, River Ramirez, who may be moving away from their persona as a sort of demonic slacker.

Calf Scramble at 59E59 is a very well executed, fairly traditional teen drama about rurality, faith, and commitment; if the script is a bit stronger than the direction, which doesn’t find enough differing volumes, aiming everything at a slightly-raised-voice level, the talented young cast and possibly overqualified creative team still make everything work. At the very end, the show’s reach starts to exceed its grasp, but this is at least better than a show that runs out of ambition partway through. (Cough, The Dinosaurs, which I also saw but have nothing, good or bad, to say about.)

Are these about-town recaps growing too long or are we still liking them? I’m still not including everything I see, mostly because I’m generally not going to go worse than mixed-positive about small-room / short-run stuff that I don’t fully vibe with.

Sunday Song: