March Mayhem

Hello, lovelies,

I’m here to share some delights. They’ve been accumulating.

studio_hex_bs

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Delight #1: Open windows in my apartment!

#2: Have you seen Walton Goggins’s Architectural Digest tour? It’s a1920s lodge, and I’m obsessed. He’s killing it on the latest season of The White Lotus.

#3: A couple weeks ago, I devoured the SNL 50th Anniversary Extravaganzas (the special, the concert, other behind-the-scenes features). My favorite bits were the mini documentaries they shared (on the Peacock streaming service) about cast member auditions, and following the writers for a week. Say what you will about SNL—that they manage to pull off this feat each week is miraculous. I’m in awe of them.

#4: Rachel Syme’s Letter Writer. “A literary jaunt in praise of the lost art of letter writing that explores a cultural history and the undeniable thrill of old-school correspondence.” Who wants to start up an old-fashioned correspondence?

#5: Nigella Lawson's Fish Finger Bhorta recipe. YUM.

#6: Harney & Sons tea—especially the decaf Vanilla Comoro. Add a touch of brown sugar ‘n cream and you’re in for a TREAT.

#7: Lady Gaga’s Mayhem album is a swirling, sizzling, stinging joy. I never latched on to her music in her early days (I was way into the indie rock Vampire Weekend type stuff). But her singles were fixed in the zeitgeist. You couldn’t escape them.

Right now, I’m in the mood for energetic, defiantly joyous stuff. Give me beats. Give me grooves. Give me humor. And I think this particular album has that. And I’ve been enjoying learning more about her process and her insights to the work. I’ve been gobbling up lots of interviews. She’s smart and is a student of all kinds of things and a student of herself. Also I think her trumpet tattoo is so cool. And like…that “Abracadabra” music video is absolutely astonishing. Dance or die, people! Dance or die.

Rachel Syme just wrote a New Yorker piece on the album. (I’ve only just started reading it, but I’m a fan of her writing so much and eager to do more digging.)

#8: Oliver Burkeman’s 70% percent rule:

The 70% rule: If you’re roughly 70% happy with a piece of writing you’ve produced, you should publish it. If you’re 70% satisfied with a product you’ve created, launch it. If you’re 70% sure a decision is the right one, implement it. And if you’re 70% confident you’ve got what it takes to do something that might make a positive difference to the increasingly alarming era we seem to inhabit? Go ahead and do that thing. (Please!)

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SELF-PROMOTION STATION
I’m going to be in a couple plays this year! The first is a screwball comedy called The Angel Next Door by Paul Slade Smith. This is an adaptation of the Hungarian classic Play at the Castle. (Tom Stoppard also wrote a version called Rough Crossing.) It’s about a bunch of artists gathering at a Newport, Rhode Island mansion in the late 40s. And the walls are very thin. I’ll be playing a naïve and love-struck novelist.

Secondly, I’m playing Edmund in King Lear. I’ve never been in Lear! (I’ve also never been in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; though I have been a handful of more obscure Shakespeare plays like Timon of Athens, Troilus and Cressida, and have even played King John. I dunno…I just felt like bragging.)

The Angel Next Door plays May 17–September 6 at the Commonweal Theatre in Lanesboro, Minnesota.

King Lear plays September 13–November 2 (also at the Commonweal).

In other news, I’ve been setting the phone aside and taking up collage. Analogue, baby! That means X-Acto knife, scissors, magazines, and glue sticks. It’s so much fun. It’s very imprecise and messy. And in a short amount of time, I’ve got my hands on some truly vintage magazines that are perfect for a kind of…surreal style I’m developing. But mostly I’m just playing and having fun and that absolutely ESSENTIAL.

Okay…I have lots to do. But I wanted to share some stuff.

Take care, everybody!