Laughing Wild Amid Severest Woe
And other good habits and bits of fun!
Hello, Dames Nationals!
We’re going to open the email this week with a quick highlight reel of some of the good habits your fellow citizens shared in response to last week’s issue.
From
(a fellow Substacker at !):Pretty sure my only good habit comes from
herself, which is to rinse the knife immediately after cutting an avocado. When I am about to place it in the sink without rinsing, I think, "don't let it become cement" and take the approximately three seconds it takes to spare myself later irritation when emptying the dishwasher.
We endorse this one so much, and not just with avocados! Knives are pretty easy to wash when they’ve just been used— take full advantage of this fact!
From Laurel:
I put together a Tech Travel Kit — I.e a little zipper pouch with duplicates of all my chargers & cords, a power bank, a thumb drive, and a cheap pair of earbuds. It permanently lives in my carry-on and the expense of buying duplicate stuff is easily, EASILY outweighed by the relief of never having to worry if I packed xyz. One can do likewise with toiletries and my goal is to one day just keep a suitcase constantly packed with clothes for a typical business trip (not quite there yet)
As I, Dame Margaret, am presently facing the Herculean task of packing for a 3-week trip to… six different locations, this particular hack seems especially inspired. I am SO jealous of Laurel for having the presence of mind to implement it and I FORMALLY RESOLVE that I will have a Tech Travel Kit for my Northanger Abbey Pilgrimage in August.
In a similar vein, we have Gerald:
I just got a tablet sleeve for my iPad to corral all my accessories I always carry with it to host pub quiz events.
Who also shared a list app recommendation that certainly piqued Dame Margaret’s interest:
I love love love Clear Lists for iOS. Recently revamped after a long dormant period, it is free with all features unlocked, but you can purchase cosmetics or sound effects for it to support the developers. It’s a huge part of me keeping track of whatever I’m doing any given day, and it’s better than the iOS Reminders app in MANY ways.
Given that the iOS Reminders app is low-key my nemesis, I am definitely going to check this one app. Maybe it’ll finally be the one that Fixes Me.
THAT SAID, this mention of Reminders reminded me of one more good habit to share: whenever a waiter or bartender at a favorite restaurant introduces themselves to me, I set up a location-specific reminder that says something like “Your favorite waiter at [some cool establishment] is named [some hip name” every time I am at the restaurant. Theoretically, you could do this with anyone you encounter regularly in one particular location, but the real dream will be when I can make dog-specific reminders. “The person walking Ruby the French Bull Dog is named Dave, and he’s introduced himself to you at least 6 times. Remember Dave, NOT JUST HIS DOG.”
Once an app makes that possible, it’s all over for you hoes.
Dame Karen Mourns The Loss of Christopher Durang
Fellow former theater kids of a certain age, please join me in pouring one out (you choose, either Mountain Blackberry Clearly Canadian or Peach Snapple Iced Tea) for the late, great Christopher Durang, who died on April 2 at the age of 75.
I first learned about Durang when my parents took me to a performance of his play Laughing Wild when I was maybe 14. It consists of three acts, two monologues, one by an unnamed woman, one by an unnamed man, and then a third part in which they interact. “I want to talk to you about life,” says the woman toward the beginning of her act. “It’s just too difficult to be alive, isn’t it, and to try to function?”
“Yes,” I thought in the audience. “It is.” I had never heard anyone vocalize this sentiment before, but it was one I had wholeheartedly believed and struggled with for as long as I could remember. One of the ways in which I coped with this all-encompassing difficulty, even then, was humor. Life was hard but it was also funny and full of moments of sudden delight, connection and understanding and it turned out there were people out there writing about it. Years later I would recognize a lot of Christopher Durang in both Kevin Smith and John Waters, two more of my favs — dark humor and satire as coping mechanism; examining, paying tribute to, and at the same time recognizing the absurdity of the ways in which pop culture permeates our lives; wrestling with Catholicism and all that entails; and long, long monologues that give actors everything but the ability to improvise. Durang was also responsible for one of my first exposures to art that was unequivocally and proudly queer, which, thank goodness.
When I was in high school, I met other Durang fans. An older student directed a production of Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You in a festival of one act plays, and I went on to do the same with one of the acts from Beyond Therapy, which is an extremely early ‘80s, pitch black, satirical comedy about dating and psychotherapy. (Sadly, the film adaptation by my otherwise beloved Robert Altman is terrible!) It contains jokes about premature ejaculation and Plato’s Retreat and was certainly well beyond the abilities or comprehension of a group of children, but it was also one of my proudest moments as an extremely depressed and prematurely brittle and sarcastic teenager.
Sigourney Weaver and Christopher Durang went to Yale Drama School together and she was a muse of his and acted in many of his plays; they reunited in 2013 when Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike went to Broadway and went on to win the Tony for Best Play. Their conversation that ran on Vulture is a delight. Durang also accompanied Weaver when she hosted Saturday Night Live in 1986 and he appeared as himself on Church Chat!
David Hyde Pierce was another Durang muse (he originated the role of Vanya and then went on to direct the play himself) and I loved what he said about the literal rise and fall (of the curtain and also his emotions) of Beyond Therapy’s brief original run.
“Oh, well, what does it matter, that is what I always say, so long as one… you know… what is that wonderful line…. Laughing wild…. something something laughing wild amid severest woe.”
[Turns out it’s from this: “And moody Madness laughing wild / Amid severest woe.”]
Dame Margaret’s Bits and Bobs
I have a few disconnected bits of fun for you this week, readers!
First: a pair of articles on The Death of the Gif.
At The Verge, Kaitlyn Tiffany makes a persuasive case that the How Do You Do, Fellow Kids? gif has become the How Do You Do, Fellow Kids"? of memes.
And at The Atlantic, Tiffany elaborated on the same theme, zooming out to give the larger context for why the gif is on its deathbed.
As a publication that was, at one time, on the CUTTING EDGE of Gif Culture, I felt the validity of Tiffany’s case in my very bones.
Someone else now playing catch-up who used to be cutting edge: JoJo Siwa, whose play for adult stardom generated both a very funny write-up in the NYT from Madison Malone Kircher and this perfectly pithy TikTok from Tegan and Sara:
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Which was a great reminder: when was the last time you listened to either Tegan and Sara’s Heartthrob or Love You to Death? Because it turns out, those albums has remained absolute gold.
And finally, on the topic of albums, my favorite underrated band released their newest one today: Bad Bad Hats’s “flower album” (technically also named Bad Bad Hats). They right absolute perfect music for sunny spring days, so their timing is nearly impeccable. If you have time in between spinning the new Beyoncé, the new Kacey, or the new Maggie Rogers, make this album your first stop!
For this week:
But we’ll be back again next week, probably still bearing gifs.
XOXO/ Dames Margaret and Karen
Uhhhhhhhh so this is how I learned Christopher Durang had died, which is obviously a bummer.
In addition to him being the masterful playwright he so clearly was, I also vividly remember him stealing his only scene in the 90's comedy The Cowboy Way, playing a waiter at a fancy hotel, opposite Woody Harrelson and Keifer Sutherland. No small feat!
Oh to be forever laughing wild! Well done, as always, dames.