Mirror Ball Tears & Sequin Dreams, Pt. 2: Dame Sophie
Dame Sophie’s Light & Important & Seriously Messed Up Links
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I have a confession: I have never read the now-classic Baby-sitters’ Club books by Ann M. Martin. I know. I was a little too old to be the target audience when they were first published in the 90s, and their excellence and popularity were so established when I got into librarianship that I didn’t need to in order to be an informed readers’ advisor. Please believe when I join the enthusiastic chorus of voices saying that the new adaptation on Netflix is actual perfect television. Everything about it, from the aesthetic to the casting to the realistic depictions of age-appropriately fraught relationships and individual character development to the soundtrack is done so well. It’s fun, it’s sincere, it’s got a heart as big as the world. It’s exactly the show we need right now. I can’t recommend it highly enough for viewers of all ages, and can’t wait to listen to this episode of Hey, YA! featuring guest editor all-star Amma Marfo in enthusiastic conversation with DamesPal Kelly Jensen.
Thanks to watching the Disney+ film of Hamilton last week, I’ve been revisiting the cast recording and several ancillary projects. The one that I keep thinking about is 21 Chump Street: The Musical, which Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote for a 2014 live episode of This American Life. It stars Anthony Ramos (Laurens & Philip Hamilton) and in some ways it’s still a delight to watch. All the things I love about Hamilton are abundantly present here -- the catchy tunes, the soulful, grounded performances, the questions about what kind of society we want to live in -- and it’s worth noting that the honeypot/entrapment to enforce a pointless anti-marijuana policy plot at its center hits much harder several more years into BLM and against the backdrop of the national policing abolition conversation.
Relatedly, Nate Powell’s cartoon essay About Face is one I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I first read it last year. Powell -- who you may already know from his work with Andrew Aydin and Congressman John Lewis on the March trio of award-winning graphic novels -- describes his essay as being about surface and style’s role in normalizing the use of force. He traces the recent history of American military uniform and dress codes and how changes wrought in our forever wars in Iraq & Afghanistan have trickled into the visual language of law enforcement and fascistic paramilitaries back home. It’s chilling, and helped crystallize for me both the anguish behind and the unacceptable toxicity of popular images like the Punisher and those thin blue line flags I see everywhere.
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