Old Obsessions & Fresh Delights
Dames Nation, it’s time to return to one of our all-time favorite subjects: Hamilton!
We aim to imbue this announcement with Groffsauce’s insouciance
As you presumably have heard, Disney has decided to leaven our quarantine misery (and garner as many subscribers for its streaming service as it can) by releasing the filmed performance of Hamilton, with its intact original cast, on Friday, July 3rd — just a week from today!
Naturally, there is only one way We Your Dames can respond to this momentous occasion: a livetweet!! Details:
When: Sunday, July 5th at 7:30pm ET (so that we all have a chance to watch it through at least once before we livetweet)
How: Streaming Disney+
Where: Twitter, using #Hamildames or in our Substack chat thread (which we’ll send out on Sunday afternoon)
Entertainingly, this is the same hashtag we used for both our 2015 livetweet of the original Broadway cast recording and the 2016 PBS documentary, so you can take a nice stroll down memory lane in the meantime.
We are so excited to share this with all of you!
A Disappointing Change and — Maybe — an Opportunity
As some of you in Dames Nation might remember, I was slated to lead a Pride & Prejudice Pilgrimage in Derbyshire this August. For obvious reasons, the physical trip has been cancelled — Common Ground Pilgrimages and I both agreed that, even if travel were allowed, it wouldn’t be moral. I am so disappointed that I will not be getting any hems 6-inches deep in mud this August. I know some of you were slated to come and I was so, so excited to finally meet you. But beyond even those (considerable) disappointments, the cancellation of this trip is hard because it underscores just how much longer we will be mired in this terrifying uncertainty.
I would have loved to know that, in August, I would be seeing English rocks and mountains so striking they would forever diminish for me the value of men, surrounded by other people as passionately attached to Jane Austen as I am. But frankly, as week fifteen of quarantine draws to a close, I would settle for knowing that, in August, it would be safe to hug my friends again, or take public transportation, or simply feel like an excursion beyond my front porch was a normal activity rather than a calculated risk. And I have no idea when any of those things will either be or feel safe again. As bad as the certain cancellation of this trip is, it's not nearly as bad as the persistent anxiety of not knowing how much longer our lives will be curtailed, and to what degree.
The one bright spot in all of this is knowing that some version of the communion we were meant to have together in England is still going to be attempted online. Common Ground has done a really thoughtful job, I think, of preserving as much of the pilgrimage experience as they can in a virtual space. I am glad to think that, while I may not be able to travel physically, I can still have this time of restful meditation with a text that means so much to me and share that time with others who hold Pride & Prejudice in similar regard. Whatever is or is not known by late August, I feel confident that three days of close reading, directed introspection, and long walks will be a very necessary balm for me. Obviously, despite the fact that the virtual pilgrimage is a lot more affordable than the real one was, it remains a luxury that plenty of people will not be able to afford right now. But I really hope some of you can join me — having some Dames Nationals there will make everything so much nicer: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/read-write-and-walk-with-jane-austen-and-margaret-h-willison-tickets-106139034710
Dame Sophie’s Tearful, Joyful Tunes & More
Up & down the dial all day long! (Image by Vipin Toshniwal)
If you’ll allow me to channel Sophia Petrillo, picture it: South Jersey, 2020. You wake up on your 45th birthday and putter around until it’s time for your weekly catch-up call/editorial meeting with your beloved co-editor, Margaret. She starts the call by asking if you’ve checked your email yet. You haven’t, so you vamp for a minute or two while you wake up your laptop. And there, waiting in your inbox, is the instrument of your emotional murder. It’s an email containing a link to a celebratory playlist. Not only did Margaret gather up and sequence a lovely bunch of songs in your honor, but she enlisted your husband and sister and another wonderful friend to get in touch with friends throughout your life to ask them for their favorite songs that you’ve introduced them to, or that they most associate with you. There is truly nothing like the high of seeing yourself reflected in the love of so many of the people who you love. I’ve spent the last week listening to this mixtape — at the risk of crossing a self-praise line, it’s great — and reading the accompanying liner notes document Margaret compiled, and getting bowled over every time by how lucky I am to have this many generous and thoughtful people in my life. My deepest thanks to those of you who sent in a song or five! And if there’s a song I’ve introduced you to that’s brought you joy or catharsis or just a moment of heart’s ease, I’d love to know about it, and I think Margaret may be open to adding it to the master list.
This weekend should be the kick-off of the Glastonbury Festival in England. 2020 is the festival’s 50th anniversary & because it’s not happening at all this year, the BBC are re-releasing a slew of classic performance videos going back to the mid-2000s. Accordingly, my husband & I are reveling in getting to revisit some favorites including a very rowdy “Parklife” by Blur, Jay-Z’s cheeky Noel and/or Liam Gallagher call-out mashup of “Wonderwall” & “99 Problems”, Pulp’s “Common People” (from 1995!!), the drunken nightclub perfection of Underworld performing “Born Slippy”, Beyoncé’s masterful mashup cover of “Beautiful Ones” and “Sex on Fire” (you can easily see the seeds of Homecoming in her 2011 Glastonbury set, do not sleep on it!), and of course, my favorite of them all, Dave and Alex. Here’s what I wrote about Dave & Alex last year:
Dave is the Ivor Novello Award-winning and Mercury Prize-winning rapper from South London whose debut album Psychodrama takes the form of an intense session with a therapist. Alex is a 15 year-old fan from Wells (where they shot Hot Fuzz). Dave & Alex had never met before the day they performed “Thiago Silva” before a crowd of 100,000ish of their best friends.
Look at them together. Behold, Alex’s friends making sure Dave saw Alex, held aloft on their shoulders, screaming & pointing wildly at his Thiago Silva jersey! Look at how Dave sweetly gives Alex, visibly nervous, a pep talk and chucks him gently on the cheek, and at how Alex returns the sweet gesture right back. The soft mateyness! They are bonded for life now! Look at how this moment goes from “uh, maybe this will be a mess” to “this is lightning in a bottle, let’s do this!!” Look at how Alex pours his all into this performance, surprising & delighting Dave, the entire crowd, and all of us! Look how much fun they’re both having! Loving things is great & it’s also great to be the creator of a thing people love & then get to create a uniquely special moment with one of those people and the world one perfect evening in the waning summer sunshine.
If you, like me, love What We Do In The Shadows and long for Season Three to get here already (yes, I know Season 2 just ended, what of it?), I have a stopgap measure to recommend. Toast of London (3 seasons, 19 episodes, on Netflix in the US) stars Matthew Berry (WWDITS’ Laszlo/Jackie Daytona) as Steven Toast, a hapless actor bumbling his way through both his career and life. Toast is both deeply silly and genuinely funny (yes, these are distinct things!), and at just 30 minutes per episode, you’ll scarf them down like candy. Thanks to Toast’s near-constant struggle to work harmoniously with the heroically deadpan/obtuse audio engineer Clem Fandango, the show also provides a temporary bridge for viewers longing for Season Three of Star Trek Discovery and its Section 31 spinoff, co-starring Fandango himself, Shazad Latif. (h/t Bim Adewunmi for suggesting this show in the episode of Thirst Aid Kit on Shazad and Manny Montana, kings of smoldering.)
Dame Margaret’s Small, Necessary Luxuries Corner
Is this the most profound thing I could be writing today? No, it is not. But this handful of cheap products either have been or will shortly be making my quarantine life much better
Up until a little over a month ago, in spite of their definitive comeback, I still shared Carrie Bradshaw’s opinion of scrunchies — no matter how many cool young people wore them, they always looked exceptionally square to me. Then, thanks to a generous gift from my previously praised roommate, I finally came right on sleeping in a satin one per Jonathan Van Ness’s recommendation. I still do not care for them on an aesthetic level, but its impact on my hair is remarkable — I twist my hair into a bun at night, secure it with my satin scrunchie, and wake up with loose, frizz-free waves despite the fact that it’s been nearly 8 months since I had a hair cut. The only downside? The keen misery of having great hair day after great hair day with no one to impress. For $8, you can get a pack of 50 and then, as Mallory did, distribute them amongst your friends like a Fairy Hair Godmother.
One of the most important things for my sanity this spring and summer has been having fresh flowers in the house. Next week, my flower share — the greatest luxury I have bought myself to date — kicks in, meaning I will have 10 weeks of farm-fresh bouquets. I am extremely excited about it. But this section is devoted to small luxuries so please, let me sing the praises of one of the least expensive supermarket flowers out there: alstroemeria, or Peruvian lilies. For $3.99 at my local supermarket, I can get a 10-stem alstroemeria bouquet that lasts, without visible fading or drooping, for two weeks. I cannot recommend them highly enough.
Speaking of things I recommend highly that last forever, let us now sing of Cambridge SoundWorks’ Oontz Angle bluetooth speaker. For $35, you get a speaker with great sound and an insane battery life — I swear, I charge mine no more than once a month — that’s sturdy enough it can be heedlessly pitched into a backpack and waterproof enough that it’s completely safe to take in the shower or use by the pool. Whether for playing a podcast while I tackle the endless pile of dishes or providing a soundtrack at a socially distant, this little buddy is a complete necessity.
Also helping me maximize my time outdoors: my Moft laptop stand. I can work on my patio without either carting another item down from my room or sacrificing the ergonomic benefits of a laptop stand — with this stuck onto the back of my computer, the laptop stand is built right in.
And finally, this is an item I do not own yet but am purchasing soon after years of observing my best friend’s joy in hers: an L.L. Bean camp chair. Light and super portable, these genius little seats provide something softer than the ground upon which to sit, lumbar support into which to lean, and even a little pocket on the back where you can stash a paperback or water bottle. With outdoor time at a premium and benches constituting something of a health hazard, the time for a camp chair has truly come.
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