"fuck" is a poetic expression of the unsayable soul
I saw Phantom of the Opera last night-glory glory musical theater geek glory with ORGAN! (Also, RAOUL, who was equal parts adorable earnestness and posh-boy ridiculousness as well as being beautiful, andI left feeling incredibly shippy: oh kids! They had so much chemistry, and they kissed lightly during curtain call; I wonder if they're hooking up IRL)-and then proceeded to continue in my pattern of being on the receiving end of awkward age-inappropriate pickups every damn time I go to Midtown. Whaaaat.
Poll PATTERNS IN MY LIFE: PART THE DUBIOUS
There wasn't even an ASOIAF-based excuse this time! I didn't have a book! But honestly. I'm in Shake Shack, and the conversation is of incredibly dubious merit. "What did you order?" "A burger and a shake." "Me too!" Yes, that's because there are three things on the menu; in any case, he asked me about my life, and I left with a brand-new identity, aka: I LIED WANTONLY. For fucksake, dude is fortysomething and asking me where I work-the only thing to do, I felt, was invent, invent, invent like a boss. ("I am...a librarian," she said allusively.) And then leave. With my burger and shake in hand, which, for the record, were delicious.
("You're the first person I've ever met from New Hampshire!" No, sir, you still haven't met anyone from New Hampshire.)
So, at the bequest of vega_ofthe_lyre (THIS GIRL AND HER DEMANDS), I watched the two episodes of new-gen Skins and lo and behold it's...actually good? I'm amused because I marathonned first gen last January, too, and also because I stopped talking about it when my tag ("skins is a fucking joyfest") became inaccurate-but now my tag appears to have become accurate once again? Go figure. This show is a glorious fucking headfuck thing, as in the best it should be.
I am really enjoying the leitmotif of identity as performance art that the show's doing, which became way clearer to me in the second episode, actually-I mean, Franky is the most obvious example of it, but also Dakota is not that strong of an actress thus far? I adore her face, but I just wanted her episode to be a silent movie or something, because, oh, she's entirely awkward and it's not always deliberate. So the first episode was mostly me having feelings about the support and generally thinking that this cast was adorable and connective, which they are-and about being preemptively excited to figure out why Mini is the way she is, because I am always far too invested in knowing why terrible people are terrible and also because Freya Mavor's face and accent are skewing my feelings all over. (I honestly think she might be the most compelling performer in the cast thus far, though. She has so much charisma, and there are a tonne of little things going on at the base of her character already-her dropping fries over the edge of the balcony at the mall was sort of a stunning moment, because she had so obviously just felt threatened and her response to that threat was then to leave and make them come to her; it's this systematic proving thing where she has to believe that they will come back to her because if they want her/like her they have to come back for her. I don't want to call her female Tony Stonem because she's not brilliant or bored like he is, but I'm interested in her brand of destruction and in the why of it.)
But, o, the second episode! I suspected Grace would be my favourite the minute she said "before in Oxford, or in a past life?" because darling, but then the second episode happened and I actually fell apart with glee? Because, oh, this girl. This girl lives her life like performance art and knows it. This girl lets the world make her into a cipher because her solace is playing the roles she invents, because she can choose things that will make others happiest in a way that makes her happy too: "how valiant of you"/"I know, right?" → "no one's got a fucking clue who I am or what I can do." She takes the passive, frustrating place of being Mini's second and makes her passivity into an aesthetic; when she surmounts it, it's not a ~betrayal (as she knows Mini would see it) but an act, but the act is in earnest because everything she does is part of an act. It stops being anything but genuine the farther removed from straightforward dynamics she gets. She chooses the disguises, the aesthetic bits, because she loves them, too, because she loves the act, because she's a performer. She's a dancer (even though the actress...isn't, oh dear me) and she defines herself by that, but everything else is a conscious choice, and it's wonderful. "I'm not just a dancer. I'm also an actor." And throughout the episode, she's constantly endeavouring to bring Rich into her game from a game-playing perspective: because Rich is entirely a work of performance art, too, but the difference is that he believes his own script. Can we take a moment?
RICH: Why do you think I dress like this?
GRACE: I thought it was a joke or something.
RICH: It's not a joke! You know, I'm not a fucking clown dressing up silly to make you laugh! This is me. This is who I am. ...Right, forget it, this will never work.
GRACE: But it will work! You may not know this about me, Rich, but I'm not only a dancer, I'm an actor as well.
RICH: Right, how's that going to help anything?
GRACE: Using acting, I shall inhabit the role of 'the metalhead'. And whilst I'm in character, you can practise chatting her up!
RICH: That's the worst idea since genocide. Possibly even worse. Why would you ever want to do that?
GRACE: Fun?
THESE KIDS ARE THE BEST KIDS. (Rich is the most ridiculous human, "the worst idea since genocide" made me laugh aloud-I can't decide whether or not I love him? His face is very dear, he himself is horribly teenage and self-righteous, and I want to punch him in the brain not out of vitriol but because I think it'd do him good. But as will his relationship with Grace, so he can continue to exist without being punched and that is fine. He has, of course, already been metaphorically punched in the eardrums because this show is ridic.) Her voice here is so precise and gleefully self-conscious (the way she says using acting fills my soul with delight), because it is a game to her in the best and giddiest and sincerest way possible: "I thought it was a joke" is casually belittling, but it's not an insult. He's playing the exact same game that she is, but he's not yet aware that he's more than his aesthetic choice. She knows, she gets to be frustrated by it, but to use it for fun, too-to act her way through life and into true places.
And that's how we get to the Sub Rosa scene, which made me want to die of joy. AUGH. OKAY, MORE DIALOGUE COPYPASTA:
GRACE: Shove up.
RICH: Sorry, someone's sitting there.
GRACE: Oh yeah, who?
RICH: Uh-you.
GRACE: I'm Sub. Short for Sub Rosa. Nice to meet you.
RICH: Hey Sub, I'm Rich.
(They both down their beer)
GRACE: So. What do you do for fun, Rich?
RICH: Uh, listen to music, go to gigs, hang out with my mate Allo... that's about it, really.
GRACE: You don't have any other friends? Just this Alo guy?
RICH: Yeah. Just him, really.
GRACE: No one else?
RICH: Well, recently there's been a couple of other people... this girl Frankie, and... others...
GRACE: Others?
RICH: Yeah. This... this girl, who's helping me, I suppose. Okay? So what sort kind of music are you into, Sub?
GRACE; Oh, you know. Industrial, mostly. Godflash, early Spawn, TKK.
RICH: Nine Inch Nails?
GRACE: Fuck off. Trent Reznor can suck my cock.
TRENT REZNOR CAN SUCK MY COCK. FAVOURITE ACTING MOMENT IN THE EPISODE, I SWEAR TO GOD. HER VOICE DOING THE SAME PRECISE, DELICATE ENUNCIATION THING. HER FACE, AMUSED AND SLY AND PLEASED, BECAUSE SHE WAS EXPECTING THIS. THE FACT THAT SHE DID HER RESEARCH. GRACE YOU PERFECT METHOD HUMAN. She is the sweetest human being on the planet, sometimes to a fault, but she likes proving herself. There's a bit of the perfectionist about her-I mean, her choice of performance is ballet, which all Black Swanning aside (and again, Jessica's not-actual-a-ballerina-at-ALL status aside) is about perfection and deliberateness, and she gets so irresistibly into the role that it makes acting less like a casual thing and more almost a proof of the idea that she does have limitless potential, no matter how small people around her make her. I love them both knocking back their lagers, because by god she is going to drink that down and he is just watching and keeping up and marvelling because it's both real and not-real. It's a test, but they both know how it's meant to work. It's a test through performance that's about finding out what's true. He's genuinely impressed because there's truth in her act. She puts it on in some ways to find out what he's thinking under the act.
The ship is glorious because she sees through him, because she's not aggressive like he is but because she calls him out-because in some ways she preemptively gets him better than he gets himself; he takes himself seriously and she can straightforwardly tell him "stop it, you're doing it wrong." She won't let him call her stupid because she knows better. She's first-impression ridiculous but incredibly self-aware, and it's beautiful to watch. And, of course, this ship is glorious because they both find catharsis through music and art, which is only my favourite thing to watch and do and talk about: let's talk the incredible beauty (visually! those shots!) of him watching her dance recital while deaf, and of the heavy metal concert after and HER DANCING IN HER TUTU ONSTAGE WITH THE BAND. "FUCK CAREFUL," because the stylistic difference is nothing, the music has melody and counterpoint and everything she loves, because the thing on offer is the same and the thing that they both love is the same-and their artistic defences are made of the same matter if not the same style, and I am just really excited about everything they choose to be.
SO YEAH. I'm watching this season!
Poll PATTERNS IN MY LIFE: PART THE DUBIOUS
There wasn't even an ASOIAF-based excuse this time! I didn't have a book! But honestly. I'm in Shake Shack, and the conversation is of incredibly dubious merit. "What did you order?" "A burger and a shake." "Me too!" Yes, that's because there are three things on the menu; in any case, he asked me about my life, and I left with a brand-new identity, aka: I LIED WANTONLY. For fucksake, dude is fortysomething and asking me where I work-the only thing to do, I felt, was invent, invent, invent like a boss. ("I am...a librarian," she said allusively.) And then leave. With my burger and shake in hand, which, for the record, were delicious.
("You're the first person I've ever met from New Hampshire!" No, sir, you still haven't met anyone from New Hampshire.)
So, at the bequest of vega_ofthe_lyre (THIS GIRL AND HER DEMANDS), I watched the two episodes of new-gen Skins and lo and behold it's...actually good? I'm amused because I marathonned first gen last January, too, and also because I stopped talking about it when my tag ("skins is a fucking joyfest") became inaccurate-but now my tag appears to have become accurate once again? Go figure. This show is a glorious fucking headfuck thing, as in the best it should be.
I am really enjoying the leitmotif of identity as performance art that the show's doing, which became way clearer to me in the second episode, actually-I mean, Franky is the most obvious example of it, but also Dakota is not that strong of an actress thus far? I adore her face, but I just wanted her episode to be a silent movie or something, because, oh, she's entirely awkward and it's not always deliberate. So the first episode was mostly me having feelings about the support and generally thinking that this cast was adorable and connective, which they are-and about being preemptively excited to figure out why Mini is the way she is, because I am always far too invested in knowing why terrible people are terrible and also because Freya Mavor's face and accent are skewing my feelings all over. (I honestly think she might be the most compelling performer in the cast thus far, though. She has so much charisma, and there are a tonne of little things going on at the base of her character already-her dropping fries over the edge of the balcony at the mall was sort of a stunning moment, because she had so obviously just felt threatened and her response to that threat was then to leave and make them come to her; it's this systematic proving thing where she has to believe that they will come back to her because if they want her/like her they have to come back for her. I don't want to call her female Tony Stonem because she's not brilliant or bored like he is, but I'm interested in her brand of destruction and in the why of it.)
But, o, the second episode! I suspected Grace would be my favourite the minute she said "before in Oxford, or in a past life?" because darling, but then the second episode happened and I actually fell apart with glee? Because, oh, this girl. This girl lives her life like performance art and knows it. This girl lets the world make her into a cipher because her solace is playing the roles she invents, because she can choose things that will make others happiest in a way that makes her happy too: "how valiant of you"/"I know, right?" → "no one's got a fucking clue who I am or what I can do." She takes the passive, frustrating place of being Mini's second and makes her passivity into an aesthetic; when she surmounts it, it's not a ~betrayal (as she knows Mini would see it) but an act, but the act is in earnest because everything she does is part of an act. It stops being anything but genuine the farther removed from straightforward dynamics she gets. She chooses the disguises, the aesthetic bits, because she loves them, too, because she loves the act, because she's a performer. She's a dancer (even though the actress...isn't, oh dear me) and she defines herself by that, but everything else is a conscious choice, and it's wonderful. "I'm not just a dancer. I'm also an actor." And throughout the episode, she's constantly endeavouring to bring Rich into her game from a game-playing perspective: because Rich is entirely a work of performance art, too, but the difference is that he believes his own script. Can we take a moment?
RICH: Why do you think I dress like this?
GRACE: I thought it was a joke or something.
RICH: It's not a joke! You know, I'm not a fucking clown dressing up silly to make you laugh! This is me. This is who I am. ...Right, forget it, this will never work.
GRACE: But it will work! You may not know this about me, Rich, but I'm not only a dancer, I'm an actor as well.
RICH: Right, how's that going to help anything?
GRACE: Using acting, I shall inhabit the role of 'the metalhead'. And whilst I'm in character, you can practise chatting her up!
RICH: That's the worst idea since genocide. Possibly even worse. Why would you ever want to do that?
GRACE: Fun?
THESE KIDS ARE THE BEST KIDS. (Rich is the most ridiculous human, "the worst idea since genocide" made me laugh aloud-I can't decide whether or not I love him? His face is very dear, he himself is horribly teenage and self-righteous, and I want to punch him in the brain not out of vitriol but because I think it'd do him good. But as will his relationship with Grace, so he can continue to exist without being punched and that is fine. He has, of course, already been metaphorically punched in the eardrums because this show is ridic.) Her voice here is so precise and gleefully self-conscious (the way she says using acting fills my soul with delight), because it is a game to her in the best and giddiest and sincerest way possible: "I thought it was a joke" is casually belittling, but it's not an insult. He's playing the exact same game that she is, but he's not yet aware that he's more than his aesthetic choice. She knows, she gets to be frustrated by it, but to use it for fun, too-to act her way through life and into true places.
And that's how we get to the Sub Rosa scene, which made me want to die of joy. AUGH. OKAY, MORE DIALOGUE COPYPASTA:
GRACE: Shove up.
RICH: Sorry, someone's sitting there.
GRACE: Oh yeah, who?
RICH: Uh-you.
GRACE: I'm Sub. Short for Sub Rosa. Nice to meet you.
RICH: Hey Sub, I'm Rich.
(They both down their beer)
GRACE: So. What do you do for fun, Rich?
RICH: Uh, listen to music, go to gigs, hang out with my mate Allo... that's about it, really.
GRACE: You don't have any other friends? Just this Alo guy?
RICH: Yeah. Just him, really.
GRACE: No one else?
RICH: Well, recently there's been a couple of other people... this girl Frankie, and... others...
GRACE: Others?
RICH: Yeah. This... this girl, who's helping me, I suppose. Okay? So what sort kind of music are you into, Sub?
GRACE; Oh, you know. Industrial, mostly. Godflash, early Spawn, TKK.
RICH: Nine Inch Nails?
GRACE: Fuck off. Trent Reznor can suck my cock.
TRENT REZNOR CAN SUCK MY COCK. FAVOURITE ACTING MOMENT IN THE EPISODE, I SWEAR TO GOD. HER VOICE DOING THE SAME PRECISE, DELICATE ENUNCIATION THING. HER FACE, AMUSED AND SLY AND PLEASED, BECAUSE SHE WAS EXPECTING THIS. THE FACT THAT SHE DID HER RESEARCH. GRACE YOU PERFECT METHOD HUMAN. She is the sweetest human being on the planet, sometimes to a fault, but she likes proving herself. There's a bit of the perfectionist about her-I mean, her choice of performance is ballet, which all Black Swanning aside (and again, Jessica's not-actual-a-ballerina-at-ALL status aside) is about perfection and deliberateness, and she gets so irresistibly into the role that it makes acting less like a casual thing and more almost a proof of the idea that she does have limitless potential, no matter how small people around her make her. I love them both knocking back their lagers, because by god she is going to drink that down and he is just watching and keeping up and marvelling because it's both real and not-real. It's a test, but they both know how it's meant to work. It's a test through performance that's about finding out what's true. He's genuinely impressed because there's truth in her act. She puts it on in some ways to find out what he's thinking under the act.
The ship is glorious because she sees through him, because she's not aggressive like he is but because she calls him out-because in some ways she preemptively gets him better than he gets himself; he takes himself seriously and she can straightforwardly tell him "stop it, you're doing it wrong." She won't let him call her stupid because she knows better. She's first-impression ridiculous but incredibly self-aware, and it's beautiful to watch. And, of course, this ship is glorious because they both find catharsis through music and art, which is only my favourite thing to watch and do and talk about: let's talk the incredible beauty (visually! those shots!) of him watching her dance recital while deaf, and of the heavy metal concert after and HER DANCING IN HER TUTU ONSTAGE WITH THE BAND. "FUCK CAREFUL," because the stylistic difference is nothing, the music has melody and counterpoint and everything she loves, because the thing on offer is the same and the thing that they both love is the same-and their artistic defences are made of the same matter if not the same style, and I am just really excited about everything they choose to be.
SO YEAH. I'm watching this season!