Obsessions This Week: February 26–March 2, 2024

Grief, revolution, and my friend Gwynn.

A young family friend passed away in her sleep this week. It is humbling to witness a person’s life from birth until death, a deep grief and a profound privilege. She leaves a hole in the close-knit community in which I was raised. I wanted to include a link to her online presence, but her profile at the law firm where she was employed at the time of her passing has already been taken down. It’s been four days. Let that radicalize you, as it radicalized me.

🕍 The Mourner’s Kaddish scene from Angels in America

Whenever I said the Mourner’s Kaddish this week, I thought of this scene from Angels in America.

Belize (Jeffrey Wright), a nurse in an AIDS ward, calls in his friend Louis (Ben Shenkman) to say the Jewish prayer for the recently deceased Roy Cohn (Al Pacino). It’s anathema to Louis, for whom Cohn represents the root of American evil, but Belize insists ritual is needed in this moment so soon after death. Louis, who (like me) is fairly secular, can barely remember the words of the prayer until the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg (Meryl Streep) possesses and assists him. It’s an astonishing scene (directed by the late, great Mike Nichols) that of course is better in context.

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🔥 Jonathan Bailey always understands the assignment.

Homeboy is modeling! IDC what he’s selling!

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🎧 “Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses, too.”

My entire generation, from creatives to tradespeople, is in a tailspin. Our economy is in tatters. I logged into Facebook for the first time in months this week to see dozens of posts from friends and acquaintances asking for help with living and medical expenses. The revolutionary spirit of this song always helps.

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📺 Take a class with me

My class with

Not Sorry Productions

, postponed last winter, is back for a spring session! Join me Saturdays in April for chatty seminars on queer TV. I’ll touch on shows and characters all the way from the ‘60s to today, and I’d love you to bring your own favorites in to discuss as a group.

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📖 “There’s a dream I have in which I love the world.”

This poem by Cameron Awkward-Rich is what I thought of upon waking the first morning after hearing news of my friend’s passing:

MEDITATIONS IN AN EMERGENCY

I wake up & it breaks my heart. I draw the blinds &
the thrill of rain breaks my heart. I go outside.
I ride the train, walk among the buildings, men in
Monday suits. The flight of doves, the city of tents
beneath the underpass, the huddled mass, old
women hawking roses, & children all of them,
break my heart. There’s a dream I have in which I
love the world. I run from end to end like fingers
through her hair. There are no borders, only wind.
Like you, I was born. Like you, I was raised in the
institution of dreaming. Hand on my heart. Hand
on my stupid heart.

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☀️ Harold and Maude

One of many visionaries taken from us by the AIDS crisis in the 1980s was the writer-director Colin Higgins. Perhaps most famous for writing and directing 9 to 5, he also wrote the screenplay for the Hal Ashby-directed Harold and Maude.

Showing people I like (or have crushes on, or am dating) this movie has been my “move” for a while now, to the point of parody. Its life-affirming, antiwar sentiment is a litmus test for the people I’m interested in being around.

I recently accidentally spoiled the ending for a friend I was certain had already seen it, so in an attempt not to spoil a 50-year-old movie today, let me end by saying it is perhaps my favorite movie¹.

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✨ One great trailer

The tropes! The jokes! That cast! Can’t wait.

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🪄 Q&A with my friend and subscriber, Gwynn Fulcher

Instagram: @tooearnestvalentine

Twitter: @gw1valentine 

1) How do we know each other?

I do not remember exactly how we met, so here are some theories: you emerged from a glittery, geode-like tear in spacetime in the biographical essay section at Women & Children First, just as I rounded the corner with a novel about sword lesbians in space. Or, on a sunny day with clear blue skies, a thunderclap shattered dozens of car windows in uptown when you appeared at the next table over from me at Fat Cat and we bonded over bad date stories. Or maybe I followed you on Twitter by recommendation of a friend and became a huge fan (because, obviously) and one summer day you manifested from the ether amidst a crowd at Midsommarfest. I glimpsed you. "Oh my god, my feminist idol is here," I said to my partner, as I reached for a WBEZ tote bag to anxiety-barf into. "Go say hi," he said. What a jerk. I weaved after you to say hi, confident in the knowledge I'd be jailed for *audacity*. But you turned and recognized me. WHAT. We laughed and hugged! In-person! After a quick & happy exchange, a stranger's phone bounced the sun directly into my eyes. When my eyes cleared, I caught the last of you, as you dissolved gently, upward to the stratosphere. Your voice echoed softly on the breeze: "If there's a mattress on his floor, run out that fuckboi's door!"

I think that last one might be the close to the real story.

2) I have never been more honored in my life! Here I was, thinking we’d met because I’ve dated two of your friends (at different times), or because I was on a podcast to which you were somehow connected. What's something you're excited for in 2024?

My twin niblings are having their quinceañera this year! I don't think I enjoy anything as much as I do being an Auntie.

3) What have you been reading lately?

I'm in the midst of Weyward by Emilia Hart, just finished The Fraud by Zadie Smith, and recently enjoyed the delightful A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall. Next on my TBR is Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina.

4) Do you have any TV or movie recommendations?

I'm loving Death and Other Details. An eternal sucker for Mandy Patinkin, I couldn't resist. Weirded out that they booked an AU 1999 Kate Hudson as the lead instead of casting from right here on Earth-1218, though.

I too thirst for Mandy.

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👓 Good reads this week

• An article about Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law appeared in The Daily Northwestern this week, explaining why so many folks have left in recent years²:

“Since her arrival in August 2021, Dean Osofsky’s toxic leadership has had a widespread negative impact on the students, faculty, and staff of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. My colleagues are stressed, frustrated, demoralized, and truly unable to do their jobs.”

• I enjoyed this gorgeous piece on French Impressionist history by

  Summer Brennan
  , about the Morisot-Manet family.

  

• A WIRED story about fanfiction theft lead directly to a tweet of mine going viral this week.

  

  Etsy sellers have stolen other people’s fanfiction, which is posted free online for legal reasons, and sold them as bound, paper books—which beyond being flagrant plagiarism, risks the entire fragile ecosystem of transformative works. To steal that work and make money from the ideas of people who wrote purely for love and for free, well, that’s more than a violation of etiquette. It’s an existential crisis for fandom’s survival.

• More than 100,000 “uncommitted” votes were cast in Michigan’s Democratic primary, sending a message to President Biden that he cannot continue to ignore calls for a ceasefire. Click the below image to go through Jewish Voice for Peace’s portal to take action:

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Well, that was a rough issue, but this was a rough week. Spam me with things you’re obsessed with, and together we might save the world.

1. Top three, easily, with Practical Magic vying for top and Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again a close third.

2. Including yours truly. #AMA