Music of White Lotus and stupid yoga gear that has actually changed my life
Sharon's Weekly Head Dump
Today’s newsletter, thanks to the many videos I stuffed in it, is officially too long for email, so you’ll have to click on the title above to view the full thing.
It’s the last newsletter of the year! (Unless I have a sudden burst of writing energy and free time which is…doubtful.)
I stopped by my P.O. box this week to clear out the usual backlog of mail; the majority of it is stuff for the medical professional who previously had the box (the good news about that is that thanks to all the catalogs, I now know where to buy various specialty medical equipment) and the rest is usually Limited Time Only Credit Offers for Your Small Business. So it was very exciting when, for the first time ever, I pulled out a slip informing me that I had to go to the counter to pick up a package.
The package turned out to be from Alex Humphreys, journalist and former pianist, whose book Playing with Reality is now out (in the UK—not the US).
The book covers the stories of people who turned to video gaming during the start of the pandemic, and I was inexplicably one of them. This is so weird to me, because I grew up in a no-video-games household, and as far as I know, all I did was jump on the Animal Crossing bandwagon along with everyone else when COVID hit. Humphreys “discovered” me through the Animal Crossing music video I made—
—reached out to me earlier this year, and, well, here I am:
I am a whole chapter in the book (!) and I am frankly astounded by how much she chose to include. It’s also oddly strange reading my chapter, because it’s primarily focused on the surreal, scary year that was 2020 (I spoke at length about how badly the anti-Asian racism of that time affected me), and I feel like the vibe is just so different now, even though we’re still in a pandemic and not much has changed.
Like I mentioned, the book is not currently available in the US. I’m thinking of ordering a couple of copies from Waterstones in the UK to give to people as the most random, off-base, “look at me!” gift.
Things I Read
Rebecca Jennings: Every “chronically online” conversation is the same (Vox)
This is not to say that any accusation of sexism, homophobia, racism, ableism, or elitism is inherently whiny or baseless. In fact, it’s often in the reactions to these assertions where people extrapolate the most ungenerous reading and then dogpile on the person trying to call out injustice. […] The inherent contextlessness of platforms like Twitter also works in the opposite direction, though: It’s easy to use the language of social justice to justify anything we want, and by doing so, weakens real, meaningful activism.
It was a weird relief to read this article, which examines the phenomenon of brain-wormy “chronically online” discourse—recent dustups like “coffee garden lady,” “chili neighbor,” and “the attempt to milkshake duck Jorts” (a phrase which makes no sense to any well-adjusted person) have made me question my own sanity and belief in humanity. What the article doesn’t go into fully is how these online behavioral patterns came to be, and I have a bit of a hypothesis.
I noticed that for a few years, Twitter was really, really good at surfacing really thoughtful threads from racial justice activists, feminists, disability advocates, etc., who would gently (and sometimes not-so-gently) call out ignorant tweets and explain why they were problematic. (Examples: explaining that the mockery-inviting infomercial gadgets for everyday tasks are crucial for disabled people; going into the context of code-switching for Black folks and why AAVE appropriation is harmful, stuff like that!) I learned a lot about the lived experiences of others and tweets like those genuinely expanded my awareness of privilege and systemic injustice.
The thing is, those tweets and threads tend to generate a lot of Engagement, and because we’ve all been trained to view any news or content through a binary lens of “a person is either Good or they are Bad, there is no in between,” Twitter discourse about complicated issues would, once it blew up outside of the communities it originated in, often collapse into the hive mind assigning one side good and one side bad, and reward people who could outdo each other with pronouncements about how problematic a thing or person was.
For the past couple years I’ve been watching Twitter (and now TikTok) discourse approach ever ridiculous lows. My theory is that we’ve trained ourselves to call out for clout: if you can convincingly do the mental gymnastics involved to insist that functional behaviors are ableist, people who experience joy need to check their privilege, or that other activists are in fact problematic because they don’t pass an arbitrary purity test, the algorithm will bestow followers and legitimacy upon you.
This is not a “cancel culture is out of control” rant. This is me saying that in our goodhearted attempts to be more thoughtful people minimizing the harm we cause, we have trained ourselves—aided by social media algorithms, which amplify outrage and anger—to weaponize shame, and to reap the rewards.
Ursula K. Le Guin: My Life So Far, by Pard Part 1 / Part 2
When he sits down he has an excellent thing, a lap. Other humans have them, but his is mine. It is full of quietness and fondness. The old queen sometimes pats hers and says prrt? and I know perfectly well what she means; but I only use one lap, his.
[…]
The outside is somewhat like mice: it is too exciting. It makes anxiety. I want to go there and then when I am there I want to come inside again. I am used to walls. Walls are good, they limit things. There is no limit to the outside. It is crowded with endless things and beings, pathways and pathlessnesses, movements, sounds, tiny noises in the earth and behind every leaf, huge bangs and clamor from where the roaring things rush by and the terrible dogs pull their humans along by straps and nothing makes sense.
I was so, so charmed by these accounts that famed author Ursula K. Le Guin wrote from the perspective of her cat, Pard. It’s funny, it’s beautiful, and it feels, somehow, exactly like what a cat would write if it could.
Ok picture this. A figure with a white beard. Jolly laugh. Accompanied by an elf. Has a famous steed that bears him around the world. Loves little people. Who were you picturing? Santa or Gandalf?
I mean, remember how happy the little hobbit children are to see their friend Gandalf return again to the Shire? Remind you of any other children who get excited this time of year?
Now this is a persuasive essay. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended edition only, please) is a Christmas series. I am convinced.
Sammy Sussman: Tainted History (VAN Magazine)
“Juilliard had this outsized responsibility. When you pride yourself on being the best in the country or in the world, then people look to you for their standards and expectations,” Snider said. “Teachers at other schools knew about it, they made references to it. It became a joke, a constant punchline.”
[CW: sexual harassment/discrimination, abuse of power in academia]
It’s always incredibly depressing when well-researched investigative articles like this surface precisely because none of it is ever surprising. I don’t have personal experience with Juilliard itself, but all of this extremely tracks with my own experience and stories I’ve heard. Insert generic halfhearted platitude about how we must be better here!
As always, when stories like this break, a lot of people feel motivated to come forward with their own experiences, so if you have something you want to share, here’s the contact info for the journalist of this piece:
What I’m Listening To
I am extremely obsessed with two very different Italian songs right now.
The first is Måneskin’s “The Loneliest.” Now, there is absolutely no logical reason why I should like this song. I’m not usually one for slow rock ballads OR breakup songs and it’s not like the lyrics here are unusually poetic but…I dig it???
The music video appears to be more explicitly about grief but my personal interpretation is that the song is about being left by a romantic/sexual partner and that the funeral in the video is ~a metaphor~ for the interior death that rejection represents. Like, the whole song feels kind of sexually charged to me? I don’t know, it’s just weirdly compelling and I’ve tossed this song onto my current listening playlist, which is just pure chaos at this point.
COMPLETE 180 to the other song I’m currently obsessed with. I am a shameless bandwagon-follower and “discovered” this song through HBO’s The White Lotus, in which La Rappresentante di Lista’s “Ciao Ciao” backs a drug-fueled fever dream of a decadent party.
God, this song is catchy. It’s also stuffed with little heel turns and breaks which keeps the whole thing from getting bogged down in thoughtless repetition. I just can’t stop hitting play on this track, please send help.
What I Watched
(Don’t worry, there are no spoilers here!)
Do I…like this show? I can’t say for sure one way or the other. Did I get totally sucked in and spend an awful amount of time trying to guess what was going to happen? Hell YES.
Season 1 of The White Lotus left me with a lot of icky feelings and I wasn’t totally sure I wanted to give Season 2 a shot, but we started it and this freaking show got its hooks into me. Both seasons are objectively well-crafted and layered and say a lot about privilege and wealth, and are frustratingly realistic in how no one really gets what they “deserve.” It has, rightly, been pegged as one of those “awful rich people” shows (right there with Succession) but…Marie Kondo “I love mess” gif.
I am weirdly proud of the fact that I correctly predicted a lot of what ended up happening in the season.
More to the point, though (and after all this is tenuously a music newsletter), I was super intrigued by the musical decisions on this show. Yes, we have already talked about “Ciao Ciao,” but I noticed that both seasons deployed classical music in rather strategic ways. TV shows and movies LOVE to slap cliche pieces on scenes—I’m thinking Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from the 9th Symphony, etc. etc. etc. I mean, just this morning I watched the (excellent) Barbie movie teaser trailer and look, it’s Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra:
Whoever made the musical decisions on White Lotus did very different things, though. I mean, I felt like the use of the Dies irae in the theme was a little too on-the-nose, but then again, it could also be very clever? The Dies irae is so often used to connote death, hence its use in many macabre settings, but the original Latin text is also about judgment. While the show’s conceit revolves around the mystery of which character dies, I think what makes it so compelling is that it is ultimately a statement about judgment and (unjust) deserts.
One of my favorite musical moments in Season 2 was the use of Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2, 4th movement, to underscore one doomed character’s tragic spiral. I can’t find the scene on Youtube, but here’s the movement, which so perfectly encapsulates frenetic, blooming paranoia in a politically fraught environment:
In Season 2, the biggest “whoa stop the presses” moment for me was in the season finale, which begins with “Dido’s Lament” from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.
Superficially, any tragic opera aria—and there are a lot of them—would have gotten the vibe across in that scene. But “Dido’s Lament” is a very pointed choice, and not an obvious one! I won’t go into it more for fear of spoiling the show for anyone, but there was a very clever little connection in there, and it foreshadowed who the season’s victim was. It was made even more obvious by the show’s use, and continued reference to, Madama Butterfly.
A lot of people on Twitter agreed with the sentiment that it felt like the musical choices were secret little clues for those of us who have any familiarity with the classical repertoire/music history. I am very for more shows doing this; after all, we survivors of rigorous education and listening quizzes need to do something with all that training.
Miscellaneous
Dear lord, I cannot believe I’m hyping up yoga gear in my newsletter. WHAT HAVE I BECOME.
This year, thanks to an injury that necessitated physical therapy, I got into doing yoga on a regular basis, even though I really hate working out, have almost zero discipline left over after practicing, and think most yoga stuff is a cult.
However, it’s annoyingly true that regular yoga practice has been enormously helpful not only for my physical well-being but also my mental health. I hate that people are right about this! The big, big downside for me is that the combination of intensive piano practice plus regular yoga has been absolute murder on my wrists, which were simply not designed to take daily strain at these levels.
I bought myself a pair of Yoga Paws and have used them twice this week and…they’re great. I try not to think about the fact that these were designed for hardcore yoga freaks to do impossible handstands on rocks in the ocean or whatever, and I’m over here using them because my poor fragile little wrists need extra support planking at home. The combination of generous padding at the palms, grippiness, and general scaffolding makes a huge difference and takes a LOT of pressure off my hands and wrists.
I can’t imagine that I’m the only person in the world who benefits from yoga but also needs to protect their wee hands, which is why I am hyping these stupid gloves up. I get absolutely no kickback for linking these, by the way—I am sending potential customers this company’s way for free, like a charitable idiot who doesn’t understand capitalism. Now that is Christmas spirit. 🎄