who keeps your flame, who tells your story
hey pals!
My life thus far can be separated into three distinct sections: Life Before Hamilton (LBH), Life After Hearing Hamilton (LAHH), and Life After Seeing Hamilton (LASH). I’m thrilled to say we’re living in that golden final era now, because:
Reader, I saw Hamilton.
To say that I went into this with high expectations would be GROSSLY understating the matter, and, in fact, my anticipation was so insane that in the days before I saw it, I was plagued with stress nightmares until eventually this was me:
NEVERTHELESS. From about November on, I listened to Hamilton nearly every day. I fell in love with the characters through Lin-Manual Miranda’s words and music, and the incredible cast of actors and musicians. My attachment to the music is so strong that I wasn’t sure what I was actually going to gain from seeing it performed. This seems insane, I know, but almost the entire show is on the album, and I have a very capable imagination.
Obviously, I am a moron. Hamilton was honestly the best thing I have seen on a stage. Everything I already loved was there, front and center, but the staging added so, so much. It was perfect, and not just in doing service to the music–it was simply incredible theatre.
We saw the original cast save one (I was only a little heartbroken to miss Okieriete Onaodowan, whose James Madison is one of my favourite parts to listen to), and they were incredible, across the board. Leslie Odom Jr. is absolutely a revelation as Aaron Burr, and Renée Elise Goldsberry’s Angelica had me in tears in places I’d never cried before while listening. (Oh yeah, I cried a lot. My glasses fogged up, it was a mess.)
If Hamilton were a film, I’d have walked out of the cinema and immediately turned around and bought a ticket to see it again. This show has earned every bit of the hype it’s gotten. If you can see it, you should see it.
Notable Breakfast
Dog Thing
Attempting to locate whatever thing it is the cat is flipping out about. (They didn’t succeed.)
Mixed Media
Throughout high school and college, webcomics were my lifeblood. I started reading them in the early, early days of webcomics even being a thing, and looked on in amazement as that corner of the internet blossomed. I don’t read as many as I used to (this is a thing that happens when it’s your job to read comics), but my favourite is Check, Please!
Check, Please!, by Ngozi Ukazu, is about Eric Bittle (Bitty), a figure skater from Georgia who ends up on the men’s hockey team at a fictional New England college, Samwell. First off, a disclaimer: I do not enjoy hockey. My interest in hockey lasted from 1992 to 1994, and consisted entirely of the films The Mighty Ducks and D2: The Mighty Ducks. There is an active, rollicking hockey fandom, and I do not begrudge them their fun. I simply blacklisted the word “hockey” on tumblr and moved on. And then this comic entered my life, and I had to make an exception to the blacklist, because I truly, truly love it.
However, the heart of the comic is not hockey. It’s framed by Bitty’s vlog–most updates begin with him speaking directly to the reader, confessional-style–and in the beginning, it’s very much about Bitty feeling unsure and out of place. He’s physically small, extremely Southern, an enthusiastic baker, a lover of pop and R&B music, and to find himself thrust into the very bro-y atmosphere of college sports puts him off his step. He’s also gay, and has never been out before, so that’s a major hurdle for him.
But by the end of his freshman year (the comic follows his school schedule), he feels much more at home with the team. He moves into the Haus (essentially the team frat house), and the focus of it turns to the way they all relate to one another. And the team is a sweet, supportive cast of characters.
On paper, everything about this comic sounds like things I’d dislike–it’s about sports, it’s extremely bro-y, everyone is really really into hockey. But in execution, it’s perfect. Ngozi’s art is wonderful (and watching it improve as you read the comic is a particular delight), the characters transcend the bro-yness through sheer sweetness, and there’s a lot of pie. Also: romance.
The comic is ongoing, but it just hit a major milestone, so it’s an excellent time to jump in. It also has the largest fandom of any webcomic I’ve ever been a fan of, so there’s tons of fanart and fanfiction, and it’s just delightful. I always know there’s been an update even if I’ve missed the actual comic, because my tumblr dash erupts in joy. Start the comic here.
Also: I saw Zootopia again. Twice. (I like taking friends to good movies!) I saw Hail, Caesar, which suffers from a lack of cohesion, but I found specific bits really enjoyable. I listened to Miike Snow‘s new album a lot, and the stand-out track is “Genghis Khan,” which also has the greatest music video maybe ever. I SAW METRIC IN CONCERT AND IT WAS AMAZING. I read Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer, which I did not much enjoy, but will nevertheless probably see the film adaptation because it’s a sci-fi story about 4 women. I also read The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison, which I absolutely loved. It’s about a world where massive, apocalyptic, geological upheaval happens every few hundred years. Some people are basically earth-benders, and their place in the world’s society is fraught with tension. I don’t want to tell you more. It’s kinda fantasy, kinda sci-fi. I read Delilah Dirk and the King’s Shilling by Tony Cliff, and Lucky Penny by Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota, both graphic novels, both I loved. I finished watching the first season of The Expanse, which I ended up really enjoying.
I Read Comics for a Living
Are you reading Weirdworld? You should be reading Weirdworld. Weirdworld is this strange place in the Marvel Universe that’s never held a lot of interest for me, until they brought Mike Del Mundo in to draw a book based there (with writer Sam Humphries). The story is wonderful: Becca Rodriguez is zapped there from inside an airplane while in the process of taking her mom’s ashes back to Mexico, and is trying to get back to Earth. She’s teamed up with a giant warrior-woman, Goleta The Wizardslayer, and the two of them together are a delight. Weirdworld #4 takes them to a place that shows them their greatest desires, and Becca has to finally confront her grief about her mom.
Also good:
Ms. Marvel #4 has Kamala using a fancy 3-D printer so she can literally be everywhere at once, and it backfires spectacularly. This issue made me laugh out loud over and over.
Doorman #1 is about a man who for 45 years has guarded the portal between Earth and the rest of the universe, and on his LAST DAY, someone tries to kill him and he gets wrapped up in something a lot bigger than a door. This is drawn by my buddy Kendall Goode, who is extremely good!
Jonesy #2 Jonesy is at a fair and all she wants is to be online waiting for her favourite singer’s new album to drop. She uses her ability to will people into doing things to get away, and things go wonderfully awry.
Anxiety Pyjamas
Fics I Shouted About
Numbers by standinginanicedress Teen Wolf, Sterek, AU. There’s a street magician outside the coffee shop Derek goes to everyday.
To Be Worthy of Hope by alocalband Teen Wolf, Sterek, soulmates AU. Stiles discovers that Derek knows who his soulmate is, and is determined to uncover the secret. Soulmates as a trope can be eye-rolly, but this is so well done.
first comes the night by coffeeinallcaps Star Wars TFA, Finn/Poe. This is a fic in which Poe deals with the post-traumatic stress of his torture very, very poorly. Coffee kept me posted on the progression of this fic as she wrote it by sending me messages that told me how many thousand words Poe had been suffering for. It’s 20. Poe suffers for 20,000 words. (It’s excellent, and a little exhausting.)
Lastly
Even though I ask for feedback from y’all in every newsletter I realized today that tinyletter doesn’t actually show me when I have new messages! (It used to, I’m almost positive!) Anyway, if you’ve sent me something I was NOT ignoring you, I was just an idiot, I guess. I’m sorry!
ps: watch this
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