Everything is awful but at least the entertainment is good
Conclave, "Abracadabra," Severance, and looking for signs of hope
Hello comrades in the United States of Misery! And a very hearty “I’m sorry! Most of us didn’t actually want literally any of this shit to happen!” to everyone reading this outside of the U.S.
If I were to describe what every day of 2025 has felt like so far, it would be this:
Every day, I wake up feeling like Mad Men season 6 Pete Campbell with a receding hairline and a mother who fell off a cruise ship yelling at his coworker in the elevator. In reality, my mother and my hairline are both perfectly fine, but spiritually, I am flabbergasted and pissed off Pete being forced to make niceties with people at work while my world government feels like it’s on fire.
Awhile ago, I ordered a very nice blu-ray copy of Cabaret, Bob Fosse’s 1972 Academy Award winning movie adaptation of the Kander & Ebb musical that takes place during the end of the Weimar Republic. I still haven’t taken off the plastic wrap. It’s sitting on my media shelves in my living room as pristine as it was when I ordered it. I love the musical, and Bob Fosse is one of my biggest artistic heroes—Liza Minnelli too, really—but I just can’t bring myself to watch it when I feel like I’m living through a much stupider, extremely poorly directed version of its events. Maybe watching it would feel cathartic since so many Americans have largely become Sally Bowles: insisting the chaotic politics going on around us has nothing to do with us and we should all live in carefree, hedonistic ignorance. But I also think watching it might just make me angrier we’re even in the same position to begin with (but with less cool Fosse choreography).
Anyway, is life a cabaret? I don’t really know. But I DO know January 6th insurrectionists forming a choir that’s now performing at the Kennedy Center is a clown show.
BUT I DIGRESS.
There are some slivers of light and joy in this Dark Age.
1) “Abracadabra” by Lady Gaga
As a Gaga stan since the beginning who also pegged her immediately as our generation’s answer to an all-around entertainer like Cher, Liza, Barbra, etc and thus also loves her jazz stuff (my bff Carrie and I made the trek to Vegas last summer to see her Jazz & Piano show and were the best dressed there by a mile except for Gaga herself), this new single off her upcoming 7th studio album feels like a shot of fucking adrenaline. All of a sudden, it’s like 2010 again and I’m learning all the music video choreography in my apartment. I long to be in a gay bar with all of my friends, all of us teetering on our knockoff Louboutin heels, drunk on vodka sodas and test tube shots, scream singing along with Stefani Germanotta.
I loved “Disease” too with its Nine Inch Nails kind of sound, but “Abracadabra” is maybe laced with molly? Or cocaine? I can’t stop listening to it, singing it to myself, saying things like “the category is dance or DIEEEEEE” and wishing I was dressed like if Eliza Doolittle from the ascot races scene in My Fair Lady was a leather goth dominatrix the way Gaga is in the video. I cannot explain to you how gratifying it is to see Bad Goth Rah Rah Bitch Gaga return to us like this and drop such a seismic global dance hit that has people dancing like it’s “Thriller.”
2) Severance season 2
I made my husband sign back up to Apple+ specifically so we could watch season 2 of what is currently the best show on television. The new season is so good I can almost forgive Ben Stiller for making us wait 3 years for it, but not quite, because I am old-fashioned and believe television should follow the traditional model of filming and releasing new episodes every single year to keep viewers interested and talking about your program. I may dig into this more at some point, but Severance is really scratching that Lost itch for me in a big way, and from what I see on Reddit and elsewhere, that seems to be the case for many people online who are theorizing obsessively. Both series have obvious similarities: mysterious organizations (Dharma Initiative and Lumon) running strange tests, characters who lead different lives at work/on the island than they do at home, a sense that there is a greater force at work. Where Lost is more about examining society/community via the Island, Severance is obviously more about the workplace. But both are ultimately series where people are in search of their true selves and purpose. Trammell Tillman is giving a helluva performance this season. Let’s get him an Emmy!
3) Conclave
As a born and raised Lutheran, I really should not be so invested in Catholic culture, but honestly, there is no Christian denomination that is more dramatic in every aspect from the clothes to the liturgy to the gossip. It is the The Real Housewives of religious organizations which means that I am unfortunately drawn to it regardless of whether I actually support all its members, some of whom end up in jail. All of this is to say that Edward Berger’s Oscar-nominated film about voting in a new pope, Conclave, was always going to be one of my favorite things I saw last year. It’s a bunch of middle-aged drama queens, including Isabella Rossellini, in full Catholic regalia backstabbing each other over pasta lunches and pope campaigning. It reminds me of student council elections in middle school where I was the “campaign manager” for my best friend Taylor, and he and I just went around the lunch room handing out “Vote for Taylor” buttons to people while they ate rectangle pizza or Hot Pockets, hoping a button with his face on it would be enough to sway their votes (it was not). Conclave is a lot of fun and an honest-to-god/God adult movie that actually looks good and is about something that isn’t comic book heroes saving the planet. While you could argue that since Catholics believe the Pope is infallible that makes him a superhero, the reality is that the Pope can also just be a gossip queen who likes to stir the drink/pot like Sonja Morgan or Dorinda Medley and that is why Conclave is so good. Humans are fallible, and if you believe in something higher like God or Andy Cohen, you understand that it is our mistakes that make us interesting/good entertainment and worthy of redemption, being Pope, or first chair at the Housewives end-of-season reunion (shoutout to Angie K on RHOSLC).
4) Parker Posey on The White Lotus
Where Ryan Murphy keeping our great character actresses employed on his shows is Chaotic Evil, Mike White keeping our great character actresses employed on The White Lotus on HBO is Chaotic Good. Parker Posey is this season’s actress du jour, giving us a Lorazepam-addicted Steel Magnolia from North Carolina, swanning around in expensive caftans and saying passive aggressive things. Parker Posey is always going to make the most of her screentime in any project she’s in, but I do appreciate that she is finally having A MOMENT even if her onscreen sons are about to possibly? maybe? probably engage in some light incest.
5) Me on podcasts and also the Queens Short Play Festival
I’ve been having a busy first couple of months of 2025 on a personal professional level. I recorded two guest spots for my friend Phil’s Podcast Like It’s… pop culture podcast. I talked about The Notebook and also one of my favorites, the super underrated Down With Love. You can listen to them wherever you listen to your podcasts.
I also have a short play in competition at the Queens Short Play Festival happening now in Queens! The Wayward Women is a ten-minute country western comedy inspired by the Three Witches from Macbeth as well as the Chicks. Though I wrote the play in 2019 about an event that happened about twenty years ago, the themes of the play still unfortunately resonate in our current times. If you’re in the New York area, you have one last chance to catch it (unless we make the semi-finals, which is looking likely at the moment based on audience votes).
If you’re not in New York, please support your local theaters and artists! We need you now more than ever in this time of growing censorship and discrimination.
Okay! That’s it for now! Everybody go cyberbully your congresspeople and tell them to grow a fucking spine!
Thanks so much for reading. If you enjoyed this, please consider a paid subscription as even labors of love still involve labor. xoxo
