And In The Naked Light, I Saw Ten Thousand People, Maybe More People Talking Without Speaking People

your honor, i maintain that the prosecution’s video is being played in reverse. in actuality i came upon a village that was already on fire and sucked up all the flames into my special magic wand. i then moonwalked in the wrong direction for some reason

hey my besties who live in red states: id like you to go out and vote anyway.

yeah, the electoral college means your vote doesn't count unless you win your state. it's a terrible undemocratic bullshit system. it's not going to change before this election,* so there isn't much point in complaining about it right now.

if you hold the belief that there's no point in voting because your voice will just be downed out by a chorus of bigotry- chances are other people in your state feel the same way. and because those people are not voting, it's impossible to know how many of you there are. the reason it's important to vote EVEN WHEN YOU KNOW YOU ARE GOING TO LOSE is to make this number public.

when the minority in a state still goes out to vote:

- other members of the minority party know they aren't alone in their state. this encourages MORE people to vote in the next election

- the majority candidates are forced to divert some of their campaign resources away from swing states to secure a state they were already going to win

- the minority candidates are encouraged to spend some time campaigning in your state instead of abandoning it as a lost cause

- assuming you also vote in local elections, the minority is more likely to win representatives in the house

- who knows there might be so many of you that you fucking flip it by mistake

there has been a 700% increase in new daily voter registrations in the few days since Biden dropped out of the race.

thousands of people are deciding, right now, that voting is worth it. some of them live in your state. there is going to be a spike in blue votes across the country. this election is going to have the youngest voter turnout in history. this is the best possible time to join them. join us.

what have you got to lose? one afternoon?

This definitely plays into theatre in similar ways - I would be very curious to delve into that and discuss that with folks sometime.

How high is your bleed threshold?

If you're into roleplaying, you've probably heard about bleed. But do you know what memetic bleed is, or emancipatory bleed? There is a whole network of concepts out there about what spills over between characters and players. And if you've ever wondered why not everyone experiences bleed the same way, you'll love to read about bleed thresholds.

buttondown.email

How high is your bleed threshold? And what are you bleeding anyway?

You know that clip of Brennan Lee Mulligan, the one where he’s talking about his character Evan Kelmp? Wait, I’ll just link to it. It’s a cl

The one good thing about the proscenium arch and the television screen alike is that if it's a "window" into people's lives, then you can have both insight and reflection.

But if you see it as a Black Mirror... Then that's where the problem is. Stanislavsky said to love the art in ourselves, not to love ourselves in the art, and I think that can be applied here in a different sense than his meaning. There's art in other people to love too, and that's what love is, I think; seeing the art in another person.

Not every story is about seeing yourself in it. Sometimes it’s about learning to see other people too.

That my FRIENDS were reading at lunch in high school. out loud. To each other. I was also there

"someone should just put me down. sexual style. like what george and lennie had."

-- @cleverlittlekobold 11/10/2024

It’s crazy and fucked up that being yourself is actually the solution.

guy who doesnt realize hes commanding a small army and thinks a lot of people are just going along with his bit

"here, life is beautiful." (Spoilers for Cabaret, on Broadway and the West End)

Leave your troubles outside! So - life is disappointing? Forget it! We have no troubles here! Here life is beautiful.

~ Emcee, Willkommen, from Cabaret

Let's unpack these lines, shall we?

leave your troubles outside!

Escapism; ignorance is bliss.

we have no troubles here!

So long as you are here, there are no problems to worry about!

So why not stay awhile? After all, what good is sitting alone in your room?

here, life is beautiful.

Life is beautiful here in our little cabaret.

Life outside the cabaret is ugly.

so why not stay awhile?

When those are all added together by the end of Cabaret, what do we get?

The Kit Kat Club is a place for people to engage in escapism. While you're in the Kit Kat Club, you have nothing to worry about, especially your worries outside. After all, in here, life is beautiful. Why bother worrying about the people who can't afford, can't find, or otherwise cannot access this beautiful little Club of ours? They aren't here, where life is beautiful, they are outside, where life must be ugly.

See where this leads?

It divides us just like the titular Kit-Kat; split in twain. There is no glory, no love of life in the line "life is beautiful" within Cabaret. It is the vessel by which we see one of many possible messages:

fascism is able to invade our lives by our proclivity for escapism.

and, simultaneously,

fascism can seduce us all into not noticing the damage that it does, by glorifying and beautifying itself.

To celebrate the show by reveling in the sexiness of it is to miss the point; you are using it as escapism. The London and now Broadway production literally showcases how everyone is slowly seduced by imagery: from the Emcee's swastika-inspired dance at the top of show, and his old war helmet in Money Money, to the very attractive and flashy dances we see performed by the beautiful Cabaret girls and boys (and "even the orchestra is beautiful!") This is the exact point. The sexiness and imagery is used to distract us from folks like Ernst Ludwig, who weaponize information and identity to divide and conquer. Neon.

I had to unfollow some old friends because they have seen this show twice and that was all they came away with. But any time I try to talk with them, they shove me off, like I'm taking things to seriously. I hope this is useful to someone. That is all. Yes, life is beautiful; but it is only as beautiful as we defend it. Life is beautiful in that it is lived, and lived deeply, by truly perceiving it.

"We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces."

~ Lady Bracknell, The Importance of Being Earnest

But how much longer can we live in such an age? And how much longer do you want to? Do we want to live only as far as we can touch and see at first touch, first glance?

lost in the moss