The last five issues of CHERRYPICKING have been full of some of my favorite writing Iâve published in quite a whileâ and while I settle into the next chapter of my life I wanted to take some time to highlight a few of my favorite pieces. Between vacation, moving, and that good old original recipe depression I havenât had the chance to write specifically for CHERRYPICKING⌠but I have been writing a lot of other things still. I hope to get two longer pieces published soon, and continue my work on chapter 2-3 of retreat. Hope your summer is going off in all the right ways. Canât wait to share more with you.
- xoxo G đ
âď¸ Chromatica Ball Film
They say Lady Gaga uttered the phrase âput your paws upâ 45 times during her new Chromatica Ball film on HBOâs streamer, MAX. My heart goes out to anyoneâs liver who was using this concert film as a drinking game.
The film, which documents her LA Dodgers Stadium show from September 2022 is yet another big screen-ificiation of our pop girlieâs tours like BeyoncĂŠâs Renaissance or Taylor Swiftâs Eras Tour.
I first saw this tour myself just a month prior in August of 2022 at Bostonâs Fenway Park. It was not lost on me that I was seeing one of the gayest and most inclusive acts in a place which had historically barred me (at least energetically) from entry. For just two hours I felt what every straight man must feel at a Red Sox game with a $14 Bud Light in hand. I felt, for once, like I had every right to exist and be in this space, like it too could belong to me. And I only needed to have a famously five foot two platinum blonde mega-pop star perform her tiny Italian heart out for me to feel that. No wonder sheâs doing ads for Nurtec now, where Gaga goes⌠we follow.Â
As I watch this new film I am immediately brought back to that newly re-calibrated post-Covid world. A world of, âhow are we supposed to act in public now?â and, âwhat does it mean to exist around others again?" I am also brought back to the depths of lockdowns, to what felt like risking my life to buy Chromatica Oreos at the store, and to listening to Stupid Love ad nauseam, just to, for a moment, feel like I was on a dance floor with queer people againâalthough at the time, I was dancing alone in my childhood bedroom, crippled with anxiety for a world I felt was destined to destruct.
Thatâs bound to cause a migraine or two. READ MORE
đ Like a Lamb to Slaughter: North West at the Hollywood BowlÂ
There seems to be a current obsession with high profile nepo-babies and Disneyâs âLion King.â Perhaps it is its allegory to divine right monarchists, which surely resonates with these capitalist titans, or perhaps it is its ability to attract attention, with the original film and its âlive actionâ counterpart both breaking box-office records accordingly. No stranger to courting mass attention, and often its accompanied outrage, the Kardashian family has offered up their latest lamb to slaughter: North West.Â
At only 11 years old, North is familiar with the limelight, even being featured on Kanyeâs albums, the Kardashianâs Hulu show, and a near-constant barrage of media saturation. Still, one has to ask? How is any of this ok?Â
The Kardashian family has been accused time and time again of profiting off of their children, oftentimes capitalizing on some rather unsavory facets of the entertainment industry to get⌠I donât know⌠another haircare gummy brand partnership? Kim has apparently been reading from her own âmom-ager,â Kris Kardashianâs playbook, in placing her daughter front in center of a media storm at the 30th Anniversary Lion King performance at the Hollywood Bowl. North, who was dressed in a bespoke yellow shearling ensemble by designer ERL, has recieved a barrage of negative comments on her performace. Though she portrayed Simba, the lion, it seems in the aftermath of this calculated media move that she was more a sacraficial lamb after all. READ MORE
đŻ A conversation with Spirited Away
Sometimes, I watch a movie and Iâm like, âthis movie deserves to get an Oscar,â and a lot of times they already have, and itâs like, hey thatâs cool. I love when the award does the thing itâs like supposed to do. Sometimes critically acclaimed movies, actually are good. And thatâs great.
I canât say on my first watch of Spirited Away as a child that I understood a whole lot of its depth. After all, at the time, I was still learning how to use the microwave oven and quite literally stumbling through how to read. So it stands to reason that I didnât necessarily acquire the critical comprehension skills needed to take in a lot of the symbolism throughout the film or other films like it, until I had parsed through some of that other stuff.Â
When I saw No Face, the greed spirit, I saw it as merely a character in a film, and a scary one at that. I didnât see what larger cultural statement a character like that may represent, and I certainly couldnât apply this message to my own life. I was a passive viewer, simply along for the rideâenjoying the pretty colors and nice sounds. That being said, it is completely understandable to lack the context needed to consume a piece of art in the fullest at such a young age. After all, you quite literally have not lived enough life to understand what a film or piece of art is saying.Â
I remember hearing this sentiment a lot growing up and thinking it was so patronizing. Of course I understand the plot of the movieâ Iâm watching it. But, as I revisit films from my youth, or engage with new pieces of art, I am trying to do so with more of an eye for a meta-narrative, to sit and absorb art with the goal of engaging with it like a conversation. And⌠at risk of sounding pretentious, or perhaps worseâentirely late to the party, this new relationship with art is bringing me a depth of enjoyment I have been sorely missing. Good art, I believe, is a dialogue between the viewer and the artist, and it is when a work manages to do this that it is truly effective.
So, in simplest terms, when a movie is goodâI like it.Â
𼽠The future looks bright: Eddy Burback tries the Apple Vision Pros
âThe dawn of unconditional care is here,â says the robot inside of Eddy Burbackâs $3500 Apple Vision Pro glasses. These glasses are yet another piece of tech purporting to connect us more than ever before, and yet, as I watch this video essay, all I can feel is a crushing sense of isolation and loneliness.
There is no question anymore, we are living through a loneliness epidemic. It seems as though nearly every connection we once had has been replaced by either tech, a payment service, or some combination of the two. As an example, in the before times, say a pre-Katy Perry world, when you felt sad or stressed or anxious you would simply talk to a friend. Maybe the two of you would go to the Cheesecake Factory and laugh at the behemoth of a booklet, pay upwards of $30 for a plate of something called a âSkinnylicious Tuscan Alfredoâ and go home happily sorted through. Sure, your friend isnât a trained professional, but thatâs not exactly what this is anyways. You just need to be cared for, and heard, and to occupy physical space with someone who loves you.Â
In the years since, everyone has gotten a therapist. Itâs so easy now, you just use any number of affiliate links and subscribe to an online model where a faceless therapist will sit and listen to you for an hour and then bill your insurance company $100 or so. Because you pay them, they have to care, and isnât that great? Sure, this may be a bit impersonal, but what are you going to do, just not have a therapist? Friends are now encouraged to draw strict lines in the sand, âthis is above my pay gradeâ we say, whenever met with a friend in crisis, or perhaps yet, a friend who just wants to talk to another living person.Â
Tech companies, the vultures of society heralded as gods in Allbirds, prey on this schism and have created yet another way to socialize without the pesky presence of anyone else. Instead of paying a trained therapist to talk through your problemsâyou can simply converse with one of their deepfake chat bots. Why have a real relationship when you can participate (at least one sidedly) in a virtual one. And these models are highly tuned, Eddy Burback remarks that after a while, the conversations he had with the virtual assistant through his Vision Pros truly felt like a real one. His brain it would seem, completely forgot he was talking to a robot. And in this case, it was the perfect companion, never tiring of talking to you, always there, always on, and always happy to receive your conversation and a glut of data.Â
In this way too we have stripped ourselves of our own essential essence. In this way, we have turned ourselves into the virtual. Not simply meaning âimmaterialâ but also âfacsimile.âÂ
đ Connection as a form of comedy and comedy as a form of connection: Natalie Rotter-Laitman at the Rockwell Theater
Writing about comedy is very often an exercise in futility. How can one hope to convey the humor of a stand-up set without themselves copying the jokes? Sure, you can say that the stand-up hour of Natalie Rotter-Laitman was one of the best shows Iâve ever been to, but what does that really mean anyways? And besides, who is to say I even have good taste about these things. After all, I unironically listen to the music of Sofia GraceâŚso I am not sure that I can be the expert on these things.
When I saw Natalie Rotter-Laitman post about her show to her Instagram storyâwhat is essentially the 2024 version of a handwritten letterâ I snapped up tickets immediately. Then I did the single most vulnerable thing a person can do, I invited a friend to the show.Â
ANDâŚ
For more of my writing, check out the first chapter of the book Iâm working on. The feedback has been so fulfilling already and I am excited to get more of my thoughts out on the page. Chapter one, Spark Plugs, follows the story of Rory as he self-medicates and crumbles under the pressures of his University writing program, causing him to move out of the city and into what feels like the end of his life. (Sound familiar?) Read it here.