Did you know it cost me $50 to submit my short story about gay sex?
It may feel antithetical that a struggling writer-type should have to pay to have their work read— and that’s because it is.
I’m constantly looking to submit my work to literary magazines and online publications for the offset chance that someone will actually read my work—and that I will one day become fabulously wealthy. Or maybe even just regular-level wealthy. At this point, I’d settle for a gift card to Boston Public Market or a roll of quarters for laundry.
The worst part about these submissions, and their fees, is when the editors send you a copy of the publication that you were not featured in. I know, I know, I know I’m supposed to support my fellow writers on this one. My patronage could be the difference between them getting a book deal or toiling away in obscurity like—well me. But surely this is an oxygen mask type of thing.
💿 Woman’s World
It’s been a tough week for Katycats. But to that same point, it’s been a tough few years. If anyone was hoping for a successful comeback for one of the most celebrated pop stars of our generation, believe me, it would be me. I’ve roared on more than one occasion, and the acoustic version of “The One that Got Away” is my go-to cry song for train rides and Ubers alike.
As Katy enters her forthcoming “143” era however, expectations have been dashed. The original snippet for “Woman’s World” the lead single from her 6th studio album was ridiculed for sounding like it was made with AI. The lyrics were panned for their simplicity and T.J.Maxx-sensibility rather than the feminist empowerment anthem it aimed to be. As clips from the music video began releasing, featuring Perry in a hyper-fem construction site, many on Twitter found concern in the imagery being used. The scenes show Katy Perry in a Rosie the Riveter-esque pinup look, the kind that originally made her famous—while also portraying and playing to a male gaze.
Still, I was hopeful. The styling and concept seemed so on the nose, that I really believed the music video would subvert this trope. The snippets on TikTok could have actually been AI, and to sound bad was perhaps her goal all along. As I clicked play on the track, there was still a glimmer of hope that she could really turn all of this around. If not for me, a gay man in his late twenties, at least for herself.
I will say, some of the outrage around the music video turned out to be unfounded, as this was clearly the critique she was hoping to make. The “whiskey for women” and Superbowl commercial feminism was intentionally being satirized (although it was still portrayed, so argue about the effectiveness of this critique amongst yourselves.) To illustrate the crushing pressures of the patriarchy and demarcate the half-way point of the music video, an anvil is dropped on Katy Perry like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. Try as you might, Katy Perry is always going to be a little cringe.
In the latter segment of the video Katy at least tries to portray more body diversity, although this too rings a bit false as the styling and fashion of this portion looks to be curated especially for Twitter gays and Bushwick trustafarians.
Perhaps this would have been enough. As she closes the video on a triumphant decree that, “I’m Katy Perry!” one would be forgiven for feeling that in at least some small way she had reclaimed her status as a musician with something to say. That is, if one is also to ignore the massive elephant in the production booth alongside her on this comeback track. Dr. Luke.
For this too, I was willing to believe was a marketing ploy. I believed, wrongly it would seem, that Katy Perry was empathetic enough to not work with a man who has been accused of violating many of her female peers in the music industry, especially not on a track named “Woman’s World.” But I knew this was also a business decision, and I thought surely she would be aware of the long shadow this would cast over her new music—purely from a financial position, this choice made no sense. And yet, he was right there in the credits.
Now, I cannot make definitive claims about any of this. There are rumors that another pop girlie who has worked with Dr. Luke in the past, Kim Petras, will be a feature on this album as well. We have already seen how Kim can seemingly never escape this headline, and how it has certainly left a mark on her career—and a bad taste in the mouths of even her most die-hard fans. Perhaps their record deals are iron-clad. Perhaps this is just a bit of outrage-bait. Perhaps they truly feel the work is worth compromising on their ideals. Or perhaps they just don’t care that much.
But for a comeback single, after what many call the greatest flop era of all time, one would think Katy Perry might care a bit more.
🥖 Crust and Crumb
I didn’t think it would literally take a death in the family for there to be an opening at the bread-making school at the King Arthur factory in Vermont, but then again, I seriously underestimated the dedication of some of these homebakers.
This weekend I was given the opportunity to participate in a four-hour baking course where I learned everything from proper Lame technique to desired dough temperature formulas, and perhaps most importantly—that bread making is serious business.
The course, which my aunts had scheduled months in advance as their birthday gift, cost more than my computer, and I only stumbled into the opening after several other people before me in line had their own family emergencies preventing them from joining on this multi-hour gluten excursion. Surely, this would be a casual thing, so I agreed to go. Afterall, I figured that A.) I love bread, B.) I’m an alright baker as is, and C.) I had nothing better going on anyways.
We started the class with an icebreaker, something I sometimes forget exists outside of collegiate spaces. The room was filled with 16 homebakers, many of whom had been taking courses all week. The median age of which had watched the Moon landing live and probably remembered when John Travolta was still hot — and not just a Scientologist. We went around the room and shared where we came from and what we were hoping to learn in the course. It became quickly apparent that my age wasn’t the only thing that separated me from these enthusiasts, so too was my level of dedication and earnest enthusiasm for the noble art of bread-making.
I didn’t drive from Wisconsin to learn how to make a baguette like some of the students, in fact, most days I’m not even willing to drive to Market Basket to buy one from the bakery. And I currently live in a town where there are three Market Baskets, each of which can be seen from the parking lot of the other.
I was seriously outclassed in my zeal. The very same course that I thought I would take as a laugh—just something to pass some time—was the highlight of their social calendar. Something they planned and plotted and poured their savings into for the offset chance that they would learn something they couldn’t already find in a cookbook or the Food network.
It is in situations like these that I feel like a hairy bitch. Here I was, a boy with an ironic novelty trucker hat, sat next to Janice the recent divorcee who found baking as her sole companion after her husband passed away. She drove up from Philadelphia to take this course, and was star-struck by our instructor, her voice wavering every time she asked a question. She was hoping to improve her scoring technique. Something I had never spent even had a passing thought on before, but which apparently plagued her proofing-oven nightmares. My friend’s mom informed me that just about the rudest thing someone can do is to sit at the dinner table with a hat on, but I think perhaps silently judging a widow while knuckle deep in something called a “poolish” might be just as bad — if not worse.
My imposter syndrome unfurled in full force as more and more students revealed their private impassioned reason for enrolling. “I just thought this would be fun,” I croaked out when it was my turn. This was not an honorable cause, not while one of the families was busy likening the bonding of the interlocking gluten fibers, to the bonding of their own familial relationships. Breadmaking had held their family together through Covid. I felt like a fraud. Though evidently, I was not the only one.
As we rolled our dough balls into cylindrical forms I heard the class murmur in worry and distress. Our instructor went on unburdened, as the people who surrounded me folded in on themselves much like their dough itself. I can’t do this. My dough isn’t shaggy enough. I’m a lousy baker. I’m just no good. I watched and listened as the seniors in the room became insecure children; displeased with their own abilities, like listless defeatists who just wanted to do well. Or at the very least, dough well. (Sorry, I truly had to do it.)
They say worry is only proof that you cared—that something was important to you. But their responses bordered on inconsolable defeat. As if their entire being was wrapped up in perfecting a relatively simple technique. With each hard exhale and sigh, I felt as the room gave up on itself. Unable to live up to their own unachievable expectations. I imagined their silent car rides home to Wisconsin and Philadelphia. I’m a bread failure. I wondered if the loaves were not considered a success, would that family fall apart? Seemed a pity, to ask for a divorce over this sort of thing, but it’s happened for far less.
Much of this feeling faded away once our sticks of bread came out of the steam-injected industrial ovens. (Of which I wrote down the name of to shop for for my own fantasy kitchen at a later date— electric bill be damned!) Bread has that amazing ability. The crack of the crust or the shattering air bubbles of the crumb take us away from it all just for a moment. For a moment, as I focused on chewing through my slice and my own painful lock jaw, I didn’t feel so much like an imposter— betraying the trust of the other bakers around me. I didn’t feel like some sick interloper with a pension for whole grains anymore. And in much the same way, even when their bread wasn’t perfect — even if the scoring could still improve in a technical sense, or if their dough was improperly risen, or not shaggy enough, or too shaggy, or shaggy in that far off abstract kid of way, their bread was still bread. And since it was them who created it, in the purest sense— they were bread makers.
Our instructor encouraged us to make a loaf a week, something that I will not be doing since I just can’t afford to size-up my jeans that frequently, but which reminded me of the saying from Annie Dillard: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” You are a baker if you spend time baking, just as you are whatever else you spend your day doing. You could be all crust and insist that you are just pretending to be the real thing, or you could be crumb and find enjoyment in the doing. And perhaps, one cannot exist without the other.
🐷 The Future of Miss Piggy according to Moi
There's this novelty tee shirt pretending to be a piece of Chappell Roan tour merch which has garnered some popularity online. Beneath the blocky 80s typography of the singer’s name are several images of Miss Piggy— the muppet. This shirt, like the countless meme accounts and TikTok impressionists, celebrates the camp sensibility of the two icons and their fashion risks including dressing as the Statue of Liberty and the Duchess-inspired veiled look for Roan’s single, “Good Luck Babe.” It’s hard to say if the singer’s recent looks were inspired by the fashionista pig herself, or if this is more a case of “the Simpsons predicted it first,” but one thing is for certain: Miss Piggy is front of mind.
For anyone with an ear to the ground, or in this case a snout, Miss Piggy has always been a figure who has loomed large over the pop culture landscape. The recent Chappell Roan comparisons come after years of semi-ironic memes and references to the celebrity pig. There was the haunting and heartbreaking FKA Twigs cover of “Cellophane” as well as the impressionist and comedian Erik Martini who reimagines Miss Piggy as a barista in Brooklyn. These references all have one thing in common, an understanding of the oftentimes tragic and downtrodden spirit of Miss Piggy—a quiet rage simmering right beneath the surface and a determination to pull herself up to become a star.
While reading the backstory for Miss Piggy— because yes, Frank Oz wrote one of those, it became clear to me that much of Piggy, from her devotion to Kermit the Frog and her signature karate chop, is informed by her own tragic past. Somewhere between the horror film Pearl and Reba McEntire’s seminal work “Fancy” lies the backstory of Miss Piggy.
“She came from a farm, and she had to leave home because her father died in a tractor accident. And as her mother was alone and Piggy grew up, it was fine. But then, as she got older, these suitors who came for her mother paid more attention to Piggy, and there was tremendous tension. Finally, Piggy just had to leave and go it alone,” said Frank Oz, the puppeteer and voice of Miss Piggy. “She didn’t have anything, really, so, like many single women, she had to take care of herself.”
We might not be aware of this backstory, but subliminally it has always resonated with the viewer. Like Mildred Pierce or Greta Garbo, the starlets of the past her persona was based on, Piggy follows the classic Hollywood model. The glamorous exterior is a mask to her more troubled truth. She is a complicated and resilient Cinderella story, and one that seems to teeter on the edge of good taste and good manners. What we love about her most of all is in those moments when the mask slips, when for a moment we see the hard-boiled center of her.
I have been particularly interested in the ways this persona can be modernized to reflect this camp ideal in a world that doesn’t necessarily remember the Joan Crawfords of old. The recent video essay by YouTuber, Be Kind Rewind, also asked many of these same questions. If Miss Piggy is a throwback to an era many have forgotten, why does she still have a hold on our public imagination? And what is the next evolution of this pig for today’s audience? Is it TikToker, oh god— Disney is going to make her a TikToker aren’t they?
For my part, I see an audience looking for more of the psyche beneath the mask. Like Pearl herself, I see Miss Piggy leaning further into her dark and assertive side, something that Erik Martini often utilizes in his impressions of the Muppet character. I foresee more insight into her backstory being revealed; the ways she clawed her way to the top and how her desperation reflects more of her shattering stability. Of course, I don’t suggest making her entirely a tragic character, nor do I want to see the Cruella-ification of Miss Piggy, or to tie it back to the “Simpsons,” the Flanderization of her character in the wrong hands. All karate with none of the heart.
Perhaps what the original actors and puppeteers of the Muppets did best of all was the understanding that in order to be effective characters, this cast also needed to be thought of as realistic and fully dimensional humans, warts and all, or in this case—pigs and all.
✒️ Poetry
Read more from CHERRYPICKING:
🗽CHERRYPICKING #004 | 🥽CHERRYPICKING #005 | 👁 CHERRYPICKING #007