The Bluestocking, vol 62: High notes and hit jobs
Happy Friday!
I'm writing this from a Barcelona, where we arrived on Wednesday to discover that our hotel was inside a police cordon and a large Catalan separatist march was happening outside. Wandering through the backstreets of Barri Gotic offered even more serendipity than usual, as we turned a corner to find a choir of protesters singing hymns outside the Cathedral. It was strangely moving, and reminded me of why I still write about politics, for all that it makes me want to rip my own arm off and club myself to death with it sometimes. People care.
I've finally got around to reading Robert Webb's book How Not To Be A Boy, which grew out of a New Statesman article, and can thoroughly recommend it for the man in your life this Christmas. It made me very nostalgic for the days of covering exercise books in wallpaper. Do children still have exercise books? Does anyone still have wallpaper?
Anyway, that's all for now. I have some Exciting News to reveal soon (no, I'm not pregnant, it's just the tapas) but it will have to wait for another week...
Helen
An Oral History of Election Day
Joel Benenson, Clinton campaign chief strategist: I go into the 10 o'clock call and we're getting reports from the analytics people and the field people. And they finish, and whoever's leading the call asks if there's anything else. I said, “Well, yeah, I got a call 20 minutes ago from my daughter in Durham, North Carolina. People are standing on line and aren't moving, and are now being told they need to vote with paper ballots.” To me, that was the first sign that something was amiss in our boiler room process. That's essential information. We needed those reports so the legal team would activate. I was stunned, and actually quite nervous. I thought, “Do we even have what we need on the ground to manage election day?”
Thinking about what it must have been like to be a Democratic strategist on 8 November 2016 gives me hives. This piece has had great access, and there are loads of priceless quotes, particularly from the woman who made the Trump cake, who seems the only happy person in there. (The Trump campaign weren't pleased so much as gloating.) Pity Tim Kaine just after the exit poll: "It struck me for the first time, “I will probably be vice president.” That feeling lasted about 90 minutes."
Mike Bartlett in Conversation
When I went to do that young writers program at the Royal Court, I remember going to the tube barriers and my heart just like pounding. Literally pounding. And walking in and the room being full of very clever, good looking, well dressed people. Duncan Macmillan was one of them. And, you know, if you hear Duncan talk about plays, I just shrink into a ball and go... I literally don't know anything. Even now... He's incredibly well versed. I just don't understand a lot of it.
I liked this conversation with Mike Bartlett - playwright and the man behind Doctor Foster - because he brought up something which comes up again and again when you talk to writers. No matter how good they are, they are always fretting about the things other people can do that they can't. Trying to find the right tension between "I can learn from this" and "I am so intimidated by other people's talents that I'm paralysed" is a life's work.
Quick links:
1. This is what it was like to be a teenage Uma Thurman, slavered over by every sleazy dude in Hollywood.
2. Sia on why she doesn't want to be famous: the world is your critical mother-in-law. (My mother-in-law is lovely, I should add at this point.)
3. This piece about a performer at the Met Opera finally reaching the A above high C is brilliant for two reasons. First, because it shows how the limits of human performance are being stretched. Second, because it turns out the A above high C sounds terrible, like someone's dropped an ice cube down her back, and it has no place in an opera. Seriously, watch the video.
4. Cathartic hit job on Leon Wiesielter and how he succeeded in journalism by being a massive smarmer to powerful men. (Then used his own position to lech on women.) I pray I never piss off anyone capable of delivering a demolition with such clinical elegance.
5. David Hare reviews Gordon Brown's memoir. Looking forward to his new play, on Labour, at the National Theatre next year.
6. Why doesn't anyone get it on in the Marvel cinematic universe, and does it matter? I enjoyed this piece, but I enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok just fine without any smouldering glances across the infinity stone. Also, I have a new hobby, which is looking at pictures of Taiki Waititi wearing what he considers to be a normal, workaday outfit. Oh go on then, you deserve it:
Quote of the week/ Peak Luvvie:
"It remains one of my favorite films, and certainly my favorite performance of all time, and is a sort of guiding light for me as a performer. The idea of retaining an eighth of that kind of quality of unwatched-ness, which of course, that donkey—who isn't one donkey at all but about eight donkeys—manages to provide."
Guest gif: New Zealand's other greatest export
See you next week!