Songs For The Struggling Artist

At the end of the year, Spotify sends everyone (with an account) a summary of their year on the app/website. They’ll tell you your Top Song and your Top Artist – that is, the stuff you listened to the most. Sometimes it’ll assign you a personality based on this information. One year they told me I was Adventurous because I “listen to non-mainstream artists 100% more than the average Spotify listener”.  Aside from the suspect percentage, I liked this personality assignment. I like to be seen as adventurous. (Handily, this year, Spotify told me that the personality of my podcast listeners was The Adventurer, so I guess we all have something in common.) But I’ve realized that this yearly accounting of my listening habits is only an effect of the algorithm that runs the thing. It’s given me some insight into how a lot of algorithms work and, given how dominated our lives have become by algorithms, how our cultural moment tends to work. I’ll explain. To read more of How to be a Spotify Top Artist visit the Songs f

Last year, I wrote about my experience of giving blood for the first time. I read it again in the process of preparing the 2022 zine – and it made me think about what has happened since. You may remember how genuinely terrible the blood donation folks were at welcoming me, a newcomer. It was clear they were set up for regulars. As soon as I donated, the one time, it was clear that I was now a regular in the system’s eyes. Whereas, before I donated I never heard anything about blood donation, now that I was a regular, I hear from the blood center several times a month. I get more messages and phone calls from the blood people than I get from my family and friends. It’s wild. Having donated one single time, I, along with anyone else who’s donated, am expected to solve the citywide blood shortage. I suppose they figure they got blood out of you once, they’re going to get it to happen again. And I will say, I would like to donate again. I really do want to help. It will happen eventually. But the more they harass

When I was going through the Great Medication Refill Denial Crisis of 2022, very few other people were aware of it, or involved. The receptionists and the pharmacy consultants knew I was struggling. Some friends and family heard about it from me. The doctor who denied the refill may have not even been aware of the repercussions of her actions. There was enormous drama happening in a very dark corner. Then I wrote about it. And I learned that other people I know have gone through similar difficulties. I learned that friends of mine were also struggling with invisible disabilities, also denied essential healthcare. And I started to wonder how we could make this healthcare system, that so often does its cruel deeds in the dark, more visible. To read more of How to Shine a Light on the Dark Corners in Healthcare? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 348 Song: Shine a Light on Me Image via Pixabay To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it

Well – I paid $175 to be considered for an Ambie award for The Dragoning (in the DIY category for low budget productions). The Ambies are the podcast awards that the entertainment business seem to take seriously. They’re discussed in publications like Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. Was it a smart investment to spend $175 to try and get nominated? If we’d gotten selected for the finals, it definitely would have been. But for a return of absolutely bupkiss, it feels like it’s not. It feels like a lot of money to lose just to lose. But then there’s the Oscars. This is why I decided to apply and spend the $175, because of how the Oscars work. The average person imagines that the Oscars are chosen by groups of people getting together, evaluating all the movies and then nominating the best ones. I used to imagine that they watched all the movies that came out that year and awarded the ones the group liked best. It doesn’t work like that, come to find out.  To read more of Awards Cost Money visit the Songs for

Probably because I have now written TWO pieces about Fleishman Is in Trouble, my friend sent me Lizzy Caplan’s interview where she talks about the show, and her role as Libby. My friend figured I’d be interested and he figured right! Lizzy Caplan explains that the writer (Taffy Brodesser – Akner) created the novel as a kind of Trojan horse, a way to trick people into reading/watching a story about a woman. (Tricksy! Didn’t I tell you?) Caplan says, “Libby discovers in our story – that people don’t seem to care about her stories if they’re written about a woman. They care about them if they’re written about a man. And so Taffy manages to kind of Trojan-horse the real story into this – you know, you think that you’re watching this story about a man getting divorced, figuring it out, dating apps, and you’re really not watching that story at all. “ And I am sympathetic to this problem. I write women’s stories and I can confirm, a lot of people aren’t interested. “People” may, in fact, need to be tricked into cari

Can anyone introduce me to film critic, Amy Taubin? I discovered her awesomeness when I went searching for some sensible criticism about the much lauded film, Tár, and found her on a podcast talking a great deal of sense. She said, “It has to be one of the stupidest movies I’ve seen in many a long year” and I could not have agreed more. I said something similar, out loud, multiple times, as we watched it (at home, don’t worry. I wasn’t exclaiming in public!). It was a very stupid movie, which was all the more irritating given how smart it thinks it was. I have a long list of things I found exceptionally stupid – but I feel like I should mostly focus on one because I’m worried that it’s a bit of stupidity that might become extremely popular, given the accolades this stupid film is receiving. To keep reading The Stupidity of Tár visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 345 Song: Stupid Image of Amy Taubin lifted from the internet. Sorry! I just wanted you to see her marvelousness to

My artist friend was in artistic crisis. We all of us have them and the crises are so clever, they seem to always give us new takes on the theme. There seems to be an endless variety of artistic crises to be had. Knock one down, another, slightly re-framed one, will pop up to take its place. This one my friend was in was a hobby crisis. It’s one where she asked herself something like, “Is my work just a hobby? Other people seem to see it that way.” From the outside, I can tell her, “No, your artwork isn’t a hobby. It’s fucking art and all the people who don’t know the difference can fuck all the way off!” But I’ve been there and I know that some further unpacking might help all of us deal with this concept that is many artists’ least favorite word to hear about our work –  hobby. To keep reading Art or Hobby? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 344 Song: Davy Crochet Image - a quilt I made for my friend's baby a few years ago. To come see my show on March 10th, reserve a (free

I was full of fury. I had so much I wanted to sort through, so much I wanted to unpack and so much to say. Normally, this is a recipe for a white hot blog post that comes streaming out of my pen. But I was entirely jammed up. I didn’t know where to start or how to dive in and I was frustrated, not just by the medical situation that was driving the post but also the struggle to write about it. In talking about it with my friend, he pointed out that for things like the arts and feminist issues, I’ve been thinking about them for most of my life. When I pick up a pen to talk about things related to feminism or sexism or arts issues, I have already digested a lot of the content and ideas. Those things come relatively easy to me because I’ve done a lot of thinking and processing of those issues already. In trying to write about things related to ableism and Medicaid and medical justice, I’m just so new to these things, comparatively, so I can get gummed up and confused. I have years of writing about feminism behind

The thing about Zoom for me is, I usually end up on the floor crying after the meeting is over. It’s either that or a migraine. I couldn’t tell you exactly why. There are a lot of reasons a human mind might respond negatively to this experience. Could be the cognitive load, the slight asynchrony, constraints on mobility or the many other documented reasons Zoom can be challenging. But all I know is, taking part in any Zoom, be it party, reading, rehearsal or meeting, will result in either sobbing on the floor or lying in the dark with ice on my head. It’s just what happens. And yet, I realized in a Zoom the other night, to the outside observer, I look like I’m very happy to be there and seem to be an enthusiastic participant. I’m not trying to appear so, I promise you. I don’t know I’m doing it. I think I’m surely revealing my aversion to this activity but then the facilitator will call my name and ask me to speak. I think because I’m smiling. To keep reading Smiling on Zoom visit the Songs for the Struggling

This is going to be a regular thing now, isn’t it? This thing where Millennials play Gen X-ers now? This is going to happen a lot from here on out, I’m starting to realize. I’d already watched seven episodes of Fleishman Is in Trouble but it hadn’t been bothering me much. I was too pre-occupied with how it compared to the book and what had changed and wondering if I felt differently about it as a TV show. But then, Lizzy Caplan’s character went to a barbeque in New Jersey and the scene was just chock full of model gorgeous young Millennials and then she walked past four Millennials (or maybe Gen Z?) men, playing “Free Bird” in the backyard and suddenly the generational stuff was all I could think about. To read more of Some Gen X Quibbles with Fleishman Is in Trouble visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 341 Song: Once in a Lifetime Image - still from Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense film. To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it

A week before my scheduled appointment with the woman who was to be my new neurologist, I found out that she explicitly refused to refill my migraine meds. I’d been having trouble getting the refill for weeks and finally got word that it was intentional. This medication significantly reduces the numbers of migraines I get and is a key component to my maintaining a decent quality of life. Refusing my access to it was essentially guaranteeing me pain, suffering, loss of work, loss of pleasure, loss of comfort. It is an incredibly cruel choice for a doctor to make. A migraine specialist (which this doctor is) should know that and she either doesn’t know that (which is troubling) or she doesn’t care (also extremely troubling). To keep reading Medication Denied. Many Things Questioned. visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 340 Song: Doctor, My Eyes Image by GDJ via Pixabay To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or

Sometimes someone you love makes a work of art of which you are not a fan. You wish you liked it but really, you think it stinks. If it’s a piece of performing art work, like some theatre or some dance or some music, you might sit through it trying to understand why this person you love has worked so hard on something so terrible. This feels bad. Sometimes we don’t go and see the work of people that we love just to avoid the feeling. It’s not so much that we’re afraid to have to talk to them about their terrible work afterwards – it’s just that we don’t want to sit in the theatre or stand in the gallery or in the concert hall wondering how our loved one could make such a thing. To keep reading I Love Your Terrible Show visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 339  Song: The Game of Life from The Great God Money Image of yours truly from Mythellaneous - photo credit: Jason Vail To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever yo

It was the publicity photo that filled me with rage. In it, star reporters, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, stand like bookends around actors, Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan, who are leaning on a ladder. I’ve got nothing against ladders or any of the people involved but still the photo made me mad. Here we have two of our Gen X heroes, two women who heroically chased down a thorny story, putting themselves at risk and for no reason at all, other than “Hollywood” they are being portrayed by two younger fresher faced women. It’s not as if this story happened twenty years ago so they need to demonstrate younger selves. These events took place in 2017. It’s not like they’re ancient history. Why are we looking at women in their 30s when it was women in their 40s who broke this story? To read more of Can Gen X Women Play Gen X Women Please? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This Episode 338 Song: Luka Photo of the image in the Hollywood Reporter by me. Actual photo by CELESTE SLOMAN FOR UNIVERSAL PI

Finally, after three more endings, I have finished this book. In addition to the last chapters, I also read the acknowledgements. If I’d known how furious the experience of reading all this would make me, I would not have read it before bed – but alas, there I was at 3:18am, raging at the ceiling. The book itself turned out to be pretty low impact. The sister turns dragon and wins a Nobel Peace Prize. The dragons put an end to war; All war is over. (I may have injured my eyes rolling them at this point.) But even though the dragons have changed the course of all human events by ending war, we still end up with Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan as presidents. It’s just that they have to be political with dragons, too. I don’t know – it just feels to me like if you significantly shift the course of human history (by, say, including dragons and I don’t know, ending all war?!?) the American people might make better presidential choices. But also – the dragons end war? I mean – cool, I guess – but it feels like the

If you’ve been playing along, I’ve been reading this book due to its weird commonality with both my dragon blog and my audio drama. You can read or listen to Part One and/or Part Two. I will spoil this book for you so if you want to be surprised by anything that happens, skip this one. Not that that would be a big deal, actually. NOV 8 I’m back in the game with When Women Were Dragons. I had apparently read 78% before it was returned to the library. So we’re back on the horse (or dragon) with 22% left to read. Having been away from this book for a while, I found it challenging to drop back in. My attention kept sliding around as I read the account of the protagonist’s prom where a bunch of girls turned dragon. The real drama seemed to be that a lot of girls were nice to her for a change and that she found them very beautiful and then they were naked and then they were dragons? Primary image – green glitter. To read more of In Which I Read that Dragon Book, Part Three visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist

Around about the time I was coming of age, my hometown was becoming a scene. Our hometown band was about to hit the mainstream and art was seeping out of every corner of the place. There were plays in bars, on the street, in art galleries. There was an artist who sold his paintings for $3 and also painted the walls and restrooms of restaurants all over town. His work was everywhere. It was a heady moment. Into that heady moment, stepped a man who my friends and I called Gatsby, because he was always dressed up like a 1920s gentleman. He had an air about him – a man out of time. I live in New York City now, and here you’d never notice this guy. He’d slip into some faux speakeasy and you’d just think – oh sure, one of those – but then, there, in my hometown, this guy was highly visible. It was a scene then and Gatsby quickly took his place at the center of it. To keep reading The Death of Gatsby and the Scene visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 335 Song: You Shook Me All Night Long I

Maybe it’s the weather today, which has a kind of air that feels like San Francisco, but for whatever reason, I flashbacked to the time I met Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It was my first time in San Francisco, and I’d already been to City Lights, hoping to lay eyes on him, this poet who’d inspired me in my teens. I used to make artworks out of his poems. I’d photocopy my favorites, paste them to a newspaper front page and paint around them. She was very earnest, teen Emily. Anyway – early twenties Emily was in San Francisco, trying to follow the way of the Beats, drinking cappuccinos in North Beach and hanging out at City Lights. And I don’t remember if I knew Ferlinghetti was going to be at this restaurant nearby or he just happened to turn up – but I sat furiously writing in a booth a few tables away until I could work up the courage to go and ask him for an autograph. To keep reading A Moment with Ferlinghetti visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 334 Song: The World Is a Beautifu

It’s been a while since I’ve been in a classroom but an interview about my time at BAM and a journey through some old files have gotten me thinking about it some. It feels like I miss it a little bit and I’ve been trying to work out what part of it is still calling to me. I’m not nostalgic for being in a classroom. I suppose I miss being with the students some but I don’t miss the toxic environments that most schools tend to be. I think what I really miss is inventing exercises. That’s the creative bit. For me, it was a satisfying stretch of my artistic muscles to create an experience for students that will help them discover something about a work of art. I was pretty good at it, I think. Was everything I made up a hit? Hell no. There’s a high rate of failure in creating curriculum, especially when results can be so uneven. I’ve taught exercises that were tried and true across many schools and then, for whatever reason, it would just tank in a random class, for no obvious reason. Teaching Artistry can be a l

It was the shoes that made me suspicious. It was either the kind of story that was true and became the central story of this woman’s history OR it was entirely invented. So I went looking for some historical context for The Empress, a German TV show about Elisabeth of Austria. I learned a lot, though found nothing about the shoes. I’ll come back to them later. The show is delightful; I’m not going to lie. It is a fun romantic period drama full of court intrigue and historical detail. I am enjoying it very much. But I have learned that it has very little to do with this woman’s actual life and I’m curious about the motivation for the differences. In essence, the writers have made a beautiful historical fantasy. What if Old Time Europeans were like we WANT to be, but in prettier costumes? It’s an intriguing mythologization, really. To read more of The Empress' Shoes visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 332 Song: Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes Image: Costume Institute at The

When I ran my Metrocard through the turnstile, it came up Insufficient Funds and I frowned and looked around for the machines to fill it up. (I was not in my usual station so it wasn’t immediately obvious.) As I walked away, I heard this police officer call me back. There’d been three of them lounging by the turnstiles and one of them had come forward and was offering to swipe me in. I was baffled but not about to argue. He told me to have a nice day and off I went, very confused. As I rode home, I tried to work out why this might have happened. It did not feel like he was hitting on me in any way, so it wasn’t a pick-up move. Was it an attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of the NYPD with leftie radicals like myself? I didn’t think so. I don’t think the NYPD is at all worried about what we think of them. I’m pretty sure this guy doesn’t know or care that I’m very interested in defunding the police. To read more of The Free Ride Mystery visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 331 Son