Touching grass
Shakespeare szn, gatekeeping, internet sleuths, phone phobias, aughts-rock and the world post-Twitter
HI new readers, and apologies — this edition is both delayed and short, since I’m writing on my phone from the merchandise trailer of a regionally famous outdoor Shakespeare festival. I signed onto this last winter in some misguided attempt to “get involved” and “touch grass” and “meet more people.” Alas, a lack of relevant skills does tend to limit one’s involvement (!).
I’ve been resigned to working the theater’s special events platform, where corporate groups pay a premium for slightly better seating and platters of sweaty grocery-store subs and hummus. Before the show, I haul chairs, swat flies and tip stingy pours of Josh chardonnay into outstretched Solo cups; at intermission, I sell branded T-shirts (… and chap sticks and coasters and baby bibs and stuffed bunnies and dog bandannas).
I have touched grass, sometimes literally, because my v. important responsibilities include draining melted ice from the coolers where the Josh is jugged. Also, I have met people. Theater people! Actors! Or at least … exchanged vague pleasantries with a few of the friendlier ones as they scarf up after-show remains from the much-fingered corporate snack platters.
My friends don’t understand why I’m doing this. It has consumed, whole and undigested, a better part of our fleeting summer. The show runs five hours a night, six nights a week — after which I’m good for no more than one-and-a-half episodes of TV and a Trader Joe’s frozen dinner.
And yet … I’m finding I really, actually, unironically love it. This is the first job I’ve had in well over a decade that doesn’t play out primarily on screens. There’s nothing to mitigate the occasional mess or stress or drudgery of front-of-house; there’s no way to avoid the small talk or the weirdos or the MLM salesladies.
As a long-time fan of live theater, it’s also amazing to see the mechanics whirring and clicking behind the stage — it takes lots of people mumbling into headsets to put on a good play.
So!: Links will arrive irregularly until the close of the show. One man in his time plays many parts … and I’m in my Shakespeare szn. 🙃
If you read anything this weekend
“The Real Meaning of Gatekeeping,” by Ann Friedman for The Cut. Rather like “gaslight” and “girlboss” — the other two parts of the ubiquitous 2021 meme — “gatekeeping” has been used, overused and reinterpreted to the point of incomprehensibility. But whether it connotes protection or exclusion, selfishness or savvy, to “gatekeep” is to hold power over someone or something.
“How an Amateur Diver Became a True Crime Sensation,” by Rachel Monroe for The New Yorker. Just a phenomenal romp through the wilds of online sleuthing, where failed internet marketers can outclass police, tragedy is little more than viral content, and anyone with a camera and a theory can be a hero … at least until another sleuth digs up their skeletons.
“The World’s Last Internet Cafes,” by various authors for Rest of World. I’m a little late to this package, but I loved these mini-profiles from Uganda, Nepal, Nigeria and Mexico — they’re like postcards from a kinder, more innocent internet era, before everyone had data plans and cheap smartphones.
“There’s a Deadly Drinking Problem on TikTok,” by Jessica Lucas for HuffPost. Most dangerous “TikTok trends” are fake; this one killed a man. Twenty-three-year-old David Lee Perez died while streaming *live on TikTok* after strangers paid him to drink a Four Loko, two beers and 14 shots. (See also: “What in the World is Happening on TikTok Live?” in The Atlantic.)
“Influencers Built Up This Wellness Startup—Until They Started Getting Sick,” by Courtney Rubin and Priya Anand for Bloomberg Businessweek. Since the great Daily Harvest organ failure scandal of summer 2022, the company is down 100 employees and more than 70 customers (!) have sued.
👉 ICYMI: The most-clicked link from the last newsletter concerned the male equivalent of “girl dinner.”
Thanks for being one of my 16,000 hypothetical Gchat friends.
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Postscripts
Phone phobia. AI poetry. The triumphant return of aughts-rock. Why fitness apps don’t reward rest and how cruise ships got so ridiculous. The 50 weirdest things you can buy on Shein. Average dinner times by state. Social media post-Twitter might … actually be kind of great.
How Kylie Minogue scored the song of the summer. What Google’s eco-routing actually does. Headspace is actually not that chill and Etsy can be kinda shit for sellers. Why Amazon is bad at grocery stores. A doctor’s take on chronic illness TikTok. Last/maybe least, the week in Gen Z fads: mocktails, anti-aging and thrift store bundles.
That’s it for this week! Until the next one. Warmest virtual regards.
— Caitlin