Songs for the Struggling Artist

Rebecca Solnit recently posted this essay that Mary Beard wrote back in 2014. It’s about women speaking in public and the ways classical culture was built around telling women to shut up. Also about how that trend has continued. It’s brilliant for all the reasons Mary Beard is often brilliant but the thing that feels like new information for me is the bit about women generally only being allowed t...

As winter approached, I freaked out a little . The idea that we were looking down the barrel of a third pandemic winter just zorked my feelings up. (Yes, I know that’s not a real word. I had to make one up; That’s how zorked up my feelings were.) I wanted to run but there was nowhere to run to. The pandemic is freaking everywhere. You can’t escape it. It’s better in some places (a lot better!) but...

When I walked up to check out the booths at Open Streets (the program that closes down/opens up a couple of blocks to give the neighborhood more public space) I wasn’t prepared for a show. When I approached the second block, I saw a crowd and a truck and then I saw some clowns getting the crowd fired for their circus. Their performance style was so familiar, I almost just walked away – feeling an...

Ladies and Gentlemen, Whales and Snails, Lobsters and Crabs, Crayfish and Crawlers: I have something of a reputation for keeping going in the face of difficulty. I am a self-proclaimed shark and I swim ever forward. I hold space for people who once stood where I stand and need me to keep going as a sort of beacon. That is a responsibility I take very seriously and I hold that beacon high, my squid...

In the year or so of going to this café, I have only ever seen the owner in mask – until yesterday. Yesterday, he was outside working on his shed and he was without his mask. For the first time, I saw the lower half of his face and if he hadn’t greeted me warmly and started chatting, I would never have recognized him. I am fascinated by this trick of my brain. Put a piece of fabric over this guy’s...

My favorite café closed and it was really the only choice in this particular neighborhood, which I pass through with some frequency. In the interim, someone has opened a chain café that has some decent outdoor seating on a spacious sidewalk so I’ve ended up there a few times when I’m in the area. The place is called Joe and the Juice and it’s important that you know its name as I tell you about it...

I just remembered this absolutely genius idea for a book I had about 25 years ago. When you hear it, you’re going to be like, “Yeah! What a brilliant idea! What a shame you didn’t put that together! You’d be a millionaire already!” Here it is: A guide book of cafes around the country, with reviews and photos and maybe little drawings and scraps of writing I’d done in them. Can you believe I missed...

The one I can’t stop thinking about is the person who called 911, the person who witnessed the accident that killed my youngest brother. I feel enormous tenderness for that person, even though I know nothing about them. The only thing I know is that they saw the accident and called 911. They will likely have the image of it in their brain forever. I have an imaginary version of it in my brain that...

The temperature has dropped. I pulled my winter coat out of the closet. Our third pandemic winter has begun. Last year, I sat writing under the heat lamps outside at the Toast and Roast, grateful not to have to be at my kitchen table to write but dreaming of the day we’d get the vaccine and I could safely sit inside a café again. And here I am. Back outside at the Toast and Roast (the only coffee...

Because I’d read some interesting criticism/praise of the TV show, Younger , I decided to check it out, despite it NOT being a Spanish TV show. (Truthfully, I have expanded into TV from France, Colombia, Italy , Germany, Brazil and Turkey at this point, so it’s more like: despite it not being an international period drama.) The premise is that a 40-ish year old woman pretends to be 26 so she can g...

Creativity is incredibly important to me. That’s why I read Jonah Lehrer’s book, Imagine: How Creativity Works , even though he’s been disgraced for being a little too “creative” with his Bob Dylan quotes. Before he got himself disgraced, he made all the podcast rounds so not much of the book was a particular surprise to me. I’ve heard the story of the invention of the Swiffer. I know all about Pi...

The application form asked my age, so I answered the question and submitted my application. But after I did, I started to worry. Should I have skipped that question? Should I have submitted it to Honor Roll, the group of women playwrights over 40 that works to combat ageism and sexism in American theatre? Had I just set myself up for being rejected by revealing that I am 48? The form asked. I answ...

The cheerful scarecrow dolls and corn cob clusters don’t thrill me but I will celebrate any nod toward decoration this month. I embrace your paper pumpkin, your hay bale, your autumnal faux leaf display. But I am delighted by your circle of witches, your zombie doll babies, your floating spectres, your plastic bag ghosts, your homemade headless magician, your skeletons engaged in activities, your...

Someone in the Gen X subreddit proposed a “dating” app for making Gen X friends. I expressed my enthusiasm for it, saying it appealed to me because most of my Gen X friends have moved out of NYC. Someone replied that they still had a lot of Gen X friends in NYC and I did not respond to that person with a hearty sarcastic, “Well good for you! Aren’t you a lucky one?” Though I wanted to. I did not s...

Back in 1993, I got my first passport and moved to Italy for my junior year abroad. One of the things I was most excited about was getting to see the culture and art of an entirely different country. The internet was in its infancy then, so going places was really the only way to see what other nations were making. I was hungry for Italian pop, Italian TV, Italian cinema, Italian theatre, whatever...

In the throes of my grief, I thought I’d just go along as normal, just get on the internet, see what’s what. You will be stunned to learn that the internet did not make me feel any better! Over and over, I turned to the internet and over and over, it did not help. Not Facebook, not Twitter, not Reddit, not Instagram. Shocking, I know. To keep reading The Internet Is Not a Friend visit the Songs fo...

You may not be shocked to learn that the City did not give me one of its 5k City Artist Corps Grants. I did end up applying for it, after all that sturm und drang – and two days after my birthday – I got a rejection email from them. Happy Birthday to me! Well, I guess I got 99 problems but a grant ain’t one. You may be saying to yourself – “Well, Emily, perhaps if you hadn’t publicly complained ab...

A day or two after the news, my partner asked me what I needed. I said, “a time machine.” I’m pretty sure he knew what I wanted to do with it. I’ve watched and read enough time travel fiction to know that this is usually the one thing you’re not allowed to do with a time machine if you get your hands on one. You’re not supposed to use time travel to prevent someone’s death. I know. But grief can m...

Y’all know me. I love to reflect. Reflecting on stuff is my favorite thing and I do it on the regular. But I’m having some trouble reflecting on this 20th anniversary of 9-11. I want to. It seems important to, especially as this is also the 20th anniversary of the birth of my theatre company, but –  like, my brain just sort of dances around it and will not settle. I’m much more interested in...

Music can be a time machine. Play Duran Duran’s “Rio” and I am instantly transported to a carpeted spot in front of the Barbie doll mansion I’d created in my closet in the mid 80s. Put on Primus’ “Nature Boy” and I’m in a cargo van in 1997 with several Shakespeare dudes who are wildly flinging themselves around, while the Shakespeare dude driver nods his head in time. I did not like this song at t...

After the death of an old friend, I went on an excavation of old writings in my computer. I went back 24 years to find a poem I’d written about this friend and waded through so much writing I hadn’t thought about in decades. The thing that stood out to me about this process and encountering the self that made it all was how much I used to believe that what I made would eventually be read or seen....

One thing I’ve always been mildly obsessed with has been creating a body of work. It’s an odd thing for a theatre person – given that the art form is so deeply enmeshed in the present and is mostly ephemeral – but I’ve been concerned with it for as long as I can remember. I think I only started to understand how unusual it was in recent years, while looking at other theatre company’s websites. The...

In response to my post about the $5k arts grant , several sweet well-meaning people offered some suggestions for stuff I could do to take advantage of it. There were project suggestions and ideas for ways to game the system. But the parts I can’t stop thinking about are the suggestions that featured “making something” because that “something” is exactly the thing that’s at issue. The art happens i...

All day, it had been threatening to rain but we decided to risk it and go to the park to see the opera performance. Neither of us had seen a show in person since the shut down so it felt like a big event. We showed our vaccine passports at the vaccine entrance of the Bryant Park lawn and were directed to the folding chairs and tables we could take and place anywhere in the area. There was a cordon...

We had a hopeful politician come to our door, campaigning, and so we asked her about what she’d do for the arts. She said she understood the value of the arts, that they kept kids out of trouble, the way sports had for her as a kid so she supports them. It’s a sweet story, really. I enjoyed that story and I like this politician a lot but I hate this reasoning. First, supporting arts programs for k...