Emchap's Shit from the Internet 12/11/19 🍠
I was (and this is probably surprising to no one) an intermittent theatre kid in high school. For various reasons, one of my favorite musicals (and this is possibly surprising to several people) is Jesus Christ Superstar, a musical which manages to make you root for the Romans and Judas and—at best—remain neutral towards Jesus, who has none of the good songs and gives off a sort of whiny youth pastor vibe during the whole show.
All of that is to say that I was the exact correct target audience for the high school production of Jesus Christ Superstar that I saw with my friend this weekend. I'm of course not normally up on the local high school theatre scene, since I don't know any high school students in SoCal and am not Un Creep, but my friend is a judge for the district high school theatre awards, so she very much is.
(Technically they refer to them as adjudicators for reasons I do not understand and refuse to ask clarifying questions about, because it lends an extra jazz handsy sort of flair to the whole endeavor. We got reserved seats!)
The production was—as you might expect out of a performing arts magnet school in the LA metro area with what appears to be more money than god—tremendous. The poor child stuck playing Jesus had appropriate youth pastor vibes; the just-put-your-best-performer-there-it's-the-best-role girl playing Judas was absolutely tremendous; as is traditional, the Romans were decked out like Green Day circa 1997 or a pope in that musical about the pope that dug up the other dead pope to put him on trial that my sister worked on in 2017. There were impressive pointe performers out of the dance majors and a lovely display of hula hooping in the temple scene. The children were tiny little infant babies and made me feel old as the sea, and I legitimately cackled at the girl playing King Herod during her brief and delightful moment to shine. (Seriously every single role in this show is better than Jesus. Even Mary Magdalene gets better songs, even if she's kind of a drip.)
The musical is emotionally overwrought and a little silly and still emotionally affecting in its consideration of what it means to be someone people rely on while still having human needs, and it was a perfect show to see high schoolers do. I had a wonderful time, and left faintly renewed by Youth.
Shit to read
The Instacart contractors on the frontlines of labor organization are so impressive. So are the McDonald's workers doing the same. Capitalism is a disaster.
A wild ride from start to finish.
In this photo, don't like it. (One of the lovely benefits of my career has actually been the number of female managers I've worked under.)
This is about Los Angeles and health and sadness and parrots and it made me cry. I have one of the feral parrots tattooed on me.
Did we ever decide if this was satire or?
Hey theatre what the fuck.
A very old Nicole Cliffe piece! (She did of course marry him.)
This is also about Los Angeles and everyone in this piece is exhausting.
Of course they fired the CEO this week but Jesus Christ.
And on a lighter note: why are we so horny for women on mechanical bulls?
Shit to eat
Walk to the grocery store near you, even though it is overpriced and Google says the much better priced grocery store is the same distance away.
You don't believe Google.
Purchase mint, cilantro, cherry tomatoes fish sauce, rice noodles, tiny cucumbers, some sad-looking green beans, and—after careful consideration of what can be substituted for flank steak because this grocery store has the weirdest butcher selection in the world—a package of tri-tip.
Marvel at how expensive meat is, which never stops surprising you after 14 years of vegetarianism that was abandoned immediately upon moving to this, a vegetarian-friendly city.
Gather your items and the 14 different impulse purchase candy things and soy nog which you've acquired, and purchase them for slightly too much money.
Not enough to not come back, just enough to be annoyed about.
Take your goods home. Ignore the teens drinking beer at the elementary school.
Put 1/4 cup brown sugar in a bowl. Discover that the person who opened the brown sugar did so in a manner you find truly bizarre.
Add 3 1/2 tablespoons of fish sauce, the juice of 3 limes, and red pepper flakes. Discover you left the garlic out only when typing this up later.
Stir everything with a fork, dump 1/3 of it in a bag, and add the meat in with it. Wrap it up and pop it in the fridge.
Take a brief detour here to make a shitload of shortbread dough, which doesn't impact the rest of this but should be noted.
When you're ready, boil a pot of salted water, in which you will eventually cook your green beans for 3 minutes and your rice noodles for 2. Drain both.
At the same time, cook your steak for 4 minutes on each side in whatever cast iron you've most recently reseasoned.
Add some oil to the remaining marinade and shake it up.
In a bowl, put some rice noodles and steak and dressing; add your tomatoes and cucumbers and green beans and herbs. Feel your body punch the air at its chance to access nutrients.
Eat on the couch while watching the new A Christmas Prince film. Feel smug.
(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen.)
Shit to watch
Deep dive on additional cat cafe drama.
Shit to buy
Man it's December you're already buying stuff. You don't need me to tell you what to buy.