#56: Straight people know about Kate Berlant?
Death By Consumption
5/27/25 - 6/2/25
Last week, my therapist casually suggested that I read so many books to avoid "being inside your own story," and compared it to the way alcoholics drink to shut off their own minds. LOL it was very rude to be read like that. Why are therapists always getting in your business? And he doesn't even know about this newsletter yet! Oh boy is he going to freak out when I tell him about it. Anyway, this is all to say: if these emails stop arriving one day, I'm either dead or I've ascended to an evolved plane in which I simply meditate and spend all my free time knowing and loving myself. Sounds boring!
This week, I watched Kate Berlant work on her new hour of standup next to some deeply uncomfortable straight people, I worshipped at the Satanic altar of And Just Like That..., I watched an iconic 4-hour classic movie and a brutally vapid new movie, and I fell in love with some literary cowboys.
Kate Berlant Live! — at the Bell House, Brooklyn
Kate Berlant has been on a mini-tour of sorts as she tries out a new hour of material, but even a supposedly half-finished show from Kate is funnier than pretty much any other comedian working today. Unfortunately, we happened to go on a night that seemed to be full of women who dragged their straight boyfriends/husbands along, which made for a very strange vibe in the room. (“Christian audience in Brooklyn…” Kate pretended to jot down in her notebook after getting only tepid laughter at a joke.)
The group directly next to me — three bros and their blonde, tiny women — were having a great time with her opening material, which was mostly jokes about how these were jokes-in-progress. But as Kate got into the darker material, the mood visibly and audibly shifted next to me, and I realized with horror I was next to a group of not only straight people, but probably Republican straight people. As Kate fired off some very funny jokes about straight women who voted for Trump, the group next to me went dead silent. I could hear them sucking in air and stiffening up. They were not happy.
Kate kept going, spinning off into other material before doubling back with more jokes about straight men: how bad they are at sex, or how men are the “natural predator” of women. The entire time, the men next to me were silent, breathing heavily. One, with his arm around the woman next to him, gripped her waist tighter and tighter, pulling her closer, as if for reassurance that he’s not bad at sex. Right, babe??? As Kate built up into a very funny incest roleplaying scene (you really had to be there, sorry), one of the men groaned, “Oof. Ooooooof,” under his breath, I’m assuming in disappointment at a disgusting gay making light of such a serious topic. These bros were having a rough time, let me tell you!
Rather than being annoyed at these people desperately trying to ruin the vibe, I could not get enough of it. I craved more of their discomfort, and I wondered just who the fuck they thought they were going to see. I guess, they assumed, a lady comic would be gentle and meek? Perhaps they thought they were in for a night of delightfully kind-hearted jokes about how lovely it is to make sourdough for your husband and kids? By the end of the show, they had shriveled up into discomfort and I felt like my heart had grown three sizes. I can think of no better way to celebrate the first night of Pride than to watch a queer woman ruin date night for some conservative straights.
And Just Like That..., season 3 premiere — on HBO Max
Every episode of And Just Like That... (that ellipsis is so indicative of the show's vibe, by the way — they think ending their title in "..." is chic, but it's actually deeply unsettling) feels like it was written, directed, and performed by people undergoing mass psychosis. The characters all act like they were hit in the face with a frying pan just seconds before each scene started. The And Just Like That... writer's room takes place in the Covid brain fog ward at Mt. Sinai.
The premiere had so many moments that left a room of us eager viewers truly shrieking with horror and delight: Aidan licking his hand before masturbating; Aidan accidentally honking his car horn and saying, "I scared myself!" (very Tim Robinson-coded); anything Aidan, to be honest; the random husband randomly running for comptroller randomly bursting out into song... But true star of the premiere was, of course, THE Rosie O'Donnell, who obviously stole the show from the instant she appeared on screen. I genuinely loved her plot (the only one that was actually good), though I did think they went too far making her a nun — making her a virgin was funny and already enough fodder to activate Miranda's insecurities! But all was forgiven when she sent this truly perfect selfie:
And, of course, the outfits. The outfits! The true indicator that everyone on this show is having a nervous breakdown. There was the hat seen round the world, of course:
And then there's this necklace, which suggests Lisa barely survived an explosion at a Pier 1 Imports:
I will watch this show until I'm dead — and it'll probably be the thing that kills me!
Cleopatra (1963) — on Apple
I have finally seen all 4 hours of Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra, and I did not regret a single minute of it. This movie is, of course, high camp — Liz puts on increasingly elaborate and psychotic outfits, and most scenes begin with her entering a room while everyone else drops to the floor in worship — and I kept thinking how huge this must have been for the 60s gays. Our big tabloid-romance movies have been, like, fucking Deep Water with Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas. But in the 60s, you got a monthslong torrid affair that resulted in a 4-hour spectacle in which Richard Burton's thighs are exposed in a leather miniskirt the entire time???
Beyond the Liz-and-Dick of it all, Cleopatra is such a spectacle. The most expensive movie ever made until that point (so expensive it essentially shattered the entire Hollywood studio system), it's so refreshing to see a movie that actually looks expensive. These days, every movie is a $1 billion Marvel film that looks so cheap it simply has to be a money laundering scheme, but back then they spent lavishly on real shit, like sets and costumes and paying, like, 1,000 background extras for a single shot. Everything is enormous and spectacular, more than I was even expecting — like, did they literally recreate the naval battle at Actium with real ships?! The sets are jawdropping and gorgeously historically inaccurate (I'm not sure the real Cleopatra had pink shag rugs, but maybe!), the perfect backdrop to watching two extremely famous addicts fall in dramatic and chaotic love on screen.
The closest we got to anything like this in my lifetime was, I suppose, Mr. And Mrs. Smith, which, I'm sorry, isn't going to cut it. (And, for that matter, that was 20 years ago already!) Now if our movies have drama and tabloid gossip behind the scenes, it's not fun and glamorous and sexy like Cleopatra, it's Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's lawyers arguing over who's more annoying. We're losing the ancient texts!
Bonjour Tristesse (2024) — at IFC Center
I was so ready for a sensual, luscious film in which Chloë Sevigny shows up in the south of France and rocks everyone's world via psychosexual games. Instead, Bonjour Tristesse was a largely dull and lethargic slog, full of dialogue that feels like Taylor Swift lyrics that would go viral on Tumblr.
One character, a teenage girl, muses, "Maybe that's elegance... being warm and cold at the same time." At another point, her (also teenage) boyfriend criticizes her: "You're reckless and careful... which makes the recklessness not come naturally." Can't you easily visualize that line on a Swiftie's page, written in pink sparkly type, over an image of Harry Styles?
Sure, the film is shot beautifully, but when every single character speaks in such faux platitudes, never leaving any space for the audience to figure out for ourselves that a character is reckless but also careful, the entire experience becomes such a joyless ride that I became impatient to get off. It's all possibly worth it for a gorgeous scene of Chloë Sevigny eating apple slices off the tip of a knife, but I'm honestly surprised someone didn't approach her and say something like, "Your love is like that knife... sharp and double-edged." Honestly, maybe just watch this movie on mute.
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry (1985), chapters 1-72 — paperback
I think I had spent years writing off this Pulitzer-winning masterpiece as a book for men (boring, long, mostly about the logistics of cattle wrangling). I could not have been more wrong — turns out this is a book for the ladies! It's full of pathos and longing and rugged men with deeply hidden feelings. I am reading this book the same way wine moms read Fifty Shades of Grey. I'm swooning!
All these cowboys are my boyfriends and also my best friends and also my children. I want to hold them to my bosom and tell them it'll be okay. I still have 300 pages to go, but I'm already mourning the future loss of them, and I'm worried who will die next. Protect my boys! I now totally get the Team Jacob/Team Edward thing — are you Team Gus or Team Call??? (I'm Team Gus forever but I wouldn't kick Call out of bed.)
I also didn't expect this book to be structured the way it is — it's very The Odyssey, very Lord of the Rings. The plot is just: a bunch of men and a woman go on a very long trip, and crazy things happen along the way. There are truly horrible deaths (the writhing river snakes!!!). A former prostitute has to put up with an extremely hot guy who — of course — turns out to be a total fucking loser. A weird guy who's obsessed with bugs shows up and disappears just as quickly, for some reason. A lost little girl turns out to be a psycho killer. It's so FUN! I literally read it with my face looking like :D the whole time. This might, when it's all said and done, be my favorite book of all time? I'm sorry to the McMurtry stans — you were right!