I recently finished a seven performance run of the great musical Little Shop of Horrors at The Kennedy Center in DC. It was exhausting (two weeks of rehearsal, like being shot out of a cannon) but ultimately a truly sweet and special experience. We had two shows on Saturday, the day of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. I sometimes feel weird about performing in a world with so much pain and suffering, but I'm reminded of how necessary music and laughter and beauty is to our sanity. I figured the best thing I could do that day would be to sing that glorious score composed by two Jewish geniuses. That night the composer Alan Menken (who went on to compose such classics as The Little Mermaid, Beauty & The Beast, and Aladdin) surprised us at the curtain call. As Tony Kushner wrote, "The World Only Spins Forward."
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I loved this piece by Sharon Salzberg: Voting As A Spiritual Practice.
This is devastating: The Tree of Life Shooting and The Return of Anti-Semitism to American Life.
Suzanne Rivecca wrote this long and brilliant essay that is very much worth a read: Ugly, Bitter, and True: After years of feeling hopeless and barely human, one talented writer manages to find her will to live.
Here's John Green talking music with Ashley Ford and Kelly Stacy: John Green Is Ready To Love Everything He Loves
The media keeps talking about "Identity politics." But what does it even mean anymore?
From body insecurity to emotional repression, men share the problems they face in viral Twitter discussion.
And finally, a friend sent me this poem. It gutted me:
Our Jeopardy
By Thomas John Carlisle
It is good to use
best china
treasured dishes
the most genuine goblets
or the oldest lace tablecloth
there is a risk of course
every time we use anything
or anyone shares an inmost
mood or moment
or a fragile cup of revelation
but not to touch
not to handle
not to employ the available
artifacts of being
a human being
that is the quiet crash
the deadly catastrophe
where nothing
is enjoyed or broken
or spoken or spilled
or stained or mended
where nothing is ever
lived
loved
pored over
laughed over
wept over
lost
or found.
As always, if you're enjoying these please spread the word (people can sign up here) And if you're new to these check out past Museletters. JR
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