57. The Week in Me
Big news and a thank you to all 1500 of you!
I am on track to hit some of my writing goals for 2024 by the end of next month. I am currently at 1500 subscribers and gaining new followers every day. THANK YOU!!! I have also received news that three poems I submitted have been accepted: my second time submitting poems to anyone, and my first time submitting these. My first poetry acceptance ever! I will be reading some work at a poetry event in Philly, at Tattooed Mom’s of all places. A real, real honor. I’m much pleased to be sharing a stage with Julie of
, a real mensch who I have known for 14 years now (!!). I love Julie’s Substack and have submitted multiple entries - I fervently recommend you check it out.Here is the reading info:
HERE IS THE LINK TO BUY MY WORK IN PRINT HOLY SHIT I AM GOING TO BE IN PRINT. ALSO IF I AM RELATED TO YOU BY BLOOD OR MARRIAGE PLEASE DO NOT EVER READ THESE POEMS OR BUY THIS BOOK. THEY ARE DIRTY POEMS.
And from my lovely friend Matt Williams, who approached me in the Center City Five Guys some years back thinking I was a DIFFERENT Drexel classmate, and when I wasn’t sat with me for over an hour and proved himself a lovely, kind, endlessly supportive friend to treasure. I hated college, but I am grateful for the beautiful friends it provided me…even if I met most of them after I had already graduated:
I can’t have Five Guys without thinking of Matt. This was lovely motivation about my recent post on why I have never had alcohol.
This week’s is quick because of Monday’s bonus post, on the Golden Globes:
56. Golden Globes Recap!
Hello! I’m not that confused Southern woman from the Vanity Fair/CBS/Paramount+??? Golden Globes red carpet, but I am here to bring you some bits and (great) bobs (I’m looking at you, Greta Lee!) from last night’s Golden Globes. I spent much of last night parked in
But, in my recent life, I:
Drew a big ol’ Bowie lightning bolt on my face and went to Bowiemas at TV Eye.
Finally got to see the divine Shilpa Ray, one of my most inspirational songwriters. Her cover of “Five Years” made me scream/sing along louder than any concert I’ve attended over the last six months at least.
Set a girlfriend up with a very cute 26-year-old at the show:
Had to explain what happens in that damn bathtub in Saltburn to my mother at my cousin’s wedding:
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Let me tell you, turned it tf out at the damn function:
Saw Appropriate at the Hayes Theater with Carey. (Who, by the way, has written a loving, extensive book on the feminist history of theater, which you can buy here.)
The play, written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and starring Sarah Paulson, Elle Fanning, DADDY Corey Stoll, and Natalie Gold aka RAVA ROY from Succession (SUCC HIIIIIIVE!)…conjures Succession! A Southern gothic Succession. There’s the Willa: in this play River, Elle Fanning as a woowoo princess dressed like a white yogini out of an Epcotized crystal store in Burlington. There’s the motherized daughter who may very well be burnt out of her mothering instinct, if she ever wanted to possess one at all. There are sons with media conglomerate jobs and lionizations and bastardizations and willing ignorances of the mighty man that bore them. There’s crispapple humor, a flung fist or two, and then literally Rava is there, playing, largely, Rava (Natalie Gold is very good at playing Rava and should be able to as many times as she wishes). Sarah Paulson came in at an 11. I was quite surprised that someone I mentally assign steely little performances, vicious little diamonds, came in big and loud and stayed there for most of her show (and it is her show; she gets the final bow at curtain call, and she is the only actor on the Playbill cover). Carey shrewdly remarked that she must be on vocal rest outside of this show. I hope she is! I found the production crammed, as crammed as the messy plantation home we spend nearly three hours in, with emotional and social truths and much to discuss over drinks and the legendary cheese and cracker plate at Sardi’s next door. I do recommend this show. And again, the cheese.
And now, onto the recs:
To read:
“This is why it is important to give more love to what is in front of us. Because it does not need to be, nor will it be.” -
Michelle Santiago Cortés on “yearnposting,” aka Instagram meme accounts reflecting our emotional woes, grieving, loves lost, and everything you see me post to Close Friends at 4am.
The Republicunts are at it again, attacking Social-Emotional Learning, a curriculum infusion that seeks to radicalize students by prompting them to….work in groups.
This Atlantic article on microchimerism by Katherine J. Wu. We really are becoming our mothers, for better or worse:
“If later fetuses don’t detect much relatedness between themselves and their older siblings, he said, they might become greedier when siphoning nutrients from their mother’s body, rather than leaving extra behind for future siblings whose paternity may also differ from theirs.”
I am not a doctor, and I found this news of our cells intrapersonal migrations fascinating and deeply moving: our ancestors are with us.
To watch:
posted this and of all the pop girlies I think Miley is the one I have most tried to sound like when singing. Close your eyes and listen to this Journey cover. You have my permission to sway:Forelsket, from Dylan: a word I have been looking for all my life.
From Celeste:
My family and I adore Christina Bianco.
I first learned of her work as a master impressionist and master belter through her viral cover of “Total Eclipse of the Heart”:
I have taken my mother to see her several times since. These, in the fraught relationship chimera that is two:
Italian
Jewish
women1
from New Jersey
who are a Cancer
and an Aquarius
this is when I tell you to look up Cancer-Aquarius compatibility
who have significant traumabonding over said water sign’s childhood medical woes
and Jennifer Hudson’s singing vocal-volumes even in the damn library
and whose fighting calls to mind the NYSE trading floor…in the 80’s ❄️
managed to be something that we could enjoy, that didn’t bring on a fight, that led to hand-holding and shared pear salads and my mother telling me that that was one of the best nights she had ever had.
For my mom’s milestone birthday last year, I wrote Christina’s management team offering to pay her rate on Cameo for even a “happy birthday, Val!” from the stage at final bows. My mom’s birthday falls on the date that my grandmother passed almost three years ago now, and I wanted to do something to make my mom’s special day stand out from the grief. Christina’s lovely team not only forwarded the letter, not only responded to tell me how moved they were by it…and not only did CHRISTINA read it, but she paused her entire cabaret show to sing Happy Birthday to Val as Celine Dion and Shirley Bassey, my mom’s two favorites:
Christina is essentially the fourth Giancaspro child now. (me, Joey, Bailey the dog who my mom calls Bailey Marie in admonishment which makes me howl because it’s adorable that she and I share a middle name, and Christina)
So yes, watch the Instagram above. This woman is kind and brings my family so much joy. May she bring the same to you.
This is literally just Simone:
This is literally just Lugosi:
Actually my babies:
Various and sundry:
This made me cry:
This is me when I am working and put my little hairds up:
Me when ACME only has 3 cases of Snapple Zero Sugar Razz and not four:
From Jonathan:
From Jess:
From Dylan again, an unfortunate reminder to book my annual wellness exam at the gyno:
The news of my poetry publication has me feeling like this,
And I hope you feel this too, all week long.
Love you bitches,
TG
I’m a feminist but girl, sometimes you work with another woman and you just…think the men might be onto something.
Thank you for the shout out! :)
OK, Christna Bianco? I would TOTALLY go see her show. That clip was amazeballs!