29 April 2023
"April is the cruelest month". Teachers know this best. As I claw my way toward the light of a May pole, I am taking a moment here to reflect.
I saw MJ on Broadway, twice, and I will not be fielding your hate. Your opinions on the man are irrelevant to my process. Myles Frost, who won a Tony for the role, embodies Michael Jackson in a stunning, pounding tribute to a problematic man without addressing the problems. If you turn the music up loudly enough, you can cover anything. Frost screams into the void, as Michael Jackson did in videos and on stage. A lot, apparently, according to a google search I just did. Seeing this moment triggered something in my head. It was familiar. I am not a void screamer, in fact, I'm pretty quiet. Sitting in The Neil Simon theatre, which used to be the Nederlander, which I know because it says "Nederlander" on the cup containing the beer(s) I consumed during the show and what was my point...I sat there weirdly feeling targeted by the scream. In a silly statement that will make you giggle, I suddenly understood the pain of someone who cannot escape their life.
Like Oedipus. who I imagine screamed like this when he stupidly figured out after So Many People had tried to tell him, that he is married to his mom. I imagine Jocasta let out a similar roar upon her own realization. It comes with the territory of human struggle, right? During Covid in Colorado there was the eight o'clock howl, which in a sense was a universal shout to release the tension of the lockdown. I enjoyed the howl quite a bit, and never really put together the cathartic release it held.
I am again trapped in an almost identical situation at work that I was five years ago, and I can't write about it, which is how I howl. I can't keep having the same conversations with colleagues; that's true absurdism as we rehash and worry about something beyond our control--no big deal, just our futures---but nothing happens, nobody comes. And so, this eternal shriek has emerged in my head. It goes beyond Munch's blood red sky panic attack. I can't even release sound. It's just in my head. I close my eyes and my head bellows at deaf heaven. Silly human, troubling deaf heaven with my bootless cries. Again.
Or still.
Whichever.
The Eternal Shriek in The Good Place is how they retire demons. Their essence is scooped out and flung to a thousand suns where it burns forever.
This is how I feel. I am in the eternal shriek. My essence was scooped out years ago, and flung about to burn in perpetuity throughout an uncaring universe. So I scream in my head. A lot.
So.
I got that going for me. Which is good.
