18 | MARCH 4-10, 2021 | WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM
SCREEN TIME
‘See actors without their makeup’ and other clickbait Jim Keogh Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
I had every good intention of writing about “Nomadland” when I went on the movie’s IMDB page. “Nomadland” is a gritty account of a woman’s odyssey-by-van across the West, powered by yet another Oscarworthy performance by Frances McDormand — a timely, observational piece about the challenges faced by those on the fringes who pursue spiritual joy while wrestling with physical deprivation. But it would have to wait. While on the “Nomadland” IMDB page, I was confronted with this headline hovering off to the side “Celebrities Who are Completely Unrecognizable Without Makeup.” I mean, come on. We’re talking about celebrities without makeup here. I wanted, no, I needed to get a look at the unadorned face of Katy Perry and ... MY GOD! NO! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? DO WE NOT LIVE IN AN ADVANCED SOCIETY?! I kid, of course. Katy is fi ne, and my actual reaction was not all-caps, allaghast. In fact, I was oddly comforted to see that stars have zits, sags, bags and splotches, or that Gwyneth Paltrow can look more like a tired soccer mom and less like the Goop Queen when her guard is down. Of course, the “no makeup” link took me to a clickbait aggregate page, whose headlines developed clear patterns. We were assured we would “never believe” how a former child star (always female) had grown up to become “an utter bombshell,” “drop-dead gorgeous,” or “an absolute stunner.” I was intrigued by this one, “You Probably Won’t Recognize the Cast of Bring It On Today,” so I clicked, as was my duty, and discovered every cast member of “Bring It On” looks exactly as they did in 2000, except, um, older. And there was always a “good reason” why we should know a certain piece of information. “There’s a Good Reason You Recognize Tory from Cobra Kai” read one. (The good reason? Peyton List, who plays Tory, has been acting since the age of 4.) Another headline promised to reveal the answer to one of the great mysteries of our time, “The Real Reason Why
Does anyone really need to know what Gwyneth Paltrow looks like without her makeup? STUDS
Vanessa From Deadpool Looks So Familiar.” (The real reason? Morena Baccarin, who plays Vanessa, has performed in high-profi le TV shows and movies for 20 years.) I’ve ascribed many things to COVID fatigue, including my frayed attention span, which regularly sends me into gopher holes of nothingness. The pandemic is a convenient patsy, but is it prompting me to act in uncharacteristic ways or just confi rming all my worst instincts? Maybe I am naturally susceptible to clickbait come-ons of staggeringly little importance to the general conduct of my life, COVID or no COVID. Is there a vaccine for that? As I noted, clickbait sites are especially fascinated with the maturation process of former child stars, particularly female actors who evolve into “stunners” (these pages are also eager to alert us to actors who have not aged well, often employing the adjective “tragic”). The aggregation page I was on included an item about Mara Wilson, who for a time was the child actress in movies like “Mrs. Doubtfi re,” “Matilda,” “A Simple Wish” and the remake of “Miracle on 34th Street.” Forgo the clickbait and read Wilson’s op-ed in last week’s New York Times, in which she recounts what it’s like to be sexualized at a young age and laments the unreasonable expectations of a child to behave as an adult in a competitive and grueling profession. She urges young performers to take control of their own narrative before they lose control of it a la Britney Spears. Wilson apparently has done so in remarkable fashion.
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sense of diction and phrasing that’s truly remarkable, and that’s what’s on display here. It doesn’t hurt that the band is red hot, too. Things kick off with the Gershwin standard, “Summertime,” which Penn and the band approach joyfully. There’s a nice swing to the song, one which makes fi ne use of Paul Courchaine’s guitar and Russ Gershon’s saxophone. Indeed, as the song winds on, there’s a slight shift in tone, about the time Penn hits the lyrics “I’m a long way from home” and Joe Potenza’s bass and Zeke Martin’s drums come to the form. “You will wander and live in many houses,” sings Penn. If this passage seems disorienting, it’s because Penn has introduced lines from Crowley’s novel, as well as W.B. Yeats’ poem, “The Stolen Child.” A song that is instantly familiar – seriously, half of everyone has covered “Summertime” – is transformed into something else entirely. It’s dizzying, and arresting, and when you follow it by a soulful and moody rendition of the Monkees’ “Door Into Summer,” it’s clear that your knowledge or what these songs are is merely fairy gloss. The fi rst part of the album is haunted by a sort of wanderlust, of yearning for something out of reach, including a breezy rendition of Cole Porter’s “Get Out of Town,” and a plaintive, lovely version of Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain,” a reggae tune reimagined as jazz, to great eff ect. Lines from Crowley’s novel appear again, and then are subsumed into the current of music. It’s all hammered home by a rendition of the relatively lesser-known song by Rupa Marya, “Metamorphosis.” “All the things I’ve lost along the way,” refrains Penn, until fi nally resolving the verse with the words, “Oh, were never meant to stay, no.” Everything is change, the fact of which the album’s persona seems acutely aware. Even expressions of joy seem fraught with impending doom, as made evident in the band’s rendition of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Double Rainbow.” Things really come to a head on the album with a nuanced and beautiful take on Joni Mitchell’s “All I Want,” which returns the listener to the sense of yearning evident at the album’s start, except now it is in movement. “I am on a lonely road,” sings Penn, “and I
Things really come to a head on the album with a nuanced and beautiful take on Joni Mitchell’s “All I Want,” which returns the listener to the sense of yearning evident at the album’s start, except now it is in movement.
am traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling/Looking for something, what can it be.” Mitchell’s phrasing is distinctive, and Penn manages to capture the feel of the original while making it her own. Really, that light hand with deciding how reverently to interpret each song is a strength, one defi nitely evident in the band’s rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “There Is A War” and of Tom Waits’ “No One Knows I’m Gone.” On their own, these are both interesting and powerful spins on extremely distinctive songs, but here, they refl ect both the persona’s sense of confl ict and loneliness. The past is just a distant memory, and love fl eeting, already gone. We have a snatch of Bible verse, then: Job 1:16, “ I only am escaped alone to tell thee,” and a kernel of a poem by John Dryden, “Only the brave deserve the fair.” It’s enough to make one’s head spin, if it didn’t all feel as natural as the saxophone gliding eff ortlessly from verse to verse. There is almost an inexplicable sense of inevitability when we land on Anaïs Mitchell musical take on the myth of Orpheus, “Hadestown,” notably the song “Wait For Me,” wherein Orpheus resolves to follow Eurydice into Hades, to either rescue her or join her in death. The album reaches its conclusion with a fascinating triptych, with a musical adaptation of Yeats’ poem, “The Song of Wandering Aengus,” and then a triumphant take on Bowie’s classic, “Heroes,” a song about snatching moments of beauty and joy from the dust of the ordinary. In some ways, that’s what Penn and company do throughout this album: gather scraps of prose – some unfamiliar, others overly familiar – and refashion them into something indelibly new and beautiful. The album ends with a musical take on the poem, “The House by the Side of the Road,” by Sam Walter Foss. “Let me live in my house by the side of the road,” sings Penn, in a voice glowing with joy, “And be a friend to man.” In some ways, it feels like we’ve come full circle, and yet, it also feels like everything has changed. It’s a remarkable narrative, and weaving it is a daunting task, but from beginning to end, Penn and her Army of Snakes never falter.
