What's the German word for wanting to make Gesamtkunstwerk?
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I’m Dave, a comedian and budding abolitionist. I love making light of heavy shit and taking frivolous things too seriously. Hella Immaculate is my existential, spiritual, political, creative-process-and-culture-obsessed alt-weekly.
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Immersion. Total absorption. This is a paragon of artistic experience for me, as a creator and an audience member.
In college, I strolled record store aisles for hours driven to find these experiences, thrilled when I discovered DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing… and The-Dream’s Love/Hate (both absorbing but with hugely different vibes).
Immersion as an audience member can’t match creator immersion because it’s more passive, but it’s also more available. So in the middle of a 15-month quarantine, unsure if live performance would ever look like it did before (I’m still curious and skeptical), I binged 40 seasons of Survivor instead of writing a new one-man show.
The paragon isn’t just emotional immersion. It can be an abundance of craft. I forget how I discovered “Gesamtkunstwerk”—literally “total artwork”—this week, but it’s a German concept for “a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so.” Think films, architecture, or the new Bo Burnham special, Inside.
Have you seen it? He fucking did it, man.
I spent a good chunk of early quarantine watching digital drag shows, which were exponentially more compelling than the virtual standup shows I quickly stopped attending. These drag artists did such cool things with video, conveying the spirit of live performance paired with absorbing visuals. I’ve been puzzling how to do the same thing with comedy: create something virtual that’s more visually and emotionally engaging than telling jokes into Zoom and more living than a sketch or front-facing camera video.
I haven’t cracked it. Bo Burnham did. He fucking did it.
Inside is an hour and a half of confessionals, uncorny parody, standup alone in a room, process/production shots, and musical comedy that I’d rather refer to as great comedy over melodies so catchy I wake up with them stuck in my head. All with hella colors/types of lights and projections, most of which he triggers live rather than adding in post-production. You should watch it.
I could talk more about Inside’s content, but what’s sticking with me now is my jealousy at how all-consuming a project he had to work on during quarantine, or any time. At one point, he even talks about not wanting to finish it because then it’d be done. It’s left me with a yearning to work on something similarly creator-absorbing.
Before seeing Inside, I spent most of my walks racking my brain and bowels for my own Gesamtkunstwerk. After, the ache has sharpened and intensified.
THIS IS MY PODCAST, THIS IS YOUR AFTERLIFE
My guest: Calvero—aka my former roommate Gabe Liebowitz—who writes, sings, and produces incredible anthems like this one:
And swoony sweeties like this:
We covered: “30 Under 30” lists, he loves therapy (and blew my mind with a way of wresting satisfaction from the Fame Dream), his late producer and friend Max Perenchio
THEY’RE JUST, LIKE, MY SUGGESTIONS, MAN
Watch Inside. And tell me what you think!
Read this fun Guardian piece about the socialist history of Monopoly. Quite sad when you dig deep, but if you don’t empathize too much with Lizzie Magie—creator of the Landlord’s Game—it’s a lighthearted curiosity.
Donate to Kate’s FREE Shakespeare Educational Resources to empower diverse learners to learn Folio Technique, “a way of examining Shakespeare’s words that identifies and utilizes the poetic devices baked in to the text as a means of informing our acting choices,” according to actor/teacher/project creator Kate McDuffie.
Kate is creating an in-depth series of videos and worksheets that outline Folio Technique for diverse learners. Kate is posting all the videos on YouTube, with all resources copyrighted but FREE. The series will come embedded with activities, so whoever is watching can pause to try things or do guided reflection.
I don’t want to tug the boat too hard on the “immersion” tip, but I’ve seen secondhand how absorbing Folio Technique can be when studying/acting Shakespeare, so this fundraiser feels like a cute fit for this week.
I donated $10. Reply with what you donate, and I’ll post our total next week.
Got a response to something here? Reply or comment, and I’ll hit you back.
MAY I PLAY YOU A SOUND?
“FaceTime with My Mom (Tonight)” is not my favorite song from the Bo Burnham special. It’s probably my 3rd to 7th favorite, depending on the moment (top 2 are locked but neither are available on YouTube or streaming, a minor crime). So it’s a perfect candidate to say, “Hey, check this out. If you like it, you will LOVE this special. And if you don’t, you still might.”
Either way, I promise it will tell you either something or nothing about how much you will like Inside.