Let Me Be Your Star by Rachel Shukert Read Free Book Online Page B

you, or were killed by giants, leaving you
to raise your beanstalk IVF baby all by yourself even though you don’t know
what the fuck you’re doing, you’re — again, you’ll pardon me — you’re still
here. You’re here. And you get to take a bow at curtain and soak in the
applause, and sing a reprise of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” even if it’s only in
your head.
    It could be a lot worse.
    When I started writing this, I thought I’d come to the
conclusion that a lot of people who have written about recapping do. I figured
I’d keep beating up on myself, bitter that I’d written hundreds of thousands of
utterly disposable words — enough to fill three lengthy novels — about a show
with which I had nothing to do, that didn’t know if I existed. That I’ve become
known for something utterly extraneous, with no more staying power than a
single lighted match, with no more significance to the world than a single tweet,
quickly drowned in a sea of other tweets, lost in all the amusing, disposable ambient
noise that makes it impossible for any of us to actually hear, to feel, to make.
    But now I’m at the end, and I don’t feel that way. Maybe I
should, but I don’t. Because it may not have changed the world, but it did
change me.
    On my last day of theater school in college, the head of the
department said something I’ll never forget.
    He said, “Don’t think about trying to do great things. Think
about trying to do small things, with great love.”
    I never knew what he meant before.
    I do now.

Extras for the DVD
    From “The Church of St. Gummer,” recap of Season One, Episode
Nine, in which I realized four constant themes in my work thus far and wrote a
song about it. Here are the complete lyrics, to be sung to the tune of “My
Favorite Things”:
    Meryl and Sondheim and Richard Santorum
Bettelheim’s witches and Whoopi in Forum
Adolf who prances and Patti who sings
These are a few of my favorite things
    Golden retrievers and salmon sashimi
Ice cubes and vodka and bars that ID me
Flexible morals and secretive flings
These are a few of my favorite things
    When my feet hurt, when the bills come
When the card’s declined
I simply remember my favorite things
I then I don’t really mind
    * * *
    March 22, 2013, marked the 83rd birthday of Stephen Sondheim.
The following instructions for observing the religious holiday based on same
were considered for, and ultimately cut from, my recap of March 27, 2013 (Season
Two, Episode Eight): “The Naked and the Dreaming.”
    The Festival of Sondheimas is celebrated each year on
March 22 nd . It is a holiday especially enjoyed by children, who love
the ritual of sitting in the festively decorated “barber’s chair” in the mall
to tell Sweeney Todd what they would like to receive for gifts. If they are
good, they get what they ask for, if they are bad, Sweeney’s accomplice Mrs.
Lovett comes and bakes them into a pie. At Sondheimastime, carolers in limp
costumes roam the street, singing madrigal versions of heart-warming holiday
favorites such as “Sorry/Grateful” and “In Buddy’s Eyes.” Schoolchildren
perform in pageants consisting of all the vaudeville acts from “Gypsy,”
although the more religious variety pageants depict the virgin Anne Egerman
giving birth to the Baby Stephen, as her husband Bobby looks on, unable to
feel. On Sondheimas Eve, celebrants gather around the communal table and talk
deeply and searchingly about their interpersonal relationships. Those incapable
of intimacy gather in adjacent rooms, playing word games, or sit solo, quietly
doing crossword puzzles in ink. That night, the three wise Armfeldts help Santa
Sweeney to make/deliver his gifts (they enter through the false chiffonier).
Grateful children leave gifts of figs and raisins next to their hip-baths;
those expecting punishment may spread pitch on the stairs, to impede their
path. Houses are typically decorated with branches, foliage, tree trunks, and
other implements