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Popcast, a New York Times podcast, the July 27, 2022 episode, “Lizzo’s Complicated, Joyful Pop” Prompts Me To Direct Message Its Host

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Just finished listening to the Lizzo part of the recent, primarily Lizzo, Popcast. (These remarks respond to the July 2022 Popcast about Lizzo and her new album, Special . Listening to it before reading further will give good context, but isn’t essential. Spotify link to the episode:  https://open.spotify.com/episode/7zyIVoetcF38FgDxe1hJbK?si=_lHBTyCxRUusgnmLRdPz2w    (Originally written and sent July 30, 2022. Lightly edited, August 15, 2022.) (Sent as a direct message to the host, but not about the host personally, to whom I gave no indication I’d  post the message  publicly , so I won’t include the host’s name here.) Some things: I’m a 63 year old (puts me at the end of the Boomers) man who got excited by Lizzo before she hit, when first I heard “Good As Hell”.  And I’ll tell you, it wasn’t and isn’t because she is “affirmative”.  Several aspects to her performances and presentation attracted and attract me: What y’all (cynically?) call “her brand”, I experience as her presenting a
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Lizzy and Fancy: Albums by McAlpine and Hagood:

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  Two albums I’ve been enamored with in the last week. Want to share two albums that have reached an exceptional place of high regard with me recently.  They both excite and impress me for their singer-songwriter skills, and their deceptively uncluttered-sounding productions.  They don’t have obvious “hits”, but there isn’t a clunker or any filler on either album — which is a relatively rare accomplishment itself.  Lizzy McAlpine ~ Five Seconds Flat ~ April 2022 Links to listen at: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7vh3nkUP7HlDQIeSm7Ht6N?si=p1gufhHpQXm5LAgqLDxPbQ Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/albums/B09QC16VHZ?ref=dm_sh_xIvZnza6lvTIA36cb1Hl2yJTe Fancy Hagood ~ Southern Curiosity ~ April 2021 (Yes, 2021) Hagood is gay. (Lizzy isn’t Q, and, as you, dear reader, may know, I specialize in “Music By, For, and About QBGLT Folks”). And he’s taking a matter of fact tone about it here.  Like I said, uncluttered-seeming production supports strong songwriting. One clue or criteria
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What The Butler Saw at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey

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Go see it.  Soon, I'll launch into my critiques. But go. Whatever my objections, whether quibbles or substantial, What The Butler Saw is rarely revived, especially in the U.S. -- a shame, for such a hilarious, farcical and absurd play. (My not-very-thorough search found a 2014 Monmouth County, NJ, production, surprisingly recently, but at a college, not a regional theater.) Nothing I say should dissuade you from seeing the play, breathing, moving, and living on stage. You need to experience What The Butler Saw in person, have your brain blown open by lines of dialogue tossed as if they were thought to be pineapples not grenades -- they are grenades -- and laugh away so-called authorities' rules, those seemingly reassuringly familiar paths to peace and harmony which hide their oppressions behind bars to the same. On to my considerable caveats. Red flags about the evening ahead began before the action onstage did. At the risk of myself amplifying the very wrong I object to,
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