Annie Baker

[sus]

The best playwright of our generation. The best recorder of conversation, contemporary language, social dynamics. Not yet in her 40s, i.e. with at least six books ahead of her. This is big stuff, we're lucky to be here folks.

Her plays: Body Awareness, Circle Mirror Transformation, The Aliens, The Flick, John, The Antipodes.

Body Awareness tracks a lesbian couple, Phyllis and Jannis, and their Aspie son Jared, during a "Body Awareness Week" at the Vermont liberal arts college where Phyllis works as a feminist psych professor. The Aliens is set in a coffeeshop backyard, stoners Jasper & KJ hanging out, befriending a shop employee, talking about music, about their dreams. John, a young couple visit a Gettysburg bed'n'breakfast for the weekend, end up awkwardly alone with the elderly woman who runs it. The rest are equally great; I've never had a chance to catch a performance unfortunately.

 

[sus]

She's talked in interviews about notes for a given character exceeding the page count of the play. It seems like she has that novelist thing where the characters become real at some point, and sort of take off, I'm thinking too of the bits in JLB's Circular Ruins, what it means to dream vs drum-up, "brainstorm" that terribly corporate word (was it always, or was it appropriated?)

 

[sus]

There's something Altman-esque going on too, a quiet sense of tragedy within the quotidian

 

[luka]

more weird trolling

 

[luka]

Or is Gus some kind of niche undercover marketer? Or enemy agent? His posts are as incongruous as Kevin Oaks. Designed to appeal to precisely no one. This almost aggressive anti-dissensus posting. The most offensive material imaginable.

 

[entertainment]

Or is Gus some kind of niche undercover marketer? Or enemy agent? His posts are as incongruous as Kevin Oaks. Designed to appeal to precisely no one. This almost aggressive anti-dissensus posting. The most offensive material imaginable.

it sounds like a nightmare embodiment of barty's studentification theory doesn't it. pitchfork values taking over the youth.

 

[sus]

History will speak for itself. Future users will find this thread and wonder how the board missed the ball so badly.

 

[constant escape]

History will speak for itself. Future users will find this thread and wonder how the board missed the ball so badly.

Precisely.

 

[Leo]

History will speak for itself. Future users will find this thread and wonder how the board missed the ball so badly.

slight exaggeration but point taken. I think this has always been the case with every new cultural wave: those on the outside (and older than those riding the wave, in this case aka most dissensians) write it off because it doesn't click with their mindset/place in life and plus, everything was better back in the day. it's hard to not write off the next cultural wave, usually without giving it a chance. the dudes will see in 20 years.

 

[sus]

Debord on modernism: "100 years will tell"

 

[sus]

Still, jokes aside, I'm genuinely surprised by the antipathy, Luka's comments. I hope someone ends up getting and perusing one of her plays—anyone who wants a copy of any of the plays, I'll ship it to you, just get in touch via DM.

 

[luka]

You're trolling. You've never read these prissy irrelevant
plays

 

[line b]

its hard to get excited about this stuff because it feels so insular. guys in MFA's writing about a guys in's MFA's. I cant tell if thats more the fault of the artist to connect/fabricate some coherent trajectory of culture or the consumer to perceive one, but the disinterest the whole scene has in writing about anything but itself is standoffish from the outside looking in.

 

[luka]

It's a load of shit and Gus knows it. He's being a troll. We should kill him. It's time for his death,

 

[luka]

Let's disembowel him. I've had enough of this routine. It's bratty and irritating. Let's off him.

 

[sus]

its hard to get excited about this stuff because it feels so insular. guys in MFA's writing about a guys in's MFA's. I cant tell if thats more the fault of the artist to connect/fabricate some coherent trajectory of culture or the consumer to perceive one, but the disinterest the whole scene has in writing about anything but itself is standoffish from the outside looking in.

It's not anything like that, it's literally the opposite. PM me your address

 

[Leo]

Let's disembowel him. I've had enough of this routine. It's bratty and irritating. Let's off him.

https://www.dissensus.com/index.php?threads/16022/

 

[line b]

It's not anything like that, it's literally the opposite. PM me your address

I mean that is the subject matter at hand in 'body awareness' though. The politics of the liberal arts college. But I'm not blaming that on Baker or the whole scene, just trying to unpack what forces are at play that give me that impression- Ive read tons of fiction on university or art house politics, so its not the subject matter itself.

and I dont want to give away my addy but when I move to illinois we can have a dudes date and catch a play and drink budweiser and dish on all the lads. Ill keep an eye out for the name in bookshops in the meantime

 

[sus]

She's written like 7 plays.

 

[line b]

remember I very courageously said that I kinda liked those ben lerner excerpts Im not the enemy