ROUND-UP JULY 10-16, 2017

This week I did double posts for PopMatters! Enjoy!

• "Will and 'Will" Struggle to Find the Drama in Shakespeare's Origin Story." PopMatters, July 10, 2017.

"Watching the actual pilot quickly puts the lie to Will as some kind of titillating, prettified incarnation of Shakespeare’s history. There’s an excessive amount of gore and a lot of unexpected violence, all in service of the overall lingering story arc of Will hiding his Catholicism in ferociously Protestant London. If the show were a bit more concerned with the historical aspects of Shakespeare and his times, then perhaps a “William Shakespeare: Secret Catholic” plot-line could really be quite gripping and interesting; indeed, there’s probably an entire show to be made about the political tensions inherent in Will, a clandestine Catholic, having Protestant Elizabeth I of England as his main patron."

• "Do You Want to Be Dead or a Monster? An Interview With Jen Goma." PopMatters, July 12, 2017. 

"As she tells it, the development of her debut album, Smiley Face, happened not as a conscious decision to strike out on her own, but more of Goma continuing to write her own material until she felt compelled to share it. Looking back on the making of Smiley Face, Goma remarks, 'I was writing about making something, about willing something into existence. [...] Everything in my life that I do—it makes sense that I would make a record.' Citing the philosophy of history, Goma characterizes her solo career as 'the most recent lie,' and 'just [my] most recent version of the story. Even seeing myself as a solo artist is a really new idea to me.'"