Anyone still talking about Hamilton?
Hi! I’m Daci, a writer, reader, parent, and person who owns an Apple pencil and can sort of draw. At the beginning of lockdown I told a friend that if I had a 2008-style blog right now, it would be called Screentime & Despair. At the urging of *checks notes* no one, I decided to make it into an actual e-mail newsletter.
My house is humming with questions:
“When is Coronavirus going to be over?”
“Can I have a snack?”
“Is Alexander Hamilton alive?”
“In the first song, Aaron Burr says he shoots Hamilton, so does everyone already know Hamilton is going to die? Why are they acting like they don’t?”
“But who is Hamilton?”
“What’s a government?”
“What’s a treasury secretary?”
“What’s a bank?”
“What’s money?”
This is all my fault, I guess, for essentially dropping my five-year-old into an American History AP class. I fully admit my part in this—when the Hamilton cast album came out, she was 6 months old and I bought her a “young scrappy and hungry” onesie. When I finally saw the show three years later, I tried to get her into the music. She was mildly interested, but I think this was during her Taylor Swift phase and nothing could get her turn off Picture to Burn (??? I mean, of all the Taylor Swift songs for a three year old to like…???)
But once Hamilton existed on Disney Plus—next to the holy grail, Frozen—she decided it was worthy of her time.
Like, all of her time.
“Can we please listen to something besides Hamilton?” my husband and I plead, after listening to the soundtrack (and a playlist of lullabies) for two months straight. After answering never-ending questions about specific lines I hadn’t noticed before (“what does ‘take your courage to the sticking place’ mean?” BITCH I DON’T KNOW). After months of waking up to “HEY GOOGLE TURN ON HAMILTON” at 7:19 every single morning.
There was a time where I was in awe of the Hamilton soundtrack. Now it might as well be Baby Shark.
My daughter is even into the song about Hamilton’s “torrid affair,” and y’all, that song is explicitly about a torrid affair. At first, I was diligent about skipping it when it came on but then I a) got lazy and b) reasoned that I spent half my childhood scream-singing DID SHE GO DOWN ON YOU IN A THEATER and I turned out okay. Judge me if you want, but I question why we do so much hand-wringing about our kids hearing things like this — “bad” words, sexual themes that go way over their head— and yet, no one would have judged me when she was listening to the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory soundtrack over and over again, singing about how terrible it is to be fat and forming the first, irreversible layer of body image issues and fat-phobia.
But my biggest question about my daughter’s latest obsession is… why? What could she possibly get out of Hamilton? What struck me about the musical, and the reason why I got so into it, was the sheer genius needed to bring a 500+ page book about an old politician on your vacation, actually read the book while you sat on the beach (do you know what I read on my last vacation?? TWITTER), and then think to yourself, I have a vision for this story and it involves Big Pun. I loved picking up on the hip hop easter eggs sprinkled throughout the soundtrack. All of that is lost on a five-year-old, so what’s in it for her?
And what does it mean when my child is into the same music that I am? Does that mean the music is universally good; that anyone with a pulse can agree the beat is catchy and the lyrics are clever—even when you have no idea what they mean? Does it mean the music is basic and my liking it in the first place proves I have no taste?
I think I might have more questions than she does.
Back when I was pregnant I used to think introducing my child to the things I was interested in would be a magical experience. And it is, if you like having a child stand over your bed first thing in the morning asking “what does ‘keeping her bed warm while her husband is away’ mean??”
+ Did you know Lin Manuel Miranda has been getting absolutely roasted by Gen Z on Tik Tok? Gen Z roasting millennials is one of my favorite internet subgenres.
+ And here’s some insight into why Hamilton is getting backlash (backlash that even LMM says is justified,)
+ I blame my curiosity about music and whether it’s universally “good” on the podcast Switched on Pop, which goes into (too much?) depth about what makes pop music popular. I’m still waiting for them to do an episode about Hamilton to help me understand my daughter’s obsession, but I think I might be the only person left still making Hamilton content…
+ It’s 50 degrees here today (!! FALL !!) which means I’m breaking out my pandemic sweatsuit again (trust me it will go on sale in the next 2-5 days, do not spend $140 on sweats) and making red beans and rice.
(No, my daughter will not eat red beans and rice without screaming, but she will eventually eat one (1) bean and a spoonful of rice, which these days counts as a success. She will also eat approximately one half of one of these salmon burgers (which sound gross, but are pretty good and only kind of feel like you’re preparing cat food), and one piece of this ginger beef (dipped in ketchup for even more authentic Vietnamese flavor).
+ This piece on Eater asks what if only chain restaurants survive the pandemic and it took me far too long to realize it’s fiction. The Amazon restaurant they describe doesn’t seem that far off…
+ Speaking of things surviving the pandemic, here’s the latest crop of books I bought to save my local bookstores: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson (I listened to the audio from the library and needed the hard copy), Luster by Raven Leilani (SO good but for some reason I started picturing Steve Buscemi as the male romantic lead which was NOT OKAY), Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea (as my husband said, “you’re such a good liberal soldier”), and Know My Name (another book I listened to on audio and needed a hard copy of, Chanel Miller is an amazing writer (and illustrator!)
+ (A list of every book I’ve recommended in this newsletter!)
+ Please don’t even ask me how long I’ve spent reading the responses to this Twitter question about weird things your family does that you didn’t realize weren’t universal.
+ I got the latest issue of Vanity Fair (the one you’ve surely heard about if you and I attend the same internet) and this… prose poem (?) by Danez Smith about the murals that popped up in Uptown Minneapolis after the police killed George Floyd stopped me in my tracks. Which is a stupid metaphor because I was absolutely, 100% sitting while I read it, but I can’t think of another way to put it. Here’s the end:
Round the corner from me, the brewery up the street put an 8-by-11 printer-paper picture of George Floyd up in their half block of floor-to-ceiling windows. I’ve never seen one of us inside. I hate it here. It’s June, so it’s perfect. They do it every Pride month, take Stonewall and hide the brick. They’re doing it again. Money making uprising a strategy, a mask. Money making your dead face a shield, an invitation to spend your grief. Money figuring out how to stay safe. Money playing the money game. Money making you forget it’s about money. This all started over 20 bucks.