music matters

Songs that save your life: A Morrissey fan examines her devotion to the Pope ofMope

"Morrissey reminds us to never forget the songs that made us smile, the songsthat made us cry, and the songs that have saved our lives."

During my college years, I didn’t get Greek life. I hung out at bars I was too young to be in with thirty-somethings and art school dropouts. We bonded over our love for music from England, particularly The Smiths. We danced, we drank, we smoked to the “Pope of Mope,” and it made me happy.

Yet, only now am I starting to understand the impact Morrissey has had on me. His music brings me back to the best years of my life.

The night that I lost my virginity, I happened to be wearing my favorite T-shirt: a bare-chested Morrissey on the Feb. 13, 1988 cover of NME Magazine. When my New York City apartment building caught on fire, I ran out with several of my most valuable possessions. That T-shirt happened to be one of them.

The first time I saw Morrissey live was at the Royal Albert Hall in London. I was barely 20 years old, and it was life changing. The electricity that filled that room was unforgettable. Rowdy skinheads were chanting Morrissey’s name as if they were at a West Ham United football match. From that day on, I vowed to follow Morrissey as much as time and money would allow.

The first time I saw Morrissey live was at the Royal Albert Hall in London. . . From that day on, I vowed to follow Morrissey as much as time and money would allow

I once took a brief trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. During my visit, I found Varsity Music Shop on Nicholson Street. The owner saw me snatching up every Smiths and Morrissey single I could lay my hands on. He probably thought it was comical to see an American freaking out about bargain bin vinyl.

He struck up a conversation, and I quickly made a new friend. Before I knew it, he excitedly ran to the storeroom to grab something he wanted to give me. He returned with several original promotional postcards for The Smiths album Louder Than Bombs. They were in mint condition, and he had been saving them for a worthy fan.

I next saw Morrissey in Stockholm, Sweden. Because I was traveling, I had a very expensive camera with me, but the venue had banned all photography. Somehow, I convinced the security guard to let me check in the camera for safekeeping. He sent me to an unmarked door on the side of the arena.

I knocked, and the door cracked open. I suddenly realized I was at the backstage entrance. As I was being escorted to a security booth, I noticed a small crowd gathered around a black pompadour. I entrusted a complete stranger with my camera, and he pointed to an opening in the black curtain, telling me to exit through there. As I proceeded to walk out, something caught my eye. Morrissey’s face appeared through the small crowd, and for a brief second, our eyes met.

Post-college, I moved to New York City to work for SPIN Magazine. After several years of paying my dues as an assistant, I was finally able to travel to SXSW for work. The timing could not have been more perfect; that year Morrissey happened to be performing. I was invited to sit in on an extremely rare interview between Mr. Morrissey and Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke.

I managed to snag a seat in the front row and thoroughly enjoyed watching my idol poke fun at this very nervous reporter. Later that night, I caught Morrissey’s set and maneuvered my way into the photo pit. Fans usually risk everything to jump on stage to touch him, and there I was within arms reach. I stuck out my hand, and he gingerly grabbed it and nodded.

When I saw Morrissey in 2009 at Carnegie Hall in New York City, he took the stage in a tuxedo, and for some reason, I felt like my world of Morrissey had come full circle. I was older, as was he. His pompadour was no longer solid black, and he had gained a few pounds. Yet, he was humbled to be on the stage of this renowned venue and thanked all of his fans for their continued faith. Had that been the last Morrissey performance in my lifetime, I would have been satisfied.

Over the years, my life has changed immensely. Relationships have come and gone, but Morrissey and his music have always remained a constant in my adult life. In one of my favorite songs by The Smiths, Morrissey reminds us to never forget the songs that made us smile, the songs that made us cry and the songs that have saved our lives.

Morrissey, you have done precisely that for so many of us — and that is why I will always be true to you.

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Movie Review

Camp Miasma puts a comedic twist on the classic slasher movie

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing the slasher subgenre that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death — a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask — may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference — Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard — to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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