Her video for “Actor Out of Work”
Reminds me of the opening of my feature film project “Cuffing Season”
A beautiful willowy dark haired woman looks across a bar and sees a giddy couple on a first date
She turns to her “best friend” and asks if she ever acted like that
Disgusted
Annie Clark sits in a chair on a blank canvas of a stage and watches as random actors force themselves to cry on cue for her
As she sing screams at them about how they’re nothing but supplementary
Eyes wide
As if she never blinks
That’s how I feel every day
Talking to Tourists who have come here to New Orleans
“You’re a liar and that’s the truth. You’re an extra lost in the sea.”
There’s something vicious about her that’s like a mirror to the cold way I see other people
I oscillate
Between having all of the heart in the world and none at all
There’s something in her outfit and how she carries herself across the decades that reminds me of myself in a way I’ve just become keen to
Like discovering a new part of your own soul made tangible by some other person 7 years older than you
I was watching video footage of myself doing an interview for the first time yesterday and it occurred to me that I don’t really ever see myself like that
And that I like that girl up there more than the current image in my head I have of how I come across
I especially like the way Saint Vincent sings about loss in her NYC and LA songs
It reminds me of how I used to but she finds power in owning those losses
Whereas I have mostly felt ashamed
When the truth is
Those two losses I can count were people I barely really liked to begin with
In 2021, I wrote a scene set in a graveyard in New Orleans
It was a magical realism scene
One of the characters was appearing to the other as an Angel of Death
They both screamed at each other
“You could have chosen to understand.”
“No YOU could have.”
That was the most important scene I’ve written up to this point
I learned more about my own problems from hearing those two lines back to back than all the dollars I spent on therapy in 2021 and 2022 combined
That’s really all there is to it
There’s something about Saint Vincent that’s accepting
Clear eyed
Unflinching about her own pain that I see in myself
She’s aware that she’s no victim
Not because she’s a monster but because she accepts her full humanity and the breath and depth of it in others too
She plays like creation is destruction and Phoenix’s rise again with every new song
I can’t believe I missed her playing The Hotel Saint Vincent last week
Damn
Queen
I’ll make sure I catch her the next time she’s here in New Orleans