emily g like-likes you

Emily Guendelsberger's writing, conveniently packaged as a single RSS feed that I usually remember to update with my clips. I'm arts editor at Philadelphia City Paper and a writer for The A.V. Club and a few other places.

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Continuing great things I get to do: Talk to the head content guy (and Photoshopper) for the bar game colloquially known as Nudie Photo Hunt:

CP: There’s some really bizarre photo shoots in the women’s photos — where do those come from?

JH: [Laughs.] We try to pick stuff with a lot of stuff in it to make it a little more challenging for players, and for us it’s easier if there’s more stuff in it to Photoshop. I mean, I was hired as a writer. I didn’t even know what Photoshop was when I started here; I had a really quick training thing on it. So my Photoshop skills are not the best — which I think is one of the attractions of the game, how goofy the changes are? 

We used to have to go to Penthouse’s New York offices to look through their old slides. At first I was, like, “Oh man, I’m going to Penthouse, wow!” [Laughs.] And we get up there and, of course, it’s an office space like anybody else’s. I was so disappointed! We just went into a small room with a light table and you’d sit there bent over the table going through 40 years of slides. 

My directive as the manager of the department is to always try to pick the strangest picture. ’Cause I don’t think anybody plays the game to sit there and leer; I think they play because it’s funny and kitschy and goofy. The weirder the picture the better, in my opinion.

He also talks about the time they put a cat with laser eyes in the background as one of the changes, which is supposedly still floating around.

Philadelphia City Paper, June 27, 2013

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Why We Still Need Ladyfest

I got to write about music and feminism in a way that uses statistics! My three favorite things in the world!

Once you start looking for it, the 5-to-1 ratio (imagine a single Trivial Pursuit wedge) keeps turning up everywhere as a representation of the female presence in punk and indie rock — aside from events like Ladyfest that make a conscious effort to alter it. As if white-kid music is a nautilus shell or pine cone whose growth is dictated by an invisible mathematical ratio, punk and indie rock tend to have between four and six male voices for each female one. Is it any wonder that a bunch of post-riot-grrrl women musicians came up with Ladyfest — this one place, for one weekend, where they could take a brief vacation from sticking out in the crowd, and a break from having to shout louder than five dudes to get heard?

Philadelphia City Paper, June 6, 2013

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The Race-Swapped Uncle Tom's Cabin

I followed around a theater company as they prepared to open a version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin with black actors playing the masters and white actors playing the slaves and wrote a long-ass story about it.

So: The Awkward is like a spider shown to an arachnophobe in exposure therapy. 

No: The Awkward is really like a festering boil, and it needs to be poked for healing to occur. 

No: The Awkward is actually something that’s been poked by well-meaning white people enough goddamn times, will you please just leave it alone because it’s kind of tired, Jesus Christ.

Which is it? If a theater piece tries to make an audience feel uncomfortable in a new and specific way and it succeeds, does that mean it’s a success? Is there any way to do a race-swapped Uncle Tom’s Cabin that’s not a complete disaster?

Philadelphia City Paper, May 30, 2013

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Another experiment in video and sound editing, this time with some of the video I shot while sitting next to Lentil and chatting with Lindsay about getting the cover shot (for which she had to hold Lentil up like in The Lion King.

That's the only one I tried to edit; some more raw video shot from a crappy iPhone of a really cute puppy is still worth looking at at the supplementary blog post.

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Dog Star

A long profile of Lindsay Condefer and the ways that being caretaker of a famous, adorable, special-needs puppy can kind of wreck one's life. 

“I haven’t slept in 10 weeks,” says Lindsay Condefer, looking far more energetic than most people in that situation would. She wears a necklace with a picture of Lentil, her French bulldog puppy, as a pendant — a fan sent a whole bag of them. The underside of one forearm is covered in a tattoo she got for Lentil’s four-week birthday — it’s photorealistic; Lentil’s severely cleft palate is unmistakable.

(Incidentally, Lentil got surgery a month after this published, and he can eat and drink on his own now!)

Philadelphia City Paper, May 2, 2013

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All is not well in the Temple of Bros Before Hos

A review of Opera Philadelphia's weird production of The Magic Flute. I did not like the half-assed play-within-a-play conceit, I did not like the stupid jellyfish costumes, I did not like it. 

The supertitles were interesting — what gets left behind in the jump from German to English has a big effect on the story. As in most modern translations, the racist stuff about Monostatos the rapey Moorish slave gets left behind, because yikes. (The thankless role is well played by tenor Joseph Gaines as something like the hypersexual but unthreatening Dean on Community.)

The sexism that’s too plot-central to be left out — most of the Temple of Bros Before Hos — also seemed to be disarmed by playful, tongue-in-cheek supertitles that make it sound pompous verging on silly. Giggles broke out when Sarastro solemnly congratulated Tamino with “Your manly behavior has triumphed” and “Your conduct has been manly and composed.” The supertitles also leave out enough of the Queen’s nattering and specific evil designs to make her seem sympathetic enough that at times I wondered if the libretto was translated by Howard Zinn.

Philadelphia City Paper, April 25, 2013

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Supplemental video for King of Pong of the design team test-driving the system and doing some massive Atari trash-talk. Otherwise known as "The Video Where Emily Learned Not To Brace Her iPhone With The Mic Side Down."

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Cum of the Earth

I finally was able to take that piece of paper marked JIZZ TREES? off my bulletin board. And also to sit out front of a coffeeshop for half an hour asking passersby, "Hey, what do those trees smell like to you?" Kind of the most fun reporting I've ever done.

“The second you walk out of my front door, it hits you. There are all these white flowers, and you open the door and think it’s going to be pleasant — and it’s just not,” Guertler says. “My daughter was like, ‘What is that smell? This is nasty!’ I said, ‘Just you wait.’”

To be less tactful — in fact, to completely abandon tact — the flowers smell like jizz. And in the first weeks of spring, when the hundreds of Callery pears around the city develop thousands of flowers, every other block of Center City smells like a bukkake bacchanal.

Props for the genius headline go to Samantha Melamed.

Philadelphia City Paper, April 18, 2013

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Harriet Cole comic

I was super happy about this comic telling the story of a woman who donated her body to science and ended up having her terrifying corpse toured around the world, but there's no way to embed only part of it other than the thumbnail. Jess did the reporting and writing of the general story, I did the editing into a comic script and a rough layout, Evan did the actual drawing.

Philadelphia City Paper, April 18, 2013

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King of Pong

A piece for the science issue on how Drexel computer science professor Frank Lee went about rigging the side of a skyscraper up with a Guinness-record-candidate game of Pong. Mostly notable for the best/worst lede I've ever written:

Frank Lee: He doesn't give a damn.

Philadelphia City Paper, April 18

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Deconstructing PIFA

This is probably the piece I'm most pleased about so far this year: a look at the second PIFA festival, whether it has any actual cohesive mission, whether it's actually helping the arts in Philadelphia, and what the arts in Philadelphia are going to look like in 20 years. Warning: statistics!

For a demonstration of the all-inclusive vagueness drawing those criticisms, here’s Ewers’ minute-and-a-half response to a question about whether PIFA was founded with a specific destination-arts-festival model like Edinburgh or Cannes in mind:

“We did look at all the other festivals to determine how to shape ours, but ours is unique — in the sense that when you look at something like an Edinburgh, everything comes from outside. Whereas this festival puts the spotlight on the arts and culture that Philadelphia has to offer. Because, let’s face it, we have an international orchestra in the Philadelphia Orchestra, we have Philadanco, which tours all over the world — those international things are here. And on top of that, of course, we all engage international artists, the Kimmel Center brings in international artists all the time, as does the orchestra, as do many of our other colleagues. And so it is an international festival; it does bring in international artists and it also puts an international spotlight on the arts organizations that exist here. And that uniqueness, I think, is terrific. Mind you, we looked at many other festivals, many of them were biannual; we thought that was a good pattern, so you have enough time to prepare between each festival. We looked at other festivals in terms of size and scope, and we chose what we feel are the best elements of other festivals plus making this uniquely our own.”

Ewers is an incredibly canny businesswoman who, since taking the helm of the Kimmel in 2007, has pulled the organization from eight-digit debts to solid profitability. PIFA is her creation through and through — she pitched the idea in her job interview. If she can’t give a clear mission statement for it in a minute or less, nobody can.

Philadelphia City Paper, March 28, 2013

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Stage Combat

Covering the completely weird stagehand strike at Philadelphia Theatre Company. BONUS AWESOME ILLUSTRATION.

Unable to find strikebreakers willing to work the sound and light boards despite recruiting from as far away as New York and Delaware, PTC hired actress Cathy Simpson to sit on a folding chair at the edge of the stage and supply dramatic readings of cues like, “Thunder and lightning! CRACK!” A small insert in the program thanked audiences for “using your imagination.” 

Philadelphia City Paper, February 7, 2013

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Tenth of December

A review of Tenth of December that I was recently informed is quoted on the book's Wikipedia page. I am proud of this out of all proportion.

But even if some of the characters feel a little familiar, where Saunders takes them feels very different. Many, though not all, of their stories end with that sense of salvation present in “Victory Lap.” It’s as if Saunders is finally OK with letting at least some of his characters do the right thing and get away with it.

Philadelphia City Paper, December 6, 2013

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"Charlie's Mom Has Cancer"

“The Gang Recycles Their Trash” was originally slated to be the season eight premiere, but FX nixed it—understandably, because it’s an extremely weird episode. But the reasoning behind using “Recycles” as the premiere makes more and more sense—it’s almost a thesis statement for the season.

Or, if you think of it like a mix tape (does anyone make mix tapes anymore?), having it as the premiere would have been a bit like putting a Girl Talk track as the first song on a compilation of remixes and covers—it’s a signal, an over-the-top example of what the rest of the songs have in common.

The question, though: If you’ve figured out you’re listening to a covers-and-remixes tape, do you enjoy David Lee Roth’s “I’m Just A Gigolo” any more than if it had just come on the radio? If you’re watching the eighth season of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and are aware that it’s aiming for the TV equivalent of a covers-and-remixes compilation, do you enjoy a recycling-heavy episode like “Charlie’s Mom Has Cancer” more than if it had been part of, say, the sixth season?

Goddamn, this season is interesting. And weird. I gotta give 'em credit for being experimental.

A.V. Club, Nov. 15, 2012

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"Sexy People"

The object itself matters less than the context it’s in. A urinal is just a urinal until it’s put in a museum and declared Art. Chloe is just some crazy chick (in a very flattering dress) until she starts firing people and is accepted as Boss. JVDB is just an objectively handsome friend until put on the cover of People and declared Sexy—at which point he starts triggering that Yac Yan da Businessman song that (hilariously) continues to be the show’s signal that June is turned on.

I'm not TRYING to troll the A.V. Club commenters by giving the things they love Cs, I swear, but it must really look that way lately. Anyway, I get very into talking about sexiness, objects vs. people, Duchamp and all this crazy stuff.

Fortunately, I also discovered after posting this week's review that Apartment 23 airs a day early in Canada, so from now on I'll have a whole day to write and edit rather than having to do it on the fly on Tuesday nights after a long deadline day.

A.V. Club, Nov. 13, 2012

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"The Gang Gets Analyzed"

Enough people have been making amateur diagnoses of the Gang’s specific psychological issues for so long that it seems natural to dig into that subject.

God, Kerri Kenney-Silver does great reaction shots.

A.V. Club, Nov. 8, 2012

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"Charlie And Dee Find Love"

I didn’t expect that Charlie would ever actually give up on the Waitress in the same way that I’d never expect Wile E. Coyote to give up on the Roadrunner, but the dressing-down he gives Ruby at the end of the episode is so brutal that it seems like Charlie’s temporarily switched personalities with Dennis. Dark Charlie only comes out for a few minutes right at the end, but what a nasty few minutes. To the tune of “Dance Of The Sugarplum Fairy”:

"I was using you. That’s why I kissed you in front of the Waitress, and that’s why I banged you a bunch of times: to make the Waitress jealous. Amazing. You slept with me almost instantly—and by the way, a quality woman doesn’t do that. She doesn’t say yes right away, she says no to a man, for years, like 10 years. That’s what a real woman does. You know what you were acting like? A stupid little rich slut."

... Damn.

Do I dare to give It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia a grade that wouldn't get it into Harvard? I dare. And boy, people were not kidding when they warned me that the commenters who frequent reviews of this show were some of the least pleasant on the site.

A.V. Club, Nov. 1, 2012