Something Old, Something New

Hello Gentle Reader,

I've decided to consolidate writing on Mary Lynn Rajskub from the MLR Fan Club and Aspecialthing in the form of this blog. This will be a good place to check back to read reviews of Mary Lynn's standup, view video of her late night TV appearances, and for links to recent interviews and articles.

Here's a drunken ramble I posted on Aspecialthing that I'm giving a new home here:

A review of her 40 minute set at the UCB on 5.5.06:
Mary Lynn brought a very solid performance. My fantasy was that she would pull 40 min. of all new material out of her pocket, but that was wishful thinking. What she DID do is weave old and new bits into a more cohesive whole. This seemed to be a real transitional performance.

Old MLR: "Hey, look, I'm uncomfortable in my own skin!"

New MLR: "Yea, I'm semi-famous, and that's funny. Now what do I do with my life?"


The Guys With Feelings interview:
really informed this performance for me. In the interview she acknowledged that the "I'm Uncomfortable" theme could border on shtick if she overused it. She was physically uncomfortable, she kept pulling at her clothing (it was hot in there.) But, she had total control of her audience. She had us singing football chants and clapping for whatever she wanted, "Give it up for the guy who parked behind me, everybody!" (claps) Now that she is a TV star, she has her audience's rapt attention no matter what she does, now what does she do with it? That's the rub of where the form of her standup will lead.

Side Note: 20% of the audience were '24' fans (as opposed to comedy fans.)
"Oh, You are a '24' fan? How the did you find this place?" -MLR to an audience member.

The tone of her standup can be 'comedy as group therapy,' which I love. It's got that, 'I'm just trying to figure it all out' vibe. Of note, she turned her rant about the duality of the Franklin Ave. Hipster into a self-reflection:

"I'm a big TV Star, but I have a bad relationship with my mother."
"I'm brilliant at Sedoku, but I'm bad at Scrabble."
"I love TV, but I love TV"

Her take on her own fame is that of the braggart and yet, at the same time humble:

"I just want to use my fame to get as many free pairs of jeans as I can."
"I still have to pick up my own dresses, you guys. They don't just deliver them to my house."


This being said, this was not my favorite night of MLR. I am a very specific type of fan; some are fans of her comedy, others, her dramatic work. I am part of a small niche that is a fan of Mary Lynn Rajskub, the Fine Artist. We look at everything she does as an extension of a Performance Art practice she started (and some would argue, ended) during her art school days.

Can I quote a recap of some standup MLR did on 8-31-05 at the UCB? I am quoting my own damn self from my wing-nut yahoo group:

Quote:

When I originally started this group I envisioned an analysis of her work in relation to her Fine Art background. This kind of discussion seemed less and less relevant as she started taking more conventional gigs ('24'). Why am I bringing this up? Last night Mary Lynn twisted my noodle by opening her set with a bit about performance art and her time in art school. This is what she said… She opened by sitting on a stool and checking her cell phone. A voice from off stage calls, "action." She holds her hands in a the form of a gun with a hyper anxious expression in her face. "Come on Jack," she says. She fires her gun, yelling "bang." The off stage voice calls, "cut." This repeats four times with variations which i am unable to articulate. She then brings a bag on stage. She presents a bowl and lays out 6 eggs on the stool, one starts to fall and she catches it and throws it in the bowl, cursing it as a "bad egg." she continues to crush each egg in a comic fashion which i am unable to articulate. She tells the audience they have just witnessed her performance piece" called "24 and punching six eggs.” She asks if anyone's heard of performance art. (claps) "Thank you, another art school student in the audience." She mentions that she got her Bachelors in Fine Art. She goes into a diatribe about art school being for losers, that the term 'art school' is an oxymoron. She describes performance art as "sculpture without walls", going into a rambling definition of performance art using plenty of artspeak, lampooning the language of art institutions. She goes on to describe a number of ridiculous performance pieces she witnessed at school: 1. a crawling overweight girl eating pats of butter off the floor. "is that art, or that girl just depressed?" -MLR She mentions this is the first performance art piece she had ever seen. 2. a girl in a black body sock who takes the elevator down one floor. She then describes how the 3 hour critique that follows starts simple then snowballs into a discussion of society. 3. a guy tapes his genitals to the side of his leg and puts on makeup. "think about the 'symbology' of that." -MLR 4. a guy who jumps from the school to a tree, from 2 stories up. "You can't begin to understand art school," she declares. 5. a girl who cracks an egg and had a cast that she sewed up with feathers. 6. a girl whose final piece was "a secret" that she would show only Mary Lynn. The girl took Mary Lynn into a closet, lit a match and said, "this is the piece." MLR thought this was a bummer, that the girl was looking for an easy grade. She lamented that the girl didn't bring a corn cob and bar of chocolate and sexually abuse her, telling her not to tell anyone. If this had happened, she predicted she may have become a lesbian. She then describes her own "brilliant piece" where she tied up one of her feet, dressed as a ballerina, with a bowl of jellybeans just outside her reach. "my husband ties me up like this, and doesn't want me to eat, to keep my ballerina's figure." She questions why she has such a deep scarring from men at such a young age.

Her performance became her own caricature, like an M.C. Escher Painting, collapsing onto itself. The bit above was my own tab of comedy acid. Mary Lynn the Comedian playing MLR the Performance Artist playing MLR the actress playing Chloe The Character. META META META-Fucktacular!!!

I had a much longer message planned in my head. Here's some notes I wrote at work, and links. I'm not close to being done blabbing but it's Cinco De Mayo, and someone's starting to drink.