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The Folly of it all: a Revue

Folly, from the French folie, means madness, extravagance, foolishness, lunacy. It has two dominant uses. One is madness or craziness as in folie a deux (a delusion shared by two people). The other meaning of folly is a musical revue, developed in Paris in the late 1800s at the Folies Bergere.
Revue in French means “magazine,” and the musical revue is meant to be the performance version of reading a magazine. A crucial part of the revue, cabaret, burlesque, or variety-show style of entertainment is the inclusion of commentary on current events, often satirical or parody. The Eras Tour provides a retrospective - a review, if you will - of Taylor Swift’s musical catalog. It tells several stories. And with the inclusion of The Tortured Poets Department set, it now also provides clear satirical commentary on Swift’s own story. It is not by accident that the TTPD set was added to the Eras Tour in Paris, the birthplace of the revue.
The initial concept for the musical revue at Folies Bergere centered on women and dance, but was not overtly sexual. American choreographer Loie Fuller, whose serpentine dance style Taylor Swift honored with the Dress performance on the Reputation tour, worked at the early Folies Bergere. Fuller also fought for artists’ control of their own work and lost a legal battle to copyright her choreography. She was also a lesbian.
You look like Loie Fuller in this light
However, revue overlapped and blended with cabaret, burlesque, variety, and vaudeville into the early 20th century. Elaborate staging and “small nude women” became the hallmark of the Folies Bergere under director Paul Derval; the Moulin Rouge was a contemporaneous music hall with a more sexual nature, and the American Ziegfeld Follies - inspired by Bergere - were known for their chorus girls.
The opening of the Eras Tour, with dancers using massive billowing seashell-shaped fabric and sunrise-like lighting, is a callback to Loie Fuller’s choreography style, as are the billowing Folklore dresses. It ends with the Midnights set, including the Vigilante Shit burlesque-style dance using cabaret chairs. Both the endcaps of the Eras Tour are intentionally choreographed Follies.

Bejeweled & Burlesque

American neo-burlesque, as championed by Dita Von Teese and others, seeks to reclaim burlesque as an art form for self-expression of sexuality rather than for consumption.
Among other hints, the music video for Bejeweled - released a week before the Eras Tour was announced - featured many Easter eggs per Taylor Swift herself. In that video, Dita Von Teese, with her iconic martini glass, teaches Taylor's character neoburlesque dance. Speaking to Out magazine of working with Swift, Von Teese said, “She knew everything about what I do and about burlesque.”
The background for Taylor’s own burlesque show in the Bejeweled video is a pink, purple, and gold sky very much like the opening of the Eras tour, and scallops line the floor. Taylor is sitting on the clock that was in the Mastermind lyrics video.
Clockwise from top left: (1) Bejeweled burlesque opening shot; (2) Eras Tour opening; (3) did I mention Loie Fuller was a lesbian who lived in Paris?; (4) what if I told you none of it was accidental?
As the dance unfolds, Taylor is surrounded by dancers holding fans and then lying on the ground encircling her in a kaleidoscope-like starburst, both images that appear in the TTPD set. She touches the clock to make it disappear as the light turns blue, and rainbow lights on the dancers encircle her, reminiscent of her dancers and backup singers in the Karma performance at the end of the Eras tour.
Rainbows and dancers and kaleidoscopes. Go Chiefs!

The Eras Tour: Taylor Swift Follies

As the dancers open each Eras Tour performance, orange, pink, and purple Loie Fuller-esque fabric billows. “It’s been a long time coming…” Swift’s disembodied voice sings, a reference to the years since her last tour, but I think also referencing also Fuller’s - and Swift’s - fights for artists to own their work. This performance will be a retrospective, but it’s a retrospective of a catalog that Swift does not yet fully own. It may also be a reference to a coming-out.
Swift bursts out of the billowing scalloped fabric, a shimmering musical goddess arising fully formed at an ever-ascendant peak, reminiscent of Venus, the goddess of love and sex - and also of victory and prosperity.
She then performs a magnificent three and a half hour retrospective of her work. But we need some kind of social commentary, parody, or satire to make this concept work. And what about the other meaning of folly?
Welcome to Female Rage: The Musical.
The Tortured Poets Department set is a spectacle. In stark white and black, it leans into the asylum aesthetic of Fortnight, and it is nonetheless the most over-the-top visual experience of the entire concert. The Tortured Poets Department album contains heavy themes of Swift navigating her fame (which I won’t explore much here), and the Eras Tour set is no different. The visuals represent an asylum, a high school pep rally, zombie horror, an alien abduction, war, and finally a Vaudeville-esque representation of The Eras Tour itself, in which a doll-like Swift performs an onstage costume change, reanimates and then proceeds to perform I Can Do It With A Broken Heart, a song as upbeat as it is seething about performing the Eras tour while depressed, mirrors reflecting the audience as they confront the decision whether to sing along to the line “All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting ‘more!’”
Have they come to take me awaaaaaay?
The allure of the folly was audience participation. Follies were madness because the audience became part of the story, swept up in it, performers surrounding them and transforming the entire venue to the stage. There was no fourth wall. Any modern concert will include audience participation, but Swift is a master at engaging her audience in a way that no other pop star is - and here, she tells us, it is perhaps to her own personal undoing. Are you not entertained?
Midnights is the final set of the Eras Tour, and Vigilante Shit is its climax. As she performs a burlesque dance, Swift sings “Ladies always rise above; ladies know what people want… the lady simply had enough…" "I don't dress for women / I don't dress for men / Lately I’ve been dressing for revenge / I don’t start shit, but I can tell you how it ends.”
Why is burlesque dance “dressing for revenge”? Perhaps because it is not burlesque but neoburlesque, which is done for self-empowerment. She's not "dressing" - performing - for others, she's doing it for her own reasons. Taylor Swift is reclaiming her own music - not only rerecording the masters, but in a broader sense too. TTPD lyrically expounds on this idea - Taylor Swift is making music for herself now. She started off making music for herself - she didn’t start this conflict - but she’s telling us how it ends, and it’s with her winning.
After Vigilante Shit, she stays in the same costume, with a segue into Bejeweled, and then Mastermind, finishing the concert with the lyric “I’m a mastermind” and immediately taking a bow.
See how the Bejeweled backdrop and the Midnights bodysuit look similar?
Karma, last on the set list, functions as a curtain call. Curtain call songs in musical theatre tend to summarize or reprise the story that the actors just told, coming back around**.** Karma is a song about Taylor Swift reclaiming her art, and so is the Eras Tour. Of course, Karma also being a possible lost album fits well with this.

What does all of this mean?

The Eras Tour is Taylor Swift’s neo-burlesque revue, it is her reclamation of her art, and it is the key to her claiming the key to her castle. As she performed this dance in the Bejeweled video, the countdown and her exile ended and the clock struck midnight.
We know with the countdown theme she's been doing, there's something coming that'll be "1" in the countdown. Re-recordings haven't counted so far, so I don't think it will be Rep TV or Debut unless they come with significant new material - such as Rep TV + Karma (which would be TS12) and then Debut + TS13. I have always thought Debut would come at the end of the Eras Tour, and with all of this analysis, I think that's likely to happen along with something that is a significant change for Taylor Swift.
I also think there might be something going on with the moon.
Whatever happens between now and the end of the Eras Tour, the clock will strike midnight, the performance will be over, and Taylor Swift will step into the dawn of a new era. We'll meet her at midnight.
Images from Bejeweled, Lavender Haze, Daylight lyric video, and the Eras Tour

P.S. The Bejeweled video also contained several easter eggs for Speak Now TV being the next re-recording. The music video for I Can See You, a Speak Now vault track, was released toward the beginning of the Eras tour. Joey King and Presley Cash, who were in the Mean video as children, were also in the I Can See You video. Taylor wrote on IG that she wanted them specifically. The video for “Mean” (2011) features Taylor Swift performing in a variety of music hall-style sets. Taylor spends most of the video playing banjo in a string band, and then transitions to a Broadway stage in a fringe dress, reminiscent of the Ziegfeld Follies era. 

Joey broke the banjo when she used it as a weapon to save Taylor from the vault

Loie Fuller’s break into show business was playing banjo in a Buffalo Bill touring show, from which point she went to New York. For her breakout role in a New York theatre, critics reportedly said she could sing but she couldn’t dance - similar to Swift’s inspiration for the song Mean. Fuller went on to be one of the most influential figures in modern dance. 

I’m thinking about coming to town for UFC 302 June 2nd at Prudential Center by Amtrak . Looks like there’s not too many hotels directly around the center or Penn Station already and the ones that are, are either sold out or over $300 a night. I was thinking about just getting a hotel by airport (specially the Comfort Inn) since. I was thinking of just walking to around the area during the day before the event and was wondering if these roads highlighted are ok to walk during the day time? I do not mind the 30 min walk I’m just wondering if it would be a good idea. I’m going to just UbeLyft otw home at night. Alternatively there’s also the Hilton Riverwalk if you guys think that would be better, or if there’s any other hotel around the area that you think would be better I am open to hearing.
TYIA!

I am 32 and I've been aware of my PTSD since I was about 17. Prior to that, I knew I had depression and anxiety. I have been in and out of therapy since childhood. Currently, I'm on some medications which do seem to help. Nevertheless, I am struggling against the current many days, feeling irritated and afraid of how dark/evil I believe myself to be. I don't want to hurt anyone, and am extremely careful to not offend others. But, I don't feel safe enough to connect much with anyone. Even my girlfriend of three and a half years, who I live with, still is liable to disappear at any moment, in my mind, because I can't fully internalize that she actually loves me. Or, I frequently feel backed into a corner like a wild animal, imminently about to be maimed or killed. There are no allies. Only danger.
Most of the time I coast through life, keeping to myself, focusing on my special interests to keep me entertained or distracted. I am aware of IFS and the potential to do more work on my own. Meditation and journaling are also there as potential tools. But, like many people, I am currently unable to afford therapy, or even a psychiatrist right now. I have so much medical debt from the last few years that I have to take what I gained from that period and work with it on my own.
I am troubled by this angry, defensive creature which contorts me in awful ways and isolates me from others. The depth of grieving still to do, as well as the fundamental damage done to me from a young age, means that I lower my expectations and am satisfied with having a roof and food and a job I can manage.
But I know that I am still a broken person.
I hope I can become so broken that the human gives up and something else takes over. Maybe that's happening all the time anyway. I don't know. But I know I am terrified and this creates a fight-or-flight response, when I'm not frozen or fawning. I seldom stand my ground from a place of centered compassion. I have those goals. But it's just an idea to me, most of the time.
Sorry to rant, but thank you for reading.

I am putting in my first irrigation system, and did not expect this part to be so big. Here is what's going on:
I live in a trailer park and we have a shared irrigation spigot with my neighbor for irrigation water whenever the park decides to turn it on - there is no consistent time it is turned on or turned off, just sometime between 6am-12pm and 6pm-10pm. I work full time, and often the irrigation is off when I am home, so I want to put in an automatic sprinkler system to use while I am not able to babysit a hose. The irrigation water is very dirty and the psi I have measured ranges from 20psi-150psi depending on how many people are watering. I also want to use water from my sillcock to supplement when the park decides not to turn on water for that day. Also, my freeze line is 18 in. and I read the filter and backflow preventer should be at least 12 in off the ground, so it is measured at 30in high x 57in across. Here is my idea.
Water comes from the irrigation spigot, goes through a filter, and I have a shutoff valve after in case I need to use domestic water. Water from the sillcock goes through a backflow preventer (unclear if this is necessary) and I have a shutoff valve in case I am able to use irrigation water. These two sources join through a tee to a pressure regulator in case the irrigation water happens to be high pressure that day (the sprinklers I got are rated up to 70psi). I want to monitor the pressure in and out to get a better idea when better times to water are, so I have included gauges to help with this. From the regulator the solenoid valves will be supplied to two different zones.
When I put this together, it seemed very flimsy. It's not glued yet, but the center is still sinking because of the weight. Is this a good design? If so, what can I do to make this stand upright, or will the trench hold it after I fill it back in? The space I need to put it in only has 60 in of space available.
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I've always seen the Haligtree as one incomplete half of a whole that is made up by it and the Erdtree, which is made whole by the two in harmony. I think the Haligtree's warped, curling form embodies a half of reality which is crucible-like: chaotic, organic, spiralling, impure. And that the Erdtree embodies a half of reality which is orderly: rigid, straight, unchanging, bright, and pure. And that the overarching idea behind Miquella's plan is not to "create a new Erdtree" as many people think, but rather that the Haligtree was one step in his realization of the fact that a balanced order could exist by unifying two inextricably woven halves of reality together. This, I think Miquella realized the Haligtree was doomed to fail because he somehow uncovered this truth hidden in the land of shadow, and realized he has to go there to see through his plan. In the same way, the Erdtree is also appearing doomed to fail, as all of its reputation as being the one pure truth, and being infinite, are failing. I think this is because the true, balanced order of the world in Elden Ring comes from duality, and moreover duality in harmony. Wouldn't be the first time duality has shown up: D and his twin (embodying gold and silver, also connected to the DLC), radagon/ Marika, Miquella/ St. Trina but also Miquella / Godwyn (also likely embodying gold and silver). Before the last shot of the trailer, one half of the tree appears to be suffocating, weighing down, and bleeding the other. Specifically, the Haligtree half is doing this to the Erdtree half, and it appears both are collapsing / decaying together, possibly as a result of this imbalance. But by the end of the trailer, which appears to be Miquella's plan coming to fruition, the two are still woven together but in harmony - the burnt color is fading and replaced with silver (perhaps the other half will turn gold in the DLC), and the wound is mended with what appears to be a silver helix which reminds me heavily of Miquella for obvious reasons. But most interestingly to me, and in what is probably the most beautifully evocative visual storytelling in the whole trailer if not the whole game: the two trees are still woven, but the presentation of that final shot looks a lot less like one half suffocating and collapsing the other, but rather two halves - almost like two lovers holding and facing each other - embracing. Inextricably woven in harmony. Concepts of order and chaos, gold and silver, Erdtree and crucible, light and shadow, Erdtree and serpent, pure life and pure death - all actually different manifestations of the same concept of the need for balance. This final shot my friends, I believe is the culmination of the entire overarching story of Elden ring. After all, Miquella's character embodies a kind of magical simultaneity - he is simultaneously male and female, young and old, alive and dead. He as the final child of Marika alongside Malenia (also embodying another half of perpetual decay). He is the final step in mending the error of Marika and the Golden Order. His plan, and his fate, is to unobscure the land of shadow, and this will somehow relate to the death / true death of Godwyn (again, gold and silver). Reunifying the golden light of the erdtree with the darkened husk of the realm of shadow brings two opposing halfs together again in harmony. I think the twinbird embodies this same concept as well. The helix shape down the center of the earlier Elden ring in Farum Azula is missing in the golden orders version of the Elden Ring, and this is part of the story. A concept of balance and cyclical nature between opposing halves is incompatible with the golden order, and this is exactly why it is doomed to fail. I could go on and on, but yeah. Message if you wanna chat more.