TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

It’s something really special when someone you care about introduces you to the art that matters to them. When a friend recommends a book to you, or gives you a copy as a gift. When a coworker tells you about a movie they loved, or an exhibition they recently saw at a museum. When your partner — or your child — shares a new song or a record with you, and you get to listen to it together and hear them hum or sing along.

It’s wonderful to find art on your own, but I think it’s even more meaningful when you find it thanks to someone else, and you can share it. I love introducing my kids to the music, movies, and books that mean a lot to me. I couldn’t wait for them to be old enough to watch The Goonies and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, so I could share that experience with them. I’ve been sharing my favorite children’s books and records with them since they were babies, too.

Now, they’re old enough to introduce me to the art that moves them.

My daughter introduced me to Bad Bunny, and The Marias. She shares my love of horror movies, and now she sometimes watches them first and tells me if I should see them or skip them. (She also knows the kind of horror I can handle, and the kind I can’t, because I’ll have nightmares!)

I love when friends share songs and poems with me, too, not only because it introduces me to new work, but because it helps me get to know them better. It’s always fascinating to see what moves the people you care about. What resonates with them and inspires them.

Today’s poem was introduced to me by a friend of mine, the playwright and director Moisés Kaufman. If you’ve seen or read The Laramie Project or Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, you know his work. Moisés read this poem to me recently, and it moved me so much — the words themselves, and his face lighting up, and the warmth in his voice as he was taking so much pleasure from each line.

On My History of Kissing Everyone At Parties
by Isabelle Correa

In my defense 
they told me I was pretty 
or listened to me talk 
or shared a secret 
or were named James 
or Kate 
or Miguel 
or had a mother 
they miss 
but gave up on 
or they reached 
for my hand 
with guitar hands 
or garden hands 
or god hands 
or danced with their hands 
on their knees 
in exhaustion 
because they are serious 
about pleasure 
and how much they love 
this song 
or pointed to the moon 
not delivering 
a line 
or a speech 
but a drawn out 
four letter word— 
fuck  or damn 
stop  or look 
and I looked.

“On My History of Kissing Everyone At Parties” by Isabelle Correa. Used by permission of the poet.