“Putting Your Shame Out There”: How a Booming Instagram Account Wields Comedy, Mimicry, and Advocacy

By Cam Cronin

NOV 2020 | Theater

Jonathan Hoover may have started his Instagram account @inappropriatepatti for kicks—when you have the singular ability to parrot Broadway legend Patti LuPone, why not share it with the internet? But a talent for mimicry, like his booming account, has evolved into something greater: a source for comedy in dark times, and more importantly the vehicle for raising funds for justice. Here, Cam Cronin dives into the person and persona of Jonathan Hoover and how artistry is inextricably tied to activism.

Daniel Johnston: I Live My Broken Dreams

By Barbara Purcell

OCT 2021 | ArtSeen

Daniel Johnston: I Live My Broken Dreams opened September 11, two years to the day of his passing. The prolific, enigmatic singer-songwriter and artist, famed for his self-released music cassettes and comic-book drawings, would have turned 60 this year.

Paolo Javier’s O.B.B. a.k.a. The Original Brown Boy

By Megan N. Liberty

DEC 21-JAN 22 | Art Books

A poetry comic that requires (and rewards) constant re-reading, like learning a new language. A chaotic mix of black-and-white photocopy-style images and texts that is an ode to the anti-storytelling potential of poetry.

“They’re Not Normal People”: Azazel Jacobs’s French Exit

By Madeline Whittle

FEB 2021 | Film

An exceptional ensemble cast—including Michelle Pfeiffer and Lucas Hedges—renders the absurd with singular emotional nuance (and comic timing) in Azazel Jacobs’s latest, co-written by and adapted from a novel by Patrick DeWitt.