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This week has a two fake Philip Glasses, a YouTube exclusive mixtape from a Deep Voices favorite, the best sentence from a great piece of music journalism, and more.
Jeremy Allen White as Philip Glass in a biopic! Check out the resemblance! The curls! I was thrilled to see this posted official Philip Glass Instagram until I realized it was an April Fool’s Day joke.
This is not the first Philip Glass fakeout I’ve had in recent times. My upstairs neighbor is a rare book dealer who was recently throwing out a lot of stuff. I went down to the trash and when I opened the bin, sitting in the top of the bag was a big stack of old letters, all addressed to Philip Glass. Postcards, letters, family photos, all from the 1970s to addresses in New York City (I'm attaching a photo of some of the pile). I grabbed them all. I was freaking out. I started going through the letters and they were mostly life updates, funny and sweet, but not newsworthy. But then I saw a long note to Philip from Sam, who identifies himself as a 25 year old man. And it's a fairly painful breakup letter. As I keep looking through, I see other references to relationships with men. In the mid 70s, Glass was halfway through his marriage to JoAnne Akalaitis. Did I just discover that the world's most important living composer has been living a secret, closeted life?
I texted a reporter friend of mine. My hands were shaking. I kept thinking about Peter Thiel getting outed by Gawker. Should I return these letters? Should I attempt to interview Glass about them? Do I sit on them until he dies? Did I stumble onto the biggest story of my life in the trash?
As I kept reading the letters, it occurred to me that none of them mentioned music. This was a hugely productive time in Glass's life. No accolades from friends and family? Then I found a document related to travel that included a birthdate. Philip Glass, the composer, was born in 1937. This guy was born in 1945. Another thing, the Phillip of these letters, I realized, spelled his name with two Ls. It was a different Phillip Glass.
A lovely, honest conversation between DJ Python and journalist Larry Fitzmaurice for his Last Night of the Donut newsletter. There is a moment where
