In this week’s Reckless Museletter, kick the year off with some hellacious creative goals; Sherlock Holmes is problematic; some biting political satire; and more.

3 New Year’s Resolutions for the Hellraisin’ Artist

It’s still not too late to figure out how to kick your artistic career in the ass and show the world what you can do, so how about us creative folk give 2020 a heroic middle finger, and attack 2021 with a ferocious artistry that scares angels and makes demons proud? Read the story here.

Wokeness Comes for Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is the latest fictional character to be molested by the Woke Gestapo, and the person leading the charge is Ashley Morgan, a pink-haired feminist whose Twitter bio proudly proclaims that she is “researching masculinity to overcome feelings of oppression”. …

Because today’s pop culture isn’t offensive enough, it’s incumbent upon us to dig up the corpses of literature’s past to shame them into the Submission of the Socially Just. Now THAT’S how you progress.

Sherlock Holmes is the latest fictional character to be molested by the Woke Gestapo, and the person leading the charge is Ashley Morgan, a feminist academic and Masculinities Scholar (whatever the fuck that is) at Cardiff Metropolitan University, a pink-haired feminist whose Twitter bio proudly proclaims that she is “researching masculinity to overcome feelings of oppression”. …

“True art

comes

from flying

with the madness

so close

you burn

your eyelashes.”

- Atticus

Armed with wayward minds and a rabid desire to play with fire, artists are of a manic breed that can’t be easily disciplined by outside forces. Because of this bone-deep deviance, those who listen to that clarion call to create are often known to adopt some bizarre habits to bring their visions to life — that is, if they didn’t come screaming into this world with those habits already built in.

We’ve all heard these stories — actors going to extreme lengths to prepare for their roles, writers following robotic daily routines with machine precision, artists hoarding outré objects to use as inspiration for their paintings, etc. …

2020 has been a shitty year for pretty much all of us.

But one of the great qualities of artists is their ability to transform tragedy and turmoil into works that transcend.

So how about us creative folk give 2020 a heroic middle finger, and attack 2021 with a ferocious artistry that scares angels and makes demons proud?

If you’re ready to raise some necessary hell and make 2021 the Year of the Troublemaker, then start the new year with these three resolutions:

1. Violate some sacred cows

Some of the most interesting ideas are in forbidden lands. Don’t let propriety and political correctness stop you from confidently wandering into treacherous territory. …

I’ve been thinking about how being a public prude has been in season for the past several years, or for at least as long as I’ve been paying attention to the culture war that’s currently being waged by the woke and everyone else, and in my many Batman brooding sessions, I’ve discovered a weird truth that I think we all know but haven’t really excavated from the backwaters of our brains. This was one of those vicious, mean-drunk epiphanies that’s ready to fight dirty and kick your mind right in the balls.

That epiphany was this:

Fear and offense are practically siblings; as there are rational and irrational fears, there are also rational and irrational offenses. In the same way that someone can be afraid of snakes despite never having been attacked by or even encountered a snake, someone can be offended by jokes about rape despite never having been raped or known anyone who’s been raped. When it comes to associating pain or discomfort around certain subjects or ideas, it seems that personal inciting incidents are optional. …

Last October, I published an article slamming the King County Library System in Washington state for holding racially segregated “DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Sessions” — one for “People of Color” and one for “People Who are White”, which you can marvel at here:

Below is the image that made the rounds on social media and prompted me to write the article in the first place:

Protests, politics, and pandemics are tearing this world apart, and yet we still have time to be offended by some dude’s junk.

A performance of the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch intended for the upcoming Sydney Festival was postponed due to fierce backlash over the casting of Hugh Sheridan, a cis male, in the role of the lead character, who wasn’t originally portrayed as trans in the 2001 film or the book it was based on. But of course, we wouldn’t be living in the Age of Rage if we didn’t problematize every harmless thing we encountered.

The hysterical charge was led by Daya Czepanski, who started a social media campaign and petition which has garnered over 1,700 signers so far. Czepanski recently started the Queer Artist Alliance, whose Instagram account posted an open letter calling on the show’s producer and the Sydney Festival to “rectify this casting choice” by casting a transgender actor in the title role, employ “trans advocates on the [Sydney festival] creative team”, and include “trans advisors and talent” in the production. …

Sia recently released the trailer for the upcoming musical drama, the pretentiously titled Music, that she directed and co-wrote, in addition to writing songs for the film’s soundtrack. The film tells the story of Zu (played by Kate Hudson) who is newly sober and becomes the sole guardian of her half-sister named Music, a young autistic girl (played by Maddie Ziegler). There are several fantasy musical sequences that depict how Music sees the world.

But because we live in the Age of Rage, an era when no piece of pop culture can be released without being accused of being “problematic”, the film of course generated a metric fuck-ton of controversy for basically nothing. …