Hamilton : the revolution

You may ask yourself, Will I enjoy the #Hamiltome if I haven't seen/listened to the Hamilton musical yet? Maybe not so much. But what you should really be asking yourself is: WHY HAVEN'T YOU LISTENED TO THE HAMILTON MUSICAL YET?! That's a better question. Seriously, why?

So, like the many other people around the Internet and America, my life was recently eaten by a frenzy of Hamilmania. As Colbert relates, I went through the three stages of: (1) oh, this is pretty clever/catchy, (2) oh, this is quite profound and important, to (3) oh my God, we're covering enormous ground here, I think we just broke culture, oh the salt of my tears. I think I've listened to the soundtrack 20 times now? Who knows. My Last.fm feed is outta control. (Seriously, I am NOOOON-STOP! Hamilreffavorite Hamilsong)

I will try to stick to the tome, and not the musical (though that will be hard): This is basically a giant, craftsy coffee table book that is part verified Genius annotations (see what I did there? cuz Lin Manuel Miranda is a verified genius now? EH?), part meta-joke (it's built like a Ye Olde Booke), part documentation of this weird vortex of cultural power. Anyway. It's the full libretto, interwoven with short chapters focusing on different aspects of the show: the thinking behind the choreography, lights; how the show came into fruition; sweet spotlights on some of the actors; etc. And some pretty pictures, pretty fonts and scratchy paper.

What the #Hamiltome makes clear - which listening to the cast album and watching the actual show (those few, those happy few) only begin to do - is how incredibly rich and layered this entire thing is. Yo, this shit has depths within depths within depths. It's mind-boggling. Like, even on my fifteenth listen, I would find new clever turns of phrase, new readings of certain words (e.g. the moment I realized the show-length double entendre of “not throwing away my shot” being about both seizing opportunities, and firing in the air during duels - oooooh maaaaah gaaaad). In a way, that's just “standard” lyrical genius that you can find in good, top-quality verse of any kind: I've had similar repeat-listen mind-expanding awe when listening to Shakespeare, Tom Stoppard, or Kanye. But the one thing I wouldn't have realized - and the book highlights - was the subtle thoughtfulness in the staging, blocking, choreography. Like, Aaron Burr moves in straight lines and Hamilton moves in arcs, because Burr sees limits and Hamilton doesn't! GENIUS, THEY'RE ALL GENIUSES BACK THERE. The book highlights sweet lyrical moments I (still) had been missing - the triple rhymes and references woven through every line - and it pulls together all the thinkpieces that this show provokes: about what it means to have colorblind casting, about its weird nexus point of Sondheim and Kanye and patriotism?!

Oh yeah, and I should mention, as with Act 2 of the show, I cried through several chapters in this book: the chapter on the high school kids who get to see the show and connect with history; the chapter about Anthony Ramos (who is wonderful on the cast album); the chapter, obviously, about Philip Hamilton's death and the final duel. Aaaaah. So good. So sad. So all-encompassing!

Fabulous.