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It was a clear black night, a clear white moon. Warren G, “Regulate” (1994)Originally appearing on the soundtrack of the Tupac Shakur film “Above the Rim,” this song is built around a sample of Michael McDonald’s “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near).” I’m looking like a star when you see me make a wish. […] More
In her new play, Lauren Gunderson explores the legacy of the 18th-century French mathematician and philosophe Emilie du Châtelet.“Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight” starts with a death adjourned. Emilie (Amy Michelle), a mathematician and philosophe, has slipped through a loophole in the space-time continuum and now lingers in an uncanny valley between life and death. She has been allotted limited time to determine whether her legacy amounts to one of “loving” or “knowing.”The words “love” and “philosophy” are inscribed on an upstage wall and throughout this play, by Lauren Gunderson, Emilie returns to that makeshift chalkboard to tally up her life’s deeds. As a dramaturgical device, it’s more prosaic than piquant, yet not entirely off brand for a woman whose mind was a perpetual motion machine.The play’s protagonist is based on the real-life du Châtelet, famed in 18th-century France for her translation of and commentary on Newton’s “Principia” and for a treatise she wrote on the nature and propagation of fire. Such an accomplished woman hardly needs defending, but defining a life is another matter. That is the real brief for “Emilie.”In her state of limbo, the marquise discovers that she can’t intervene in past events. Any kind of physical contact will immediately set off a blackout, as if someone has shaken a cosmic Etch A Sketch. As a workaround, Erika Vetter plays a younger version of the marquise, enacting a telescoped version of her life. Where Michelle’s marquise is ruled by an Apollonian temperament, Vetter puts a heavy thumb on the “love” scale. “Are you jealous that I’m sharing orbits with another man?” she teases Voltaire, du Châtelet’s lover in real life.Under Kathy Gail MacGowan’s direction, many of the actors play multiple roles, underscoring the similarities between certain characters. Bonnie Black delivers compelling performances as both the marquise’s mother, a woman of mean understanding, and the meddlesome Madam Graffigny, a not entirely welcome guest at the marquise’s family estate.Unlike those two women, bound by corsets, Emilie wears a simple nightgown, which allows her to move freely from her chaise longue to her desk on Sarah White’s handsome set. Her mind moves just as nimbly from an appraisal of Gottfried Leibniz to a discussion of “living force,” a scientific concept for kinetic energy first developed by Leibniz and later elaborated upon by Emilie.For all the talk of life forces, however, there’s a lack of kinetic energy between the elder marquise and Voltaire, who is reduced to a concupiscent kibitzer with a string of chronic ailments. The first act is also dragged down by exposition. “Did I mention I was married? We’re skipping ahead.” “Did I mention I had children? Three. Fascinating creatures,” the marquise maunders on. Such palavering is wasted time for a woman facing a literal deadline.Gunderson, whose other work includes plays about pioneering women like Marie Curie, does more than pay hagiographic tribute to her subjects. There are angles of regret in her portrait of the marquise, who ultimately feels that she failed to provide enough opportunities for her daughter. Even as the lights dim, she is preoccupied with “love and so many questions,” and it becomes impossible to tell where loving leaves off and knowing begins.Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life TonightThrough April 30 at the Flea Theater, Manhattan; theflea.org. Running time: 2 hours.This review is supported by Critical Minded, an initiative to invest in the work of cultural critics from historically underrepresented backgrounds. More
The latest iteration of the “Modern Love” franchise, “Modern Love Tokyo,” begins streaming on Oct. 21.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Daniel Jones, the senior editor of The New York Times’s Modern Love column, remembers when, a dozen years ago, it was just him selecting stories from a stack of nearly a thousand monthly submissions and editing each one for the essay series. “It was kind of lonely,” he said.This week, he has plenty of company. He is in Japan to attend the premiere of the television series “Modern Love Tokyo,” the latest installment in Amazon’s global “Modern Love” franchise. The seven-episode show will begin streaming on Amazon Prime Video on Oct. 21. The episodes are set in Tokyo, feature the work of actors, of directors and of a creative team from Japan, and are based on essays published in the column that were reimagined to make them more familiar to Japanese audiences. (In a “Modern Love” first, one of the episodes will be animated.)“I love that the process includes all these other talented people who are interpreting stories and amplifying emotions, putting in music,” Mr. Jones said in an interview last week. “It’s just exploded the job into a whole new realm.”Since the original “Modern Love” show was released on Amazon in October 2019, three international spinoffs have debuted in three languages: “Modern Love Mumbai,” in Hindi; “Modern Love Hyderabad,” in Telugu; and the Tokyo series, in Japanese. A fourth series, “Modern Love Chennai,” in Tamil, is forthcoming, and a fifth, “Modern Love Amsterdam,” offered in Dutch, is set to be released in mid-December.Mr. Jones reflected on the television franchise’s expansion abroad, on the process of adapting American stories for each series and on the longevity of the Modern Love column. Read the edited interview below.When did the idea to create international versions of the show come about?The original series, set in New York City, came out in 2019, and pretty soon after that, we started talking about other cities around the world where we might be able to do versions of it. Of course, then the pandemic hit, which made everything harder and a little delayed. And so the international versions we began talking about several years ago are just now coming out.What is your role on the series?I’m a co-producer on all the international versions. I see the episodes as they’re being edited; I read the scripts. I try to maintain a sense of what Modern Love is and has been for more than 18 years now, meaning realistic love stories, not sweeping romances. No overt sex or Bollywood plots or anything that would push the boundaries and make it seem outside what the column does. But the people working on this at Amazon Studios know this and get it. In fact, that’s what they value most about these series and what makes the work distinctive in these markets. We’re all on the same page.Also, the Modern Love archive is enormous — it’s 900-some essays at this point. While the teams in different countries who are picking content completely reimagine the stories for their audiences, the shows’ creators often stick close to the plot, so I’m helpful to them if they want a certain kind of story; I know the archive better than anyone. But I’ve been so impressed with the local teams’ approach and research and passion for this project.Daniel Jones attending the “Modern Love Tokyo” premiere. Phoebe JonesHow does the process of adapting an American story for an audience in another country work?For one of the Mumbai episodes, the creative team in Mumbai took an essay about a woman in Brooklyn who had separated from her husband and who was feeling down in every way — she was in bad physical shape, emotionally wrung out. And she now needed to get herself to work by bicycle.She started riding across the Manhattan Bridge, but she didn’t have the stamina to go all the way up, so the story was about the empowerment — both physical and emotional — of building herself back up. It was a very New York story, but when they took it to Mumbai, they made her character a domestic servant in a wealthy family, highlighting the class divide there. There’s a bridge in Mumbai, called the Flyway, that goes from a gritty area to the gleaming city center, and it was the same basic process of her building herself back up. It speaks to the universality of these conflicts — you can get a divorce in Mumbai, and you can get a divorce in Brooklyn. The emotions and struggle and all that can be so similar.All of the versions of the show are available to stream on Amazon Prime in the United States, right?Yes. Now, with the success of series like “Squid Game,” it’s become clear that subtitles are not a barrier. I hope people check out the versions set in the other cities, too.What’s been the most exciting part of working on the international versions?When these teams discover stories that I’d long forgotten about in the archive, and then reintroduce me to them in a new way. It’s great to have other people look at the archive with fresh eyes, find such gems and see how to reimagine them for the screen.What’s next for the “Modern Love” television franchise?Our fifth international series, “Modern Love Amsterdam,” premieres in mid-December. Beyond that, stay tuned, because we have ambitions for all over the world. More
Listen and follow Modern LoveApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon Music“That film sequence was like a portal into an alternate universe, where a brown girl could date a white guy and still be at peace with her family.”Brian Rea[What’s the most unusual place you have ever gone on a date? Tell us your story, and you may be featured in a future episode. Visit nytimes.com/datestory for submission details.]When Meher Ahmad first saw the movie “Bend It Like Beckham” as a young girl, she was transfixed. Watching the main character, an Indian woman who looked like her, kiss her white soccer coach, she saw a vision of her own romantic future. While she felt pressure from her family and her culture to be with a Pakistani boy, the movie opened up the lanes of her attraction — from white boys to, eventually, “anything but brown men.”As Meher grew older, though, her thinking started to shift. Today, we share her story about how she found “the one.”Then, our host, Anna Martin, discusses a trend that is all over TikTok: romantic manifestation. She speaks with Laura Pitcher, a contributing writer for The New York Times, about how people are manifesting their ideal partners — and why the spiritual practice is so appealing to Gen Z.[What’s the most unusual place you have ever gone on a date? Tell us your story, and you may be featured in a future episode of the podcast. Visit nytimes.com/datestory for submission details.]Hosted by: Anna MartinProduced by: Julia Botero, Hans Buetow and Elyssa DudleyEdited by: Sara SarasohnExecutive Producer: Wendy DorrEngineered by: Dan PowellTheme Music: Dan PowellEssay by: Meher AhmadRead by: Soneela NankaniFounder, Modern Love: Daniel JonesEditor, Modern Love Projects: Miya LeeSpecial thanks: Mahima Chablani, Renan Borelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Julia Simon, Lisa Tobin, Sam Dolnick, Ryan Wegner and Anna Diamond at Audm.Thoughts? Email us at modernlovepodcast@nytimes.com. More
Listen and follow Modern LoveApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherWhat’s the song that taught you about love as a teen?Brian ReaWhen we asked this question at the start of the season, the responses came pouring in. We heard from present-day teens streaming their anthems on repeat, and we heard from listeners who have been with their partners for over 50 years. There were stories of jazz and rap, adrenaline rushes and loneliness, and many lessons in matters of the heart. (“Don’t let your friends choose your boyfriends,” Amy from St. Louis said.)On our season finale, we share more of these songs and stories. Then, we fast-forward to an essay about the end of love. After more than 50 years of marriage, Tina Welling decided that she wanted a divorce — a decision that turned out to be liberating.Thank you to all of the listeners who sent us their teenage anthems. We’ve compiled them into one glorious Spotify playlist. Take a listen below.Hosted by: Anna MartinProduced by: Hans Buetow, Julia Botero, Anna Martin and Mahima ChablaniEdited by: Sara SarasohnExecutive Producer: Wendy DorrEngineered by: Elisheba IttoopOriginal Music: Hans Buetow and Dan PowellTheme Music: Dan PowellEssay by: Tina WellingRead by: Suzanne TorenFounder, Modern Love: Daniel JonesEditor, Modern Love Projects: Miya LeeSpecial thanks: Mahima Chablani, Renan Borelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Julia Simon, Lisa Tobin, Sam Dolnick, and Ryan Wegner at Audm.Thank you to so many listeners who shared their teenage songs and stories, including Kate Mitchell, Ankit Sayed, Helen Coskeran, Michal Vaníček and Sara Molinaro.Thoughts? Email us at modernlovepodcast@nytimes.com. More
As “The Bachelor” franchise enters its 20th year, still-married couples who met on that show and “The Bachelorette” discuss how they’ve built lasting relationships.In the latest season of “The Bachelor,” Clayton Echard, the show’s 26th lead, said after a late-night rendezvous with a hopeful suitress, “If I ever need validation to know that this process works, I’m seeing it unfold before me.”But according to the numbers, perhaps unsurprisingly, that “process” — a weeks-long mass courtship in front of cameras that is meant to end with a proposal and, presumably, a marriage — is not very effective at yielding long-term relationships.Since the “The Bachelor” debuted on ABC in March 2002 and “The Bachelorette” the following year, only six couples who met on those shows are currently married. A seventh is expected to wed in May. In this time, there have been 34 televised proposals in 44 seasons combined. Taking into account those who met on other spinoffs, the number of currently married couples jumps from six to 10. (Representatives from Warner Bros and ABC declined to comment for this article.)As the franchise enters its 20th year, what can be gleaned from some of those still-wed couples’ most dramatic story lines ever? Below, five of the six who met on “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” discuss how they’ve made it work since meeting on set. (The sixth couple, Rachel Lindsay and Bryan Abasolo, declined to comment for this article.)Catherine and Sean LoweCatherine and Sean Lowe.Craig Sjodin/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty ImagesThe Lowes met on season 17 of “The Bachelor,” which aired in 2013 and ended with Mr. Lowe’s on-camera proposal in Thailand. They were married the following year.The couple, who live in Dallas with their two sons, ages 5 and 3, and daughter, 2, have since built a life around what Ms. Lowe called “super chill” family traditions, including making homemade pizza.“Our happy place is at home with our kids,” said Ms. Lowe, 35, who runs a local gifting service and, with her husband, started a namesake furniture line, Home by Sean & Catherine Lowe.Mr. Lowe, 38, said that when people ask him how he found love on “The Bachelor,” his response is always the same. “I liken it to meeting 25 strangers on a dating app — you might connect with one of them,” he said.But “then you have to enter the real world, and it takes work,” he added.That he and Ms. Lowe, or any couple who married after meeting on the show, have managed to stay together still strikes him as somewhat improbable. “When you have girls racing in bikinis while driving lawn mowers it’s silly,” he said. “All the elements go against creating a long-term relationship.”Ms. Lowe, however, said she left the show feeling wiser about how to form a successful partnership. The accelerated courtship the contestants experience made her realize the importance of focusing on “non-negotiables” at the start of any romance, instead of worrying about “things that don’t matter, like leaving the toilet seat up.”She added that meeting Mr. Lowe on set with other people around helped her get a better understanding of his character, recalling a moment when she saw him speaking to the crew and “noticed that he knew everybody’s name.”“I took that as such an insight into who he really was when the cameras were down,” Ms. Lowe said.Molly and Jason MesnickMolly and Jason Mesnick.Kevin Casey, via Getty ImagesMr. Mesnick, the lead on “The Bachelor” season 13, which aired in 2009, stunned fans when he called off his engagement to Melissa Rycroft six weeks after proposing on air, and later proposed (off air) to his future wife, who was that season’s runner-up.“I think the challenge is that the public looks at that as a real engagement,” Mr. Mesnick, 45, said of the series’ televised proposals, which he considers more of a commitment to “see what happens over the next several months or a year or whatever.”Before the Mesnicks wed in 2010, they went through a bit of a get-to-know-you-again period, said Ms. Mesnick, 38.“You need to start over at square one and get to know each other,” she said, echoing Mr. Lowe’s sentiments that cast members do not behave on set as they would in real life. “They’re literally getting to know a totally different person when there’s not a camera or producer in your face.”On the show, Ms. Mesnick said, “I was really calm,” but in real life, “I’m very Type A and kind of crazy.” Mr. Mesnick, on the other hand, is “super go-with-the-flow.”“I think it’s taken us 10-to-12 years to finally get into a really good, easy groove on how to function in life,” Ms. Mesnick added.The Mesnicks, who live in Seattle, now say their contrasting personalities not only provide equilibrium in their relationship, but also in their work as brokers co-leading a real estate team in Kirkland, Wash. “She does the marketing, and I do face-to-face with our clients,” said Mr. Mesnick.When they met, Mr. Mesnick was a divorced father of one. Moving in with him and his then 4-year-old son in 2009, Ms. Mesnick said, at first “rocked their world.” But she and her stepson, now 17, eventually became “thick as thieves.”The couple, who have a 9-year-old daughter, say open and honest communication has been essential to making their relationship last. Ms. Mesnick said it has also helped that they got together before picking apart relationships from “The Bachelor” became a sport of sorts on social media.“It would have been brutal,” she added of the backlash they might have received when she and Mr. Mesnick got back together after he broke off his engagement with Ms. Rycroft.Chris and Desiree SiegfriedChris and Desiree Siegfried.Francisco Roman/Walt Disney Television, via Getty ImagesAs two people who initially didn’t want to be on TV — Ms. Siegfried said she applied for “The Bachelorette” season nine, which aired in 2013, as a “skeptic joke,” and Mr. Siegfried said that friends convinced him to join the cast after he declined an initial offer to participate — neither envisioned the experience would have a fairy-tale ending.But Ms. Siegfried, 35, a fashion designer and the founder of Desiree Hartsock Bridal, said that “really natural” chemistry paved the way for them to fall in love on set.Mr. Siegfried, 36, a loan officer, said “she was definitely someone I would pursue outside of television.”“Our conversation was easy,” he added. “And when we were talking, she knew what she wanted and was looking for in someone, and that was important to me.”After filming their on-camera engagement, Ms. Siegfried, who was living in Los Angeles and said she was “broke as could be,” relocated to Seattle, where she and Mr. Siegfried, who had moved there in 2011, started living in a new home together.“It would be hard for one person to dive into someone else’s life across state lines,” she said. “It was nice to start afresh together.”They married in 2015 and now live in Portland, Ore., with two sons, 3 and 5. Though the couple has no plans to appear on television again, watching it remains a beloved pastime, said Ms. Siegfried. Recently, their favorite shows include “Yellowstone” and “1883,” she said.Their relationship also benefits from spur-of-the-moment workday dates. “He’s like, ‘Hey, I have a break. You want to grab lunch?’” Ms. Siegfried said. “It’s fun to have that spontaneous lunchtime.”Heartfelt compliments, or “words of affirmation” as Mr. Siegfried put it, go a long way, too. “While everyone loves flowers, that’s not necessarily what she’s looking for.”Lauren and Arie LuyendykLauren and Arie Luyendyk.Paul Hebert/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty ImagesMr. Luyendyk, 40, a real-estate agent and racecar driver, initially proposed to Becca Kufrin at the end of “The Bachelor” season 22, which aired in 2018.But he soon ended their engagement because he couldn’t stop thinking about Ms. Luyendyk, 30, a fashion designer and the founder of the line Shades of Rose. On a live episode filmed after the pre-taped finale aired, Mr. Luyendyk proposed to Ms. Luyendyk in front of a studio audience.“I want to do this in front of everyone, because I want to show you that I should have done this a long time ago,” he said at the time.In some ways, the Luyendyks credit their bond’s strength to the backlash they faced after their engagement. “There was a lot of animosity in the room,” Ms. Luyendyk said. “I could see people glaring at me when I walked out.”“We’ve always said, ‘It’s us against the world,’” she added.The couple, who live in Scottsdale, Ariz., married in Hawaii in 2019, while Ms. Luyendyk was pregnant with their daughter, now 2. In June 2021, they became a family of five when the couple had twins, a boy and a girl.Between work and parenthood, they say it has been harder to carve out time for themselves, making their home an ideal venue when they can fit it in. One recent activity: “Goat yoga in the backyard,” Mr. Luyendyk said. “It was messy.”Their morning coffee ritual is another opportunity to connect. “We love to be up early and have coffee together and make that little time for us before the babies wake up,” he said. Added Ms. Luyendyk, “Some nights, I can’t wait to have coffee in the morning.”Trista and Ryan SutterTrista and Ryan Sutter.Craig Sjodin/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty ImagesThe Sutters wed in December 2003 on a three-part televised special that followed their appearance on “The Bachelorette” season one, which aired earlier that year. They now live with their son, 14, and daughter, 13, in Vail, Colo., and their 18-year marriage is the longest in the franchise’s history.Ms. Sutter, 49, who has since written a book and hosted a podcast, was the runner-up on season one of “The Bachelor.” She said that appearing on both shows convinced her you can find love anywhere, including “on national television like we did.”Mr. Sutter, 47, a firefighter, said that though “there is pressure” for finalists like himself to propose at the end of a season, “I never felt it to the degree that I made any major decisions because of it.”But, he added, “If I’m being honest, I really didn’t know her as well as I probably should have prior to asking her to marry me.”Like other couples, acclimating to a regular life together after the show proved trying for the Sutters. Mr. Sutter said that a mental health professional whom he spoke to during the casting process told him that contestants’ lives could be affected for up to three months after their season ended. “She missed the mark by years,” he said.Making time for in-person conversations is something both have prioritized over the course of their marriage. “Throw your phones in your drawer once you come home from work,” said Ms. Sutter of a tactic they use to eliminate distractions during one-on-one time.Playing pickleball, taking camping trips with their children and sitting down at a table to eat dinner each day are other activities that enhance their relationship.While no relationship is always roses and Neil Lane diamond rings, the Sutters say theirs is one that people continue to cite as an example of marital bliss. Over the years, Mr. Sutter said that they have been asked how they make their relationship work “hundreds of times,” and that their reply has evolved along with their marriage.If they could sum up their answer in a song, Ms. Sutter would point people to “Legends,” Kelsea Ballerini’s 2017 single. “Basically it says no one believed in us, but we did.” More
First breakups. Final goodbyes. For generations, Mr. Fernández, who died on Sunday, provided a soundtrack for moments of anguish and heartache, and a pathway to healing.After four years of dating, this is what it came to for Art Castillo: sitting alone in his blue truck in Waco, Texas, listening to his girlfriend on speaker. Long distance wasn’t working, she told him. She had found another man. The relationship was over.“I hanged up and put Vicente Fernández on,” said Mr. Castillo, 30. He played “La Cruz de Tu Olvido,” in which Mr. Fernández bellows, “As I looked at the evil in your eyes, I understood that you have never loved me.” He played it louder, again and again, until he was done crying.“With his songs,” Mr. Castillo said, “you just feel it inside you.”For generations, Mr. Fernández’s often sorrowful songs have served as a balm for the heartbroken. Over a career that spanned six decades, Mr. Fernández, the Mexican ranchera superstar who died on Sunday at 81, recorded hundreds of songs and dozens of albums, singing of unrequited love, scornful partners and tarnished romance.In that time, Mr. Fernández, known to millions as Chente, became a beacon for the brokenhearted, a man to listen to when love has gone awry and all you want — besides, perhaps, some tequila — are plucky guitars, harmonized horns and someone to give voice to your most intimate feelings.“For a lot of people with Mexican descent, his voice is home,” said Rachel Yvonne Cruz, a professor of Mexican American studies and a music specialist at the University of Texas at San Antonio.That explains why so many people, mostly Latinos, turn to him when they are down, she said.“When Vicente Fernández sang, he expressed all of those emotions that we keep held inside: that silent cry, that silent scream that’s happening when you’re heartbroken, when you just cannot anymore,” Dr. Cruz said. “And when you listened to him, you were able to have that release that you needed.”Who broke Mr. Fernández’s heart? That remains a playful mystery among his fans. He married María del Refugio Abarca Villaseñor when he was in his early 20s, and the two stayed together until his death.But however and whenever his heartbreak occurred, his fans say, his anguish came through in his lyrics.Tu boca, tu ojos y tu peloLos llevo en mi mente, noche y día“Your mouth, your eyes and your hair, I carry them in my mind, night and day,” Mr. Fernández sings in “Las Llaves de Mi Alma.”Por tu maldito amorNo puedo terminar con tantas penas“Because of your damn love, I can’t bring an end to so much shame,” he roars in “Por Tu Maldito Amor.”En un marco, pondré tu retratoY en mi mano, otra copa de vino“In a frame, I will put your portrait, and in my hand, another glass of wine,” he croons in “Tu Camino y el Mío.”That was the song that helped Fernanda Aguilera.“I had been with someone since, I guess, high school, and then you think, ‘Well, this is going to be my person,’” said Ms. Aguilera, 27, of San Antonio. But when college came and they went their separate ways, she realized that the relationship “was just an illusion in my head.”She played “Tu Camino y el Mío” (“Your Road and Mine”), and recalled thinking: “This is exactly how I feel, but I could just never find the words. And it’s like he put the words together for me.”On a cool March night in Oxnard, Calif., a brokenhearted Jaime Tapia grabbed some beers, invited a friend to his house and put on a Vicente Fernández playlist. Mr. Tapia was 19. He and his girlfriend of four years had decided to cut off their relationship earlier that night.Mirroring the way Mr. Fernández had dealt with heartache in the movies (mostly with alcohol, a somber stare into the middle distance and buddies who reassure him he will be OK), Mr. Tapia and his friend kept the beers coming as they sat on the hoods of their cars.“Just dozing off, looking at the stars,” he said. He was lonely and drunk for the first time in his life.“A lot of the songs that Chente talks about are about breakups, being in a cantina, stuff like that,” Mr. Tapia said. “So even though you feel sad at the time, you felt good that you were bonding with a buddy and that you weren’t by yourself.”Ranchera music “can be thought of as a sung exposition of one’s most honest emotions,” said Mónica Fogelquist, a professor of practice in mariachi and ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at Austin.“In Mexican culture, men are supposed to be strong, valiant, proud and void of any sentiment,” she said. “They don’t cry, and they don’t express vulnerability, including heartache. However, through music, all the unexpressed or prohibited emotions are free to come out.”People have used Chente’s romantic tunes to try to win back an estranged partner through serenatas, a musical message of love delivered by a mariachi band in front of a lover’s window — a tradition that Mr. Fernández popularized in films.“It’s pretty popular; we’ve been hired a couple times to help win that person back,” said Giovanni Garcia, who manages the band Mariachi Estrellas de Chicago. He added, “There’s been a couple of times where they’ll tell us, ‘Oh, I’m in the doghouse right now and hoping this will help me.’”Sometimes it works, he said. Often, it doesn’t — even if the band plays one of Mr. Fernández’s songs.Someone tried it on Laura Figueroa once. It did not end well.A mariachi band knocked on her door in Chicago. Her little brother let them inside, and the musicians marched through the kitchen and into her bedroom. She was 22 at the time.“I’m sitting there looking down at the floor like, ‘Oh my God, there’s literally a mariachi in my house,’” said Ms. Figueroa, now 39. She does not believe the band played Chente, and in any event she did not take her former lover back.Jesus Gutierrez, 37, of Chicago said his father used to sing “Hermoso Cariño” (“Beautiful Darling”) by Mr. Fernández to his mother, Juana, when they were dating in Guanajuato, Mexico. She used to be embarrassed when telling the story, Mr. Gutierrez said, because his father, Nicolas, was “not a good singer.”But perhaps it worked, he said, because they married, had children and listened to ranchera music together for decades. She saved nearly all of her Chente vinyl records and screamed every word of his heartbreaking songs at his concerts, her son recalled.In 2019, Juana Gutierrez died, and Chente’s songs came to represent a new type of heartbreak for Mr. Gutierrez. He said he couldn’t play some of his mother’s favorites anymore because “it’s too much.”But on Sunday, when he heard Mr. Fernández had died, he knew right away how he would spend his evening: the same way he and so many others had gotten through their first breakups and final goodbyes.He scrolled through his playlist until he found “Hermoso Cariño.”Precioso regaloDel cielo ha llegadoY que me ha colmado de dicha y amor“Precious gift, from heaven it has come,” Mr. Fernández sang. “And that has filled me with happiness and love.” More
When Mary Elizabeth Williams got back together with her husband, she didn’t expect a cancer diagnosis — or for her story to inspire a television episode.In her 2014 Modern Love essay, “A Second Embrace, With Hearts and Eyes Open,” the writer Mary Elizabeth Williams tells the story of rekindling her marriage only to find out, shortly thereafter, that she had malignant melanoma. Suddenly, their future looked very different from their past.Miya Lee and I recently caught up with four writers whose essays inspired episodes in the second season of the “Modern Love” television series on Amazon Prime Video. Below is my conversation with Ms. Williams, whose episode stars Sophie Okonedo and Tobias Menzies. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.You can also read my interview with writer, actor and director Andrew Rannells (“During a Night of Casual Sex, Urgent Messages Go Unanswered”) and Miya Lee’s interviews with Katie Heaney (“Am I Gay or Straight? Maybe This Fun Quiz Will Tell Me”) and Amanda Gefter (“The Night Girl Finds a Day Boy”).Daniel Jones: Your essay was published seven years ago, and it was about events that took place years before that. Can you catch us up on where you are now with your marriage, your health and your family?Mary Elizabeth Williams: My husband and I are still together. One of our daughters is in high school and the other is in college. Like everyone else, we’re just coming out of a long period of enforced closeness in a small New York City apartment where one person is working in one space, one person is working a few feet away, someone else is doing band practice and someone else is doing college work. It was all chaotic.Over the past few years, we’ve had a lot of challenges and sorrows and difficult experiences involving our health and work and the health of loved ones. And it’s funny, because in the midst of feeling trapped over the past year, I still wake up in the morning and choose to be here with this person. Those moments of looking at someone and thinking, “Yeah, I’m here voluntarily” — maybe that’s not the sexiest thing to think about someone, but I also feel like it’s probably the most important.How does it feel to write about something so personal, even as a writer?The day I got my cancer diagnosis, I told very few people, and I even said to my husband, “I don’t think I’m going to share this because I don’t want it to change how people see me. That’s a bell I won’t be able to unring.”The next day I went to Sloan Kettering, and that night I wrote an essay called “My Cancer Diagnosis” that was published in the morning. So less than 48 hours after I got diagnosed, I published my first essay about having cancer. Clearly, I don’t know how to not talk about my life.What kind of cancer did you have?Metastatic melanoma. Melanoma is a cancer of the skin, which is very common. Metastatic melanoma is not. That’s when the cancer has moved into your organs. And the thing about melanin is you have it everywhere, so the cancer can go everywhere. When you get it, it can be rapidly fatal. Typically, at the point I got it, you had about seven months to live. My cancer had moved into my lungs and soft tissue. You could see it on my body.How was it treated?First I had surgery. That was before it had spread. I had a big circle taken off the top of my head. Then, a year later, I had a recurrence, and by then the cancer was spreading everywhere and moving really fast. That was the point when my oncologist said, “We’re recruiting for a clinical trial. You should talk to the people on the clinical trial floor.”They had just approved the first immunotherapy treatment for melanoma in over 30 years. To get accepted, I had to pass a bunch of tests; it’s really hard getting into clinical trials. It shouldn’t be. But I was fit and had a flexible schedule and met all of the requirements — you have to be sick but otherwise fit and not have done any other treatments. So I got into the trial, and I felt it working after the first treatment. I was cancer free the first time I got scans, 12 weeks later. And I’ve been cancer free for nine years.In talking about your successful experience with the clinical trial, do you worry about giving people false hope?I’m glad you brought that up. I am extremely aware that I am unusual. And I never want to give people false hope. I want them to have hope and to know there are options. But also, hope can be for different things, whether it’s in your relationship or your health, and sometimes you’re hoping for just a little more time. It’s like I always say: The mortality rate for being a human being is 100 percent. If you’re lucky, you can postpone that so you get more good stuff. And I hope you get to get more good stuff with the people you love and give them good memories and leave something better than you started it.What was the impact of publishing your essay in Modern Love?I got messages from so many people I hadn’t heard from in years, who didn’t know about the breakup, didn’t know I had been sick, didn’t know any of it, and were like, wow, you’ve really been through it. And then there was the response from readers who saw different parts of themselves — in the relationship, but particularly in the sickness, in that story of cancer. People seeing a love story of sickness that wasn’t gooey and sentimental.You and your husband never divorced; you separated. Did that make stepping back into the marriage easier?I guess if you look at it as stepping back, but I don’t. I look at it as stepping forward. That relationship ended. And what came next was different and new. For me, it was important to feel like I wasn’t going backward. This was about moving forward, about being in a different place in life and having different expectations and understanding and respect.I wanted to tell a story that was about the kind of tender and unique love you see when things are awful. Unsexy situations like when he has to go out and buy you stool softeners. That’s a unique kind of romance. I hope that for men who read it, they were able to see themselves — and see that being caring and nurturing and capable is the most loving gesture in the world.Daniel Jones is the editor of Modern Love. Mary Elizabeth Williams is the author of “A Series of Catastrophes and Miracles: A True Story of Love, Science, and Cancer” and a doctoral student of medical humanities at Drew University.Modern Love can be reached at modernlove@nytimes.com.To find previous Modern Love essays, Tiny Love Stories and podcast episodes, visit our archive.Want more from Modern Love? Watch the TV series; sign up for the newsletter; or listen to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or Google Play. We also have swag at the NYT Store and two books, “Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption” and “Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less.” More
