Diva/Mensch pair for Oct 29, 2025

I just have one week left on the Grammy theme and I feel it's time to make a confession. I sometimes have a hard time finding a mensch in the list of winners and nominees. There are a couple reasons for this:

1. I have very slight knowledge of the music scene in recent years. By "recent" I mean since the mid-90s. So I see a name like Doja Cat (for example) and that name does not conjure up music in my brain. I see a name like Glenn Miller or Carole King or The Violent Femmes, I hear music when I see those names ("Moonlight Serenade," "Jazzman," and "Blister in the Sun," to be precise).

2. The Grammys, unlike the Oscars, is overloaded with divas! There are plenty of divas in the Oscars, of course, but often it's a diva playing a mensch. The Grammys are straight up divas all the time.

So I looked through the list for the 2021 awards and found nothing I could use. I decided to look again the next day and my pair is two album titles in the Best Alternative Music Album category. I have no knowledge (or dare I say interest) in the music but the titles scream Diva and Mensch to me:

Diva: Halsey, If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power

Mensch: Arlo Parks, Collapsed in Sunbeams

Even the album covers speak to the divamensch duality:

May I share my one and only association with Halsey? Many years ago my husband Richard and I were watching Fashion Police, the hilarious fashion commentary show on E! hosted by Joan Rivers. They were covering the red carpet at the Grammys or the MTV Video Music Awards or some such event and they were talking about Halsey and her curly 'do.

RICHARD: You know who she looks like?

ME: No, who does she look like?

RICHARD: That woman you love.

[pause]

ME: I need more details.

RICHARD: That woman you love. The one you're always talking about.

ME: You gotta give me more - - is she a singer, an actress?

RICHARD: She's a singer and an actress. A few years ago you were always listening to her albums. You would not shut up about her. She was in that show. Follies. She was in Follies.

ME: Oh my God, Polly Bergen! You are so right! That hairdo is a total salute to Polly Bergen.