Hi friends, old and new!! :)

I celebrated another year of getting older and hopefully wiser (?) this 30th of July with friends and a very sunny sun on my side. I was also all over Maryland recently for a week, and I loved my time in a beautiful, diverse land; that was an experience I will forever treasure, for I met some of the best people yet.

I hope you all are doing well, and I hope that the other half of the upcoming 2023 goes smoothly and with much peace. In the human design analogy, going on the roof means entering the second cycle of your life—in my particular design’s interpretation (for everyone, it is different), the one where you are no longer a participant but an observer, and you are moving from the observed to the observer—the Saturn has returned, The Chiron is closing in, and that is all a significant aspect of our natal charts, according to some sites I follow. The implications are yada yada - it is cosmic juggling—but one thing is certain: When individuals reach the second phase, also known as "going up on the roof" in human design terminology, they begin to slow down and focus more inwardly on themselves in order to contemplate all of the life lessons they gained while surviving the Twenties.

Whether it is “Una furtiva lagrima” and the many versions or the urgent need to read Valérie Perrin, who has an extraordinary gift for delving into minute handicapped details of life or exploring the theory of “benign violation,” I tend to oscillate between wanting and needing. Wanting to know and wanting to unlearn. Wanting to float, wanting to submerge. Wanting to be loved and to love…. Then, I started to feed into the purgatory of want and need. Somewhere in between, gazing and peeking, I am, as always, tethering. Somehow, this tethering makes sense as I write about myself and find new challenges. Or are the challenges finding me? I have been using archetypal tarot systems, various kinds of therapy, bodywork, and herbal DIYs, but also knowledge systems like human design, the I Ching, and a new theory daily to UNDERSTAND MYSELF better.

Una furtiva lagrima
negli occhi suoi spuntò:
Quelle festose giovani
invidiar sembrò.
Che più cercando io vo? 
Che più cercando io vo?
M’ama! Sì, m’ama, lo vedo. Lo vedo

The implication is that the historian does not, in fact, capture the past in a faithful fashion but rather, like the novelist, gives the appearance of doing so. Were this version of postmodernism applied to history, the search for truths about the past would be displaced by fictively producing convincing 'truth effects’ - Telling the Truth About History, Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob.

I have been thinking a lot about the classes and studies I am undertaking this semester in Iowa, where my belief in myself as an interdisciplinary artist is increasing daily, and my notions about what this life constitutes are breaking slowly and visibly, with less pain and more audacity. Opera and film studies with Justin Remes, where my summer started with the sweet note of Liebestod, broadly defined as love-related death, when Nemorino cries out to Adina at Inspiration Point in the Ozarks. Emphatically and climatically, he proclaims his love for the beautiful Adina, “Si può morir! Si può morir d’amor” “Yes, I could die! Yes, I could die of love””

Not only does music make a significant number of appearances throughout the film Amadeus (I watched the movie but was not entirely impressed, maybe because I am not accustomed to watching operas and dramatic arias), but it also plays a fascinating part in the story and is an essential component of the structure. This makes music an essential "character" in the film. There was never any intention for the stage production of Amadeus to be a factual biography of the composer, and the movie version is much less of one. For Amadeus's critics, the issue is not only that it distorts history but also that it uses the great composer and his music for commercial purposes.

I have listened to and studied this evening: Puccini: Gianni Schicchi - O mio babbino caro, Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia: Largo al factotum (Cavatina), Mozart: Die Zauberflöte - Queen Of The Night (ONE OF MY FAVS!!) , Puccini: La Bohème - Mi chiamano Mimì, Donizetti: L’Elisir d’Amore - Una furtiva lagrima (What I have the privilege of watching for a few hours and crying in the Ozarks—the only live opera existing in the South), Bellini: Norma, Casta diva, Leoncavallo: Pagliacci - Vesti la giubb, Bizet: Les pêcheurs de perles - Au fond du temple saint, Offenbach: Tales of Hoffmann - Barcarolle (!!!! ), Lastly, Giordano: Andrea Chenier - La Mamma Morta!

I am also taking eco-theater and script writing this Fall. The current environmental predicament has been referred to as a "crisis of imagination." In our eco-theatre class, where I will be doing many regenerative exercises and script writing, we, as writers, care about the environment in more ways than one. As part of its Climate Change Theatre Action, Miami University Theatre’s Mother Earth's Gallery of Broken Things was compiled into short performances to inspire humanity to aid in environmental restoration. Nine authors from across the globe contributed to this site-specific performance, which utilized dance, projections, poetry, narrative, and comedy to create shows that ignite passion for social change. With the aid of student designers, dramaturgs, directors, and managers, they chose short plays from two collections compiled by Chantal Bilodeau and set them up. Questions such as, "Are there things we can do to help save endangered species?" are addressed in various ways across the works. How can we train our ears to better perceive ambient noise? Is there anything our ancestors (or aliens) can tell us to do to save Earth? I believe in not only exploring the contemporary landscape of eco-theater but also it’s history and ancient eco-poetics that involved generative theater practices in varied art forms. 

Our professor has prompted the brethren to rethink the ways in which the art of theater, as well as the educational machinery that feeds and supports it, can contribute to global initiatives in climate protest and action. We want to comprehend the scope and severity of the shifts that are taking place in our world, as well as our unwillingness to let the truth of these shifts penetrate our collective eco-awareness and the audience that each one of us has in front of us. No matter how small or big the audience, a change and an impact are a change and an impact in kind. Everything you do or say now matters. So, choose your worlds and fights wisely. I have chosen mine. I left my job and home, which were familiar and comfortable to me, to find other-comforts. Among other stronger and wiser writers, I am growing wild in my discomfort.

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In other news, I was pleasantly surprised by my friends and cohort mates, who threw me a party or two at Brookside Park downtown on the 30th of July, after which I cooked twelve of my favorite dishes to thank them and celebrate the new younger cohort of artists and writers who have come with dreams of collective brainstorming and life-storming? I was welcomed in Iowa with great love and warmth, which I wish to spread further and wider….

There have been many birthdays spent in the solitude of my room in Vavol, and sometimes in busy cities with strangers for company.

My birthday celebration was one of the best yet. I felt loved and cared for. The community I have found here has nourished me and continues to do so. The newfound family keeps on giving. Sharing, giving, caring…. within environmental collapse, late capitalism, Pandering audiences, hate, white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy…. and surviving…

I decided to host a birthday dinner celebration and planned for months before I cooked my heart out- The stress of presenting and hosting got to me, but it was all worth it in the end…… All the sweat and tears came together beautifully when I saw my people enjoying my food and loving me for what I had achieved! I must have lost a few kilograms, for sure. I am also sure that I am proud of my heritage and the joy food can bring to a communal space. Experiencing happiness and sharing joy in the face of chronic injustices (stipend-less and with a travel bug, try planning a cookout!)
These are collectively freeing and have strengthened my willpower, enriched my imagination, and made me more resilient. Joy is part of our survival kit in Iowa, and I could not have more proof than this:

Shalini Singh's Daawat

Friends & recipes & memories in microfilm

Here are some links to leave you with:

1. Saraswati's Sitar Symphony: Relaxing Music for Concentration and Focus

2. Witangenot Music

3. SAD GIRLZ LUV MONEY (Remix)

4. Art imitates life in plays about finding joy and hope in climate disaster

5. Green Theatre: Confessions of an Eco-Reporter

6. Laughter is the ultimate unifier. Can it work for climate action?

7. Meet the people shaping the future of our planet

8. The Flower Duet Opera- one of my favorite music to analyze and listen

I wrote this post listening to many arias and lesser-known Operatic pieces because I work that way: less to more- Mia Piccirella (No.4) was how I ended this piece, as there is more to come….

This piece will be continued with more Opera and recs!

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