Artist Care and Feeding
Artist Care and Feeding
S2E2 : Leah Lax | I Want To Be Dangerous
Leah Lax is: A word person. A people person. One of those creative sorts who has to try to walk around as an ostensibly rational person. (The pandemic has eased that problem.) A secret cellist. And a collaborator, perhaps because she thinks in terms of music she isn’t very good at making herself. Leah is also a refugee from extreme religion, who has seven grown kids. Leah’s memoir Uncovered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home is the only gay memoir ever to come out of the Hasidic world. It was on many “best of” lists, Susan Sarandon read it on NPR, and it is soon to be an opera by Grammy-nominated Lori Laitman.
Leah’s next book is Not From Here, about how she rediscovered America through stories told her by immigrants and refugees, and why that matters. Leah has written four major projects based on interviews with interesting people: a touring photo exhibit, a large scale opera (Houston Grand Opera), a spoken word performance piece (the Houston Symphony), and her book Not From Here.
Twitter: @LeahLax
Facebook: LeahLaxAuthor
Leah's Website: LeahLaxAuthor.com
Welcome back to the artists care and feeding podcast. I am one of your hosts, Kaitlin Barrett. And with me is my cohost Kathleen and our producer Mark rabbit. Our guests today is a really fascinating woman named Layah lax. She wrote a memoir called uncovered about her experience converting to Hasidic Judaism, getting married, having seven children, and then leaving. It's unbelievable. And she has since been in the process of converting the memoir into an opera. She's written a mass, she's an incredibly musical person, and I had a really interesting time talking to her. So please welcome Les. Alax. Hi, Leah, how are you? Hi, how are you? Good. So nice to see you. Where are you coming to us from? I'm in Houston. You're in Houston in a study. It looks like with a lot of books.
Speaker 2:We're going to do everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I love that old typewriters that looks like they're the background.
Speaker 2:I kind of collect them. Me too.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Nice. So are you, uh, well actually we always start with the same question. So I'll start with that. Um, officially, which is, um, and this is intended to be open-ended so you can take it as loosely or literally, or figuratively as you'd like, um, artistically speaking, how would you describe yourself?
Speaker 2:Um, as a, as a, my first reaction to that is to describe myself as a very open-ended kind of artist, um, rather than saying, I'm this kind of artist in this genre or that job. I mean, if you look at the different things that I've done over, say the past 10 years into me, you might imagine that different people, um, had done them because I keep varying often to different areas. I keep pivoting and exploring I've written poetry fiction. Non-fiction, um, I've written for music I've written for opera, um, and all of it, it just, and, uh, you know, I've got a memoir out there. I've got another book manuscript that is right now at a very delicate place that I'm hoping it's going to get picked up. Right. That's my greatest love is prose, but at the heart, I would just say artist, I also, I also paint and make music, you know, so, wow.
Speaker 1:Right. Do you have, um, do you have anything specific that inspires you? Do you see a commonality in the kinds of things that interest you artistically or is it really just whatever kind of comes into view and if you find it interesting you pursue it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think if you'd asked me that question even five years ago, I wouldn't, I would set a fumble around. Um, it's only recently that I, I thought about that and went there's this I'm just super sensitive auditorily. Like some people are very visual. I think about sound all the time when I hear you, I'm listening to the, the resonance in your voice, you know, and I'm listening to the layers and I, I I'll combine it with my read on you're now going to make yourself conscious, combine it with my read on your facial expression of body language. No question, but I'm like a reading at many different levels. I found that when I wrote, when I write the, you know, fiction or nonfiction, when I'm writing about people, I'll always pause and like really take time to describe the sound of their voice, but have to remind myself to like, include color for example,
Speaker 1:Right. Or what they're actually physically doing.
Speaker 2:There's this, there's this listening aspect. I I've, I've done, uh, an international traveling, uh, photo exhibit in a, in an opera and a, um, um, and, uh, uh, uh, what do you call it at a choral work? All based on interviews of people where I had to sit and listen for hours, and now my non-fiction book is the same, you know? So it has that at the core too. So I've made listening to people are really important part of my life.
Speaker 1:I love that. No, I do too. And there was way back in, um, like before I started getting into theater as a living, I took a couple of classes in NLP, which is neuro-linguistic programming. And it just talks about the correlation between the way that people express themselves. And well, it's a lot of different things, but one of the ways in which people use language and it correlates to how they think. So one of the things that has stuck with me, many things did not. But one of the things that stuck with me about that program is the way that people use the words I see you, I hear you, or I feel you when it comes to responding to something, because it's indicative of how they process. So the people who say, I see you tend to process visually the people who say, I hear you or understand, you tend to process auditorially and I feel you is more of a kinesthetic response. So, and it tends to be a little bit global as far as a worldview. So it's really interesting to me because having read your memoir, which I'd like to really get into, um, and knowing that it's being translated into an opera makes total sense to me, given that you process auditorially right. That you would be able to hear the music in it. I think
Speaker 2:I always felt that way. Thank you for saying it. Most people don't, they'll kind of pick up on that, but every now and then somebody tells me, I read your memoir and I heard that music to me. There's music all through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, and I was telling Kathleen, just before we talked to you that I, I wondered because I feel like in the memoir, you talk about music and your musical education being one of your first artistic expressions and getting into, um, the Hasidic culture is very ritual, rich, very ritually oriented, where, and I think artists are also tend to be very ritually oriented. And it made me wonder if you, if your life would have taken a different bent, had you gone in a more artistic direction than the Hasidic direction, or if those things may, I don't know if I'm making any sense with that, but I saw a lot of correlation between that need for ritual in artists and in that culture also,
Speaker 2:I think that need for ritual is a need for structure. Um, and as artists, we, we work very hard every day to and socialize ourselves. I mean, think about it. You know, you had a mom, we all had a mom for many of us, not all of us, certainly our moms were there to socialize us to say, you know, fold your napkin or say thank you. Or, you know, show up on time and do your homework neatly and turn it in, you know, follow the rules, follow the rituals. And then you will be successful in society. And you won't be a wild person cause we're intrinsically wild people. Um, and our moms were a little worried when we didn't fit them all because they worried for us. They tried sometimes they tried to stop it, um, to be an artist. So basically that suppresses, um, uh, impulse, impulse control and increasing impulse control is all about how we get socialized, how we make it in the world. You know, we want to get to the point where we recognize our interior impulses. We respect them, but we also mod modulate them and control them or, you know, we'll be in trouble. Um, and our moms do it well, when I sit down to write, I have to take all of that socializing way and throw it in the trash because those most impulsive thoughts, those most, those silent sudden ideas are the most creative. You know, you know, when artists say, you know, I, I was gonna write this story, but it just took over it. Or this character just has a mind of her own. You know, what they're saying is that I got to that sort of almost half conscious subconscious place where impulse control was thrown away. And I listened to all the spontaneous thoughts and feelings that came up and I let it guide the work. Those one of our most creative artists and our that's, my artists are most dangerous people.
Speaker 1:Truth. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It'd be dangerous, but you always want to
Speaker 1:Be dangerous. Right. Because you're afraid of it. Yeah. So what drew you to, because you didn't, you weren't born into the Hasidic Jewish culture. No,
Speaker 2:I was born to children of immigrants who, I mean, like, if you really want to go there, do you want me to go there?
Speaker 1:You can go anywhere. You want.
Speaker 2:My grandparents were refugee children. Um, they, and they grew up in this country, but they left all their typical of Jewish people. My age, they left all their other extended family behind. And they were, uh, came to a country that was pretty antisemitic, pretty anti anything that wasn't white and Christian, we got here. And we find out that we we're, we don't rate because there were restrictions on Jews everywhere. They would turn that remained true through my parents' generation as well. Lots of universities. Uh, certainly once they were in universities, I couldn't get into any of the social clubs or anything like that. Um, I mean, everywhere a lot, you know, that whole areas of the city, where it was written into the, uh, uh, covenants, they call them Jews and blacks can't buy property here. That was the world they came to, but they have one advantage. They got here and discovered they were white and they could pass we Jews where they quite were white, if you like us. And we're not, if you don't. Yeah. But they studied hard how to pass hard. And that means they leaned on me very hard to be, you know, the next generations to be better, better, you know, more white than the white people. Right. Uh, so that we could get ahead.
Speaker 1:Right. And some of that had to be a protective instinct. Right. Because they don't want, they don't want you to struggle the way that they struggled.
Speaker 2:Totally. I mean, think about it. Yeah. A lot of the way your kids get ahead is because you're a part of a network and your parents connect you to a network. What happens if they just got here? And there is no network for them? What happens if all of that net was cut and they're completely on their own? Oh yeah. So they didn't want to tell me anything about what they left or what they lost. That's very typical. And I'm a way where it was just absolutely demanded of us. I mean, my family had no money whatsoever and me and my sisters all have master's degrees. We did out of fear like we had.
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah. No, I understand that. Yeah. And I mean, especially in a family where you're adjusting to a new country, also, it's a lot of trying to figure out what the rules are. I feel in any scenario. So, so you[inaudible]. Yeah,
Speaker 3:No, I love getting carried away, carry on.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, that sense, but I was basically a very wild thinker and a very, you know, I, as a child, I was doing it all. I was writing and drawing and I was making music and, and I was studying acting. And like, I just, I just wanted it all. And
Speaker 3:Was that encouraged by your parents and that those artistic pursuits?
Speaker 2:Um, my family didn't know where, like my immediate family with my parents and like my grandparents and aunt and uncle, you know, where one ended and the other began. So some incur my mother encouraged it, but you know, the more extended family, particularly my grandparents sort of, you know, with fear, but yes. Right. Um, you know, all right, you want to do that, but you have to go to school, you know? Right. You have to dress nicely. You have to be nice. It was like that. I think I was a role besides I was a baby lesbian. So I think I was kind of terrified of my own impulses and I was pretty impulsive. Um, but I, I know that the structure in the Hasidic world was very enchanting, but it, it also, it seemed to me to recreate in my, you know, fifth, I w it's ridiculous to say a 15 or 16 year old as immature. Of course they are, but I was immature for a 15 or 16 year old. Right. And to me, they recreated the sort of fantasy, um, replica of everything my family had lost. So here's the network. So there's this community, here's everything we didn't have. We were this tiny little family turned in on ourselves,
Speaker 3:Was your family when they came to the States. So your, your parents came and your grandparents came at the same time. So my, and I know that one of the narratives for the Jewish community in the United States is that the first generation either didn't want anything to do with the religion that was left behind or clung to it as like a life raft. And then the next generation after that did the, whatever the opposite was. So if so, I'm curious, were you raised religiously and at what it, no. No. I was the backlash. You were the, so you did the, I'm going to go back for, and so where did HASA deism come cross paths with you? Is it through Lubavitch or was it through something else? How did you find them? Or how did they find you?
Speaker 2:First of all, because my family was so ardently, secular Jewish and liberal, it was the perfect adolescent rebellion. Okay.
Speaker 3:Ah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then the Bobbitt soda doing outreach with kids and campuses on campuses and stuff like that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's a rabbi, right? Or it's a Ababa, it's a movement, it's a movement, it's a movement. We'd call ever angelical Jews for lack of a better, they go looking for. Uh, usually it's men, uh, men they'll walk up to you on the street. If you're a man that asks, are you Jewish? Do you have like around, uh, in the winter time that I was stopped when I was younger and had dark blonde curly hair and our friend Joanna used to get stopped all the time and asked if I had a, um, a menorah, do you have a menorah? And, uh, you know, I, I didn't and she didn't. And they would just say, well, we got one for you. They want to connect you. They want to connect with Jews who are not religiously active with a Wright's religiously active Jewish faith. Right,
Speaker 2:Right. And a lot of them, you know, especially in the, that, because there's been a lot of fallout because they were overzealous and converted. A lot of young people very quickly, who then had often had a social or emotional problems because, you know, they'd just turn their whole life upside down. A lot of the, not all certainly, but you know, a healthy number of the younger generation in the bobbins thing, they just, they're kind of innocent. They just want to give you a, do a connection to your roots. I don't necessarily, I'm not promising one or the other, but they don't necessarily want you to, you know, become a hustler tomorrow. They just, they just feel that their job is education, but their, their mode of Judaism is the only mode that is authentic to them. And, um, it's very black and white thinking. And, um, I felt the pressure very much at that point very much. I felt, I felt I couldn't. I felt like I was succumbing. I felt like I was falling in at the time into like an ocean that I didn't know my way out.
Speaker 3:And how old were you when you dove in
Speaker 2:16, 17. By 17. I was completely
Speaker 3:High school right now,
Speaker 2:But I graduated high school at 16, so
Speaker 3:Right. That's what I remembered. I was like, I felt, I feel like it was a college program or a college group. How fast? Sorry. No, no, go ahead. How fast were you married?
Speaker 2:Uh, I was engaged at 1870. By the time it was completely Bobbitt engaged at 18 and married, acclimates after my 19th birthday. Wow. One day. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I just think about myself at 18. And if someone was like, Hey man, it's time to get married. I'd been like, Oh, what? I still don't feel like when you were talking about like, I was an immature 15, I'm like, I'm an immature 35. Like,
Speaker 2:I love you because you know, it, cause my, I won't say anything about my own kids, but you know, that's not always true. Let's just put it that way. Like I spurred it up
Speaker 4:Really quick. Like I was, I was immature till I was like 28 and then I shot up to 35 and now I'm still staring at 35. And then when I'm 50, I'm going to still be 35. Like I've only matured like a few years. Very briefly.
Speaker 1:I feel most teenagers feel they're more mature than they are. I think that's just part of the process of being a teenager is that you're sure you know everything and you're sure that you're mature and you're sure you're making all the right decisions. It's just part of the process.
Speaker 5:They think they're much older, much more mature than their parents, you know, that March Mark Twain line right about, I don't know the numbers, I'm not going to quote it. Right. But he said, basically I went away from home at 18 and came back at 25 and I was amazed at how much my parents had learned.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah. I do remember that. Yeah. Similar. Right. When you enter that kind of a community, um, you talked about looking for structure. I mean, there are very clear expectations, rules and roles for both genders, but certainly for women, like they told you that
Speaker 5:You mean for two genders or why.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, you're right enterprise. But so you went from not having any of that to being told who to marry. Where did they tell you? Did you have a choice? I mean,
Speaker 5:Oh, I had it. I had a choice to I'm married. Um, but you know, the pressure was very strong to marry. That was your children as a girl. That was your purpose in life. That's how you achieved the ultimate holiness.
Speaker 1:Wow. Right. And so
Speaker 5:Let's say I was also, you know, it was the seventies, so that was a baby lesbian. It really basically a gender person. You know, I got, I dream at night. Sometimes I'm male, sometimes I'm female and I'll say the same to me in my head. Right. Um, and so I kinda was an adolescent. I watched all my girlfriends get stereotypically feminine to the point where I didn't recognize them. I'm like guys, guys, I don't know you anymore. And then I find this, um, group that has to be a, basically a bulleted list. Here are your rules. Here's how to be a girl. And I'm like, Hey God, I didn't know how to do this. All I have to do is follow the rules. I mean, I was that stupid, but it was very calming at the time.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. And it, I mean, it can be soothing to just be, if you are a person who is, who has a lot of confusion and are impulsive and there's a lot of influences, you can understand someone being like, I don't want fewer choices than this. These are too many choices. Put me, put me within a rule book. And that makes much more sense to me. Then I can know what's in the rules and what's outside of the rules instead of just this wild, like have your own life sort of scenario.
Speaker 5:I also moved out of my home at 16. I at 17, I was out in the world, right. So I had a lot of too many choices and I didn't have that safety net. I didn't have those people. And I found that the very close knit community, enormously safe and comforting. I'm a K person you're in my cave right now. It's like, I just, I, wherever I go, I, I can the K I think Mark does too. Aren't you in your closet?
Speaker 6:The closet is literally in a closet.[inaudible]
Speaker 4:I am in a closet omit literally. And, uh, and it's only because it's the quietest part of my house, so I can leave my computer set up here. I'm going to buy it.
Speaker 6:Yes. It's a closet in a basement apartment on Capitol Hill in DC, the layers,
Speaker 4:This is a$1,300 a month office.
Speaker 6:Um, the, I,
Speaker 4:That leads me to a question I had, because you said that you're gender fluid. And, um, and I, and I'm wondering about this because I feel like this affects me. I am not like, hyper-masculine like, I don't consider myself a masculine, but I am like, I know exactly what I am now. Like in this moment in my life, I'm like, I'll get by amaze straight CIS white male. Like I know what I am. And so, but I find that the art that I'm attracted to making is also somewhat stereotypically male. It doesn't all of my art lacks a softness to it. I appeal like my favorite thing to photograph is abandoned detritus. Like if, if you show me a building that's falling down, I want to find the weirdest thing and I didn't take a picture of it.
Speaker 5:You're a district.
Speaker 4:Well, like a little bit of that. Yeah. Like I love the idea of shooting things. I like going fast. Like a lot of my, a lot of my interests and the things that I want to make art about and around are, are, are kind of stereotypically, you know, quote unquote, stereotypically male. When you make art, do you find that your gender fluidity makes it more easy to sort of add some softness or add some, some prickliness to the art?
Speaker 5:Totally, totally. I don't have problems with male or female characters. Um, unless they, my only problem is that I want to give them distinction from one,
Speaker 6:But yeah, which is the problem of just characterization in general.
Speaker 5:And since I stand out of a binder outside of a binary, biologically, I look at being an artist in, in our society. I look at the imposition of binary thinking is just, uh, a horrible thing. I mean, for example, for example, you know, what appeals to you Mark as an artist, but think about what to you as a person, why would it have to be said that it's not masculine to F to like, let's say you had an infant to want to hold the infant and to be overcome with feelings of tenderness for that infant that is not a momentary feminine aspect in your, why can't that be part of being masculine? What's wrong with saying, being masculine is having the strength to feel utterly CIS white gender, even in this and in the moments when you're completely embraced your tenderness or your softness or your, or your love of beauty, or, you know, you're a, you're a complex three-dimensional person.
Speaker 4:Right. And I, and I don't, and I try to like, be aware of that. Like I try to know when I see something I'm like, Ooh, I don't like flowers. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I think flowers are girly. It's that I'm hyper allergic to roses aware of this. And so the smell of flowers triggers my lizard brain. It's going to stay away from it. It'll kill you. And so that's like how I am, but I, yeah, like I think babies are cute. I like when there's a puppy I'm I was like a puppy. I cry when I'm drunk holding a puppy.[inaudible] Hey, hang on a second to a minute. But, but I also, so I'm not like I never rail against anything that I feel. I just, I noticed that my, my, the things that I find attractive in I'm like, Oh, I want to put that on. Is never like, I I've never seen a dress that I was like, Ooh, who do you think that'll look good on me, but[inaudible] do you know that about yourself? And you're like, doesn't that shirt look good? Why does it look good? And I have, uh, this is like, this is going to bother me to the end of my life. But you know, you know, when you look on the news and you see like a, like a proud boy, you know, like one of those dudes is like bags, right? Those guys are the worst. But what I, I find a special hatred of them because they look cool to me, a guy in a Hawaiian shirt without like a, like an army style, like that's on, you know, and like close cropped hair and like those kind of big glasses. I'm like, I think that looks cool. That guy looks cool to me. I want to look like that guy. And then they open their mouth and they're full of hatred and they're terrible. And I want to be like, why couldn't you guys just be cool? Cause then I could dress like you enough feel bad. You know,
Speaker 5:When, when I was a kid that, you know, the late night television was big and I was always breaking my, my curfew and watching it, but there was a football player. Um, that was like a, you know, like a 280 pound guy today, he'd be three 20. Cause football players are just like bigger with every generation. But, uh, he was, uh, uh, w what do you call those, those guys that are like at the back line that are blocking every one of the really big ones. I hate that arose in Greer. Here's this better, you know, shoot gruff guy who would be on late night television. He always brought us knitting, gentle soul. I admire that so much. He was, he was a big, tough guy who looked like what you're describing, you know, like all muscle type shirt, everyone would look at him. And, uh, he embraced all sides of him and did it publicly. And I just, Oh my God, he became an icon for sure. Because of that. I mean, that's, that's both self security, right? Like I secure in your own self identity, but that also is like a little bit of like a, like a needle in society, a needle and people's expectations. And also maybe some PR savviness where you're like, this is me separating myself from the crowd. I here's a whole bunch of people who look the same, not the same. I know, stereotype here. Something unique about me even all these years later, we remember him. Right. He was on Johnny Carson's couch and somebody else wasn't right. Cause he wasn't good on him.
Speaker 4:Yeah. See, I'm not that way. I am, I am a Bismal average, uh, in so many things like that.
Speaker 5:True.[inaudible]
Speaker 4:So if you, I guarantee if you gave me, if you gave me an IQ test, it's going to be an average IQ at like, my shoe size is average. Like I'm, I'm a Bismal average. And it's like, I'm I approve of this? Like, I'm like, listen, the bell-curve exists for a reason. There's I I'm right. Dead center in the middle. And I am fine with that because I, at least I'm not below the curve. Like at least I'm not like, man, you've really weird looking feet. And they're like, yeah, no, they're huge. Aren't they like, I don't want that either. But so, so like existing in the middle of the pack, appeals to me,
Speaker 5:Bring it back, which is exactly why, why I make art the way I do. I'm no genius. Half the time I'm listening to people, tell their stories. I'm going, you can't make this up. I'm really saying I couldn't make this up. Right. Right. I'm so blown away by the real stories in the world. And I, you know, I'm so humbled by them as an artist all the time, because I know genius. I just have trained myself to listen. And I've convinced myself that every single person, whatever they look like on the outside, they are embodying their absolute opposite. And I'll listen till I find it because it's only when I find both the man, you know, both sides of them. They're not a stereotype anymore. Now they're real. That's when you know, those are the kinds of characters I want to create on the page. Always, always the only thing that makes them interesting is when you get a read on them and then they turn into something, you do something or, or show us that don't, that doesn't fit the read because people are, people are just bundles of contradictions. I mean, they're really, you know, impossible. The kindest people I know can be. Right. So why not? Um, you know, make it real.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So what, go ahead, Kath. I was going to say, uh, I wanted to ask you about music and when that started in your life and how that changed when you joined, uh, in a Hasidic community. Um, I know that different Orthodox have different rules about lots of things, but in some traditions, women aren't allowed to sing. Right. Were you allowed to sing?
Speaker 5:So first I heard the music that the movement sings, they have this whole tradition of what the con legal name they're there. They're always in a melodic, minor melodies. And, um, and they're often without words or with just two or three words that they repeat again and again. So they're pretty mesmerizing and very heartfelt. And, Oh my God. I mean, I could assign them all day long and I was figuring them out on my cello. It sounded like the perfect instrument for them. I think the music, music and the way they use music to, um, uh, they'll they would sing, they would sing songs in groups and sing them again. And again again, again, and you're just, you just felt yourself floating down into the middle of it and carried away. Um, the music of the movement drew me in very, very much. It tells me the heart and soul of this place. And I said, okay, now, now I know this is where I want to be. But now of course, once I joined, I found out I knew beforehand, but I had ignored it. Now the women weren't allowed to sing at all at all. Right. So I said, okay, that doesn't matter. I'll still get home. But my music, it just melted away. It went flat and I put it away. My cello literally lived 30 years in the closet.
Speaker 3:So with, with, as being someone who was so are really auditorily focused and such a musical person in the very like core of your being in many ways,
Speaker 5:That doesn't mean I'm that talented. It just means that I was done.
Speaker 3:Talent is talent is a very relative concept anyway. But where did you find that music in those 30 years when you couldn't express yourself? Musically,
Speaker 5:Just, just hearing you say it. I think there's 30. The first feeling I have about those 30 years is a desert. You know, we had just a handful of songs. We sang a lot at home, but not at the sat a table. Um, you know, I, I, I, that wasn't my role. So, um, and I married someone who was very tone deaf, so it was really painful.
Speaker 1:So he's having like a tragedy on top of trash.
Speaker 6:Uh, when I, you know,
Speaker 5:The look at my book and say, cause I wrote the libretto for the opera. So imagine this imagine you've written a book with, I don't know, something like, let's say it had 180,000 words, is that about right? I don't know, but you know, for, for a, um, an hour long opera, you get more like 4,000 words. Right. So how do you choose? So I just sat down. I actually got, uh, my friend will let me go to her beach house. And I went there alone and it was a really awful time of year. So it was really gray and the beach was deserted and it was cold and happy place. Right.
Speaker 6:I love, I love a good[inaudible] strand. Yes, please.
Speaker 5:Uh huh. You guys aren't Texans, are you? I have
Speaker 1:Not at all.
Speaker 5:Um, I had to ask myself what, what let's say, what five moments in the whole book, can I absolutely not live without that, without which this story would not be this story. And I did. And I was surprised that one of the, one of the key ones to me was putting the cello away for the last time. It's like a two-page scene in the book. And, um, and then at the very end of the book, you see me go back and leave the house and then go wait. And I go back in the house. I take the cello with me. Um,
Speaker 1:Remember that when I read the book and I, I am not a musical person. I took piano for 10 years when I was a kid between seven and 17. When I graduated high school, I was, but they never, my mother likes to say that I was very technically adept, which I was simply because I tend to be more perfectionistic when it comes to attempting things, but I never expressed myself musically. I didn't understand that connection. But when I read your book and I hear the way that you talk about music and that moment that you put your cello away was really emotionally wrenching as a reader because you didn't deal with it in a really emotional way in the book, but you can feel the severing of an old life at that moment where you're making a choice to turn away from something that fed you and to try and hopefully find that thing in another life. And you already, as a reader know that you're probably not gonna find it. Right. So yeah, it's, I can understand why that moment was part the opera
Speaker 3:Because it's so pivotal, it feels like
Speaker 5:The other thing, another one of the key turning points that I could not. And I want to start by saying, wait a bit, I can't say another word about this opera without mentioning the spectacular composer who has, is a finalist right now for a Grammy Laurie Lightman, who has, um, it is, it is not easy to be a female classical composer for, for orchestra and for mainly for voice and, uh, and make it in this world. It is
Speaker 3:Right,
Speaker 5:Right. Um, Sue's amazing. And, um, uh, yeah, so I had to mention Laura because she just completed the music for the opera. And so we just talked today. It's her birthday. Happy birthday, Laurie.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Fantastic.
Speaker 5:She was just, she was telling me that she was editing note by note, you know, she's going back through and checking every single didn't dot, uh, cause she just completed the orchestration. Um, anyway, the, the other piece I had to call Lori up in the beginning, um, and say, Laurie, we need to talk because there's another scene in this, in this book that I, I don't think I wouldn't be here talking to you if it hadn't happened to me. And that was the abortion that's in the book, right? If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here talking to you guys either.
Speaker 3:Mm no, because that really was in large part medical. Right? You didn't feel like you would be able to go through another pregnancy.
Speaker 5:I didn't think I'd survive. Right. And, and to, you know, but I just, I w I'm going to complete the previous thought that was, I had never heard of an opera with an abortion in it, like never. And so kudos to Laurie to have it for having the courage to say, well, of course, because we've got lots of bookings now and it's just beginning, so it will get out there. Um, it, it, I entered a world that said, you don't own your body. God owns your body. The law, you know, the religious law owns your body. You follow the rules. And by following the rules, you're giving yourself to God that that was the mindset. Like we didn't think to comment. And if you don't, if you can't use birth control, you're going to have seven kids. You're going to have them. Right. I had to get to that point where I thought I was going to break right. Where it didn't matter anymore. It was like, great. I want to follow the rules. Great. This is my life. Great. I'm I'm in so deep. I can't, you know, wouldn't have imagined that to leave anyway. Uh, but I better stay alive because my whole life has been these children. And right now I think I might die. So all bets are off now. And for the very first time in my adult life, because I grew up there. So I grew up in that binary thinking that black and white, that follow the rules. I was a kid when I joined them. Finally, I said, no, um, I know something that you don't know that no rabbi knows that I'm not even sure doctor knows. My gut is telling me, listening to my gut for the first time ever that I'm not going to survive. And even if I do survive, something in me is going to die. And I'll I'll, I won't come back from this like crazy driven, crazy. And once I took charge of my own body, once I took ownership of my own body, once I overruled the rabbis and the obligations of a social expectations, timid little knee, after that, I didn't come back from it. After that, it was like, Whoa. You know, I, I began to make my own choices and chart my own path.
Speaker 1:It is another really pivotal moment, right. In both your life and in the telling of the story. And how old were you when that was
Speaker 5:Transpiring?
Speaker 1:You can't early thirties, maybe upper thirties. Okay.
Speaker 5:Maybe 37, 38 around there where it was after my second child. Wow.
Speaker 1:But also Roe V. Wade was not very old as far as like how long it had been in place by that point, because we're talking, it wasn't foolish. No. Oh wait. No, I knew it was there, but it was like less than 20 years old. So we're talking about generations of women for whom that wasn't even an option.
Speaker 5:I'll tell you to tell you, but it was easier to get an abortion then than it is now.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 5:It's gotten, you know, it's gotten much worse,
Speaker 1:Right? Hmm. The law has gotten more complicated around it. I think
Speaker 5:Doctors, yeah. Doctors are much more reluctant and insurance companies were conveniently said, Oh, we're not, COVID carrying that, covering that. And like, it's, it's much harder now than it was then. Hmm.
Speaker 1:But this, um, for whatever reason, this makes me think of the mikvah. A bet, which I don't, I mean, maybe in part, because while we were talking about it before the podcast, Kathleen and I worked, cause I felt like it was a thread. It also feels womb. Like it's also a place of rebirth. So I may be though all those connections kind of come to it, but it really feels like a very strong through line that runs through your memoir, this, um,
Speaker 5:Grumpy cause there's like six or seven different scenes that are in the mikvah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you've started a project with a photographer friend called the mikvah project. Can you tell us more about that? Because I find that really interesting. Uh, yeah.
Speaker 5:Well that was in the late eighties. We did it. I think we opened it in 1990 or 91. Am I right? Or do I have my time completely off? Huh? Let me think about it. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's much later than that. Anyway. Um, uh, but the stories in that book, um, we started interviewing women and asking them to tell us about their experience with the mikvah, but traditionally in Judaism and I'm talking about for a couple of thousand years, women were supposed to talk about it and it's, it's embedded that quiet, that secrecy is pretty embedded. Um, so women were very startled when we went, you know, we want to talk to you where you, but they interviewed you about going to the midfield. It's like, you want me to talk about what?
Speaker 4:And for those of us who, like, I, I read a little bit of the, um, website and I still have no idea. What is that?
Speaker 5:It's a ritual bath. It's a little tiny, narrow pool that has been built at the back of synagogues for like the last 2000 years. And women would go and immerse. It's the predecessor of baptism as what it is. It was intended to immerse for, uh, become spiritually pure. And it used to be when it originally originated, it was for men and women and men often will still go before they pray. But, um, at some point the men weren't obligated anymore and most of them quit, but they said that women, you know, the worst part is that you bleed. So you still have to do it because we won't touch you if you dove. And it became a way for women to have to purify themselves. So they, you know, so there has been, in fact, the men were not allowed to touch them until they stopped bleeding and went and got pure from it, which is so misogynist. And so, I mean, you can unpack a thousand awful things from this, but what happened is that women,
Speaker 4:Something in a movie where then the camera turns and everyone has a pig face. Like, you know what I mean? Like Twilight, that sounds, that is our mirror thing. And I'm like, I am, so I was in Christian.
Speaker 5:Oh, you work? So you're so get okay
Speaker 4:When I was in junior high and for like a year and a half. And then since then I have been so like anti religion or like, not, not like spirituality, but just like established religion. Like if you go to a building I'm like, Nope, not going there. And I've been to some churches with friends and like, they'll like, I've always wanted to see what a Baptist church was like. So I went to a Baptist church with a friend of mine and like I've experienced them, but never enough to like really see all of the aspects of it. And some of those things, like when people tell me that stuff, I'm like, this sounds crazy. And you just said, yes. And you just go in the bath. And they're like, yeah, just
Speaker 5:Like strip naked and go on this water. And then, you know, God will love you, but you know, get it that it doesn't really matter how, how much sense it makes. It matters. The sense that people make of it. So these bands were created and women have gone to them for hundreds of years. And in Orthodox communities, they become this all feminine space. This women's sanctum this place, where were, we were told, God hears you. Well, God didn't hear us anywhere else. In fact, we weren't even allowed to pray out loud anywhere else. And here was the incredible thing where we're told, you know, it's body is dirty. Spirit is Holy, but we'd go to the mikvah. And the holiest place was when we were in the water, how primarily you get wearing nothing at all embraced by this warm water and praying and praying out loud. Right? So there's so much paradox in it. And women love not all of them. Some of them hate it. Some women have embraced it very much turned it on its head, giving it a very spiritual meaning and in recent years, and that's what we've started to fight with the, for project is that secular Jewish women were beginning to sort of say, no, we're going to take the good part out of it. Yeah. We're going to make it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, and that's what I love about. So many of those little clip, the bio clips on the website is that some people find it. So they find it oppressive because they're being told to do it because it's part of a structure that's keeping them locked into a place and a time and a person. Right. And then other women find it so liberating because like you said, it's the one place where they can be with other women, be themselves, be naked, pray be, you know, I don't know, find their own really alone in that there's a quiet seven children. Yeah.
Speaker 5:We'd sit in the waiting room and gab for hours like Nixa night, mom did come home forever, you know, immersion texts, five minutes. And that your buddy that would watch, you know, when you immersed that it becomes like one of your best friends, because it's such a vulnerable time and you're trusting this other person. And um, I mean, there was a lot of, we made it beautiful. I'm not saying it was intended this way, but we made it a very beautiful thing. So I set the large middle movement of the opera in a mikvah. I mean literally under the water, it takes place under the water.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I was saying to Kathleen that the watt, the light, I didn't necessarily, because you can't tell from the preview of the opera, what, what movements are, which, but the lighting in part of it while they're talking about the mikvah was like, they're under water. It looks like light through water. It's got that like beautiful blue wavery tint to it. And I find it really enchanting. In fact, the, I don't know, I love water. So,
Speaker 5:So there's three of us in this team. And the other is a woman named Beth Greenberg who was an opera director for city opera for like 25 years. I mean, she was really wonderful and she seasoned visioning, you know, her, her, her part is the visual. And she's often told me that she could, she would set the entire opera inside and make for like some, like, you know, maybe have everybody sit inside an empty swimming pool on top, take the whole thing, blue or something. Yeah. Of making all of the opera, uh, an act of memory as sense and precedent, active memory, and actually occurring beneath the water. I mean, this is how powerful those sort of motif is on that very massage and this ritual one thing in bodice embodying it's opposite. It's like, like if that were, if I were to typify my art in every area, I just got finished writing a mass, by the way,
Speaker 3:I saw that too. How very Bernstein of you? Um,[inaudible], that's so unfortunate. Uh, we both had to our theater program in college, one of the initial pro one of the initials assignments was to listen to Bernstein's house. I'm sorry. I said it. No, it wasn't actually that it was because it was amazing, but it, because it evokes a strong reaction and that was the point is to figure out, not figure out, but relay what sort of reaction you had as you were listening to it, because it's a very powerful piece, right?
Speaker 5:Scene. I mean, Bernstein was a wonderful composer. He was a very powerful composer, but I got with this composer is just your age Mark. And you remind me of him. And, and he's a refugee basically from fundamentalist, religion on one side, there used to send it from Mennonites. And he was raised in this very strict Baptist, almost cultish environment. And like me, I mean, being an artist is what saved me. It's why I left. You could say, well, it's because I'm a lesbian, but I, I, I, I started writing. I started writing the middle of the night as a Hasidic person and writing it. They consider it very powerful with women were re wrote. And it, when women wrote, they were supposed to be basically writing, uh, rhetoric and arguments for belief to inspire people. And they were writing for other women. And that is not what I was writing. I was writing short stories where I was fictionalizing, the secrets, the secrets that people were repressing around me, the foibles and the dark side that nobody wanted. Everybody could see, but nobody would talk about, and I would hide them.
Speaker 3:What would have happened if your husband or somebody else had found what you were writing, what would it, what would have happened?
Speaker 5:He was a pretty good guy in that respect. I don't think that would have been a problem, but for some women it would very, very much would have been,
Speaker 3:Still felt transgressive to you because you weren't to be doing wow. Wow.
Speaker 5:I mean, you would print them out. Yeah.
Speaker 4:[inaudible]
Speaker 3:But it makes it a bit of an open secret too, because it's not like you locked it in a vault or burned it, or like, it was almost, you were asking to have other people see it, find it.
Speaker 5:Oh, I made it so accessible. It was like an open wave kind of wire cage thing on wheels. Like you just had to pull it out and you could see
Speaker 3:So true.
Speaker 5:Uh, now why was I going there?
Speaker 3:Well, I was about to ask you a question that saved you, that art saved you.
Speaker 5:Um, because I started thinking outside the box within Relic religion, our religion was telling us what to think and believe, and constantly schooling us every single day to continue that suppression, that socialization, the mommy socialization is talking about every single day and the more I wrote cause I had horrible insomnia. I wonder why the more I wrote, the more I started listening to those, um, impulsive, you know, creative thoughts that I didn't understand why the more I developed as an artist, my faith was melting away, but I couldn't tell the line anymore. And this happened to my composer friendship. We meet all these years later, we met because he was a grand opera, put us together for another project a couple of years ago. And we finally share this and, and COVID really is why the mash happened.
Speaker 4:When, when you say that your faith is melting away, do you think that it was your like belief in God or was it just that it was, you didn't want to, uh, be a part of that thing that was so oppressive to women.
Speaker 5:And did I answer from where I am now from how I was feeling at the time?
Speaker 4:So when you said just now, like that you felt it right away, do you still think that that's true or do you think that you just changed? What faith, what, where you put your faith kind of thing?
Speaker 5:So that at the time I thought that I could hold onto my faith because my faith was an anchor. Um, God was like my best friend, you know, ever at my sleeve. I was never alone. I always had that guide. I always had that sort of warm, you know, protection, uh, in, in my imagination. Um, and all I knew at the time was that the more I wrote and I didn't write about such things, I was just writing stories with real people that seem to be disappearing. I didn't feel like I didn't feel so important anymore. I didn't feel that what I did would make a difference. I felt I was just going to die and I'm one of billions of people. And even my writing, well, you know, just be scraps, like when you're deeply religious, they tell you that your faith will change the world, right. In some, you know, esoteric way you feel really important. I didn't feel important anymore. And none of us do, right. When, you know, a real grownup has understands that existential stuff, I don't matter and has to face it with courage and be an artist anyway, you know, like keep moving. Um, but, uh, so at the time, yeah, that's what was happening to my faith today. If I were going to say, what was it like, what is it like looking back? I would say that's when I grew up and I'd say, uh, most of the people I know that were in deeply fundamentalist environments, they didn't really grow up emotionally or intellectually until they left. I look at it as a whole world of arrested adolescence.
Speaker 3:Did you find that a, have you discovered a spirituality that works for you now? Or is that whole area just not something that you plug into anymore?
Speaker 5:A morphous constantly changing sometimes real, sometimes not. The only thing that's real is that I, um, I promised myself early on that I would hang a question Mark in the air right in front of my face and I would always follow it. Um, and, uh, there's a part like almost, almost a, you know, an ecstatic moment in the mass where, um, the singer says, uh, let me see if I can open that. Let's say, you're basically says here tell you, but nobody knows this. So you can't tell anybody.
Speaker 3:Oh, I mean, don't even worry. It's not like it's going broadcasts or not. While you're looking while you're looking that up, the opera that's based on uncovered. Is that being pre, is that set to be produced somewhere?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it will be premiered at, Oh God, I'm not going to get this. Right. And I meant to write it all down. Um, uh, it, it's going to go. I know for sure. It's going to go to a series of, uh, universities, um, and the first one to step up and ask for the rights of the premier. Isn't this wonderful as a university of Utah, it's a morning.
Speaker 3:Interesting things going on out there, especially among the women. Yeah. Wow. I love that though. I mean, I really love the title uncovered for a number of reasons, but it does apply to any conservative religious practice, right? It has a tendency to cover up their women in general. Well, most, most, or all religion, every religion. It also has a nice resonance with apocalyptic ideas. Cause the apocalypse is the, you know, the great uncovering of things that are hidden. Right. Really? Yes. Yeah. That's the world. The word doesn't mean destruction. It means uncovering. Revealing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting.
Speaker 5:Here's the quote is the big finale. It says now defined promise and questions that remain. God has questions. God is nothing. Miss God is song without words. That's at the end of essential movement. So on that, on that line about uncovered, I, I dedicated my book to covered women everywhere because I felt an enormous affinity for these women that their religion and their society tells them to stay covered and tells them that the way you are close to God is by being modest and covering yourself. Um, and so I just dedicated to covered women everywhere. And now I am very happy to say that conference is being translated into Arabic. Wow. And I just received the last chapters, completed it during COVID. This is one of those amazing things that happened during COVID for me.
Speaker 3:Wow. Wow. Is this the first language it's being translated into or are there others as well? It's the very first language is Arabic. That's beautiful. That is amazing.
Speaker 5:We got to show this to a very specific group. Well, here's how it happened. There's a few people that got together that were, um, uh, refugees in recent years. What is a guy named, uh[inaudible] um, and he's from Iraq and they formulated, they formed an organization called ideas beyond borders and their ideas. The following that given the issue that in Arabic speaking countries, there isn't a lot of distribution of books or access to, uh, books of, you know, sort of that challenged totalitarianism or, uh, or from Western thinking. So they decided to create an online library of books that are translated into Arabic and make them available for free download.
Speaker 3:You've heard of this. Yes. I've heard of this.
Speaker 5:That that little non-profit is huge. Right. But uncovered was one of the very first books that they asked for and I done it to them to translate.
Speaker 3:Wow. That, that is, that is going to be very inspirational. I feel in general, the uncovered opera, has it been, has it been staged
Speaker 5:Already know because of COVID cancel?
Speaker 3:Is it the, the libretto that's being translated or the book both?
Speaker 5:Wait a minute, wait a minute. Hold the opera was supposed to premiere in New York at this lovely little opera company called city lyric. But, you know, instead they managed to, they managed to film one very restricted in Ribeira stricter way that managed to film one scene. And they did a little sort of preview
Speaker 6:That you can find online and audience we'll we'll link to that in her bio. So you can see it.
Speaker 5:Yeah. But it will have it say your new year period, New York premiere, it's the memoir that the opera came off of, but it's been translated and I keep picturing women and like, you know, he, you know, burkas or something like completely covered it, he jumps or whatever. Um, I picture them with a phone in their pocket, you know, in quiet times, just take the phone out and they can read and then put it back in,
Speaker 6:Like, not even right.
Speaker 5:So first of it's exactly the word because unfortunately antisemitism is a real big issue, but, um, in some of those countries, but it's not anti-religion to be rigid. If you read a book about a woman who leaves Judaism, it's just not, you know, it's like doubly subversive and I'm just really happy.
Speaker 6:Gosh, the mass is called what
Speaker 5:The mass is called mass and exile
Speaker 6:Mass in exile, and that's unrelated right. To uncovered. That's a different story. Yeah. So how did you get involved in writing a mass when you're neither Catholic with an expert angelical? It sounds like with a refugee from evangelical fundamentalism, and then you,
Speaker 5:The background of is that either let's do a map,
Speaker 6:Where are the pieces that led to that piece?
Speaker 5:Um, Mark posted on Facebook one day, uh, a, uh, uh,
Speaker 6:Mark, the composer Mark, our producer. I'm sorry, Mark.[inaudible]
Speaker 5:Because music is gorgeous. I've done. We did a previous project together that did, uh, you know, through grand opera. Um, Mark posted on Facebook one day, uh, a translation of, um, Psalm one 30. And if you read, it sounds like starting started, like how starting startling. I can't talk how, how current it is because it's a rage against the government and it starts by saying, do you think you speak justice? And when
Speaker 6:That question right at this moment, actually, hello.
Speaker 5:So Mark posts that and, uh, with no comment, um, and, or a comment to the effect of, you know, this is my Bible and we've had this conversation before that the lines of Bible we we'd studied were made to Trent made to memorize. They became part of our formation. And you always felt an exile from words that we loved because of rejecting the etiology. We lost the songs and the words that say
Speaker 3:The text, the scripts, everything.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So I recognize it immediately as a reclaiming. And I wrote on Facebook of all things I wrote, Mark IRAs always heard this as your truest music. And he came back 33 year old Mark, 34, he came back and immediately said, relax. Let's, let's write a mass. Let's reclaim what we love. And all of a sudden, like dozens of people were on there going, got to hear this, what this, they have. These are music, people from all, all over the country go, Oh yeah, this darkest time of COVID. Or maybe we haven't gotten to the darkest time,
Speaker 3:Just let us have gotten to the darkest time
Speaker 5:As this is going on. And we're riffing off each other. And other people are going, Oh my God, I got to hear this, all these singers who cannot sing, who, who have the equivalent of their hands tied behind their back are going, I want to sing this, Oh, this means so much. And I'm thinking, and I'm writing. We have to write this as an act of defiance because of all the artists that we're writing for who have their hands tied. This is our act as artists of COBA defiance. And in the course of this, on Facebook, the director, the director of, uh, I can't say the name yet. We don't have a signed contract, but the director of a very, very fun musical organization in this region who just bed there were known for commissions. They got Brandy last year. They're amazing. Got on and said, you have that commission. Boom. Wow.
Speaker 3:On Facebook, the Facebook thread where someone posted scripture,
Speaker 6:It's all happened in about five minutes, you know, do you think I had the timeline scripted for it or that plan or no?
Speaker 3:Mid April and June is when I'll ripe. That mass I've been meeting. Yeah.
Speaker 6:Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's a really common thing for people to do, right. Especially when you're not Catholic,
Speaker 3:Just like think I'm going to wake up and write a mass who are you hoping will stage or the stage, isn't the right word for a mass, but we're play it or premiere it, or is this like the national cathedral in Washington, DC, who I know the comms director and he would love this by the way. I'll recommend us, Kevin, extra Kevin extra. If you're listening, I know you're not, but I'll make sure you hear this.
Speaker 5:It will require a full chorus and orchestra and three soloists. This is a big piece. So it's such an act of like either defiance or, you know, or, uh, or stupidity or something verbal assurance right now that it will happen. We have some interests or the choruses, like there, all this stuff has to, but we don't have anything in writing. And
Speaker 3:Do you have, do you have the mass written is the mass actually completed, um,
Speaker 5:The words for every, anything that's written with words, the words come first. Right? So, um, I just finished it. Wow. I'm talking three months, full time. 480 words. That's all
Speaker 3:Right. Spare. I've got to see this. Can you very interesting. I don't even know the right way to phrase the question. Can you tell us the story or the themes in the mate? Yeah.
Speaker 5:Um, I followed the, you really want to hear this?
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely
Speaker 5:Follow the traditional structure of a, of a mass in theme only. So like the first movement. And then, you know, I mean the bare bones structure of a mass cause the, the, the traditional is that they add on movements for every single different thing. You can imagine like every day of the week, but, um, it's actually the curiae, which always has a theme of, of, uh, mercy. So the first whole movement is a cry for mercy. Um, I thought of Mark and I as children because we were children in that world. We weren't allowed to grow up. But at the same time, I was thinking about children who are being incarcerated all around my home. Right. Um, I don't know where they are now, but it wasn't very long ago that I could find a map online. And there were five within two miles of my home. Um, children's snatch at the border. So in general, it ans that that, that movement ends with the lines when the children, and I felt myself, an exile, like I ran away from her civic land. I came back home. I came to my own society. It had completely changed and I wasn't home. And I felt myself an exile. That's why it's a mass, an exile. That movement is called for a refuge. And the movement ends with the words, when the children come home, when then when they come only, then I am home. So that's the first movement. And it just goes on like that. I mean, there's a section called Gloria. Um, you still want to hear this? Yes,
Speaker 3:Yes, no. I love it. I wish I didn't introduce myself properly because I was distracted by COVID things in the family, but I I'm a long time journalist cover specializing in religion and spirituality. So this is all my solid[inaudible] focus here. So no, but for whatever reason, in part, because of our backgrounds, spirituality and art always are intertwined in our conversations. So it is not something that we actually aim
Speaker 1:For. It is something that organically just seems to grow out of our conversations. And partially perhaps because those things have the same root in people. Like they come from the same place
Speaker 4:When people create them for the same reasons. Again, explain to things like they're pretty intertwined in life. For the most part
Speaker 5:In Hebrew, the word for faith is[inaudible] and the word for art and artistry is on my notes. It's the same words.
Speaker 1:Right. And basically
Speaker 5:The anxious, assuming that faith was creative,
Speaker 1:It is creative thinking. Right. I mean, faith in anything is creative thinking, right?
Speaker 5:Yes. It's imagination. It's an act of imagination.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And the evidence of things, not seeing the great mystery, all those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, and what I find really interesting when you talk about uncovered, you talk about the mikvah project. You talk about this mass is that focus on exile, on people who are immigrating. There's always, there's an immigrant and a refugee like thread always through. And I find that. So I find that so beautiful in the ways that it can be explicated artistically in the ways that you've expressed it. I find that so interesting, including this mass clearly.
Speaker 5:So there's a section called Gloria. There's supposed to be, you know, glory to God, but Mark and I talked about how we didn't know what love was until we left that world because we, our minds were like scripted, which meant that we didn't have the spontaneity that have the passion for real love. And both of us, when we left, we found life partners that are, we're absolutely bonded to. I mean, we're both are incredibly fortunate that we found wonderful, wonderful partners that were deeply in love with even after years. And we both credits having, you know, becoming artists and having to leave that world with being able to find love. So I made the Gloria section attribute to human love, but it's full of quotes from song of songs, which is a very sexy text by the way, that is,
Speaker 4:It's the only, it's the only biblical joke I ever get to do. And so if I can ever mention it, I always, I always do. It's a great, it's a great, it's my favorite book of the Bible,
Speaker 5:Right? Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow. Okay. So the Gloria section is attributed to humanity. So how, how does it resolve
Speaker 5:Yeah. Resolves in a prayer for the earth because the final, uh, Oh, I want to say that now skip that piece. Um, it, it re that the Sanctus, um, movement. Oh, it starts Holy Holy Holy, which is also a key prayer in the Jewish tradition. So it says it in both English and Hebrew, because it's reflected both Mark and me. So kudos, kudos, kudos, Holly, Holly. And I had to sit there and think, well, what's Holy. What is really Holy holiness is the source of our life. It's nurture. Well, that's when you get down to it. If you get down to the essential element, that's water that is earth. So it's called earth, Sanctus body and blood.
Speaker 6:That is beautiful.
Speaker 5:And it's, it's a, it's a, it's a tribute to the earth and it's, uh, it's a cry for the earth.
Speaker 6:Wow.
Speaker 3:I can't wait to see those. I know. I really want to see this stage in the national cathedral. Oh man. I really do. Wow. This is, uh, my, my religion nerd is just like freaking out and taking notes. I know, sorry. I'm like, she's not on her phone. Everyone. She's taking notes on the conversation, which I almost never do, but wow. So how does, so you have the Sanctus and then,
Speaker 5:And then a trio comes in over the course of the big finale and the words are when world and words fall away, because I kept referring to the wreck of the world. Um, you know, that's that line into the wreck or the wreck of the world pops up a few times through the whole piece. So at the very end, the trio singing that we've got the orchestra, we've got the full chorus, we've got a trio singing overhead, and the words are when world and words follow away, I will follow the question, how to find mercy now to find mercy, how to find mercy in the wreck of this unfinished song. And they end on the word, Holy,
Speaker 6:Wow. That's where we are. Wow. I love this.
Speaker 5:And for both of us, for both Mark and I, we feel like we're not an exile anymore. In the act of writing this, we went back and reclaimed, what is ours? It's full of quotes, but it says what we are. We're not saying what the religion is telling us to.
Speaker 3:I seen you create, you created a path home for yourselves.
Speaker 5:I, you know, I just finished it. So yeah.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 5:I think I'm feeling that way. I'm not even sure yet. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I can't. I'm just thinking about the words themselves. I'm I can't even imagine how much more powerful they'll be with music, with music. Uh, I, I just I'm, I'm astonished by what you've done. Wow.
Speaker 5:I hope it comes to fruition. You know, everything we do as, as artists is on spec, my book about, you know, you know, I spent a year of my life just listening to immigrants and refugees, tell me their stories. And I wrote a book about, Oh, that book I'll tell you in a, but you know, I wrote that on spec too. I mean, everything is right. I just write, I mean, people come to the and go, Oh, I want to be an artist. I'm like, don't quit your day job, marry a grown up. Make sure they have a paycheck.
Speaker 3:Mine's two floors up. Thank you.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Right. Yeah. I've been saying this for years. My grownup.
Speaker 3:You are your honor.
Speaker 5:I'm sorry. Hannah's eventually going to have to support us both while I pursue my rap career. I'm assuming that's your daughter.
Speaker 3:No, no, I'm not. Sorry. It's choice growing up. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Here has to be a grownup or none of us would be here doing this. Right?
Speaker 3:Right. Well, hi, Kaitlin kittens, the grown up a little bit on the calendar keeper. The note taker is fine. Oh, wow.
Speaker 5:That book, that book is called, not from here. I spent a year of my life listening and I look back on it, like when Trump started his first campaign, excuse me, for mentioning the name. But there was so much, um, so much fear being fomented against refugees and immigrants. And I come from refugees that, um, I, I looked back at all those interviews, testimonies I had collected and that's, that was my, I didn't know what to do about what was going on, but I'm like, I'm an artist. So there's something I can do. That's unique. I mean, I could just go join marching groups and petition groups and stuff like that, but there are millions of people doing it, but there's something I can do. That's unique. So this is my answer. And I threw myself into this book, like very much full-time seven days a week through his entire administration or non administration. And, um,
Speaker 3:Is that a book that's out or are you trying to sell that? Now?
Speaker 5:That's a book that I'm trying to, I'm trying to sell rhinos finished in the process. I looked at it and went, you know, I said, how did, how did listening change? We had listening. Tell me where I live now. Cause I didn't know where I'd landed. How did I learn what America is today that maybe we need to listen to these voices all the time. They may be the rest of us, need to shut up and listen. So the book is called, not from here. What is it? What's the secret?
Speaker 3:Well, several things, one, that's very studs Terkel of you. And I love that you went and did that
Speaker 5:To straight white man. So yeah,
Speaker 3:I mean, he was a product of his age, but he didn't. I mean, I knew studs and stuffs would listen to anybody as long as they'd listened to him. But I love that, you know, listening to stories, collecting stories. Secondly, I am an agent and I am a literary consultant. So if you're looking for someone to help you figure out where to send this, cause that seems like a project that would be very, uh, marketable for LA for it's a really gross word, but that's the book that I would love to have in my house. The stories that you've collected people during this time. So, you know, I will, I'll email you. If you want to have a conversation, I'd be happy to help point you in the right direction. Um, and, uh, as, uh, I just started agenting, I've been a consultant for literary consultant for quite some time, but I begrudgingly got into it and I said, I would only agent for LGBTQ plus authors. So there you go. It's going well so far,
Speaker 6:How did I come here? The magic of[inaudible] our second season is on fire thus far. It's been great, but we should,
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'd love to have a conversation with you just to sort of see where you are and heading in the right direction and see if I can help in some way or turn you on to somebody else who could help. But that's, that seems like a great project and that needs to be published.
Speaker 5:Well, there's an agent who's been like, went on her big pile of reading. So I've been waiting many weeks, but she promised to get back to me very soon. And, um, she was wonderful in helping me good formulate, uh, uh, dynamite, uh, book proposal. So you've got[inaudible] but yeah, six months full time just on that. But, um, um, uh, I, you know, in exchange for me set me like not querying any further until she could decide. Um, but it doesn't mean that she's decided like, I, I, she may decide that she can't, she can't represent this book
Speaker 3:Offline and you know, we can talk about who that is because it doesn't necessarily mean Kathleen has to agent. Yeah.
Speaker 6:Oh no. A lot of connections and a lot of help and a lot of, Oh, I want to have this conversation. We definitely should come with that. Yeah. Well, yeah. Wow. There's some awesome. You are amazing. Goodness. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so who's going to make the film have uncovered. That's what I want to know. Cause that feels like, Oh, that
Speaker 5:Would be one scary film,
Speaker 6:Disney plus is going to make it, it's going to look really gritty, but it's going to be great. I
Speaker 3:Love I'm sort of mildly, mildly is maybe an understatement, uh, obsessed with, um, Hasidic culture and I've watched every documentary I've watched Stifel like three times. This is this a series. That's a dramatic series, uh, set in Israel. It's all in Hebrew and Yiddish and I've watched it three times. Um, I just think this is there. There's a thirst for these kinds of empowerment, transformation, stories, and representation, as you know, is very, very important. And uh, it seems I haven't read the whole book, uh, but it seems yet, but it seems very cinematic to me. Yeah. Well, and just a theme of transformation is I feel very, it's always a very relevant story, especially now in the age of COVID the pandemic and people, artists, especially having to pivot and change and rework the way that they do things. Stories of transformation are so important right now that I really resonate with anyone who is making the major changes in their life because so are we, you know, everybody, everybody's having to reinvent something, uh, out of necessity, some, some in big, big ways in some very small ways, but everybody is in the midst of figuring out how to transform, right.
Speaker 5:But you know, it doesn't fit the mold. It's, it's not a, a young, pretty adolescent running away. It's a 45 year old with seven children who leaves two of her children behind it's it's messy.[inaudible]
Speaker 3:Well, did that's the story is that there's no molds there.
Speaker 4:And I feel like people are railing against the mold, right? Because they want more representation. More women in their thirties want to see stories written about women in their thirties, played by women in their thirties. Like I, for one I'm super tired of teenagers played by 20 five-year-olds and would much rather see the same kinds of stories that you see teens playing, where it's like them running away from home. But it's like a woman running away from home. Because in, in my, in my stupid guy mind, when in a TV show, when a woman runs away from her family, I go, what a, what a horrible human you stay there. And you, you, you know, you continue caring for those children, but that's like a real person, you know, that you think about that's someone who has that viewpoint. And, and to see someone's transformation is transformative to someone like me. And every time I see a new story like that, I shed away. Another part of me that says that this thing is wrong. And then you kind of realize that the world is just full of like gray areas where it's, everyone's kind of confused. And you know, those stories are stories that people need to hear because it affects people like me, who aren't a 30 year old woman.
Speaker 5:Right. And people sometimes do things they don't want to do. I mean, like, I, I, you know, I live in the heart of, I live in Houston at the time. It was the heart of Bush country. You know, I, I went to a lawyer who said, honey, you're a lesbian. You had an affair there, isn't a judge in 50 miles. That's going to give you custody of those boys and their teens. That, that just tend to put teens with the same-sex parent anyway. But nevermind, they didn't belong there. Nevermind that I had been pretty much a single parent, all the, you know, for a lot of years, I was told I wouldn't be able to get my kids. And like, I fought myself for giving up and not fighting it anyway. Cause that's what I would do today. But I was very beaten down at the time. People do things that they don't want to do all the time. If it's a matter of survival. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They didn't need you to be alive more than they may be needed to be with you at that point. You needed to survive all this. And so I can have you now, I don't mean to presume I know what your relationship is with your children now, but uh, I hope that they appreciate that you've had to do what you had to do. So you could be,
Speaker 5:Let's just say we all survived it. And we came out on the other side. There we go. Let's just say that they're, you know, they're like your age Mark. There's two youngest now. So
Speaker 3:That's a winning story. As far as I'm concerned is I just wrote down another, we, we, uh, lay, we really do have to have a conversation. Cause I just wrote down the name of a friend of mine who does development work for anonymous content. Um, who would, I think, love, love this story. Uh, so,
Speaker 5:Well, I can tell you like five different cinematographers called me up after my book came out and they all melted away. Like we all had these good days.
Speaker 3:I know[inaudible] keep going. What year did this one come out?
Speaker 5:Uh, do I even remember 2015 in August of 15? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We're in a very, we're in a very different moment now, you know? Yeah. But everybody, I mean, I think all artists just push forward on the project that presents itself to, you know, and if it is meant to be, to be come a movie, then it will, it will arrive in, it will not melt away.
Speaker 5:And the person who's going to do you justice will continue. Right. People that wouldn't have would, if you, you almost think that they melted away. Yeah. Cause they weren't going to be justice. Right. Oh, that's an interesting idea.
Speaker 3:The thing you want to do next, you are so prolific.
Speaker 5:Jesus. I mean the, because of the stop, the stop of COVID like it allowed me to, that was how I coped. So I was very, and I'm sure lots of artists cope. I think that we're going to have an incredible artistic flowering.
Speaker 3:I hope so. Oh yeah. The Renaissance.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I'm going to have three things come out at once the mask and the book, not from here and the opera of uncovered, which is already scheduled around the country and I'll be traveling for that. And speaking to that and like, so I can't really imagine getting into another, you know, whole up,
Speaker 3:I think you've done enough. You can, you can watch a lot of trash TV now a little bit and also like follow something through now instead of having to start new, you can
Speaker 1:Like kind of get on the train that you've already pushed and pushed and pushed. So that now it's at the top of the Hill and it's going to go down the Hill and you can just take a ride for a bit and be like, let people enjoy it. Go around the country, watch people's reactions to it. And probably that will be artistically inspiring the way that you like listen and watch people watching them react. I bet you we'll give you whatever your next project is.
Speaker 5:That's incredibly fun. It's, you know, there's a period. And now of waiting to see what contracts will be sided, any contracts will be, fat-soluble all three of these language and none of them come out. That's also a possibility, you know, we don't know. Meanwhile, I wake up in the morning and I go to day, I have to be a normie. What is it like to wake up in the morning? And I I'm not creating anything. So I'm like, I don't sweep floors,
Speaker 1:Teach yourself something will present itself. Oh yeah, no doubt. Yeah. Next thing will be, you'll be doing some sort of jazz hip hop, opera, attic, retelling Benjamin. Britten's the tale of Tyler, the creator, something, something, are you at Benjamin Britten fan? I am. Oh my God. We can bond. Yay.
Speaker 5:Peter Grimes. The bond of the finest pieces of music ever written.
Speaker 1:I uh, Oh my gosh. Another country heard from my phone is just blowing up today with all sorts of, I hope that's not terrible news. Um, oops, sorry. Well, I have the, I have a final question actually. Cause I feel like, yeah, we're a little, we're a little, I know time gets away from us, which is great when you're fascinating. And I know it's always hard for us to find a point where we're like, Oh, maybe we should stop. But um, it's something we've been talking about a lot, our resources for artists. And if you were a person looking, if you're an artist where you are right now, looking for resources, whatever that means to you, what kind of resources do you look for? And do they, is it something that, is that exists for you? Or is it something that you wish existed? I, this is such a terrible question. I'm phrasing it awfully, but again, you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker 5:Yeah. Particularly now during COVID we're so isolated and we feel so vulnerable. You know, we need resources to keep us on track, to inspire us. And we can't think because we're so distracted. No, absolutely. Um, and one of the things I did during COVID during all this time is, um, something I never would do before. Like I I've taught seminars and creative writing for years. And over the years, lots of people come to me and said, will you work with me privately? I just went ha ha ha, no chance because I was busy and I own stuff. And I think, uh, it's that vulnerability, it's that desire for a connection and the isolation. It's a lot of things, but I reached out to four different students that I really felt I could former since I really felt I could work with, took them all on as private clients and this listening and guiding them and looking for resources on their behalf. It's been an enormous gift to my own creativity,
Speaker 1:Marvelous. Wow. So the teaching portion of like learn something, do something, teach something that kind of cycle that gets you into there. I feel like that's an artistic model where you learn how to do some, you watch something you do to watch someone do something, then you do it and then you teach someone else to do it. And it's like a full,
Speaker 5:Well, it works because teaching the craft has been amazing for him, you know, for me to feel more confident, at least in my own craft, it's always been true that teaching was very big component for me. Right. Um, and, but this one-on-one thing with talented people all up in my field have something important to say good stories to tell. And they're new at the game. There's a lot of learning, but potentially I think all of their books are viable books. It's very humbling and it's kind of wonderful. That's been the first resource. The other one has been collaboration. There's nothing in the world by collaboration. I love I'd have loved the art, the opera project because we're, there's really three of us, the composer and me and the state director of best grade Merck, worldly, Laurie Lightman, and me. Um, and we formed this bond, I guess his creative bond between us and the emails and the, and the 10, not so much email the texts and the phone calls just fly among us. We were in, we, we inform each other's process to the point where, when I was riding the mass, it's not even part of that, what we're doing together. And I, I, you know, I was like, it was a given that I would be consulting with, with Beth, for Beth. Um, and it kind of opened many doors creatively for me to be because I see I had the conceive of, uh, the, uh, the format and they, um, the whole texture of a piece that was completely foreign. Right. Um, so those two things, teaching collaboration,
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us this week on the artists care and feeding podcast. If you want to learn more about the featured on the show, you can visit our website, artists care and feeding.com, where there are links to their socials, our socials links to some of their work, and most importantly, a tip jar for individual artists. So you can help feed the artists. We want to thank our producer, Mark rivet, Martin Hanlin and Eric Escalante for the theme music you hear throughout the show and our man in Sweden, Kurt Leitner, who is the artist responsible for our beautiful logo work. See you next time.