S1E5: 🌕♒️ ”Crack in the Wall” Invitations to Liberation and Hadestown Vibes

This season focuses on the 2019 film “Little Women” and this episode connects it to the 2019 Tony Award winning musical “Hadestown.”

How are period pieces a prophetic praxis that helps us to view the reality of THIS moment in time?  In what ways is/can our creative practices be liberatory?  How can we reach toward a liberated future when public schools are priming and praising students to obey fascism?  Is Orpheus even a real person, a metaphor for creativity, or a manic pixie dream boy?

Kristyn with a Why dives deep into the themes of liberation in stories- how they invite us to liberation through the cracks in the walls: the 4th wall between us and the characters in stories, the walls we build between “us” and “them”, and the walls of domesticity that we build to keep us from remembering our wildness.  

(See time stamps and links mentioned in the podcast below.)

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Grateful for all the learning and inspiration alluded to in today’s episode:

Anna Kendrick “the characters in musicals don’t acknowledge they are singing”

Sophie Strand’s Disappearing stars and Fake Realism and “Orpheus is a Title” 

Roadmap to Liberation “Prophetic Praxis”

My recovering teacher blog post

Akilah richards’ Raising Free People

Fascism 101: Episode 207 of The Numinous Podcast

Kurt Vonnegut shape of stories

Manic pixie dream girls or stale white wonderbread boys?

Rewilding 101course

Liberated to the Bone book

Rev. angel Kyodo williams

Hadestown Links:

Persephone’s “Crack in the Wall” on Hadestown  (The “song/story” is (a) meta(phor), folks!)

“Wedding Song”-  Orpheus’ Song will bring world into tune and make flowers bloom, and Eurydice chooses to stay with Orpheus (How Jo is in tune when connected to her creativity, and how Meg chooses John despite him being a poor man)

“Hey little songbird”- No good choices in late stage capitalism (Meg stumbles when buying the silk, and Jo “sells out” to Dashwood).

“Flowers” -Eurydice forgets who she is, but vaguely remembers a field of flowers. (Jo isn’t signing her name on her writing and longs for her childhood when her family was enough)

“How Long?”-  Persephone makes Hades listen to Orpheus’ song (How Dashwood’s daughters made him see Jo’s book was worth publishing)

Why we build the wall: Capitalism requires we put up walls and remain disconnected, from ourselves, our creativity, from each other, from the natural world.

Time Stamps:----------------------------------

 0-9:36: Intro to “Crack in the wall”

9:36-20:10: Period Pieces as Prophetic Praxis

20:10-36:50: The problem with public schools/Unschooling

36:50-39:22: Meg:John::Eurydice::Orpheus

39:22-46:00:  Creative Practice=Liberation

46:00-52:57: Jo:Orpheus::Beth:Eurydice

52:57-1:01:00: Eurydice:Orpheus::Jo::Creative Practice

1:01:00-1:06:00:  We can all be an Orpheus

1:06:00-1:12:00: Why do we build the wall?

1:12:00-end: Outro/Gratitude

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Thankful for the musical inspiration for the theme song:

Hadestown by Anais Mitchell, specifically “Our Lady of the Underground” and Orpheus’ Song

“Hedwig’s Theme” by John Williams

Shout out for the artistic assistance of:

Matt Schubbe (Logo)

Kevin Carlow (Music and sound editing)

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Free Palestine! There are many ways to support the Palestinian people right now. Join a student encampment near you, call or email your congressperson via the JVP’s daily calls or email them here. 94 members of Congress have called for a ceasefire, can you help to add yours to the list? ​

Spread the word on social media, or check out Operation Olive Branch, a mutual aid organization that has compiled a list of GoFundMe’s for those in urgent need. 

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