Sunday 4PM 'Chrysalis' #27: GOLD
"It's never just about the money"
- Bari Tessler, author of 'The Art of Money' (and all the other people who have said this)
Hey Hartlist,
How's YOUR global pandemic/economic downturn/battle for the soul of our nation/unemployment/too much work/new employment/quarantine/back to school going?
Friends, in "these uncertain times", it's hard not to have, as the man once said, your mind on your money and your money on your mind. Almost everyone I know in the performing arts is used to bouts of unemployment, but the impossibility of employment (as you knew it) is a new one. People are leaving businesses, starting businesses, "pivoting", moving out of the city or (!!) TO the city. It's scary and insecure and painful and also possibly fertile ground for discovery, prioritizing, and maybe, just maybe, change. (Look you can still send postcards)
I just got off a zoom interview where my collaborator and I were talking about an upcoming virtual production of our musical IRON JOHN. I was reflecting on how weird it's going to be for actors to watch their own opening night (hello, Rebecca, this is how FILM works) when I heard my partner say that living through this time period has, among other things, forced him to evaluate what i'm doing and why I'm doing it. In other words, where he is investing.
I was going to call this week's show "MONEY" but that isn't quite it.
The reason I bring up IRON JOHN (ok the other reason) is that one of the elements of the original folktale that we kept in our adaptation was the important-yet-unexplained golden ball. It shows up in a few fairy tales. No one explains it (like.. .is it made of gold? Isn't that heavy? Why would a kid have that as a toy?), but we get that it matters. No one can explain what it's 'for', but it's precious and maybe magical. (Hm- "non-essential"?) In his seminal (hee hee, sorry) book "Iron John; A Book About Men", Robert Bly interpreted the golden ball as a boy's creativity and sense of wonder and joy before it gets stripped away by the world (and, you know , feminists).
The golden ball, like the Pentacle in the tarot * , is what matters. What is precious. What we make, and what we thrive on. It's what we give, and also what we receive. It's personal to each of us and also a universal concern. This week on The Chrysalis, songs about "Gold", in them there hills or wherever you find it.
And I will try really hard not to do more Fleetwood Mac, but I make no promises. 4PM Sunday on Facebook Live, posted on YouTube thereafter.
'See' you there,
Rebecca
* speaking of new business - if I haven't mentioned it, I am once again giving (remote) tarot readings. Feel free to get in touch.