WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.697 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.697 --> 00:00:02.280 align:middle line:84% Reg mentioned women, church and music. 00:00:02.280 --> 00:00:05.100 align:middle line:84% Well, and Frances mentioned that I do volunteer at opera. 00:00:05.100 --> 00:00:08.595 align:middle line:84% My mother was the first person to introduce me to opera, even 00:00:08.595 --> 00:00:09.720 align:middle line:90% though it wasn't her thing. 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:13.890 align:middle line:84% She felt that growing up being a member of the Jehovah's Witness 00:00:13.890 --> 00:00:19.830 align:middle line:84% gang, right, that we should have this knowledge of things 00:00:19.830 --> 00:00:20.400 align:middle line:90% in the world. 00:00:20.400 --> 00:00:25.632 align:middle line:90% But, not be too close to it. 00:00:25.632 --> 00:00:27.090 align:middle line:84% I've been watching opera for years, 00:00:27.090 --> 00:00:29.860 align:middle line:84% and I've decided to attempt writing a book. 00:00:29.860 --> 00:00:31.620 align:middle line:90% It's called Bel Canto Bellum. 00:00:31.620 --> 00:00:36.930 align:middle line:90% And based upon the idea that-- 00:00:36.930 --> 00:00:38.590 align:middle line:90% anybody here into opera at all? 00:00:38.590 --> 00:00:39.090 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:39.090 --> 00:00:40.830 align:middle line:84% All right, a few armpits in the air. 00:00:40.830 --> 00:00:42.030 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:00:42.030 --> 00:00:45.390 align:middle line:84% The thing is I started to notice at a very early age 00:00:45.390 --> 00:00:47.670 align:middle line:84% that if this opera was penned let's 00:00:47.670 --> 00:00:51.630 align:middle line:84% say by somebody whose last name ended in a vowel, 00:00:51.630 --> 00:00:53.730 align:middle line:90% the woman wasn't making it. 00:00:53.730 --> 00:00:55.290 align:middle line:90% She was dead. 00:00:55.290 --> 00:00:56.790 align:middle line:84% It's not over to the fat lady sings, 00:00:56.790 --> 00:00:57.810 align:middle line:90% it's probably Teutonic, right? 00:00:57.810 --> 00:00:58.685 align:middle line:90% It's probably German. 00:00:58.685 --> 00:01:00.457 align:middle line:90% They might give you a break. 00:01:00.457 --> 00:01:02.040 align:middle line:84% But the Catholics wasn't playing that. 00:01:02.040 --> 00:01:04.980 align:middle line:90% So this is one written. 00:01:04.980 --> 00:01:07.030 align:middle line:84% It's called Simply To Die Like A Woman. 00:01:07.030 --> 00:01:09.810 align:middle line:84% And part of it is written for Kurt Kauper's work. 00:01:09.810 --> 00:01:12.330 align:middle line:84% He has a book called Diva Fictions. 00:01:12.330 --> 00:01:15.730 align:middle line:84% And this is the Diva speaks from Palazzo Pitti in Florence, 00:01:15.730 --> 00:01:18.510 align:middle line:84% Italy, which is purportedly where the first opera was 00:01:18.510 --> 00:01:20.580 align:middle line:90% given. 00:01:20.580 --> 00:01:24.630 align:middle line:84% This was going to be titled The Woman Who Killed Puccini. 00:01:24.630 --> 00:01:27.840 align:middle line:84% But I decided to do something else with it. 00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:31.340 align:middle line:90% 00:01:31.340 --> 00:01:35.600 align:middle line:84% Sisters-- we all begin and end the same 00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:38.420 align:middle line:84% as pulse ghosting through velvet brocade, 00:01:38.420 --> 00:01:41.720 align:middle line:84% as embellished vowels sliding beneath the Italian face, 00:01:41.720 --> 00:01:44.420 align:middle line:84% as what music could not scour from speech, 00:01:44.420 --> 00:01:48.200 align:middle line:84% as what Baroque could not sculpt into ego and equipoise. 00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:52.040 align:middle line:84% We begin and end in this house of harmonized marble. 00:01:52.040 --> 00:01:54.560 align:middle line:84% Whether it's Mimì's wither and blood cough, 00:01:54.560 --> 00:01:57.980 align:middle line:84% Tosca's leap over the waiting balustrade or Butterfly forever 00:01:57.980 --> 00:01:59.430 align:middle line:90% cocooning as knife. 00:01:59.430 --> 00:02:01.400 align:middle line:90% It is here we are among kindred. 00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:04.250 align:middle line:90% Where all women learn to die. 00:02:04.250 --> 00:02:06.470 align:middle line:84% Death shapes us all into instrument, 00:02:06.470 --> 00:02:09.979 align:middle line:84% into strange hybrid of flute bassoon doomed contours 00:02:09.979 --> 00:02:12.440 align:middle line:84% of wood and taut string of F hold 00:02:12.440 --> 00:02:15.050 align:middle line:84% and pitched and resonant agon until we 00:02:15.050 --> 00:02:16.940 align:middle line:84% are annotated anguish languishing 00:02:16.940 --> 00:02:19.610 align:middle line:84% between calculated hysteria and hush. 00:02:19.610 --> 00:02:22.610 align:middle line:84% We are wombed to carry what men cannot lift. 00:02:22.610 --> 00:02:26.660 align:middle line:84% Women are wombed to un-exist and imbibe the voyeuristic pity 00:02:26.660 --> 00:02:28.130 align:middle line:90% of lookers on. 00:02:28.130 --> 00:02:29.720 align:middle line:90% But no more sisters. 00:02:29.720 --> 00:02:31.040 align:middle line:90% No more. 00:02:31.040 --> 00:02:33.500 align:middle line:84% Tonight as we don the garish throat, 00:02:33.500 --> 00:02:35.510 align:middle line:84% as we ready to mint each blood rush 00:02:35.510 --> 00:02:38.180 align:middle line:84% recitative into gilded glint, I ask that we 00:02:38.180 --> 00:02:40.280 align:middle line:90% defy the scripted wax and wane. 00:02:40.280 --> 00:02:43.850 align:middle line:84% Yes, deny each well-writ ruin that shrouds us in shame, 00:02:43.850 --> 00:02:46.400 align:middle line:84% refuse to acquiesce or be courted by blame. 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:49.070 align:middle line:84% Let us choose one death to color us all. 00:02:49.070 --> 00:02:50.630 align:middle line:90% Tonight, let it be red. 00:02:50.630 --> 00:02:51.620 align:middle line:90% Let it be razor. 00:02:51.620 --> 00:02:54.170 align:middle line:84% Let it be the ever erupting wrist. 00:02:54.170 --> 00:02:58.610 align:middle line:84% Imagine the curtains part, we step forward into stage light 00:02:58.610 --> 00:03:00.890 align:middle line:84% as a singularity shed of all satin 00:03:00.890 --> 00:03:03.620 align:middle line:84% and dressed only as an unlit star. 00:03:03.620 --> 00:03:05.750 align:middle line:84% Only in the body's clarity at night, 00:03:05.750 --> 00:03:08.840 align:middle line:84% our left hand begins extending to the crowd's whetted hunger 00:03:08.840 --> 00:03:11.270 align:middle line:84% as the blade sounds its silver in our right. 00:03:11.270 --> 00:03:13.850 align:middle line:84% We slowly begin carving vein into grin. 00:03:13.850 --> 00:03:15.290 align:middle line:90% We become violinist. 00:03:15.290 --> 00:03:16.700 align:middle line:90% We become violin. 00:03:16.700 --> 00:03:22.340 align:middle line:84% We, passacaglia, sotto voce, adagio, andante, fine. 00:03:22.340 --> 00:03:26.450 align:middle line:84% And at this moment, when all breath belongs to us, 00:03:26.450 --> 00:03:30.200 align:middle line:84% when every music is but a dark and trembling pool at our feet, 00:03:30.200 --> 00:03:32.960 align:middle line:90% there will be no more pity. 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:35.750 align:middle line:84% And all will know there is only one truth-- 00:03:35.750 --> 00:03:39.200 align:middle line:84% that woman is wombed to weep baptismally. 00:03:39.200 --> 00:03:42.710 align:middle line:84% Is born burning at the flash point of tears. 00:03:42.710 --> 00:03:45.950 align:middle line:84% Is the calibration of fulcrum and balance beam 00:03:45.950 --> 00:03:48.740 align:middle line:84% where the world weighs its suffering. 00:03:48.740 --> 00:03:53.237 align:middle line:90% 00:03:53.237 --> 00:03:55.070 align:middle line:84% You want to read another one or should I go? 00:03:55.070 --> 00:03:57.220 align:middle line:90% I'll read another one.