We're Going to Sing it Again

Quick note, I am going to discuss the end of "Hadestown". If the end of the show (based on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth) is a surprise you wish to maintain unspoiled about, click away now. 

Early on in the "Hadestown" run, I saw a prominent person post on social media that they were disappointed with the ending. A number of people replied, uh, but it's based on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Now of course not everyone is or even should be conversant with every myth. 

But in the opening song - which admittedly you hear after you have committed to the show - Hermes tells you this is a sad song, a tragedy. So, you are warned. 

Of course the trick of many great stories is to tell you where you are going, and then distract you with the drama, the romance, the adventure, so that you forget what you were warned about. 

Not all retellings need to use the ending from the original tale of course. The joy of retelling or remixing is figuring out what to keep and what to toss. 

And in the final song, Hermes tells us that you have to sing the song as if you don't know how it ends. That you sing it again as if it could turn out differently. 

I love a good happy ending. I really and truly do. But some stories don't have them. And that doesn't make the story wrong, necessarily. Sure some folks seem to think sad endings are harder to do, when often the opposite is true.

But in the case of "Hadestown", the story shows so many things. And yes, I am obsessed with the music. But it's a story about creatives. About people who lose themselves in their work. About people who are tired of struggle. And about people chafing against the deals they made, and folks tugging to take more. About working hard against a huge system to try and make change. And how sometimes the systems win. But you keep hoping, that the next time you sing the song, it turns out differently. Because one day it will.  And that will be a new story. 

Three Interesting Things

1. Sarah Kendzior is so clear eyed about the trouble we are in, and writes searingly about crafting in times of trouble. Content note: references to nooses. 

2. These teens had their play censored, so they wrote a play about censorship, and now that play has won an award. 

3. Do you want a story about a baby seal that was wandering around New Haven?

So Glitchy

One of the things that happens, when - to pick a totally random example - someone keeps talking over you (and not in a cooperative overlap kinda way) is that it could be because I'm a woman, or it could be that the person talking over me is quite sure that what they have to say is more important than whatever piddly thing I had to say. Or it could be both. Awareness of misogyny is useful for us all to know about and push back against. But the individual underlying reason leading to a specific thing doesn't matter to me in the moment. I'm still being talked over. 

I was thinking of this over the weekend when two weird and probably unrelated things happened. Hoopla removed a crapton of titles from their library. Since I mostly run with romance authors there was some speculation that romance books, or books that might be sexy, and/or queer might have been targeted. But folks in other genres saw it happening to their books once they were alerted. For me, about half of mine were still there when I first looked. And funnily enough, due to the timing of royalties, I had just gotten royalties from Hoopla. Hoopla is used by a lot of libraries, and one of the reasons I publish widely, is to make sure my books are available to libraries. 

And then someone noticed over on Amazon that the Black and African American Romance tag disappeared. You could still get to that category in other ways. Even odder, or perhaps not, it still existed in the stores for other countries, just not the US. 

Now Hoopla had apparently sent a note to libraries that they were doing a big quality check to make sure no AI titles had snuck in. And Amazon tweaks their categories a lot.

But I also remember when Amazon stripped the buy buttons from all the books for one major publisher. And Hoopla could have communicated with authors. But they didn't. 

In these times of increasing book bans, and weirdos claiming anything with people of color in it, Black people especially, is DEI, as if Black people were a recent invention, it's hard not to get suspicious at these things. 

Maybe these are just normal run of then mill things and nothing to be worried about. And maybe not. 

Anyway, my books are also published to Overdrive. And many other sites. (And some of my titles are back on Hoopla now.) I haven't started selling them direct, but if that becomes my best option, I will. Because goodness knows, we all need stories these days. 

Three Interesting Things

1. It can be overwhelming to figure out where and how to help.  This post has a number of suggestions.  I'm also going to add, things like helping a small non-profit file their taxes or learn how to use spreadsheets better may not be the stuff they make movies about, but if those are skills you have, you sharing them can make a huge difference.  Bonus can often be done at least partially remotely. 

2. Not that the headline isn't interesting, but this short article also goes into why a historic Black church now owns the Proud Boys trademark. 

3. The term mutual aid gets tossed around a lot, and it sometimes can seem like just a fancy wrapping on please give money.  Money is certainly a resource that is helpful to folks, and a little like gift cards as gifts, sometimes doesn't get the credit (pun!) it deserves.  But this story of mutual aid, and how it's really finding ways to connect community resources, and as always, mostly about logistics, was helpful for thinking more broadly about mutual aid. 

A Seasonal Break

Big things happened in sports this weekend, and we (by which I mean me) are going to be vague about all of that (because sports superstitions).  But I don't know why we call them seasons in sports (yes, I tried looking it up) but there's something very nice about thinking of them as seasons.  They come, they go, they cycle back around again.  In the final song of "Hadestown", which yes, I do keep listening to, they talk about how they'll just tell the story again.  Of course oral storytelling has an eons long tradition, and we've all had family members tell stories over and over again.  It's why retellings are popular (and of course "Hadestown" is a retelling). 

But it's also nice to hit the end, or a break.  Sports, since that was theoretically what I was talking about, can be so much fun, but also so stressful as a fan.  There are high, lows, amazing moments, and sometimes, disappointments.  So, when there's a pause, it's nice to get back to all the other parts of your life. 

One reason, I say, totally making this up, that we might call them seasons is that like planting and growing, you need a period of rest before you can get back to playing at that level.  It's interesting that more day jobs don't embrace the idea of a season of rest, so that you can be in peak condition for the busy season. 

Three Interesting Things

1.  A bear (that the headline claims was fat, which seem not relevant) was hanging out underneath someone's house when they returned after the fire. 

2. Rebecca Solnit wrote about how fighting for justice can be small acts. 

3. I'm guilty of the music or TV as white noise thing, but this article talks about how silence can be useful. 

Joy Doesn't Have to be Ignorant

People talk about being blissfully ignorant. And so I think there is a temptation to believe that being happy when terrible things are happening must mean you are ignoring them. Except I can be informed and happy. When we talk about things like hope being a discipline (to paraphrase Mariame Kaba) it means that you have to work at being hopeful. 

As a teen someone told me when I was upset about something that I could just choose to be happy. And oooh, that felt like being told to calm down. To choose happiness.

But perhaps, what that adult was (badly) trying to say to me is that there will often be terrible things, injustices, and unfairness. Some of them will be things I can help with or plug into in some way. And some of them will not.  But I also needed to make space to find joy. Because without the ability to find some joy I was going to flame out and also things would still be unfair or terrible. 

It is hard when several of my communities are being attacked. My hyper vigilance wants to watch. But I also need to eat food that makes me feel good, and read stories about people flirting and baking. 

To pick climate change as an example me watching how many hottest days we have, refreshing temperatures, scrolling flood stories, it won't change things. I can't will climate change to slow. (Rude but true.) I can, of course, do my part. And I can stay abreast of the changes. Lobby for more.  But if I never go walk through the park, or admire the sky, what even was all that worry for?