Act 1 - The Cicadas
Sidewalks and a stoop in Bedstuy, Brooklyn under the pink sky of a summer dusk. Three women in their 40s. Two with their dogs. Two without their kids. Two might be feeling those gummies.
Dos has to take a walk, it’s lucky she has a dog in pandemic because often her kids do not want to leave her house and neither does she. She texted Fen, who she met thru dogs (how she meets most of her neighbors these days), to see if she wanted to take a stroll. This random texting of new neighbor friends last minute who she meets for dog walks has become one of the only kinds of social outing she can handle. Fen doesn’t respond and she goes out solo.
Liy is the neighbor without a dog, who Dos met through Fen (Fen and Liy are fast pandemic neighborhood besties). Liy is a woman in her 40s who endears herself to all the neighbors with her very friendly ways, general love for dogs and sharing edibles with friends.
Liy Hey! (crosses street to meet Dos)
Dos Hi! (genuinely happy to be having an in-person social interaction with someone who isn’t family) I just texted Fen to see if she wanted to take a dog walk, but didn’t hear back.
Liy I’m meeting her right now actually. We are going to watch horror movies. I went out to get snacks. Join us!
Dos Fun! Let me think about it (Dos has settled into working hours that seem to be often times at odds with socializing). I have a weird ask though.
Liy Sure
Dos Well I am trying to smoke less, but really want one cig right now. If I buy a pack will you hold it for me?
Liy Yeah, I’ll be your enabler.
Dos You are the perfect person actually. I don’t know you that well. So I wouldn’t text you or drop by your house at all times to get cigs. I’m terrible.
Liv Oh look there’s Fen.
Dos Where I don’t see her?
Liv I can tell it’s her from the way she’s walking.
Fen has the air of a person walking deep in their own universe down the block, minding nobody’s business, perhaps not even their own, minding not much of anyone or anything. Bruno has the air of a dog that knows exactly how cute he is.
Dos Hi.
Fen Let me tell you two about the dream I had about you two. It’s not really a dream because I was awake. But basically its all about how you guys are spies. Can’t be trusted. Both of you were trying to steal my identity.
Liv and Dos smile. They’ve heard this one before. All 3 women and 2 dogs walk a few block very slowly and talk. End up on Fen’s stoop where a majestic tree holds what seems like a million cicadas. The sound of the loud, buzzing drone of cicadas fill the night and also create the backdrop to everything.
Dos Apparently this is Brood X. These cicadas have been underground for 17 years, tunneling and feeding beneath the soil. They are up above ground now to mate, that droning is a mating song emitted by the males. Periodical cicadas only occur in the eastern United States, no where else in the world does this happen.
Fen What the fuck? I knew you were a spy.
Dos Emerging en masse like this help the bugs survive predation and mate successfully. Birds and mammals can only pick off so many cicadas at once. They are literally working together to ensure the survival of their species. If that isn’t a metaphor for our times, I don’t know what the fuck is?
Liv I don’t even think we have to watch a horror movie.
Dos You guys are high aren’t you?
Liv and Fen both break into slow laughter, and Dos joins them. Dos lights up exactly one cigarette, enjoys the silence and space it gives her while still in company of others. She finishes her smoke, gives the pack to Liv, sits back and listens to the droning continue while the dogs and women all sit near each other on the stoop steps. Relaxed in the warm summer night. But also deeply affected by the never-ending droning in their brains1.
Act 2 - A press conference with BDB and parents/teachers about school re-opening.
A remote press conference. Mayor BDB is optimistic about his personal career prospects including a potential governor run, impatient with the same old questions about COVID safety, eager to build a legacy of bringing the best city in the world back to “normal” at almost any cost, understands how tragedies can often times cement politicians in history. He will not miss his chance at eternal relevance. Everyone else around him is waiting for this mayor’s run to end, staff is tired of this man, this pandemic, this everything.
By Parents, I mean Black and Brown parent activists who have been speaking up and out before and all through the pandemic about the systemic and racial inequities at play within the DOE (Department of Education).
Parents So you mean to say you will be COVID testing in school LESS now than you did last school year?
BDB There is nothing to worry about.
Parents But Delta has become a fast growing variant of COVID and kids under 12 are vulnerable and not vaccinated. So how have have schools reacted to what has been changing with regards to COVID and kids?
BDB Next question.
Teachers We can’t follow the CDC’s distance guidelines because our classrooms will be full, only approximately 30% of students were in-person last year. But also our classrooms have been historically overcrowded, especially those in predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods. Most of our classrooms STILL aren’t properly ventilated. And you only mandated all teachers should be vaccinated like a day ago, so some kids will be in classrooms with partially vaccinated teachers, or unvaccinated teachers. All these conditions puts kids at risk and also us at risk.
BDB waves his hand to his assistant so as to signal this presser should be wrapped up quickly. We will all get through this together. We are the greatest city in the world!
Teachers We need more money, resources, and respect. Teachers are leaving the profession because of how badly you have been treating educators in this system. Why would anyone want to work in a profession with zero flexibility? Some families want remote education, and some teachers want to teach remotely. There’s still a very serious pandemic, so just pair up those families with those teachers. What is the problem?
BDB LEARNING LOSS! LEARNING LOSS! LEARNING LOSS!
Parents Many of our children actually did better learning from home, because they did not have to learn in environments that did not love on our children. The rampant anti-Blackness within the system and curriculum of our schools are actually what prevents our children from learning.
BDB’s staffer We are so sorry, this press conference is over.
ACT 3 - AN EMAIL EXCHANGE ON TIME
Me at 11:07 pm on Thursday, September 3rd, 2021 to you:
Hey, are you guys up? What are you doing? This is the only time I can really write. Sometime between 11 PM and 3 AM is my golden hour of writing. It’s golden to me anyway. The time feels slower to me, because at least in my time zone, everyone else has quieted down. I can hear myself in that silence. I don’t hear cicadas right now. Only one loud squawking bird every 30 minutes or so, and a fainter callback from a farther away bird. I’m in a place outside of the city where I can see stars, thin blue line flags, and tree-lined drives framed by big blue skies.
Our modern version of time has at least something to do with pious monks in Northern and Central Europe and what they were doing around the 14th century. They built crude iron objects that unreliably but automatically struck intervals to help bellringers keep track of canonical hours of prayer.2 “The Western separation of clock time from the rhythms of nature helped imperialists establish superiority over other cultures.”
Anyway this is just an email to you to remind you that the way you feel in your body… how you feel off sometimes… it’s all too much sometimes… the world… the bad things… day after day… when you have all this work… and clocks keep ticking and calendars keep moving and it seems like all you really want to do is lay down and sleep or just scream in unison… if you feel like this. Well me too. And I don’t think we are abnormal. I think we are listening to our bodies and the land and our children and responding accordingly.
*&^% My message of resistance to you in the dark of the night.
Love you,
Resham
ACT 4 - How’s your boyfriend?
You So you’ve been with your boyfriend for a while now right?
Me thinks to myself what are you really asking me? Just ask THAT question. Umm, yeah I guess we have.
…
You How is X doing?
Me They, it’s complicated.
…
You nothing
Me I’m struggling. Long distance nonmonogamy is so hard!
You looks kind of sorry for me Yeah
Me hates that sorrowful look. I mean it’s hard because facing these heteronormative ideas that are embedded in me is fucking hard.
You Damn like what?
Me Like the whole idea that anyone belongs to anyone else? The idea that we should ever have any say in another person’s pleasure-seeking within their body, with other people or otherwise? After all we are all going to die and are deserving of every single thing in this life? The idea that someone I love feeling an abundance of pleasure and joy through an experience with someone else means that their love for me is necessarily lessened? The idea that if you knew what my relationship looked like you would judge me because society centers and upholds monogamy and heteronormativity as ideals? The idea that a man should save me? Patriarchy generally?
You Is it worth it?
Me Yes, completely, wholly, entirely worth it. In this case it is.
ACT 5 - TWITTER ON ASIAN HATE
@roslyntalusan Replying to @roslyntalusan
"Dumplings and Noodles explores the traditional cooking methods behind some of our best-loved Asian dishes. With over 70 recipes and techniques... and even the science behind dumplings and noodles, this book is an essential guide for modern home cooks." ?????? ? ?? ? ? ?
@SirXudes Replying to @the_internef and @roslyntalusan
How is this a big thing? Someone who studied making noodles in china teaching westeners the same tips & tricks?
@ErasmasShaftoe Replying to @roslyntalusan
Why are you gatekeeping dumplings and noodles?
@TheMarkCarter Replying to @roslyntalusan
Stop whining, be better. Don't covet someone else's effort, success, or skin color.
@LisaLeeM Replying to @roslyntalusan
And? Normal people often explore traditional cooking methods of cultures other than our own. Good grief how much longer are we going to be subjected to this nonsense. It’s ridiculous.
@joeblow87423561 Replying to @roslyntalusan
I'm not surprised that very ordinary and easily understood paragraph confused you so much. People like you, who want to bring back segregation to the point of limiting who can cook what, are sickening.
@JoelMaHarry Replying to @roslyntalusan
Ahhhh, only certain people get to write about dumplings and noodles. Got it. And you're on the selection committee, apparently?
@bigbrotrippin Replying to @roslyntalusan
Its a fucking noodle its not rocket science
@chrisc334 Replying to @roslyntalusan
Racist much?
@duane_moody Replying to @roslyntalusan
ok I'll need to see your "white police" badge before you make another one of these inane tweets
DAILY MAIL.COM: EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: From wok to woke! Nigella Lawson's pal is accused of racist cooking over Asian recipes By RICHARD EDEN
Cultural critic and journalist Roslyn Talusan posted a photograph of Manchester-born Pippa online yesterday and posed the question: 'Why did a white woman write a cookbook about dumplings and noodles?'
This provoked a feeding frenzy of abuse, with poor Pippa, 28, receiving hundreds of angry messages. Pippa Middlehurst has been forced to fight back after being accused of racism for daring to publish a Chinese cookbook even though she's white.
The BBC recipe writer, who studied Chinese cookery at Lanzhou Noodle School and has been eating dim sum dumplings since she was a child, complained about the 'woke' bullies, saying: 'Attacking an individual that you know nothing about . . . and calling me an arrogant and uncreative white woman allows others who respect your opinion to justify harassing me.'
RT.COM: ‘Feminist’ writer begs for therapy donations after her attack on white woman's Asian cookbook backfires’
@roslyntalusan anyway, therapy costs me $130/session and i'm gonna need it after almost 48 hours of harassment from nazis. thank you to everyone who sees what's happening. tips, solidarity, heart emojis appreciated: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/rozzybox
Me Triggered watching the fallout but also recognizing the vitriol from a lifetime of lived experience. Thank you @roslyntalusan
ACT 6 - I’M NOT A PUBLIC SPEAKER, I’M A PUBLIC FEELER
A stage with a podium. An audience awaiting a talk of some kind. A mix of folks, many femmes, many mothers, many PGM (people of the global majority), many disabled folks, many queer people, many youth, many elders. You are that audience. I enter. Nobody knows what the talk will be about. Neither do I really. I sort of stumble. I laugh nervously. I speak too closely into the mic. It squeaks. I start reading my notes. I don’t make eye contact for a while. It’s awkward but also you can’t look away for some reason. I pause a long pause. Look at you all. I acknowledge I’m nervous in front of you. Because it’s weird for a person to be on a stage and you all to be in those seats down there. I don’t have any particular reason to be up here or you down there. Conversations don’t really happen that way. And what I really want is to be in conversation with you. I finally feel relaxed because I’m acknowledging the distance between us. You relax too. We start.
Me Hello. How are you?
You
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/world/cicadas-2021-emergence-scn/index.html
https://www.noemamag.com/the-tyranny-of-time/