Moving To Philadelphia

a reminder that the pics are on Instagram! The legacy of Rizzo (who served as mayor of Philadelphia for two terms, putting into practice the ruthless "law and order" approach Trump promises) is re-enacted on stage; a Revolutionary War battle  is re-enacted on the streets of Germantown; a film is re-enacted as an opera; and a Civil War song is re-enacted as an Iraq war song.

On display are an externalization of the internal experience of tinnitus (and other examples of the amazing elasticity of the body and mind), two of the most interesting museums in Philadelphia (the Mutter and the Barnes), live judgement of dog clothing at a former burlesque house (as well as a dispute about the proper way to ride a triceratops), and squirrel-infested attics.

Cynthia sings praises to all the artists who've ever inspired her to be an artist, especially Jerome Bel, whose show Gala - which Cynthia saw last week at the 2016 Philadelphia Fringe Festival - she attempts to describe, and through that description unravel the mystery of its sublime glory. 

Cynthia reports (with some help from her cat Lucy) on recent adventures including exploration of an underwater cave in the devil's pool, exorcism of doubts during a birthday ritual in Germantown, and restoration of faith in creativity inspired by the work of Maria Irene Fornes, in whose honor the song of the week is composed (in support of Michelle Memran's Kickstarter campaign to finish her documentary about Fornes "The Rest I Make Up.")

pics on instagram #MovingToPHL This week we welcome Guest #6 Michael Kiley: composer, sound designer, and teacher of a vocal technique he calls personal resonance. The song of the week is a collaborative exploration of "head voice" improvised by Michael, Cynthia, and Jeff. Under discussion is the consideration of the comfort of performers and audience during the experience of live theater, and on display are spontaneous demonstrations of musical numbers (from musicals in which they performed way back when they performed in musicals) by all three participants in this "interview." Also reported on is Cynthia & Jeff's recent tour of the newly built Mormon Temple in Philadelphia (time is running out to take this free tour, by the way, unless you are a practicing Mormon in "good standing") whose Baptismal and Sealing Rooms, with their enormous emphasis on eternal life, prompt a revival of the "joke of the week."

pictures on Instagram @ms.cynthiahopkins #MovingToPHL It's almost September, the month of Cynthia's 44th birthday and also the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, in which Cynthia will present a small excerpt from her new work in progress Articles of Faith, as part of Catch Takes Bok. She also plans to see many exciting works in the festival by such inspiring artists as Ann Hamilton, Jerome Bel, Nichole Canuso, Nora Chipaumire, and Martha Graham Cracker, among many others. Cynthia will appear in next year's Fringe Festival in two projects: one by Michael Kiley (scheduled to be our guest next week on Moving to Philadelphia!) and another by Big Dance Theater, the latter serving as inspiration for the song of the week, Bess's Lament, written from the perspective of a young wife who has caught her husband having an affair with their even younger maid, according to the syllabic and chord-shifting structure of a song by My Brightest Diamond.

photos on instagram #MovingToPHL This week Cynthia is away from Philadelphia, hard at work on Martha's Vineyard, rehearsing with Big Dance Theater... and also attempting to manifest the faith required to continue working on a new show that will be performed in small part as soon as September 17th (in Philadelphia, as part of the Catch performance series at Bok, within the Philadelphia Fringe Festival) and in large part also pretty darn soon, the first week of November (at commissioning venue American Dance Institute in Maryland) whose subject matter is itself faith: both the many uses of faith - as a form of hope to carry one through catastrophic adversity, as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, as an antidote to panic when facing deadlines that seem impossible to meet, as an energy source when creating something new (especially when one's livelihood has come to depend on one's ability to create new things) - and the extreme difficulty of cultivating faith when perfectly wonderful people suffer and die young

The Photos are now on Instagram! @ms.cynthiahopkins #movingtophl This week has been oppressively hot, and both Jeff and Cynthia have had to spend most of it working in mid-town Manhattan, the 9th circle of hell. Nevertheless the realms of fantasy are alive and well there and have rescued the spirits of these two folks from total despair: Jeff experienced Virtual Reality at Madame Tussaud's, pretending to shoot at imaginary ghosts; meanwhile Cynthia accidentally has fallen in love with a fictional character (who is much too young for her, even if she happened to be single which she is not) from a "young adult" teen romance book she got paid to read out loud… Back in Philadelphia, the realms of the unreal (as some choose to call them) continue to rescue humans from oppressive heat and depressing politics, in the form of visual art (tiny paintings by Louise Fishman at the ICA) and music (songs of Charles Mingus performed live outdoors in Clark Park). And so, in spite of all manner of doubts, Cynthia continues to

This week we are moving the pictures to Instagram!! @ms.cynthiahopkins #MovingToPHL What do a description of shooting stars, the IMAX movie about the National Parks now playing at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, and Cynthia's new project Articles of Faith all have in common? They are fueled by the energy of attempting an impossible task, which like all forms of energy is indestructible.  

a link to this week's photos. Topics you might become curious about by listening to this week's report on multiple Philadelphia adventures include: what God hates, how lead can be organically removed from soil, what K stands for, how do witches and faeries define the terms witch and faerie, where and when free boating is offered in Philadelphia, whose 18th century garden is preserved and available for wandering through today, how to make a natural home-made hydrating beverage equivalent to Gatorade in its replenishing powers yet free of refined sugar, some of the many protests that took place during the Democratic National Convention last week, what is permaculture and why do people practice it, are there contemporary pagans and what do they believe and why, and how anarchists provide sonic support for an idea without clapping. The song of the week is inspired by and modeled after Ladysmith Black Mambazo's performance of "Hope" at the Mann Center, and is titled "Structure of Hope."

A link to this week's photos. Things get sweaty and messy in the closet with guest number five Amanda DeLeo, necessitating more than the usual number of "bleeps." Under discussion are the benefits of Pennsylvania versus Amanda's home state of Florida, the benefits of physical and spiritual fitness, the benefits of various sorts of recovery and how they can be mutually complimentary, the benefits of deep breathing (and what it sounds like), the benefits of community, and the benefits of getting in trouble with the law. Amanda and Jeff discover that they both set out initially to become doctors, and share about how and why they each re-invented themselves otherwise. Amanda provides a post-interview inspiration for the song of the week by sending Cynthia a link to the song "Chinese New Year" by SALES, from which the back-beat to "let's talk about…" is culled. Additional inspiration for the song of the week is drawn from "Let's Talk About Sex" by Salt-N-Pepa, "Let's Get Physical" by Olivia Newton-John, "Get On Up

A link to this week's pictures. The benefits of de-cluttering are noted in relation to good comedy, tiny houses, clean waterways, and economy of verse.

A link to this week's photos. This week we welcome Guest Number Four, teacher of many things including yoga, theater of the oppressed, social activism, and just plain getting along better with one another Morgan Andrews (whom Cynthia considers "her" yoga teacher.) Morgan reveals the many reasons he decided to move to Philadelphia years ago (having grown up mostly in Boston but partly in his father's Sufi community in West Philadelphia) and the ways in which his life and practices (creative and otherwise) expanded upon arriving here. He also reveals that the yoga studio where he teaches and Cynthia practices (Studio 34) was started by the owner of the house attached to the house Cynthia and Jeff now inhabit (their house's "twin") and that originally yoga classes were taught IN that house!! Furthermore Morgan reveals what he traveled to India to study (not yoga,) why Studio 34 is called Studio 34, who Augusto Boal was and what movement he started and why, and what some uses of puppetry are. Finally, M

A link to this week's photos. This week we welcome guest number 3, brilliant costume designer Tara Webb (responsible for the costumes in the Accidental Trilogy) who relocated to Philadelphia seven years ago and passes along her suggestions of fun Philly adventures including a nature preserve, excellent hiking options, and the mummers parade. Some questions under discussion include: What is a mummer? How did Tara turn a shapeless flame-retardant suit into a flashy futuristic outfit? What was the first costume she ever made? How did she end up being a costume designer when she at first resisted learning how to sew? How many sewing machines does she now have, how many did she used to have, and why did she give so many away? What is the highest quality sewing machine? Does she prefer collaboration or complete autonomy when hired as a designer? What are the pros and cons of being a freelance designer, anyhow? Did everyone realize you can create an imaginary shield outfit to ward off anyone you'd like to ward off,

A link to this week's photos. This week's title is also the title of the Song of the Week, an introspective folk autoharp cover of the hit by Asia, featuring phonetically interpreted (probably wildly inaccurate) lyrics. The title also refers to a creative impulse, an impulse that is not logical but driven by passion, even compulsive, such as the motivation compelling Cynthia to carefully illustrate every item of clothing (including accessories such as shoes, hats, and bags) in her wardrobe, ostensibly to serve as an antidote to emotionally-driven clothing shopping. Roz Chast serves as an inadvertent inspiration to Cynthia's drawing "style" which is almost completely devoid of craft or skill, but rather emanating from a childish delight, an innocent and impractical singleness of purpose, a joy that is more challenging to access when professional (and by extension survival) concerns begin to overwhelm one's creative practice. Jeff has evolved beyond such existential crises in his creative work for money; Cynthi

A link to this week's photos. This week the urge to self-destruct is deconstructed as a desire to never experience the fragility of having cherished objects, people, and or situations that can be destroyed, go away, become soiled or ill, or die. The root of conservative political urges, conversely, is speculated as arising from an anxiety over having cherished objects and or situations that one is terrified of being co-opted or destroyed by alien invaders such as people from any other race, religious preference, or location. All this speculation is triggered by the disorder that has naturally taken over the home of first-time home-owners Cynthia and Jeff during their recent absence: a fairly nice rug probably irreparably destroyed by cat urine from angry cats; a yard completely over-grown with weeds so that it is like a jungle outside the boundaries of human civilization… Is it possible to preserve one's integrity while owning property? Can one care for a garden without resorting to chemical "weed"-killers th

a link to the photos of the week... Cynthia plunges even further into the depths of homesickness this week, her first complete week entirely away from Philadelphia since moving there. But inside every curse is a blessing and vice versa, the blessing in this case being she has decidedly fallen in love with her new home. So from a place of resources depleted by homesickness (and also extreme cardio fitness workouts at Row Zone in Philadelphia and then Warrior Boot Camp in Brooklyn) she offers a kind of love letter to her Philadelphia home, and additionally a remedy for warts is offered. In a somehow related fashion, the work and undaunted creativity of María Irene Fornés is discussed and used as a source of inspiration to continue to produce offerings even when constricted by afflictions, viewing those afflictions or restrictions as gateways to freedom rather than obstacles. Features of the missed home are described, such as a haunted bidet, the love of this home proving to be all-encompassing, taking particula

A link to this week's photos. This week's podcast is in honor of the late great champion of the world Muhammad Ali. A boxing fitness class is attended and respect for all boxers increased due to the class's extreme sweat-inducing difficulty. Much love is experienced in the form of pain: love for Ali, love for the boxing fitness gym Joltin' Jabs, and love for Philadelphia (itself coincidentally the "city of brotherly love") (and also coincidentally perhaps most famous for a fictional boxing champion.) The song of the week is about the moment of realization that one is in love because one is longing for the thing or person or place that is loved - in other words it's about the initial pangs or pain of love, pain as a signal that love is happening. Cynthia forgets to mention that her very first public performance in Philadelphia since moving there has been scheduled for July 7th at Plays and Players Theater, part of an evening by Good Good Comedy indicating that it is to be a comedic version of new material… but

A link to this week's pictures. This week (erroneously introduced as week #15) is an insomnia-driven missive from the wee hours of a rainy night, inspired by a show attended at PhilaMOCA called The Birth of Silent Radio, an offering from filmmaker and songwriter Cory McAbee aka Billy Nayer Show aka Small Star Corporation Radio aka Captain Ahab's Motorcycle Club. Cynthia forgets to mention that one of the inspiring moments of the show was called "Wandering Window" in which Cory played recordings of soundscapes heard through windows sent in to him by folks from all around the world, and in that spirit this week's entire podcast is recorded in a window on a rainy night, so there's a lot of background weather sounds. The song of the week is a reverent cover of a song from the show, that makes heavy use of the phrase "super duper." Reverence is also duly paid to several inspiring figures from Cynthia's childhood, of whom she is reminded by the show, including radio personalities Dr. Demento and Jean Sheperd, and a

A link to the photos for the week! Cynthia's plans for the week are derailed by not one but two acute sinus infections, diagnosed by medical professionals as "acute maxillary sinusitis, unspecified" and "acute frontal sinusitis, unspecified" which justifies her complaints of discomfort leading up to the diagnosis and also presents her with an antidote in the form of an antibiotic plus netti pot treatments. Nevertheless she manages to perform at the Pig Iron gala which turns out not to be a gala at all but a slightly awkward event, featuring an especially awkward social interaction that brings up uncomfortable memories of an awkward experience Cynthia had some years ago, taking over for a much larger and more buxom and much more adept at burlesque performer in a "naked ladies" play without words. Reminiscing about the naked ladies experience while suffering sinusitis reminds Cynthia of playing Salome on the roof of a Manhattan YWCA in October (because it required her to dance naked in freezing temperatures whi