Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1.5 - #376
Guest Post by Rebecca Davey (Observables) + “They Put a Body in the Bayou” by The Orwells - 03/31/22
Today we have a special guest post from artist Rebecca Davey! Rebecca and I met in the SubstackGo program during the month of February. I’ve really enjoyed some of her work on her Substack, Observables, including this week’s piece further detailing her visit to Los Angeles for a podcast convention and around the time of the Oscars where she notes that:
Here’s a more formal bio!
Rebecca Davey is a multi-hyphenate artist, having worked as a writer-creator-producer-actor for over a decade. She is founder of two companies, She Said Films and her current brainchild Ceres Productions, which fills its expanding creative universe with diverse projects big and small. Rebecca has written and directed several short films which have been featured at Telefilm’s Not Short on Talent Program at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as writing, producing and starring in two seasons of the award-winning digital series "Running With Violet," which is currently available on the OUTtv network and Amazon Prime US. “Running With Violet” has garnered over thirty awards and nominations including two Canadian Screen Awards. Currently, Rebecca has several television projects in development; she publishes a weekly newsletter called “Observables,” which looks for the magic in the mundane, and co-hosts a podcast called Sister On!, which is all about self-improvement and reframing life’s hurdles. Her other major project is mothering her two daughters.
Okay, take it away, Rebecca!
I listen to my songs over four days during a podcast conference in downtown LA.
Day 1
Forever
I walk off the plane listening to my first song: Forever by Drake. The first thing my uber driver says when he finds out I’m Canadian is just: Drake. We discuss Drake’s many mansions. He’s playing a Christian radio station in the background. I forgot that about America. The overtness when it comes to faith and beliefs, not full up of “sorrys.”
In a second uber, a few hours later, Drake comes on again. I’m with my sister this time. She asks the driver if she’s into Drake still. She’s not. They muse about whether or not he is just an old man now (although younger than us). And a bit icky. What I really want to ask the driver is if she feels safe driving…as a woman. But I hold back. I’m working on my questions and how I always find the one that turns the moment too vulnerable. So, I don’t say anything. I bite my lip under my mask and imagine a world in which I can ask anything I want and it brings us together.
Life is such a fucking roller coaster, then it drops…
Day 2
Glenn Gould Bach Goldberg Variations - the 1995 & 1981 Recordings
The lobby of the hotel is bustling. Glenn Gould is a perfect accompaniment to the hive mind that is happening here. Podcasters are here with a Pathology group, along with the Congressional Black Caucus—all of us ready to change the world. Or are we just trying to be seen? My sister and I skip the party where Paris Hilton is DJ-ing. We’re old like Drake. We wonder if we won’t be able to change the world now because we haven’t danced to Paris Hilton’s beats. We definitely won’t be seen.
Day 3
Somewhere a Star Shines for Everyone
We walk for excellent coffee (according to my taste). That’s part of our routine here at the conference. Between sessions we walk. Along Figueroa Street. Take a left at 9th. I play us my third song: Somewhere a Star Shines For Everyone by Innocence Mission. Karen Peris’ breathy voice brings back waves of nostalgia. Of a time when I was young and living in a different part of California. The Inland Empire. Riverside. It was smoking hot and I cried all the time that year. I tried to use Emu oil as a remedy for acne, which only made me cry more. My husband was finishing his Ph.D. at UC Riverside. I had just found out I was pregnant. We were poor and living off ten thousand dollars from my parents. It was my husband’s supervisor who introduced us to Innocence Mission. I listened to them constantly, trying to align my taste with theirs.
Somewhere a star shines for me everyone
Somewhere one’s shining for me
Not matter how rich or poor your are
La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
Day 4
For the Record
My sister closes the hotel door behind her. It’s 4 a.m. I booked a much more sane flight back to Toronto. Alone now, I reach for my phone. Song #4: For the Record by Kathleen Edwards. Her raspy voice belts, For the record, I only wanted to sing songs. What’s the story here? What went wrong? Something can go wrong for all of us, which is what I couldn’t help but think on our walks to coffee these last days, as we passed all the homeless people making homes under layers of bags. Surely that’s not what they wanted for themselves. One uber driver told us that this generation of homeless people will die out because what else can happen when no one wants to help them.
Day 5
High on Humans
This time in the uber I put my earbuds in. Oh Wonder is what blasts in my ears…I’m getting high on humans. Ah ha! That’s why I came to this place. To learn tips and tricks to connect better with my audience. To find the story. To get high on the beauty of humans. I recommit to my questions, to my vulnerability, to acknowledging the homeless on the streets of LA and my own city. We’re all dying out so I can’t look away. I see you. Even you, Drake.
I’m getting high, getting high, getting high on humans...
Thanks so much, Rebecca!
I really enjoyed reading about your sojourn in ‘my’ city ;)
I hope to make it back to Canada someday!
And will continue to read Observables ;)
The part that stuck out to me the most was:
I bite my lip under my mask and imagine a world in which I can ask anything I want and it brings us together.
So I thought I’d do a Shuffle for some guidance about that!
Because my inclination is to tell you, especially as a podcast host, to un-bite your lip and ask anything you ever want and bring us together!
But let’s see what the Shuffle says ;)
OK, we got:
“They Put a Body in the Bayou” by The Orwells
The synchronicity, to me at least, is that the band is called The Orwells.
George Orwell, of course, ~is the author of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), which is in part about Newspeak, the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate that is the setting of the 1949 dystopian novel. Newspeak is a controlled language of simplified grammar and restricted vocabulary designed to limit the individual's ability to think and articulate "subversive" concepts such as personal identity, self-expression and free will. Such concepts are criminalized as thoughtcrime since they contradict the prevailing orthodoxy.~
And the opening line of the song is:
They never came to town
What do we think this all means?
Does it mean keep asking your questions?
Keep risking being the one that turns the moment too vulnerable?
Then again The Orwells reportedly broke up due to sexual misconduct violations.
Good boys come in last
So…
Rebecca mentioned in her bio that her ‘other major project is mothering her two daughters’.
Which made me remember that I noticed after the last post went out that I mistyped the title of the song “Donda Chant” as “Donda Chat”, i.e. ‘chat’ instead of ‘chant’.
Which I thought was a pretty hilarious and apt Freudian autocorrect, as the piece was largely about my conversation with my mom while watching King Richard.
And you could say Kanye was in conversation with his deceased mom via music, the way I feel like I am with my deceased dad via the Shuffle.
She wrote me a text about it that said in part:
I read your shuffle and…I liked your reference to me….
Aw…
Okay, that’s the three hundred and seventy-sixth Shuffle Synchronicities.