Romanistan
The authors of Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling present: Romanistan! Do you love rebels? Do you want to live in a place where outcasts shine their brightest? Welcome to Romanistan! We're your friendly neighborhood Gypsies, celebrating Romani identity and outcast culture, and practicing good diplomatic relations with other marginalized communities.
We love the rebels who are living their truth, even if it clashes with tradition. We also love tradition and honoring our roots. This podcast is for everyone who loves and supports Roma & related groups, and anyone who feels like a misfit and wants to uplift others to create a beautiful community.
We feature pioneers in culture, fashion, art, literature, music, activism, cuisine, and everything good. We adore the intersections of gender, sexuality, spirituality, ability, and identity. We cover all topics, from the difficult to the glorious. Let's sit crooked and talk straight.
Hosted by Paulina Stevens and Jezmina Von Thiele. We reclaim the slur Gypsy, but if you aren’t Romani, we prefer you don't use it. xoxo.
P.S. The Romani people are a diasporic ethnic group originally from northwest India, circa the 10th century. Now, Roma live all over the globe, and due to centuries of oppression, slavery, genocide, and other atrocities, Roma are still fighting for basic human rights. We seek to raise awareness of who Roma are, and highlight Romani resilience, creativity, & culture.
Romanistan
Good Morning, Romanistan 9: Water Always Wanders and Agatha All Along
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We spoke with Ylva Mara Radziszewski about Water Always Wanders, a multimedia theatre production of queer and trans Romani artists at the Mudlark Theatre in New Orleans, Louisiana December 6th & 7th from 6:30-9:00 pm cst. Our book, Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling will be for sale along with Loly scarves, and other vendors. This performance will also be a fundraiser for our Welcome to Romanistan Festival in spring 2025, sponsored in part by Weiser Books, our publisher.
We also interviewed Robin Badaire about the rest of season 1 of Agatha All Along, and discussed the whitewashing of Romani characters as well what remained of the Romani stereotypes, and what could have been if the characters had actually been written as Roma.
Thank you for listening to Romanistan podcast.
You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook @romanistanpodcast, and on Twitter @romanistanpod. To support us, Join our Patreon for extra content or donate to Ko-fi.com/romanistan, and please rate, review, and subscribe. It helps us so much.
Follow Jez on Instagram @jezmina.vonthiele & Paulina @romaniholistic.
You can get our book Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling, online or wherever books are sold. Visit romanistanpodcast.com for events, educational resources, merch, and more. Please support our book tour fundraiser if you can.
Email us at romanistanpodcast@gmail.com for inquiries.
Romanistan is hosted by Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens
Conceived of by Paulina Stevens
Edited by Viktor Pachas
With Music by Viktor Pachas
And Artwork by Elijah Vardo
Welcome to Romanistan. We're your friendly neighborhood gypsies. I'm Paulina and I'm Jez, and we are back with another. Good Morning, romanistan. We have so many things to talk about, but we are going to try to be brief. Let's start off with some really good news is that we were in Portland, oregon, at Sea Grape Apothecary, doing a series of events at the end of October and it was so wonderful, wasn't it?
Speaker 3a delight honestly, I felt so welcomed the whole city, the whole place. I feel like, um yeah, like I'm really grateful for that opportunity and we're definitely coming back we have to go back.
Speaker 2Yeah, so we were doing the secrets of romanistan? Uh, nope, we were doing the secrets of romani. Yikes, I'm real tired we're all fucking dead tired.
Speaker 2Okay, it's been a, it's been a lot, but we were doing the secrets of Romani fortune telling book tour. Um yeah, and Sea Grape was just awesome and Portland is such a cool city and we're just so grateful for the people who came out to see us. We had an amazing turnout and it really felt like such a real book tour. Ramana-san would like to thank our recent donations for our ongoing book tour coming in through our GoFundMe. Thank you to Tasnim Nafu, river Raika, angela Albanese, river Ryka, angela Albanese and Madeline Levy. Thank you so much for your support.
Speaker 2Something's playing on my phone now. So, yeah, thank you for everyone who came out, and we also wanted to acknowledge that the election happened and we understand. A lot of our listeners are probably really upset and afraid, are probably really upset and afraid, and I would like to remind folks to invest your efforts in local government as much as you can, in the wonderful grassroots organizations that are already in existence and run by the communities who you want to support and who are the most vulnerable, and just see where you can put your love into action. Basically, and what did you want to say, paulina?
Speaker 3um, yeah, we're literally just fucking acknowledging the election, because when we don't, people freak out like I literally don't give a fuck if we get canceled, like we're all fucking devastated about it. I don't even want to talk about it and, honestly, like I couldn't even vote that day because I was busy like getting an abortion, so it was like I thought that our rights were going to be protected, especially here in california.
Speaker 2Um, and now, like fucking, even california is at risk of just all these, all this shit, and so I feel like, yeah, um, I feel bad, I feel like really fucked up and I'm scared as fuck and I have two daughters and like fucking everybody, like everybody's rights are fucked, and so that's what people need to understand yeah, there's so much on the line and it's it was just so surreal that you were going through something so difficult that people need access to for health care, for their survival, and it's really scary that, oh my gosh, so many people's rights are on the line right now, and so we really do have to try to pull together.
Speaker 3Try to pull together um, and yeah, it's, we're, we're not political experts. Oh my gosh, I can barely speak. We're not. We're not experts in anywhere. No, we're not experts. Don't quote me on that, off the record oh god, yeah, it's just.
Speaker 2You know, can? It's a combination of things right now where we're exhausted, sure, because we've been busy, but also this week has been exhausting for other reasons. And, yeah, we just love you and we care about you and your rights, and you know we're going to do what we can, but we all have to be in this together, all have to be in this together and, um, yeah, anything else that you want?
Speaker 3to say about that before we gracefully change topics. Next, I'll do the next.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm done but, um, yeah, we are excited to take a little time off from book touring this winter. We'll probably do a few events here and there, but what we're really interested in, if you have any connections, we love speaking at colleges and having the opportunity basically to reach a student body and we love talking at bookstores, and so if you're like, oh man, if only I had known that you wanted to do stuff like this, I would have told my college or bookstore or local, whatever venue.
Speaker 3It's not too late. You could do it. Yeah, you can do it. It's never too late to redeem yourself. We'll go.
Speaker 2If we can get airfare and lodging and some kind of stipend, we'll be there. Yeah, so if you have any thoughts about where you would like us to go, or if you'd like us to speak on fortune telling the Romani community, survival trades, those kinds of things, we're so happy to do that. And if you guys.
Speaker 3Oh sorry, oh no, I was going to say if you guys think that like they won't fund anything or contribute, like you'll actually be surprised at how many, like organizations and schools do fund, um, and would be willing to help, like you just gotta kind of talk to the higher-ups but like, obviously we can do that, but it would be great if you guys could at least, you know, recommend us or something, because we this is, we do this for a purpose. Obviously we don't make money um, yeah, not like money, money, but we money, money, um, but we would like to, you know, we'd like to keep spreading the word and doing what we're doing, and that's even difficult at this point, um, to just do that. But I've noticed there's been a difference. There's been, I feel like, to a degree like we, our followers, our guests, our listeners, they've made an impact, to a degree like we've helped to educate, you know.
Speaker 2Yeah, we've gotten such wonderful reception of our book and a lot of people who have heard about it from us didn't know that fortune telling, tarot, palmistry, tea leaf reading, coffee reading these things are Romani survival trades and they were so interested to learn more and it made us feel really my color pencils are falling over feel really hopeful to, yeah, just basically share what we grew up with, with people hoping that it might change the way that they think about Roma, that maybe they present themselves if they're fortune telling or doing new agey kinds of things, maybe they're much less likely to dress up in problematic ways or call themselves a gypsy, so and so, without really understanding why that can be harmful. And also, it's a nice way to invite people into our culture in a way that maybe lets them fall in love with it and maybe invites them to be allies, because allyship is important, as we know. And if you're like, how can I help? Like I already bought the book, what? Now you know what helps us a crazy amount is if you review the book five stars and write something nice on Amazon or Goodreads or anywhere else you can review books. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it is a lot. So if you could do that, that would be great. And we're still.
Speaker 2I don't know if you can hear Lily rolling around on the couch and having a great time right now, but she's just having such a great time and you know, we still have our fundraiser for our book tour going. I'm just about to send out some packages this week, now that we're back, and that would fund rough. That would. She is having a wonderful time. That would fund events in the spring. And which brings me to we're about to talk to Ilva Mara Rajejevsky, who's been on the podcast more than once and is just a wonderful person, so we're excited to invite her on to talk about her plans for the spring and a really cool performance that she's doing this winter. And so this episode of Good Morning Romanistan has a little Ilva, and it also has Robin Bader later on to wrap up, talking about Romani whitewashing in Agatha all along. And, paulina, you didn't get a chance to watch it, but after hearing our discussion, do you, do you feel like you want to revisit it, or are you like I'm good?
Speaker 3what's so weird? I actually love that question because I feel like like I want to watch it, but I mainly like just want to watch like the gypsy scenes in there. Like I'm not gonna be too invested because I feel like it doesn't deserve my full attention because they didn't get the proper they didn't cast the proper people and they whitewashed it again and I just hate that. Like why are are? You know? Why are these movie companies always doing this?
Speaker 3Because you can't even blame the actors at this point, like maybe to a degree, but like they are not educated, they don't know, like I do, what I need to do to like make a dollar or to make it in this world as an actor. So it's like, why are these movie companies doing this? And I feel like if I watch it, I'm like contributing to their, their, their stuff, but I do want to see it because anytime there's anything that has to do with the gypsy, even if it's not properly there like that's the position I'm in, like I can't even cancel it because we barely get any kind of representation, so I'm probably gonna fucking watch it yeah, it's really interesting because they they don't acknowledge or, you know, mention roma in any way, shape or form, because they totally transform the characters, but it's still as we talked about with Robin all of the gestures are still there, exactly.
Speaker 2I also just would really love it if an actor who was more plugged in, like I don't know what Patti LuPone does or doesn't know about Roma, would say like, oh, I can't take that role because it's not right, and I think that would also make a difference too, and so it would.
Speaker 3I feel like it would. I agree with that. It would totally make a difference. But then the next person's still gonna take it, sure yeah, uh, it's tough, but, um, I don't know.
Speaker 2Let's see what pixar does with this, this romani character project that they have in progress. It's hard to know what they'll do yeah, let's see.
Speaker 1Oh, here she is. Oh my god, hi, sorry, what's all the?
Speaker 4buttons. They're all so different.
Speaker 2So many buttons and we are so happy that Ilva is here with us now. Welcome, Ilva.
Speaker 4Hi, it's great to be here, great to be back, lovely to talk to you both.
Romani Queer Ritual Performance
Speaker 2We're so delighted. Would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners, who may or may not know you?
Speaker 4Yes, my name is Dilva Mara Rajashevsky. I also go by my performance moniker, bimbo Yaga. I was trying to think of his moniker, the right word yeah, I accidentally called you um bill.
Speaker 2Wait, no, bimbo. No, I was trying to remember your performance name when I was really sleepy and I said bimbo baggins and I thought that sounded like the most fun alternative universe oh my god that actually sort of brings porn that I'm going to star in yeah but I love oh my god it's nothing but like a titty sucking, toe sucking fetish it would have to be intense, but I love Bimbo yaga as a stage name oh my gosh, yeah, so um bimbo baggins, um, in my.
Speaker 4In my other world, uh, bimbo yaga. In yet another world, uh, ilvamara ridgeshevsky. Most days I am a professional witch. I am the founder and high priestess of the school of traditional magic and the witch's temple um, currently on hiatus, and I am co-creator of the living altar with kiki robinson, the opulent witch, and we have published a limited edition Oracle deck, the first created by Romani folks, particularly trans and queer Romani people, called the Living Altar Oracle Deck. Shoot back some episodes on Romanistan podcast and you'll hear Kiki and I talk about it.
Speaker 4It's so good, I love it we had a really good time in that conversation with you guys. Um, I have work featured in witchcraft, tashin's anthology of witchcraft, modern witchcraft and magic through the library esoterica, and also have a little cameo in the now debuted secrets of rom Romani Fortune Telling by Jasmine and Paulina, so I'm super excited about that. Yeah, you can find me on Instagram, at BimboYaga, and I do private sessions. Mostly these days, I'm just tending to my personal altar, which feels really good, and working on some art, some performance art and, um, yeah, just some personal creativity love it.
Speaker 2We're so, so happy, uh, to be collaborating with you, too, on an upcoming event water always wanders, which is a show that you've produced before. Would you like to tell us about what this performance is, when it it is what you want people to know?
Speaker 4Yeah. So we were blessed with the opportunity to workshop and debut Water Always Wanders as part of the inaugural Fringe Fest Last Bohemia Fest, adjunct festivals of the Tennessee Williams Festival here in New Orleans last year, march of 2023. Myself and my co-collaborators Moon Bear and Zarina Magdalena. Hellfire and Water Always Wanders is a I like to call it a ritual through storytelling. I like to call it a ritual through storytelling and it is a ceremony of remembered futures. It is a ceremonial celebration of failed dreams, forgotten prayers and a resurrection of hope. And it is told. These prayers are told and shared through storytelling. Each of the performers bring their own relationship with our Romani diaspora queerness as diasporic identity, transness as initiatory experience, experience. You know, whatever it is that they're wanting to bring to those prayers through song, through dance, through poetry, through digital art. And it is in honor of the poetic legacy of Papuja Branislava Wosz, who is a Romani, polish, romani poet and artist who I honestly think is rather queer, coded and trans coded. Just knowing her story. And so I though I don't think she has ever herself identified as queer or trans I feel such a kindred spirit with her work as queer poetry, queer Romani literature, just her story alone and how she really bucked against so much patriarchal how do you call it taboo in Romani culture, and particularly at a time during the Holocaust era where so many Romani people were being persecuted for just being ourselves. She also took a stand and wrote about it and she shared her family's stories and I don't't know. She was just such a powerful presence and has been a powerful presence in my art personally, and so I really wanted to create a show that allowed other queer and trans Romani artists to claim identity and claim space in our diaspora, particularly as assimilated American Romani and also within that extra marginalization, I suppose, of queerness and transness as Romani people.
Speaker 4So many of queer and trans Roma people that I know and love have been forced out of our communities for our identities, have been forced out of our communities for our identities, and so I see water always wanders as a ceremony of homecoming as well, anywho.
Speaker 4So that's the nature of the performance, that's the nature of the ceremony and the ritual of it, and it's for me, it is us taking up space and claiming a tradition, a modern tradition of queer and trans Romani storytelling that feels really important at this time. So, anywho, we're doing a revival of this performance. We had scheduled it as part of the Welcome to Romanistan festival that we were going to be producing in December, which is going to be postponed to the spring, so we'll give you more details on that as it unfolds. But we felt it was rather prescient to offer this ritual still as scheduled in December, just given not only the political climate that's, you know, post-2024 election but just given the global political system or situation not situation with the word climate given the global political climate and also in the States like we have, as trans and queer people, been experiencing so much litigation of identity, not only in this presidential cycle of the election cycle, but the last number of years, even under a democratic regime.
Speaker 4So I think a lot of people are really, and myself included, we're really in a place of wonder, like what is that? What is going to happen? So I thought it would. I thought it would be very cathartic for the performers and um community to have an opportunity to, to share story and prayer um in honor of those ancestors and self who have survived so much and have borne the burden of so many things and still had stories to share you know, yeah, and so thank you so much for sharing that.
Speaker 2It's so, so important, and we have a segment coming up with Robin Bader which we recorded before the election had happened. And it's just so wild when we have those before and after moments when, you know, with podcasting you can't always be up to the minute, and I'm sure that Robin would want to share sentiments similar to yours too. So I just know that not all parts of this podcast were recorded post our dire realization of the election, post our dire realization of the election. But can you share with us some of the details of how do we get to? Water Always Wanders if you're in the New Orleans area or willing to travel there. How do you get tickets? Is it when? Is it? Yeah?
Speaker 4So you can actually get tickets to Water Always Wanders on the Ramana podcast website, romanistanpodcastcom, and you can look under the tab Welcome to Romanistan Festival and there'll be a drop down menu and you'll see Water Always Wonders. There You'll see the description, our intentions, you'll see the cast bio and everything, and the dates are December 6th and December 7th. It's a two-night run and it's at the Mudlark Public Theater here in New Orleans, 1200 Port Street. Tickets are $20, limited space. It's a small black box theater and so it's a very intimate setting and you can order tickets online. We'll have a few tickets available at the door, but tickets are currently selling, so you want to snag yours.
Speaker 4And then we'll also be reprising Water Always Wonders with a different cast and a different story, different stories, different songs, different poems in the spring of 2025 as part of Welcome to Ramona Sand Festival. So it is a living performance, it's a living altar, it is a ritual of storytelling, and the stories that are brought every time we gather will be different stories There'll be. There'll be different stories to tell, there'll be different prayers to make and there will be different things to grieve and different things to celebrate, and so, if you catch it in December. It'll be different than last, at our debut at last year at Tennessee Women's Festival, and if you don't catch it in December, you'll get a whole new experience of it in the spring of 2025 as well.
Speaker 3Yay, thank you. I'm excited too.
Speaker 4It's going to be so nice. Yeah, we have some audio recordings of your friendly neighborhood gypsies, mother poetry and we'll have some spell videos from Baby Reckless and the Opulent Witch Kiki Robinson and the opulent witch Kiki Robinson. We'll have featured music and poetry from Millie Raccoon, who is a wonderful, powerful ritual troubadour of Romani heritage. We'll have performance, art and object theater from Moon Bear, who is a wonderful artist and performer and dear friend, and also we'll have a song and movement and ceremony from Darina Magdalena Hellfire. And, of course, you'll have original music from yours truly, bimbo Yaga.
Speaker 4I wrote a few songs for this iteration of Water Always Wanders and we'll be joined by a special guest, lady Baby Miss, who is not Romani but is a very dear friend and also of the Jewish diaspora, and so, I think, celebrating just a shared intimacy with what it means to find place, what it means to find home among community of different people, of like-minded people. So I think it'll be really beautiful, I'm really excited about it and, of course, our wonderful hosts, the Mudlark Public Theater and, of course, thanking our generous sponsor, wiser Books, for sponsoring this performance in part, along with you all at Romanistan and, yeah, bringing this beautiful offering to community yeah yeah, sorry, go ahead, paulina no, I was gonna say yeah, like.
Speaker 3I think it's a real like big deal and there's not a lot of events like this, so we would really appreciate anyone that can help support us or show up or that even just wants to enjoy it, like whoever the fuck you are, we don't care, you're welcome everyone's welcome and I want to say oh go ahead.
Speaker 4No, go ahead. I want to say one thing too um, if you're not in the new orleans area, you can buy tickets for people who you can, sponsor tickets. It's okay to want to support this work. It's okay to want to support these artists and Romani magical futurism, if we can borrow from Michaela Dragon's work in that and I think this is also what this performance is it's part of that modern lineage of Romani futurism, magical futurism, and so, if you want to support this work, you can sponsor tickets. Just shoot us an email and say I'm buying these tickets. Give them to whomever. We can have those available at the door for walk-ins for free. There are people in community who would love to see this work but maybe can't afford the $20. I know that doesn't seem like a lot for some people, but it is a lot for many people, particularly those people who are queer and trans and are gig workers, especially right now. Things are actually pretty rough for a lot of us, and so sponsor the tickets. Just let us know that you're sponsoring the tickets.
Speaker 4And also we're doing a fundraiser. This is part of the show, is also part fundraiser for our spring festival Welcome to Burmanistan 2025. We'll have vending. We'll be vending scarves by Loli by Zita Moldova, moldovan, moldovan. We'll have scarves by Loli from Zita Moldova, moldovan, moldovan. We'll have Scars by Loli from Zita Moldovan. We'll have Secrets of Armani fortune telling for sale. We'll have copies of my book, a Practical Guide for Witches, for sale. We'll have Moonbear selling some beautiful homemade herbal remedies and ritual supplies, as well as copies of the Living Altar Oracle deck. So we'll be raising funds through a small pop-up market. And you are also always welcome to visit romanistanpodcastcom. Go to the Welcome to Romanistan Festival menu and then you'll see a dropdown that says Sponsorship and Donations. If you want to make this festival happen for us, we would be so grateful for any donations towards that goal yeah it, that is exactly what I was going to mention.
Speaker 2so thank you so much, because our the fundraiser aspect of it is really important to make it happen. And if you happen to have a company or work for a company who does corporate sponsorships, we are taking corporate sponsorships alongside Wiser Books, who is the publisher of Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling, and we can offer the logo on the website, ads on the podcast, representation of the logo and mention at the events and other things too. So we're really excited to make this happen and this event in December, this two night run of Water Always Wanders, is going to be really special and ephemeral and magical and integral to making the festival happen too. So we're just so grateful to you for doing this in New Orleans and just being such a changemaker in the community.
Speaker 4Well, that's very sweet and very generous. Thank you.
Speaker 2And we love you Love you too, baby. Is there anything else that we want to say before we release you into the rest of your day?
Speaker 4You know, I want to just say this will be slightly political but mostly spiritual, so you can cut this out. But I want to say that for those of us who are having strong feelings right now, post-election it's okay.
Speaker 3You're canceled. No, no.
Navigating Activism and Self-Care
Speaker 4You're canceled. It's okay to have those feelings. It's okay to be worried, it's okay to be concerned For those for whom this presidential cycle has radicalized you to the cause of collective liberation. We're so grateful for you to arrive. Many of us have had those moments of awakening and deeper radicalization over the last number of years, decades. Some of us are old and tired, yeah, and so we've been around, we've been doing this. There are others that have been doing this for much longer than us.
Speaker 4You can turn towards organizations and groups local to you who have an established record, a track record of social activism and support within community. You do not have to reinvent a process of collectivizing. You can step into community work where you feel the invitation is received. You can make inquiry. You can ask about people's politics, you can ask about people's cosmology, belief systems. You can find where you fit and there's many ways to contribute to organizing for collective liberation.
Speaker 4I just want to say it's okay to have feelings, it's okay to do what you can, and we have been in these times for a long time and many of us who live in racialized identities, politicized identities and bodies, racialized identities, politicized identities and bodies. You know we're tired and I appreciate that I'm tired and we can lean into each other, where the invitation is welcome, leaning into ourselves. Take time to rest, take time to breathe, take time to sit at your altar, take time to reflect. You know it's easy to point fingers and say, oh, it's because of third party voters, it's because of this, because of that, but the reality is we live in a neo-fascist system that has been built for these times. It has been built to do what it's doing. This is the engine that has been driving for a very long time, and so it is not one particular thing, it is the system. So when you are enraged, point your finger to the system, not at each other and those who contribute to the perpetuation of this system. You can be mad at them, you can point your fingers there, but I would hope that eventually we come back to one another who are working to create the necessary changes to move forward in a more collaborative way.
Speaker 4I say all that because, you know, I personally feel a lot of ancestral memory surfacing in my body at this time around Holocaust and genocide and the generational impact of fascism, and I just I have nothing to say about it, except that you know, please take care of each other. Please take care of yourself and please take care of each other and turn to those things that allow you a moment to gather your thoughts and gather your wits and gather yourself. There's not to sound like a conspiracist, but there's so much. There's so much at play right now with the intention to spin us all out so that we're not moving together, that we're moving against one another and we're moving against ourselves, and so I think it's so important to spend time recollecting yourself and gathering yourself. It's okay to take that moment and really recollect so that you're not acting from a, from a space of spiraling. You know, does that make sense?
Speaker 2yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that.
Speaker 3We were trying to talk about what to do after the election and just really struggling, and so I'm so grateful to you for sharing your thoughts yeah, like before you came on, actually in our intro we were like we don't even know how to talk about this, and so I feel like you had the perfect advice that we could not, um, articulate at all thank you, yeah, thanks for just letting me have a moment to share that, because I I don't think it's helpful for anyone to say now what I think, like, where do we go?
Speaker 4I think there's so much right now happening where people are. We're responding, we're reacting from a place of we're activated right now. We've been activated, yeah, we've been aggravated, and now we're just sort of clamoring, we're scrambling towards and towards a course of action and it's like sometimes, the, the court, the most appropriate course of action is to pause and to take a few steps back and to reconvene and to recollect. Um, because I don't think, I don't think I don't know if I'll speak for myself like the strategies we have been working through, working with, are not adequate and it's very evident in this global rise of very brazen neo-fascism that they don't care about what rules are at play. You know, and so we, you might, I feel sometimes at a loss because it feels ineffectual A lot of the things that we have been doing.
Speaker 4We're working and now feel ineffectual, and I think it's okay to feel that way. I think it's okay to feel, and I think it's okay to feel that way. I think it's okay to feel disappointed. I think it's okay to feel hopeless and despair and I think it's important to honor the fact that those feelings might be up and not turn from them, but also, intending to them, allow them their natural course. You know, all feelings do want to move, they do want to evolve, they want to move us and evolve us, but don't be so quick to act, you know. Don't be so quick to respond. Be in a place of allowing yourselves to if this is relevant.
Speaker 5You know, some people are like let's go, go, go Like, go like.
Speaker 4I love that you're really in it and you're ready to go. Please do, but please move within movements that have already been collectivizing. You know, um, we don't want to burn out again. We don't want these movements to burn out again them.
Magic, Poetry, and Romani Representation
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely well. Thank you so much for sharing with us about performance and politics and magic and everything in between. We really appreciate you of course thank you and yeah, you can cut out anything that doesn't make sense, or anything you know, that's really nothing to cut out. You're good, except for Lily screaming. Huh, except for Lily screaming. What a cute baby. She's a little angry potato today.
Speaker 3You say angry potato every day she is.
Speaker 2That is her constant state.
Speaker 3Thank you so much for being on here with us. We really love you and appreciate you and. I really feel like I even needed to hear the words that you said, like I feel like it resonated with me personally also, so thank you you're welcome and thanks again for the invitation.
Speaker 4I love you all so much. I'm sad I don't get to see you in December, but you'll be on stage with. I'm sad I don't get to see you in December, but you'll be on stage with us. I'm going to try to record. I'm going to try to figure out how to like record the performance. It's a small enough theater I could basically just set up my computer in the you know sorry, that's sorry.
Speaker 2Lily's having a bit. That sounds good.
Speaker 3Thank you, that's sorry lily's having a fit that sounds good, all right, my darling, thank you so much bye In honor of the upcoming performance, for Water Always Wanders.
Speaker 1I wanted to share my poetic contribution to last year's performance in March with the Tennessee Williams Festival.
Speaker 2White Caravan a deaf fugue in my mother's voice. My white caravan clomps through the desert, color scorched, ecstatic. The wagon burns because I'm hot shit. My ancestors are diasporic, skull polished, hard knocking. I'll come to them. Around the fire, my red horse waiting.
Speaker 2I had nightmares of molars rolling over floorboards, freed from their skeleton shelves, leaping like lentils in a rattle. German, gypsy, a handful of teeth. I used to be a beauty, queen Bitch, call me Romany, queen Bitch, call me Romany. Hunger was unkind to me. A family legacy. Every organ is hardening such a rare disease.
Speaker 2Once my daughter spread my mother's playing cards across a table, red and black, winking what I already knew to cover the mirrors very soon. Mama, do you have anything? You want to ask the cards? Yeah, what the fuck? I never told fortunes like her or my mother, damn it. I was an aerobics instructor, horse trainer, dog groomer. I kept accounts. I was a shop clerk, leg sales girl, bodybuilder, perfect score, ged when I was 30. I could have kept going. Something stopped me.
Speaker 2My skin thickened over my little wagon's architecture, but notice how a scorpion molts violently leaving itself undone. I open the caravan door, blessed above with a horseshoe and bells. I invite the soot of evening to cover, throw pillows and scar tissue to smother me. Good like a measured father. Devla, my white father peddled me while my gypsy mother froze like a fawn in the light of a new country, a new language. She leaned into horror, weaned on the Nazi regime, fresh off the boat into the arms of her own private tyrant. Horse-drawn teacups, shudder, all porcelain and wet leaves clattering down my calcified lungs as I breathe and breathe. I used to stand on my red horse's back as she galloped, our hair braided. Now watch the piners of the scorpion weave getting closer to me. That's a boxer I would bet on. And who can forget the sting? I'm looking for death. The beautiful woman who will stop my wagon and take me where dunes open to reveal a compressed gem of endings, where sand closes over my head as I look up at the night's body, the moon is a tendon-rod joint for me to scream at. Once I loved her and only spoke soft words Lachirachi, goddess of the good I'm entitled to. My anger and my angels, my anger and my angels. When scorpions crack from their backs, rise between my busted spokes, they are, for three days, delicate. I have always been so delicate and no one has treated me that way. I am transforming, spitting up the black shell. I am playing with my medication. I am transforming, spitting up the black shell. I am playing with my medication.
Speaker 2I am bored of this business of sickening. My mother says I was born with one foot on the other side because I could see spirits and predict the deaths of everyone I met. I've been saying I'd like to jump in with both feet. I'll go out with sirens blaring, flooding the desert inside me, blue and red, and my daughter and my husband frantic, breathing me with their hands. I'll go out on a new moon in August when the prayer fire burns outside, just after my daughter asks for my healing at the edge of the woods. Beliefs have never healed me and if I were to be buried, I would be buried standing. Instead, I will burn with ungodly clacking when I am decanted. I will be ash blown back into my daughter's hair as she prays me into her meadow grass and ocean water, with whiskey and flowers mixed with the old ash of my red horse, her breath blowing hot, carrying me off, and I will be her ancestor working an old trade, a good job. I feel better guiding her from here.
Speaker 2This poem White Caravan, a Death Fugue in my Mother's Voice, was published in Zoe Glossia and it was published in the New Anthology and it was published in Kin, an anthology of poetry, story and art by women from Romani, traveler and nomadic communities. And this was published by Salmon Poetry Press and you can order it. And it was published in Ireland so you might have to do a little international ordering if you're not in Ireland, but Salmon Poetry is a wonderful publishing house and they will get you your book. I highly recommend it. Paulina is in this anthology, kin, as well, and her poems are amazing and I'm giggling because she would be mad at me for saying that, but she's not going to hear this until later. But her poems are amazing and I really hope that you enjoy and get to the festival if you can, but if you can't there are other ways to support us. Stay tuned for our Agatha all along segment and thank you to Wiser Books again for being a sponsor.
Speaker 2Welcome to our part two of the Agatha All Along recap. We have Robin Bader back with us again this week and we had left off on episode five, darkest Hour, wake Thy Power. And we will be talking about the rest of the series, which goes until episode nine. So if you don't want any spoilers, maybe finish the series first and then check in with us. Welcome, robin. Hi, yay, happy to have you here, happy to be back. So tell us your thoughts. So we've seen the whole series. Now what do you think?
Speaker 5Wow thoughts. So we've seen the whole series now what do you think? Wow? Um, overall, I think that the series could have been a lot worse. Coming from a fan perspective, um, speaking as someone who's really invested in the source material this is based on, I definitely walked away from it with a lot of questions that I don't anticipate will be answered, and I think that's par for the course. Uh, when it comes to the current state of storytelling in marvel movies, unfortunately, um, but yeah, relevant obviously to our discussion, a lot of stuff came up in the back half of the series regarding the treatment of characters who, in the source material, are either jewish or romani, and not a lot of.
Speaker 2It was great, unfortunately, yeah, yeah, I noticed that. Um, do you want to start with your thoughts on billy's character? Who was was? Maybe more people were talking about Billy's character than Lillia's. Do you think that's true?
Speaker 570s is still in the single digits. Oh, wow. So the character Billy Kaplan, who was sort of the secondary protagonist and kind of the breakout star of this series. It's a comic book character who was introduced in 2005 in a series called Young Avengers and he and his boyfriend Teddy and you'll notice there's a weird discrepancy there um are two of the most prominent gay characters in marvel comics for 2005. It was the first time we'd ever really seen like an on-page gay couple, especially amongst younger characters. Specifically. Um, they're one of the still very, very few gay marriages that have ever happened. So that's a historically very significant character that's been going strong for now nearly 20 years and has like a really really huge and active fan base. So that's definitely where a lot of the attention for this series was coming from.
Speaker 5Uh, in the, in the source material, that character was sort of originally conceived all the way back in the 80s as one of the scarlet witch's children who she created using magic. Um, during her marriage to this character called the vision, who's a robot. Uh, long story there. What did you say, paulina I?
Speaker 3I was going to say I do love Vision.
Speaker 5Oh you do. He's really fun. He's a really sweet character. I miss him being played by actors who aren't all that me.
Speaker 5As you can imagine, though, making babies out of magic sometimes has unintended consequences. Wanda lost her children in a really tragic storyline and they were reincarnated sometime later, and that plot is a little difficult to parse. It's a very comic booky sort of thing, but the long and short of it is that, after overcoming a great deal of strife and tribulation, wanda was able to successfully allow her children to be reincarnated by sending them back in time, so they reemerged much older than they would have otherwise. They were like little kids, and then they popped back up as teenagers, and in this story it's depicted as this kind of like miraculous thing. That happens and the family is eventually reunited, and it's very joyful and the way that it plays out.
Speaker 5Every, every one of the characters in question is able to continue to sort of embody every aspect of who they are. So you have them coming from this origin, where they're this Romani woman's child. She also has Jewish ancestry. The character is reborn and raised in an American Jewish family, so all parts of him and all parts of his heritage are sort of always present in every version of the character and reclaiming this family relationship with Wanda. It never invalidates his relationship with his other parents and that character stays very strongly rooted in his identity as a young American Jewish man.
Speaker 5Here in this TV show something very strange has happened. Instead of this kind of like joyful, miraculous second chance at life, the character like body snatches a teenager who ends up dying in a like car crash and has amnesia, and then they sort of treat him as if that past identity is completely invalidated, and so I just think the whole situation is much more dire and grim and it feels more punishing um than it does in the original story. And again, I think, especially as fans coming in who feel connected to this character or feel attached to this character because he represents such an intersection of different marginalized identities, to have that story executed in a way where by the end of it, all of well, he's gay but all of his other identities are, like intentionally, kind of obliterated from the story.
Speaker 2It's really disappointing intentionally kind of obliterated from the story. It's really disappointing. Yeah, because in the story in the series he is Jewish but the actor isn't Jewish and I know a lot of people took issue with that. Do you want to share a little bit more why that was particularly tough for viewers to watch?
Speaker 5For sure, yeah. So in the sixth episode we see, through a series of flashbacks, the story of how Wanda's young son, billy from WandaVision, who appeared as a child, is resurrected by entering, as a spirit, the body of a teenage boy who had recently passed in a car crash. And through that series of events we learn that this other boy who he's now possessing is a car crash. And through that series of events we learn that this other boy who he's now possessing is a Jewish kid. And we meet him in the opening scenes at his bar mitzvah and he is, you know, reciting prayers and performing all of the correlating ceremonies. And I think you know I'm not Jewish.
Speaker 5I've heard a lot of different opinions about this over the years, about this character. My impression is that a lot of people might have been okay with non-Jewish actors playing a character who is otherwise, maybe textually white, white. But I think, specifically, it's the appropriation of religious practice that ended up kind of crossing a line in that context and in my perspective, I would have had a lot more flexibility and leeway with how this character had been cast, just because his relationship to all of his parents is kind of weird and esoteric. But I think, given the larger context that we're now coming in from several years of intentionally erasing other jewish and roma characters in this film franchise and in the x-men film franchise it's kind of inexcusable. There is no flexibility. Every, every time they continue to do it, it's harder to can't waver excuse yeah, which leads us into that same episode.
Speaker 2Uh, lilia, you know is is whitewashed. She's not a romani character in this series and she's played by patty lapone, who is amazing but who is not romani. And um, however, when we meet her in the fortune telling scene, it is like stepping into, like a party city caravan, like it's just very, very overdone in the the fortune telling parlor way and references so many romani stereotypes in the way that she's dressed and the way that she presents herself. Do you want to talk a little bit more about how Patti LuPone's character is shown?
Speaker 3How did they not learn? How do you not learn this shit, guys, come on.
Misrepresentation of Romani Culture in Media
Speaker 5They never do, and it really reminded me a lot. I don't know if any of you saw this or remember it, but there was this really strange scene in the Halloweenlloween episode of wandavision where elizabeth olsen comes down in like a party city cosplay of, like a scarlet witch costume and they're like what are you supposed to be dressed as? Because it makes no sense in context that she would be wearing this comic book costume and she goes oh, I'm like a fortune teller. And she does this pose like she's holding a crystal ball. It's so nuts, so they're very clearly, they're so clearly aware of. They're like oh, these characters are gypsies, they're fortune tellers.
Speaker 2Now, in this like highly stereotypical way, um well, we were talking that that is also wild. I remember that from wandavision. But we were talking about uh li, lilia and her set dressing and everything.
Speaker 5Yes, yes, so we meet that character for the first time at I'm going to just continue using the name Billy. There's discrepancy between which version of him is which, but at Billy's bar mitzvah she's, I suppose there is an entertainer. The set is kind of ambiguous. I'm not sure what kind of venue they're in, how big the party is.
Speaker 2I have worked by mitzvahs like this um before, especially when I was living in new york, people would rent out really big venues and I would have a really cute fortune telling area and yeah. So like that was not unfamiliar to me, that setup, um, although I never had um so many props, she does why would you?
Speaker 5why would you? Yes, so it kind of immediately the character enters her tent and is kind of immediately transported into what feels like a film setting of, like a carnival. You imagine you're at a circus or a carnival and you go into the fortune teller's tent, which again, whole pile of problems. There it's hitting all of those exact notes in a way that felt almost jarring. And the character, this version of Lillia. She's meant to be Sicilian because Lupone is Sicilian, so that's the sort of ethnic thing that they've transposed her identity onto. But I don't think that's what it looks like in Sicilian.
Speaker 2So that's the sort of ethnic thing that they've transposed her identity onto, but I don't think that's what it looks like in Sicily. Yeah, you know, and it's funny, because if they had actually made her Romani and she was like and this is my tent and this is my vibe and this is how I work my bar mitzvahs and make my good money, that would have actually made sense to me. But it was bizarre that they made her Sicilian and then kept all the gypsy fortune telling tropes without any real context for it. Instead, it was just like fortune teller, which is not what we want to be doing. We don't want to be conflating like exoticized Romani style decor dress as like shorthand for fortune teller.
Speaker 5Yeah, exactly, and I think that's something that that's a really good observation, because I think, with a lot of this media um, it's something that I try to get people to be better at recognizing is like when are these visual aesthetics used as a shorthand for romanian people and and what does that? I gave an example to somebody a while ago where they asked me a question about Dikla because they didn't know anything about it, but they're like well, I always see images of Romani women wearing these head coverings and I was like yeah, it's almost synonymous visual shorthand, but what it's representing to outsiders is just this weird array of stereotypes and not in any way, shape or form like the way that we relate culturally to that garment.
Speaker 2So, um, I think we're seeing exactly that regurgitated in like the most shallow and reductive way throughout this series yeah, it made me frustrated that they didn't just go the whole way and then give some interesting context for like, yeah, how a Romani fortune teller makes a living in today's age.
Speaker 5basically, Completely, completely, and I mentioned this in our previous conversation about the Scarlet Witch.
Speaker 5But I think there's some room and nuance again in a very different version of this franchise, where Roma creative voices had been a part of it for much longer or at all.
Speaker 5Um, I think there's room to use these characters to have those nuanced conversations. Um, in one version of Wanda's origin story in the comics, her mother is also known as the Scarlet Witch and she comes from a lineage of women who practice magic, um, which is then passed on again to her children. Um, but there's some like interesting conversations there where, where those characters talk about how they move through this fictionalized version of the real world, as as people who know that being Romani means that any involvement they have with this mystical realm is going to be judged or scrutinized or evoke stereotypes and policing in ways that other people won't experience. That's a conversation that happens very subtly on the page and I think in this rich and colorful TV show about witches who are from several different parts of the world, many of whom have lived for centuries, like comments about what it means to be a part of a racialized minority in that world and how we use those images and perceptions, sometimes to our own advantage.
Speaker 2That could have been very interesting and cool oh for sure, I would have loved to see that, Like, that would have been so interesting. And I feel like, you know, we were texting a little bit about this when we were watching it. But those scenes of Lilia and Cicely and what felt like maybe like the 1400s or 1500s, like it felt a long time ago, you know, she's reading cards with her mother or grandmother, perhaps like maybe grandmother, and I was like, oh yeah, so this is like me learning fortune telling from my grandma, but whitewashed in Sicily. It just felt like it was just like this could so easily be a Romani situation. It just felt like it was just like this could so easily be a romani situation. But they didn't. And and what is it?
Speaker 3exactly horrible. I just have to throw that in because it feels like that's such a special thing that we share um collectively, you know, and for them to take it and do that, it's like wow, like maybe if we tell them like we want them to do that, maybe they'll do the opposite that's the pattern this week.
Speaker 5I think yeah, um, yeah, no for sure, and I think you're correct. From what I understand of like fashion history and costume history, which I'm not expert my one of my roommates is and I asked him about it when the episode came out it is, I believe, set in the 1400s or maybe early 1500s, and so in both time and place it's actually very close to the sort of conception of tarot as a divinatory practice, having been influenced and popularized by the many people arriving in Europe, and so to have a character who was alive then and was learning in that time and place and is still alive today Again, I can just imagine what a fascinating story could have been told and how much cultural restitution could have been brought in this very mainstream piece of media, to this thing that we associate with so many stereotypes and it's so omnipresent during the Halloween season. Like, imagine something actually authentic manifesting on a show like this in the middle of October in 2024 on Disney Plus. Like that would have been so cool.
Speaker 2Oh my gosh, and so important. And also Patti LuPone's character's arc. You know Lillia's arc where she sacrifices herself. Also patty lapone's character's arc. You know lilia's arc where she sacrifices herself, where she is struggling with being seen as like a con artist, where she is struggling to make sense of her, like psychic ptsd. Those are all things that could have so easily enriched a romani character and would have felt real, and instead they just sort of felt stolen and put on to like Sicilian Lilia, which is so troubling.
Speaker 5Yeah, especially again if this was a scenario where she was in community with this young Romani American kid. Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2Yeah, no and yeah, and the way that she tried to protect him. It just would have made so much more sense and it always breaks my heart when there are missed opportunities like that. You know, I know that Paulina and I are both really hopeful for this Pixar project that was doing a call for Romani voices. That feels like it has the potential to be really influential and important and well done. But of course you know potential, we don't know how it's going to go, but a lot of times these really big companies let us down, not just in this way but in a lot of other ways, politically, etc. But it's frustrating. Is there anything else you want to add about your thoughts about the? The series?
Speaker 5uh snaps to sashir zamata. Love, yes, loved her character. Loved that she made it out of there alive. I loved that too.
Speaker 2I love to see her fly away with her pink magic I know, I know, um, which you know it's I'm.
Speaker 5I'm very happy, especially given the patterns that we've observed previously in this film franchise and even in the series that came before this one. I loved seeing a story about a black woman who is in this world of witchcraft, who again has been alive for a few hundred years and has survived many different forms of America, having the moment to express her pain and grief over power and agency that was stolen from her and to take it back and to be, in many ways, sort of the final girl of this horror plot.
Speaker 2She really was. That was the first thing I thought. I was like wow, sashay has made us the final girl. Look at her go. Yeah, I thought that was the first thing I thought. I was like wow, sashira Zameda is the final girl. I, yeah, I thought that was so powerful, her ritual of taking her power back. It made me cry a little bit.
Speaker 5I know, I know, and for an actress that I think most of us think of as a comedic actress, it was so amazing to see that that range. Um, so I loved that storyline and it made me, it reminded me of why I hope so deeply for more fulfilling and authentic representations of my communities as well, because I can see how wonderfully, even as a relatively small piece of a sort of genre thing like this, I can see how impactful and delightful and special those moments really can be. Yeah, so I'm always kind of looking towards the future, but unfortunately, with the context and the precedent that's been set in this franchise, with you know, so many of these prominent Roma characters, it's hard to imagine what form they'll be able to take moving forward. Um, I would say, you know, if nothing else, if you're a superhero fan, uh, please show up for the books that these characters are in. They are going to get a little bit of a publicity boost now that they're making it big in the MCU again. This is what always happens. The writers and the artists working on titles like Scarlet Witch are doing special things and taking a lot more care with these characters than what's happening in the movies, so that's a much more vulnerable industry and it's a place where we can support creatives a little bit more directly.
Speaker 5We didn't talk about boycott stuff last time I was on here, but it's a complicated thing with Marvel. Print comics are important. Show up to your local comic book store if you're a Marvel fan. That's all I'll say. That's all I'll say. Yeah.
Speaker 2And I think it's okay as well you know, to take to social media and demand what you want to see. It definitely opens you up to some pretty wild trolls and hate and responses if you're asking for Roma characters, as we've seen already. But people do listen. If the people are loud enough, why not talk about it? If that's something you want, yeah.
Speaker 5People can and do learn, and this is one more way in which we can represent ourselves, even if it's not actually happening on the screen. It's a big conversation that's happening. We can show up, happening, we can show up. I've met so many really lovely people and made some great friends over the years in fandom spaces who really genuinely appreciated having the opportunity to learn from me, even in my limited perspective, about where these characters come from and what they really represent. So I always say that there can be good that comes out of this.
Speaker 2That is so true. I do have a tendency to focus on the negative of the internet. You can also make friends Sometimes. Well, thank you so much for coming back on and sharing your thoughts with us. If you haven't seen Agatha all along and you don't want to stream it, there are other ways that you can find it. And yeah, it can be interesting if you want to see what could have been with a Romani character, or if you're interested in how the whitewashing still left a residue of Romani culture. It's an interesting thing to watch. And also, aubrey Plaza again made me fall in love with her over and over again skull makeup was way cooler than I thought it would be.
Supporting Romanistan PodcastOffsetTable
Speaker 2Uh, it was good yeah well, all right, goodbye thank you for listening to romanistan podcast you can find us on instagram, tiktok, and facebook at romanistan podcast and on twitter at romanistanPod, to support us. Join our Patreon for extra content or just donate to our Ko-Fi fundraiser, ko-ficom backslash Romanistan, and please rate, review and subscribe. It helps people find our show. It helps us so much.
Speaker 3You can follow Jez on Instagram at Jezminainavantila and Paulina at Romani Holistic. You can get our book Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling online or wherever books are sold. Visit romanistanpodcastcom for events, educational resources and more.
Speaker 2Email us at romanistanpodcast at gmailcom for inquiries Romanistan is hosted by Jasmina Vontila and Paulina Stevens, conceived of by Paulina Stevens, edited by Victor Pachas, with music by Victor Pachas and artwork by Elijah Vardo.