16 Thoughts - September
Welcome back to 16 Thoughts on the 16th 17th 18th today fresh off the pegasus of the skies, Delta Airlines.
In 2024, when I started 16 Thoughts, by September I had 12 thoughts on the 23rd, so we have seen improvements! Last month, I said August is the Sunday of Summer. If that is so, then September is the Thursday of the year.
And I hate Thursdays.
But now it’s Freitag!
Wednesday was 31-hour day for me flying home from Ireland and Germany. My beautiful friends, Brid and Tina got married in a castle in Ireland and Deb and I made the trip out. After the wedding Deb and I drove all the way up the North Eastern parts of Ireland. I drove on the wrong side of the road and the wrong side of the car and stopped for a day at the Giants Causeway. This is me playing the organ.
Does this wrong make my feet look big
After Ireland we flew to Berlin to spend the weekend which turned into 5 days. The original plan had been to fly back Tuesday night to Dublin, grab a hotel near the airport, and fly out the next day, but due to the incredible fans of the 90’s Irish boyband called “Westlife” there were absolutely ZERO hotels in all of Dublin. So, we stayed an extra night in Berlin and took a 6am flight to Dublin to catch our afternoon flight to JFK. Woooeee what a fun time. Suffice to say, some of these thoughts are about this trip and some are just… thoughts.
Oh Opera. Opera Opera Opera you break my heart and not just with the music and librettos. I talk to so many people who feel lack of opportunity, and thirst for work and there are so many of us. One could imagine it being more available if we could just organize it right. The first day we spent in Berlin, the Staatsoper was having an open house to open their season and we walked in to Sonja Yoncheva singing La Vestale with the full chorus and orchestra. I didn’t know what we were walking in to and I didn’t recognize the music so I felt like it was a pop quiz and who the hell was this music by? It sounded like Verdi but was in French and wasn’t Don Carlo. As I watched the whole orchestra, the full chorus and chorus master, the 5 principle singers and the conductor and his many note takers, all up there up there working together to bring to life this music that lays dormant most days I thought, they figured it out at least for today. They figured out how to organize it all. Because putting together music is a lot of organization and not just internally to your instrument, mind and body but scheduling and contracting and learning and writing and composing. All of that has to be organized just so, so that when you count together, you breathe together, you play music together and you get paid to do it… is that still a possibility? I think there is enough opportunity too, people are very thirsty for media and hopefully still live media. Andrew Potter wrote an open letter to opera you can check out here, he does a great job explaining the barriers to entry especially if you have a family. So while I do really want to save opera with Rita Libretto, I also want it change. It is both a business and an art form, but we don’t have to sacrifice both and get neither.
Warum singe ich? Why do I sing? I can’t help myself is mostly the answer but another reason is because I can really feel a connection to time when I sing. Both forwards and backwards and in and out. Time is so present when I sing that I believe I can bend it. Shorten it and all of a sudden, time has flown by when the music comes, minutes have passed, hours have gone. Or I can suspend it, long enough to feel a tug from my abdomen that I can relax into and sustain until I can no longer deny an inhale of breath. It is my honor to times past to sing. To spirits past. To sound waves that can never return so we must make a new.
I learned what a Rebbe is this month. There is a chabbad house in Greenpoint that Deb and I went to for Shabbot (my first Shabbot actually) and I got to ask What is a Rebbe. Because ich bin ein Rebby oder Rebbe oder Rebbie. I have many names and Rebby happens to be one of them. But at the dinner, people kept saying, “The Rebbe says” or “the letters written by the Rebbe” and I when I got the chance, I asked the Rabbi “whats a Rebbe”. A ‘real’ Rebbe is a spiritual leader and teacher, maybe only a few in a generation, the Rabbi said, who understands mysticism and spirituality on a super human level. This was the definition I liked from Chabad.org.
I mean could it be any more obvious?
4. I really like Berlin. It’s a city but everything is just so calm. Granted, I’ve only truly been there as a tourist, I could see a life there. I walked a crap ton though und meine Zehen schmerzen.
5. Sometimes I feel bad for my plants. Like you’re an entire plant and you really do depend on me, of all people. I have a tree that needs more light that I’ve given her the last 2 years. But she looks good in the corner without a ton of light. Shhh the zeezee plant is there now, so don’t tell him, but I think he already knows. How odd to eat sunlight and then me, Rebecca Kidnie, takes you into my home and puts you in a dark corner. Ugh ich bin die Wurst.***Edited on the 18th*** Okay so I wrote most of this blog on the 16/17th meaning to publish it on the 17th but I had to go to work last night and didn’t finish in time. So, I get to work and my boss very kindly had bought me a plant for helping him out with the plant at the restaurant and I literally had to carry a plant home on the dark subway and bring it into my apartment at 1am and I just had so many thoughts. Had to add to it.
6. Minnesotans find each other. Or they all find me and I find them and it just makes my day - we always have something to chat about. It’s been a tough year but I love you MN and the fair looked awesome. Maybe next year.
7. Wanna hear something cool? Check out The Clouds of the Cosmos by Jim Beckel and also Concussion Theory by Kenji Bunch. I’ve been listening to a lot of music to inspire bits of Dante. Also, please come on November 16th - we’re going straight to hell via Purgatory Bar in Brooklyn. Dante’s Inferno is a 1911 Italian film - the first full length Italian film, actually. It took them 3 years to film and edit it and the stage magic and film effects are incredible. With the Resounding Silents band I will be performing a new live score to the entire film! Partiful and eventbrites and all the sorts coming soon. Resounding Silents is also putting on some shorts on Monday September 28th at Bootleg, but I will be at karaoke at The Upside Bar and at that exact time so you will have to choose between the two.
8. Alright here is your meat and potatoes astrology thought coming up for all you hungry curious witches. Jupiter and Saturn had a trine on August 31st. Jupiter, the big daddy planet of plenty, was at 13 degrees Leo and Saturn, the stern teacher, was at 13 degrees Aries. Since these are both the same element sign (fire) they make a trine, something like a good opportunity, a chance meeting, a helpful alignment. The analogy I like the best is that Saturn is the tracks, Jupiter is the train. The abundance that Jupiter brings can only go as far as the infrastructure has thus been built. “A-ho the wellsth fargo wagon isth-a COMing down the sthreet!”…. Jupter and Saturn will do this trine 3 times total and this is the first one. While they continue to occupy Aries and Leo over the next year, we will get 2 more chances to welcome in that train on April 3rd, 2027 at 17 degrees and July 11th at 27 degrees which is right on top of my moon and next to my Sun. I better start layin some track! Lol does that mean poop
9. Sacred Party Girl Summer has been so glorious and I love that she totally morphed into Sacred Euro Party Girl! In true SPG fashion I’m gonna also introduce you to my friend Evan E. Lambert who has been writing a 500 word story every day for a year and you should absolutely check them out. The dedication is so inspiring - congratulations Evan, keep going!
10. Today, since it is September 17th and NOT September 16th, (But now yesterday - see this is why Thursdays are confusing). Anyway —- Thursday September 17th Chiron went back into Aries after a short stint in Taurus. Chiron spent the last 8 years in Aries so this is familair territory. It’s only recently gone to Taurus, and this is the last time it’ll be in Aries for a long time. Like decades. It is retrograde right now and will head back forward through what it went through, and finally be done with Aries on April 14th 2027. I remember the day it went into Aries not because I cared or knew anything about it but because it was the day after my 30th birthday. Chiron is the medicine you need and the never ending wound that will always need tending. (See thought 12 on April 16th for more Chiron reference) For me as a Gemini rising, Aries falls as my 11th house of community, and friendship. I got a reading from someone and we were talking about the 11th house and she said the 11th house also included fans and audiences too. Which in the last 8 years has changed a lot for me. Both as a fan of things and as a performer. My life has changed so much since the day after I turned 30 and I really do feel the effects of the medicines I’ve found. One being this blog, having a place where I can express and connect and focus and heal and connect in a larger way.
11. Okay, back to Jupiter in Leo… Jupiter changes signs once a year, and I have been tracking them since 2022 when Jupiter transited through Aries. I needed it to be about me before I found it interesting - I’ll say it again, I got into astrology because mine was first, which is peak Aries. Anyway, Jupiter changes signs ever year and lately it’s been in the summer, so when Jupiter entered Leo at the beginning of July. Meaning it’s been 4 years since 2022 when I started tracking Jupiter in Aries and it’s since moved all the way over to Leo. Imagine how long it would have taken me to watch the sky and figure that out. Incredible. Anyway - Jupiter is confidence and when it is in Leo it can roar. So, I am practicing being the most confident version of myself particularly in my intentional communication which includes working on this blog, and sending more emails, and introducing myself to people and giving them the short version of my life, because this Carrie Bradshaw, Marla Hooch, Birgit Nilsson, Dead Twin get up is something to see and to explain. And as a Gemini rising, the 3rd house is something I think I can really understand so I’m so curious what else Jupiter has to offer me this year. So far, I feel confident in pouring myself into these thoughts with Jupiter in Leo for the second half of 2026.
12. Have you seen? I’ve gone fully Goldie Hahn blonde and I love it. Glamazoncoifs is a awesome and I wanna get some new snapshots if you know any cool photographers that a girl can afford. Here is one Deb took on our way to Ballynoe Stone Circle. The green here is greener than I’ve ever seen her!
Follow down the Irish hole to rocks that have stood for ages. Over 6,000 years! Met a guy and his wee dog playing a drum and a singing bowl.
13. Discipline/Disciple. I read this substack about this John Cage quote “Discipline is giving yourself rather than expecting things to give themselves to you…the question is not what should I do or how to do it but how one achieves the state of being disciplined—learn true discipline to give oneself up.” The discipline side of the etymology tree, however, evokes such feelings of pain and sacrifice. Disciple is the surrender but discipline is the whip. Seriously, a definition on dictionary.com is “to punish or penalize in order to train and control.” Yikes
14. Natürlich, ich habe Deutsch gesprochen this week und I have to look up a lot of words. I knew how to say “don’t forget” but I didn’t know how to say remember. I looked it up and it was Erinnern, which took my breath away as it sometimes still does when I see her name, not to mention, tied to the word remember. However, it is pronounced er-innern so I don’t know I would have heard her had I just known the word on my own. I had to see it to see her. And acutally, I like that it is er-innern and not erin-nern or something, because the real translation of the word is inside oneself. And there she is again.
15. Okay one last astrology? Neptune and Saturn conjunction was a big deal in February 2026 and it is really getting lit up. Reference Feb thought 7 and May thought 14. My prediction of gas at $6/gallon before the summer has ended has unfortunately come true for diesel which is what I was using to drive on the wrong side of the road up and down the coast of Ireland. As we drove through Ireland we listened to a podcast about The Troubles which is the name for the pseudo civil war in Belfast through the 20c. I learned a lot and then going on to Berlin where the history also in the last 100 years has been so intense, I couldn’t help but be reminded that the world is reordering yet again. Wild times.
16. Lastly, to all those artists we’ve lost in the last few weeks, Dolly, Tim, Bob… your work and attitudes are truly the best gift for the world and the next generation of artists. And you - my reader - let me remind you to write crap for crapsake, be silly for yourself, and sing along as best you can. Don’t dream it - Be it! Warum nicht!
