Unmasked - Episode 6

Jasper Peach 00:00

I'm Jasper Peach. Unmasked is being filmed on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, with development occurring on Jara country prior. I offer my debt respect to elders, past and present, and need to state unequivocally that this alwayswas and always will be Aboriginal land.

There's a saying that if you've met one neurodivergent person, you've met one neurodivergent person. There can be a lot of common ground and it's often a huge relief to find folks who have similar experiences. Just like the broader neurotypical world often makes assumptions about us and that feels kind of gross, it's so important to check in with each person we meet. What are your access needs? How do you prefer to communicate?
If I send you a rambly voice memo with all my big thoughts and feelings, will that be both accessible and okay for you to receive right now? No is a complete sentence in response. Some of us experience a thing called rejection sensitivity dysphoria where perceived or real rejection can be experienced in a physically painful way or lead to unbearable distress.

This doesn't mean you can't be real with us. You just need to have a chat about how to break hard news. Is a heads up helpful? Is text better than voice? Or is in person important to really help us process what's happening? The conventional rules, traditions or peer pressures from dead people isn't always the best way to do things. We don't know a thing is possible until we know it's possible. So I have this awesome autistic friend who has modelled to me when we're in contact a lot, which is every day, letting me know when they have no communication capacity.

It's so good I'll get a message in the morning saying, hey, I've got a big day at work and I won't be on messenger at all. Looking forward to catching up tomorrow, save all the thoughts in a list for me. It's direct, it's kind, it's expansive, it's neurodivergent. Let's unmask. Today we are talking to two of the greatest performance artists who were in my phone. They live there. I'm going to introduce them one by one.

02:26

We'll start with you, Eden Swan. Hello. Hello. Thank you for coming and being on Unmasked. Thank you for having me. So I'm just going to say statements about you and then let's all collaborate on a reaction.

Jasper Peach 02:41

Eden Swan, a performance artist, a fear doula, a ground breaker. I would categorise your art and performance style as visceral and confronting in an affirming way, like in a good way. But also, I don't think it's cool for me to define who you are. So do you want to tell us about your creative expression, where it's generated from, what it looks like and what it means?

Eden Swan 03:07

Totally, so my creative expression has kind of comes from two streams, the first one is I guess I have a theatre -based practice, so everything you can expect from theatre, you know, stagecraft, costume, character, set design, all that sort of stuff, and then my other practice is more experimental and sort of collaborative and endurance -based performance art, so the through line between both those things though is my interest in sort of fear transformation, I guess how to endure the pain of fear and transform it sort of from a place of terror into trust, yeah.

Jasper Peach 03:50

I'm really excited to get into that. Before we do, I'll introduce our second guest, Themme Fatal. Hello. 

Themme Fatal

Hello. 

Jasper Peach

Oh, my gosh. To lay eyes on you, IRL. You're just in my hand while I'm drawing. A tiny little gay person on your phone. Now, here you are, and you're a magnificent human. Full size. I know. Can I say some stuff about you? 

Themme Fatal

Absolutely, you can. 

Jasper Peach

Thank you. So, when I think of you, I think of Venn diagrams, the way you can explain things that I'm so confused and perplexed by. Often things I just feel are true, but lack the capacity to explain to anyone why. And then I just look at your reels that you're doing, like, oh, duh, that's exactly. And really interested to talk about how you managed to do that. You're a fellow Crip. You've been experiencing along COVID, and that's led you to some social education roles in your online presence that have immense value. I would assume is saving lives, if not just quality of lives. Was that all okay to say about you? It's very good.

Themme Fatale 04:59

It's very humbling to just sit there and have that washout.

Jasper Peach 05:03

Thank you. What else would you like to add about yourself? 

Themme Fatale 05:08

Oh my goodness. I think it's a really beautiful summary, I guess. As a stage artist, yeah, I'm a sideshow and circus performer. I came to the stage in a kind of roundabout way via neuroscience. We used to work in a lab, managing a neuroimaging lab. What? And then ran away to become a stripper and a clown. Ha, ha, ha, ha, moonlighting both for a hot minute there and then made the switch completely. And so I think that really informs a lot of what I do because a lot of it, like the Venn diagrams, is trying to bring these ideas together that don't necessarily belong, although we don't necessarily think of as being kind of cohesive ideas because I've never been able to do just one thing.

Maybe it's the ADHD, you know, it's very yes and in a lot of my work. And so, yeah, so like on stage, I do a lot of silly, dangerous things with my body. I think that's really informed by being a queer person, a trans person, and as you say, like a disabled person, the body is a very, for so many artists, there's a really interesting point of interrogation, but sideshow really makes that visceral. And so engaging in pain and danger that I get to choose and having agency over that is a really important thing for me and celebrating what our bodies are capable of is a really important thing for me.

And then with that performance work, because it is bright and it's got the razzle dazzle of show business, baby, using that kind of as like a Trojan horse for revolutionary politics. As I've been able to work less on stage because of long COVID, the messaging that I've had has become a lot more didactic and literal by making direct to camera educational videos and resources about COVID and about long COVID. Because I have a lot to say about it and the message is not getting out there enough as it is. And so it's kind of been trying to use the platform that I have, bait and switch. Is that a good enough summary of all of that together?

Speaker ? 07:09

hahaha

Jasper Peach 07:10

How do we even begin to summarise who we are? It's such a tricky thing to begin to do but I think you've both brought some beautiful crossover as well. Everyone experiences pain one way or another and when we can look directly at it and feel it and feel it on behalf of someone else, it unlocks the power to connect.

Themme Fatale 07:34

Yeah, so it's like an unshackling education from institution and kind of bringing it to people in ways that they'll listen to. You can kind of open people up to empathy through comedy, through danger, through fear. All of those visceral experiences I feel like really open people up.

Jasper Peach 07:52

Eden, it's so wild to me that this is the first time we're in the same place.

Eden Swan 07:57

No, COVID did that to people.

Jasper Peach 08:00

Sure did, yeah... and I think COVID has also like it's done a lot of bad stuff obviously and yes and it's created a lot of accessible ways to connect for people who were disabled before the pandemic as well. What does performing give you?

Eden Swan 08:19

I guess I've always felt like the weird one, the outsider, the whatever, the only way I've been able to connect to people, to connect to myself, to connect to a reality that I thought was exciting and I wanted to be a part of. So what it gives me is life, I guess, it's my whole life.

Jasper Peach 08:37

There's a lot flying around in my mind around radical visibility. And you're both so visible, you're so vibrant and you show up in a way that, how could anyone not take in what you're doing? Like how could anyone turn away from this? It's so generous what you're doing. Like you're making art, but you're also, it's expressing your whole being and in a way that's, I don't know, I think it's really caring for community and wanting the best for people. Do you enjoy collaborating with other artists? I'll just pose that randomly into the air and whoever would like to pick it up can.

Themme Fatale 09:21

I love it. I love it so much.

Eden Swan 09:22

I love it too. Yeah, I really love it. It's something, it just feels right. I mean, you get all different perspectives. You have, I think mostly like outside of the art that you create, the memories that you create with your friends are like so obscene. It's like during that time we, and I was like, what?

Themme Fatale 09:37

I can't believe I'm like, I can't believe we get paid for this. Yes. You know? Yes. But so much more can kind of come out of it. And also, to bring this sort of neurodivergent perspective to it, it allows the work to happen. There's the most stressful parts of creative work when I'm working by myself are the deadlines and the kind of admin management side of the job. But if I'm working with somebody else, showing up for another person is a lot easier because I want to do a good job for them. So I'm going to try and it brings out the side of me that I'm like, who knew they had it in them on time?

Eden Swan 10:14

I feel like, I'm just onto this theory that humans aren't actually supposed to do anything by themselves, like ever at all. But yeah, we're social creatures and we need, like we learn and we experience through each other and with each other, but yet our society and our culture really encourages us to split apart and be individuals, like to an extreme degree, and I hate that because I just don't think that's actually true to our nature, so yeah.

Themme Fatale 10:39

getting to riff off each other is just so wonderful too you can have just in comedy alone you know a tiny joke that then is just like ballooned out into something completely obscene which is most of my favorite work it's kind of been created that way.

Jasper Peach 10:52

Planting seeds, all these amazing things bloom and then they pollinate other things and there's bees and they're all buzzing around in there...

Themme Fatale 11:01

... grows from the mountain of shit, you know? From collaboration, we throw a bunch of stuff in, make compost out of it, and then the beautiful things.

Jasper Peach 11:10

Stinky and it's not stinky... and it's beautiful and there's avocados.

Themme Fatale 11:14

Plan comes out of nowhere, where did that come from?

Jasper Peach 11:17

... of those coming out of my compost. It's not weird because obviously there's avocado poops in there. So I'd love to see some of your work and I think, Eden, can we start with yours?

Speaker ? 12:05

Yeah.

Eden Swan 12:08

This is from like 10 years ago. I was just a child when this was being filmed in my mind spiritually. I still am a child spiritually and in my mind, but I just love it. So yeah, this is kind of more recent. This is just before the pandemic. you Yeah, so like in those works you can see like the first I think four pieces were more of the theatre-based practice that I mentioned before and there's different kind of stories going on there, but those first two were really, or the first three actually were kind of in my alien phase which is really looking at alienation and kind of the fear and the terror of feeling alienated all the time and how to embody that in a way that could be empowering. 

And that was really like the main launching point for those works and the final image was not my theatre-based practice that's like the performance art stuff that I had a box, like a clear box with four scorpions inside. I'm not sure if you can see that on the detail. I did that at Lot 19 in Castlemaine and yeah I just kind of like stood there with those in the box. I think all of the works that I did for that particular show were time-based so I think I had that them in there for 14 minutes and 44 seconds there was another subplot with the work regarding the number four we won't go into it we don't have time.

However that's kind of the detail for that so and I don't think I'll ever do a work like that again well not with the scorpions because it was just so terrifying but that was kind of the point but that was really scary you know it was really really really deep fear and everybody's watching for some reason there was lots of children in the gallery that day and I was just like if I was like is this is this a good idea is this a good idea I'm like is your whole art career a good idea is your whole life a good idea I'm like I don't know anyway so yeah but I'm glad I did it but I would never do it again.

Jasper Peach 14:07

How do people interact with that? Like I can imagine a lot of people are watching and they're experiencing fear. Are they projecting their own feelings onto you?

Eden Swan 14:16

Yeah, so there's a look of like real panic. I'm sure you have that with your stuff too, but like people generally like what's going on, what is happening here? And then realising that you can see people kind of like going through the motions of understanding. They're like, This is really scary, but she's chosen to do it. And then it's like, Oh, and so what's my role? Oh, I'm here to watch. Like you can see people struggling with that choice between like, Does she need help? And it's like, no. And it's like, but I want to. And then I guess the enjoyment kind of comes later of realising and the conclusion of the piece. Everyone's like, Oh, thank God. Thank God it ends.

Themme Fatale 14:47

Like you sometimes see in the audience shots you just watch an audience kind of go through the five stages of grief in real time. One person for each of them and that's amazing, it's coming from a sideshow, I feel like quite familiar with a lot of dangerous things like oh yeah that's cool well done... yeah, terrifying, amazing.

Eden Swan 15:06

Yeah, oh thank you. It's hard to be vulnerable. There's a difference between performance in a theatre -based setting because you have your characters and you have your costume, you have your lights, you have all your stuff, but when you're doing dangerous kind of works and it's just you and it's just in a quiet gallery and it's like a visual art thing, it's a whole different level of theatre experience and that's kind of, I just want the full spectrum in my work so that's why I do the two different things, but yeah.

Themme Fatale 15:30

Amazing vulnerability as well, like having another creature that has its own choices about what it's going to do in that, you know, like there's only so many things my bed of nails can do. Yes. I can be quite familiar and controlled with it. Yes. Having that element in there that, yeah.

Eden Swan 15:43

I know I've ripped you out of your home room and I've put you in this box, so we're all hot and sweaty but please don't bite me.

Jasper Peach 15:51

I'm just thinking, considering the ripples that have gone on outside of your arts practice, people who have come to witness what you're doing, and then they're going through those stages and you can see them clocking it, and what happens when they go home? What happens in their life that they've been changed and a switch has been pulled, they've seen and experienced and related to you this way, or perhaps to the scorpion, or perhaps to the frame, or the whole picture? Yeah, it's fascinating to me all the untold ongoing steps that happen from anyone's art practice.

Eden Swan 16:28

Yeah, I kind of hope like with the work that I make, it does leave an imprint and an impact and like with the alien stuff, those heaps of UV, you know, I really used a lot of UV in that time and I kind of want it to be a bit psychedelic, like a bit of a, like, what? And it's that same sort of effect but in a different way with the scorpions or the fear to all the stuff. It's kind of like, wait, what? Like, just like mind -bending. Like, no, it's not possible. It shouldn't have happened. But it did. I liked it. Like, leaving that sort of, those questions, the unanswered things. I hope to do that as an artist, yeah.

Jasper Peach 17:02

Yeah, nail it. Speaking of nails, stand for time. Hahaha. Do what I can.

Themme Fatale 17:12

A foreshadowing.

Speaker ? 17:15

You planned a little of this.

Jasper Peach 17:16

So long, show us some of your work.

Speaker ? 17:18

We'll see you next time!

Themme Fatale 17:19

All right, speaking of nails and smashing it, this is a piece of mine about how I feel about being on the phone to Centrelink. Yes! So that comes at the end of a triptych of pieces that are all set to the Centrelink hold music that get increasingly surreal.

Jasper Peach 17:35

I can feel that music right now. Yeah, yeah, I've kind of become...

Themme Fatale 17:40

It's a lot of duh, duh, duh, duh.

Eden Swan 17:43

No, it's good, yeah.

Themme Fatale 17:44

Thank you I feel like people talk about sleep paralysis demons. A lot of people have given me the feedback that I have now become their hold music demon and they just see me dancing when they're stuck on hold. So here we have some more dancing, a bit more of the camp side, the drag side. This costume is also my war on drop sheets because I do make a lot of mess with a lot of my acts. I don't like spoilers because I, you know, it's the autistic pattern recognition. I don't want it to be given away if someone's gonna be making a mess. So that's actually an industrial drop sheet sewn into some satin and velvet which pops down and then we can see where it goes. There's me on a pile of broken glass slamming myself into it.

So this is part of my show that I co-created with El Diablo called Le Freak which is a sideshow kind of reclaiming sideshow for the people who invented it really which is it's disabled people, it's people of color, it's sex workers, it's queers, it's trans people. That is who created the sideshow, but it's not often who we get to see on main stages in Australia. It's often straight cis white guys and you know they're doing their thing but we really wanted to see what happened if we if we claimed back that space and kind of examined the history of sideshow both of kind of is it exploitation, is it empowerment, the answer is like yes to both. Yeah.

And really just created as accessible as we could, building a lot of aesthetic access into the show and that kind of a fun late-night sexy sideshow cabaret but with the ethos at the heart of it being something that was as ethical as we could be, as accessible as we could be, as well. And so this is this is how we end up on the pile of broken glasses, an act about drag and the sort of clash that's happening with with drag at the moment with a lot of people saying very horrible things about it and treating it like it's this dangerous thing and so I start out in a big wig just reading The Rainbow Fish to people after my big sideshow entrance of like The Infotile doing the most dangerous thing they do on stage and come out with the book and then obviously decide to do something that's actually dangerous because we can tell the difference, we do no actual danger.

Funnily enough. Yeah and it's I guess it's glass I think for me is like the least controlled of the sideshow stance that I perform. I think because because it can move around it's real broken glass, there is an element of chaos to it and so I think...

Eden Swan 20:27

People can't go. It's an understatement. The element of chaos.

Themme Fatale 20:31

They hear the crunch, they wince, but I think there's something to be said for watching somebody consensually endure something, and there's a catharsis that can happen with that. Somebody choosing to put themselves in danger, it's a bit taboo, it's a bit like, oh, it's not a thing that we usually get to kind of do together.

Eden Swan 20:51

But you also, like I was just going to say, you ask like who, you yourself as a performer and me as well, it's like what has this person gone through in their life to be at a point where they are comfortable even attempting and doing that, it's like hang on, something's happened, you know, like there's a story here exactly and that's also I think what audiences are intrigued by, you know...

Eden Swan 21:10

Absolutely.

Themme Fatale 21:11

I think having an entire sideshow, kind of an hour of different types of sideshow, was a really fun and interesting way to investigate that together because often you'll have like one sideshow artist and they kind of they're the danger piece of like a broader cabaret, but having an hour of like how many different ways can these people put their bodies on the line and like and why I think it's... a fun vessel for storytelling. The showmanship alone is enjoyable but when you use it as kind of a narrative device it's...

Eden Swan 21:39

It's so rich. The entire show is a climax, like the climax of the story, it's like the hardest part, it's the whole show.

Jasper Peach 21:46

And is the narrative something that you intentionally bring or is it more about the audience figuring out what their narrative is in relation to what you've created?

Themme Fatale 21:55

Good question. I think for some of them, like we all, they were all, all the pieces in the show were created with intention. We knew what we were making at the time. Various acts are clearer or broader in terms of how much we spell that out for people. So like the Centrelink Act is very clear, especially, again, after years of lockdown, everybody is a lot more familiar with that music. So that one's a really intentional piece of catharsis, but there are some other acts in the show that don't spell it out as much, that are kind of more of a meditation or amusing on an idea. 

And hearing the narratives that people project onto that is really, it's always fascinating. It's amazing how clear some of the narratives can be that weren't ones that we put there ourselves. So people are always gonna do that. People, they get what they need out of the art. You can present it for them and they can get a completely different experience out of it. And that's part of the fun, I think.

Jasper Peach 22:52

Just to change track because, you know, there's bees in there. Of those bees. I love them too. Lots of honey. I'd love to have a chat about the tenuous nature of employment as arts performers. The real danger. Just bring it out. Literally the real danger. Let's get down to it, man. Like, how are you going? How's life? It's like when Elmo asked everyone how they were going.

Themme Fatale 23:19

On the internet. Come ready, guys.

Speaker ? 23:22

I'm all about it.

Eden Swan 23:23

I fully missed that like a couple days ago whenever it happened and I was like why is everyone referring to it? I was like this is horrible this is horrible and then, yeah.

Jasper Peach 23:33

Yeah. Elmo posed the question. Yeah, I mean, it's a choice that you make or that we make as creative workers, as arts workers. And we're working within a system that's not necessarily supportive of art being made sustainably. I don't know what I want to ask you. I think it's more about, let's just talk about it and how that impacts your life.

Eden Swan 24:02

Well we've gone vaguely like quacks, we're like Oh this is a tough question to say positively. I mean, not just for us.

Jasper Peach 24:12

Surely unmask and just be like, it's okay to be real and...

Themme Fatale 24:16

That's a slight positive. We can start with a slight positive and then just like stir our way down there.

Eden Swan 24:22

Yeah, yeah, fair.

Themme Fatale 24:23

Like in terms of the battles that we choose like I mentioned earlier I came from a background in science and in that job I had a lot of stability like academia obviously has its own problems but it was nine to five I was guaranteed a wage was it a fair wage that's another conversation but I knew what I was working with week to week and I was miserable there was so much about it that I liked but the day-to-day didn't suit me it was under stimulating the job was becoming increasingly about admin rather than research and I wasn't coping yes working in the arts is tenuous yes there are questions about like Will I be able to pay my rent? 

There are there are labor rights violations all over the place, you know, there are, there's critique after critique after critique that we can that we can lay down, but in terms of the type of chaos that it is... where I thrive, and I would thrive in that chaos being better paid I don't want to like excuse the labor patients yeah under my own neurodivergence but but there is there is something to be said for, like I'm happier, I'm a lot less stable in terms of the material conditions of my life but I greet each day with joy most of the time and I like showing up for work and I like the people that I get to work with, yeah.

And so I think that there's kind of, there is a beauty to it. But I do, I never want to kind of promote this idea of a suffering artist we don't have to suffer for it to be good, I think we're willing to suffer because it's so good.

Jasper Peach 25:52

So, some really crucial distinction.

Eden Swan 25:56

Yeah, I was just going to say like I agree with everything that you said before about like, obviously, I'm in the same boat, same world, I get it. But for me, it's like, I just can't understand why the works that we make, like all artists, or not all artists, well, I don't know, maybe all artists. The point of art is so, you know, effectual and poignant for the receiver and for the society and for the whole world. The fact that we don't get paid for it, it's just like really blows my mind. Like, and I'm not saying it's any more important than any other industry or any other field or any other thing.

It's just amazing that it really does change people and make people's lives better and more wonderful. But yet it's not appreciated on a monetary level or with any of the other protective standards than any other regular workplace. But it's like arts all around us, music, film. It's like, these are the things, in fact, we enjoy more than regular work. But yet, the irony, it's like it's not appreciated yet, it's so appreciated. It's like, well, artists don't get it.

Themme Fatale 26:52

It's like in one of the first lockdowns I remember there was a little graphic in one of the major newspapers that was about the least and most essential jobs according to kind of societal opinion. They'd done a survey and the survey was presented in this beautiful graphic that a graphic designer had obviously been employed for, so there's an artist for you. Artist was considered to be the second least essential job. As we were in lockdown, as everyone was turning to art to survive, we were all listening to podcasts, we were watching TV, we were making art, we were taking tutorials online from people to learn how to make art, we were reading books, music, everything, everyone was steeped in art and relying on it to get through and yet it was considered the second least essential job.

I can't even remember what the first... I think everybody has an artistic drive in them and we've all got capitalist brain worms now. We've kind of, it's done this thing where it...

Eden Swan 27:46

Well it's just industrialism, it's like we've been stripped of our humanity in so many different ways in my opinion, so that art then becomes, even though it's probably one of our most natural things, you know, expressing ourselves creatively, expressing ourselves enjoying ourselves, I think it's just the times that we're in, it's like this is what becomes undervalued when it's like right in front of us as being the true thing, it's like a wider example of where we're at, I think, mentally, spiritually, materially, I don't know.

Themme Fatale 28:15

It's hard to set KPIs for art, you know, for experiencing art, and so I think it slips through the net of what we value because we can't apply a number to it in the same way that we can with other industries.

Eden Swan 28:25

That's when you know that it's like the good thing. I think it can't have a KPI. That's that's the measurement. It can be a Venn diagram...

Jasper Peach 28:33

So I have a thing, I get tired fast, I have you know just crazy fatigue. I want to go home but I don't want to be rude and be the one to leave or bring up leaving. So I wait until it's really awkward and everyone wishes that everyone had left and I'm still there like why didn't I leave? Nobody's enjoying this. How do you, how do you leave a thing? How do you signal it's time? I just get really distracted doing stuff like I'll just talk to, oh I'll do it. How do you... are you good at leaving?

Themme Fatale 29:05

I have been known to just yell "smoke bomb!" I have one to throw, but just saying it, people understand. I think I've gotten a lot better at it because of my partner, they're really good at just being like, I want to go home now so I'm gonna leave - or if they want somebody else to go, be like Would you like to go home because I'd like to just move on with my day. It's been nice seeing you though and there's a way that is so direct but so charming because it's full of so much love. I was much the same. I would be just loitering waiting to be set free from this invisible prison.

Eden Swan 29:43

... the opposite problem, I have no problems leaving, like actually I have problems arriving - I feel like I leave so confidently.

Jasper Peach 29:52

I thought a fun one for us to discuss would be... COVID is over, everything's fine.

Themme Fatale 29:59

COVID is over. What do we mean by over, I think, is a really is an important question there. Do we mean socially over? Because if we mean socially over, sure, people have moved on with their lives. Most people are no longer masking. Most people don't like most people on the street don't even understand the risk that COVID still poses. Is COVID over in terms of SARS -CoV -2, the virus that causes COVID, COVID-19? No, it's not. We understand it's not.
All of the data that we have says that it's not. We have mountains of evidence waning mountains because we no longer have as effective surveillance. People are not testing as much. Wastewater data is disappearing in some places.

Thankfully, we have access to it in a lot of places still. So all of the data says that COVID is still a problem, even when the World Health Organization declared an end to the global crisis. They themselves said that COVID itself still poses a danger and that the worst thing we could possibly do is all just relax and pretend it's not a problem. People didn't really hear that part of the message. They just heard over because we were all so desperate for it to be over. So there is this, like I have compassion for the feeling because we all want the same thing. We all want it to be gone. 

I understand why people believe it, especially within the context of what the media is saying, what our government is doing, what other governments are doing. You know, you'd be, it's understandable given all of those signs to assume that it's over. We're social animals, as we said before. We look to each other for cues. If you look around in most places at the moment, people have gone back to normal. And so it's this thing. There is this growing gap between the truth of the situation. Let's call it what it is. It is the truth. COVID is still a problem. We're in the middle of a mass disabling event. We have huge amounts of data to support that. COVID is immune damaging. It can damage every single organ system of the body.

It is a vascular illness. It is an illness of the blood. The blood goes everywhere. The effects of COVID infection are cumulative. That is so far away from what most people believe these days, that bridging that gap without sounding like you're giving into conspiracy is hard. And so I do have some compassion for how people are giving into that trope. But the minute you find out, the minute you know better, you have to do better. And I think we're in this tricky point at the moment of trying to bring people over because we've kind of, we fucked around and now we're finding out.

And so we're at this point where people are starting to see that like, they're getting sicker more frequently. They're staying sick longer. Their kids are getting more sick, which is terrifying. They're getting new illnesses. People are starting to notice the cracks. You know, things don't feel normal, even if they think that's what they're going back to. It was not normal to refer to a summer flu. We never had a summer flu either. We call winter flu season. Summer flu is a new term. So we have all of these points of evidence that something else is going on, but it takes bravery to kind of accept that. I think it's another kind of grief, you know? Oh, accepted. He's such a hard guy, place to get to.

Eden Swan 33:01

I was gonna say like I think just ultimately because disability is so taboo in a way like what, that it is pushed to the side and it just the COVID experience falls, you know, directly back into that thing, it's like we just don't want to hear about it, we don't want to face our own state of mortality. And you know I hate to sound like a hallmark card or whatever but it's like the one thing we all have in common is that we will die materially one day at the very least...  so it's just yeah, another like frustration, it's like Why can't we see what's really happening and embrace it and be and surrender to it and be accepting of what the truth is what our truth is... so it's just another one of these types of thinkings that's getting us nowhere, it's making it worse.

Themme Fatale 33:44

Connecting COVID to disability though is so important though, even for the people who believe that COVID is over for them there is never a point where we all accepted that COVID was over for everybody. Most people who are out there unmasked not in this way but no longer acting as if COVID poses a threat to them. If you point out that COVID is still around they'll say oh yeah but just for vulnerable people, just for disabled people, just for the immune compromise. And the three of us are in that category, absolutely. 

And so this is where the ableist trope really digs into it. There is this tacit acceptance that it is okay for some people to be disposable in that idea because everyone knows COVID isn't over for everybody. We have just as a society accepted that some people that's just the cost of brunch. Absolutely and yeah as the cost of brunch I think our lives are worth protecting and you know I feel kind of like we're the canaries in the coal mine. Yeah. In terms of...

Eden Swan 34:43

We won't survive. I mean, there's the canaries that aren't coming out. I don't want to be that, you know? Absolutely, yeah.

Themme Fatale 34:50

It's the care for people like us, it's the care for disabled people that we set up today that is going to save everybody long term. So for people giving into that trope, I'm just like, have some self-preservation.

Jasper Peach 35:00

Yeah, I've brought out the bucket that represents the inside of my brain, but also...

Speaker ? 35:07

It's real hairy.

Jasper Peach 35:10

This is our little utopia bucket and as my esteemed guests on Unmasked, I ask both of you to prepare a little thing to chuck in here for our world-building exercise and you're a divergent Utopia. Absolutely. So, would you like to fish around in your boots?

Themme Fatale 35:27

Sweaty piece of paper. Can you read it out? Oh absolutely sorry. I've lost mine. No big light.

Jasper Peach 35:36

The big light is so scary and it's just like, why? Exactly. Such nice little lights.

Speaker ? 35:42

Lamp life is where we're at.

Eden Swan 35:44

I've literally lost mine, like my boots are so long. Are the boots? I think it was in that.

Speaker ? 35:49

It's the, gone.

Jasper Peach 35:50

Do you remember, and then we'll fish it out and put it in. Yeah yeah sure sure, so I just said...

Eden Swan 35:55

I literally, I don't know, I don't know, I just said, you know, self-determination is our God, the God of our Utopia.

Jasper Peach 36:04

Nice. Okay, that's definitely going in the bucket. Thank you for being on Unmasked. I want to leave you with a gift. Now I'm not allowed to take these home. Please help me. These are unfinished craft projects. Oh no! Put them with the rest of my head. Oh, this looks... like, not a craft project, but I swear I bought it for my cramae. So, I feel like, I feel like you're vibing with that. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true. You know, giant bowl of yarn. And, look, Eden, I reckon you, what is even in here? Oh, okay. We've got a pattern for something. I think it's a bunny. And there's some stuffing. I've already got a bunny pattern. 

There you go. Right, you can move. Yes, totally. Thank you. I'm not the boss of you. You don't have to finish my craft project, but I can't throw them away, because, you know, I started them, and I'm not allowed to take them home, so please help me start a TV show - this is fantastic, I've got, you've got some stuff we, yeah, I'll have you on as a guest - we can trade under each crowd's project, much stuff. Thank you both. Thank you Themme Fatale, Eden Swan for being Unmasked. You're both luminous, gorgeous people. Thank you. 

Themme, Eden

Thank you.