Kate Arvin
&
Great Willow
From ANDRAS JONES:
RECOGNIZE! DE-ESCALATE! & DE-CODE!
For the penultimate reading of this session with GREAT WILLOW( James Combs & Erin Hawkins) we are joined by KATE ARVIN who has been at the center of Olympia’s most recent case of harassment and institutional failures to address it. Those who have followed this show know harassment and bullying in Olympia are issues of great concern to us, particularly after the experience we had at the local community station KAOS 89.3FM where this show was born. You can listen to our episode about that situation with Vivian Cook here. Kate joins us in the realm of The Pop Oracle to discuss the Harlequin Theater and her role in addressing (and not addressing) the harassment that was reported to her when she worked at the theater, how this affected her decision to leave the theater, and the general response of the community once Israel Horovitz’s serial harassment was reported by The New York Times. It’s a good and important conversation and I hope everyone, particularly my fellow Olympians, will listen and take heed.
I find it a compelling synchronicity that our episode about harassment at KAOS wound up being our winter solstice episode and this one about harassment at Harlequin lands on the spring equinox. It’s almost as if nature itself is directing the attention of Olympians (and others) to the toxic ways we pollute our relationships and the organizations in which we exist by continuing these patterns of abuse.
Drawing a sync between the Great Willow song that answers Kate’s question about the value of silence, and my own lifelong battles with the silencing impulse of Olympia, I’ve attached “Get Normal”, the opening track from my band’s 1995 anti-bullying pop opera UnPop…, to the end of this podcast. The complete CD can be found on Bandcamp.
The New Normal
I woke up with a start at the start of the new day
To my new way of living
I was asleep in the seat of a truck
Out on the highway
And it was no way to be living
But I guess I gotta get used to the new normal
The new normal the new normal
Well she has a way she can be, she can know you
Understand you, she can show you
She has a way she can be, it can throw you
To be seen but not be loved too
I guess I gotta get used to the new normal
The new normal the new normal
I sat in the bed of a dead river from long ago
To see if its old flow could show what I don’t know
And I hoped with the hope of the slow
Until I came around, an insane sound said you gotta go
I guess I gotta get used to the new normal
The new normal the new normal
I was down for the count in the first round of the first play
On the first punch of the first day
I was down for the count and I found I could not stay
But It took me four years to understand the game
Now I guess I gotta get used to the new normal
The new normal the new normal
