Night at da Opera by Kayode D. '27

This semester, I’m taking a class called 21.01, “Love, Death, and Taxes”. It’s a CI-H⁠01 Communication Intensive in the Humanities, Arts philosophy class, and it’s a grand old time! The class looks at moral and social questions concerning the human experience, and is set up in a discussion-focused style with debates and discourse. One of my big pulls for the class, though, were the field trips. That’s right. Field trips. In 2025. In College. Yep. 

Me on a pumpkin patch field trip in elementary school. Ah, the glory days.

The class is a lot of fun! We talk about things like what separates an aggregation from an association⁠02 it's like the difference between just living in a town, and being a citizen of that town. The citizen actually cares about the wellbeing of the town and contributes for a covenant that goes deeper than just living there. , and what makes someone a genius⁠03 I personally don't think Beethoven is a genius, I'll just say it. .

I also met some pretty neat people! My friends, Jessie L. 27’ and Pierre C. are taking the class with me, and we discuss philosophy and values and the the human condition together. We also watched the Super Bowl! When the TAs sent out the form announcing the field trip options, we agreed to go to all three [an opera, a concert, and a play] together. 

But let’s be real. I had no idea what I signed up for with this opera thing. I didn’t know where it was, when it was, I didn’t even really know what an opera was. Like conceptually I understood, but I had no idea what it actually entailed. I just got in the uber and ended up somewhere in Boston with a ticket. When we sat down I asked someone how long this was supposed to be, and they told me FOUR HOURS. I signed up for FOUR HOURS of a thing I didn’t even understand! And the orchestra didn’t even have any drums! Only timpani’s⁠04 which in my opinion is like the peach cobbler of drums. !

The Opera Stage. When I sat down, I feared that this was just a symphonic concert and one of those like 4 hour symphonies.

Jessie L '27, Pierre C, Gabby G '25, and I at the opera!

fancy venue 0_o

The Teleprompter that the close captioning appeared on. Without this, I don't know if I could tell you what the play was about, it was almost gibberish at times.

The TWO Percussionists holding down the fort the entire show. My man on the Glockenspiel did a fantastic job 👏👏👏

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We went to see the opera “Lysistrata, or The Nude Goddess” at Jordan Hall in Boston. Luckily, it wasn’t four hours straight of percussion-less orchestra music, and actors came out a few minutes in. The play was written by Mark Adamo in the early 2000s as an adaptation of the original Lysistrata, written by Aristophanes in 411 BC. This new version is thankfully in English and adapted to make more sense in modern times, and I enjoyed it!  

Essentially, the opera is about the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. The women of both cities think that the war is foolish and they’ll end up killing each other senselessly, so they agree to lock themselves in the Athens armory and not have sex or spend any time with any of their husbands until they end the war. At first this seemed stupid, since the characters even pointed out that there were prostitutes in the town, so the men wouldn’t comply, but it actually worked. It wasn’t just the flesh desires, but they also longed to be with their wives. It made them question which they loved more, their feud or their wives.

There was a lot of back and forth, and eventually even the women wondered which they loved more: peace or their husbands. The women renamed Lysia, the woman who started the movement,  to be “Lysistrata” which means “disbander of armies,” even though she had decided in herself to leave the cause to be with her husband.

Eventually, the men showed that they loved their wives more than the war, and wanted to end the fighting to be with them. However after everything had been resolved and they were writing up the treaty over a feast, another fight broke out. This ended with the generals stabbing one another and both falling dead. Their wives rush to their sides, see their husbands are dead and pull the knifes out, turning to face one another. Plot Twist!! Now THEY are the ones fighting the war senselessly!

At the end of the play, in true Deus Ex Machina fashion, the gods Aphrodite and Ares descended to the people to end their war. I think it was a Rick and Morty reference, but I’m not quite sure. 

The Final Curtain Call

After the opera, we went to get tacos from El Jefe’s across the street. Delicioso!

The snow outside the theater when we left.

Personally, I prefer Felipe's over El Jefes, but to each their own.

I had a friend in high school who would rave about the fruit punch Jarritos that our supermarket stopped carrying. It's pretty good!

The Gang!

Central Square after the T Ride

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It also snowed like, a bunches. 

Snow Kresge

I think that this was the first REAL snow of the semester? It had snowed before, but this was the first time I had been outside and it was piling up.

I ran into some BC friends when I was crossing the snow covered field, and they BONKED me with a ton of snow. Chilly!

It was all good snow, too. I believe one of the bloggers made an igloo out of snow one day?

Snow Simmons

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…

One thing we’ve talked about a lot in our class is values. In one exercise, we wrote out all of the things we value and why we value them, and drew connecting lines back to find the core values [you might value hard work, and you value that because you value being useful, which is because you value helping people, because you value love]. I wrote things like Honesty, Loyalty, and Growth, and everything connected back to my relationship with God and how He has worked in me the last few months. The bible sets the groundwork and frame for who I want to become and be. 

Looking at that list, I could see a noticeable shift from my values when I came to MIT. If you asked me before coming to MIT or during freshman year what I valued I would say things like getting a good job, or accomplishing some big MIT thing, or doing something worth being remembered for. Now I think I value a lot less what I accomplish while in college and more the person that I become while in college. I was so obsessed with reaching some unseen, unreachable goal that would suddenly make my feel accomplished and satisfied that I didn’t think about the person I was or who I was becoming. I wasn’t growing. 

Now, I realize that MIT is a marathon, not a sprint. I don’t have to run the same pace as the guys in the front or the guy who set the world record for marathon, I just have to keep going and be the best runner I can be. It took a lot of experiences to come to this realization, but I’m glad that I changed my focus to my self, rather than what I do.

OK, that’s enough deep thinking for today. I never know how to end a blog. Bye.