What's in the cards
One free fortune told. From Carmen and me. 🔮
It has gotten reeeaaaallll heavy here lately, what with the institutionally sanctioned misogyny and lawsuit threats and all.
We need something to seriously clear the air.
How about… a gimmick? A giveaway. The chance for one lucky reader to win fame and… fortune… as it were. (She said with a husky, cryptic chuckle.)
This week I’m flying to Vietnam to start rehearsing Carmen with the Vietnam National Opera. I’m stepping in to conduct for a friend of a friend of a friend - who is now my friend - Martin Garcia Leon.
Carmen and I are different in many ways. My personal life will never be as adventurous as hers. And I’ve never smoked a cigarette, much less rolled one. But we still have a few things in common. For example, we have both had guys tell us to shut the **** up.
Carmen’s comeback? “I’m just thinking. It isn’t forbidden to think.”
Chef’s kiss. Love that woman.
Something else we have in common? We both know how to read the cards.
In Act III of Carmen, she and her friends are killing time, telling fortunes - like you do, when you’re a fictional character in a traveling, smuggling gypsy troupe. And in a truly operatic moment, Carmen draws (cue low strings) La mort. DEATH.
And die, she does, at the hands of her ex, in the opera’s brutal final scene.
The fortune-telling and the violence have no direct connection in the plot, but I’d argue that they’re at least indirectly related. Nothing triggers a small-minded man more than a woman doing something he doesn’t understand.
She makes me angry —> I don’t know why —> Burn the witch.
It always escalates so quickly.
*Anyhoo.*
I promised we were keeping this light.
Yes, I, like Carmen, am an amateur fortune teller - a hidden talent that was as surprising to me as it might be to you. I always assumed anyone who owned a tarot deck spoke in a breathy voice and smelled of patchouli - or, at the very least, has the kind of high-drama life that requires full orchestral accompaniment. (Although some would argue that I’m getting there.)
And then I heard a podcast by a tarot reader named T. Susan Chang and swooned a little. I’ve never met Susie, so I don’t know if she smells like patchouli. But her talks and writing about tarot are smart, funny, down to earth, and nuanced. She worked for Oxford University Press and NPR before turning to life as a tarot reader, so you’ll be hard-pressed to call her work silly or fuzzy.
I chatted on and on about how much I liked what Susie Chang had to say, and next thing I knew, my dear wife wrapped up a tarot deck and gave it to me as an anniversary present.
I opened it up and randomly pulled a card. No question. No fortune telling. Just pulling a card from the deck for the very first time.
It was the Queen of Wands.
Jessica got very, very excited. “It’s you. You’re the Queen of Wands!”
«Hi there. Nice to meet you. I’m you’re tarot deck.»
Cute. I guess the wand really does choose the wizard, Harry.
If you’re a skeptic, you might be having an allergic reaction right now. Before you close this tab, just chill for a second and let me give you my hot take on tarot.
There’s plenty of evidence that the intuitive, non-verbal part of your brain is a powerful tool - and for most of us, seriously underrated and underused. (Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emmissary is a dense read, but worth it. Or, speaking of podcasts, he’s done about a billion interviews you could listen to.)
I think all divination methods - tarot, I Ching, tea leaves, crystal ball gazing - are just a way that people have tapped into that non-verbal intuition for a long, long time.
Now, the mystics, the new-agers, the spiritualists, the seekers - they might go further out on a limb and say that the nonverbal part of yourself is connected to something… vast and mysterious. But we don’t have to go out on that limb with them, and even the most hard-core rationalists among you don’t object to playing a little Pictionary for problem-solving, do you?
If so, leave now, because that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
In honor of conducting my first Carmen - opera’s finest fortune teller - I am offering one of you, dear readers, a three-card tarot reading. Full disclosure: unlike my conducting, my tarot reading is 100% amateur. This is totally for fun - but it will be fun.
Send your burning questions via DM or comments on the platform of your choice.* I’ll screen for the ones that are a good fit - see guidelines below. When I have a decent pile, I’ll randomly choose one, pull some cards, and post them and my reading here and on my Instagram handle - the.notorious.r.b.n
(The Queen of Wands handle has been claimed a million times over on Instagram. And my current handle lets me pay tribute to Her Majesty, The Ginsburg.)
Send your questions. And let’s see what’s in the cards. 🔮🔮🔮
Tarot Reading Guidelines
In general…
No yes or no questions.
No asking about other people. Tarot ain’t your snoop.
Make it a question that’s personal and important to you.
Have you seen Kathleen Madigan’s Bothering Jesus? Same rule applies. Don’t bother the oracle. I’m not going to ask it where you left your car keys or who’s going to win the November election.Tarot cards are pictures. So, the best way to use them is to get a picture of something. What would it look like if I… What am I not seeing about… What do I need to know about…
For this drawing…
It’ll be public, so make sure it’s something you’re comfortable being shared.
Keep it relatively short. A few sentences. Enough for us to know what you’re asking about. You don’t have to give all the details. The cards will know. ;-)
Sign off with however you’d like to be identified - initials, first name, clever moniker, etc.
*I originally said Substack DM but have been informed it’s a pain in the butt for some folks. Send your questions however you like!