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   Lili Saintcrow (lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 00:48:44 JST Lili Saintcrow

   “AI” and fascism are both intrinsically incapable of authenticity, which is one of the main reasons why they will always (eventually) lose.

   I learned this decades ago in a choir. Let me tell you the story…

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     Lili Saintcrow (lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 00:50:40 JST Lili Saintcrow

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     Now, I was defiant by dint of attempting to survive a brutal home life. The interesting thing here is that *every girl in the choir, no matter her background*, made the same decision near-instantaneously.

     To wit: “Like hell we will.”

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     Lili Saintcrow (lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 00:50:41 JST Lili Saintcrow

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     He informed “his” choir that we would do “approved” moves with the next competition pieces.

     Adult Lili understands he maybe meant well. Teen Lili was having none of it.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Lili Saintcrow (lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 00:50:42 JST Lili Saintcrow

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     Well, those concerts were a hit. The director was praised not only by parents but by other district choir directors, whereupon he made a second critical error.

     He arrived at the next practice with a script.

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     Lili Saintcrow (lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 00:50:43 JST Lili Saintcrow

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     Unfortunately for the director, these weren’t competition pieces but regular parent-concert stuff. We understood the difference, and were unmanageable in the way only teen girls can manage.

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     Lili Saintcrow (lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 00:50:44 JST Lili Saintcrow

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     We enjoyed a couple of songs we were practicing, and began spontaneously moving to the music. This was frowned upon in specific competitions, so our director tried to discourage it.

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     Lili Saintcrow (lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 00:50:46 JST Lili Saintcrow

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     Decades ago I was in a small “advanced” choir. It was a point of fierce pride that we had to be selected and show proficiency to get in. We considered ourselves hardworking, relatively skilled.

     One day, during practice, we started messing around.

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     Lili Saintcrow (lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 01:00:01 JST Lili Saintcrow

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     Anyway, we ruined the next competitions by being as soulless as possible. The following semester we all chose not to join the advanced choir again. We told other girls not to bother.

     For the rest of our school careers, that director couldn’t get another advanced group together.

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     Lili Saintcrow (lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 01:00:03 JST Lili Saintcrow

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     The audience had responded to our authentic enjoyment of pieces we’d spent serious time refining. The enthusiasm was infectious.

     The director mistook the window-dressing (our coordinated movements, a little play-acting during solos) as the reason for the response.

     GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Lili Saintcrow (lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Mar-2025 01:00:04 JST Lili Saintcrow

     in reply to

     It’s difficult to convey the breathtaking speed with which we decided, en masse, to punish the director who had attempted to force the script on us. We considered it a killing insult to be *scripted* after he’d made such a point of discouraging our active, authentic enjoyment.