hello!! 🤩 IF YOU DON’T HAVE TIME to read this adorable lil email i fussed over with a genuine non-AI-generated love few people expend on anything anymore
📝please attend my benefit show / birthday party this sunday at Pine Box Rock Shop off the Morgan L! you can RSVP on partiful here, or if you can’t make it and want to support me taking EMOJI 🤷🏽♀️ to edinburgh festival fringe you can venmo me.
i just told you what it was… rhymes with “mead in furrow”
LAST TIME I wrote you about using the fire 🔥 (and yucky i-wanna-💀 feelings) of rejection to fuel me to finding a venue and going full send 📨 on my preparation for edinburgh.
and in case you missed it, the good news is — I HAVE A VENUE! 🏡 I’M GOING TO EDINBURGH. 🏴 IT’S HAPPENING. i’m going1 to scotland, baby!
the OTHER GREAT NEWs i’m a human being with free will who just had a birthday and in my aged wisdom 👵🏽 i decided i can do whatever i want, and what i want is to make my friends perform with me onstage and talk about the ways — funny 😂 and serious ✊🏽 — we can make the world 🌍❤️🩹 better and the whole thing could raise money for me to take my show to edinburgh and a portion of the proceeds could go to my friend omnia in palestine. 🇵🇸
i have been finalizing the line-up and it’s going to be the sickest 🤢 thing this side of the mississippi. AND THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MISSISSIPPI TOO. THE WHOLE WORLD, BABY! 🌍
so here it is! the final line-up drop! 🎉
I— Aarushi 💁🏽♀️🔥 — am gathering an assortment of the finest comics 🎭, musicians 🎶 & scholars 🧠 to engage in general silliness 🤪 and to engage over the question - "how in one minute can we fix the world?" 🌍💥
JUDY PEACH 🍑 and HEATHER DANIELSEN 👱🏻♀️ will lead a magnificent stuff-we-found-in-our-apartments auction 🪧🏺🕯️ , while also contributing their hilarious & haunting musical talents! 🎶
ANNAM CHOUDHRY 🤯 , KENDALL DAVIS ☮️ & RAQUEL PALMAS 🪴 will take the microphone 🎤 and attempt to tickle our withered world-weary hearts. 🫀🥹
MUSIC WILL RESOUND 🎺from the likes of
HANASARA 🌸
&
PAULSON JOHN🎸
& maybe even Aarushi 🤭 herself but like idk don't make me sing i'm so shy 🙈
and we would be nowhere without the brave 💪🏽 and moral ⚖️ improvisers
from
SLAYSIANS ✌🏽
and
UCB's
SIBLINGS! 🧑🧑🧒🧒
with special appearances from...
Annie Moretto 🎬
Ella Zafra 💋
Blaise Vacca 🤘🏽
Adam Manno 🫦
Grace Delsohn 🤟🏽
Hope Cary 🎭
Seynique Smythe 🌸
Gabriel Lonning 🏀
George Srouji 👨🏻
Seann Cantatore 🎹
Jatin Chhugani 🎤
Kento Morita 🤡
Rebecca Wolf 🥵
As If 💪🏽
Nita Sharma ☕️
Michael Oluokun 🥼
Amanda Melhuish 🦄
Jared Laxer 🏝️
Shari Hazlett 🚭
Emily Nevins 🧝🏻♀️
AI COULD NEVER 🚫🤖 .
the ticket will be a suggested donation at the door of $12. no one will be turned away due to lack of funds.
what are we fundraising for?
well, my show is lowkey life-changing according to some nice people… it’s a TED Talk/musical about human connection and emoji and so much more! i just know that when i’m doing my show, i’m doing what i’m meant to be doing in a way that only i can. and i believe in what my work is saying and doing for its audience. i feel like, spiritually called and aligned to the purpose of making this work. like fuck, how crazy is it to believe in something, let alone yourself? enough to ask for help??? I KNOW. but that’s where i’m at.
it’s gauche to say, but taking my show to edinburgh festival fringe will cost upwards of $12k (I said 10 last week but then it went up) without the flight! if you can’t make the show, you can send along any donations via venmo or zelle @aarushifire or let me know if there’s something else you’d like to try! 💸
PLS INVITE YOUR SALARIED FRIENDS 😇 🤷🏽♀️
when you’re supporting me this is who you’re supporting btw
if you’re just here for the show, RSVP above and i’ll see you sunday 💖
but fair warning… there is more…. 🧟♀️ ooh she’s a writer! scroll down to read about aprilmania & see the posters i can’t use…
i’ve been through literally so much since i started planning this show. i’ve got another notch in my bedpost (for the years of my life!!!… but also 😅)
APRILMANIA 🌸
as i mention in this excerpt of The Aarushian Calendar (the full version should hit newstands c. 2027.5), everyone becomes manic in april.
for me personally, it’s been my birthday (month). when i account for the days… (this is a peek behind the curtain that will one day exist behind some kind of paywall but that being said U CAN DEFINITELY SKIP THIS PART.)
april 14th - today. this is a schedule send. hope nothing’s too crazy?
april 13th - first meeting w/ PR for edinburgh festival. musical improv class. prep for sunday show by lining up friends to help with the flow of the event, contribute to the raffle/auction prizes and sending out an email about tech, which took way too long because well, this is how i email 💌
april 12th - attended cyrus deboo’s excellent solo show there’s something seriously wrong with cyrus at nyc fringe, which was really special for me because as we all know i sold out new york city fringe last year with EMOJI. 🤷🏽♀️
april 11th - sleep 16 hours and attend two solo shows — andie fuentes is looking for a husband, and shari hazlett’s smoking section (and others that shared shari’s hour that were also very good)!
april 10th - last day of the spring break camp where the students shared about the work they made together this week and we visited the tibetan buddhist prayer room. i visited a pervy exhibit in the museum on my lunch break.
april 9th - we taught the students how to code 8×8 matrices into pixelated designs using imagilabs. i performed a spot on gabriel lonning’s excellent / very avant garde show and was gaslit and made to look a fool by a rogue rideshare driver.3
april 8th - i don’t remember except i went home and slept for what felt like the first time in days. 🛌
april 7th - took students to the botanic gardens 🌸 and i was teaching about how every flower blooms in its own season and it’s like a metaphor and it’s inspiring. then we got to the garden and none of the goddamn cherry esplanade trees had bloomed and i was lowkey pissed, but i told my students. to observe what the branches look like just before they bloom and compare them to the other cultivars that are blooming. also my phone died after work so i used one of the sexy charging stations at the grand army plaza public library and later i made garlic bread and split a birthday mango with a total sweetie.
april 6th - nightmare scenario where i’d stayed up late the night before the start of a spring break camp i was teaching!!!! and i was out of coffee at home !!! luckily, stacey at the brooklyn museum was a fucking saint, and brought me and my co-teacher some coffee. at lunch i got a hot dog 🌭 from a guy with a stand but when i went to pay he said he only took cash (which is not what had been advertised) so i paid him two days later.
i’d been up working on a poster for the edinburgh PROGRAMME which is like this big fat print ‘programme’ that has all the shows in it… and you have basically a tiny square thumbnail available to represent your show.
this is what the programme looks like
after having stayed up late the night before mocking up a design with HUGE TEXT that would stand out amidst the other thumbnails, i received an email telling me that my designs would not be acceptable because the in-house style guidelines of my venue were anti-text on the tiny thumbnail, which honestly i get, but i was so mad at myself for having spent so much time on it. 😤
april 5th - there was a endless form to fill out and a looming deadline and it was taking so long that i just emailed them answers to what i believed most pertinent and they told me “thank you but eventually please fill out the form” and then i dicked around for 5 hours making useless poster. earlier i met my friend for mexican brunch and then performed on a delightful “UnEaster” variety show put together by elle roch, where i played taboo onstage and lamented easter preempting my birthday because jesus was hogging being born and i think it’s cool that i was born the one time. 🐣
april 4th - i had australian brunch with my besties. it was yummy then elizabeth street garden then we all got cold. then i did birthday karaoke at planet rose and all my favorite singing friends were there and i sang florence + the machine and it felt like the bar was an orchestra and i, a conductor. also i sang “empire state of mind” with toby as per tradish 🌹 and it brought the house down.
april 3rd - post-birthday nap day & a post-birthday birthday dinner wherein my dear friends ash, ameer and florida made an entire restaurant backyard sing to me. ☺️ i was also bravely wearing an ugly outfit lol
april 2nd - it was my birthday. the start of hopeful szn (see above video). flirty and fun, mala project, cocktails and cake. a really hard yoga class. and taboo. 🙊
april 1st - the fool’s day. (also me.) it would be a pink moon for my birthday, which means a lot to me, because pink is a significant color in my life. i bought myself a weird romper and some over-the-top hairclips and went to a rooftop bar by my house just to look at the pink moon.
so WHEN I TELL YOU I HAVE BEEN IN BIRTHDAY-PRIL-MANIA?!!?!
just for fun — here are some posters i designed that will not be used
but if you see me using them somewhere, no you didn’t see them here.
i thought this would be like a fun seascape and would pop amidst all the other bite-size thumbnails. and if you’ve seen my show, you know that this is a pretty important image from the show, but i guess on some level people can’t know that until after seeing it.
these were the two main new ones, but there was also…
this one was just straight up bad, but it was moving toward something????
my attempt to not have words… the final we went with is pretty similar to this, so don’t talk too much shit
this one i might still use for something, but it wasn’t big enough for the thumbnail even with the text.
idk guys i was trying so hard and getting SO NOT FAR AND IN THE END IT DOESNT EVEN MATTTERRRRRR
ON THE PLUS SIDE I AM NOW SLIGHTLY BETTER AT CANVA. at some point this week i will put a poll on my IG stories about these designs.2
THE LESSON HERE OF COURSE IS THAT PERFECT WAS 1000% THE ENEMY OF GOOD AND I COULD’VE DONE WAY LESS AND GOTTEN SLEEP. if you have to choose between doing a bunch of random shit in canva or sleep, i would recommend sleep. but hindsight is 2020 #triggered.
anyway, please feel free to invite your friends (especially those with cash to burn) to my show — it will literally be so good for them. 💋
that’s all for now. as always, you can donate to my friend Omnia in Gaza here!
thanks and all love,
aarushi 🩷
p.s. here’s that APRILMANIA poem i wrote!
1 with your help! 🩷
2 but i’m gonna need you to give me credit for it even if i don’t do it. 🥺 it’s my birthday.
3 he basically accepted 2 different rides so these people i’d just met at the event thought my car was their car, and i thought my car was their car (it was the same car) and he canceled on me and took them because i guess their ride was more expensive or something, but i looked unhinged because i was like “no the license plate says it’s my car fr!”