The Sita Chronicles

This post lists my various work on Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues, from my initial review in The Valve, to the post on cultural evolution which featured it, through my ongoing articles and interviews.

Reviews and Essays

• Sita Sings the Freakin’ Gorgeous Blues
• Frog Up Ponyo Sita: Complacency vs. Vision
• On Learning to See Sita Sings the Blues
• From Elizabeth to an Nina: Stick to Your Guns, Baby  
• Behind the Scenes: Disney, Miyazaki, Paley

Analysis and Description

1. The Agni Pariksha in Context
2. Cultural Evolution: A Vehicle for Cooperative Interaction Between the Sciences and the Humanities (online, downloadable)
3. Ritual in Sita Sings the Blues, Part 1
4. Ritual in Sita Sings the Blues, Part 2A
5. Ritual in Sita Sings the Blues, Part 2B
6. Ritual in Sita Sings the Blues, Part 3 — Shakespearean Resonance
7. Ritual in Sita Sings the Blues, Part 4 — The Cosmos
8. Notes on Ritual: Sita Sings the Blues (PDF) – Consists of 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 plus some advice from Queen Elizabeth I of England to Nina Paley on sticking to her guns.
9. Notes on the Agni Pariksha in Sita Sings the Blues (PDF) – Descriptive information about the Agni Pariksha episode, including 1) a nine-page table describing what happens in the episode scene by scene, 2) a list of the heart images, 3) lyrics to the song, with English translation, 4) a set of 21 representative screen shots.

Interviews

A note about the order: All of these are part of the same interview. I've listed them in their order in that one interview. But the second interview segment is the first one I published and the first interview segment is the second one I published.

1. Nina Paley on Fire
2. Nina Paley on Directing and Being Directed
3. Nina Paley: Seeing Gods
4. Nina Paley: A very brief hot mess  
5. Nina Sez: Invent Stuff? Who, me? Nah
6. Nina Paley: Talking about Art is Creepy 
7. Nina Paley on the Agni Pariksha (PDF) – Transcript of an interview with Nina Paley on the Agni Pariksha episode of Sita Sings the Blues. Includes 21 screen shots used to prompt Paley's comments.