Episode 02 - Isolation/Community

Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. We’re bringing you a selection of experiments in audio around the themes of Isolation and Community. While The New York Neo-Futurists are social distancing just like you, our on-going and ever-changing attempt to create immediate art for you continues!

All you need to know is we are who we are, we’re doing what we’re doing, we are where we are, and the time is now.

If you like what you hear and want to support the New York Neo-Futurists, consider making a donation at nynf.org, or joining our Patreon. Patreon membership gives you access to bonus content like video plays! We’d really appreciate any support in these difficult times. Contributing to our Patreon helps us continue to pay our artists. 

Take care of yourself, call a friend, paint a painting, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

This episode featured work by Rob Neill with Cecil Baldwin, Kyra Sims with Julia Melfi, Michael Improta with Jack uhhh, and Hilary Asare.

Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay

Our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean

Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean and Julia Melfi

Take Care!

Transcript 

Show Intro

Gentle instrumental music plays underneath.

Hilary: 2. Isolation slash community. Welcome—you Hit Play. I’m Hilary Asare—a New York Neo-Futurist, I am recording this on my iPhone, I am on my bed in my bedroom, and the time is 3:45 PM, 2020. 

If you’re a fan of The New York Neo-Futurists, or any of our sibling companies, hello! We hope to be sharing physical space with you soon.

If this is totally new to you—amazing. Please tell us how you got here. All you need to know is that we are who we are, we are doing what we are doing, we are where we are, and the time is now. 

Sit back. Grab a cup of tea and a warm blanket—or whatever it is you need when you listen to podcasts—and get ready to hear a selection of Neo-Futuristic experiments in audio. 

Play 1: still shuffling these days

Cecil: Still shuffling these days. GO!

Shuffling cards sound effect. 

Cecil: These days, you are in charge. 

Shuffling cards sound effect. 

Rob: These days, you are constantly redefining what normal is. 

Cecil: What the FUCK these days?!

Rob: What the fuck these days?

Cecil: These days you know that you are not in charge

Rob: These days, you are caught thinking. 

Cecil: These days, check in with your friends. And neighbors. 

Rob: Survive the chaos. 

Cecil/Rob: These days your favorite word is--

Rob: Pancakes. 

Cecil: Jabroni.

Cecil: These days, you leave the light on. 

Rob: These days, you don't follow the recipe.

Cecil: These days, it is just not in the cards.

Rob: These days you climb the stairs and feel like it is the end

Cecil: These days you know that you shouldn’t panic, but you panic, you inhale and still are panicking.

Rob: These days, it is all seemingly too much, but just hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on…

Rob/Cecil: These days you need a drink, to get outta here, to just stop, to unplug, to close your eyes count to 3. 1… 2… 3… Drink

Sound effect of drinking and swallowing. Burps and sighs.

Cecil: These days? We're not all together like this. 

Rob: These days, you understand the constitution, your rights, government, taxes, public services, voting, but you question if that understanding matches reality.

Cecil: These days, you look at your feet, and you wonder, where will you go next?

Rob: These days substitute mashed banana for eggs. 

Cecil: These days you look deep inside and just take a breath and take charge.

Rob: These days the god of deer drops one in your path, but that is ok.

Cecil: These days, you just need a hug. 

Rob: These days, you think next year, oh fuck.

Cecil: These days, fuck this. 

Rob: These days, laugh out loud. Go ahead. Laugh. 

Rob laughs. 

Cecil: These days, this song is stuck in your head. 

Cecil mumble sings "why don't you just meet me in the middle?"

Rob: These days, know your story is not the only story. 

Cecil: These days, you cry alone. 

Rob: These days you are still misunderstood. 

Cecil: These days you are standing in a moment when you could say anything and you say "I’m sorry.” 

Rob: These days check in with your friends and neighbors. 

Cecil: These days look me in the eyes, even if it’s virtually--and I tell you, you’ve got this.

Rob: These days your heart. 

Cecil: These days, own your shit!

Rob: These days we’re making it work. 

Cecil: These days quid pro motherfuckin quo.

Rob: These days you hear the sirens and pray.

Cecil: these days what were you thinking.

Rob: These days it’s going to be okay.

Cecil: Think about your biggest fear and shout it out now.

Rob: Drink.

Drinking and sighing sound effects. 

Rob: Woof. These days. 

Play 2: Making Tracks: Walk #2.

Kyra: Making Tracks. Walk Number 2. Sound and Color. GO! 

Ambient street noises underneath. 

Kyra: Direction: South down Ft. Washington Ave. Album: Sound & Color by Alabama Shakes

Music starts playing underneath. 

Kyra: Around 4:22pm on a Sunday afternoon I step outside into the blinding light of a plague-ridden Washington Heights.

Kyra/Julia/sound effect: “I wanna touch a human being”

Kyra: --sang Alabama Shakes. Couldn’t have said it better myself. I get a message from my Dutch lover as I approach 164th St. He asks me: “Do you ever feel like crying without being sad particularly?” “Oh, yes.”

Kyra/Julia/sound effect: “Why can’t I catch my breath? Gonna work myself to death”

Kyra: Having grown up in the South, in an area where the oldest (white) history only goes back to just before the Civil War, I’m frequently fascinated by the history here--in the names, the places, the things I can touch. My neighborhood’s name, and the name of the street I’m on, comes from the Revolutionary War fort that once existed ten blocks from my apartment and now lives on in a few stones and an inscription inside of Bennett Park. At 265 ft above sea level it’s the highest point in Manhattan--not impressive by Denver standards, but one can imagine its strategic utility in wartime. 

Kyra/Julia/sound effect: “So I just kept going, I just kept going.”

Kyra: As I approach Broadway to cross it, I see two smiling men greet one another with elbows. The new normal, practiced with joy. This part of Manhattan, the far north part, narrows in width as the Harlem River carves through between the island and the Bronx. Doesn’t take too much more walking before I’m faced with a choice of turning north or south at Edgecombe Avenue, as the road ends at Highbridge Park, which sits on the promontory known as Coogan’s Bluff, followed by a 175-foot escarpment down to public housing, highways and water. I choose South.

Kyra: Along Edgecombe, daffodils have popped up from the ground and crowd together in springtime congregations. Didn’t get the memo, I guess. So jealous. My goal was to keep going South until the album ended, but at 155th I stumbled upon a path to the Greenway, a waterfont pedestrian and cyclist path that circles the island. I’d never walked it before and, as is becoming increasingly clear, you only live once.

Kyra: My first greenway views were of more of the escarpment down to Coogan’s Hollow and the Harlem River. I found out when I got home later that 70 years ago, I would have been looking down at a giant, bathtub-shaped baseball stadium called The Polo Grounds, where the Giants played before moving to San Francisco. The stadium got its name from, you guessed it, actual polo grounds, though I doubt this particular location ever saw any mallet-wielding men on horses. The baseball field relocated three times after the city demolished the original polo grounds in 1889, but they kept the name all the same. Difficult to picture it now--the escarpment today boasts an impressive amount of trash, and the public housing buildings in the hollow itself look like any of the others dotting the streets of this city. Acres of land, completely reinvented. The city can do that. 

Kyra/Julia/sound effect: “I looked at you and you looked into me / And we saw in each other everything.”

Kyra: New York hits and comforts, obscures and reveals, is in turn encouraging and cruel. It sets you up for all you’ve wanted in life, knowing that it can snatch it away at any time, demolish it, turn it into something else that suits it. And sometimes it does. Sometimes people just need housing. We need so much right now. I see a striped sheet hanging out of one of the apartment windows, stark against the brown bricks like a makeshift surrender.

Kyra/Julia/sound effect: “Loving so deeply I’m in over my head.”

Kyra: I make it down to the Harlem river. It ignores me, as it trundles along on its own Sunday business, casually glittering in the post-brunch sunlight. That’s fine. I move on. Soon, the album ends. Alabama Shakes has sung their piece, and I inspect the area where the music has led me. I’m under a highway overpass, fun, standing next to two broken eggs, and a third that has somehow survived, uncracked. Let’s all hope to be the third. Stay safe out there. -- Kyra

Music morphs into crowd noise and then cuts out. 

Play 3: I suppose this is as good a time as any to write a song for the first time, or "the distance from you"

Michael: I suppose this is as good a time as any to write a song for the first time, or "the distance from you" GO! 

Piano plays underneath title and accompanies song, eventually some guitar joins in. 

Michael: (singing) 

Singing for you at this distance

You can’t tell what clothes I’m wearing

Or if I’m wearing anything at all

Experiments in co-existence 

Can I count on you to catch me

Catch me when I fall

What if we all fell at once?

Falling together for months

With no one to witness

Oh, if we could just sing the same song

Dance like we’re linked arm and arm

We could bridge the distance

Filling our days with Masturbation

Eventually we’re gonna start chafing

Maybe that’s just me

Living in isolation

...

I’m singing to no one at all

What if we all fell at once?

Falling together for months

With no one to witness

Oh, if we could just sing the same song

Dance like we’re linked arm and arm

I could bridge the distance

Instrumental break. Music slows for final coda. 

The distance from you.

Play 4: A Breath, A Grace

Hilary: A Breath, A Grace. GO! Take the time right now to get in front of a mirror. You can press pause, I'll wait.

Music starts underneath the voiceover. 

Hilary: Ready? Now, close your eyes, and breathe with me for a moment. Inhale for 1-2-3-4, hold for 1-2-3-4, exhale for 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. Again, Inhale for 1-2-3-4, hold for 1-2-3-4 , exhale for 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. Keep breathing and count it out on your own now.

Sound of Hilary breathing slowly over the music. The beats kicks in. 

Hilary: Keep breathing. How’s that going lately? Is your chest open or tight? Put your hand on your heart. How is it? How is it really? Be honest. Are you punishing yourself for something? Is a memory taking up space that it shouldn’t? Maybe it was your fault. That’s okay, you are allowed to make mistakes.  

Hilary: Keep breathing with me. Inhale for 1-2-3-4, hold for 1-2-3-4, exhale for 1-2-3-4-5-6-7.

Hilary: Open your eyes. Keep breathing. Look in the mirror. Make eye contact and say “you can forgive yourself”. Raise your arms above your head. Shake off the blame. Free yourself of that dark moment. You aren’t defined by your worst days. Fling them off your fingertips. Take another breath, Look in the mirror again and say "I love you, it's gonna be alright".

Hilary: That’s a nice start.

Sound of exhale with music crescendo.

Show Outro

Gentle instrumental music plays underneath.

Hilary: Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. If you liked what you heard and want to support the New York Neo-Futurists, consider making a donation at nynf.org, or joining our Patreon--Patreon.com/NYNF. Patreon membership gives you access to bonus content like video plays! We’d really appreciate any support in these difficult times. Contributing to our Patreon helps us continue to pay our artists. 

Take care of yourself, call a friend, write a poem, do a dance, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

This episode featured work by: Rob Neill with Cecil Baldwin, Kyra Sims with Julia Melfi, Michael Improta with Jack Fellows, and me—Hilary Asare.Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay. And our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean. Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean and Julia Melfi. Take Care!