Episode 03 - Comforts

Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play.

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: Anooj Bhandari, Shelton Lindsay, Kyra Sims, Anthony Sertel Dean, and Katie Kay Chelena, and also included Annie Levin and Michaela Farrell. 

Cecil Baldwin provided our Audio Crime.
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!

Transcript 

Episode 03: Comforts

Show Intro

Gentle instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: 3. Comforts. Nicely done—you Hit Play, a podcast made by the New York Neo-Futurists. 

I’m Julia Melfi—a New York Neo-Futurist. 

While our on-going, ever-changing, late-night show, The Infinite Wrench, is on hold for the foreseeable future, we wanted a place to keep making art for you. And thus, Hit Play was born!  

If you’re already a fan of The New York Neo-Futurists, or any of our sibling companies, hi! We hope to be giving you a high five with our real hand real soon.

If this is totally new to you—welcome to it!

We play by four rules:

We are who we are, we’re doing what we’re doing, we are where we are, and the time is now. 

Simply put: we tell stories, and those stories are our own. Everything that you hear is actually happening. 

So if we tell you we’re boiling water for a cup of tea while we’re recording, we’re really boiling water for a cup of tea while we’re recording. 

And now, Katie will Run the Numbers!

Katie: Hi I’m Katie Kay Chelena and I’m a NY Neo-Futurist. 

In this episode we’re bringing you 5 plays by Anooj Bhandari, Shelton Lindsay, Kyra Sims, Anthony Sertel Dean, and myself, Katie Kay Chelena all around the theme of Comforts. Stick around at the end for an Audio Crime by Cecil Baldwin.

That brings our number of audio experiments on Hit Play to 14 plays.

Enjoy!

Music winds down.

Play 1: Synge. Release.

Anooj: Synge. Release. GO!

The sound of a stove light clicking on and then igniting. 

I spent countless moments watching the sun come down as the women I descended from carved spaces of perfected alchemy out of kitchen corners. I would run across their laboratory floors, stomping hard enough to release the stirring tornado from inside pressure cookers on burning stoves. The sound would be my wind, would lift my running body into the darkening sky, a cape appearing the moment I closed my eyes. 

Sound of pressure cooker hissing in foreground, repeats at underscore level. 

Decades later my Nani wraps me in a brown knit shawl says she like boys colors and that I need something to remember her by after she’s gone, after she dies are the words she actually uses, translated, and she says this after calling me a joker with her head tilted back laughing because I still let myself be funny to her. 

She says she knows I won’t wear it on the streets but at winter in my New York City apartment it could be a comfort and I tell her that I will wear it everywhere, but what will people say she asks, will they laugh, and she doesn’t know that I already changed the color of my shoelaces in order to see her and what will people say, I haven’t cared much for an answer that is spoken by somebody who isn’t of my blood, scratch that, translation, I care too much of many answers from the aunties and uncles who watch me watch them wondering if this all, this being here, is worth it, but the new decade just came and I think it’s time to stop fearing my people, 

Sound of pressure cooker hissing gets louder. 

Time to start exchanging this, translation, time to buy a heavier shawl, translation, a heavier wind, a reason to love those who stare a little more, even though the accent will still be strong, and my aspirated h’s will come out like a stream of wind in the pressure cooker releasing itself to the world because of a little boy’s playful stomps, and I will give myself a thousand more reasons why I cannot be funny for people anymore before learning to accept being called a joker again. 

Hissing stops. Gentle music underneath.

My Nani wraps me in a brown knit shawl, says she likes boys colors and I say I like capes and get up, make a pit stop in the kitchen to see what alchemy I will consume today, close my eyes, and pretend to fly away. 

Play 2: A selection of Shelton's daily poems…

Shelton: A selection of Shelton’s daily poems written to help ward off the rising tide of emotional instability. GO!

Abstract ticking soundscape underneath words. 

Shelton: Thursday the 19th

Honestly, it’s a blur

Maybe it was the rum 

Sound cuts out.

Friday the 20th 

Abstract buzzing soundscape underneath words.

Tacos and RuPaul 

Almost a normal night

Till my roommate’s lover comes in

She’s vibrating on the frequency of fear

Sound cuts out.

Saturday the 21st 

Abstract mellow soundscape underneath words.

Folding clothes in the basement 

(Has it ever been this clean?) 

Drinking a luke warm cup of coffee

With Bailey's

At noon 

Listening,

(Well singing 

With Spotify for backup)

To a Disney princess playlist

YOU KNOW

there are more princess 

Than just Elsa

Why is every other song from Frozen?

I mean who even made this playlist?

And then

Tale As Old As Time

Angela Landsbury edition comes on

And suddenly I’m crying 

Not sobbing 

Just passive 

Crying 

Like raindrops 

Burning holes

In river rocks

I live here

Not the basement mind you

Just this reality

Where it’s been days without 

Touch from anyone besides my lover

(Which is lovely

And I’m lucky)

But like Ariel 

(Why is there not more Ariel on this playlist?)

I want more

(Shelton sings) I want to be where the people are

I wanna see wanna see 'em dancing

Strolling along what’s that word again...

Sound cuts out. 

Monday the 23rd 

Abstract trippy soundscape underneath words.

It’s not that close

Just a flu 

You think

Till you’re setting up your roommates

Live feed

For a dead queen

In the basement

He spinning tracks

To commemorate

The great

And now late

Mona Foot. 

Aka

Nashoom

aka

Our black superwoman 

And slinger

Of shots 

At The Cock

Boy was she flawless

Absolutely flawless

And somewhere

In some gay heaven

she’s standing with George Michael now

Both of them singing Flawless together

The song she wrote

That he remade

For his last big hit 

When miss Mona Foot arrived 

At the gates of gay heaven

Which is oddly enough

Just like The Cock

Only without a cover fee

I hope they swung open

Those doors wide

To reveal 

a million gay angels 

Heralding her arrival

As she pranced through the door. 

All of them singing her song

Naturally, 

Your entrance is grand

Red carpet rolls out on the side they stand

Worshiping you like a goddess 

Somehow, you've remained modest

Flashbulbs pop, paparazzi goes wild

With amazing grace, you walk and smile

The answer to your beck and call

You're flawless

Absolutely flawless. 

Sound cuts out. 

Tuesday the 24th

Abstract whooshing soundscape underneath words.

I will never take

A hug from my friends

For granted 

Again. 

Music crescendos up a few times and fades out. 

Play 3: Recipes we've recipes we've been making…

Kyra: Recipes we've been making, set to lo-fi chillhop. GO!

Lo-fi chillhop underscore with sizzling sound effect. 

Kyra: Flour. Baking powder. Cold butter. Milk. Hints of sugar and salt. Mixing & mashing, folding & holding. Learning as you go. Your body, hands, adjusting to new information. Don’t overwork the dough. Don’t use a rolling pin. This work is intimate. This work came before you, me, everyone we know. Grain bound and blessed with heat. 425 for 12 minutes. Delicious with gravy. 

Anthony: Garlic, cabbage, coriander, dill, tomato paste, cumin, red pepper flakes, cumin, and salt. Searing, saucing, baking, browning. Tender leaves, caramelized to perfection. My oven is a tool for keeping me sane. 

Michaela: Tofu, lemon, nutritional yeast. Blender! That’s it. It’s so easy. I don’t know why this is the first time I’ve made this. I’ve wanted to for a while. Maybe I was held back by a fear of messing up and wasting good ingredients. Now that I’ve finally made it, I feel like a rockstar. I’m classy, with a sense of domesticity. And vegan. As. Fuck.  

Annie: Health through food. Health through ritual, friendship, and the passing along of knowledge. Ginger, garlic, turmeric. All good for the body. Good for the taste buds. Add these melodies to a symphony of lentils, onion, greens, lemon, spices. Boiling and heat, simple alchemies. Dollop of yogurt at the end. 

Annie: Bon appetit!

Michaela: Dig in!

Anthony: Eat up! 

Kyra: Hope you like it. 

Sizzling and music fade out. 

Play 4: I Was A Teenage Witch

Anthony: I Was A Teenage Witch. GO!

TV static and other television noises play in the background with pulsing music.

Anthony (whispered): Leave the TV on

Loud enough so that if they wake up, they’ll know you’re not upstairs

Turn that light off, leave that light on

Sounds of door unlocking and opening.

Open the side door slowly… and quietly. Make sure the latch doesn’t lock as it closes

You’re out. Breathe in. 

Anthony: And take the long walk, to the golf course, to the large rock, to the hill just past the large rock, to them–who had flown out their own side doors. 

This was our witching hour–a time for us to be together and to be young. Some of us would drink and there was the expected juvenile romance and rebellion, but more than that, it was community. This was a time for us to be free, to question what we saw in the daylight, and discover who we were together. The only eyes on us were those of the moon, when all of us still closeted kids found acceptance on this magical ground. On this golf course. Staring at the stars in a circle around the putting green, no one saying a word, but all feeling so deeply connected in that midnight moment; breaking off with one another saying you wanted to explore another part of this sleeping field, but honestly hoping to confess a secret you weren’t ready for those in the daylight to hear; chanting our spells, singing our songs at the top of our hill to warm ourselves in the colder month–not too loud that we could be heard. 

The hour would turn into two, then three, and on, coven scattering as the sky began to take the amber hue of a sunrise. We would transform back to the selves we showed the world, as we ate the first hash browns of the morning–from the very unmagical McDonalds. 

Anthony (whispered): Are the lights on upstairs?

I’m back in time. Breathe out.

Side door, TV, lights. 

Rest. You’ll need your magic for next week.

Music gets louder and fades out. 

Play 5: An incomplete list of everywhere I'm not

Katie: An incomplete list of everywhere I'm not. GO! 

Atmospheric noise under the words. 

I am not on the moon.

I am not in my bathtub.

I am not sitting next to you, yes you on your couch, but you already knew that.

I am not in Antarctica.

I am not in Italy.

I am not on the international space station.

I am not in a top secret submarine in a top secret location on a top secret mission.

I am not at my parents’ house in North Carolina.

I am not in the secret passageway.

I am not in the college town.

I am not in a hospital.

Music kicks in. 

No-

I am in Brooklyn.

I am in my brain, or maybe in my body.

I am a sound in your ears–you, there, wherever you are, and now you’re turning me into something else entirely.

I am a matrix of particles lined up and spit out on zoom or skype or facetime or or or or

I am not in Oregon or Orlando or New Orleans or Old Orleans for that matter.

I am on a hardwood floor with my cat, examining the experiment of the chemical peel on my feet, how the layers of skin so eagerly slough away, grateful for the opportunity to shed.

I am not yesterday or the day before that or the day before that, no, that was the old me, or the young me, I’m not so sure these days.

Don’t they say your cells turn over every seven years? 

How many ships of Theseus have I been by now?

Where did all the past me’s go? Did they know it was time and loosen their grip like dark gleaming blood heeding the moon’s gravity, or is there a collection within me, rings of a tree, every self within my self, repurposed and recorded?

Or if all the atoms formerly arrayed in the matter of me still hold some semblance or memory, 

Speech warps and static cuts in. 

I could be in Italy the moon the bathtub with you outer space underwater Carolina secret hospital

Speech effect and music cut out. 

Wait–

I got ahead of myself again.

Music kicks back in. 

I am with you, in ways.

In others, without.

The distance between where I am 

And where I’m not

Isn’t as far as I thought.

I am writing this, for you, yes you, whoever wherever whenever you are.

I am with you in Rockland.

I am with you in the quarantine.

I am with you in the new world we’ve created, 

over there, just beyond the horizon, on the other side of this.

That’s where I am.

Music crescendos and fades out. 

Audio Crime with Cecil Baldwin

Julia: And now, an audio crime. 

Sound effect of camera zooming in and focusing. 

Cecil: Criming. Thirty seconds of crime. In real time. P–bleep. Subway fare evasion. 

Sound of phone video, someone walking in boots. Metal clinking. Feet landing on the ground. Sound of train whooshing and feet speeding up. Feet walking and breath. Sound cuts out. 

Cecil: Why did you do it? 

Someone: You know, like, fuck the MTA man, like, you know. Like, everything's like, what, three dollars? To fucking take the nasty fucking subway? Fucking coronavirus subway, man, fuck that shit. You just hop the turnstile. You put two hands on the side and just fucking jump over that shit man. Watch. 

Sound effect of camera zooming in and focusing. 

Show Outro

Gentle instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: 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 by joining our Patreon–Patreon.com/NYNF. Patreon membership gives you access to bonus content like the delicious recipes mentioned in this episode. And if this episode gets over 1000 downloads, we'll order one of our Patreon members a pizza on us. 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, make a scrapbook, whatever, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

This episode featured work by: Anooj Bhandari, Shelton Lindsay, Kyra Sims, Anthony Sertel Dean, and Katie Kay Chelena. Featuring the voices of Annie Levin, Michaela Farrell, and Anthony Sertel Dean. Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay. Cecil Baldwin provided our audio crime. And our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean. Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean and me, Julia Melfi. Take Care!