Episode 05 - Found in Translation

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: Katie Chelena, Ellen Zemlin, and Annie Levin. Featuring Anthony Sertel Dean and Robin Virginie. 

Cecil Baldwin hosted our Audio Crime.
Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay.
And our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean.

Léah Miller is our associate producer.

Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean and Julia Melfi. 

Take Care!

Transcript 

Episode 05: Found in Translation

Show Intro (0:00-1:27)

Plucky instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: 5. Found in Translation. 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, hello! We hope to be sharing physical space with you as soon as possible. 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 recording with a blanket over our head to make for better audio quality, we’re really recording with a blanket over our head to make for better audio quality. Like I’m doing right now. 

Julia laughs

And now, Annie will Run the Numbers!

Annie: Hi! I’m Annie Levin, a New York Neo-Futurist.

In this episode we’re bringing you 3 plays by Katie Chelena, Ellen Zemlin, and me, Annie Levin. This episode also features Anthony Dean and Robin Virginie. Stick around at the end for an Audio Crime brought to you by Cecil Baldwin.

That brings us to 22 audio experiments on Hit Play. Enjoy!

Music winds down.

Play 1: Air! Air! More Air! (1:29-4:50)

Katie: Air! Air! More Air! GO! 

Audible background noise of air and Katie moving around. 

Katie: I need it. I’m an air sign. An Aquarius. Saturn in Aquarius, too. Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, rising, all air. One of my lovers is the same. “All air,” he said, “I’m like a fart.” And we both laughed big laughs, all the contents of our lungs oriented towards joy and lately I’ve been feeling… 

Katie takes a deep breath. 

Katie: the constriction. I need more air. It feels like when I was a kid with asthma living in Tennessee, where the ragweed and crop-dusting airplanes made the air too thick for my lungs. And the heat, jesus christ, it was so god damn hot. I remember I used to clear out the corner cupboard in my kitchen, crawl inside the dark enclosure, and just focus on breathing. 

Katie takes a deep breath, with ambient background noises. 

Katie: I’m trying it now, except I’m sitting on an IKEA bag full of laundry in my closet, and it feels like--

Katie takes a deep breath. 

Katie: It feels like getting back in the closet doesn’t really feel like the solution. I need more air. In the morning, I’d sit at the kitchen table and take my albuterol nebulizer. I’d breathe in the cool chemical vapors while listening to the Dixie Chicks, back when every southern talk show host called them treasonous sluts, but to me, they were my idols. They were (singing) wide open spaces. (speaking) And that's what they were to me. 

Katie: That’s how I filled my lungs: with albuterol and singing. My mom says that’s when she noticed I could sing--like really, sing. And when was the last time I sang, like really SANG sang.

Sound of shower turning on. 

Maybe in the shower? I tried it and it felt like this: 

Katie sings "Lady" by Regina Spektor in her shower with the water going. 

Katie: Still, I need more air. These days, the sky is mostly grey and the park is mostly full, so my outdoors now, is my walk to the grocery store, my fire escape, and the roof I can’t access unless I get brave enough to climb an unsettlingly rickety ladder. It sounds like this:

Sound of Katie shaking the rickety fire escape ladder. 

Katie: Okay, I'm on my fire escape now, and there's big grey clouds in the sky, but there's pockets where the blue is shining through and it feels cool, and the buds on the tree outside my fire escape are starting to bloom. And for the first time all day, I can't hear any sirens going down Eastern Parkway. 

Katie takes a deep breath. 

Katie: Today, a deep breath on the fire escape is gonna have to be enough.

Background noise fades out. 

Play 2: (4:51-6:45)

Ellen: The Only Possible Tropical Island Getaway, or Why It’s Good We’re Not All Animal Crossing Villagers. GO!

Gentle music underneath. Text of this play altered digitally to sound like Animalese, the language of the video game Animal Crossing. 

Anthony: When did you start playing Animal Crossing?

Ellen: New Leaf, so probably 2013 or 2014. You?

Anthony: When I got Wild World for my DS, I went in completely. I remember it really fostered a stronger relationship and bond between me and my cousin–we would visit each other’s towns and see what we had been up to, both in our digital lives and our physical ones. I just downloaded the game yesterday, but being on that colorful, colorful island is giving me such warmth. I love seeing what other people are doing to bring life to their island escapes.

Ellen: My mom and sister are both new to Animal Crossing, but have gotten super into it since New Horizons came out. We’ve been playing together a lot and have met up on someone’s island almost every day. It’s definitely helping us feel connected from our separate living rooms. And other people too - the first friend’s island I visited was a guy who was in my class from 4th grade through 8th grade but who I haven’t really stayed in touch with. We haven’t talked in years, but it still felt really nice to visit Matt’s island.

Anthony: The timing seems so oddly right. This game is all about being outdoors, spending time with your neighbors, and getting into some kind of routine. So many of us need that in this time.

Ellen: I work at an art museum that’s closed indefinitely due to coronavirus. The day after after the game came out, I found myself yelling at the TV “It’s okay, Blathers, my museum might be closed but I’ll help you open yours,” and then I realized I was almost crying. Having a museum to work for and visit is providing a weird sense of normalcy, even though giving bugs and fish to an owl is about as far from my actual museum job as it gets. What did you name your island?

Anthony: Soup City. It’s almost Sioux City, but also I like soup and it’s silly. When I get to name things in games, I never know whether to go super silly or super sincere. My character name in games is often either Toni if I want to be closer to myself or Tato if I want to just be a potato. 

Ellen: I named mine Mahoza, after a town that I came across in the Talmud a day or two before. Basically the only thing I know about Mahoza is that there, both men and women wore highly adorned clothes, and I wanted everyone to feel free to be as fancy as they want to be.

Anthony: I really enjoy using video games to create a more genderless queer world.

Ellen: Me too. I usually play as the male character but am still named Ellen. I love how there’s no such thing as gender in New Horizons, though. I knew about it before I started playing, but I still breathed a huge sigh of relief when the game asked what I wanted to look like instead of “are you a boy or a girl?” I just sent you a friend request, by the way.

Anthony: Continue on the islands?

Ellen: Continue on the islands.

Music continues for a beat. 

Play 3: A Little Something About Nothing (6:49-10:10)

Annie: A Little Something About Nothing. GO!

Annie: Robin, tell me about Nothing.

Robin: Well, it’s something I’m trying to do more of.

Annie: Me too. What kind of Nothing?

Robin: Sitting on a bench, listening to the birds. Drinking a glass of water, and only drinking a glass of water. Not reading anything on my phone. You?

Annie: Lying on my bed staring at the ceiling.  Sitting on the couch after everyone’s asleep, listening to ambient house sounds.  Awhile back I was reading about a Dutch concept–

Robin: Niksen.

Annie: Yes. Which means–

Robin: Doing absolutely and truly nothing, with no purpose other than being where you are. Although my gut reaction when you first mentioned it to me was “right, wasting your time”.  I grew up in Holland but I’m from a first-generation immigrant family on my mom’s side, so doing Nothing wasn’t really a virtue in my family.

Annie: Yeah, mine either. My mother never stops moving. I think most of my ancestors never stopped moving. So Niksen is like–

Ambient music underneath.

Robin: Niksen is like–like my hairdresser in Holland calling me one time to cancel our appointment because the weather was nice and he wanted to spend the day sitting outside.

Annie: Mind blowing.

Robin: In America, yes.

Annie: You and I first started talking about this last year. At the time, I said I would have loved to cancel work to go to the park on a sunny day to stare at the sky.

Robin: And I said I would have loved to cancel work to stay in on a rainy day and read a book.

Annie: Since the social distancing and shutdowns began in the U.S. have you been able to sit and read that book?

Robin: Not really. My mind has been occupied thinking about my family, about rent, about how to be useful during all of this.  Have you been able to stare at the sky?

Annie: Not at all. I’ve been working from home while newly living with four other adults and a toddler. One afternoon last week I started to feel sick, and scared. My chest had felt heavy for a few days with a slight burning sensation, and then suddenly this wave of exhaustion hit. While I was lying in bed wondering if my lungs would be among those that manage to keep going, I asked them–my lungs–what they needed me to hear. “Slow. Down.” That’s all they said. And then I slept for sixteen hours.  

Annie: Hey, Robin?

Robin: Yes, Annie?

Annie: I really hope Nothing happens to you.

Robin: Right back atcha, my friend.

Annie: I love you. 

Robin: I love you! 

Music has faded out. Robin and Annie giggle. 

Audio Crimes with Cecil Baldwin (10:11-11:19)

Julia: And now, an audio crime.

Sound effect of camera zooming in and focusing. 

Cecil: Thirty seconds of crime. In real time. John bleep. Copyright infringement.

Sound of photos being taken on an iPhone. Ambient background noise. Pages turning.

Cecil: Why did you do it? 

Someone: So that was the sound of me, scanning and making a PDF of sheet music that is copyright protected, so that I could get it to my students, who don't have access to it, while we are all under quarantine. And I still want them to be able to rehearse at home. 

Sound effect of camera zooming in and focusing. 

Show Outro (11:19-12:30)

Plucky 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 video plays. And if this episode gets over 1,000 downloads, we'll order one of our Patreon supporters a pizza on us. We’d really appreciate any support in these complicated times. Contributing to our Patreon helps us continue to pay our artists. 

Take care of yourself, call a friend, smash some plates and make a mosaic, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

This episode featured work by: Katie Chelena, Ellen Zemlin, and Annie Levin. Featuring the voices of Anthony Sertel Dean and Robin Virginie. Our Audio Crime was hosted by Cecil Baldwin. Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay. Our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean. Léah Miller is our associate producer. Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean and me, Julia Melfi. Take Care!