Episode 10 - Where We Were

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.

1:12 - alphabet sleep (part ii) by Rob Neill featuring Kyra Sims

4:38 - Ode to 17 (after Anis) by Katie Chelena

7:32 - Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, or An Amended Excerpt from the The Infinite Wrench House Managing Handbook by Ellen Zemlin

10:26 - the space below. by Anooj Bhandari

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 Julia Melfi 

Take Care!

Transcript 

Episode 10: Where We Were

Show Intro

Twinkly electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: 10. Where We Were. 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 there! Long time, no see. 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 while we're balancing on one foot, we're really recording while we're balancing on one foot. Like I am right now. 

Julia: And now, Anooj will Run the Numbers!

Anooj: Hi I’m Anooj Bhandari, a New York Neo-Futurist. In this episode we’re bringing you 4 plays by Rob Neill featuring Kyra Sims, Katie Chelena, Ellen Zemlin, and myself, Anooj Bhandari. 

That brings us to 43 audio experiments on Hit Play. Enjoy!

Music winds down.

Play 1: alphabet sleep part ii (1:12)

Rob: (Exhales) Hmm, yes. Alphabet sleep. Part two. GO!

Atmospheric noise. Kyra distortedly sings The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel

Rob: l. astronauts and dogs driving boats across an ocean, there is a fog

m. you sleep, several levels of sleeps

n. strange things squish into your mind dreams 

o. horses that neigh like the honking of truck horns

p. rivers rivering down toward your toes, you sleep

q. you are grateful you have not gone to the dreamland of soft but prickly prickles where your whole body feels like those times when you sleep on your left arm funny

r. (singing) you sleeping are are you sleeping brother 

s. you could be snoring, yup you are; it’s the softer version more cat like less buzz saw

t. there are people outside you that are ticking time bombs, you hope to be beyond the blast-radius but you never know when they’ll go off

u. are not here and you feel absence at the base of your spine, or maybe that's just me, sleeping

v. you sleep, knowing you want pancakes, you can have pancakes you will have pancakes pancakes pancakes when you get out of bed pancakes

w. currently you are not smiling, your dream mind reminds you that you should do that when you wake

x. in this fog you ssssssssssss

z. you are dreaming, dreams upon dreams upon dreams again and again and you have that one dream, where you are in a bike race going up and down the coast and there are stairs that you have to carry your bike up and down and sometimes you're in a house and sometimes you're on the water, in a boat, and a boat–a boat that can drive into restaurants full of famous people like, like you are sleeping, or maybe that's just me, sleeeeeep

Kyra distortedly sings Frère Jacques. Sound fades out. 

Play 2: Ode to 17 (after Anis) (4:38)

Katie: Ode to 17. After Anis. GO!

Mellow rock chords underscore. 

Katie: This one goes out to the teenagers.

This one goes out to the teenagers we all still are inside, driving way too fast with the windows down on the highways of our hearts.

This is for you.

This is for the acid I did not take.

This is for the skinny dipping in waterfalls.

This is for all the cake that went uneaten because of body shame.

This is for my first orgasm.

This is for the Waffle House parking lot where we had our first kiss.

This is for the girls who realize the world wants them to be smaller and instead they defiantly grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and–

This is for the girls who shrink. It is ok. We cannot grow in all seasons. 

This is for Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Smirnoff Ice.

This is for the boys painting their nails.

This is for shitty stick and poke tattoos.

This is for coming out.

This is for the last of the first straws, when you have been cheated or mistreated or abused and they think they can take your spirit away, but you’ve just found your voice, and motherfucker, it is loud.

This is for your voice.

This is for all the clothes ruined by period stains.

This is for the parents of teenagers.

This is for teenagers who parent themselves.

This is for the girl who was hit so often with hands that all she could do was hit me with words.

This is for stretch marks and sweat stains and patchy pubes.

This is for those picked last.

This is for the quarantined high school seniors, 

Robbed of the mundane gazing out classroom windows at the slow blistering springtime,

Robbed of the cobbled together parties where someone's friend's brother brought the booze,

Robbed of the ritual and ceremony of stepping into the great beyond, trust me, you're a pro already, the great beyond is just exchanging one unknown for another.

This is for the golden boys.

This is for the ones who didn’t make it.

This is for the ones in conversion therapy.

This is for the ones in rehab.

This is for not knowing how to kiss and doing it anyway.

And this is for your teenage heart, and how relentlessly it beats, how the rhythm grows beyond your body, how it syncs to the beat of your favorite song as the sun shines down on your face and you think god it’s so hard to be alive, but god it’s so fucking good.

Music plays out. 

Play 3: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (7:32)

Ellen: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions, or An Amended Excerpt from the The Infinite Wrench House Managing Handbook. GO!

Atmospheric crowd noise. 

Ellen: The show is about an hour long.

There is a bar inside the Kraine.

The KGB Bar is upstairs. 

The bathrooms are upstairs.

The Red Room is all the way upstairs.

The Comedy Club is outside, down the stairs, and immediately to the left.

The ATM in the lobby has really high fees, but there’s an ATM in the bodega and a Bank of America on 2nd Avenue.

I’m not sure if the KGB is cash only, but I don’t think it is.

Crowd noise fades into ambient music. 

No, I don’t know when the show’s going to reopen.

No, I don’t know when the museum where I work is going to reopen.

No, I don’t know the full extent of the impact this is going to have on arts and culture.

Yes, it’s almost definitely going to be devastating.

Yes, it already has been devastating.

No, I don’t know when I’ll be back in the office again.

No, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be getting paid.

Yes, I am getting sick of my apartment.

My home office is the corner of my living room with the kitchen table in it.

To get there, you’ll need to walk in the front door, step over the shoes, turn left past the fridge, and go straight.

The bathroom is back through the kitchen and around the corner.

The towels hang on hooks on the bathroom door.

No, the show is not improv comedy.

Yes, they’ll make an announcement outside and at the bar upstairs when it’s time to line up.

Yes, I think my cats are kind of tired of me.

Yes, I really miss touching people.

Yes, I am more grateful for clear, sunny days than I ever have been before.

Yes, I am more grateful for gray, rainy days where you just don’t want to leave your apartment than I ever have been before.

The sunshine hits my stoop in the morning and early afternoon.

The WiFi reaches there, so it can be an extension of the home office.

Yes, I’ve reconnected with old friends and deepened existing relationships.

Yes, I’m calling my grandparents several times a week.

Yes, I’m extremely appreciative of the new ways we’ve been finding to create and maintain community.

Yes, there really are thirty plays.

Yes, they all average about two minutes long.

Yes, I have found myself creating and practicing new rituals.

Yes, learning Talmud every day with my partner and two of my coworkers has become my biggest lifeline.

Yes, I’m singing more.

Yes, I can finally focus enough to read again.

Yes, I finished a book last night for the first time in a month and it feels amazing.

Yes, the hope and despair do feel like they balance out most days.

Yes, the hope feels like it’s winning more lately.

Yes, we are going to get through this.

Yes, I miss you.

Yes, I love you.

Yes, I hope to see you soon.

Music plays out.

Play 4: the space below (10:26)

Anooj: The Space Below. GO!

Anooj: 1. This is the sound of 30 pounds falling down the stairs of my parents’ house, about the weight of an average three year old. 

Audio of Anooj throwing 30 pounds down the stairs. Gentle chords underneath text.

When I was six, I sat at the top of these stairs with my cousin when out of nowhere she went tumbling down, and when I say tumbling, I mean somersaults. I still feel like if I stare at the bottom of those steps long enough I can see the imprint of her body lying there, crying, a damp silhouette of what happened over two decades ago. To this day, I not only know that I didn’t lay a finger on her, but will never forget her dad convincing everybody in my house that I had in fact pushed her until I spent an entire day locked inside a room crying, convinced that I had indeed done it. When I bring this up to my cousin, she says she was too young to remember. I still apologize to her this day for something I didn’t do. 

2. This is the sound of 20 pounds falling down the stairs of my parents’ house, just under the weight of an average “small dog”.

Audio of Anooj throwing 20 pounds down the stairs. Gentle chords underneath text.

When I got my dog over fifteen years back, my parents told me the secret through which they raised me in hopes that I would pass it on to this little creature that I committed to, and still commit to loving: that if either one of them were ever upset with me, the other had to take my side. Two days ago, when I heard mom scolding my dog for his aging bladder, I called to rescue him and to the stairs he ran before his struggling back leg gave out, sending him flying to the bottom like a ragdoll being launched from a slingshot. I spent the next hour with him in my lap, on the verge of tears trying to subdue his yelps, and in the space in between that top step and that space below I stared at the stretch where not one, but two bodies now occupied my memory with the dread of an unanticipated free fall, twenty years apart. Each time he has come to me since, I have greeted him with a hug and a small kiss on his furry little head, a silent apology, and even though I have no clue if he even remembers back to the fall two days back, I hope he knows that I would never do anything to hurt him. 

3. This is the sound of an apology falling down the stairs of my parents’ house, maybe the same weight of what it would take for me to convince myself I’m no longer a tyrant to the place I grew up, but until that happens, projecting may continue to be the easier route. 

Anooj: (yelling from the top of the steps) I’m sorry

Show Outro (13:06)

Twinkly electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. If you liked what you heard, subscribe to the show and tell a friend! If you want to support the New York Neo-Futurists in other ways, 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 and livestreams. 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 difficult times. Contributing to our Patreon helps us continue to pay our artists. 

Take care of yourself, make a costume from old packaging materials, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

This episode featured work by: Rob Neill featuring Kyra Sims, Katie Chelena, Ellen Zemlin, and Anooj Bhandari. 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 me, Julia Melfi. Take Care!

Music fades out!