Episode 21 - Yours, Mine, and Ours

Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. This week: touch, horcruxes, unemployment jams, future storytime, breath, treasure!

Some of the plays in this episode may contain sensitive topics. For more specific content warnings, check out the timecodes below.

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, get into stop-animation, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

1:44 - Strange/r by Katie Kay Chelena

3:38 - Hairy Neos and the Better Days of He Who Must Not Be Named by Anooj Bhandari featuring Lee LeBreton, Shelton Lindsay, and Rob Neill

5:06 - Summer Jam for the 14.7% Like Me by Colin Summers

7:38 - This is how we'll tell it by Yael Haskal

9:58 [CW police brutality, racist violence, death] - For Good White Americans, Recorded in a Single Breath by Lee LeBreton

10:36 - Finding treasure in my phone, your phone, our phones: a collage by Anthony Sertel Dean featuring everyone they could find

Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay

Our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean

Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean, Julia Melfi, and Léah Miller

Take Care!

Transcript 

Episode 21: Yours, Mine, and Ours

Show Intro

Alien swoopy electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Julia: 21. Yours, Mine, and Ours. 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! One day, we’d like to take you out to dinner. 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 after we spun around a bunch in our tub which is our recording studio and got really dizzy, we’re really recording after spinning around a ton in our tub which is our recording studio and getting real dizzy. Like me. 

Some of the plays in this episode may contain sensitive topics. For more specific content warnings, check the timecodes in the show notes.

Julia: And now, Anthony will Run the Numbers!

Anthony: Hi, I’m Anthony, technical director for the New York Neo-Futurists. Excited to hear this audio when Julia sends it back to me for the mix. 

In this episode we’re bringing you 6 plays by Katie Kay Chelena; Anooj Bhandari with Lee LeBreton, Shelton Lindsay, and Rob Neill; Colin Summers, Yael Haskal, Lee LeBreton, and me–Anthony Sertel Dean, featuring everyone I could find to be in my play.

That brings us to 89 experiments on Hit Play. Enjoy!

Music winds down.

Play 1: Strange/r (1:44)

Katie: Stranger. GO!

Katie: Okay. An experiment. We used to do this play in the Kraine Theater but since we can't be there right now, let's try this. Follow my instructions and maybe it'lll feel like we’re touching.

On the count of 3, you're gonna put your hands together, and rub them together as fast as you can. It'll sound like this. 

Sound of Katie rubbing her hands back and forth. 

Okay? When I tell you it’s time, you’ll stop and hover your palms an inch apart. Are you ready? 3, 2, 1. 

Gentle underscore and sound of hands rubbing as underscore. 

I don’t know if I know you and I don’t know if you know me

I don’t know where you go to look at the stars

Or what sounds you hear at night

Or the flutter of your eyelids in the morning

But I know this:

Your pupils dilate when you see someone you love

Some days you turn towards the sun like a flower

And some days you turn away

Strange, isn't it?

How statistically unlikely any of us are here at the same time

And do you ever feel like your atoms are going to scatter?

Like you’re feeling so much that you go beyond your body?

I don’t know you but I know that you are so so alive

And so so worthy

And so so vibrant

Even on the days you don’t feel like it

Even on the days you feel numb

And I know this because I feel your atoms vibrating against mine

Ready? It’s time.

Hands apart in 3, 2, 1…

Sound of hand rubbing stops.

The spaces between us are full and strange and alive.

Play 2: Hairy Neos and the Better Days of... (3:38)

Anooj: Hairy Neos and the Better Days of He Who Must Not Be Named. GO!

Twinkly cover of the Harry Potter theme as underscore 

Anooj: If I were Voldemort… this is where I’d split myself 

Rob: Yeah, if I were Voldemort, hah, or Voldemort-esque

Shelton: If I were Voldemort, this is how I would split myself  

Lee: These would be my horcruxes… 

Shelton: A vial of glitter 

Lee: Pirite 

Anooj: My dog’s Collar 

Lee: My dice 

Rob: The Bambi Lamp

Shelton: This chunky costume jewelry necklace I love  

Lee: My Old Black Belt

Rob: Dad's old army boots

Anooj: The Piano that I grew up with at my parents’ place

Rob: A Blue-Green Marble in a jar of 10,000 Marbles

Anooj: This really dope tie dye shirt that I gave to my friend Nabil  

Shelton: Settlers of Catan Board Game 

Rob: Wind Up Clapping Monkey 

Anooj: An Action Figure of Him from the Power Puff Girls 

Lee: My Denim Jacket 

Shelton: Unfinished Knitting Project 

Anooj: A Hickory Oak in the middle of the Cleveland Metroparks

Shelton: A Wig 

Lee: My Cast-Iron Skillet 

Rob: A Forever Stamp 

Anooj: The dollar pizza place on 2nd Avenue and West 4th Street in the East Village  

Lee: The photo of me and my brother at the beach 

Shelton: A pair of Birkenstocks 

Rob: A can of fog 

Shelton: My Bike 

Rob: Twenty year old bottle of Pappy Van Winkle special reserve Bourbon 

Lee: My Wrench Earring 

Anooj: Just because it would be unexpected… maybe my copy of the first Harry Potter book 

Shelton: Bonus: My pickle costume. 

Rob: Those would be my horcruxes. 

Anooj: Yup, I think those would be my horcruxes. 

Lee: That’s How I’d Split It Up 

Shelton: Yeah

Music plays out. 

Play 3: Summer Jam for the 14.7% Like Me (5:06)

Colin: Summer Jam for the 14.7% Like Me. GO!

Sound of record starting. This is a song, very Beach Boys in style with plenty of harmony and summer vibes.

Colin: Unemployment summer

I’m waking up at 11:10

Unemployment summer 

Living in a suburban basement

It sure would be nice to be living the life

Of a guy who is deemed essential

But I’ve worked in the bars and the performing arts

And I got no other credentials

This year I was transitioning 

I was grinding it out doing the freelance thing

So now I’m never gonna work again

Pretty sure I’m never gonna work again

Unemployment summer

Feels like when you were teenaged

Unemployment summer

There’s no chance you’re getting laid

I’m still paying the rent on an empty apartment

Cause I’d like to go back in the fall

And I’m on PUI so I’m telling you guy

I’m making money doing nothing at all

Is it depressing or is it sweet?

Should I apply to grad school, or just smoke lots of weed?

Cause I’m never gonna work again

Either way I’m never gonna work again

And I’m thinking like…

(You should have picked a different major)

Yeah I’m thinking like

(Following your dream’s a danger)

I’ll bet you’re thinking like…

(You should have picked a different major)

Cause I’m thinking like

(Following your dream’s a danger)

But this summer the dream is…

Unemployment 

Play 4: This is how we'll tell it (7:38)

Yael: This is how we'll tell it. GO!

Chordal underscore with subtle percussion later on

Yael: Once upon a time everything stopped.

It was cold outside, and then it was warm. 

Life was shut down and rebooted, like someone hit “update” instead of “remind me tomorrow,” and we got Life 2.0. whether we liked it or not.

And the children left the playgrounds. 

The parents left the office

The dogs no longer sat at home alone. 

Time froze and unfroze until we forgot which lifetime was which.

The groceries disappeared from the shelves. 

The boys stopped yelling in the streets. 

We became scared of fingerprints, and breath. 

And the birds no longer had to fight the planes to fly. 

We grew taller and more patient. 

The trees said “thank you,” and we didn’t respond. 

The air was emptier. The TVs were louder.

And all the while we were unbecoming. 

The weekdays just became days, 

and all the stay-at-home-moms just became moms, 

and May wasn’t a month, but a mindset,

That time when you learned distance,

When loss was a soundbite

How you reframed your existence to fit a slivered silver screen

They were the days when privacy broke down at the door

When the most popular girl in class unmuted herself to speak and you heard her parents screaming in the background

When your boss called and you learned she has dogs

And hey, that guy has the same nightstand as you

And interior is everywhere

And when did it become summer?

And you look outside

And there are 100,000 less people than you remembered.

You think of the one you know. 

Or the three you know. 

Or the ones you know more about now than we did when they were alive.

You think, maybe “we can all go together.” 

And you ask yourself, 

“What will I tell the ones who aren’t here yet?”

when they want to know.

So you start with this. 

Once upon a time, everything stopped.

Music plays out.

Play 5: For Good White Americans… (9:58)

Lee: For Good White Americans, Recorded in a Single Breath. GO!

Lee inhales

Lee: This is the sound of my voice unconstricted by a cop's knee

hear how long I can talk

hear how many words my whiteness lets me say

each day learning some new way it becomes a weapon

and every day I don't, a missed opportunity

to understand how swiftly my fear alone can end a life

why have I clung to the lie that police and prisons keep me safe?

what's "safe" when 1495 of my black neighbors are dead?

and George is dead, and Ahmaud is dead,

but I am living

and you are living

and we can speak.

Play 6: Finding treasure in my phone, your phone... (10:36)

Anthony: Finding treasure in my phone, your phone, our phones: a collage. GO!

Anthony: Okay, shower idea - what if I make an audio collage of everyone's most recent voice memo?

Piano underscore. Collage of voice memos with different textures, overlapping. 

Someone muffled and whispering close to the phone about what your family does and how you're okay with it. Are they describing a dream?

Someone singing jazzily about time moving slower, continues underneath. 

Birds cut in with speaking distantly, maybe a TV?

First someone keeps talking about their dream, about some mythic dragon-like creature. 

Someone chants a song of the Hebrew alef-bet.

The dragon has some kind of poisonous qualities. They yawn.

The jazz singing still weaves through. 

Someone lets us know that Elizabeth was indeed twerking and brushing while they sang that. Piano is gone so we can focus on an a capella rendition of Ariana Grande's Thank U Next

Collage of whispering, overtaken by a kid telling a story about one sunny day and a girl named Carolina with background car noise. A man says "so better, but so illegal"

Hip hop beat and adult/kid duo rhymes overlaid with saxophone and laughter

Dream update: There was a building in Chelsea, and...

Official sounding speech about certificates from the Royal School of Music in London

Dream now has something about tater tots

More jazz -- does it become La Vie En Rose?

Stand up comedy? Someone at the mic speaking, sporadic laughter. "His house in Brooklyn became a haven where many pass through." Maybe not stand-up. Speech honoring someone?

Jazz fades out. Someone sings Amazing Grace, plays out underneath Anthony's closing memo.

Someone mutters "woah" but from a different tape?

Anthony: It could be some sort of constructed dialogue, probably some music, I definitely have music, or maybe it's just a slice of life.

Show Outro (14:06)

Alien swoopy 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 to continue to pay our artists. 

Take care of yourself, get into stop-animation, and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

This episode featured work by: Katie Kay Chelena, Anooj Bhandari–featuring Lee LeBreton, Shelton Lindsay, and Rob Neill; Colin Summers, Yael Haskal, Lee LeBreton, and Anthony Sertel Dean. Our logo was designed by Shelton Lindsay. And our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean. Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean, Léah Miller, and me, Julia Melfi. Take Care!

Music fades out!