Episode 55
EAT ME
Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. We hope you brought your appetite. Some of the plays may contain sensitive topics. For more specific content warnings, check out the timecodes below.
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1:59 - Neo-Zine #1: Sour by Kyra Sims, featuring Annie Levin, Robin Virginie, Hilary Asare, Léah Miller
3:21 - i can still taste you by Robin Virginie featuring Kyra Sims, Annie Levin, Greg Lakhan, Mike Puckett, Hilary Asare
5:23 [CW: death] - In Your Orbit™ by Annie Levin
8:40 - A Tedious Task Like Cleaning the Kraine by Greg Lakhan featuring Hilary Asare and Kyra Sims
12:01 - new york > brooklyn > community > missed connections by Mike Puckett
14:30 - Hunger by Hilary Asare featuring Kyra Sims, Annie Levin, Greg Lakhan, Mike Puckett, Robin Virginie
Transcript
Show Intro
Alien swoopy electronic instrumental music plays underneath.
Hilary: 55. EAT ME. Hi, I’m Hilary—a New York Neo-Futurist. While our on-going, ever-changing, late-night show, The Infinite Wrench, continues to be on hold for the foreseeable future, we wanted to keep making art for you. And so we made this podcast!
If you’re already a fan of The New York Neo-Futurists, or any of our sibling companies, hello! We can’t wait to share a basket of fries and onion rings with you. 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.
Change in audio quality--Hilary is on her phone and clacking cutlery around.
So if we tell you that we're reorganizing our cutlery drawer, we're really reorganizing our cutlery drawer. Like I am right now.
Some of the work in this episode may contain sensitive topics. For more specific content warnings, check the timecodes in the show notes.
All of the plays in this episode emanate from the theme: EAT ME. I hope you've got an appetite.
Hilary: And now, Robin will Run the Numbers!
Robin: Hey, I’m Robin, a New York Neo-Futurist.
In this episode we’re bringing you 6 new plays. This week's cast is Kyra Sims, Annie Levin, Greg Lakhan, Mike Puckett, Hilary Asare, and me, Robin Virginie.
That brings us to 228 audio experiments on Hit Play. Enjoy!
Music winds down.
Play 1: Neo-Zine #1: Sour (1:59)
Kyra (echoey): Neo-Zine #1: Sour. GO!
This is a sticky punky audio collage. Our reactions to the Olivio Rodrigo album “Sour”. Our thoughts on making art out of heartbreak, and what art, if any, we have made out of that. Our thoughts on liking things “ironically” until we actually love it. Talking about the things you enthusiastically love but feel self-aware about loving so hard. Recordings of us singing snatches of “Sour” from different distances from our microphones, ranging from close-up to far away.
One guitar riff of "brutal" from Olivia Rodrigo's SOUR.
Group, layered: It feels… sticky stuck in time.
Kyra: Like fresh pink bubblegum
Annie: Or your first kiss
Hilary: Wet and pink and going fucking nowhere
Kyra: I'm so glad teen girls have SOUR. Old girls too
Kyra (far away): Geriatric millennial, are you kidding me?
Annie: brutal came on and it took me back to the mid-90s.
Hilary: I have so much empathy for girls in the music industry.
Kyra: Apathy. Skirts.
Robin: It's a vibe. MOOD. Oh my god, none of those phrases are "in" anymore.
Kyra: Don't let anyone like this album ironically.
Hilary: They're allowed to enjoy the media they enjoy.
Annie: Ani DiFranco was like the older sister I never had.
Hilary: The belittling of certain shows, music, hobbies, is almost always gendered and ridicules the joy and work of women specifically, young women. Fuck that noise! She took her heartbreak and put it in the communal pot so people could come over and say, me too! I'm fucked up by this too!
Group, layered: Me too!
Guitar builds, then cuts out.
Kyra: Then the album ends and I just want to turn it right back on again.
One guitar riff of "brutal" from Olivia Rodrigo's SOUR.
Robin: Yeahhhhh (punk scream, then laughs) Kyra, I just made myself laugh so much
Hilary humming deja vu
Play 2: i can still taste you (3:21)
Robin: i can still taste you. GO!
Subtle orchestral underscore
Annie: It was...incredible
Kyra: eye opening
Robin: It felt so new.
Mike: On a hot summer’s day
Greg: I couldn't get enough.
Hilary: Generous. Generous and delicious.
Voices begin to layer and overlap
Annie: On the beach with my then-boyfriend,
Greg: I was in India
Hilary: This spot on FDR and 152,
Mike: Either North Carolina or Virginia,
Robin: JFK airport.
Annie: Salty air mingling with all those flavors.
Kyra: It happened just this past May.
Hilary: I can’t get enough of it.
Robin: The combination of bite and tenderness, I still chase it.
Mike: I was a boy scout. I was a boy scout at boy scout camp and there was….. this peach
Hilary: Jerk Chicken
Kyra: Burrata
Robin: Salmon sashimi
Greg: Aloo tikki chaat.
Annie: Cypress Grove Midnight Moon cheese, garlic stuffed olives, and a bottle of red wine.
Kyra: It opened my mind to so many color palettes of flavor that I'd never thought of before.
Mike: This peach…
Greg: Sweet, savory, crispy
Hilary: Collards, curry, rice and peas, plantains, patties, oxtails- everything tasty and Jamaican.
Mike: This incredibly tasty beautiful peach
Mike: One fucking perfect peach.
Robin: Airport salmon, can you believe it?
Mike: Peach, peach, peach, peach, peach!!
Annie: I remember feeling like every bite was better than the one before.
Mike: THIS PEACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Music stops
Annie: Mike?
Mike: Yes, Annie?
Annie: Take us there.
Underscore returns
Mike: When I was a Boy Scout I had THE BEST FUCKING PEACH. It was a hot day, the peach cold, and it was the perfect level of ripe. I miss that peach. If I could have that peach now I'd put on a shirt--one that I like but don't mind getting messy, and I'd eat it next to the water as the sun goes down. Maybe I'd plant the pit afterwards? But that could only lead to heartbreak. I can still taste you, peach.
All: hmmmmmm
Hilary/Kyra/Annie/Robin/Greg/Mike: I can still taste you, Chicken/Burrata/Moon Cheese/Salmon/Aloo Tikka Chaat/Peach.
Mike: I can still taste you peach.
Music fades out
Play 3: In Your Orbit™ (5:23)
Annie crinkles gum wrappers
Annie: In Your Orbit. GO!
Underscored throughout by Annie manipulating gum packages and found audio of Annie's dad moving around
Annie: 47 unopened packages
Spearmint, sweetmint, wintermint, peppermint
658 individual pieces
That you imagined would be unwrapped and placed between your teeth
You were the uber-fidgeter
Something on your body always moving
I guess I get that from you
Your wedding ring somersaulting from finger to finger
Your hand rubbing the top of your head
Two fingers pinching a tuft of your beard
In the recordings I made before you died
the sounds of your body in motion carry as much as your words
There he is shifting in his chair
Synthetic hiking pants against leather
(who knew there even was such a sound?)
A parallel narrative
Not unnoticed
But largely unheard
It was the primary focus of your work
How unreceived messages will keep sending until we receive them
So strange how we teach
the very things we need to learn
Mouth guard at night
Chewing during the day
Your jaw working unendingly to move something out
Or hold it in
The determined messages that kept sending
And sending
and sending
Of course I didn’t notice either
So used to the dance of your limbs and your afternoons prone in a darkened room
that it was just part of the landscape
Not something to wonder about
But I wonder about it now
As I shift my weight in this chair
As I notice the ball of my left fist
(the same one clenched in every childhood photo)
As my hand grazes the top of my head feeling for an errant hair to pluck
As I catch my own jaw clenched
When we cleaned out your office, your car, your bags
In every pocket
every crevice
we found them
those chewy receptacles of motion.
I couldn’t throw them away.
Performance art, I told myself
Now everything in the closet smells faintly of mint.
I will hold onto them until they can find their way to a stage.
The story they want to tell requires the heft of them in my hands
Maybe that’s why you struggled so much with writing
Laboring hour after hour after hour
For more than two decades
To birth something that you might leave behind
Words insufficient to carry the freight of form
The languages of flesh and bone
And crinkled wrapper
Waiting patiently to be heard.
Soundscape continues and then fades out
Play 4: A Tedious Task Like Cleaning The Kraine (8:40)
Greg: A Tedious Task Like Cleaning The Kraine. GO!
Running faucets. Toothbrushes scrubbing as the Neos clean their house with a toothbrush. Continues as underscore.
Greg: So guys, seeing as you’re both probably older and wiser than I am, I'm curious to know about your relationship with self love as of this very moment. If that's not too much to ask.
Hilary: This moment of my life is the most intentional I've been about self love. Forming better self care habits like getting enough sleep and eating well and interrupting negative thought patterns. Really taking the time to celebrate my wins, no matter how small. But this is a giant shift for me. Most of my life I didn't feel entitled to self love. The reason this shift feels so big is the knowledge that my self love journey is not a straight line. That there will still be bad days and hard moments, but those don't define me. I live and grow and learn through them.
Sounds of scrubbing.
Greg: What about you Kyra?
Kyra: I mean, in general, I like myself. Sometimes I say mean things to myself or I don't take care of myself as well as I should, but overall my relationship with self love isn't too bad. One of the best practices I've incorporated into my life is compassionate mindfulness. It's helped me stop biting my nails over this past year. Mostly. When I'm stressed or anxious or sad, I take three slow full breaths. And I ask myself what's going on? Then after I've thought it out, I think of something nice I can do for myself that I think I'll like, like take a nap or make a cup of tea or go sit in the park and read. Basically I treat myself the way I'd want a best friend to treat me.
Greg: I feel that. Self love has been a struggle for me throughout my entire life. I'm 25 and I still struggle with it. Being black and quiet makes you an easy target and I always felt like I deserved a lot of the terrible treatment I received from people. Recently I've been able to recognize my self worth and build self esteem through my music, my filmmaking, and being a Neo, but sometimes I do have moments where I spiral. There’s this recurring stress dream I used to have back when I was a new Neo, where Hilary gave me an assignment to scrub down the entire Kraine Theater with nothing but a toothbrush and a bucket of water, all by myself. Super tedious task, incredibly intimidating, seemingly impossible. I consider this dream to be a perfect metaphor for my relationship with self love. It used to scare me, but I'm finding that even though the task of actively loving myself is tedious and difficult, and gives me imposter syndrome, and it intimidates me, and I fear that I won't ever finish it, that’s okay. I can do it at my own pace, and even if I fail, I trust myself and the people I surround myself with to help me turn myself around if need be.
Scrubbing ceases.
Greg: Thanks for doing this with me you guys.
Play 5: new york > brooklyn > community (12:01)
Mike: new york > brooklyn > community > missed connections. GO!
Subdued, sexy music underscore.
Mike: You were a bowl of Doritos on the snack table at a foursome. I was the thirty-year-old man with a short, dark beard and a pink, checkered shirt. I noticed you as soon as I sat down in the living room, but I was too nervous to make your acquaintance. I was so surprised to see you there, nestled amongst the cantaloupe and crudite, dwarfing the bowl of Oreos I ended up taking home at the end of the night.
You were completely my type - crunchy, cheesy, nostalgic. If I could have shoved my hand inside of you right then and there I’d have done it in front of everyone. Instead I busied myself with the neighboring grapes and carrot sticks, unsure how quickly our hosts would switch from making small talk to taking off our clothes.
You see, you’re not the kind of snack I’d go to for a few quick bites. You deserve — nay, REQUIRE — commitment. I knew that with even the tiniest nibble, I’d never be able to get you off my mind. Or my fingers. Or teeth.
I suppose the reason I never approached you is because I was afraid. I kept thinking of what might happen. My hands, caked in your dust, leaving a cheesy, orange trail along sweaty, naked skin. A stranger’s tongue entering my mouth for the first time, only to find the soggy remnants you’d left behind. It wouldn’t have been fair. You’re very difficult to get out of sheets.
And so we never met. I left that apartment — not ashamed, it was a great fucking night — diminished. Feeling like I’d left someone — or something — behind.
I don’t know if you’d ever want to see me again or if you’re still even food. But on the off, off, off, off, super off chance that you see this: Let's get a Mountain Dew sometime. I have a new Xbox controller for my laptop and we could play Halo. All. Night.
Music plays out and fades
Play 6: Hunger (14:30)
Hilary: Hunger. GO!
Annie: yellow/orange/red. It will be fed.
Annie: yellow/orange/red. It will be fed. yellow/orange/red. It will be fed.
Mike: red. fed red hot rage
Robin: red. fed Deep red
The above repeats until noted & fades to underscore level with some percussion.
Kyra: My hunger is like the dust that settles on you from a clay desert.
Greg: flakey, fleshy texture. burgundy vibes.
Robin: It is a chasm yet also filled with so much.
Kyra: It weighs me down and cakes my thoughts.
Mike: Hunger used to be thorny.
Hilary: Arresting, combative, prickly, and impatient.
Mike: It was like a pufferfish, inflating and deflating as the mood struck.
Annie: Often it's: sharp. volatile. It wants priority.
Mike: Lately it's been more of a red-hot rage.
Hilary: Deep. black. pit. Tastes like bitterness. I’m always fighting it.
Mike: It demands to be fed immediately and takes a long time to realize it's been sated.
Kyra: It’s really connected to weakness for me. It negatively affects my horn playing in a really frustrating way.
Robin: My hunger sometimes feels so vast and endless that I try to ignore it.
Greg: It's like there's quicksand in my stomach, churning in on itself until it receives sustenance
Annie: I have done extended fasting, and have discovered that while it comes in forcefully, it mellows pretty quickly if I let it know it's not in charge.
Hilary: We are somehow in a feud, I’d prefer collaboration.
Underscore ends.
Greg: savory
Annie: forceful
Mike: thorny
Hilary: combative
Kyra: weakness
Greg: burgundy, forest
Robin: ocean, endless
Hilary: Black pit
Kyra: Clay Dust
Robin: deep red/
Mike: /red hot
Annie: yellow/orange/red.
All: It will be fed.
Show Outro
Alien swoopy electronic instrumental music plays underneath.
Hilary: Thanks for Hitting Play and then listening to Hit Play. If you liked what you heard, subscribe to the show, tell a friend, and leave a review on your listening app of choice! If you want to support the New York Neo-Futurists in other ways, consider making a donation at nynf.org, or by joining our Patreon–Patreon.com/NYNF.
This episode featured work by: Kyra Sims, Robin Virginie, Annie Levin, Greg Lakhan, Mike Puckett, Hilary Asare, and Léah Miller.
Our logo was designed by Gabriel Drozdov. And our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean. Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean, Léah Miller, and me, Hilary Asare. Take Care!
Music fades out!