Transcript

Show Intro

Gentle bop electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Rob: 67. Season It!?! Hi, I’m Rob—a New York Neo-Futurist. Our live show is back, but we just can’t stop making art for your ears so Hit Play continues!

If you’re already a fan of The New York Neo-Futurists, or any of our sibling companies, hello! 

We can’t wait to ladle you some punch and nuzzle your neck. If this is totally new to you—welcome to it!

We make art 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 that we’re watching the commuters out the corner window while eating cereal blends we’re really watching the commuters out the corner window while eating cereal blends 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 deal with Seasons. Seasoning? Season?  Well things in our lives.

Anyway, now, Meg will run the numbers!

Meg: Hi, I’m Meg– one of the NY Neo-Futurist alumni. I’m here with my daughter, Iris. Iris, do you want to say hi? 

A beat of silence.

She doesn’t. In this episode we’re bringing you 7 new plays. 

This week’s cast is Michaela Farrell, Rob Neill, Hilary Asare, Anthony Sertel Dean, and me, Meg Bashwiner

That brings us to 295 audio experiments on Hit Play. Enjoy!

Music winds down.

A Hotline Bling type beat plays

Hilary: Why don’t you call us on the cellphone

Or any other phone you use

(646) 820

4733 please call me 

Make that neo hotline bling

Your voicemails are our favorite thing

Make that neo hotline bling

Your voicemails are our favorite thing

Leave a message call us now

Music winds down.

Play 1: An Alternative to… (3:01)

Michaela: An Alternative to Nestle Toll House Cookies for your Holiday Assortments GO!

Michaela: OK what you will need for this recipe is your basic cookie making ingredients, flour, sugar, salt, vanilla extract, and the will to not enslave a child for your own profit. 

Happy Cooking Retro Music plays underneath

I would recommend using Beyond Good Chocolate Chunks for this recipe. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl, then stir in wet ingredients to form a dough. If stirring is taking a little bit more effort than you would like, begin to think about how if you were using the Nestle Toll House Cookie brand, you would be benefiting a company that abducts and enslaves young children. So, just make a little more effort.

Next, Form dough balls, and place on a greased baking tray, leaving enough room between cookies for them to spread. But not too much room, you don’t want them spread so far out that they will never see their families again, that’s too similar to Nestle’s recipe.

Bake for 11 minutes on the center rack and watch as the cookies you made come alive. While those 11 minutes are going by, track how much money the CEO of Nestle, some guy with the first name “Ulf”, made in those 11 minutes. It’s $536 in 11 minutes. And think about how the children enslaved on the Nestle Plantation made .00214 cents in those eleven minutes. That’s about $9 a week.

Let the cookies cool on the baking tray for 10 minutes, during which time they will firm up, just like Clarence Thomas’s pants did when he voted in favor of Nestle’s slavery infused production practices solely because the children were not being enslaved in the United States even though he allowed the case to be heard in the US Supreme Court using the Alien Tort Statue. That man loves hypocrisy! 

And there you have it. Cookies that will taste just as good if not better because you are not benefiting a company that is actively abducting and enslaving children. If you’re looking to avoid other companies that make their billions using child slavery, look no further than H&M, Phillip Morris, and Apple. Have a blessed day!

Play 2a: Medina’s Spirit… (5:23)

Rob: Medina’s Spirit or Meg & Rob & friends talk horses (in 4 parts). GO!

Rob: One. Hey I’m Rob

Meg: Hi I’m Meg

Rob: And we’ll be joined by some friends. Meg you have a strong affinity for horses

Clip clop of horse steps

Meg: I do,  I really like horses

Rob: Yeah

Meg:I’m a horse girl

Background Voice: “Why did everyone shit on horse girls?”

Rob: And you and you, ride horses or have ridden horses?

Meg:I haven’t ridden horses in a while but i grew up riding horses. Last time I rode a horse was on my honeymoon in 20215. That was in Hawaii.

Rob: Amazing, amazing

horse neigh echos into a fade out

Play 3: Audio Experiments Experiments… (6:03)

Toni: Audio Experiments Experiments: Experiment #4 (True Sport). GO!

Ambient sounds of Inwood Hill Park

Toni: Will you trust me?

[Begins hitting tennis ball against wall]

We will sometimes describe Neo-Futurist theater as a combination between poetry, living newspaper, and sport. I am bringing that sport element in quite literally today. Playing tennis against the wall, at the park by my apartment. 

[Ball hits the wall and the racket throughout]

Neo-Futurist theater is also deeply truthful, you know- we are who we are, doing what we’re doing. To that extent, I got a microphone taped to my face so you can hear me. Was supposed to have another one so you could hear the ball better, but you know. Technical difficulties- just gotta trust me. I’m doing this all in one take. I miss my shot, I start over. So, what do you think? Do you still trust me?

I mean, I am the sound designer for this show. I’ve crafted audio for about 300 of these pieces. You don’t think I can make it sound like I’m playing tennis in the park when I'm actually just cozied up in my studio, with a nice warm cup of tea? I mean, it looks pretty/ I mean, it feels pretty cold outside right now. It is the middle of  December after all. 

Oh right - poetry, sport, living newspaper. 

[gets newspaper]

Oh yes ok. So I picked this up on my way over here: December 10th. Front page headline says: “The forgotten first responders” That’s the news.

So what do you think? Still trust me? 

Do you trust that I memorized all these words instead of just having them up on my computer that I can read off of? Just in front of my face? 

Do you think I’m good enough at tennis to do this all in one take? I mean, I’ve only been playing for about a year - nice little activity to pick up during a pandemic. And I do really like all the bizarre involuntary sounds my body makes while playing

[cut of weird grunts]

And that would be a perfect place for a cut. Split the take. Make a splice in time. But would that be as truthful? I told you I was doing this all in one take. And I want you to trust me. 

I want you to trust me when I say this is the 52nd time I’ve tried recording this play this morning, and only the 4th time I’ve made it this far. It's really gone downhill recently. 

I want you to trust me when I say I’m telling you the truth. I want you to trust me when I say that it was true. I want you to trust me when I say that it is true. Not this tennis thing - well yes this tennis thing- but also what I said, that night, the night that we got lost. All I said was true. Everything I said was true. 

And that was just for you. I know you listen to this show and I hope that could be some sort of affirmation for you… Or maybe it’s not true. Maybe you don’t listen to this show. Maybe it’s not true- Maybe what I said that night was not really what I thought I said, and maybe this is just for the many individual yous who needed to hear that it was true. I hope. I hope it was true. And I hope you trust that it was true.

I really hoped I was gonna make it this far. All the way to the end. So, do you trust me?

[Toni starts to exhale]

Play 2b: Medina’s Spirit… (10:15)

Rob: Medina’s Spirit Two. We have a horse adjacent history, um I’m gonna give you this to listen to play that out and it kinda has a misdirect

Moon Hooch’s Number 9 plays in background.

Meg: To the L Train recording Lady. I heard that sound so many times in my life. 

Rob: Yeah right 

Meg: I used to live off of the L train

Rob:Yeah, Doesn’t sound like its a song at first but it is

Background Voice: Horses, horses horses, horses

Meg: I feel like this is a play that we- yes Meg Laughs 

Rob: Yes yes It is

Meg: This is - yes- This is a play that you did. It's a horse dancing play. I remember dancing about the stage.

Rob: Experiments in gathering or dressage taken from dressage, which is I believe is something that you rather enjoy.

Background Voice:  I am jealous of the person who has never heard of dressage before. 

Meg: Yes, I enjoyed dressage when I was a rider. I did all different types of horseback riding but i liked dressage the best because it was slow. 

Background Voice:  I am jealous of the person who has never heard of dressage before and gets to discover it for the first time.

Meg:  I’m really yeah, I was kind of always really afraid of riding horses. I did it, but I was always falling off- I fell off a horse a lot. When you learn to ride a horse you fall off horses a lot so uh dressage you not really gonna fall off unless you're really not paying attention. 

Three echoing horse neighs

Play 4: And now, a short cuffing season PSA. (11:28)

Meg: And now, a short cuffing season PSA.. GO!

Michaela: LOOK OVER YOUR TEXTS BEFORE YOU SEND THEM. BECAUSE YOU MIGHT FIND YOURSELF IN A SITUATION WHERE YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO WRITE “BEFORE WE MOVE FORWARD” AND INSTEAD YOU WROTE “BEFORE WE LOVE FORWARD” TO SOMEONE WHO YOU HAVEN’T EVEN MET YET. THIS IS A WARNING. 

Meg: DON’T END UP LIKE MICHAELA!

Michaela: PSA

Play 2c: Medina’s Spirit… (11:57)

Rob: Medina’s Spirit Three. Can you tell me names or or a name of your favorite or a horse that you really like? 

Background voice “There was group of cowboys in North Philly. They just, they ride horses in North Philly”

Meg: Like a famous horse or a horse that I knew?

Rob: Horse that you knew.

Meg: So Growing up I had a horse and his name was Leo. And he was a pretty good horse. Uh yeah.

Rob: What color was Leo?

Meg: Leo was Chestnut. 

Rob: If you had to get a horse now what would you name that horse? 

Background voice imitates horse neighs. 

Meg: I have a couple of different thoughts. So if I was to get a race horse I would name it Sazerac. I was to get a regular porter horse I would name it Leg Wamers and then if I got a pony I think Janelle Poné. 

Background voice “Clip clop clip clop”

Rob: I have one other thing to share with you. It’s another video which is a fun thing to try to be doing in an audio podcast. Did you watch dressage during the Rio Oylmpics? 

Meg: Yes

Rob: The moment he goes down the center line.

Meg: Yup, Bon Jovi. yeah

Rob: It’s my life. Bon Jovi. Yeah yeah

Meg: New Jersey and horses it's like a Meg trap!

Rob: laughs total Meg trap.

horse neigh repeats thrice

Play 5: Her First Year (13:06)

Meg: Her First Year. GO!

Meg: Yom Kippur 2020, the day of atonement. The day of the smiley face appearing on the expensive ovulation predictor kit. Two weeks later pinching cramps on my left side while sitting on my computer for our weekly zoom game night. I’m thinking “could this be it?” And it was, a faint line on a cheap amazon test two days later confirms it.

October 24th  2020, an ultrasound reveals a tiny blob that we are told is our baby. We walk out with the first photo of her ever taken.  Then we wait two hours in an early voting line, taking turns staring at this grainy visual proof of her existence to pass the time. It’s cold and drizzly and I eat a ginger cookie so I don’t throw up. 

November 7th 2020, nauseous in Los Angeles. I wake up and the NY Times has called it for Biden. Still nauseous but I can stop hitting refresh on the map, and I allow the refresh to hit me. People are dancing in the streets. I stay holed up in our house trying to protect us both from the virus.

December 24th 2020, I tell my family over zoom I’m having a girl. Most of them will never see me pregnant. 

Jan 6th 2021, at the midwives office I leave to go pee in a cup, come back and find my husband and midwife talking about how the Capital has been breached. I hear her heartbeat. It’s like a lightning rod in my guts. 

Iris’s heartbeat plays and slowly fades but remains quietly under the voice.

Feb 28th 2021, I receive my first dose of Moderna in the Juniors section of a defunct JC Penny in Poughkeepsie. Her presence in my body gets me to the top of the coveted list. I’m scared. It’s not like you can call up your mom and say “hey mom, when you were pregnant with me during the once in a lifetime global pandemic, did you take the emergency authorized vaccine or did you wait it out?” I feel her kicking then the joints in my back ache for two days.

March 28th 2021, I get my second dose at a CVS in Pasadena after waiting on line in the feminine hygiene aisle, embarrassed shoppers uttering quiet “excuse mes” to a line full of foot tapping shot seekers. I ask to have the shot in my right arm because I sleep on my left side, it’s better for the baby they say. They give me a 20% off coupon and I buy the expensive moisturizer. 

April 1st 2021, our babymoon in Joshua Tree, we float in a pool at a fancy air bnb with a hidden game room where we play pool. Pool and Pool floating and clanking together one last time before we are something completely different. We swear up and down the baby won’t change our solid and happy relationship, we still think we are in control.

May 9th 2021, with our vaccines cured in our body, we visit my family for Mother’s Day. I didn’t know the meaning of the word mother yet. I thought I did. But I only knew one side of that coin.

June 1st 2021 the last month of carrying her inside me. My brain starts to shift, the hormones flood, I have a panic attack on my porch. I feel out of control in a very uncomfortable way, like being stuck under a wave.

The solstice 2021, Her due date comes and goes... another week passes. I take myself on a 4 mile hike to try to clear my brain and I sob the whole time. On the drive home from the hike, the wave lifts and I am myself again. I facetime with my friend’s pregnant horse. I feel a page turning. Then I feel a strange cramp and think this could be it. Light pink blood shows up on the toilet paper and confirms it is. We call the doula and the midwife waking them up from their precious sleep to let them know. 

June 27th 2021 a day spent in labor. It’s painful but not scary. At sunset she enters the world in an inflatable tub on my bedroom floor. I pull her out of the water and I say “It was you in there all along” The next week is the hardest week of my life until the next one and then the one after that. I go 5 days straight without sleeping. I herniate a disc in my back. I go to the ER and they don’t help. They send me a bill for $1200. This is America.

July 4th 2021 I’m finally calm and medicated enough to sleep. The fireworks boom all night. 

Then there are no more dates and times, just sunrises and sunsets. There’s support groups and spit up and MRIs and tearful phone calls, spiraling google searches, lactation consultants and lip ties, Zoloft and walking a screaming baby up and down my street in the heat over and over again. There are chasms of distance from my partner as we drown together an ocean apart. I feel the loneliest I’ve ever been while never being alone. No visitors, only variants.

August 15th 2021, I go back to work, no family leave for freelancers, I send emails and make spreadsheets with a sleeping baby strapped to my chest. I get mastitis, my body is not ready to be back at work but there’s no other way. 

Sept 27 2021, I wake up from the summer. I recognize my husband again. My daughter is a person now, no longer a screaming beast at exactly 3 months old. Her eyes meet mine now, she knows who I am and smiles. How is it that this smile makes nothing else matter? That this smile is sandpaper rounding out all of the sharp edges of the world, of this year?

This is her first year. This is the world she is to live in. This is the world we have tasked her to make a better place. This is the world that contains both dancing on cars and smashing windows, both Poughkeepsie and Pasedena, lines to vote and lines to vaccinate, promises made but unable to be kept, pain without fear and fear without pain, broken systems and booming fireworks, a world where a baby learns to smile in spite of it all, a smile that blazes hope so bright I will use it to light our path forward into next year. Happy New Year everyone- I hope you find the light.  If you need to you can borrow some of mine. 

SQ of Iris Laughing

Play 2d: Medina’s Spirit… (19:15)

Rob: Medina’s Spirit four. Is there any interesting horse fact that you have?

Meg:  Yeah. There's so many - I could talk about horses for a while. I love horses- Their hoses are very soft. That’s the thing I think I love most about horses is that they have soft noses. 

Background Voice: They are the ones that go clip clop clip clop clip clop

Meg: I was just looking around my room and my office has a lot of horses. I have a wall of briar horses and I have a horse wallet that is just sitting on my desk, I just realized.

Background Voice: Horses, horses horses, horses

Meg: oh um maybe I should mention my horse tattoo. I have a diving horse on my forearm which is from the Steel Pier Act at Atlantic City. They would dive off the tower into the water. I got that as a tattoo.

Rob: Yeah- And the whole time the horse over your shoulder has been watching us. Actually 2, 2 horses over your shoulder.

Meg: There’s horses over my shoulder?

Rob: Yeah there are. 

Meg: Oh

horse neigh repeats four times

Play 6: Jumping for Joy(s) (20:11)

Rob: Jumping for Joy(s). GO!

Rob: If you can jump -- jump.  

Okay.

[short pause]

Bells and meditative tones underscore throughout

Wait there is more Here we go. 

Right where you are now, look around you, what is this place? 

Do you like this place? Jump. 

Know this space? Jump

Tell me what is it about this place?

Nice and Jump

Oh and know you can answer out loud and jump really jump or you can do this all in your head or whatever works for you--I can’t see and hear you right now, though if I could, that would be too damn much. Let’s bounce a little here just on the toes like you are waiting for joy to reign down upon you. Bounce. Bounce

So know that 77.5% of the people around you don’t move enough physically everyday

And know I made that number up, and jump

Let’s jump

You got outta bed today, jump

You’re in bed right now, jump

You showered jump

You’re in the shower ju--carefully jump

Are you driving, wait, are you driving right now? This should not be the voice you are following literally at the moment. C’mon. Stop this podcast now or keep listenin’ and think or even just say jump. OK 

Did you know that 42.4% of our Hit Play listeners listen to us in the car

And I made that number up, jump

You eat something that brings you joy, jump

You have a good friend who is near you right now, jump

Get that friend jumping too. Come on. jump

A good friend who is far away, jump.

Send them a text, jump

Think about sending them a text, jump

Don’t forget to breathe and

Jump

Jump

Jump for joy

Jump for peace

For love, jump

For new adventures

jump

For those not jumping

Bounce break. Bounce break. Bounce break.

Little bounces to these sounds and

Short Bounce break during this 

I have been pondering recently what makes me, me and you, you and really have no solid conclusions, definitive reasoning, big thinkers point to so many variations, none conclusive, but if you have, and would like to share, call us on the neo hotline Hilary told you about at the beginning of the podcast and LET US KNOW

Now jump

Jump for cake or whatever sweetens you

Jumpjumpjump

Jump for the environment

Jump for the octopus

For the vaccine, for those who see, for the trees

Jump for those who can’t jump

For those who can, jump

Jump for who you are

Jump for who you are becoming

Whatever that means, jump

Leave a msg, jump

What brings you joy? jump

Jump for that 

Know that nearly 100% of the people in the world are not jumping right now

And that number, that is probably accurate.

Stop jumping look up

lift your arms over your head

and say the word that first comes to mind

Mine was smoothlocity. Yup. 

Now it’s a word, a word that is out there.

Smoothlocity

And jump

Play 2e: Medina’s Spirit… (24:14)

Rob: Medina’s Spirit extra bit. 

Background Voice imitates horse neighs. 

Meg: My tattoo has a theme song. My tattoo’s name is Spirit the Power horse and the song goes: Spirit the power horse. There’s more but that’s all you get for now. 

Rob: It’s a great start, great start.

Horse exhale repeats 3 times

Horse neigh echos and fades out

Show Outro

Gentle bop electronic instrumental music plays underneath.

Rob: 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! We’d love to hear from you - leave us a voicemail at ‪(646) 820-4733. 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 dot com slash NYNF. 

This episode featured work by: 

Michaela Farrell, Meg Bashwiner, Anthony Sertel Dean, Hilary Asare, Sunil Yapa, and me, Rob Neill

Our logo was designed by Gabriel Drozdov and our sound is designed by Anthony Sertel Dean

Hit Play is produced by Anthony Sertel Dean, Hilary Asare, and Rob Neill. Yeah, That’s me. Nice. Happy Holidays and take care out there!

Music fades out!