Some Musical Stuff

Capturing, creating, reflecting the mood of  life lived by my interviewee and an entire peoples.

In the kitchen grandma would turn the counter-top gas burners on, and in the other room grandpa would prepare for dinner by turning on la radio:


Volare, by Dean Martin:

Or This: 

Specifically the first song on this playlist. Grandma would sing along to "Tu Vuo Fa L'americano"

This is a sample of what they would hear as teenagers growing up in fascist Italy:


Fascist Anthem:

"this isn't a safe space: the bedroom"

hey guys-- here's a sketch of my multimedia exhibit. for now it's titled "this isn't a safe space: the bedroom," but that might change. it's weird, right? what i hope to accomplish here is transport viewers to a space which appears safe- a childhood bedroom (mixture of my mom's bedroom and mine), but with a closer look, it's disturbingly not. i plan on including my childhood items as well as some of my mother's for the "safe" stuff, while "unsafe" stuff will include lines of "coke" w/ razor blade, AA tags,  broken glass, a needle, egg shells, and dirt (this will be in the form of a "carpet" metaphorically representing all of the treacherous things one can walk through in their life. ultimately, this is a project which conveys the loss of my mother and my aunt and how that is a safe/unsafe issue within my family (represented by the duality of the bedroom as a whole: intimate, yet disturbing and altogether something i inescapably own [like my childhood]). for this, i'll incorporate the video as seen on the "tv," as well as using the actual cross from my mother's casket and her funeral guest book and funeral cards from her and my aunt. i really, really, really! hope the video will come together in time.

Hour Children Event:

Family Photos

Gread Grandfather Poppy Sam and random woman
- bookie for Dutch Schultz(Arthur Flegenheimer)
- Responsible for five deaths 

Grandfather Harold "Hal, Poppy" Chalfin 

Grandmother Audrey "Armoire" Smiles (Chalfin), Mother Randi Sue Chalfin and photo of myself in 111 clear view.

Father Hugh Austin-Benedict Patrick Piney, Mother, family dog and Grandmother Gladis Lillian Fleet "Gangang"(Midwife of 60 years)  Piney in Essex.

Cigarette Story

The following is a two minute audio clip from an interview I did with my grandpa (aka nonno, aka Biagio). I've included the transcript (copied verbatim) so that you can better understand him through his accent.


Nonno's Cigarette Story (AUDIO CLIP)



"You can’t buy pack cigarette, no way in the world. Was too expensive. And you no have money because you no make enough money to cover everything, and ugh (coughs) I was a teenager, goin’ to school an’ I make uh my own cigarette with uh paper school, you know you cut it in chewed off some potato you know the…how do they say…the leaves that dried in the sun, you chew em out good, you smash good and you roll. When it was a holiday, you know like New Year, Christmas we chip it in, you know few cents each boy, was bunch a teenager and we bought pack cigarette. But you can’t smoke, we put it away, smoke once in a while one cigarette we smoke about ten guys. Get one pop each, ya know? Make a turn. It was a funny, it was a funny. We never saw a stake cigarette like here, you can’t buy the way they cost. But we get along because we don’t know better, we don’t know better. We don’t know there was cartoon cigarette. When I came here I start working and buy cigarette, i got a cigarette in my car cigarette in the garage cigarette in the pocket wherever you go there was cigarette yeah, i was a big shot. yeah. uh but like i said before, we made it we made it."



*IMPORTANT NOTES FOR THE MULTIMEDIA EXHIBIT

Elements for the show. sights, sounds, smells: 

I was listening to these interviews again and I kept hearing this sound. It was a sound that I've heard I'm used to ignoring because I've heard it all my life: the clanging of porcelain espresso cups. Throughout the interview my grandfather is slurping espresso, stirring it with a little metal spoon, and rattling the little cup on it's little saucer. I've been thinking about maybe incorporating the sound of an espresso machine, or at the very least espresso cups into the multimedia exhibit. It may also be nice to have the smell of espresso wafting throughout the room.  Perhaps I will bring in some espresso and porcelain cups for class on monday. :)


POSSIBLE TITLES? :

The following are two phrases that are repeated by my grandfather over and over in our interview sessions. They have been echoing in my head ever since so I I thought I'd share them with you all:

"That's what it was."
"It's been like this." (followed by: "...it probably gonna go like this."

In this broken English my grandfather is trying to say, that life has gone this way in the past, this is the way it was back then. And in the second phrase, life has been like this for decades. But because of his limited abilities with language they come out in these two choppy phrases that I think, even in their oddity still capture some of the essential essence of the sentiment with a random elegance. At the very least these are two interesting axioms but forth by an old man.    

Wondering who this band is. A photo from New York's Alright 2013. Yesterday concluded New York's Alright 2014. Many injuries were sustained by all. Broken noses, broken cheekbones, cracked sculls. And that's just people I know.

Welcome to Johnstown, New York

Around the bend form the place of the old Karg Bro.'s leather and tanning factory, you'll find the Dwyer's ownership of half the block on Dove Street. On that half a block, you'll see Dunham's Spring Shop, Inc. It’s the family owned and operated automotive business that Sonny Dwyer purchased back in his 20s that has since made all of his kids millionaires— all of his children except the black sheep and his first born, Carol who never worked for the family business. She was also the first of his five children to die, followed by his only other surviving daughter, Sonya who died suddenly four months after Carol. With tragic irony, both of his daughters were found dead in their vehicles. This is the story of those losses and that family. In these videos you will see the Dwyer home, the family business and the location where Sonny found his daughter Carol’s body (represented by the white minivan). However, making this a family project has not gone as planned. None of the surviving Dwyer children were willing to talk about the tragedy of losing both Carol and Sonya. And only one of the three brothers agreed to an audio interview, in which he was not forthcoming about the life or death of his sisters. As the first born daughter’s daughter, I feel as if it is my duty and obligation to represent these two lives, yet without my family’s cooperation, this seems impossible. This weekend, I found myself at my knees, sobbing uncontrollably, at a loss yet again feeling helpless and insignificant against a challenge I thought I was prepared to face. Nobody wants to talk about my mother or my aunt— their life or death, it is too painful for the family. To me, the silence is more painful than losing them. It’s like they were never real at all. 

{still keep's saying "error uploading video", here's some pictures because I can't it work} 

Sheila Michaels

Originally, I sought out Sheila Michaels because she was also involved in an organization called The Feminists, and had been credited with coming up with the title ‘Ms’. I recognized these as elements of a more complex narrative of coming to feminism than the well known Mary King and Casey Haden position papers on sexism within SNCC. But the more we spoke, I realized that Sheila had many other stories that I had never come across while studying SNCC. In fact, she was not asked to contribute to The Freedom Plow, which was an anthology comprised of women’s stories from SNCC (a work that was created because a cohort of women were frustrated that their experiences had been ignored).

*This project is not meant to treat women in The Civil Rights Movement as an immutable category, but to recognize that there has been an underrepresentation of women’s voices in this particular historical period.

What is the process of unearthing women’s narratives of the Civil Rights movement?

It was right before a very big demonstration, a voting rights demonstration. And [Sandy] was at some hangout, some bootlegger because Mississippi was a dry state so everything you got, you got from bootleggers or you went out of state to get them. That was one of his weaknesses, and he was hanging out at a bootlegger and he came home down the street and he was being followed by a bunch of cars. They lined up in front of the building, and all of them had their lights on into the window. Our office was in a store, which she had on either side of the downstairs. They were calling him over a bull horn to come out. And he said, “Here comes Mama Woods down the steps” ‘clomp clomp clomp’ in her Minnie Mouse shoes. And she has a sawed off shot-gun or a shot-gun anyway and she throws open the door and she says, “Who’s out there? Cal is that you? You know I know everything about you. Now you get to gettin’.” [laughter] She’s waving her shot gun around. And she calls out everybody, you know, fire chief, everybody, and “You get to gettin’ you hear me?” [laughter] And they all turned off their lights and drove away.

People used to hang out in the front with, you know, a riffle. Across the street, watching us all the time. There was always somebody who had a riffle. And they never used to come behind the building because Mrs. Woods used to feed all the stray cats, and it stank [laughter] you know. And this was Mississippi in the Summer, and it was humid and it was hot and you did not go out the back [laughter] except she did to feed them. So I always thought that those cats really protected us. They kept the Klu Klux Klan from siting out the back and taking a shot at people because they couldn’t stand it.

What is revealed by taking a ‘life history’ approach for the women active during the Civil Rights Movement? How does this feminist practice provide us with a more complex history?

Pat and Frank were married in my apartment, which was another story. They were supposed to be married a little bit later. A few days later, I mean. Then there was a CORE meeting, I think it may have been in Syracuse. People were coming in to go to this national CORE meeting. It was not in New York City, but they were in for the day, and Pat, since these were all her old friends from New Orleans CORE, she decided to move it up I think a day or two. And then the minister who was going to do the wedding called I think the day, that day, or the day before, and said, “I’m really sorry but I’m in Cincinnati and I can’t come in.” It had been the plan all along for him to marry them because the women he was later to marry had been in New Orleans CORE too, and had actually risked her life the day that Pat got arrested in Poplarville. She had been... we always had somebody at a telephone booth to call in case something terrible happened, to keep track of what was going on. [...] She was in the telephone booth and the bus pulled off without Pat and Frank and Shirley. No Alice. Alice was small and serious, Shirley was a little more joyful [laughter]. Yeah they’d surrounded Pat and somebody pushed her and Frank pulled back the sheriff. And Frank’s father was (and mother too) were in the mafia. Mother was Jewish and Polish, Jewish and German... German, Jewish and Polish. And she had been a gangster’s mom. [...] So he’d grown up in that atmosphere. Actually they’d decided to change their name and move to the Bronx, so he had a pretty normal childhood. But you know, these habits. So when the sheriff or whoever he was pushed Pat. Frank pulled back his arm and said, “Don’t do that,” in a tone of voice that carried a kind of threat. They arrested him too, and they put him in Willy McGee’s cell, which was easy to get to for lynching if they wanted to lynch him, and it looked like they wanted to. [...]

Anyway, she was trapped in the telephone booth when all of this went on and they were looking for her because they knew there was one other person. Or they thought they knew there was one other person. That was her husband to be who was supposed to be the minister and we had actually gone to hear him preach his first sermon when we were in Washington D.C. So, he bowed out the day before and there were all these CORE people who came in for the wedding and there wasn’t going to be a wedding. Then Jerome Smith who had a stutter, and could hardly... actually he had been almost killed in, was it Poplarville? It was on a freedom ride. They broke in his jaw, and they were kicking him. [...] And Jerome had this terrible, terrible stutter. And he went down to get some beer at a corner grocery store, and he came back with a minister [laughter] who had been defrocked for his drinking. Presbyterian minster who’d been defrocked because he had become so bad an alcoholic that, you know, he couldn’t do his job anymore. I was cooking this dish that had shrimp... it was expense. It was shrimp and sherry and cream, and it was going to curdle. And I said sit down and have a drink and everyone said, “Noooo!” So the dish was ruined, and we had this wedding in our apartment, in the dressing room in our apartment. There was a closet next to- Marry had the front room, and I had the living room, a pullout couch on the living room. So it was between our rooms, and everybody crowded in around this closet and I then couldn’t get my shoes because they were in the closet. And everybody said it’s okay just have the wedding [laughter] you know, have the wedding. So everybody who was anybody was there for the wedding. And it happened. What were the chances that Jerome who could hardly get a sentence out was going to find a minister when he went down to get beer for the whole group? I’m not telling it well, but everybody who was there remembers it very, very well.

In our interview, Freida mentioned how she loved to wake up and watch her mother knead dough. There is something so simple and evocative in hands covered in flour.

http://www.google.com/search?q=pictures+of+kneading+dough&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&imgil=1i6eFGjY2KX5RM%253A%253Bhttp%253A%252F%252Ft2.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcRw0W7EwhLM0Dx0mdFjxsJxWcp62-A27AdFOfwohDm_0Ia6S2m4%253B425%253B282%253BBRx-Io-uImfX9M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.pennmac.com%25252Fblog%25252F2011%25252F10%25252Fmaking-pizza-dough%25252F&source=iu&usg=__y5NjvAkC43a4iUmKQtfyZjjEIls%3D&sa=X&ei=UENTU5eqLbOrsQTnw4Ao&ved=0CC4Q9QEwAg#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=1i6eFGjY2KX5RM%253A%3BBRx-Io-uImfX9M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.pennmac.com%252Fblog%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2011%252F10%252Fkneading-dough.jpeg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.pennmac.com%252Fblog%252F2011%252F10%252Fmaking-pizza-dough%252F%3B425%3B282

In keeping with the spirit, if not the style of that memory, here is a video on how to make basil that celebrates the beauty and tenderness of making food for the people you care for:
http://vimeo.com/34766296

Also, PBS loves an overview: http://www.pbs.org/alifeapart/intro.html and http://video.pbs.org/search/?q=Hasidic+ (who knew there were Hasidic reggae musicians?)

*Every time I tried to include pictures or videos in post, it shut me out. I apologize for the links.

ORAL HISTORY AND THE ELUSIVE STORY 

AMANDA'S PROJECT  

original topic:  

d e b u t a n t e    

NEW TOPIC:  

***

WHAT IS ORAL HISTORY? 

?? 

EXCERPT OF CAITLIN'S INTERVIEW:

                                                                  *****

MUSIC CLIP AND/OR EXCERPT OF CATE'S INTERVIEW


                                                                    ***

GABRIEL'S CONFERENCE PROJECT:

FAMILY STORY:

                                                                              ***
                                                     ERIN
                                                       project description:

                                                 link to other SNCC oral history projects:



                                                                               ***
PETER

upload audio clip

Meghan -- upload video footage:

Conference Project Inspiration (Found Footage)

Found footage, historical footage can be very useful. It can be incorporated into a documentary , it can be projected onto the wall and used to create mood and atmosphere, or it can simply inform and inspire your writings in new and exciting ways. The possibilities and usages for found footage are almost endless.

I came across these videos while looking for images of "the old country." I wanted to see Italy as my grandparents and mother might have seen it. I wanted to find workers like my grandfather, Biagio. I wanted to see Italian men toiling. Farming, working the land, building something, anything. What I found was war footage. Amazing scenes that had previously only existed as tails from my grandparents. Here these stories are now right in front of me and begging to be used in someway. How will I use these videos to tell my families story? I'm not sure how exactly I will use this footage, or if I'll use it but I now have the footage to draw upon for inspiration.

VIDEO ONE: "The Battles for Monte Cassino"

I cannot believe I found this video! This is where my family is from. I've been here. This land is where I am from, Cassino. When I was there the mountain provided shade from the sumer sun. It does much more in this video.  I've seen the mountain from the valley below. I've been to the historic Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino. It was a holy place that the Nazis used as a defensive position. It was bombed out, destroyed by war. The abbey I saw was an abbey rebuilt by the Americans after the war. As my grandfather would say, "In war, nobody wins. Even if you win you don't win. People have to leave, start over. You have to rebuild everything, start over. War is no good Eddie, no good."

VIDEO TWO: "Italians Work for The Allies"

VIDEO THREE: Battle for Anzio

 

Eric (aka The Deacon)

Eric is a man I used to work with in Detroit. We called him Deacon because he loved to preach. On the job he would always speak in aphorisms. "Eddie, you have to take life as it comes otherwise it will take you." Over the course of many long shifts he began to open up to me. He told me about his days as a drug dealer, he told me about his rehabilitation, and his current work as a pastor. He was building a house that used to be a crack den. Needles to say he was a man who fascinated me. I always tried to get put on his shift. I tried to finish my jobs quickly so I could tag along with him on his jobs. With Eric's permission I recorded one of our many conversations over lunch. On a separate occasion, instead of working, I filmed Eric working. I never knew what to do with this material before this class. My obsession with character and nonfiction story continues from my days as an undergraduate and documentary filmmaker. Thanks for reading/watching.

- Eddie

     “Sometimes um, I get upset and get closed in. Because it’s not always like I pictured it to be. But part of maturity is knowing somethings is just not going to be like I see it, and adjusting to things in my life without having to scratch it or say forget it or hang it up…To making some adjustments and finding peace in myself even though things go on and trials go on. And people look at me and they don’t think I went through nothin,’ and I went through a lot. Escaped death. When I was younger my parents used to lock us in a basement, in a room, for days.

     One of the things that I learned and I want to share this with you and please remember, that when people can’t teach, they rule: Shut up! But why? Shut up! I don’t... Shut up! That’s ruling, ‘cause you can’t teach me. And I grew up in a day when my parents didn’t know how to talk so all they knew was to rule. Shut up, sit down, be quite. But why? Explain to me, talk to me, teach me. But when you can’t teach you rule. And I realize now, they didn’t know any better. 

     As I got older I got friends, and God brought people around me who talked to me and mentored me and talked to me and showed me things that, whoa, you can over come somethings. But I didn’t have that when I was younger, and it’s just, it's just a blessing that people can say some positive things, and you can see a different perspective because sometimes our perspective gets so narrow that we just can’t see past that. One of the great joys of life is love and sometimes when we’re void of that love it takes away from life." 

Family (Conference Project Inspiration)

I am fascinated by family. The characters that make them up, the activities they do together, how we survive them and how we couldn't survive without them. My family revolves around the dinner table and so during my undergraduate days I made this documentary entitled "Family Dinner." It followed several families from different cultural and economic backgrounds and showed the ritual of the activity of family dinner. I was going to use this video segment as a sales tool in order to secure funding for a larger project. Life took over and I got a job and abandoned this project but never let go of the material. I couldn't forget about my family and these dinners if I tried. For the purpose of this project I will be focusing on my family. The Italian-ness, the noises, sights, sounds and smells. But since we all have families, and we all eat, is there a way we can incorporate elements of my project into elements of some of your projects? If only for the sake of informing the visuals that will be present at the multimedia exhibit at the end of the year.

In video one you will only see my family and the Roosen's. The longer cut of the documentary is just too long to post.

Video two is the trailer for "Family Dinner." In the trailer you will see the Cacciottolo family (my family), the Jenkins family, and the Roosen family.

Interview with Jennise James

Caitlin Johnson: Interview with Jennise James

Well, as a kid, I grew up, I had a lot of brothers and one sister, and um, the house was always

crazy because there was a lot of kids. And my mother was, um, very lenient. She was a very nice

person, worked a lot, so did my father...We did a lot of games, we played, like, manhunt, hide

and seek, a lot of little kids games... (Jennise begins to talk about her sister Charlotte) We got in

trouble a lot, cause I would follow her, everything she would do I would do, she was my older

sister. Yeah, like we snuck out the house when my mom was sleeping, yeah, and we didn't take the

slam lock off the door of our house, so we were banging on the door to get in, and she opens the

door and she's like, "How did y'all get out there?" Trying to find the story, and we're both like,

"Umm, umm"...We were so close in age (2 years 5 days) that we just did everything together.

Yeah, she was like my best friend...(My mother) worked in the post office, um, she was a post

master, yeah...(Jennise talks about her father) He was retired, cause he was in the army for 27

years, yeah...My mom wasn't (home a lot), cause she was working, but my dad was, he was home

all the time...To my dad, since I'm the last child, I was like the little baby. I would do bad things

and I would run to him and he would stop, um, them from beating me up. I'd do bad stuff and

run to my father...He was very nice and laid back. And he didn't want anyone to bother me or

my sister, cause it's 10 boys, so he would protect us all the time. We felt safe when he was

around...He made us feel so special...We would play tackle football with them (her brothers), and

they would treat us like boys, they would tackle us, too...4 (brothers) from my father's previous

marriage and 6 from my father and mother...(The happiest day of Jennise childhood was)

Christmas. I couldn't wait, cause my mother used to tell us if we didn't go to sleep Santa wouldn't

come. So we used to put the cookies and the milk out. And then me and my sister would act like

we were sleeping cause my brothers would help her carry the gifts, and then we would peek in

and we would see my brothers and they were moving the toys under the tree. Then, they would

go to sleep and there were me and my sister poking holes in the gifts...(The last time Jennise saw

her sister), it's been awhile now, six or seven years, yeah...(She lives in) Virginia...Yeah, but

hopefully I will see her soon...My sister was in this other program called Blithe Dale because she

was a juvenile diabetic. They wanted to teach her how to take care of herself, so some summers

she would be there (at summer camp with Jennise) and sometimes she'd be at Blithe Dale...I got

diabetes when I became, like, 17 years old, so I wasn't considered juvenile anymore, so...My

mother worked a lot (so in the summer) we didn't really go a lot of places unless we were going to

an amusement park...(Jennise daughter) is, like, very aggressive and demanding and I was the

same way and my mom used to be so passive like I am with her, I think that's a way that we're

alike...Me and my sister were, like, really spoiled. We always got everything we wanted, so nut I

had a whole collection of dolls and I used to line them up on the wall and play school with them.

My sister said, "Why are you talking to them?! They're not talking back to you!" And I used to

give them homework, yeah give the dolls homework and then I'd do the homework and give it

back to them and let them hand it in. I had, like, a really wild imagination when I was

younger...My mother used to do things, like, read the encyclopedias. That was a punishment, like,

when we do bad things, she would tell us to go and look in the encyclopedia, pick four words,

make a sentence, make a paragraph, and then a short story. I'm like, yeah...(Jennise was usually

punished for) fighting with my sister. We fought a lot about everything, because we had to share a

room...We used to fight. I used to push her under the bed and run. I would get in trouble for

that...By the time I was 15, I knew a lot of words, their meanings, whether they were adjectives

or verbs, yeah... A couple of years after (leaving home and coming back, Jennise was

incarcerated)...Well, I was writing checks, cashing checks from a company I was working for and,

um, I ended up doing a check for one of my friends. And she got nervous when they went to the

back to get her the money. And she left the check in the,uh, bank with her driver's license. So,

when the bank called the company to let them know that their employee left a check there, they

said they never issued the check to her in that amount. And when the feds came to her, she sent

them to me. Then, I got arrested. But I never seen her after that, so I'm thinking maybe they put

her in witness protection program or something...It wasn't a scene. The detectives just came to

my house and told me they needed me down at the precinct for questioning...Well, they (the

detectives) were pretty nice. They were asking me, was I hungry, did I need to smoke a cigarette,

something, they were nice. I guess, because they knew I wouldn't be coming out for awhile,

so...To have to stay somewhere, confined for three years is really hard...I pretty much stayed to

myself, because I put myself in trouble, so I didn't want to take my family through having to

support me while I was in jail. I wrote, but I didn't really call...They would go when I had court,

because I was fighting the case for a long time before I took the sentencing. They would be in the

courtroom...They knew what was going on, you know...It kind of made me feel like you can't

help nobody, because they'll just turn on you. And for a long time, I wouldn't help anybody...I felt

like when I went through what I was going through, the depression of being confined somewhere

for a number of years, as well as the guilt. I felt guilt of some kind, because I was taking from

someone, someone's company, and I never felt I just had to put myself in the shoes of the person

being ripped off. And I wasn't really helping her (the friend who turned Jennise into the police),

the check that I was writing was helping her, so...

Crime and Punishment: Impatience

Crime and Punishment: Impatience-Caitlin Johnson

1.

I was getting lunch with my best friend, Sophie. We placed our heavy winter coats on the

backs of our wooden chairs and sat opposite one another at a small light colored wood table.

The restaurant was casual and simple. The room had high-ceilings and lots of light. The paper

menu neatly noted the calorie count beneath each option. Sophie ordered the carrot-coriander

soup and I ordered the black bean chili. Each bowl came with two slices of bread, one slice white

and one wheat. Sophie put her two slices on the side of my plate, reflexively.

My ex-boyfriend, Will, came up in conversation. And Sophie looked at me carefully and

put down her spoon.

"Have you heard from Will lately?"

The last time I saw Will, he slept over at my apartment. It was a oppressively hot night.

The white box fan propped on a wooden chair by the bed only blew warm air over us. I was lying

on my side facing away from him and I moved one of my legs forward, so it was no longer

touching his. Will pulled both of my knees toward him. He held me that way all night. The next

morning, Will drove me to my first day of graduate school and then drove back to Santa Fe.

"No, I haven't heard from Will, lately. We text a little now and then. Have you heard

anything?"

"I think maybe we should wait until after lunch to talk about it."

I put down the piece of bread I'd dipped into the chili. It was half black and half white,

soft and firm. It slid farther into the bowl.

"Why? What did you hear?"

"I really think we should wait until after lunch."

She took a sip of water from her clear glass and picked up her spoon.

"Is he dead?"

"No!"

"Okay, good. Is he engaged?...Is he married?"

She looked at me for a long moment.

"I think we should wait until after lunch."

"Sophie, I can't. Is he engaged?"

"No, Cait. Mia is pregnant. They are getting married in the summer."

Will started dating Mia a few months after I saw him in New York. They'd only dated for

a few months. I was waiting for them to break up, so we could go to Maine this summer, like we'd

talked about in September. I looked at the white plate underneath my bowl of chili and pushed

the plate to the middle of the table. I wasn't hungry anymore. I felt full of cold, pulsing

nervousness.

"I need to go to the bathroom."

"Oh, Cait, I'm sorry for telling you!"

"No, I just need a minute."

Five minutes later, there was a soft knock on the bathroom door. Sophie had asked the

waitress for our bill. She had paid for both our lunches and had the soups boxed up in plastic

cups and bags on the table. When Sophie came into the bathroom, she immediately held out her

arms. There was no question.

"Honey, let's go to my house. We can talk about it for as long as you want."

I nodded and wiped my face off with a wet paper towel. I tried to smile.

"I'm gonna need to stop and get a cookie."

But at the end of the word, I lost my smile. My lips wavered as I locked my jaw and tried

to breathe.

"Whatever you want."

2.

Will and I broke up our sophomore year of college because I told him I loved him, and he

responded, "Why are you telling me this now?"

The periods of silence between sentences got achingly long. It was increasingly difficult

to draw out an answer from him.

"How was your day?"

"Good."

"It was really pretty out today."

"It was."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm just really tired."

The muscles in his shoulders contracted and hardened, until the smooth, soft pale skin of

his neck was no longer a place I could rest my face, kissing his neck while he said sweet, eager

things.

We often met before and between classes on the campus of our small college in Santa Fe.

One evening, I was sitting on a wooden bench in the red brick outdoor quad. When I saw Will, I

got up. I left my canvas tote bag full of books and my wallet sitting on the bench and walked

toward him. Will smiled and looked down, his soft downy blond hair falling into his eyes.

"I have something for you, Caitlin."

"What?"

Will reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small tan paper bag rolled over

at the top. He handed it to me, the pads of his fingers brushing against my wrist. Inside the bag

were five madeline cookies from my favorite french bakery, Clafoutis. They are spongy cookies,

baked in the form of shells.

"You said you get hungry during class, so I thought I'd pick these up."

After Will and I broke up, I started going on night walks with someone else from our

college. I told Will about it. I also told him that nothing had happened yet. He just looked out

the floor to ceiling windows in our college coffee shop.

"But won't you be cold?"

I looked at the cuffs of Will's kaki pants rolled up past his ankles. Will's ankles looked

delicate and breakable without fabric to cover them. Then, I looked up into Will's pale blue eyes

as they rested gently on my own.

"No."

http://www.nhmcelroy.com/Thirteenth-Month

Harlem: Conference Research/Meditation

As I work through transcriptions upstate in Poughkeepsie New York, visiting friends and family, I've decided to narrow my attention back to Harlem. It is my home, but I am a stranger here. I am part of the gentrification and the struggle of privilege, race, economy that has existed here forever. I continually work through footage I have collected, the trouble I have separating this from my life, and the reality that New Yorkers older than I have been through far graver tragedies, I can hardly remember 9/11, I wasn't alive when Times Square was all smack and hookers and I do not remember when I left the city, my parents crunching crack vials under their feet as they left their east village apartment .As I gather more stories I look farther than this college semester, towards a life of documentary service and community work...the stories are far bigger than I elusive and ethereal...as I continue to explore the stories, the stories of all New Yorkers, I get father away from the concrete I that has for so long dominated my wanderings. 

I will post my transcript tomorrow. 

If you have time I would love some feedback on the new media/oral history blog I have been updating:: There are more of my past writings on Harlem within it. (Gabriel's wordpress)

Here are a few of the sources I am currently looking at

96th Street Border

Central Park North (interactive oral history project)

Maria turns on the tired and beaten television and plays with the antennas until Univision can be seen through a bearable amount of static. She takes a seat in her own barber’s chair, crosses her legs and waits as the chatter of a morning news program fills the shop.

A young man pushes the front door. “Vic here yet?” he asks. His oversized white T-shirt hangs down around his knees, and his eyebrows arch beneath the perfectly flat brim of his all-black Chicago White Sox cap. Maria shakes her head, and the young man sits down in one of the garish red metal chairs to wait.

In a few minutes, Maria will be joined by Victor, a Puerto Rican barber who shares the space. The both pay the owner, a local Puerto Rican, a percentage of their earnings to use the shop. The young man will wait for Victor, who will trim his quarter inch of hair and meticulously trim his pencil-thin beard, all while comparing notes in music, movies, and women. A small crowd will gather around Vic, their voices rising, their language becoming more coarse. Maria will try not to hear.

In the chaos, she will have her customers, mostly Mexican, mostly unauthorized, undocumented migrants. A few will have just arrived, full of stories about the crossing, the load houses, the long car trip to New York, or maybe even landing at JFK. Maria will offer advice, share her stories, and wish them luck. Vic will put some salsa music on the stereo that will drown out Univision, but Maria will be too busy to mind.

For now, though, it is just Maria, her television, and the young man sulking by the front door. For now, she is alone.

excerpt from Tenants of East Harlem 




Above is the second video from the fire on March 12th, exactly one month ago today. As I observe the trauma that the neighborhood has encountered and look back at the month that has past very little has changed aside from the police presence. Again they have retreated and our NYPD have forgotten about El Barrio, Spanish Harlem is no longer a "threat" to "New Yorkers." The flower beds filled with glass, I bring home what I can carry but I have no use for it as well.

My neighborhood isn't looking back, they have only ever moved forward.
Yesterday as I left for the 125th metro stop, a group of 20 teenagers swarmed the building across from 106 East 116th street, part of the blast blew out all of the windows and displaced a few dozen families. They cleaned and smiles, and laughed, and moved on...

"write about something you might have gone to jail for" assignment.
This is Cate, by the way. I made a blog back in the day on blogger & it looks like I'm stuck with that name.

Utica

The beat up house – red brick gone brown, boarded up windows and glass like crooked teeth. Behind it, train tracks, disused, misused. Teal glass bulbs and iron rods cracked on the ground. What are they? Lights? Fancy railroad spikes? Electricity. Put them in the back for Reilly. El says. And the brokedown car with wildflowers growing up through the holes in the floor. Then Kevin gets a call and we’re on the move, on the hunt.

            In an empty parking lot, Buick baking, my legs sticking together, sticking to the beige leather and I can’t touch anything in the light because my fingertips will burn. We’re supposed to be buying boat glue for El’s father, but this mission takes precedent. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting until Dylan and his seventeen-year-old girlfriend, his child bride, arrive. Her name is Katie, just like me. They have no money, no place to stay so they’ll sell their Pontiac with the smashed driver’s side window for half of what it’s worth.

            Then around the city. Katie going in and out of wilting houses with chain-link fences separating them from one another. They like her better. Kevin parked a block away. And it occurs to me that I should be nervous. I should be fearful, worried. How many years for dope possession? And I try to make myself frightened, so we’ll be safe, but you can’t trick the universe like that, so you might as well do nothing.

            A new parking lot – Price Chopper – and more waiting. Finally Asian Rob – who will later be arrested after a dramatic, drawn out police chase with his four-year-old daughter in the back seat – breaks radio silence and El suggests we get out.

Do you want me to push you in the cart? And in that moment there is absolutely nothing I want more. But it’s impossible; the cart is booted.

Then we notice the Buick is gone and I am hoping we’ve been abandoned forever, just me and El. But, of course, Kevin returns, smiling, Katie and Dylan gone. Rejoice! Rejoice! Time to head back home.

Little packets, slips, with moons stamped on the front and back. On the way home, on the highway, we’re in it, all three of us. I bought this for you. I got this for you. Damn, if that isn’t true love, buying dope for someone else. So fuck the boat glue, nothing matters anymore, just you and me and we’re free again.