Notes from Marianne

This conjures a former relationship from a lifetime ago. The actual events took place in rural Maine in the 1970's. It's about a recurring theme in the lives of many of us -- whether we are financially poor, politically targeted, or just ill wed -- and that is the quandary of whether to fight the dubious fight…or flee. It's also about those quirky and oblique epiphanies that finally set us irrevocably on the path of action! It is a departure for me -- being the most minimalist piece I've ever done.

It began as a challenge at a gathering of Canadian and US audio artists that occurs every August around the time of the full moon, put on by the Canadian Society for Independent Radio Production. The setting was the screen porch of a boxy 19th C farmhouse in Quebec ­ a landscape just before North takes over forever.

A collection of sound junkies sat at the feet of our mentor, Chris Brookes. We were sweaty and hungry, elbows crumpled on the wood floor, or backs sagging in old couches, and waiting for lunch. But before we could eat we were told to find a quiet spot with a partner and each talk about a "turning point" in our lives. Afterwards we would edit each other's work into a story.

Structure, tension, pacing, "dead cats", etc.

So out we went into the leafy understory ­ and recorded.

After lunch my partner had to leave unexpectedly and couldn't finish the project. I wound up editing my own "turning point" and came up with this piece, which I now call Deviation.

Tech Info

This was recorded on the verge of an old logging road. I used a Sharp 722 mini disc recorder and an AT813a cardioid condenser mic - which go with me everywhere - even to the supermarket. I later processed the recording on Sound Forge and edited it with Cool Edit Pro.

The recording conditions were not pristine even if the surroundings were! You will hear aleatory sounds in the background: the occasional car on gravel (it's the postman), and the dinner bell ringing lunch (I wish you could smell the food). These were subtle and actually fit perfectly with the story I was telling, so I made no attempt to edit them out. I just kept taping and, yes, I was uncharacteristically late for a meal!

About Marianne Rahn-Erickson

I had a very brief career in radio almost 30 years ago, writing commercials for tractors and hair perms and dime-a-dip suppers at a tiny station in southern Maine. I was a lousy salesperson, but loved the fact that they left me alone in a room with a typewriter and bunch of SFX. And paid me for it!

Time, marriage and a lousy economy set me down the road - to Europe, Canada, and rural communities in the northern US. I've been a print journalist, a fiction writer, a performer, a counselor, a mother, a farmer, and an ESL teacher. Last summer I became a "Mystery Campground Shopper", driving surreptitiously around the planet, reporting loose guardrails and damaged outhouses to the proper recreational authorities.

I've recently been on another Fight or Flight hiatus, living out in the Dawdler (my 1994 Ford pick-up) around the Canadian Maritimes, and trying to get up heart to re-enter the working class fray back in the U.S.

At home I run Anarcha Projects, my fledgling audio business, in the far upstate of New York. I get paid for things I never heard about from my guidance counselor, like recording funerals, and designing sound for cartoons and theaters. I've gotten a few state arts grants for documentary work too ­ including one for Making Ends Meat, about rural workers who moonlight as BBQers. (No kidding. Pork prep is alive and well, and being done by road crew guys and medical doctors - in towns like yours - all over the North Country!) My last job was a commission to design an aural history of tap dance for the National Museum of Dance.

All pretty cool if I can keep it up.

In my spare time I raise boys and taxes on a farm with 53 hoofed, beaked, and fanged mouths to feed. I co-produce a weekly news and public affairs show (Capital District Progressive Radio/Talking History) at WRPI in Troy, New York.

And P.S. I'm still looking for the perfect day job.

Related Links

www.talkinghistory.org
www.wrpi.org
www.radiosite.ca