
I listened to Michael Bernstein’s story “Sit With Me” over and over at Salt and obsessed over the intimacy he created. “Sit With Me” builds towards this truly moving conversation between a young boy and his Dad who suffers from debilitating depression. The moment is so powerful… you can practically hear their hearts crack open.
Bound and determined to create a moment like this, I gave Marissa, the subject of my Salt story, an audio kit and encouraged her to interview her brother Andrew who has asperger’s syndrome. I gave her questions and prompted her to write her own. I was convinced that story of my subjects could squish into the structure of Michael’s wonderful piece, but… turns out I was trying to shove a square peg into a round hole.
Ultimately I learned how two stories about seemingly similar things: health, family, love etc. couldn’t be told, try as I might, in the same way. And of course, that you just can’t force or create that magical tape.
Independent producer, Josh Gleason is hosting a good old fashioned listening room at UnionDocs on March 15th where you can hear both of our pieces and several other excellent Salt works. I’m psyched to meet Michael for the first time and we’ll both be around after for a QandA.
To get directions and read about the other pieces that will air go to www.uniondocs.org or
click here.