My name is ethan
Posted on | February 11, 2009 |
This is the non-narrative piece that I did for KPFA over the last few weeks. It will air on our station at some point, maybe soon, and with any luck will be featured on a national broadcast in March for a homelessness day. The idea for this assignment was to develop or try to replicate the Studs Terkel/This American Life model of making everyday people’s stories really interesting by editing and condensing them. Our assignment was to find someone who had lost their home and interview them, which you can imagine makes you feel like an intruder to ask personal questions about bitter or sorrowful events upon first meeting the person.
Ethan, as you will hear, has had a long life at the age of 23. With just over an hour of tape, many of his stories had to get cut even though I was trying to squeeze them all in. He is intelligent and well-read. He could not talk about many of his experiences, especially those in the military. Our facists, make no mistake, don’t want the “public” to know what they have going on in their conquests. We have talked off the microphone in a friendly setting since the interview. From that and trying to edit my tape, I realized in how many ways I am a poor interviewer, at least on this kind of topic. His language and articulation and storytelling are so much fuller when I don’t have him recounting ten years of his life in an hour. Had I slowed the pace and asked the right questions, I would have more vivid tape. All said though, I am satisfied with the project considering it is a first attempt at this kind of work.
I hope he feels I did it justice.
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