First Days at Salt

Landed in Portland the night before class started. 3/4 of the way finished unpacking my things, the semester is off to a quick start.

Day two of class, Eloise and I walked along the Eastern Promenade asking people what they thought about the sky. For a simple exercise to test our new recorders, we gathered some elaborate responses. One man talked about the joy it brings him to swim in these waters year-round for every reason from building his immune system to conversing with the sky about falling. Not the typical response to our question, but I think there's something to it. When getting to know a place, I'm apt to dive-in. Based on the strange looks I've been getting from dog-walkers on the beach, not a common activity in these parts to swim in cold weather.

Trying to be outside because the weather is already shifting to fall. Found a quiet spot on Peaks Island to build a rock castle. I saw Andy Goldworthy's "River's and Tides" this summer and I think he makes a good point about needing to understand the rocks of a place before you get to building walls.

Back to finding a story.

The streets get salty...

We radio people have been vox poppin' the streets of Portland.

Basically, we approach strangers and ask them to answer a question (a question we have undoubtedly labored over for hours and hours). Once the tape is gathered, we load it into the trusty Macs and chisel away. One minute and thirty seconds later, we've got a beautiful piece of radio. Well, I could not be further from that point. Pro-tools still scares me but I'm hoping to overcome my fears within the next 24 hours. I'll keep you posted...