Goodbye 2023!
Here’s a recap of the projects I was glad to be a part of - and a compilation of the best moments captured on my phone from the past year.
Happy MMXXIV!
PROFESSIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
A smattering of the projects I worked on this year for NYT Audio:
FREELANCE / SIDE PROJECTS
An Audio Heirloom for a 40th birthday party. A message from the client:
I received the audio card yesterday when we were all together. It was surreal hearing friends and family introduce themselves; to say I was surprised would be an understatement.
I will forever remember this moment sitting around our patio at the villa listening to these messages. It was incredibly touching and I was very moved to hear my parents’ voice sequenced with the voice of my friends.
I will need a breather before listening to it again, but know that I will cherish this piece quite literally forever.
Voicing narration for a sizzle reel with Adam Sussman in my closet, for an untitled project….
…for which we were invited to participate in the Orchard Project Audio Lab this past summer.
Of course, the journey of mounting the first MERYLTHON:
Can’t believe we are celebrating the 5th year of the Message to the Future project - a ten year voice mail project where participants reflect on the last year of their life.
Every year, the messages are archived and then returned to them after ten years.
I worked with these fine folks on upcoming projects:
Al Shiabani on a story involving a soul that is old on eBay… a work in progress!
Ariana Martinez on illustrations for an upcoming Recollector episode coming in 2024
Misty Aviger on a short piece about a meet-cute coming in 2024
After I visited my folks in January, I brought back some tapes from the family camcorder archive and got them digitized. ..
I found the first film I ever directed, “Murder in the Snow.” I thought it was lost to time, but thankfully it’s been preserved. Its plot was brazenly stolen from an Agatha Christie novel where a woman interrupts her friend in the middle of a suicide attempt. She attempts to stop it, and accidentally helps to kill her friend. In this film, the victim was attempting - absurdly - to kill herself by dropping a heavy rock on her face.
And I also preserved my sophomore effort, “Single White Male” - a remake of the roommate-from-hell thriller “Single White Female.” I’m proud to say, all of the original’s homo-eroticism is still in tact in this homage.
The gem of all gems was a VHS from the 80s of my sister and her friends who paid a video production company at the mall to film and edit a music video of their band, 2 EZ, singing Madonna’s “Material Girl” to a cloying karaoke falsetto. I have so many moments of this tape seared into my memory, and thankful to have it at my digital fingertips.
Lastly…
Twenty years ago, in 2003, I started a project that was about illustrating the various was people in Portland, Maine were connected. I met with over thirty people and it took me 2 years. But I wasn’t able to put the project together until this year.
In 2023, I started to reconnect with the folks I had interviewed - to give them back this unintentional time capsule of our conversations. And also to check in on their story. These days I’m also interested how we all connect with the narrative of our lives - in addition to how we’re all connected to each other.
On a trip to Maine for a Salt reunion, I had a lovely dinner with five of them: Holly, Polly, Betsy, Kris and Sarah. Be on the lookout for more about this evolving project!
Betsy holding the Polaroid I took of her 20 years ago.
More to come in 2024!
Scroll for the Best Moments of the Year….
Best Documented Moments of the Year
Moments that made me wanna grab my phone
JANUARY 2023
Buzzer Beater!
OK, you know those sports ball games where the seconds are ticking down and the score is tied and someone throws a Hail Mary from across the court and *swoosh* - they score a point just before the time runs out? And everyone rushes the floor and falls into a heap of celebration? I’m always so jealous of those people who get to witness that kind of dramatic sensational moment.
Luckily, I got to experience filming one of these ‘She shoots - she scores!’ moments when I watched my neice and nephew play a home game at my old high school aditorium. Not pictured: the run down gymnasium we had thirty years ago.
Here’s the moment the visiting team snatched victory away right at the buzzer.
I love at the very end when the coach - or the coach’s assistant, I don’t know orange ball things - claps his hands in celebration.
FEBRUARY 2023
Finger on the Pulse of Culture, me
The time I predicted that Bowen Yang would portray a spy balloon that very night on Saturday Night Live.
Honorable Mention:
A screenshot. Me “Yes-and”-ing a misspelling in a text.
This is a dad joke.
MARCH 2023
Serendipity!
I was headed to meet up with my Austin friend Amy Bench who was in town with her family. I might have been late, or stressing out about getting from my neighborhood all the way to the Upper Fillmore. As I was preparing to step off the bus, I saw her and her family crossing the street. My bus dropped me off directly in front of them - to their delayed shock.
It’s always kind of nice to see your friend in the wild… in those moments before they actually see you and recognize you. You can see them as a stranger - just a mother holding back her son so he doesn’t get hit by the bus.
Honorable Mention:
When Raindrop sat in between my legs as I lounged by the pool on a chilly sunny day at my friends home in Palm Springs.
APRIL 2023
The Post-COVID Feels
I went to the new KQED offices for a Radio Lab presentation about how the Cassette changed our culture, facilitated by Senior Producer Simon Adler.
Looking at this image conjurs up the memory of what it felt like to go back indoors for public events.
And - it got me thinking about creative ways to gather around sound and story telling.
I’m a supporter of Radio Lab and member of the Lab - check it out here.
Honorable Mention:
This piece of free furniture left on the sidewalk. Something about the lines here make me happy.
MAY 2023
When Best Moment is the Worst Moment
The New York Times Audio App launched on May 15 and I flew to NYC for an Audio All Hands gathering - and a week of hanging out with co-workers and celebrating this huge achievement. As a remote worker, I was so excited to meet some new faces and people whos work and brains I admired.
But I came down with a respiratory virus that I imagine I picked up on the plane ride over.
The day the gathering started, I went to Urgent Care with trouble breathing and coughing up blood. After an ambulance ride to the ER, I stayed on oxygen for 5 hours.
The whole time, I wasn’t even in NYC. I was in Jersey City as I was staying with a friend. When I left the ER, I walked outside alone to wait for my friend to swing by and pick me up. The hospital parking lot over looked the NYC skyline and I took this picture to remember what it feels like to be sick and the thing you want is in view but far away.
Honorable Mention:
Heklina’s memorial was a few days after I got back from NYC - so I was still feeling very elderly. Walking down hill to the Castro Theater felt like a huge physical task.
I did not know Heklina well - I met her a few times in and out of drag - but I felt like I knew her because she had always been around every since I moved here years and years ago. I burst into tears when I found out she was gone. It felt like a new era of being a San Franciscan that I wasn’t ready for.
Memorials pose interesting questions. How will I be remembered? How do I want to be remembered?
JUNE 2023
A Test of Friendship
One person in this photo drank too much the night before, threw up all over a friend’s fancy couch, and had to hire professionals to deep clean the fabric and get rid of the vomit stench in the apartment.
We were all saying goodbye here - couch cousins airing out. All the apologies and jokes had been expressed. I would not have pulled out my phone if the situation was tense, but I wanted to commemorate the resolution of this vomitous ordeal.
JULY 2023
A screenshot to hang on the wall
Part of my day job is to manage the production of audio segments cut from episodes of a famous radio show, so I’m on a shared Google doc with a well-known radio personality. One day in July, I left a comment about one of these segments and he responded with a simple ‘Yes.’
I am looking into commissioning a painter to paint a small canvas of this - or maybe someone on Etsy who can cross-stitch this for me.
AUGUST 2023
But the focus group thinks you could be funnier
My birthday coincided with the news that my problematic fave TV show was renewed (for a third season) … so a birthday card about being renewed for my forthy-humth season made me cackle.
September 2023
Running a good pun into the ground
The Merylthon was an absurd idea from 17 years ago - and planning it took over much of my year.
When the Cardboard Meryl showed up in the mail, I couldn’t help but pose her around the house.
HONORABLE MENTION:
The ribbon cutting!
OCTOBER 2023
The universe is huge
An impromptu Solar Eclipse Viewing on the stoop.
HONORABLE MENTION:
Later, the ‘AI expand’ filter on Cap Cut created this gem from that moment.
NOVEMBER 2023
Gatherings and Games
So here are two moments (it’s a tie!) captured from separate parties and two different games - Secrets! and Telephone Pictionary (a game of drawing and confusion)
Burning the secret that we did not guess correctly….
This month was all about gatherings and games - a theme I hope to continue in 2024.
DECEMBER 2023
Amanda Read
A weird one but I love Airport signs like this and that this one feels like a joke?
“Aren’t we all looking for a man to read?”
Thanks to this kind man who let me take his picture.
HONORABLE MENTION:
I gifted my family Korean face masks on Christmas Eve and it was so fun to see everyone’s varied reactions (the kids pulled out their phones and started live streaming), mom and my sister were cackling, the men were pushed out of their comfort zones. Fa la la la!
Here’s to making more moments in 2024!
xxxx
Evan