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Discrepancies
2002
Running Time: 4min
Just as the text deals with social and political “discrepancies,”
so too the sound/image relationship of this piece attempts to form
subtle and sometimes contradictory juxtapositions.
"It is utterly difficult
to place myself in some tangible relationship to Afghanistan, East
Timor, Serbia, or Somalia. If fact it is all but impossible to grasp
or imagine any functioning model of social relationships here where
I live in Astoria Queens. Perhaps there are a few cultural bridges
we cross physically. I grew up intimately with a black family in
small town America for example. I once waited on a private dinner
party for the Ford family; I lived in Germany, worked with a guy
from Brooklyn and still have close friends in Maine. Still these
physical connections seem insignificant, for my mind has been burdened
with a global and class free consciousness. It is a weight that
threatens the sinews and synapses of my mind.
Last night I watched a documentary about a poor Brooklyn family.
I am smart enough to know I comprehend nothing of such an existence
and struggle, a struggle for food, a daily struggle for survival.
Yet, although that world seems more distant than many countries,
I am eager, eager to know it, to understand it.
But the burden is comprised of much more than these Manhattan streets
or city burrows. Is not New York City the microcosm, a reflection
of a much larger human struggle? Perhaps I have no business concerning
myself with mass graves in Eastern Europe or the wild dogs of Delhi,
India. But I am no closer to the trash mountains of New Jersey where
my waste flows than I am to these transcontinental turmoils. I know
no more about the homeless on my street corner than I do of the
refugees fleeing Afghanistan.
This is a city of vast discrepancies. We are a nation of discrepancies
and the fledgling notion of democracy spreading in the world at
large is haunted by these same discrepancies."
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