Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in while, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation. -Kim Hubbard

It's been a week and much has transpired in Portland, Maine.

On the way to collect my car from the King Middle School parking lot
(where it was parked during the citywide snowban), I watched a young
woman a few feet in front of me slip and fall on a piece of ice.
Careful not to give the neighborhood a repeat, I inched slowly across
the sidewalk. Boom. Fell exactly in the same place.

Embarrassed but not to be stopped, I stood up and immediately felt a
sharp pain in my left arm. No good. Did I mention that I fractured my

right foot TWICE this past year? This was not going to another
fracture. No.way.sirreee.bob.

I walked to my car, massaging my elbow; hit the closest CVS and packed
on the ice and advil. By noon, my elbow had ballooned into some sort
of foreign looking limb. I decided to hit the emergency room. After a

few hours of bandaging, x-rays, ooohs and ahhhs, it was declared..."a
fracture."

Bummer.

Well, so much for wishful thinking. I am wondering whether I'm
supposed to receive a higher message from this incessant fractur-ing.
Too bad I'm not getting it... but at this point, the whole mess is
starting to get funny.

Despite the bruised bones, I am hard at work...developing my stories
for Salt.

One story takes place in Waterville, Maine at the convent of the
sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. I met with Superior Sister Mary
Catherine this past week and explained my interest in their
"contemplative community."

She looked at me smiling: "Well, dear....you are welcome to spend time
with us....although I don't think we are very interesting."

I beg to differ. The sisters are mostly above 55 and some came to the
order after becoming widows. A total of nine live in the convent but
the story doesn't end there.

"Dear, you know we are a traumatized community," she continued.

In January of 1996, Mark Bechard, a young Waterville man who was in and
out of the Augusta Psychiatric Institution for much of his adult life,
broke into the convent and attacked four sisters during prayer. Using
a knife, religious statues, and one of the sisters' canes, he murdered
two and severely injured the remaining two. A tragedy on both sides,
Bechard was acquitted of all criminal charges in relation to the event
and institutionalized indefinitely in a Maine psychiatric facility.
His story is the story of many mentally ill....lost in the gaps of the
system, many are left to suffer in silence or to act upon
hallucinations precipitated by their devastating diseases.

Despite the horrific crime, the sisters issued official forgiveness just days after
the crime was committed.

The then Superior Sister spoke to a journalist of Mr. Bechard at a mass being held a year after the murders: "He's certainly deserving of our prayers. Our stance is still forgiveness. We stand by that."

Whatever nature do, this house do. -LeAlan Jones, 13. "Ghetto Life 101"

It was a rough morning. I woke up to a beautiful snowy day and slowly got dressed. I am now the resident blogger for Salt and needed to report to work pretty early. As I was signing out for the day, I received an email:

“SNOW DAY- NO WORK.”

Well I’ll be damned………a snow day………………and in MAINE?

Wasn’t as pretty as I thought it would be. There was also a snow BAN which means all cars need to be off of the streets (including mine). I trudged out to the Toyota only to find it completely plowed in by walls of white stuff. I had my boots on but suddenly, I could feel snow on my thighs as I stepped through the barricade to open my car door.

Frozen lock…………

Figures.
I borrowed a shovel from a neighbor and started digging. It was enormous; I felt like an ant on Mt. Everest. Where would I put it all? What is snow etiquette? I sure didn’t want it near my car but then again, should I shovel it onto the barricade of another? Forget Miss Manners. I tried to shovel it neatly between the front of my vehicle and the back of the next….but I’m not sure I did such an honorable job.

A big truck drives by and honks. A nice looking guy tips his hat. Next thing I know, he parks off to the side and runs out with a shovel. This dude shoveled more in 3 minutes than I had just done in 45. Definitely seems like the moment to spend time on developing my biceps. He instructed me on pulling out and I did the job (with a bit of smoke and noise from my car….but she made it out OK). What a trip.
But then I had to find parking.

That story is much less exciting but let me just say that it took me another 45 minutes to walk back to my house from the free lot at the local high school. Despite my three layers of socks, these toes were definitely frozen by the time I arrived home. Decided I’m not leaving the house again today. Enough is enough…..and my hot tea is waiting.

But to more substantive matters. Our weekend in Gardiner proved fascinating. As I wrote in my last installment, we were dropped off in this random town near Augusta at around 7:30am last Saturday. We hit the A1 diner and proceeded to peruse the local paper. There was a “Baby Parade” where people’s baby pictures compete against one another. An odd concept in my mind and one I thought we might look into. Vetoed by the rest of the crew. We piled into my car and found Staples Funeral Parlor. Knocked….knocked again….hmmmm…..and again. No answer. From the tire tracks it looked as if someone had left earlier that morning. We hit the road again. Found some funky buildings outside of town but no one was interested in speaking with us. Eventually, we were back on Main Street and I decided to drop in on the local tailor. Originally from NY, Amber told us to head down to Moda Bella, the local dress shop. I thought “a dress shop?” and in Gardiner, Maine? We walked down the street…..feeling somewhat demoralized but at the same time determined to find something.

We walked in and within five minutes we met Miss Maine 2004, 1st runner-up Miss Maine International (whatever that pageant is) 2007 and Mrs. Maine 2005. Mrs. Maine is accompanied by her husband Marty and together they make up “Crown Consulting,” a stylist/etiquette team that prepares young women (as in over 18) for pageants. They ARE the pageant people of Maine.

And what the hell are they doing in GARDINER???

RaeAnne Seubert was determined to find the gown of her life. She tried on six and I felt exhausted by the end.

Too prommy. Too cheap. Too red. Too white. Too virginal. Too…too.

She settled on my personal fave…a cocoa-colored long gown embellished with more silver sequins than I know how to count. Very pageant, in my opinion.
Moda Bella is the dress shop to pageant competitors in Maine. People come from all over the state, even from across the border to sample Diane Tucker’s style. Cannot say I’ve ever seen this type of inventory before…..but then again cannot say I’ve ever competed in a pageant.

Our group got some great pictures, great info, great audio. I recorded Heather (the coach and also Mrs. Maine 2005) explaining how running in pageants was like running on a soccer team.

“Both are sports, both require training. I mean, they definitely need good shoes……so do we!”

Beautiful.

Definitely a fun afternoon and one that left me thinking about the coaches. What do they feel after one of the mentees has won? Or lost? Is this simply about making a living or do they really feel some social/emotional investment in this type of work? You may be scoffing as you read this, but some of the moments in that dress shop really blew me away. I never expected such depth from Mrs. Maine 2005. Guess my own prejudices shine through when it comes to too many sequins and stilettos. Of course, those ladies would tell me there is no such thing.

As for the future, I’m meeting with Superior Sister Mary Catherine at the Blessed Sacrament Convent come a week from tomorrow. I may contact Heather and Marty to discuss their coaching roles and my search for a jump-rope team continues. The maternity home people and child pageant leads remain at-large but I’m on it. A prelim competition for little Miss and little Mr. Sunburst is slated for Feb 24th….and I’ll definitely be there.

For today’s audio doc, I want you to listen to Dave Isay’s “Ghetto Life 101.” It’s a powerful project spearheaded by a man who once envisioned himself an M.D. On the way he fell in love with radio and has been doing it ever since. He is the pioneer behind StoryCorps, something you may listen to on the way to work in the mornings. This particular piece is incredibly moving…..two young boys (one living in a project and the other living down the street) reveal their lives and experiences on the South Side of Chicago.
Take a listen.

http://www.soundportraits.org/on-air/ghetto_life_101/

I've used media to shame people into proper behavior. -Tony Schwartz

It is the end of a typical day here in Portland, Maine. Many of you call and leave messages, wondering how things are going and often I find it very difficult to produce succinct and revealing answers by phone. For some reason, my descriptions cannot describe the week I have just finished, my first week here at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies (www.salt.edu).

Located at the end of Congress Street, Salt is about a 30 minute walk from my little rented apartment on the third floor of a Victorian home. So far, I walk with my flatmate Tommy, another Salt student, and we recap our days in the darkroom (tommy) or in radio class (jessica). We flesh out story ideas and reveal insecurities….it is a cathartic way to start the day.

This week has been cold.

My water bottle's contents froze on the way to school this morning and I lost feeling in my right hand (despite two layers of gloves). My face is covered in a ski-ish mask and together the two roommates push through the wind, heads down and backs arched. The coffee run is always required and the heat of Portland's tiny cafes (of which there are many) breaks up our 30 minute trek. We continue the walk, enter our four story building, and eventually part ways. I head to the radio room.
We start each class with a good listen. "Some of the best audio you'll ever hear," according to Rob Rosenthal, one of our radio teachers. Rob's humor is sometimes acerbic, always pointed, forever honest. He wants us to learn to listen actively but mostly, he wants our ears to distinguish new sonic elements. We discuss sound (today we talked about "nat" or natural sound) and Rob explains the best way to record waves from a local ferry. We discuss the tones of different situations: popcorn popping, someone swallowing. We debate the challenges (and brilliance) of recording conversations with very young children. Eventually we break up into even smaller groups and reveal our story ideas (all of which must be about the state or the people of Maine). My classmates are playing around with myriad concepts: nighttime coyote hunting, drag king shows, the cloning of beef, record (as in the kind you listen to) collectors, female herbologists, and Chinese acunpuncturists working in rural areas. My story ideas are many and currently I'm playing with the following: child pageants (specifically for boys), Evangelical Christian maternity homes for pregnant teens, elementary-school-girl-jump-rope-songs, cloistered nuns, and insomniacs. By May 19th, we must create two 6-minute pieces (one narrated and one un-narrated). It is amazing what people can do in 15 weeks; I just hope I can do it too.

I think I may have found my niche in this big, wide world. We talk about documentary all day. About stories and the people who tell them, about arcs and climaxes, clichés and leading questions. We discuss our goals and the possible pitfalls, realistic expectations and likely disappointments. What does it mean to tell a story through sound? It includes an entirely new interaction with street noise, ambience, nature, ambulances, trees falling, buses whizzing, snow crushing under feet encased in enormous rubber boots…...I've never heard the outside world so sharply as I do after class.

I hope to send you occasional emails with updates on my stories (whatever they may be) while also including links to some of the best radio docs we listen to in class. Know that there are many each day but I will include only a few for your listening pleasure. I hope you might take some time to stop your day whether you are studying or tax-paying or researching stocks or cooking or cleaning or even reading (!) to listen to the ones I recommend….not only will it give you a better idea of the craft I am learning, it will also increase your documentary listening-literacy (something that never hurts, right?).

Tomorrow we head to Gardiner, Maine. Leaving at 6am, we head into what Rob Rosenthal calls "East Jesus." Basically we're driving into the middle of nowhere to find a story and document it within an eight-hour period. Each group has one writer, one radio person, one photographer. We'll have to negotiate storylines and space….we'll have to walk down Main Street and look for that story waiting to be told. I think we'll hit the funeral parlor first…I really want to chat with the resident make-up artist.....

For today's clip, I want you to listen to the work of the incredible "Kitchen Sisters." Working as a duo, Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson are based in California. They started a series called "Lost and Found Sound;" some of you may know it very well but some may not. No matter where you fall, check out this fantastic story they did on sound pioneer Tony Schwartz. It will blow your mind and make you think differently about all things audio..

You'll need to download real player (www.real.com) in order to listen to this. It is free so there is no excuse. Let me know what you think when you have a chance to listen (even if it is in 12 months).

Link:

http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound/stories/990226.stories.html

Once you download "real player" you may need to click on "G2 Sure Stream" in order to get the clip to start.

The air is salty.

It has been since July! Insanity! Just so you know, I am now blogging from my new home away from home, The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. I am studying radio documentary until mid-May and you can check out what I'm up to (when I manage to post) at:

www.saltinstitute.blogspot.com

Saludos from Maine!