This is a piece about sexism, 1968-1970, and my mom.

My mom went to college in 1969, went off to the State University in Albany following a childhood in a small town in Connecticut— just after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, in the immediate run-up to the Vietnam draft lotteries of late 1969, and ending the school year with the Kent State Shootings of May 1970. And in the University itself: welcomed to a co-ed dorm after a strict Baptist upbringing, political organizers housed in her room without consent, and an male professorial hierarchy terrified enough to be ready (then as now) to put decorum aside and be extremely clear about their views on the role of women and people of color in society.

Laying on the floor with the battery powered turntable laying on top of her head, listening to new kinds of music and losing sense of self. Her stories tell of someone deeply, profoundly confused about what was going on, who didn’t at all fit in to the last reality, and what are we to begin to make of this new one?

ClumsySpinning1969 deals with moments of sudden change, both personally and politcially/historically; about the meaning of living memory in the context of civil rights and social justice; and about the peculiar poetics of recording, remembering, and re-telling stories.

Currently in development, this piece consists of a phone call, followed by verbatim re-performance of interviews with L. Hoffer, played from a battery-powered tape deck.