I don't really know what to expect during our installation in Memphis the day after tommorrow since I've never been to this part of the country.
We have a couple days to explore and relax so I'm
sure we will be rested and ready to go! Memphis is beautiful, wet and lush... what a change from the Santa Fe desert landscape.
The Beale Street Music festival was happening downtown today... unfortunately for us it was 7 blocks away and our little downtown park was all but abondoned on a Sunday.
So, not many people enjoying our project today, but the few people we did talk to were amazing, including a reporter from the Memphis paper.
Unfortuantely, again, we had sound problems while filming the documentary, but this time I think they can be fixed because I really want everyone to hear the important
things the people in Memphis had to say.
Sally's Reflections:
Nice spot in a downtown park with a gazebo and fountain. Set up, and the first people to see it
were some preteen Black boys on unicycles accompanied by a lean and muscular
grayhaired Caucasion man with a great smile riding one too. They stopped to
read the screens, then he approached while they hung back quietly and said,
"thank you for this! Itıs wonderful!!" The man turned
out to be from Santa Barbara and taught "unicycle" to Memphis' Black youth
in his spare time, which is what they were doing. He demonstrated balanced
prowess jumping the unicycle up seven stairs and back.
After they
left, people came but there was a music festival seven blocks away on Beale
Street that captured most people. Still, the ones who came were great. Like
the plump, blue-clad matron late in the day who was busy scribbling
down the quotes in her notebook while I first respectfully watched.
When we
finally did connect, she was so deep and pithy, I never wanted to stop. When
I finally observed that she was a great teacher, she answered humbly, "Oh,
no, I just work at a drycleaners." I answered, "No, you are a teacher. We
all are," and she said after a moment, "Yes, I guess that's so."
I introduced
her to Mike, and he asked for and captured an "amazing" interview with her. Too bad our sound mixer into the camera was not working well again today. But, Mike says
he can salvage some of the audio during editing.
Some of the Media Coverage We Received
One of the local TV news stations came down to do short story on Dialogue, as well as the local newspaper (click on the links below to view the newspaper articles).
Photos
Second Page of Photos =====>
