New Projects for strange times
Caught in a thunderstorm in the middle of Prospect Park during a pandemic. (photo by Spencer Merolla)
Wow.
What a time to live through. I hope you have been feeling well and safe these past few months. After a very scary early spring, New York has come back to life a little. We were brought together as a city, first by our efforts to flatten the curve, then by protests for racial justice, and now it seems, by the reprieve of summer.
In every conversation I have with other New Yorkers, we can't help but share our feelings of sadness and frustration -- it's like a deja vu -- at watching other states go through what ours did in March and April. The great John Lewis passed away yesterday. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has cancer again. America is struggling so much, and I'm trying to respond to it as I best can as an artist.
I hope you'll take a listen to my two new projects. One is a documentary about resilience. The other is a love letter to nature.
Together All the Time is a 10 part documentary podcast about sheltering in.
PROJECT 1: A podcast about being stuck at home indefinitely with whoever else lives there.
"Together All the Time" is a 10 episode documentary podcast that I began in March and just completed. I wrote, produced and narrated the series and am incredibly proud of it. I think it's one of the best things I've done.
The podcast follows the lives of three households (plus my own) through the pandemic, from lockdown through reopening. My guests were generous and unselfconscious, and their honest reporting of their lived experience paints an authentic picture of life in and around New York City in the spring and summer of 2020.
The series explores how the pandemic changed our relationships with food, sleep, nature, friendship, family, and how it altered our understanding of science, justice, race, and ultimately, each other.
In conceiving of this project, I was most influenced by the British Up Series (7 Up, Seven plus Seven, 21 Up, etc) and NPR's Invisibilia, to give you an idea of the vibe.
Episodes are around 20 mins long and should be heard in order. The podcast features original compositions by Rich Bennett, who also was the podcast's engineer, plus a couple familiar Rebecca Pronsky's tunes.
You can listen to "Together All the Time" on Apple Podcasts (for iPhone), Spotify, Stitcher, and many other platforms. Website: togetherallthetime.com
Singing Forager is on Instagram
PROJECT 2: Music for plants... that you can eat
More than ever, nature has saved me these past few months. Staying close to home, being careful and cautious all the time, has cut off much of the energy and spontaneity from city life. I've spent more time with plants, enjoying what surprises I find there, and I decided to start making music about it.
I love foraging. I call it my “adult treasure hunt" and I've doubled down since COVID came to New York. This summer, I started casually teaching others about foraging and making videos about it. I also started coming up with "personalized" (botanical-ized?) theme songs and jingles for edible plants while out picking them. I combined everything into an ongoing project called Singing Forager. Find it on Instagram.
If you're interested in learning about what flowers, nuts, weeds, and berries you can pick and eat in your local park, on hiking trails, or in your backyard, join me. It's a great time to learn some self-reliance skills!
Also, in an effort to amplify Black voices, I wanted to recommend these fantastic plant Instagrammers who I love to follow and who I'm learning a lot from:
@blackforager
@plantkween
@youngfemalefarmers
That's it for now. More projects to come, I'm sure. Sending you a deep breath and a wish for all of us to get to safely see some live music again soon.
Rebecca