Rockhouse Mountain Productions Blog

Updates 4/6/09

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Jawitz) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:09:00 +0000

We had one of the most amazing interviews of our career with Al Hawkes on Tuesday! For about two hours Al covered the history of recording technology as only a witness truly could. Amazing! We're considering posting some clips on the site, but we don't want to give too much away!
In what would prove to be a busy week I also interviewed Al Miller of The Theater Project in Brunswick, Maine as another installment of the Spindleworks Oral History project.

I got the idea for my latest project after reading the final line in the NY Times obituary
for folklorist Archie Green-

In his final months, Mr. Green continued to organize and agitate, issuing directives from his deathbed to colleagues and friends. His pet project was to convince Congress that it should, as in the days of the New Deal and the Works Progress Administration, set aside money for artists, filmmakers, photographers, writers and, yes, folklorists, to document the projects put into motion by the stimulus bill. The last letter he wrote, his son Derek said, was addressed to Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, telling her exactly what she needed to do.

My interest piqued I wrote to Barry Bergey of the NEA to see if this idea got any traction. He replied that the money in the stimulus bill is meant to save existing jobs but that a new bill is being proposed to form an "artist service corps".

The new provision in the House and Senate bills would encourage the use of "skilled musicians and artists to promote greater community unity through the use of music and arts education and engagement through work in low-income communities, and education, health care, and therapeutic settings, and other work in the public domain with citizens of all ages."

I'm waiting to hear back from Jeanne Shaheen
-andrew

The Nomadic Archive Project is up!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Jawitz) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:26:00 +0000

We have started a parallel blog to the RMP blog called the Nomadic Archive Project. The purpose of the project is for participants to visit any archival/library/information center and to report on it from an ethnographic perspective. Fields are provided to fill in information such as "Date of Construction", "Architectural Style" and "Historical Summary". The last field is provided for commentary on issues such as the relationship between an older structure and an addition, and the relationship between the age of the structure and the social make up of its patronage.

The Project Description reads as follows-

Where is the space of the archive? Is it in a physical space like a local library or rather an intangible collection of digital data on a server somewhere? This project seeks to recapture and reconceptualize the archive-in-place through an architectural/ethnographic analysis. Participants are encouraged to visit and document everything from local historical societies to official presidential libraries to large university archives and report on the particular cultural space that the institution occupies through brief ethnographic encounters. A series of questions have been provided to serve as a guide but participants are encouraged to expand on their observations as much as possible.
The only two rules are that posts must include at least one exterior photograph taken by the author and participants must actually go to the location that is being profiled (otherwise it wouldn't exactly count as an ethnography right?)

Writing in the 3rd Person

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Jawitz) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:03:00 +0000

Since the author of this blog may shift from Andrew to Alyce to Timm or Rachel or Bob at any time it may be necessary to stick to the third person format. This seems really unwieldy and awkward to Andrew in particular...

Anyway... I just returned from a wonderful Oral History interview with Gary Lawless, poet and owner of Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick. The interview was the latest installment of the Spindleworks Oral History project, which both Alyce and I hope to continue working on through the foreseeable future. If all goes well they will be presenting the project at the 2009 Oral History Association conference in Louisville Ky. next fall.

-andrew

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Jawitz) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:07:00 +0000

Now that the RMP website has been updated, and our trailer is finally ready for viewing, we thought that now would be a good time to utilize our blog. Be sure to check here for the most up to date information on our various projects since we can access the blog directly without going through a webmaster.

Information posted on this blog may vary from production updates from our documentary film entitled The Eventful Life of Al Hawkes to commentary on current events, the Boston Red Sox, old-time music, transportation policy in the northeast, architecture, vaudeville history, vernacular humor, fishing, mountain top removal, bluegrass music, oral history, sports history, sound art, artists with disabilities, the Great Depression and film theory...

So without further ado I hereby inaugurate the official Rockhouse Mountain Productions Blog-

Film Update- The film now has a title! The project known for the past year or so as "The Al Hawkes Film" will hereafter be known as The Eventful Life of Al Hawkes. The trailer is done and we are now in the process of trying to find a fiscal sponsor through which to apply for production grants. We recently met with Al and will be working with him throughout the next couple weeks on a number of different projects. Tim and Al will be following up on an interview they did with Maine Country music legend/humorist, Betty Gribbin, by digitizing a rare video recording of the Ken Mackenzie variety show that features Betty. Background on the Ken Mackenzie show can be found here

Andrew and Alyce recorded Al's performance at the Portland Museum of Art on Sunday March 22nd.

Tim and Al will also be releasing a profile of bluegrass musician, Dayton Serber who has been lovingly maintaining the tomb of an unknown Confederate Soldier in Gray, Maine for over 30 years.

Within the next few weeks we hope to begin a series of interviews with Al that specifically focuses on his technical knowledge as a music producer.

In other news...
A new project is in the planning stages to host a participatory ethnography of archives and libraries. The aim is to find a format (perhaps through this blog) for participants to post observations, photographs, blueprints, documents etc... that presents a specific archive or library location in an ethnographic context. Participants are encouraged to start with their local library or historical society and must at the very least include a photograph of the exterior. Other information such as the date of the buildings construction, the name of the architect, analysis of architectural style (including the relationship between the main building and any additions or renovations) and observations on the current social use of the building will also be encouraged.

Status reports

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Jawitz) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 21:41:00 +0000

Since I just got the main site blog up and running I'll start by copying the past few entries from the Myspace blog. From now on they'll be one and the same.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Comings, Goings, reviews

We've got a couple days before our next round of interviews, so my body decided that its a great time to catch a nagging cold. Nevertheless, its provided me with a great excuse to catch up on some old film's I've never seen and to brush up on some theory.
Finally got around to "Rio Lobo", which I have to say has to be the worst John Wayne/Howard Hawks collaboration. Perhaps I'm missing something, but compared to "Rio Bravo" and "El Dorado" this one just seems flat out stale. Which is really REALLY hard for me to say about a Howard Hawks film (I feel the same way about Ford's "Three Godfather's" which I also saw recently, though that film is just plain WEIRD!).
By far the highlight of my recent rentals was the fact that I finally got around to watching Preston Sturges' "Unfaithfully Yours". Another highlight came in the form of the Joel McCrea/Jean Arthur comedy, "The More the Merrier". I have to say Jean Arthur is fast becoming one of my favorite leading ladies. Still nothing beats Arthur and Jimmy Stewart in "You Can't Take It With You".

Ingrid Bergman in "Gaslight" haunted me so as to tax me precious hours of sleep. Themes of gender and hysteria in the 19th century, forced me to dig through some of my previous studies into the gendered architecture of the interior via Elizabeth Grosz (Architecture From the Outside) as well as the social function of gaslight itself (Disenchanted Night by Wolfgang Schivelbusch).

I've also taken some time to brush up on some ethnographic theory/cultural studies. For the most part I've been using Aaron Fox's "Real Country" as my touchstone for ethnographic theory, but I've also been re-exploring themes of rural/urban identification in a cultural studies format as well. "Knowing Your Place: Rural Identity and Cultural Heirarchy" (Ching and Creed 1997) has been a great read as well as , "A Place to Stand: Politics and Persuasion in a Working Class Bar" by Julie Lindquist (2002). Both works come recommended by, and are closely related to Aaron Fox.
Whoops, gotta get to the bank.... more later

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Sunday, April 01, 2007

Gettin r Done part Deux

So I'll try to squeeze as much in here as Curt Schilling does in his blog...

Some Production updates-
We met with Ken Wentworth for some contact info. and general info. Scheduled a few interviews for the next two weeks. And developed an obsession with some underated New England country musicians from the 1950s.
Hal Lone Pine and Betty Cody were from Auburn, Maine and became relatively successful as a honky tonk act in the early 1950s. The act broke up in the mid 50s and Betty returned to Maine where she remains today (and where we hope to interview her soon).
Clifford Murphy wrote a great article on them for "Wire" magazine at-
www.wirenh.com/Music/Music_-_general/I_Love_L-A_200607121276.html

and he explains things much better than I can. I've been trying to upload their music to this site but for some reason Myspace won't let me do it. Its on my personal site in any case.

More soon...

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Sunday, March 25, 2007

Gettin r Done

Gettin r Done
Grand Opening?So hopefully this blog will be able to link directly to the blog on the main RMP webpage but there's a few problems that need to get ironed out. The Main blog should be the exact same thing except with more audio/ video capabilities.??For the most part I think I'll devote this space to discussion about Dick Curless and New england Country music in general as well as production updates and maybe some of our own film reviews as we become more and more aqcuainted with the art of filmmaking. ??A short explanation of our involvement with the Dick Curless Documentary-?"We" are Timothy Findlen and Andrew Jawitz. Tim grew up in Fort Fairfield, Maine (which was incindentally the same birthplace of Dick Curless) and Andrew grew up in Freedom N.H. Both recieved their B.As from Goddard College. Andrew's study traced the effects of modernity in the early 20th century South though the music of The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, while Timm's study traced the history of Yankee humor from the colonial era to modern times. Andrew went on to his M.A in American Studies from Columbia in 2005. While his focus of study remained American Folk Music, he also inlcuded Oral History, documentary film and archival science as elements in his thesis (which can be found on the main RMP site). While presenting his thesis at the American Folklore Society conference in Atlanta mentor/friend Aaron Fox suggested looking into the career of Dick Curless.?Andrew and Tim had been discussing working together on a documentary film for some time, and the Curless idea seemed ideally suited to their expertise.??So here we are. We're only at the very begininng stages of the interviewing process and so far have heard nothing but overwhelming support for our project. To most people we've spoken to, Curless seems to be spoken of as fondly as a beloved relative. Finding enough interviews to fit the format of a documentary doesn't seem like its going to be a problem.?Some have inquired (rightfully so) as to the angle we're going to take when presenting Curless. This is where our archival science/ethnographic background should come into play. While we have our ideas as to where a theme may be headed, we're going to let he interviews set the theme. Our main influences are filmakers like?The Maysles Brothers or Barbara Koppel, where the text and narration of the film is read through the interviewees/subjects themselves rather than through an overdubbed narrator (ala Ken Burns). Eventually the story will reveal itself, and as long as we stay true to it it'll be enough to both entertain and enlighten.?Many of the interviewees should and can have whole movies made strictly about them. It is for this reason that we plan to interview as if we ARE concentrating speciifically on them, that way we can either donate the excess footage to another repository or keep for further usage. One example of a woman we hope to interview for the Curless documentary but could have a show all to herself is Betty Cody. Our friend/ New England Country expert, Clifford Murphy recently wrote an article on Betty in "Wire" magazine. So now that we've got all that out of the way we can get to the fun stuff... From now on this'll be the place to go for production updates, film reviews, links to relevant articles and websites, recent footage and contributions from other artists, musicians, filmakers and friends

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Welcome to Rockhouse Mountain Productions Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Jawitz) — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 20:27:00 +0000

This is a test.