Subtext: Communicating with Horses
Series: Animals and Other Stories
From: Jay Allison
Length: 00:04:43
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Piece Description
An animal psychologist searches for the source of one horse's ennui. The horse responds with his story of dislocation and lost youth. (NOTE TO STATIONS: Be sure to frame this piece as "vintage," produced in the 1980s. While the content holds up fine, you need to note the fact that this story was made about 20 years old, so that you don't unintentionally mislead your listeners into thinking these are contemporary voices.)















Marjorie Van Halteren
Posted on August 06, 2006 at 12:51 PM | Permalink
Review of Subtext: Communicating with Horses
Take a great, well focused and edited interview, and then complement it with a simple narrative coming from a very original angle, and there you have the recipe for this attractive series of short animal pieces from Jay Allison and Christina Egloff, circa 1985. This one is the horse (check out snakes, dogs, and all the others), and his whisperer, and we hear him as loudly and clearly as she does. I remember these pieces in their original incarnation, and they sound just as fresh today. At that time, we called it "creative use of actuality," where real voices collided with dreams and poetry. It seemed so exhilarating and new then. The odd thing is that it still seems new simply because it's a liberty not so often taken. Who would have thought that 25 years later stories would have stayed so straight?