- Playing
- Tale of Two Cities
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- Sue Mell
If you ask producer Sue Mell where she's from she'll say New York even though she's lived in San Francisco for the past 13 years. And in a town like San Francisco, a town of immigrants and transients, that's no short amount of time.
If you're away that long from what you consider to be your home it undoubtedly changes, and if you've never really made a home out of the new place you live...you can feel kind of disembodied. This state, this state of being between worlds, is a common thread connecting all the ghosts of literature--it's a story of going home when you're not really sure what home is.
A Tale of Two Cites first aired as an episode of Invisible Ink on KALW in San Francisco on Sept. 5th, 2004.
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Piece Description
If you ask producer Sue Mell where she's from she'll say New York even though she's lived in San Francisco for the past 13 years. And in a town like San Francisco, a town of immigrants and transients, that's no short amount of time. If you're away that long from what you consider to be your home it undoubtedly changes, and if you've never really made a home out of the new place you live...you can feel kind of disembodied. This state, this state of being between worlds, is a common thread connecting all the ghosts of literature--it's a story of going home when you're not really sure what home is. A Tale of Two Cites first aired as an episode of Invisible Ink on KALW in San Francisco on Sept. 5th, 2004.
4 Comments
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Review of Tale of Two CitiesThios isn't your usual radio story. This isn't a good show for conventional programming. For those shows out there that can afford to air something unusually long and contemplative, by today's standards, give this a listen. In documenting/comparing her quotidian experiences in both NYC and San Francisco, Sue Mel explores the meaning of home, the identity of oneself in the context of "home." This is a perfect piece to air during the holidays, when most people are leaving their current homes to take temporary residence in their childhood homes, retuning to dynamics of a lifetime past. This is also a piece that could certainly resonate with immigrants and refugees. Although this tale is a personal one, Sue Mel's observations and perceptions transcend the individual , reaching the universal . |
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Review of Tale of Two CitiesI like personal stories and I thought I'd have a lot in common with this one (albeit my "two cities" are New York and Amsterdam.) And in this respect I wasn't disappointed - the sense of displacement and isolation in both "homes" paints a picture of internal melancholy more than any external place. The narrator draws parallels from banal everyday activities (coffe-to-go) to oddly surreal events (unlikely fowl) as she bounces between real life and scripted introspection. But because the sound recordings are so rough, there is no real difference between the sound of the two cities. I'd like to think this was part of the concept, but if so it's too distracting to be effective. What the piece lacks in recording technique is almost compensated by the writing which is the best part of the story - intelligent and insightful. But it doesn't quite hold the fabric of the whole together for radio. |
Broadcast History
A Tale of Two Cites first aired as an episode of Invisible Ink on KALW in San Francisco on Sept. 5th, 2004.
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btrefny
Posted on July 30, 2005 at 10:41 AM | Permalink
Review of Tale of Two Cities
This is a beautiful work that really explores one woman's feelings about life and purpose as it relates to her sense of place. The open and honest appraisal of how things are in Sue's life in both New York and San Francisco really touch something that is the ultimate in personal radio portraits - intimate truth. I really felt emotionally moved by this bittersweet, philosophical piece, and I don't think one must be a resident of either coast to appreciate the work - one must only be human.