A portrait of a friend, and a personal struggle for meaning. Opens: "It takes four seconds after jumping off the Golden Gate bridge to hit the ocean 220 feet below. Four long seconds. Last October my friend Phil was riding his bicycle over the bridge. Around mid-span, he stopped, took off his helmet?and jumped to his death. One-one thousand. Two-one thousand. Three-one thousand. Four-one thousand... 8min version aired 11/28/05 "AllThingsConsidered" This is the 12min version--all things considered (13:10 with out music). 8min available, but not encouraged. Brother of Phil: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1061
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Piece Description
A portrait of a friend, and a personal struggle for meaning. Opens: "It takes four seconds after jumping off the Golden Gate bridge to hit the ocean 220 feet below. Four long seconds. Last October my friend Phil was riding his bicycle over the bridge. Around mid-span, he stopped, took off his helmet?and jumped to his death. One-one thousand. Two-one thousand. Three-one thousand. Four-one thousand... 8min version aired 11/28/05 "AllThingsConsidered" This is the 12min version--all things considered (13:10 with out music). 8min available, but not encouraged. Brother of Phil: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1061
5 Comments
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Review of Four Seconds: Suicide off the Golden Gate BridgeThis is a beautifully written piece that captures all the questions and confusion and sadness that people feel after someone commits suicide. It's made even more powerful by the little bits of tape that Jake has left over from his friend Phil - the phone message and the little clip of him talking about what he thinks life is. I lost a friend to suicide, too, and could completely relate to Jake's quest to figure things out, to go and interview someone who had also jumped off the bridge - to try to get into his friend Phil's mind. I think this piece is timeless and is of value to lots of people - suicide is always mysterious - and usually it's not talked about. So I would encourage stations to air this piece just to get people talking and to get suicide "out of the closet." And Jake's delivery struck me as perfect. He sounds sad but not morose, and he does throw humor in there - like when he mimics the cop, Ron, on the bridge. Nice job. |
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Review of Four Seconds: Suicide off the Golden Gate BridgeI had to come back to this and listen again because the story was pitched just so. In fact this is the most evocative piece of audio I've heard in a long time. Intimate and engaging, Four Seconds nonetheless has a point to make which doesn't loose itself in the actual loss and grieving. If you want to consider suicide and the part it plays in our lives --- and our deaths -- then this narrative will enrich your comprehension because in the telling it reaches beyond mere sterility and the seeming confusion to the warped logic of self destruction that we can so often be prone to. But then, like some backdrop laid out as a highlight aspects of our collective social lives, the functional role of the Golden Gate Bridge is a marker of how much our society can house such absolute despair despite the massive creations some of us may use as tools to help kill ourselves. |
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Sasha Kae
Posted on July 17, 2006 at 10:12 PM | Permalink
Review of Four Seconds: Suicide off the Golden Gate Bridge
Wow... what a beautiful insight into such a personal account of suicide. Everyone should take the time to listen to this piece. Thank you!