Lowlines, Episode 4: Borderline

Lowlines, Episode 4: Borderline

PLACEThe Sonoran desert spills out either side of the US-Mexico border. Its terrain is riveted through by The Wall like a sewing machine, technology and geo-politics deciding what constitutes one place over another. But the border is not the territory and the desert will do what it’s going to do, despite The Wall’s puncturing. Down here the land and sky seem technicolour – impossibly vivid – and unimaginably vast. The heat is gas mark 6 temp and people seem meshed in and laconic. PULSEThere’s a charge here. It feels dramatic. Full-bodied reverb. The nexus is at Baboquivari, sending out ancient energy across the whole landscape like a heartbeat. I’m sitting pretty driving into it all in my friend’s SUV with superior AC and H&M plimsolls. I can enjoy it and find it juicy. Lagging over that border on foot for even a day would soon wipe the grin off my face. You’ve got to know how to move through it or you’ll get wiped. I want to find a desert woman who knows the contours and curves of this place intimately. Who’s tuned in. I’m pulled down to Arivaca after a tip-off in a cafe in Tucson. Down there the women birth their babies in tepees, they told me. That’s all I needed… ROLL CALLSamantha Moore – my bereft desert womanLa Gitana [https://restaurantguru.com/La-Gitana-Cantina-Arivaca] – the wonderful bar on Arivaca’s main dragSasabe Store & Wholesale Mesquite Firewood [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sasabe+Store+%26+Wholesale+Mesquite+Firewood/@31.487971,-111.5428848,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x86d46b940dc20b6f:0xc0d087ba85dfdd8e!8m2!3d31.487971!4d-111.5428848!16s%2Fg%2F1tdd5q1v?entry=ttu] – in the back of which is the bar of dreamsBorder Patrol – I recorded our conversation but it was covert so didn’t think we better use itTumbleweed Cafe – which is now closed down I seeTHE BOOK: The Devil’s Highway [https://luisurrea.com/books/the-devils-highway/] – Luis Alberto Urrea ROUTEFollowing the threads down to the La Gitana bar in Arivaca, to the brittle dirt of a huntress’s land and an abandoned halfway house, on to a coven of new wave desert women in a secret bar at the back of a store – and then gravitating further down to the border to get up close with The Wall. CREDITS:Petra Barran — Host and Producer Lucia Scazzocchio — Producer Lina Prestwood — Executive Producer More information about Lowlines here [https://low-lines.com/]. Follow all the Hub & Spoke shows here [https://www.hubspokeaudio.org/]. Subscribe [https://hubspokeaudio.substack.com/] to our newsletter. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hubspokeaudio.substack.com [https://hubspokeaudio.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Lowlines, Episode 3: Trainline

PLACE:The placelessness of the train while moving through vast and shifting landscapes for 36 hours also creates a strange, metal-wrapped place all of its own. A home on the move. Cosy and secure and endlessly stimulating. Makes me think of what Richard Grant says in American Nomads: “a nomad is someone who doesn’t feel stable when stationary. A nomad feels stable when experiencing velocity”. I hear that. We pass through Louisiana swamps, young cypress thickets, past petro-chemical plants that fringe the Mississippi, tiny clapboard filled towns, into Texas and its glut of oil refineries, trucks alongside us, to New Mexico’s biscuity landscape and giant tumbleweed. Arizona and big pink purple skies, mountains in the distance…The Wall…checking off places as we view them from the viewing car… PULSE:The gyration, the solid rhythm, the slow, seductive horn that fills the air for miles around – mapping imagined journeys of an imaginary time on the here and now. The roll of a dice, the cackle of passengers with drink in their cups, the slew of accents, the rumble, the heat, the airlessness. All low to the ground. Hugging the shifting terrain with those metal tracks – and a couple of hundred passengers with time on our hands to sink into it all. ROLL CALL:Shout out to everyone who spent time chatting with me on the Sunset Limited: Jackie in the cafeteria, the King brothers (Lee, Lenny, Bobby, Matt and the other two), Meredith, Brad, Konnor, Maria-Luisa, Dwayne the conductor, the burrito queen and saviour on the platform in El Paso, the drunk guy with the vodka in his cup – and all the other people who aren’t featured. ROUTE:36 hours, a pure scrapbook of moments, endless stops, hot platforms, hot vinyl seats, dusty air vents, disinfectant and metal…the randomness of the encounter, the joy of strangers, all belonging to this route on these days… CREDITS:Petra Barran — Host and Producer Lucia Scazzocchio — Producer Lina Prestwood — Executive Producer More information about Lowlines here [https://low-lines.com/]. Follow all the Hub & Spoke shows here [https://www.hubspokeaudio.org/]. Subscribe [https://hubspokeaudio.substack.com/] to our newsletter. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hubspokeaudio.substack.com [https://hubspokeaudio.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Lowlines, Episode 2: Floodlines

PLACE:The lower half of Louisiana is a puzzle of waterways, swamps, canals and levees. A once complex and resilient ecosystem carved through, for generations, by commerce. From a plane the land looks like a mass of fresh scabs – little flakey islands floating in the water for as far as the eye can see. And at the bottom of the map is Plaquemines Parish – the ‘bird’s foot’. This area was fertile farm land, alive with life but place names are literally dropping off the map. Down here, the ground is squelchy, watery, loose and the land disappearing so fast, so they say, that 30 football field sized chunks of it are slipping away from the state every single day. PULSE:The Mississippi river is the main artery of the whole area but she has been shackled in place by a complex levee system, designed to protect people and keep commerce flowing. As a living breathing entity, all she really wants to do is…river. To sway this way and that, sending nutrient rich sediment either side of her with every switch of her muddy hips, building up land and a natural defence system with it as she goes. ROLL CALL:Dave Baker [https://bywater.tulane.edu/david-baker] – the passionate ecologist who provided deep context as we walked amongst the 800 year old live oaksWade Pitre – the friendly oil company worker who used to live off the landJustine DeMolle at Changes Restaurant [https://www.changesrestaurants.com/] – seafood kickers and a lot of heart from the doyenne of this Venice, La establishmentThe Lighthouse Lodge [https://lighthouselodgevenice.com/] – Trampus and Barbara and Jowald who run such a welcoming spot CREDITS:Petra Barran — Host and Producer Lucia Scazzocchio — Producer Lina Prestwood — Executive Producer More information about Lowlines here [https://low-lines.com/]. Follow all the Hub & Spoke shows here [https://www.hubspokeaudio.org/]. Subscribe [https://hubspokeaudio.substack.com/] to our newsletter. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hubspokeaudio.substack.com [https://hubspokeaudio.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Lowlines, Episode 1: Second Line

PLACE:The first stop on this journey to tune into the pulse of place has to start in New Orleans. So powerful and charismatic is it that the mere mention of it to almost anyone, anywhere, elicits a reaction – a look of wonder, excitement, energy. Yes, it is the seafood, the jazz, the Mississippi – but the idea of it carries a charge. What is that? To me it’s the ‘irrational’ swampland within which the city sits, low down, below sea level, acting like a bowl. It’s the darkness of its past in the trading of sugar, cotton, humans – and the emergence from that of a rich music, culture and vibration. There’s a thickness in the air here, an embodied, tactile feeling where the city gets on you and in you – where the streets are almost bouncy PULSE:And bubbling up from those streets is the high-voltage pulse that provides the life force for the whole city – it’s the second line. A Sunday parade, a rolling block party a barrelling procession of brass bands, social aid and pleasure clubs, friends, family, neighbours that courses through the city’s veins every week. It’s syncopated, polyrhythmic, exploding with funk, groove and glorious, soaring melodies. And for many Black New Orleanians it’s the day when you OWN the streets, so you better bring that FOOTWORK PERSON:There are a hundred different styles of footwork at the second line, but it’s Jarrad DeGruy [https://www.jarraddegruy.com/] who always gets me when I see her hit those streets like they’re damn trampolines! The levity, the spirit, the freedom! – but also the intent. Because when you tap in you see that it’s a party with a purpose, deeply connected to this place, these swamps, these streets, those who have been here, danced here, stamping out community, personality, frustrations, on the contours of these streets, week after week, come hell or high water. For Episode 1 I sat down with Jarrad to discover more about the relationship between her and the ground upon which she dances ROLL CALL: Jarrad DeGruy [https://www.jarraddegruy.com/] – for giving me her time, spirit and new ideas while I visited her at her grandma’s house Da Truth Brass Band [https://www.facebook.com/groups/443415579092001/] – for messing up the streets at the second line so many weeks, and in particular for the week I put my recorder in the air for this episode Ole & Nu Style Fellas Social Aid & Pleasure Club [https://www.hnoc.org/dits-club-narratives/ole-nu-style-fellas] – for putting on the parade that I recorded at. The clubs pay big money to come out when they are the ones who should be getting paid to create all that feeling and value for the cityEveryone who took a minute to talk with me at the second line My Name is Phlegm [https://www.mynameisphlegm.com/] – for coining the mantra that ‘Everything You Love About New Orleans is Because of Black People’ ROUTE:Episode 1 is the most conventional format of the series in terms of interviewing one person about a subject. It begins on the streets and at the second line, with all its propulsive music and energy. Then it moves to Jarrad’s home where we get into a fairly free-flow conversation, with footwork and connection to the ground at the centre. Speaking with Jarrad is rich and powerful and lays out many of the themes and threads that the series goes on to tune into. CREDITS: Petra Barran — Host and Producer Lucia Scazzocchio — Producer Lina Prestwood — Executive Producer More information about Lowlines here [https://low-lines.com/]. Follow all the Hub & Spoke shows here [https://www.hubspokeaudio.org/]. Subscribe [https://hubspokeaudio.substack.com/] to our newsletter. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hubspokeaudio.substack.com [https://hubspokeaudio.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

H&S Expo Presents: Lowlines

Hub & Spoke Expo is proud to present Lowlines, a sonic scrapbook, a passport to roam, following a pull to tune into the pulse of place—befriending strangers along the way. Part precursor, part trailer, this prologue is the set up for the series and a hint at what’s to come. CREDITS: Petra Barran — Host and Producer Lucia Scazzocchio — Producer Lina Prestwood — Executive Producer More information about Lowlines here [https://low-lines.com/]. Follow all the Hub & Spoke shows here [https://www.hubspokeaudio.org/]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hubspokeaudio.substack.com [https://hubspokeaudio.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]