This is a little piece I created for Jump-Start Performance Co.’s Performance Party 32. Because the venue of the annual fundraising event was not at their home theater (too small of a space for so many performances), the theme for this year was “Transported.” I decided to write a short low-energy rant about how our present social climate seems to be so hung up on desiring a return to a past which never was. I pulled a couple hundred clips from old public domain newsreels (items from the wonderful Prelinger Archives, lovingly parked at archive.org). I vignetted the one-second clips in oval cameos and played them over an animated nighttime highway (thank you, Liran Tabib, for that great After Effects tutorial!). Add in a minimalist repetitive score. And top it off with a voice-over recording of myself reading the piece. Five minutes is just the right length, before things begin to get too boring. Or so I like to tell myself. As has been the case for the last seven or eight years I have been asked to contribute work for the Performance Parties, it was a great honor to share a line-up with so many extraordinary creative people, from the polished veterans to the exciting possibilities exhibited by the younger crowd of emerging artists and performers. Here’s hoping for many more Performance Parties to come!