Audio Essays
Welcome! If you’re anything like me, you’re ready to stop looking at screens and close your eyes for a while. That’s why I created the short audio narratives below.
These spoken-word stories are paired with music, sound cues, and clips from interviews I’ve conducted during my 20+ years of anthropological research. It’s my hope that these recordings will offer you an intellectually and emotionally engaging sonic experience.
Lean back, close your eyes, and see where they take you. If you like what you hear, please leave a comment.
Cheers, y’all …
Audio Essays
The End of Dreaming
Listen time: 5:00
There are moments in life in which we are unexpectedly propelled out of mundane reality, causing us to connect to something beyond the self—and often becoming personally revitalized because of it.
“The End of Dreaming” tells the story of a young man who, in the summer of 1969, underwent a radical psycho-spiritual transformation after coming upon a group of young men and women gathered around a bonfire to honor the last virgin full moon before the Apollo 11 landing.
Production Details
• Written, composed, and performed by Hillary S. Webb
• Mix and additional production by Nick Phaneuf
Currents (Wind Series)
Listen time: 2:30
Imagine you're standing on the porch of a small house with chipping paint. A wind arises, grows stronger, briefly ripping a hole in time and space. Voices from different eras and different geographical locations flood in, creating a call and response between disparate individuals who are, in their own ways, dealing with the complexities of navigating the thrown world.
"Currents" is a meditation on the distinction (or lack thereof) between life and death, and the ways in which we humans must decide in each moment whether to swim against the current or to let the sea change carry us along. It features a clip of an interview I did in the early 2000s with Oscar Miro Quesada and a recording my father created of my sister back in the early 1970s.
Production Details
• Narration arranged by Hillary S. Webb
• Music composed and produced by Nick Phaneuf