Radio Chthulucene 87.9 FM

Alex Lara

After reading Dictee I thought about the way I wanted to structure my piece for the project. I feel inspired by the way Dictee plays with various forms and weaves in and out of various themes. I feel that the visual elements of Dictee played a key role in my understanding of the changing languages throughout the piece. There were also photos of Theresa’s mother and family members that made the piece easier to connect emotionally. This made me think about my project and the way I could approach adding some sort of auditory element that would equally convey sentiments in a similar way that the visuals did in Dictee. 

This assignment can be created in so many different ways which is what is becoming somewhat frustrating. I am used to assignments and projects that have more guidelines and rubrics. I appreciate having creative freedom with the project but now I think this feels like too much freedom. The only limitation being a maximum word count of 1000 words is almost nightmarish. I am hoping by the end of this week or next I can narrow down my ideas for a topic. I also hope to have more conversations with people in class to bounce ideas off each other as well. 

One of the ideas I was considering was to document the various grocery lists throughout my life and within my family members. My grandparents are all from various parts of Mexico and they each have their own recipes of amazing Mexican cuisine. They shop at the local Vallartas near their home and usually buy food that is used to make very traditional Mexican meals. My parents, being first gen, have slightly different grocery finds as they grew up with making less traditional foods and prefer to take my family out for dinner. And my list includes groceries from various cultures as I have grown up surrounded with friends from various cultures who have introduced me to the meals they grew up eating. I also try to make recipes that my abuelita has passed down to me. I feel like this ties into the course well but again I am struggling with the idea of transferring these ideas from paper to audio.