SKETCHBOOK SUBMIT: THE ASSIGNMENT

Your assignment, if you choose to accept it:

Below you will find a list of 14 inquiries that relate to or inspire thoughts about the stories and themes in this year’s festival.  Read the list carefully.  Choose one or more inquiries that you connect with and submit your response to Collaboraction.  Your submission in response to the inquiries can be audio, video, photo or text.

(Some examples of responses: Call the audio submission hotline and tell us a story in   response to an inquiry.  Interview a friend, family member or stranger or have someone interview you. Videotape yourself telling a story in response to an inquiry or videotape a friend, family member or stranger. Etc.)

• Submit by phone.  Call 206-337-0678 and leave a voice mail response.
• Submit now with our audio recorder.
• Email audio submission (MP3 files only preferably at 128 kbs/s) to audiosubmit@collaboraction.org
• Email video submissions to videosubmit@collaboraction.org CLICK HERE to learn more about video submissions.
• Submit written responses to textsubmit@collaboraction.org or click below in "comments" and post it directly to our website.
• Email photo or image submissions to imagesubmit@collaboraction.org or click below in "comments" and post it directly to our website.

The submissions received will be included in the process towards and the presentation of one or more evenings of The 8th Annual SKETCHBOOK Festival presented at Steppenwolf’s Merle Reskin Garage Theatre May 15, 2008 – June 15, 2008.  If you plan on attending the festival let us know when so we can try and present your submission on that evening.  The submissions received will also be included in Collaboraction’s website. 

Thank you for your time and have fun!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE SUBMISSIONS
SKETCHBOOK SUBMIT 14 INQUIRIES

1. What is your first memory as a child?
2. Tell us about the most memorable moment with one of your parents.
3. Have you ever experienced love-at-first site? If so, please share.
4. Tell us about your biggest fear.
5. How has the internet played a role in your sexual relationships?
6. Who has the power?
7. How do you feel about the American economy?
8. What was something you said to your spouse or loved one that you didn’t mean or regret saying?
9. How do you support the American soldier?
10. Define Yourself.
11. What’s the best birthday present you ever got?
12. Tell us about any near death experiences you have had.
13. What do you believe is life after death?
14. When will you be attending SKETCHBOOK ’08?

VIEW THE SUBMISSIONS

 

Comments

[Lyla Oliver]

This is about a memorable moment with my father. My father was a gambler. It ruled our lives by dictating our life-style - see, even now, I don't seem to blame him, but the "it," gambling. Sometimes we had new cars, mostly Buicks, or no car and sometimes we had to get out of town. That's how we ended up in California...and Alabama...and Las Vegas...and Hawaii. To start fresh. Because of gambling my father was home very little and I really didn't know him for years. I do remember the guy who woke us up in the middle of the night with hot corn beef sandwiches (he won at Poker) and I remember the guy who yelled at me to get away from him when I wandered over to watch him play craps at Caesar's Palace (I might jinx the next roll). But, it wasn't until I was fourteen that I was no longer afraid of my father and could enjoy him. You see, he loved practical jokes and he loved to embarrass my sister and me. My sister loved it. She'd ask him a question while we waited in line at the market and he would turn to her and say loudly: "I'm sorry, Little Girl, I don't have any money." I would be mortified and I wasn't even the target. Then one day, for no particular reason, my dad and I were in a drug store in Honolulu. I remember we were getting some new toothbrushes and a shower cap for my mom. I asked my dad for something and he said no, so I said: "Are you sure." He didn't even look at me, just said, "yes" kind of irritated. Don't ask me what made me do this, but I dropped down on my knees and wrapped my arms around my dad's legs and yelled: "Please, Daddy, please buy me this! And, don't yell at me, Daddy, please!" The shock on his face that someone had gotten him so good, and that it was ME, the "sensitive one." God, did we laugh - after he ran outside to get away from the ugly looks he was getting. I wish we'd had more time together. He died a year later of a brain tumor. But I'll never forget how I made him laugh and I wonder at how that one little joke brought us so much closer.

[Larry Garner]

How I Support the American Soldier
For most Americans, war is a remote abstraction. We are asked to embrace war in the name of abstract ideals like "Defense of Freedom", "National Security", "The Liberation of the Iraqi People", "Fighting Terrorism." These ideals and abstractions serve to dignify the call to war. But, in the end, there’s nothing certain about whether or not war will help us to defend freedom, to guarantee our security, to defeat terrorism. At best, war is always a matter of more or less—not something that is certain and palpable.
What is certain and palpable, however, are the concrete consequences of war. What’s certain and palpable is that the day-to-day business of war involves the killing and maiming of human beings. Human beings who once had life, will have it no more, people who once had a daughter or a son, a brother or a sister, a father or a mother, will have them no more. And many more human beings will no longer be whole, bearing the scars and mutilations of war for the rest of their lives. And it’s not enough to say: “Well, that’s the price of protecting our freedom and national security.” Because it’s only too easy to suppose that the sorrow of war will be borne by others.
And so I support our soldiers by asking people to take a simple and honest test. “Would you be willing to lose your own best friend, your own brother or sister, your own son or daughter, your own mother or father for the sake of war’s uncertain outcomes?” Because if you don’t frame the question for yourself in this very concrete way, war is just an abstraction. It’s always someone else’s best friend, someone else’s brother or sister, someone else’s son or daughter, someone else’s mother or father who dies or is maimed.
And so if you can’t say, in good conscience, that you’d be prepared to see those most dear to you die or be maimed for the presumed benefits of war, then it’s time for you to support the American soldier and say: Bring our soldiers home now.

[Will]

My mother tells me that I spent the first month of my life in an oxygen tent. Because of some obscure bronchial ailment, I was born a boy in a bubble. Whether this was the source of my unrelenting fear of suffocation is unknown, but subsequent episodes of asthma that left me gasping for breath certainly have strengthened that fear.
It wasn't until a near-death experience in 1994, though, that the loss of the ability to breath became a tangible possibility, no longer the product of my imagination. It was my first time scuba diving in the ocean, and for reasons too complicated to explain here, I found myself under 90 feet of water with an air tank whose valve was almost completely closed. Suddenly breathing air was like sucking a very thick milkshake through a very thin straw. I felt my eyes bulging out of their sockets and my brain beginning to fog. I desperately looked around for help, but the other divers were all ahead of me, their attention on the colorful fish and coral. Panic took over my faculties, and I did the one thing you're not supposed to do unless you crave the sensation of having your lungs explode: I started clawing for the surface.
Fortunately there was another diver behind me who had spotted my dilemma, and he managed to grab one of my fins before I got too far. Noticing few bubbles emerging from my mouthpiece, he twisted the air tank valve open, and air flooded into my lungs.
My brush with death was behind me, but my fear of suffocation stubbornly lingers, along with the firm belief that when I do die, it will not be peacefully -- it will be with eyes bugging out and my face the blue color of the ocean...

[SG]

i fear we'll lose the battle.
that's why i fight.

i fear that we won't wake up.
that's why i don't sleep.

i fear that we won't dream.
that's why i do.

[Sue Fink]

Near-Death Experience

I was in my early twenties, my very first apartment in the city – still unfamiliar with the different neighborhoods – their names, their characters; their pleasures and even their dangers.

I decided to go for a walk and explore. It was late afternoon, a glorious day, and I headed south… just looking at all the buildings, their lovely old façades… and really, having no idea where I was headed. Doo, de-doo, de-doo…

As the sky grew darker, I suddenly realized that wherever it was I was didn’t look, or feel, too safe. There were small groups of men hanging out on steps, looking at me suspiciously. People seemed to be either drinking, smoking, or both. There were no women. The parked cars were all old beaters. My chest constricted and my arm-hairs stood on end. I wished I’d paid attention so I’d know where I was, where I needed to go.

Just then, a car screeched to a halt on my left. To my right was an alley. Just ahead were some men on steps.

As the car squealed to a stop, a group of men poured out and headed swiftly towards me. It was at this point when the first of two miracles occurred: I physically left my body, hovered just above it -- as if I had somehow died standing up but could still hang around to watch.

The second miracle occurred from the alley. I heard a shout to my right: “NOOOOOOOOOO!” from an older, rumpled man who appeared out of nowhere.

And then… the group of men turned, and headed back to their car and sped away. I don’t know what happened to the man who shouted from the alley: I couldn’t turn my head. In fact, I couldn’t move.

Somehow I re-entered my body, which was frozen as if under a spell. I heard a distinct voice in my head: it said: BREATHE. Then it said: MOVE. It said RIGHT FOOT.

Just like that, I inhaled, and felt my heart pounding. My right foot took a step forward. My left foot followed the right. I looked at no one, so I don’t know if anyone looked at me; but no one said anything, no one approached me.

My arms swung and my legs moved and the voice said: KEEP MOVING, so I did. Soon I came to a busier intersection and figured out where I was and where I needed to go.

After awhile, my heart stopped pounding.

[Sue Fink]

Earliest Childhood Memory

I was probably two years old – definitely old enough to sit on the living room floor all by myself. I was playing with some toy, and I saw the legs of my mother and father as they walked around.

Some Israeli folk music was playing on the stereo. I loved this particular album: I still remember its cover, and the rhythms and voices delighted me. My father grabbed my mother and suddenly they were dancing, their legs coming really close to where I was sitting on the carpet. I heard laughter.

The music played on but my parents left the room. Eventually it grew dark; eventually I must have cried... I heard my mother say, “We forgot about Susie!” Then someone swept me up in their arms, and that’s all I remember.

[sarah]

This is the text of a handwritten letter I received in the mail at my old job at a documentary film company called dig. sometimes people would mistake our name for a Private Investigator Service.

From:
James O'neill #14562
Metropolotan Correctional Center
chicago, il

Greetings! I have located your information in the yellow pages. I am
in need of the following information.

1. Concerning my wife and her infidelity. I would like a copy of her
cell phones incoming and outgoing calls and text messages for the past
two months. I would like a copy of how many abortions she has had in
the past 5 years as well as STD's in the past 5 years.

2. I am trying to locate two of my ex-girlfriends whom I believe are
still located in the chicagoland area. I would like their cell phone
and home phone numbers and addresses as well as any other useful
information.

If you can help me I am willing to pay for the information. If not can
you please send me to the right directioin please? Thank you.

Truthfully,
James O'neill

[sm]

My first memory as a child was the day my brother was born.

I was two years old, it was a Sunday morning.

I remember being at my grandparents house. I must have been sleeping when I arrived because I don't remember how I got there. I remember being in the kitchen with them. I remember my grandfather sitting in a chair in the kitchen and talking on the phone. I remember going to church with them later that morning. I remember one of the ushers at church congratulating me on getting a new baby brother. I remember the birth of my brother being announced during the church service.

To this day my mother doesn't believe that I remember that morning in such vivid detail but it was probably one of the most important days of my life.

I was no longer an only child.

How could one not remember?

[ALB]

DECONSTRUCTING ME

I wished I was someone else,
so I could be who you love.

But you made me want
to want to be me,

and find the you
that already loves me,

And love the me that I am.

[rbg]

my biggest fear

the house i grew up in used to be a boarding house in the 30's and 40s. all of the boarders that ever lived in my bedroom wrote and dated their names in a small corner in my bedroom closet. in a recurring nightmare i have, my parents have sold the house and i never get to add my name to the list. it was originally my sisters room, but once she was in college, i got to move in. i was 11.
The first time my sister attempted suicide was just weeks after i had moved into the room. i was supposed to visit her in england in 2 weeks. she was on some summer, college program. so, instead of coming alone my mother joined me "to make sure she was doing ok." at 11 i didn't have the emotional capacity to ask my sister 2 very difficult questions: why hadnt she left a note and will you promise never to do this again? Like somehow, asking these questions would prevent her from trying three more times. so instead, while we were walking on a small street outside of piccadilly market, she was on the road, i was on the sidewalk, i stopped my sister, leaned over the good foot of space between us and hugged her. the distance between the road and sidewalk made the hug uncomfortable. like i was reaching a little too far. she was wearing a crisp, button down shirt with red and white stripes i remember it scratching my face. and we just held each other for what felt like forever but what must have been about a minute. my mom just stood there and watched. i think my biggest fear is that she would never get to write HER name on that closet wall. Because what if i get the chance to say goodbye and she doesn't?

[Georgann]

I have a long list of fears. And then, I fear nothing. I jump off the cliff and grow my wings on the way down. Only for certain things. Like anything that has to do with money. I never have any money so it’s easy to jump off a cliff that takes MasterCard or Visa.

What you might find interesting is my fear of large bodies of water and what or who resides in them. There are a couple milestones from my childhood that contribute to this fear. This fear, by the way, that won’t allow me to set foot in the Shed aquarium. I’m 34 years old.

So, going back. Age 4. Traveling from Westchester, IL to Key West, FL with my grandparents by way of their ocean blue (I kid you not) 1979 Cadillac. We fit my training potty on the floor between the driver’s seat and the back seat. It was a long trip and apparently I had to make too many stops. I remember sitting on that tiny toilet in the back of the giant Cadillac trying to get truck drivers to honk their horns.

We did stop when the grown ups needed a break. One such stop brought us to this mysterious place where I was told, one could see giant sea turtles. My grandfather carried me through the gift shop, which had mustard colored walls, random Floridian trinkets and fishing nets for decoration. The check out counter looked like a fish tank. I buried my head in his shoulder for protection and only peeked to see if we had reached our destination. Then I felt a warm breeze and thought, I’m free! I looked down to find that we were on a catwalk a million feet above an enormous tank where an ginormous sea turtle name George was doing his best to move through the water. At the very moment that this sight registered in my brain, I replaced my face on Papa’s shoulder and pressed as hard as I could. I thought that I could mush myself into him and hid there forever.

To this day, I have no idea why I was so terrified of seeing the namesake sea turtle.

Fast forward to second grade. Summer in the suburbs. Hot days, no school, and we had a membership to the community pool. Where I was so grossed out by the perpetually slimly locker room floor that only my tippy toes touched it each summer. This was a special occasion. We were at the pool after sunset. My grandmother told me they were showing a film and I could bring a raft and watch it while in the water. Naturally, I was excited to go. Being the shy kid I was, and not recognizing the other faces at the pool that night, I situated my banana yellow blow up raft in the back row – sun tanning raft, not a real raft – and waited for the movie to begin. They had brought in a stand-alone screen and set it up on one side of the pool. There must have been a projector on the opposite side. The middle school kids were on lifeguard duty but they were in the water behind me. Not sitting in the tall white chairs. The movie started and I had never seen or heard of it before, but there was this haunting music – two low notes – and people struggling in water and then a giant set of teeth coming at us through the screen! The water was bloody, the people in the movie were screaming. It was horrifying. All of sudden the kid in front of me screamed and as I turned towards him, I saw it. Cutting through the water just like in the movie. A dorsal fin.

It was those damn middle school lifeguards getting their rocks off scaring little kids. As if watching “Jaws” on a raft, in a pool, at night wasn’t enough to emotionally scar us.

There you have it. The beginnings of my fear of large bodies of water and the creatures that dwell within. By the way, I saw Finding Nemo and it didn’t cure me of my fear. It almost made it worse.

[Suzanne Lang]

My most memorable moment was with my dad Jim Lang. He wanted to be a photographer and a storyteller. We would drive to the Falls of the Ohio in Southern Indiana and he would shoot anything (with the camera). Rocks. Driftwood. Sand. Fossils in the riverbed when the water receded. We would talk about the Devonian Period and he would make up stories about people we saw fishing by the locks. And I realized he was already, and always was, a photographer and a storyteller. The very thing he wished to be was what he had become. And it didn't matter than he wasn't paid for them. Because he gave them to me as gifts and I hold them forever. My photographer and storyteller.

[G]

What is something you regret having said to a spouse or loved one?

"I dont want to burn any bridges here." Thats what I usually utter rather than saying something I'll later regret. I like to leave the loved one with the image of me holding a big fat torch and choosing NOT to burn their unstable bridge. I had the chance and I chose not to take it because I AM THE BETTER PERSON.
But, In hindsight, I regret Not telling my ex that the sex wasnt that good, Not telling my boss to fuck off, and not telling Jessie (the mean girl in high school) that looks will only get you so far. I would like to burn a few bridges. Really say what's on my mind. Just really bitch someone out. Who really deserves it. But when the moment comes to fight back, stick up for myself and just rip them a new one, I get this anxiety in the pit of my stomach that tells me I know better. Or maybe I am just a coward.