Sunday, March 23, 2014

45RPM: Both Hands Ani DiFranco

Where I match a song to specific memory

 It was perhaps inevitable that I would come across Ani DiFranco's music in college.  It was the 90s, it was a women's college, there were a bunch of girls from everywhere in the states, so DiFranco and I were fated to meet.  In this case, she showed up on a soundtrack of  a play my friend had written.  Our college was small and fostered the belief that we could do anything.  So when two women said, "Let's each write and produce a one-act and then direct it" that's exactly what happened.  Well, nearly.  The other women didn't write her own one-act, but she directed an already written one.  My friend wrote and directed, because that's the kind of woman she was.

I was enchanted by this friend: she was from Canada and had a father in the Air Force, so she had lived many different places.  She was intelligent and a strong feminist, and with a long-time boyfriend.  Strangely, she seemed just as interested in me.  Her play was the first time I saw the words of a person I knew come to life, and realized with a jolt how much of their own lives writers use in their work.  This song always reminds me of her, not only because it was used in the one-act, but also because after we left school, she disappeared, not answering the letters I wrote to her.  It turned out she had, without telling me, applied for the same full-ride scholarship to a transfer college and got it, leaving me high and dry.  I heard about her coup from a friend.  We never spoke after college.

2 comments:

  1. Man, I was really enjoying that story and then it kind of had a sad ending. I wonder whatever happened to that girl? What she made of herself? It's pretty impressive that she wrote and directed a play in college.

    I've never really been big on Ani DiFranco. Not sure why, although I tend to prefer male singers to female singers so maybe I never gave her much of a chance.

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  2. I missed my Ani phase. I am sure that U of I women listened to her and I would have had my chance. I would guess that I was not quite in those cliques and groups of women. Square girl at a square school. Not that I mind, it is part of who I am. Now my sis. she's a big Ani fan!

    And it is a sad story. Have you ever looked her up? Or is that bridge burned?

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