Welcome, esteemed archivists, librarians, and researchers.
Thank you for taking the time to join us for the 43rd annual Spirit Reclamation Foundation convention! We at the SRF could not be more honored to be graced with your illustrious presence.
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Before we begin tonight’s presentation, We must make a confession. Kraft services got tied up in an unfortunate zeppelin accident - there were no casualties, thankfully, but due to a run in with a flock of migratory high-altitude spiders, our prized custom-made Aspic and rainbow jello lovingly molded into the shape of a 12 foot encyclopedia will not be making an appearance. We beg your forgiveness. As consolation, you will be happy to know that we will be doing ONE MORE ROUND of competitive shushing following the presentation. Be sure to enter for a chance to win a lifetime supply of paperclips!
And the hits keep coming! Thanks to an angel investor, we have installed individual, invisible, state of the art sound booths for your listening pleasure. Yours has already been locked and activated. You will find comfort in knowing that it will not open until the presentation has concluded.
You are now free to laugh, shout, exhale, groan, or sing along without disrupting the room and you can feel confident that your own listening experience will not be disrupted by the loser next to you. Try it. Make a sound!
See? I can’t hear you, but you can hear me. Wonderful.
Now let’s get down to the business shall we?
We at the SRF have gathered you - the brightest minds and deepest hearts in our field - to help us uncover a mystery.
For tonight’s fact-finding mission, we have unearthed twelve pieces of audio. Six songs and six field interview transcripts, all of which constitute exactly 28 minutes and 29 seconds of sound. In addition, we restored 15 minutes of video attached to these recordings. We have also uncovered 457 hours of video of a dog. We have struggled to understand why anyone would willingly spend 19 straight days documenting an animal. But. We have recently been led to believe the canine may be the mastermind behind the entire operation. Due to this hypothesis, and due the fact that we don’t really have other footage options to fill out the remaining 13 minutes and 29 seconds of sound. you will be spending most of this experience watching a dog sleep or stare directly into your soul. We don’t really know how this will go but we ran out of time, so, dog.
So we have the what. Now we need to look at the why. We suspect this collection has to do with reclamation of spirit aka Soul retrieval aka return to grace aka coming back to self aka How Stella got her groove back. How can we be so sure? Well, we know that this body of work starts from a place of loss and ends in a place of reclamation . Past this point, we are completely and utterly stumped.
This is where YOU come in. We look to you to help us use these 12 clues to answer the question:
How does one get their spirit back?
How do any of us get our spirits back?
How can one start from the lowest low and learn to laugh again?
We put it to you, dear hearts. Help us, esteemed archivists, librarians, and researchers, you’re our only hope.
Thank you, esteemed archivists, librarians, and researchers. We at the SRF are so grateful to those of you who made it to the end of this archive.
We know sitting still for long periods of time is not an easy feat these days, and, this is by no means a competition, but if it were, to those of you who didn’t try to bust out of your individual sound booths - you won. You’re better.
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We understand a few members of the group dropped off due to waves of nausea during archived items TSS 3041 and TSS 1003. This was to be expected. Discomfort with experiencing emotions for the first time can manifest as bubble guts. If you are still - as the kids say these days - feeling the feels, we have a kitten decompression chamber in the room to my left. There, you will find a menagerie of kittens waiting to give you a warm cuddle.
So. Have you figured out the answer? Is there a formula to getting the spirit back? We suspect there is not one concrete answer, as humans are not a monolith. So we will ask you a more pointed question: how would someone like you get your spirit back? We very much want to hear it.
At the magic link below, we have created a folder of magical sharing clips. We would love to learn about your experience through a share in the magical digital space. You may share one, or all clips if you prefer! We are not stingy with our clips. We only ask that you credit the hearts and brains who built the archive.
Tonight, thanks to you, we learned that our 10 year journey into what it means to get one’s spirit back is nowhere near being over. we have learned that it just might take more voices. More perspectives. More people like you. We now know that the spirit section is not a time capsule from yesteryear as we previously thought: it is a living, growing archive. We want to take this music into other communities, teach them songs, compose new songs with them, and hear their personal stories in a series of workshops and performances. If you know of a community with a story worth telling - let’s be honest - every person’s story is worth telling - let us know! you can find more information at the GATHER page in our digital archive.
Now concludes this version the spirit section. But it is only the beginning. As a reminder, book cart bumper cars and microfiche karaoke will still be available for the next 43 and one half minutes. Get on it. And don’t forget to enter competitive shushing. That lifetime supply of paperclips has your name on it!
We understand that you might be left with questions, but we at the SRF are not used to this much social interaction. You will have to forgive us as we descend into the warm, moldy cocoon of a book-lined basement for the next 7-9 months to get our own Stella got her groove back. We look forward to communicating with you on the other side of a nice, long nap.
Good night, dear friends. Even though our paths may never cross again, you will always be with us in spirit.
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