Filmmaking Perspectives on Stuttering

Transcript

[00:00:00] Proud Stutter is headed to Sundance 2025. While we don't have a film in the festival, we are putting on an event called Filmmaking with a Disability, and we have such an amazing guest joining us. You may have heard his name. Um, he is filmmaker Reed Davenport. He is the award winning filmmaker of the film.

I didn't see you there. He also has a film that is going to be shown at Sundance 2025. And we're just so excited to see him there. Um, Um, this is going to be a free event. So if you're in the Utah, Salt Lake City, Park City area, please come. Um, the event is going to be held in Park City on Saturday, January 25th at 5 PM at the National Ability Center.

And we are partnering with the. The [00:01:00] National Stuttering Association, Salt Lake City chapter. So you won't want to miss this event if you're going to be around. And yeah, can't wait to see you there. Um, one more thing I wanted to share with you all is we are launching a survey and the survey is called, do you know someone who stutters?

Our goal is to, Get the word about this film to as many people as possible. And so if you're listening, if you know one, if you know someone who stutters, click the link in our show notes. It only takes a few minutes to fill out. And join us on this journey. And if you're a listener and you stutter yourself, you can fill it out too.

Um, so yeah, check that out and on to the show.[00:02:00]

I'm Maya Chupkov and I'm a woman who stutters. Welcome to Proud Stutter, a show about stuttering and embracing verbal diversity in an effort to change how we talk about it. One conversation at a time.

Welcome back to Proud Stutter. I'm your host Maya Chupkov. Today we have Dave Rodriguez, a person who stutters and an experimental filmmaker whose work explores disfluency, Language glitches and how they are perceived in an ableist world. Dave, welcome to Proud Stutter. Thank you so much for having me, Maya.

I'm very excited to be here. Yeah, I'm so excited to talk film with you and talk about your work and just, yeah, get to know you a little more. So, um, [00:03:00] my first question is, Um, when did you start to notice your stutter? Like where did it all start for you? Sure. Yeah. Um, yeah, I, I've asked my mom about this and she, she kind of told me that she first sort of noticed it when I was about, um, I don't know, about four years old.

Um, you know, I used to go to a daycare every day at like a, a friend of the family's house essentially where, uh, All these kids would hang out. Kind of. It was very, uh, it was very sort of DIY. And I think it was, um, after I started going there, uh, that my mom noticed that I started speaking in this way that, you know, sort of later got diagnosed as me, like having a speech impediment.

Um, and I remember pretty early on, you know, going to speech therapy, both. going to [00:04:00] private therapists and then also going, um, as part of, you know, just being in school, we had a speech therapist at the public school that I went to. Um, and yeah, it's just kind of always been a part of my, experience of life, you know, pretty much as far back as I can remember it.

And where did your interest in film stem from? Like, how did you, um, how did you kind of get into filmmaking? My kind of foray I, I would say definitely came out of, um, my sort of involvement with like the DIY and the punk scene, uh, in Miami where I grew up. Um, that was a space that was really, I think, like, creatively open and inclusive and expressive.

And, you know, I kind of early on kind of started seeing, you know, A lot of different [00:05:00] connections between different kinds of art making, you know, playing in bands and, you know, making flyers for shows and making zines and making, you know, um, album art for CD ours that you would make of your, you know, your band's recordings and like that, all of that.

Uh, type of stuff. And then, um, yeah, you know, I had friends who, you know, would, you know, uh, shoot footage on, you know, mini DV tape on camcorders that, you know, I, I, I, I really enjoyed just sort of like working with and watching and like messing around with and editing and things like that. So I think that was kind of like my really early kind of, um, experimental.

learning how to actually do these different processes, um, uh, in terms of making art, but it wasn't really until I was a little bit older, I'd say probably 18 or 19. Um, when I got sort of [00:06:00] my first exposure to like the experimental film world and sort of like the world of like video art, where I think really got interested in sort of thinking about, you know, like, making work about stuttering, you know, um, experimental film is a really interesting space.

I think for exploring the stuttering voice, um, just because experimental film kind of disrupts the conventions of conventional, uh, narrative and commercial filmmaking. Um, it's, you know, in a way that's similar to how, you know, stuttering sort of disrupts the, um, expected normal conventions related to like speaking and to conversation.

Um, and so, you know, thinking about, you know, um, films that sort of upset those expectations, films that sort of, you know, really hone in on, uh, [00:07:00] Glitches and, um, you know, those kinds of aesthetics, uh, I think I just not consciously at first, but I think at a subconscious level, I just really kind of connected with, um, at the same time, like, you know, I, I was also like, you know, I'm exposed to things like, you know, like, um, Uh, like noise music and performance art and other kinds of, uh, these ways of making art when I was young and just sort of drawing all these connections together in my mind.

Um, and that's how it sort of first germinated in my head that like, okay, this is maybe something to, to sort of think about. And Explore more, but yeah, it's taken a lot of time to kind of, um, approach it in a way that I, I think is like, meaningful and for some of our listeners who may not know exactly what experimental [00:08:00] filmmaking is, can you, can you describe it for us and help us, um, kind of, yeah, learn more?

about that specific medium. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's so hard to pick one film and say like, this is like a good representative example, but, um, I'm going to rib something from my friend and fellow filmmaker down here in Florida, George Kozlinski, who he, he told me that he explained it experimental film to, uh, his students like this is to kind of compare it to like different forms of writing.

So if we think about sort of, you know, The films you go and see it, the movie theater, you know, your long legs, you're a quiet place. Those types of movies, you know, those are really like, they're like novels and short stories. Right. You know, it's like, they have, uh, they have, you know. identifiable characters.

They have sort [00:09:00] of a certain narrative structure to them. They kind of resemble what you would read in like a novel or a short story just on screen. Uh, then you have things like documentaries and documentaries are really more sort of like essays or like journalism, right? Like they're sort of making, they're making an argument about the world.

They're sort of, uh, They're looking at an issue. They're looking at a problem and they're investigating it. They're bringing in other people's perspectives. They're presenting evidence. Uh, you know, they're, they're, they're doing a lot of the things that sort of non fiction writing does. Experimental, experimental film is really more like poetry in that it's It's maybe using some of the conventions from those other two, but it's really interested in something else.

It's maybe, maybe it's not interested in telling a story, but maybe it's just interested in like conveying a very specific feeling. Or it's [00:10:00] interested in itself. It's interested in its own deployment and use of language. And maybe it's just like a joke about how words sound or something like that. You know, it's much more, uh, free form and expressive and sort of like open, but, you know, still teasing or like poking at maybe some of the conventions that you find and those sort of maybe more familiar, um, and easier to understand forms of writing.

So, you know, I, I. I like to think of it as like, you know, it's like that, you know, approaching experimental film, like you approach a poem, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's sort of looking at it as like, maybe not necessarily like a puzzle to solve, but like looking at like the thing it's trying to unlock the sort of thing it's trying to express to you in a new and unconventional [00:11:00] way that Maybe wouldn't be the most sort of direct or didactic way of going about it.

Um, I'd love it if you can talk about some of the films you've made, um, especially, um, your film Tarte Modeo. Um, I hope I'm saying that right. Um, I love, yeah, if you can just talk about that film you made and, um, any of the other ones. Tartamudeo is, uh, the Spanish word for stutter. Um, and when I was first approaching this project back in 2018, 2019, um, it sort of began with a story that kind of guides The short film along its way, and, um, it's one that my dad has told me, um, throughout my life about one of his earliest memories of living in Cuba and sort of bearing witness to some really horrible violence that happened, uh, related to [00:12:00] the revolution in 1959 and 1960.

Um, and I learned from my dad. Abuela that, um, when they were actually finally able to leave Cuba and, and, and come to Miami, um, that he basically stopped speaking, uh, for a significant amount of time. And specifically, um, he would not speak Spanish. He would only speak English. Um, and, you know, I think today you would call this PTSD, you would call it a trauma response.

something else, right? But I don't think they really had the language for it back then. But it wasn't until sort of much later in his life that he was really able to, to speak Spanish again. And I was interested in this sort of parallel experience in the kind of loss of language that he and I both experienced.

I was about the same age as him when my parents first noticed that I spoke with a stutter. Um, so naturally this kind of got me thinking about, The [00:13:00] whole host of things that we sort of inherit from our parents, whether that's trauma, whether that's ideology, whether that's like behaviors and coping mechanisms, things like that.

And the way that all those things kind of manifests and kind of morph, um, specifically with respect to language. Um, and for me it's, It's interesting just because I come from like an ethnically mixed household. My mom's family are like Irish and Northern European, uh, immigrants. She grew up in New York and New Jersey and my dad's family's Cuban.

And you know, even after my parents divorced when I was fairly young, I grew up around a lot of Spanish speakers, but we didn't really speak it at home. And because of that, you know, I can understand. A lot of Spanish. I recently learned this whole idea of being passively, uh, bilingual, where you can kind of understand the language, but not really speak it.

Um, but for me in particular, when it comes to actually [00:14:00] speaking Spanish, um, you know, um, you can hear me speaking now, uh, my stutter is like, just by orders of magnitude, so much more. Pronounced and foregrounded than when I speak in English. Um, I'm someone who blocks a lot when I stutter. That's sort of the key feature of it.

Um, and, you know, these blocks kind of come back with the full kind of halting physiological and neurological force that I remember as a kid when my stutter was, you know, um, by all sort of traditional understandings of it a lot more severe than it is now, you know, so for me, you The short was a way of kind of working through and kind of investigating these sort of echoes and these resonances between my experience with language as a person who stutters and who kind of lives between these two languages and [00:15:00] my dad's experience who has had his own kind of fraught and tumultuous journey with English and Spanish as well, but, you know, in this very different context.

You mentioned the generational trauma aspect and that really resonated with me because that's actually a theme of, um, our short film that we're working on. Um, and how, you know, our, our parents trauma of our grandparents trauma can really play a part, um, in our families right now. Um, so yeah, that just really, um, Yeah, I think that's just a really interesting thing to, to explore in this context.

And another thing that really interests me is like, we have a lot of stuttering stories, but not so much of the science [00:16:00] to really, you know, To really pinpoint what exactly causes stuttering like we definitely come a long way and there's amazing researchers doing amazing work out there, but I still think, um, you know, there's still a lot left to discover around stuttering.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think I, I, I, I looked into the science a little bit more for that. the most recent film that I made, but, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting thinking about, you know, like this idea of stuttering as, you know, as like a, as like a, as like a glitch, like as something that goes wrong because that like assumes an ideology, right?

That like assumes that there's something that it's deviating from and like that is normal. And the thing that is, that it's deviating from is like bad, you know? Um, so [00:17:00] I'm also interested and, you know, I, I think, I think, you know, like this is where, you know, Typically, we get into conversations about ableism and the social model of disability and all of that.

Um, but it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, I'm also interested in sort of those sort of structural questions about like, you know, it's like, like, you know, it's like, whose language is more valuable than others? Like, like, like, you know, it's like, why are, like, you know, it's like, why is one way of speaking considered this way?

And. One and another way of speaking considered less valuable or something like that. It's like, you know, these are all intersectional kind of fascinating questions that, that, that I think are sort of underlying these conversations as well. And what work like influences your, your film making? A piece that was, [00:18:00] Or that has been pretty influential on me and that I like a lot is a, excuse me, uh, is it's a, um, it's sort of a sound installation slash performance piece by this, um, American composer.

His name is Alvin Lussier, um, and he made this, this work back in 1969 called I am sitting in a room. I don't know if you've ever heard of this before. It's he's a. Alvin Lucier passed away only a few years ago, but, you know, sort of in that kind of 60s, 70s, like modern art, um, sort of like world, he was, he was, he was very active, um, during that sort of era, but, uh, The piece I am sitting in a room is interesting because I mean, Lucier was an artist who stuttered and I don't think that he [00:19:00] like did a lot of advocacy work or at least I can't find much evidence of doing of like him doing like advocacy work around it, but he made a really interesting sound pieces that sort of explore stuttering in this way that I think is really fruitful and helpful.

So to just. Describe, I am sitting in a room. It's like essentially you go into a room can be any room and you set up a microphone, a recording device, um, and a speaker and you, the idea is that you record yourself reading from the script, this sort of like paragraph of text that Lucia wrote, that's basically describing kind of what you're doing.

Okay. And then you play back that recording inside of the room and then record it and then play it back and then record it and then play it back and you kind of do that over and over and over [00:20:00] again until the sort of like resonant frequencies of of the space that you're recording in kind of just takes over the sound and it kind of slowly over time evolves from just like this kind very rote straight up recitation into this like Um, sort of a tonal ambient soundscape drone.

That's kind of like reminiscent of like music by like, uh, Brian, you know, or something like that. And it's. And in, and in that last line of text that you sort of like read out, um, Lussier like has a line that's like essentially like, um, he's saying that he's creating this as a way to, to smooth out any irregularities in his speech.

So the idea being that if you speak it and you are a person who speaks with a stutter, for instance, you kind of create your own kind of [00:21:00] sonic fingerprint. of the piece in that particular room at that particular time. And so it creates this kind of signature, this kind of sonic fingerprint that I think is just one very, like, just like, poetic and beautiful, but also like, it's like having a stutter, like you're stuttering.

Stutter is your fingerprint because everyone stutters uniquely and in their own way. And so, you know, for me, like that piece is such a fruitful starting place because it touches on all of these different aspects of stuttering and the experience of stuttering, but. It sort of examines it from this really thoughtful and sort of transformative way.

Um, that is just, you know, I, I, I, I've ever since sort of like learning about that piece like years ago, I, I, I just kind of find myself coming back to it over and over again and [00:22:00] seeing all of the different ways people have performed it. And like, you know, some people have performed it and, you know, like, cathedrals and, you know, all of these different, like, um, all of these different, you know, Kinds of spaces and it's just it's it's unique and it's different every single time Well, I have not heard of that and I'm surprised that I haven't definitely gonna check it out and like being a person who stutters working in academia, like I just remember going through college and Getting my master's it was Yeah, it was just it was tough to navigate the the academic environment and I'm not sure if if it's You know if you have a similar struggle Academia, I think is especially hard for people who's Better because, um, as much as academia, I think, [00:23:00] espouses or thinks of itself as the sort of enlightened, uh, inclusive place, um, you know, there are the same kind of, I think, ableist assumptions that are baked into that space as well, you know, um, I can think of few places where, you know, how you speak and, you know, sounding, you know, Intelligence or erudite.

Is so valued as it is in like an academic space like, you know, like that's often like the sole criteria by which you are judged, you know, and and and you are sort of evaluated and you're sort of your intelligence is gauged and it can be, you know, really difficult and I think really stressful if you're a person who stutters trying to navigate that because, you know, you could be, you know, Very well adept.

You could [00:24:00] be, you know, the smartest person in your field, but if there is a perception of you as like not being able to speak well, or you, or, you know, um, they don't want to put you in front of students or something like that, you know, that can be like materially harmful for you, or that could have negative consequences for you.

You know? Um, I remember, you know, back when I was in grad school and I had to teach, uh, you know, I got, I got, you know, some pretty nasty like reviews from students and things like that. You know, it's like that can be, you know, that can just be a very difficult space to kind of navigate and to to be successful.

And when you're just sort of running up against, um, you know, all of those, all of those kind of. ableist assumptions and things like that and sort of, um, not even just assumptions, but like structures of power, you know, [00:25:00] um, I think like one thing, you know, and I've thought about this, uh, a few times, I think like one really kind of formative memory that I have was, you know, when I was in college and I was in a seminar, you know, it was a sort of, I was in my third or fourth year of college, and I was in a, you know, in a smaller class where, you know, the whole kind of idea was, it wasn't It's like you all, you know, sit around and you talk about, you know, ideas and issues.

And I think it was this particular class was about, was about different kinds of poetry. And, um, you know, I remember going and speaking with the professor, uh, During his office hours. And, you know, I think like the topic of like, you know, speaking in class came up and I, you know, and I said something to the effect of like, you know, yeah, like, you know, I, I wish sometimes I could speak in class more, [00:26:00] but just often I feel I, I just feel very self conscious because of this like highly academic space that we're in.

And I feel kind of judged and it just, it, it, it kind of gives me a lot of anxiety. And, you know, he kind of said to me, he was like, you know, like two, he's like, well, you don't have to worry about that because you talk more than anyone else in the class. And I think you're the only one who actually has an excuse not to talk.

And, you know, I would qualify that by saying, you know, I think there's plenty of, Valid reasons other than having a stutter to not maybe necessarily want to like to like speak up in that type of environment. But I think for me, like, that was 1 of the 1st. Times in my life that I think anyone who was in like a position of power, like spoke to me about my stuttering in a way that wasn't like conciliatory or clinical or like, quote unquote trying to help me.

Um, you know, and they just kind of conveyed in this [00:27:00] almost kind of effortless way like that. My voice and my way of speaking was just kind of valuable just the way that it was. Um, and, you know, I think for me, that was particularly meaningful being in an academic space where, you know, um, your value is often judged about how smart you can sound, you know what I mean?

So, uh, yeah, yeah. That was also the same teacher who also gave me, um, a copy of Jordan Scott's Blurt, which is, uh, Jordan Scott, uh, Is a poet, and I believe you wrote a children's book. Most recently, I talk like a river, but he, he, he, he has a book of poetry called Blurt, um, that he actually, I can't remember if he gave it to me or if he just recommended it to me, but, um, I still have that copy, um, and it's, it's, it's, it's a great sort of book of poetry.

That's sort of about fettering. And that was another, I think, sort of, [00:28:00] you know, early kind of, you know,

Formative like a thing that I read that kind of really got me thinking like, Oh, I can, I can also maybe think about my stutter in another way and maybe use it as a sort of jumping off point for like making art or making movies or what have you. Another thing I wanted to bring up with you is, you know, we're both filmmakers who are Creating films on the topic of stuttering and there's also Filmmakers who stutter out there who you know tell stories that aren't related to stuttering But I'm sure many of them, you know pull from their lived experience And, you know, that stuttering identity, like, I'm imagining can, like, play somewhat of a role, like, in [00:29:00] their, in their storytelling.

Yeah, and I mean, I think that that can be a hard thing to do kind of head on, you know, because it can feel, you know, almost, like, too big or too heavy to try to, like, wrap your arms around. I think that A guest that you had on a while back, um, Steve Anthopoulos, I think I'm, I think I'm saying his name correctly, had a short film called Voice Activated that was about the guy who has a stutter who gets, um, stuck with a voice activated car and all of the sort of antics that happen around that.

And, you know, I, I, I went and I, and I saw that film, um, I found it online after I, I listened to your interview with him on this podcast, and I, I, you know, that, that was one representation of stuttering that I felt like it was very [00:30:00] real, and it was very, um, you know, it was really funny and relatable, but without being like You know, pitying or mocking or cruel or, you know, how you kind of see stuttering represented in a lot of sort of narrative filmmaking, like either it's like a person to be pitied or, um, someone to be made fun of, they're like the butt of a joke or something like that.

But then, you know, sort of the climax of that movie or of that short film, you know, is, is, is just this really. Kind of lovely instructive moment about like how to deal with someone who is stuttering that like doesn't feel like it's like wagging its finger at you or anything like that. It's just like really beautiful and You know, yeah, I don't really have any other [00:31:00] way to describe it.

It's just really lovely. Um, and you know, I'm like hard pressed to think of like a better like, representation in contemporary film about, of, of like, you know, someone who is, debtors, but I'm like not an expert on the subject and I haven't seen everything of course, but you know I think about like other movies that are like told from that perspective like told from the perspective of someone who is navigating the world who has a Disability, um, a film that I saw a couple years ago that I think does this really well in a similar vein is called I didn't see you there, uh, by Reid Davenport, which I think has now won like lots of awards and things like that.

But it's, you know, shot in Oakland. Um, it's, it's sort of all about, you know, his experience. Using a wheelchair and like navigating the city and, you know, um, exploring this idea [00:32:00] of freaks and the freak show. Cause it's big circuits tent shows up in front of his house. And, you know, it's just this, this really well constructed essay film that I think just kind of tells a story from a very specific perspective and sort of gives you an idea of lived experience.

That is just like, I, I like, like that film is just. Very, I think in that respect, just like masterful. Um, another thing that, or another piece that comes to mind that I can think of is by, um, Jerome Ellis, who I know you've also had on the show as well. Uh, they had a piece in, I think it came out in 2020. I don't know if that's the actual year.

That's the year that it says on YouTube, but it's called, uh, the piece is called transcripted. I'm not sure if you've seen this one or not. It's where, yeah, it's, it's, it's sort of the screen capture of [00:33:00] Jerome Ellis kind of transcribing the recording of a reading that they gave, including sort of all of the pauses for when they encounter blocks, sort of in real time, like, Type in it out on on screen.

So, you know, uh, they would like represent a block with just like a long string of that particular letter that they're blocking on. So, you have these, like, passages of silence with just like, the letter D just sort of like multiplying across the, like, um, screen, for example. And like, that's such a simple.

clever, like, visually rich piece, you know? And it kind of, like, collapses the space between, like, the temporal nature of the reading and the inherently, kind of, atemporal, atemporal nature of, like, a written transcript as, like, a flat static object, you know? And kind of, like, [00:34:00] Putting those two things in contact with each other, uh, via this sort of phenomenon of stuttering.

It's just like, you know, finding like almost like those like little jokes that you can make, you know, I think can be really, really helpful and really sort of powerful. Um, especially when you're talking about something that I think can be really hard to represent on screen, like stuttering, because, you know, oftentimes stuttering is just like.

The absence of something right. It's like the like absence of sound. It's the absence of, of, of forward momentum in a conversation that can be. And, you know, that's a, that's a really difficult thing to, to put on, on screen and make it, uh, Interesting and relatable, you know? Yeah, and what I am kind of finding as we're making this documentary is Because stuttering is so [00:35:00] misunderstood and because it's so hard to capture visually It leaves a lot of room for creativity And really, like, thinking in a completely different way of how to show and have people feel what it's like to live with a stutter.

No, for sure. I, I was, I was kind of thinking about that, like this idea that you're saying about like, you know, it's sort of like what's What's the angle you can approach it with and sort of how can you kind of, um, like, whittle it down to something that feels sort of manageable and I, I, I was thinking about that a lot when I made my latest film that I did.

Released earlier this year called disfluency circuit that, um, I think to me was a lot more difficult to make. Um, I think as a result, it might be harder to approach, but [00:36:00] really, I was kind of coming at thinking about. Stuttering like from like the, from the sort of like neurological kind of level like thinking about like stuttering as something that is very much like rooted in the physical body and like sort of what that is.

experiences at like the physiological electrical kind of level. And so this film, Disfluency Circuit, I think is coming out of this tradition of the flicker film, an experimental film and video. Um, you see this in like pretty established artists in this space, sort of like, you know, people like, uh, Paul Sherratt's Tony Conrad, those kinds of big, heavy hitter art names.

Um, and you know, I think, or like a common feature of these films is that they sort of utilize these heavy kind of [00:37:00] Um, strobing effects with lights to kind of bring about or engender some kind of new sonic visual psychological experience in the viewer. And it's often pretty abstract, but I think for me, like that was like, a useful way for approaching this idea of stuttering as like this neurological kind of phenomenon.

And, um, for me, that began with doing a lot of archival research, kind of like when I made my, my earlier film, Dark the Mondeo, you know, I was looking at a lot of different resources, resources, and like the National Library of Medicine online archives, um, you know, looking at just this whole host of really fascinating, um, materials about different, you know, quote unquote, cures and scientific and also very much not scientific, uh, investigations into like the causes of and [00:38:00] treatments for stuttering, like going back to like the early 19th century and things like that.

I think, um, I think that the poet Jordan Scott, who I mentioned earlier also has done some really. Interesting work about sort of investigating these sort of various historical cures, quote, unquote, and folk remedies that people from various cultures have have have sort of come up with first uttering, like, going back centuries, but in addition to kind of looking at, like, A lot of this historical material.

I also wanted to look at contemporary research as well. And in doing so, I kind of came across these, um, these, these, these, these, like, neurological sort of like mapping models. that I end up kind of utilizing and repurposing in the film and this really great article from 2021 by Lydia Denworth and Scientific American that kind of walks you through [00:39:00] this kind of shift in thinking that's happened in the past few decades about sort of uttering as like a neurological condition and not as like a psychological or a behavioral condition, which kind of has been the prevailing belief in like science and speech pathology and all that.

The, the other thing that that article offers is this idea of the Stuttering circuit, which is coming out of research at the University of Michigan that is as much as I can understand complex neurological research, sort of, um, looking to kind of map like at the neural fiber level, um, these incredibly complex electrical mechanisms inside of the brain that fire off when we speak and how that can be disrupted, resulting in disfluency.

Um, And I also tried to be intentional about a little about sort of [00:40:00] the language I used around the film and using using disfluency as it's spelled in the title with this sort of D. Y. S. Uh, uh, prefix, like you would spell dystopia or dyslexia. Um, and there's this, there's this great blog post by, um, this, uh, philosopher who speaks with a stutter called Joshua St.

Pierre, who makes this argument that the. Prefix D. Y. S. like points to something more like a transgression. Whereas D. I. S. means means just simply that there's a lack of so he has this quote that I really, really like that. I like wrote down here. It says when we stutter, we are transgressing the entire moral code of how society expects us to speak to stutter is to disobey to overstep the narrow boundaries of able bodied speech and, you know, you think about that, like, okay.

Aligning pretty clearly with like, you know, [00:41:00] what Jerome Ellis like writes about in the like clearing, you know, that amazing essay and album of theirs from a couple of years ago. So, you know, that's sort of a long way of kind of coming around to saying, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm like aiming to kind of bring all of this.

Together, you know, sort of looking at this idea of sort of this faulty wiring that we have in our bodies and these sort of broader expectations and customs that are imposed upon us by a culture that is, you know, really driven unconsciously in a lot of ways by just constant consumption. And I think a whole host of really kind of like ableist presuppositions about Like, what kinds of bodies and what ways of speaking have more or less value?

Um, and I think, you know, this is where, like, sort of the tropes and syntax and sort of histories of experimental [00:42:00] film, uh, and, you know, things like sound art and things like that are really, uh, Useful and helpful and interesting to sort of convey this as like a bodily experience, you know, whether that's, um, you know, whether that's like legible or successful, or, um, I don't know, relatable to other people, I guess, uh, is, you know, something I'm probably going to, you know, Continue to worry about and continue sort of working on, you know, in my, uh, in my future work as well.

And are you working on any films, um, right now? I'm not working on anything currently. I've been working on a lot of music, uh, lately, but I don't really have any, um, I don't really have any film work immediately kind of in the pike. I'm, I'm, I'm fortunate that, um, or I guess both fortunate and unfortunate that I don't make films as my job.

Um, I work in a library as my job. So, you know, I've, [00:43:00] um, filmmaking is, is, you know, something I kind of do on my own time in my own terms. So it's, it's, it's It's something I, you know, I kind of, I, I have the luxury of sort of just like waiting for an idea or availability to sort of strike me for me to be able to like work on stuff.

But, um, no, right now I'm not really working on anything all that actively. I'm sort of. Submitting this film like around, uh, some festivals it's gotten in a few and I'm like waiting to hear back and, uh, you know, we'll, we'll see how like widely it, uh, it, it, like it's the play. David, thank,

Dave, thank you so much for being on Proudstetter. It was so fun talking about film with you. And yeah, [00:44:00] I'm. I'm excited to hopefully be able to collaborate with you on a cool project in the future. Absolutely. Um, you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a huge fan of like what you do and I'm sure you hear this all the time, but, uh, you know, please keep doing what you're doing.

It's, it's really valuable. Um, it's, It's really great and helpful. Um, you know, I wish I had something like this when I was younger, although podcast didn't exist when I was younger. Uh, but you know, um, it's, it's, it's, it's just really awesome what you're doing and it has been an honor. And yeah, thank you very much.

And that's it for this episode of proud stutter. This episode of proud stutter was produced and edited by me. Maya Chupkov. Our music was composed by Augusto Diniz [00:45:00] and our artwork by Mara Ezekiel and Noah Chupkov. If you have an idea or want to be part of a future episode, visit us at www. proudstutter.

com. And if you like the show, you can leave us a review wherever you are listening to this podcast. Want to leave us a voicemail? Check out our show notes for the number to call in. More importantly, tell your friends to listen too. Until we meet again, thanks for listening. Be proud and be you.