My piece starts out with the hum of cicadas playing over the background speakers, about 3 seconds in a chair sound scrapes from the right, and dominos are being poured out and shuffled. An old woman’s voice (my grandmother's) starts speaking over the background speakers telling the story of how my great-grandmother used to shuffle dominos. Still coming from the right speaker, the sound of 3 more chairs scraping out can be heard as the three other people sit down to play. The dominos are picked and the game begins. As the woman’s voice fades out, the left speaker finally makes a loud noise of a chair scooting out and cards being shuffled immediately followed by a male voice over the background speakers (my grandfather) diving into a story about the history of cribbage in my family. Throughout the story, both sides are still playing. The voice fades out and again the dominos are shuffled and the background speaker plays a segment from my grandmother about how 42 was passed down through my family. Again both games continue like before. However, when my grandmother talks about passing the tradition down to her kids and how it then got passed down to my cousins and me, faint voices bidding (a vocal aspect of the game 42 in which players must bet a certain number of points that they are going to make, 42 being the high- est bid) can be heard coming from the right speaker. The dialogue ends with a combination of both my grandmother and grandfather trying to tell a story about Lyndon Johnson, but they end up overlapping each other. I consider this last part essential to the piece because it brings together the two voices into one presence and highlights the family aspect of the game. I chose to interview my grandparents on this subject two-fold. One, there are the most knowledgeable about 42 and cribbage. Two, they are the ones that taught us how to play.
Back to Top