memory erosion / family archive

2013 vs. 2021 feat. andrew bird's 'ethio invention no.1'

In 2013 my mom sold our family home for a variety of reasons. At the time, my experiments with video were extremely rudimentary at best, but I felt the need to walk around areas of the property that held some significance to me- thinking maybe I’d do something with the footage later. 8 years since then, I’ve started to appreciate how even digital mediums are organic and subject to decay- and how my memories of this place and time are fickle despite being clearly documented and saved/preserved.

On April 16th, 1961, my Great Grandfather, Harry B. Latina guest-starred on a show called "What's My Line," a show where a string of notable people tried to guess his profession through a series of identifying questions.

At one time, Harry and his son Roland held about 90 percent of all baseball glove patents in the United States. The Latinas' glove designs were used by Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, Brooks Robinson, Roberto Clemente and others.

Derived from the French, “DeLatinet,” - “Latina” is written in a fanciful cursive and this leads the panel and host to mistake his name for “Latino” throughout the episode.

Of my ancestors, he is probably the one I hear about the most, and despite never meeting him, one I feel as though I know pretty well. The son of an absent father, I know him as a man who took that absence and shaped it into the inverse. Every opportunity to treat himself and his family, he took. Unafraid of exploring new things, even if it meant agreeing to be on a game show and being terribly nervous about it, so nervous as to not correct his name when asked. Additionally, he was a complete camera nerd, and thanks to him his family has a whole archive of his slice of time and the people in it.

Made for sleepwave by racertrash, and part of an ongoing family project, Run The Ghost.

Original full episode of “What’s My Line”