a special thank-you

I want to thank Alan Berliner. I met with Alan last Fall, and a visiting class studying film archiving at NYU suggested I begin this specific process of saving old family photos. Alan is a truly gifted, imaginative, and creative documentary filmmaker. Thank-you again, Alan, for graciously inviting me to your studio. Your help and ideas continue to inspire me to work on this project (which now has over 350 entries and exists as a memoir). Here is a site I found dedicated to this theme: family old photos. And below is a photo of my mother's ancestors taken in Vilna... and a photo of my father's family taken in Brooklyn in 1916. My father is the little boy sitting on the stoop looking back at his older brother.



On an old maroon table in my grandmother’s house sat an incandescent pink seashell. I would hold it to my ear and hear the far-away sounds of the ocean. In the foyer, the steady whir and flutter of the slats on off-white Venetian blinds made me sleepy... as chill winds passed through the most haunted and haunting of places: Brooklyn.