Cassette From My Ex
Mixtapes were a part of my high school and college years-as they were for many folks of my generation. So when I found out about Jason Bitner’s book, Cassette from My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves. As detailed at the book’s website (which features many of the essays as well as the mixtapes as well), the book is described as follows:
“Cassette From My Ex marries confessional culture projects like Mortified, PostSecret, and Six-Word Memoirs with the nostalgia and heartache of Rob Sheffield’s Love Is A Mixtape and gathers these tales of being young, in love, and making mixtapes for your crush.
CFME compiles stories from some amazing writers and musicians: author Rick Moody, The Magnetic Fields’ Claudia Gonson, This American LIfe’s Starlee Kine, The New Yorker’s Ben Greenman, Blender Magazine’s Joe Levy, Improv Everywhere’s Charlie Todd, Mortified’s David Nadelberg– even a new story from the godfather of the genre, Rob Sheffied.
We put a ton of love into the design, too, with 224 full-color pages designed by noted cassetteophile Lissi Erwin, with cover illustrations by the excellent Hope Gangloff.”
Bitner is “the co-creator of FOUND Magazine, and editor of DIRTY FOUND and the FOUND Polaroid Book.” Also, in a follow-up to his 2006 book about LaPorte, Indiana-Bitner is producing a documentary of the same name (directed by Joe Beshenkovsky), set to hopefully have some screenings this summer. We get to discuss that project as well. My thanks to Bitner for his time and I wish him the best of luck with his upcoming production, a baby daughter.
Tim O’Shea: What are some of the biggest logistical challenges when collecting a book like this?
Jason Bitner: You’re the first person to ask me that question, strangely enough. It seems like a pretty simple project, but there’s a lot of work behind the scenes to bring it all together.
The short answer is communication, lots of communication with all sorts of writers, editors, designers, and press folks. A quick look through my inbox shows it took around 5000 emails from the beginning of the project til today to get everything together and out to the world.
And specifically with Cassette From My Ex, we had to get people to track down these old mixtapes. There were many parents searching through attics and basements on the hunt for these dusty tapes.
O’Shea: Have you heard about any ex’s that have got back in contact with folks after reading about their own mixtapes in the book (or on the website)?
Bitner: I’ve heard from a handful of the contributors that they’d been back in touch with the creators of the tapes, yes. But I haven’t yet heard of old flames reuniting for a second go at the relationship. At best, I suspect that a bunch are now Facebook friends. That’s how we roll these days.
O’Shea: Do you think this project can appeal to today’s teens who are swimming in digital waters or folks born before the late 1960s (if we consider the mixtape generation to be born between 1968-1985)?
Bitner: Initially I figured this would be a project that appealed mostly to thirty-somethings, like myself, who made and received mixtapes back in the late 80s through the end of the 90s. It turns out, though, that the audience is lot wider than I’d guessed. Of course the music and cassette tapes were specific to a particular era, but this is much more a storytelling project about love, and love gone wrong- something we can all relate to. We’ve got sixty stories in the book detailing relationships and their aftermaths. And we guarantee that there’s not a single story that ends in a success story. Teens who’ve read the book really appreciate knowing that they’re not the only ones who are going through these intense crushes and brutal breakups. And I talked with a guy named Bob in Chicago who is still making mixtapes today at the age of 74, hoping to woo a new girlfriend with love songs by Rick Astley and Perry Como. Viva la mixtape!
O’Shea: Back when I made mixtapes, I could never leave any blank space-I’d plug in anything, Monty Python snippets, what have you. What was your philosophy on mixtapes, do you allow folks to “enjoy the silence” and leave some blank space or not?
Bitner: Every good mixtape maker had a back pocket of short songs to fill that dreaded 90 second space at the end of side B. Or sometimes people would use the janky mic on their boombox to record a message to the listener “Hope you liked the tape… can’t wait to see you in Geometry tomorrow.” A creative mixtape maker would find a purpose for the silent space.
O’Shea: One of my best memories of a mixtape gone wrong was a situation where I made a tape for a girl (file this woman/tape in the unrequited love/lust category) and included the Beatles’ Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? (I was trying to fill a blank space on the tape, I swear, nothing else) Unfortunately she left the tape in her mom’s car tape deck, from what I heard later she was one unhappy mother. In compiling the book did you hear any similar tales of mixtapes that fell into the wrong decks, so to speak?
Bitner: Oh lord, that’s an awesome story. I’d heard nothing of the sort, so I love it all the more. You’re lucky you weren’t caught talking dirty to her on the tape. You really need to be conscious of the message you’re sending with the song titles and lyrics- they can land a person in some hot water.
O’Shea: Of your mixtape experience over the years, is there any song or musician that you really appreciate more than other songs, because of the mixtape association?
Bitner: While we didn’t put my story in the book (it lives only here), I wrote about this tape I received when I was sixteen from my then-girlfriend. She was incredibly skilled- actually more of a savant of the medium. All I can say is she OWNS the theme song to Archie Bunker- I’ll never hear that song without being reminded of her and her mixes.
O’Shea: Back in college I studied folklore as a minor-and one impression I took away from it (back in the late 1980s) was that the art or storytelling was being negatively impacted by the ever-increasing presence of technology (TVs, VCRS, CD players-back then). But when I look at projects like this, or Found, or This American Life, I think technology such as the Internet has helped in some ways do revitalize an interest in storytelling? Do you think technology has helped foster storytelling or hindered it?
Bitner: The internet has revolutionized storytelling, there’s no doubt about it. While some people have pushed the medium to figure out new structural ways for stories to unfold, I’m psyched about how we have access to so many peoples’ stories. That’s my favorite thing: other people’s stories. Sure, they might need to be curated, but I love true life stories much more than I love fiction, and I now have access to more stories than I could ever read.
The internet is perfect for projects like Six-Word Memoirs. Everyone truly does have a story.
O’Shea: How goes your next project, the documentary on LaPorte, Indiana? I was impressed to see you had exceeded your Kickstarter fundraising goal.
Bitner: First off, I want to say that Kickstarter is amazing. The film’s director, Joe Beshenkovsky, and I wanted to figure out a way to get an audience actively involved in the production of the film. Just when we were about to explore options for online donations, I heard about Kickstarter and the guys there gave us an early invite. We love crowdsourced projects, and were psyched to be one of the first films funded by backers at Kickstarter.
We’re nearing completing of LaPorte, Indiana, and hope to set up some screenings in the Midwest this summer, with festivals to follow. Joe is amazing to work with- he won an Emmy last year for his work on the This American Life TV show, and LaPorte will be his directorial debut. I’m really proud to be a part of the project.
O’Shea: Is there anything else you’d like to discuss that I neglected to ask you about?
Bitner: Well, my next project comes out in six weeks or so. It’s a girl!
