TREES
“The hills are alive with the sound of music / With songs they have sung for a thousand years,” sang Julie Andrews almost sixty years ago. Little do we know the world is also alive with the sound of trees. From conception to afterlife, from infancy to old age: trees are full of vigour. But that is not something we easily sense. The magazine we’re making is printed on fibres derived from wood. As you turn its pages, the rustle you create is the last sound these fibres will ever produce.
In five instalments, the podcast TREES communes with them to better understand their past and envisage their future. Julie Andrews ends her song with “I go to the hills when my heart is lonely, I know I will hear what I’ve heard before (...), and I’ll sing once more.” With the help of artists, lawyers, thinkers and wood experts, TREES makes noises you’ve never heard before.
TREES is the second MacGuffin podcast series, produced to accompany MacGuffin Magazine Nº 12 The Log. The six-part series is made by Alix de Massiac with sound design by Nathalie Bruys, mixed by Tom Ruijg.
Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify from 15.10.24
TREES TRAILER
2. RUSSIANS TSARS AND DUTCH TV QUEENS
In Episode 2, the staff of the Stadsbank give us the grand tour of the shop, a popular destination for shoppers looking for a bargain. The items on sale get sold at a blistering pace. As soon as the shop opens up on Monday, people pour in and buy earrings and rings and necklaces and the odd silver serving platter...These customers often have little to do with customers that pawn their jewellery, and despite buying their jewellery don’t know much about them.
3. A COLD DRINK
Come Friday, the showcase of the shop is empty and we meet a customer looking for a little extra cash to buy his girlfriend dinner and some flowers. Forty euros can have different meanings for different people from all walks of life. A glass of wine for a manager is another weekend well spent for a customer, who narrates the worst day of his life: the day he lost the necklace his father gave him when he was born.
4. THE PRICE OF GOLD
We hear an appraiser exchange with a customer, who can get more money for an item he’s pawned before. The Stadsbank uses a calculation that fluctuates and with which they figure out how much money they can lend and what the interest rate on it will be. This calculation is primarily based on the price of gold. So when the price of gold does go up, as a customer you’re in luck and you can get more on the same piece of jewellery. Some customers keep a close watch of the economy, and come in on a weekly basis to pawn and repawn items.
5. THE GRAVE OF THE FORGOTTEN LOAN SHARKS
In the fifth and final instalment, Mariken, the manager of the Stadsbank, tells us all about its future. Having gradually expanded and then reduced in size over the lifespan of its 400 plus years, this institution is facing some challenges. Just like the price of gold, the Stadsbank is contingent on a big and fluctuating ecosystem of people and policies.
