After President Trump’s inauguration in 2017, artist Edith Vonnegut was outraged. Her response? She embarked on a creative frenzy of artistic works, one a day, for the first 100 days (except on the days that the new president was playing golf), with a few pranks along the way.
Meanwhile, I was a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT, taking a class in short docs with Vivek Bald. Thanks to Edie for letting me follow her around, filming, learning as I went along.
Here’s her story.
Twice a week, someone spectacular walks through the door of the Knight Science Journalism office door. As part of the fellowship, we have these seminars twice a week, and Director Deborah Blum has set up a stellar lineup of scientists, authors, journalists, and scholars to come speak with us about their work. It is, as they say, an honor and a privilege.
Renowned linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky was scheduled to come earlier in the semester and then had to cancel due to a cold. Perhaps it was a blessing. The rescheduled day was November 17th, the week following the election that would upset American politics and set the stage for Donald Trump to be our next president.
We had new questions for our visitor. The fellows pooled our inquiries, and with Lauren Whaley and Iván Carillo overseeing audio-video, I sat down in a chair opposite Professor Chomsky to ask him at least a few of our collective questions.
