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Barbara Rosenthal provided some reminiscence about her friend, emphasizing her closeness to Weiner. In fact Rosenthal felt so close to Weiner she imagined Weiner as an older version of her self at the time the two were friends. Following this idea, Rosenthal presented a series of videos playing on Weiner’s identity in relation to her own. The first of these videos, Rock a’ Bye Rock Lobster, featured Rosenthal singing the traditional lullaby while rocking a lobster in her arms. To the line “Rock a’ bye lobster” she added “Rock a’ bye rock lobster”. In the soundtrack of the video, one first hears Rosenthal intoning the lullaby, then Weiner, in her thickest of Rhode Island accents. The difference is striking as a moment of misidentification, Rosenthal not quite becoming Weiner nor Weiner quite Rosenthal. In the second video, Colors and Auras, one sees Rosenthal and a young girl identifying paint colors and color auras on Rosenthal’s body. These shots are intermingled with shots of Weiner watching-over the identified, naming them herself in the soundtrack. In the final video, Semaphore Poems, Weiner is seen in a grassy field (the literalized “open field” of her manuscript pages?) waving semaphore flags. Nothing is heard in the soundtrack except for the sounds of a rustic setting, seemingly amidst the lush greenery of upstate New York or Western Massachusetts. Far in the distance one sees an aged Hannah Weiner waving flags, ever the “silent teacher” (one of Weiner’s names for her profession). While this video is restive, even meditative, it is also a ghostly trace of Weiner’s person, hard to make out in the distance.
















