Jacob Young, Jesco White and other Important West Virginians

I wrote about filmmaker Jacob Young over at Zona Motel today. I’m sharing the first bit of the essay here- click through to Zona Motel to read the rest.

Jacob Young told me to call him on his house phone. It rang for a long time. I thought about the fact that I was calling a landline. I pictured it ringing in the hallway of an old wooden house. I have no idea what Jacob Young’s house looks like, but I have created an image from a glimpse of a white wooden building in the background of several shots on John Pierson’s Split Screen S6-E5. My imaginary version of Jacob Young’s house is an amalgamation of all the houses I spent time in as a child in southern West Virginia; houses with sprawling, half-wild vegetable gardens and aluminum awnings over every window, keeping the outside out and the inside in; houses cool and dark in the summertime, smelling of hard candy.

“Hello?”

His voice sounded far away. I introduced myself and asked if this was a good time to talk. Alright, he said, this should work, he just needed to wake up a little bit first. I told him I could call back later but he said no, just hang on. I could hang on, I said, no problem; I’d been hanging on for twenty-two years.

Read the rest at Zona Motel.