puppet something to come

Carly, Jacob & I are putting together a something:

Oddmusic U-C* presents: 25% MORE, a music-o-puppet extravaganza, coming to a Minneapolis near you November 7-9, 2009.

25% MORE takes a sideways ponder at the tyranny of work, the tyranny of measurement systems, and the tyranny of doing something different.

We'll offer an evening of workshops and songs, with a main entrée of original puppets & music by Carly Nix, Jacob Barton & Andrew Heathwaite.

“Whaddaya mean, workshops?” Imagine 20-minute crash courses in:

GHOST-WHALIN' -or- How to play the musical saw
UDDERBOTSMITH -or- How to tootle with a slide bottle
METABLUES -or- How to think in 22-tone guitar
REP. CARDS -or- How to art yourself out of bad grooves
AUDIENCING -or- How to give multiple attentions
DESIRING WITH TEETH -or- How to make unfortunately false statements

* Oddmusic Urbana-Champaign “is” a project to connect experimental composition, performance art, nonstandard tuning practices & instrument-building with non-sectarian radical social change. We insist upon “music” as a type of “odd,” desirable when it avoids the same old society telling itself what it already knows.

Popcorn Jam

When I say Popcorn Jam, I refer to an event of improvised music coupled w/ tasty popcorn popping nearby for happy consumption. You know that feeling you get when th popcorn is popping? That anticipation? We groove w/ our anticipation, make it our lover. Et cetera. Below: one minute from a typical atypical Popcorn Jam, featuring J.P. Goguen on banjo, Jacob Barton on udderbot (actually, in this instance, condombot) & me on toy piano:

nowish then

Hi hi hi hi hi.

I postaway to youtosee, you see? Sohi hi hi hi & say & one I say hi.

Hm. I livebreathe(etc) in Urbana, IL (I know that already!). Our house has five new chickens as of yesterday (total equals ten).

I have projects begun & notbegun. It grins me to tell you that I don't know.

What can I say to you?

Jacob & I played Ultima this very evening. Last night, we plus Annamichael played also Go.

What else?

Th students & friends of th School for Designing a Society have a wiki that they(we) like to play in called polyproject. Some traces of my work & doings you can find there (if you want to stalk me & this blog doesn't cut th mustard these days); see especially AndR.

Also, my school has a blog.

These days, you might find me:

• participating in a popcorn jam (improvised music plus popcorn, ritualized).
  
• walking my beagle.
  
• taking lots of notes on lots of conversations.
  
• writing performance instructions on index cards.
  
• wrangling chickens.
  
• wearing skirts about town.
  
• reading cybernetics.
  
• wearing my heart on my sleeve.
  
• wishing I wore my heart on my sleeve.
  
• getting potatoes thrown at me.
  
• poking around on my keyboard in 17edo.
  
• rehearsing in a 3-man protoband (or a fledgling udderbot choir).
  
• etc.

room house dog bana

In Urbana, I now live, & no where else - in a room & a house - w/ dog & dog - w/ art-doers - whereat pianos get burned on pyres to celebrate anniversaries of birth & livingtogetherness. We have a living room w/ newly-painted redwalls. We make delicious togetherfoods & grand musicks pour out of pores.

Jacob & I have done a bit of playing - on udderbot, he, & also recorder - on stringthings I - at farmer's market for happyfaces - futurized to do a show at Red Herring Coffee House on September 5 (& do come!). We begin classes for School for Designing a Society on th morrow - & today th school holds an "open house" to which we intend to infinitive-splittingly go.

Playing: yes. I continue to write wee 17edo cumbus tunes incorporating Book of Days. One more since moving I have written. Computer troubles keep me from immediately recording, but I want to share when I can share. Jacob & I wish write togetherthings. Perhaps strange collaborative wonders will also emerge.

My beagle loves it here. She got lots of pets from lots of humans at partything last night. So it goes.

I want visitors! Those of you round about Chicago will find it easy to Greyhound or Amtrak to me. Elsewise, you can travel first to Chicago, then down here from there, easy as pi.

Ten thousand lovebuttons,
AndR