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.

hello from/to September

I just noticed I haven't blogged here since June. I've kept myself busy.

Big cloudy mess (list) of what's-been-goin'-on: got a great new lover (3 months together now) ; been involved w/ School for Designing a Society Language Lab & more to come ; getting my work schedule etc. figured out for th rest of th year ; playin' 22-tone acoustic guitar & anticipating new songwriting explosions ; almost caught up on rent ; great new people moving into La Casa ; grand(e) opening for Oddmusic, & now a period of what's next ; putting my desires in order & watching them dissolve & transform each other ; helpin' some pumpkins get sun ; eating adzuki beans ; ...

FWEET

I don't know who reads this blog exactly, but if someone who does happens to have a passionate interest in Finnegans Wake, as I sometimes do, then I'd like to alert you to a website of some value.

FWEET, which stands for Finnegans Wake Extensible Elucidation Treasury has a very powerful & friendly search engine for probing th Wake. It contains over 79,000 "elucidations" about each line of th Wake, & you can search th text of th elucidations & th text of th book. For instance, a search for th word "buggy" (a word that came to mind just now) gives us one line from th Wake itself & two elucidations containing "buggy".

In th FW text, it gives us just that one line, from page 85, "buggy and bike, to walk, Wellington Park road, with the curb," & if I want to see th lines before & after it, I can click on th page number (085) & get this page.

When I do my bibliomantic divinations using Finnegans Wake, I like to nab a smallish & interesting phrase, so I'll expand that just a bit to:

open to buggy and bike, to walk, Wellington Park road, with the curb or quaker's quacknostrum under his auxter and his alpenstuck in his redhand

So today it seems we have an image of a thoroughfare & a person walking w/ a quacknostrum (quack remedy) under his arm (auxter, from oxter, armpit) & a walking stick (alpenstuck, from alpenstick) in his redhand. To whom in my life (since it's a divination for me after all) does this refer? Me? A friend? Someone to watch out for somewhere in th world? Th FW gives us a clue where to find him: somewhere open to buggy and bike. I suppose I could take that literally, altho maybe it means something else... like a blog! Ha, maybe it refers to FWEET, a website that seems very elucidating, but actually carries quacknostrum under its auxter. Hmm.

All in all, in spite of any strange divinations that may come up, I do recommend FWEET for joyful Finnegansplay.

a Bouyant Bloomsday 2009

Hi friends, & again, Happy Bloomsday. As you may recall, 105 years ago to th day, took place th events of James Joyce's Ulysses, altho some miles away in Dublin, & not here in Urbana, Illinois. (& of course, in another Dublin than th one that exists today, since time & space remain inseparable in practice indeed.)

(He flourishes his ashplant shivering the lamp image, shattering light over the world. A liver and white spaniel on the prowl slinks after him, growling. Lynch scares it with a kick.)

I don't have big plans myself; some folks're gathering in Champaign later on, says Facebook, so I'll probably join. It seems I forgot all about it last year, so simply taking a moment to poke thru Ulysses, which has sat on my shelf unread for a few years, counts for something. I quietly recited some of Finnegans Wake to myself last night, & may do that again today. But for th most part, no big plans.

However, for "old time's sake" & to renew a worthy fascination, I'll do a quick bibliomantic divination using th good FW. Ahem. Page 126:

Who do you no tonigh, lazy and gentleman?

birthday party

Happy Birthday!

I type to you now from th Orpheum Children's Science Museum, where I work th front desk these days. On my right, I hear th sounds of birthday party nomming - a cupcake cake! I gave these folks a short animal show, where they got to meet three of our critters: Windy, an ornate box turtle; Patricia, one of our bearded dragons; & Corny, th corn snake. Everybody got along swimmingly - no one eaten, no one brought to tears, no minor deaths.

Later tonight, I'll do a workshop on magic. I have about five easy tricks to show off & teach. I did a sloppy li'l preview for my house last night, & I feel good about that.

In between that & this, maybe a nap?

ThunderMe

Oh, a sleeping drunkard
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen--
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice--
So many different people
In the same device.

~53rd Calypso of Bokonon

Storm tonight, a big one, which, says Ronna, came all th way from Texas to greet us. Big thunder. Big lightning. Big me, in it.

I ran in it, jumped in it, danced in it, but mostly stood in it, w/ my arms raised. I wanted to feel every drop, hear every nuance of th constant rumbles in my ears, sense every blade of grass (getting taller!) that went between my toes. I wanted to blur th line between Me & It.

We talked about th end of th world (climate change!), & I thought, well of course th world is ending. Also beginning, both of those, in every moment. But things will never be th same again. How could they possibly?

We live in a most massive non-trivial machine. We are it. If lightning strikes me, it's not an It & a Me, separate things. It's one divine It, this very same device. Me becomes (Me) becomes () becomes...

2s & 47s

Moving lots of files from place to place. Th computer says: "Copying 2,222 items to HBParkhouse," & as I notice this & think about twos, I see th computerclock, which reads 2:22 pm. Now, of course, they say "2,197" & "2:27".

A few days ago I saw a pair of 47s, an interstate & a time. I took special note of th interstate, then noticed a carclock reading something:47.

Ah, & now that I open my book, I see that I've stopped on page 44, twice 22. Th 22nd word on page 22: "book". 22nd sentence on page 22: "That's all I wanted to say". 22nd paragraph in th book: "I can walk across the bridge hundreds of times without stepping on that board, but Margaret always steps on it."

Cali & back

Jacob & I enjoyed a magical 11 days in California ((but aren't all 11 days magical?)), returning yesterday morn on a red-eye flight. We connected with old & new friends to very quickly & thoroughly assemble a Moondog Madrigal Puppet Show, which we performed last Friday at th Community Music Center in th Mission district of San Francisco.

Louis "Moondog" Hardin wrote over 100 quirky rounds that he called madrigals, & 22 of these became music in this three-act puppet opera written by our friends Marji & Dan, who played a young student artist named Kneena (who speaks in haiku), & a mysterious Vandal, respectively. Jacob played a pitiful Professor, & our friends Robin & Peter an Angel & an Earthworm. Th rest of us (Nathan, Lembit, Paul, & yr hairy narrator) took turns playing th Student Body, a puppet representing a conglomerate of clueless college students (who speak (sort of) in pantoums) & parody an ancient Greek chorus. All of us played instruments & sang tasty Moondog rounds.

We got a good-sized audience full of friendly people, who seemed to like it quite a bit. We hope to take a next step & do more performances somewhere.

I enjoyed hilly California, altho I don't know how much of sense of it I got. I didn't do a whole lot outside of rehearsals for this show (which we had plenty of), but I did get around a bit: to Chinatown for a tea tasting; to an artist space in th Mission to chat w/ a new friend Tyson & play w/ some piano innards; to some acoustically marvelous tunnels on a mountain across th Golden Gate Bridge (which overlooked a very Herzogian fog); to a street corner at 1 am to play madrigals for five or so people; to a private birthday party at a club, also to play madrigals; to th Maker's Faire, where we pulled up some grass & serenaded some passersby; to Berkley, where our friends Andrea & Qilo live, for an Indian dinner & a potluck which hosted a conversation about Cybernetics & Somatics; to th basement of an office building getting renovated, where we spent in sleeping bags for a few nights; to City Lights, a leftist bookstore; to a forest-suburb of Santa Cruz, where eight of us lived & rehearsed for a few days, house-sitting, cooking great food, palling around; to lots of nice little coffee shops; to th airport, naturally, which pointed us home.

So we got in yesterday, & I promptly napped. I find Urbana simply marvelous to come home to. I love traveling, & I love making this place my home. (You simply must visit!) Yesterday ended, much to my surprise w/ a very late night, shared w/ someone special. I woke up late today, walked to th libary w/ my friend Ronna, started reading a new book which I so far enjoy, & picked some garlic scapes.

bits of project

Disorderly:

Tonight, Jacob & I (intend to) host a pre-opening for a space we've started renting at th IMC. Th space might host many things - at least:

• a (microtonal) musical instrument library (Instrumentarium!)
  
• a "composer's living room"
  
• an Oddmusic Ensemble
  
• an Oddmusic Collective
  
• composition workshops
  
• listening parties
  
• recording sessions
  
• composition lessons
  
• insert idea here

So we've invited folks over for a 'pre-opening' to expand our pool & seduce new oddmusicians (whatever that might mean). Workshop for potential workshop.

& very soon we travel to San Francisco to do a puppet show with An Exciting Event.

Last week, La Casa hosted House Concert VII (seventh in 'recent memory' - fourth that I've participated in). I did: an old Nodal Nim song ('5 songs of fish'); a reading of a chapter in Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons; &, w/ Jacob, a presentation inviting folks to tonight's pre-opening.

Alsonewthing: I have a new job at th Orpheum Children's Science Museum, working at th front desk, answering phones, feeding turtles, sweeping up blue sand, etc.

I made a modular calendar yesterday.

poem

(((something:)))

I do NOT feel
only
compassion for you.

I canNOT feel
less than
this complicated ache.

And,
I do NOT apologize
for
my body's language.

tell yr crush!

Hey! Today, May 7 = International Tell Your Crush Day! So do it!

I just so happen to have an international crush (or 3), who needs to know how I feel about her. (I'll get around to it after work; I've promised myself.) Probably, I've got at least a minor crush on (at least) one reader of this blog, so just in case "you know who you are," let me tell ya:

I've got a CRUSH on YOU!

Those of you just hearing about this, never fear. Go boldly - never too late. Observe th holiday - profess yr undying love. (Never mind th ridiculousness of th "undying" part. Crushers don't notice these things.) Reveal that beautiful yearning, friend!

forced brevity

I've had a cold, & now it has stolen my voice. I can speak, but it sounds dreadful. I've decided to take it as a (forced) exercise in brevity. How can I say what I need to using th very fewest words? An interesting dilemma.

Yuckvoice from cold means brevity game. How speak fewly? Neat.

Some I-can't-do-withouts

Imagining lovers. What qualities/behaviors could I not do without? A preliminary brainstorm.

• (appreciation of) absurdist humor
  
• (stated) desire to cultivate compassion for all beings
  
• identification as any (not necessarily all) of th following: feminist, anarchist, social change artist, strong agnostic, metaclown
  
• love of affection, including (but not merely) sexual affection
  
• sensitive nipples
  
• stated preference for variety & spontaneity
  
• rejection of (traditional language around) sin, gender norms, capitalism, money, faith, pop culture, sacredness
  
• ok w/ (some) biting
  
• ok w/ (some) oral sex
  
• (comfort being) orgasmic
  
• at least vegetarian, & preferably vegan
  
• interest in metaconversation & legitimate questions
  
• hairiness & general comfort w/ "being a mammal"

Not an exhaustive list, but good to see & share. Given this specificity, it's no wonder I don't have a lover in my life. But, fuck, I deserve someone this good.

3+1 Poems for Togetheringspring

A few weeks ago, I participated in a marvelous helloing to th Springtime in Evanston, hosted by Aaron & Lorna Johnson & attended by all manners of living, wine-guzzling wonderfuls. My co-conspirator Jacob Barton & I performed a newly-composed piece for microtonal piano exploring th birth cycle of a centaur. All parties danced & made merry. On this occasion, I happened to recite 3+1 poems, & having been recently asked about th poems, I will share them here.

A special thing happened that night. In candlelight, a roomful of dreamers somehow forgot about th sometimes-cruel sometimes-seemingly-artless outside & simply enjoyed each other & th togethering universe. I felt very grateful.

To prepare yrself for these short poems, I invite you to design yr own meditation for peace & rebirth. Pour yrself a glass of wine, play some music in dim lighting, feel yr body breathing, & recite these aloud.

Three by Wallace Stevens:

Tattoo

The light is like a spider.
It crawls over the water.
It crawls over the edges of the snow.
It crawls under your eyelids
And spreads its webs there--
Its two webs.

The webs of your eyes
Are fastened
To the flesh and bones of you
As to rafters or grass.

There are filaments of your eyes
On the surface of the water
And in the edges of the snow.

Life is Motion

In Oklahoma
Bonnie and Josie,
Dressed in calico,
Danced around a stump.
They cried,
"Ohoyaho,
Ohoo" . . .
Celebrating the marriage
Of flesh and air.

On the Surface of Things

I

In my room, the world is beyond my understanding;
But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four hills and a cloud.

II

From my balcony, I survey the yellow air,
Reading where I have written,
"The spring is like a belle undressing."

III

The gold tree is blue.
The singer has pulled his cloak over his head.
The moon is in the folds of the cloak.

One by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks:

Where Everything is Music

Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world's harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

The singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

it & I

In English, we capitalize pronouns when they refer to divinity. We call Jesus & th Buddha He & Him, & when they speak, they say Me & My. We don't capitalize pronouns otherwise, except for when they appear at th beginning of a sentence, & whenever we write th tiny word I. Does this mean that we recognize ourselves as divine, but no other beings, not th its, th yous, th shes in our lives? We don't even capitalize 'me', implying, perhaps, that we recognize our own divinity only when we speak of ourselves as agents of a sentence, & not when we objectify ourselves. What a special word, this I.

So what happens if I write about It & Her, You, We & Us?

Interestingly, we have just started in recent years to call ourselves lowercase 'i'. What does this say about how we feel about ourselves & our relationship to th divine?

^ Bad linguistics, I know, but maybe a worthwhile writing experiment....

(Cybernetic) Imperatives

Cybernetician Larry Richards has recently written a paper called The Anticommunication Imperative. In general, I recommend it, & in particular, I'd like to copy for you his list of 'imperatives', collected from a few sources & augmented by his newest one, which I happen to like quite a bit: If you seek the new, compose asynchronicity.

IMPERATIVES

Heinz von Foerster initiated a tradition, or what could become a tradition, when he articulated in the context of cybernetics a set of imperatives:

The Ethical Imperative: Act always so as to increase the number of choices.

The Aesthetical Imperative: If you desire to see, learn how to act.

The Therapeutic Imperative: If you want to be yourself, change!

Klaus Krippendorf later formulated the following set:

The Aesthetic Imperative: Construct your own reality to see.

The Empirical Imperative: Invent as many alternative constructions as you can and enact them to experience the constraints on their viability.

The Self-Referential Imperative: Include yourself as a constituent of your own constructions.

The Ethical Imperative: Grant others that occur in your constructions at least the same capabilities that you employ in constructing them.

The Social Imperative: When communicating, preserve or open new possibilities for others.

In this tradition, I [Larry Richards] would like to add:

The Anticommunication Imperative: If you seek the new, compose asynchronicity.

This tradition of Imperative-writing has some overlap w/ a project of Jacob's & mine -- see: repertoire cards. (Perhaps especially th repertoire card entitled 'imperatives' which contains th text, "Speak only in imperatives.") Our project also plays w/ constructions & so points at Krippendorf's set of imperatives.

As always, I invite yr response.

beerdig improvlab doodleydoo

La Casa hosted a beer dig yesterday - bribing our friends w/ alcohol to get them to dig a pond for us! Rather than re-post about it here, I'll direct you here, to th beer dig entry of th notorious La Casa Urbana blog. Mudluscious!

I zipped over to th University of Illinois this afternoon to participate in an "Improv Lab". Folks got together to play improvised music & dance improvised dances. I had hoped for something weirder & more well-attended, but I enjoyed what I got. I did a bit of mandolinning as well as dancing. I haven't spent so much time examining my toes since th age of 6 or so.

Jacob & I had a 17-tone woodshed fest this evening, no doubt annoying our housemates w/ microtonal singing, tromboning & cümbüşing exercises. More 17-tone tunes to come. Our band (band?) may have a name soon (soon?).

(beautiful) sounds of Africa

A sharing: a short video featuring music from th Baka tribe in Africa:

some latelies

Bits of nowish goings in andRLand (traveling backwards in time):

• Now: recovering from an inter-co-op potluck, lying on th oh so comfy bed in our livingroom.
  
• This evening: met w/ Snowleopard & Dogbody about playing dead people.
  
• This afternoon: started arranging th old Nim song 'how to ferment th colon' in 17edo.
  
• This morning: totaled meat at th food co-op I work at.
  
• Last night: auditioned an improvised dance w/ friend Sarah for th dance department of U of I, playing cümbüş.
  
• Yesterday afternoon: digitized.
  
• Yesterday morning: chatted w/ Drew over tea.
  
• Sunday evening: went to a lovely concert in somebody's living room.
  
• Sunday afternoon: cleaned my room; started reading th Diamond Sutra.
  
• Sunday morning: groggy house meeting.
  
• Early Sunday morning: drove home from Chicago, arriving after 2 am.
  
• Saturday evening: attended a party in candlelight at AKJ's place in Evanston, IL to ring in th spring; debuted a brand new piece w/ Jacob for a grand piano tuned to a microtonal scale called Centaur; danced & shouted; imbibed wines; recited poetry.
  
• Saturday afternoon: took Jacob to my "old neighborhood" in Chicago; we visited El Taco Veloz for lunch & Myopic Books for compulsive reading buys (for me: th Diamond Sutra & a new (for me) version of th Bhagavad Gita - for Jacob: Philosophy in th Flesh).
  
• Saturday morning: finished preparing Centaur piece w/ Jacob & rehearsed it.
  
• Friday night: saw an improv comedy show in Chicago at iO.
  
• Friday evening: arrived by accident 24 hours early for th concert in Evanston!
  
• Friday afternoon: rode north (w/ Jacob driving); made last-minute plans for our piece.
  
• Friday morning: selected poetry for spring celebration (3 by Wallace Stevens); brainstormed for Centaur piece..
  
• Thursday night: potluck at La Casa; I made black bean burgers!
  
• Thursday evening: went to Bobbi's art opening at th IMC & chatted it up.
  
• Thursday afternoon: began composing Centaur piece w/ Jacob.
  
• Thursday morning: worked at food co-op, stockin' stuff.
  
• Wednseday night: ate at Courier Cafe w/ Beth, Anna, Jacob, Mark, & th folks in Insurgent Theatre.
  
• Wednesday evening: my band w/ Rob & Jacob opened for 'Paint th Town', a play put on by Insurgent Theatre, at th IMC.
  

& so on. We could take this all th way back to my birth, I suppose, but frankly, I don't remember much before Wednesday evening....

I wants.

A poem written by my friend Susan P:

I wants.

I pushes me: this causes a personality (in) me.

Me goes along with it, jumps onto it, actually sweats it, writes lists,
worries it along, trying to accomplish something.

Meanwhile, with no personality but want, I loses interest;
I sees things moving but always away from I.

I makes events, me reports them, following along like
Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn of the movies.
Me, the tough newspaperman in a raincoat, huddled over a payphone, reporting;
I, running ahead, erratic, in a golden evening dress torn and splashed with mud.