The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Author: DC (Page 1108 of 1133)

8 poems by Kenneth Koch + a conversation between Kenneth Koch and John Ashbery + links + Kenneth Koch talks to Mr. Rogers

Kenneth Kochin kasvot ovat kuin olisi runoilija Turusta

 

Mountain

Nothing’s moving I don’t see anybody
And I know that it’s not a trick
There really is nothing moving there
And there aren’t any people. It is the very utmost top
Where, as is not unusual,
There is snow, lying like the hair on a white-haired person’s head
Combed sideways and backward and forward to cover as much of the top
As possible, for the snow is thinning, it’s September
Although a few months from now there will be a new crop
Probably, though this no one KNOWS (so neither do we)
But every other year it has happened by November
Except for one year that’s known about, nineteen twenty-three
When the top was more and more uncovered until December fifteenth
When finally it snowed and snowed
I love seeing this mountain like a mouse
Attached to the tail of another mouse, and to another and to another
In total mountain silence
There is no way to get up there, and no means to stay.
It is uninhabitable. No roads and no possibility
Of roads. You don’t have a history
Do you, mountain top? This doesn’t make you either a mystery
Or a dull person and you’re certainly not a truck stop.
No industry can exploit you
No developer can divide you into estates or lots
No dazzling disquieting woman can tie your heart in knots.
I could never lead my life on one of those spots
You leave uncovered up there. No way to be there
But I’m moved.

Paradiso

There is no way not to be excited
When what you have been disillusioned by raises its head
From its arms and seems to want to talk to you again.
You forget home and family
And set off on foot or in your automobile
And go to where you believe this form of reality
May dwell. Not finding it there, you refuse
Any further contact
Until you are back again trying to forget
The only thing that moved you (it seems) and gave what you forever will
have
But in the form of a disillusion.
Yet often, looking toward the horizon
There—inimical to you?—is that something you have never found
And that, without those who came before you, you could never have
imagined.
How could you have thought there was one person who could make you
Happy and that happiness was not the uneven
Phenomenon you have known it to be? Why do you keep believing in this
Reality so dependent on the time allowed it
That it has less to do with your exile from the age you are
Than from everything else life promised that you could do?

The Boiling Water

A serious moment for the water is
when it boils
And though one usually regards it
merely as a convenience
To have the boiling water
available for bath or table
Occasionally there is someone
around who understands
The importance of this moment
for the water—maybe a saint,
Maybe a poet, maybe a crazy
man, or just someone
temporarily disturbed
With his mind ‘floating’in a
sense, away from his deepest
Personal concerns to more
‘unreal’ things…

A serious moment for the island
is when its trees
Begin to give it shade, and
another is when the ocean
washes
Big heavy things against its side.
One walks around and looks at
the island
But not really at it, at what is on
it, and one thinks,
It must be serious, even, to be this
island, at all, here.
Since it is lying here exposed to
the whole sea. All its
Moments might be serious. It is
serious, in such windy weather,
to be a sail
Or an open window, or a feather
flying in the street…

Seriousness, how often I have
thought of seriousness
And how little I have understood
it, except this: serious is urgent
And it has to do with change. You
say to the water,
It’s not necessary to boil now,
and you turn it off. It stops
Fidgeting. And starts to cool. You
put your hand in it
And say, The water isn’t serious
any more. It has the potential,
However—that urgency to give
off bubbles, to
Change itself to steam. And the
wind,
When it becomes part of a
hurricane, blowing up the
beach
And the sand dunes can’t keep it
away.
Fainting is one sign of
seriousness, crying is another.
Shuddering all over is another
one.

A serious moment for the
telephone is when it rings.
And a person answers, it is
Angelica, or is it you.

A serious moment for the fly is
when its wings
Are moving, and a serious
moment for the duck
Is when it swims, when it first
touches water, then spreads
Its smile upon the water…

A serious moment for the match
is when it burst into flame…

Serious for me that I met you, and
serious for you
That you met me, and that we do
not know
If we will ever be close to anyone
again. Serious the recognition
of the probability
That we will, although time
stretches terribly in
between…

Anonymous submission.

Poem For My Twentieth Birthday

Passing the American graveyard, for my birthday
the crosses stuttering, white on tropical green,
the years’ quick focus of faces I do not remember . . .

The palm trees stalking like deliberate giants
for my birthday, and all the hot adolescent memories
seen through a screen of water . . .

For my birthday thrust into the adult and actual:
expected to perform the action, not to ponder
the reality beyond the fact,
the man standing upright in the dream.

To My Fifties

I should say something to you
Now that you have departed over the mountains
Leaving me to my sixties and seventies, not hopeful of your return,
O you, who seemed to mark the end of life, who ever would have thought that you
would burn
With such sexual fires as you did? I wound up in you
Some work I had started long before. You were
A time for completion and for destruction. My
Marriage had ended. In you I sensed trying to find
A way out of you actually that wasn’t toward non-existence.
I thought, “All over.” You cried, “I’m here!” You were like traveling
In this sense, but on one’s own
With no tour guide or even the train schedule.
As a “Prime of Life” I missed you. You seemed an incompletion made up of
completions
Unacquainted with each other. How could this be happening? I thought. Or
What should it mean, exactly, that I am fifty-seven? I wanted to be always feeling
desire.
Now you’re a young age to me. And, in you, as at every other time
I thought that one year would last forever.
“I did the best possible. I lasted my full ten years. Now I’m responsible
For someone else’s decade and haven’t time to talk to you, which is a shame
Since I can never come back.” My Fifties! Answer me one question!
Were you the culmination or a phase? “Neither and both.” Explain! “No time.
Farewell!”

The Magic of Numbers

The Magic of Numbers—1

How strange it was to hear the furniture being moved around in the apartment upstairs!
I was twenty-six, and you were twenty-two.

The Magic of Numbers—2

You asked me if I wanted to run, but I said no and walked on.
I was nineteen, and you were seven.

The Magic of Numbers—3

Yes, but does X really like us?
We were both twenty-seven.

The Magic of Numbers—4

You look like Jerry Lewis (1950).

The Magic of Numbers—5

Grandfather and grandmother want you to go over to their house for dinner.
They were sixty-nine, and I was two and a half.

The Magic of Numbers—6

One day when I was twenty-nine years old I met you and nothing happened.

The Magic of Numbers—7

No, of course it wasn’t I who came to the library!
Brown eyes, flushed cheeks, brown hair. I was twenty-nine, and you were sixteen.

The Magic of Numbers—8

After we made love one night in Rockport I went outside and kissed the road
I felt so carried away. I was twenty-three, and you were nineteen.

The Magic of Numbers—9

I was twenty-nine, and so were you. We had a very passionate time.
Everything I read turned into a story about you and me, and everything I did was turned into a poem.

To Stammering

Where did you come from, lamentable quality?
Before I had a life you were about to ruin my life.
The mystery of this stays with me.
“Don’t brood about things,” my elders said.
I hadn’t any other experience of enemies from inside.
They were all from outside–big boys
Who cursed me and hit me; motorists; falling trees.
All these you were as bad as, yet inside. When I spoke, you were there.
I could avoid you by singing or acting.
I acted in school plays but was no good at singing.
Immediately after the play you were there again.
You ruined the cast party.
You were not a sign of confidence.
You were not a sign of manliness.
You were stronger than good luck and bad; you survived them both.
You were slowly edged out of my throat by psychoanalysis
You who had been brought in, it seems, like a hired thug
To beat up both sides and distract them
From the main issue: oedipal love. You were horrible!
Tell them, now that you’re back in your thug country,
That you don’t have to be so rough next time you’re called in
But can be milder and have the same effect–unhappiness and pain.

The Circus

I remember when I wrote The Circus
I was living in Paris, or rather we were living in Paris
Janice, Frank was alive, the Whitney Museum
Was still on 8th Street, or was it still something else?
Fernand Léger lived in our building
Well it wasn’t really our building it was the building we lived in
Next to a Grand Guignol troupe who made a lot of noise
So that one day I yelled through a hole in the wall
Of our apartment I don’t know why there was a hole there
Shut up! And the voice came back to me saying something
I don’t know what. Once I saw Léger walk out of the building
I think. Stanley Kunitz came to dinner. I wrote The Circus
In two tries, the first getting most of the first stanza;
That fall I also wrote an opera libretto called Louisa or Matilda.
Jean-Claude came to dinner. He said (about “cocktail sauce”)
It should be good on something but not on these (oysters).
By that time I think I had already written The Circus
When I came back, having been annoyed to have to go
I forget what I went there about
You were back in the apartment what a dump actually we liked it
I think with your hair and your writing and the pans
Moving strummingly about the kitchen and I wrote The Circus
It was a summer night no it was an autumn one summer when
I remember it but actually no autumn that black dusk toward the post office
And I wrote many other poems then but The Circus was the best
Maybe not by far the best Geography was also wonderful
And the Airplane Betty poems (inspired by you) but The Circus was the best.

Sometimes I feel I actually am the person
Who did this, who wrote that, including that poem The Circus
But sometimes on the other hand I don’t.
There are so many factors engaging our attention!
At every moment the happiness of others, the health of those we know and our own!
And the millions upon millions of people we don’t know and their well-being to think about
So it seems strange I found time to write The Circus
And even spent two evenings on it, and that I have also the time
To remember that I did it, and remember you and me then, and write this poem about it
At the beginning of The Circus
The Circus girls are rushing through the night
In the circus wagons and tulips and other flowers will be picked
A long time from now this poem wants to get off on its own
Someplace like a painting not held to a depiction of composing The Circus.

Noel Lee was in Paris then but usually out of it
In Germany or Denmark giving a concert
As part of an endless activity
Which was either his career or his happiness or a combination of both
Or neither I remember his dark eyes looking he was nervous
With me perhaps because of our days at Harvard.

It is understandable enough to be nervous with anybody!

How softly and easily one feels when alone
Love of one’s friends when one is commanding the time and space syndrome
If that’s the right word which I doubt but together how come one is so nervous?
One is not always but what was I then and what am I now attempting to create
If create is the right word
Out of this combination of experience and aloneness
And who are you telling me it is or is not a poem (not you?) Go back with me though
To those nights I was writing The Circus.
Do you like that poem? have you read it? It is in my book Thank You
Which Grove just reprinted. I wonder how long I am going to live
And what the rest will be like I mean the rest of my life.

John Cage said to me the other night How old are you? and I told him forty-six
(Since then I’ve become forty-seven) he said
Oh that’s a great age I remember.
John Cage once told me he didn’t charge much for his mushroom identification course (at the New School)
Because he didn’t want to make a profit from nature

He was ahead of his time I was behind my time we were both in time
Brilliant go to the head of the class and “time is a river”
It doesn’t seem like a river to me it seems like an unformed plan
Days go by and still nothing is decided about
What to do until you know it never will be and then you say “time”
But you really don’t care much about it any more
Time means something when you have the major part of yours ahead of you
As I did in Aix-en-Provence that was three years before I wrote The Circus
That year I wrote Bricks and The Great Atlantic Rainway
I felt time surround me like a blanket endless and soft
I could go to sleep endlessly and wake up and still be in it
But I treasured secretly the part of me that was individually changing
Like Noel Lee I was interested in my career
And still am but now it is like a town I don’t want to leave
Not a tower I am climbing opposed by ferocious enemies

I never mentioned my friends in my poems at the time I wrote The Circus
Although they meant almost more than anything to me
Of this now for some time I’ve felt an attenuation
So I’m mentioning them maybe this will bring them back to me
Not them perhaps but what I felt about them
John Ashbery Jane Freilicher Larry Rivers Frank O’Hara
Their names alone bring tears to my eyes
As seeing Polly did last night
It is beautiful at any time but the paradox is leaving it
In order to feel it when you’ve come back the sun has declined
And the people are merrier or else they’ve gone home altogether
And you are left alone well you put up with that your sureness is like the sun
While you have it but when you don’t its lack’s a black and icy night. I came home
And wrote The Circus that night, Janice. I didn’t come and speak to you
And put my arm around you and ask you if you’d like to take a walk
Or go to the Cirque Medrano though that’s what I wrote poems about
And am writing about that now, and now I’m alone

And this is not as good a poem as The Circus
And I wonder if any good will come of either of them all the same.

 

Conversation

laureleber_072

 

KENNETH KOCH: John, do you think we both might be too much concerned with matters of taste? Or don’t you think it’s possible to be too much concerned with it?

JOHN ASHBERY: What else is there besides matters of taste?

KK: How would you change that statement if you wanted to put it in a poem? I think that statement would seem too pompous to you to put into a poem. Or too obvious.

JA: I would not put a statement in a poem. I feel that poetry must reflect on already existing statements.

KK: Why?

JA: Poetry does not have subject matter, because it is the subject. We are the subject matter of poetry, not vice versa.

KK: Could you distinguish your statement from the ordinary idea, which it resembles in every particular, that poems are about people?

JA: Yes. Poems are about people and things.

KK: Then when you said “we” you were including the other objects in this room.

JA: Of course.

KK: What has this to do with putting a statement in a poem?

JA: When statements occur in poetry they are merely a part of the combined refractions of everything else.

KK: What I mean is, how is the fact that poetry is about us connected to the use of statements in poetry?

JA: It isn’t.

KK: But you said before –

JA: I said nothing of the kind. Now stop asking me all these questions.

KK: I’m sorry.

JA: Now I’ll ask you a few questions. Why are you always putting things in Paris in all of your poems? I live there but it seems to me I’ve never written anything about it.

KK: Isn’t “Europe” mainly set there?

JA: No. Reread that poem. It all takes place in England.

KK: What about the gray city and the snow valentines and so on – even though the main part of the narrative obviously takes place on the flying fields of England, the real psychological locale of the poem always seemed to me to be in Paris. No? Where were you when you wrote it?

JA: In Paris. But there is only one reference to Paris in the entire poem.

KK: Well, I wrote Ko in Florence.

JA: I wish you would answer my question and also explain –

KK: And there is only one reference to Florence in it, but the way things come together and take place always seemed to me to be very dependent on the fact that it was written in Florence. What did you want me to answer?

JA: Let’s ignore for the moment at least your enigmatic statement that the way things come together reminds you of Florence –

KK: I did not say that.

JA: Anyway I wish you would explain for me and our readers –

KK: Listeners.

JA: – why we seem to omit references to the cities in which we are living, in our work. This is not true of most American poetry. Shudder.

KK: Hmm. I guess we do. I did write one poem about New York while I was in New York, but the rest of the poems about America I wrote in Europe.

JA: I repeat, why we seem to omit ALMOST all references – ?

KK: I find it gets to be too difficult to get through my everyday associations with things familiar to me for me to be able to use them effectively in poetry.

JA: Snore.

KK: I myself am bored by my attempts to make abstract statements and wish I could do it as facilely as you do. I’m going to cut out my previous statement. What made you snore?

JA: Well, if you’re cutting out your statement, then my snore naturally goes with it, I suppose.

KK: Maybe I won’t cut it out. Or I might just keep the snore.

JA: It sounded too much like the way all artists talk when asked to explain their art.

KK: Yes, I agree. I dislike my statement. Why do you suppose are so bothered by such things?

JA: It’s rather hard to be a good artist and also be able to explain intelligently what your art is about. In fact, the worse your art is the easier it is to talk about it. At least, I’d like to think so.

KK: Could you give an example of a very bad artist who explains his work very well?

JA: (Silence)

KK: I guess you don’t want to mention any names. Why don’t you want to mention any names, by the way? Especially since I once heard you say that names are more expressive words than any others.

JA: Some people might get offended. I don’t see the point of that.

KK: Do you mean you’re afraid?

JA: No. Just bored in advance by the idea of having to defend myself.

KK: Have you ever been physically attacked because of your art criticism?

JA: No, because I always say I like everything.

KK: Would you say that is the main function of criticism?

JA: If it isn’t it should be.

KK: How can one talk about what should be the function of something?

JA: Our problem seems to be to avoid it.

KK: To avoid what?

JA: Talking about what you said.

KK: Let me go back a little.

JA: That’s always a mistake.

KK: All right, I’ll take you at your word. But we were getting on to something interesting – but it went by so quickly.

JA: This is true of much great poetry.

KK: And even truer of the rest of it. I was thinking today as I drove over here what my poetry could possibly do for me or for anyone who reads it. I thought it might make people happy temporarily.

JA: That’s a pretty tall order.

KK: I know. I was just going to change the word from happy to something else.

JA: I’d be interested to know what you were going to change it to.

KK: Maybe to pleasantly surprised.

JA: Now you’re talking!

 

Koch links

9045

 

Kenneth Koch Website
Kenneth Koch bio @ The Poetry Foundation
Kenneth Koch interviewed
Kenneth Koch’s ‘Some Generational Instructions’
‘One Man In His Time Plays Many Parts’
Kenneth Koch @ goodreads
Kenneth Koch interviewed @ PBS
Kenneth Koch @ The Allen Ginsberg Project
A Tribute to Kenneth Koch @ Jacket2
Kenneth Koch posts @ Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets
Kenneth Koch’s ‘On Aesthetics’
‘Getting some with Kenneth Koch’
‘The Adolescent: Marit MacArthur on Kenneth Koch’
Kenneth Koch’s poems @ The New Yorker
‘One Author May Hide Another: Kenneth Koch and Latour’
‘The Impossible Comics of Kenneth Koch’
Buy Kenneth Koch’s books

Kenneth Koch talks to Mr. Rogers

*

p.s. Hey. ** Peter maloney, Hey there, Mr. Maloney! How very cool of you to enter here, and thank you for the props. Really, really nice paintings by you on your blog. It’s a total treat to get to lodge them in my consciousness. Everyone, artist Peter Maloney kindly entered the blog’s airless space yesterday, and I recommend you click this link to his blog and look at his terrific paintings and the other stuff over there. Weird/funny coincidence: A couple of days ago, I saw the summer show at the Palais de Tokyo, which is mostly awful, but the best thing in it by far was a video of a boy dancing/facing the very painting that you’re using as your avatar. What are the odds? I don’t know those Janine Gordon images, no, but now I will, thanks to you. Cool, happy to have here, and please come back anytime. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Wow, that is wild. I sent the link to Gisele immediately, and I’m sure she’ll dig it. Wow. Thanks, buddy. ** Tosh Berman, Aw, thanks a lot, my friend. ** David Ehrenstein, Happy slightly belated b’day to the great alternative film goddess! ** Gary gray, Hi. Cool, great, thank you! Yeah, that’s a quite clever and very committed technique you had going on there. Super awesome DG live report. They just seem more and more interesting/great all the time. Me, up to? Lots of projects in progress, mostly: novel, collab book about the Scandinavia theme park trip I took a while back, collab porn film project, new Gisele piece, etc. Upcoming trip(s) planning. Hanging out. Things are good. So, you’re getting a withdrawal effect that encourages and fuels writing? Hunh, interesting. Can you describe the effect it’s having on the writing or on your writing approach or whatever? Maybe it’s best to just let it happen without analyzing. Yeah, probably, right? Cool. ** Don w, Hi, Don! Thanks a bunch, man. That’s awfully sweet you to have typed. How in the world are you and everything you do? Big love. ** Kyler, Thank for saying and, I presume, thinking that, man. I think someone mentioned that book you’re reading to me. In fact, it might even have been my agent. How curious. Want to see the Allen. It opens here this week, I think. The p.s. yesterday was essentially the previous post. You just had to keep scrolling and clicking ‘Older posts’ if need be. Happy Wednesday, whatever Wednesday means and involves. ** Allesfliesst, Dance scholar, interesting. What’s your syllabus or dance examples line-up or whatever? I can imagine that the Quays’ film could sit in some place within me that is similar to the place where it has come to rest in you. Perhaps I’ll let it flourish in memories. The main and maybe only thing I remember about it at this point is how incredible Alice Krige was in it, or how incredible seeming she was at the time, at least. Hanna Schygulla as FB! I think I maybe have to find that. ** Wolf, Hi, Wolf. Your little dance? Surely I would remember it, if you did, so I guess that treat awaits my next in-person with you when, first thing, I will politely demand to see it. The blog’s loading problem will forever be a mysterious problem, it seems. Very interesting. I mean your approach to self. Hunh. I admire that. I even aspire to a place of at least making art like that. But it wouldn’t work with me, I don’t think. I think I wouldn’t be a good writer at all. The self has to hold total sway for me and then be battled and tortured into language’s proper place. So interesting that there are so many ways to make it work, whatever I mean by ‘it’. Oh, that is a nice building. That’s in Brighton? Weird. On Naoshima in Japan, there were a bunch of pretty great Sugimotos in the museum/hotel/etc. complex where we stayed. Punching a hologram, ha ha, what?! I’m going to be figuring out that image’s relationship to a live music gig all day, which is, obviously, a good thing. ‘Elysium’ is bad? That’s sad. I’ve been semi-into seeing it. Maybe sub-semi now. Thanks, Wolfy! ** Scunnard, Hi, pal. It’s kind of nice, the pre-moving boxing up and stuff, no? The getting rid, the reassessing, the tape dispenser, etc. Am I totally romanticizing that? Surely not. Yeah, hm, yeah, I had this sneaking suspicion that ‘IB’ might not hold up. Weird how that happens, or not weird, or I don’t know. Like I really liked Aronovsky’s ‘Pi’ when it first came out, and then I saw it again and thought it was pure misery, but I’ve found his subsequent films to be varying degrees of pure misery, so maybe I was actually innocent and right the first time about ‘Pi’. I don’t think so, though. Anyway, blah blah. Best of the best of what it takes to get packed up. When do you move precisely? Ultra-soon, yes? ** œ, Hi. Yes, that Fujiko video, so nice. My friend Zac and I will be visiting and documenting two of her France-based works while on our work trip to the Loire Valley next week. I’m going to find and read that Sollers thing on Mallarme. Cool, thank you for mentioning it. Oh, okay, well, if you feel you need to stay away, I hope everything goes incredibly well for you until I get the pleasure of visiting with you again. Much love to you. ** Sypha, Hi. I didn’t know that was Chris Colfer for a while, since I don’t know ‘Glee’ at all, and then, when I realized, I had to pair it with the Taylor Swift gif, which somehow seemed to justify my including those guys. Never danced in public? What about privately in your room? Do you ever play air guitar? ** Heliotrope, Hi, Mark! It has been too long, but you get a pass to take however long you want, man. As long as it’s not too long, okay? Except for the work shake-ups and car death (RIP) and the loss of your parents’ last friend, I’m sorry, your summer sounds to have been kind of nicely summery. And that was a nice summary, to create a rhyme. It’s terrible that the Dodgers being great right now just makes me feel nervous and suspicious. Fingers crossed, though. I miss you always too. I wish you guys would/could come to Paris. I’ll get to LA soon some way or another, I hope. Love you too, bud. ** Rewritedept, Finally the post caused someone’s computer or whatever problems! I was so sure that it would. Dude, everything at that bakery is edible heaven. I’ve got a bag of all kinds of their things in my kitchen waiting to be devoured by me and others in a few hours. Ugh, sorry, man, about the living situation shit. Take the genius tag. Surely that’s true, and it isn’t often that genius gets recognized externally or something. There are still intelligent people, they just aren’t wasting their intelligence in/on social networks. That’s my theory. The American anti-intellectual thing is eternal, I think. It’s been around and prominent ever since I was a kid. It was just much easier to forget it existed in ‘the old days’. My sleep thing is much better, but it’s not completely cured, weirdly. Solitary living might be good, yeah. It sure can be, at least for getting art done. Yeah, I don’t know, I think love for other people is the absolutely ultimate thing. For me, it is, for whatever reason. A secret? Cool. ** Steevee, Hi. Your Fassbinder piece at last! Great! I’ll be over there in just a while. Everyone, the extremely head-screwed-on critic and dude Steve Erickson aka Steevee has written a piece on Fassbinder’s early films for the Roger Ebert site, and I can tell you without even having read said piece yet that it is a must. So, head over here as soon as you are able. ** Bill, Oh, that sounds really good. That sextet, that line up. Sweet. New stuff! New Bill stuff! Yes, yes, yes! ** Schlix, Hi, Uli! Yeah, I’ve been waking up weirdly early due to the last vestiges of my sleep problems, so the blog has been more ‘on time’ than it usually is. Your Croatia trip sounds amazing. I would really like to go there sometime. It allures. You are right about the problem with the Frankfurt dates. The performances got rescheduled for next May, and I totally forgot to change the dates, but now I have. I haven’t been traveling with ‘The Pyre’, and Gisele has barely been in Paris this summer, but she tells me that the performances have been going really well, so I guess they have since she’s normally not deluded about how things are going. ** MANCY, Cool, thank you, man. ** S., Actually, I have some kind of back up thing on my laptop that I could use to preserve time-enslaved stuff, if it worked, which it doesn’t, so, no, I don’t have a time machine. Do you think I’d be sitting here writing this p.s. if I did? Maybe I would be, though. Weird. Cool about the good school thing and the blond surroundings. I was a pet person until I was about 14. There are a shitload of ‘dog slaves’ out there. A few ‘horses’ and I think maybe a ‘cat’ or two. A lot, and I mean a lot of ‘pigs’. Never have come across a ‘scorpion’ or ‘centipede’ slave. Some boy should offer that service, if he could figure what the service would involve. He would have the market cornered. You’re addicted to Kyler Moss? Interesting. He seems so ‘last year’ to me or something, but then it’s so easy to turn on things when they get famous. New short story, cool, duh, very cool. ** Right. We’re back to the normal post/p.s. fused situation today. And, to celebrate this great reunification, what better thing than the marvelous stylings of the poet Kenneth Koch. See you tomorrow.

Metalcore Vocal Covers Day, featuring “Abigail” by Motionless in White

Original


Motionless In White – “Abigail” Official Music Video

 

Lyrics

Burn baby burn
She’s a witch, she’s a witch and I’m a heretic
So, learn baby learn
She’s a witch, she’s a witch and I’m a heretic so, learn

Oh Abigail how could you do this to us?
You were a product of lust (Product of lust)
And now this rope on my neck stopped all the blood to my head
So, now Salem please save me (Salem please save me)

Wish upon the stars, but they won’t save you tonight
God has forsaken thee to hell, we’re going to hang from the sky
Feel the weight of the stones crush hard on your chest
Confess, confess before you run short of breath
Confess, confess here for your sins

Burn baby burn
She’s a witch, she’s a witch and I’m a heretic so, learn
Oh Abigail how could you do this to us?

Oh Abigail how could you do this to us?
You were a product of lust (Product of lust)
And now this rope on my neck stopped all the blood to my head
So, now Salem please save me (Salem please save me)

“It’s not on a ship we’ll meet again Abigail
But, in hell… I say God is dead”
I’ll see you when we both meet in hell

How could you?
When we both meet in hell

 

Metalcore

‘Metalcore is a fusion genre blending extreme metal and hardcore punk. The name is a portmanteau of the names of the two genres, which is known as metallic hardcore distinguished by its emphasis on breakdowns, which are slow, intense passages that are used for moshing. The vocalizing technique in metalcore is generally shouted or growled vocals, particularly common among many 1990s metalcore groups. Today many metalcore bands combine growled vocals and screams with some shouting occasional in the backing vocals. However, some metalcore bands, like Killswitch Engage and Motionless In White, have also done clean singing. But there are also modern bands who only growl or shout, such as Parkway Drive.

‘Heavy guitar riffs, double-bass drumming, blast beat drumming, and breakdowns are used a lot in metalcore. Drop guitar tunings are used almost universally, earlier bands usually used either Drop D, C# or C tunings. More recently certain bands have been known to tune as low as Drop G1 and even F#1. Drummers typically use a lot of double bass technique and general drumming styles across the board. Bass tends to be down-tuned and low and guitar riffs tend to usually derive from punk or metal.

‘For a lot of heavy music listeners, the genre label “metalcore” has become almost a dirty word. The genre quickly rose in popularity over the past 10 years or so and stole the torch from punk rock as the preferred underground music genre among teenagers and 20-somethings. With a steady rise in popularity also came an explosion of new bands and a steady decline in creativity and innovation. It’s remarkable how many bands are content simply copying the flavour of the week instead of having their own musical direction. The bubble is going to burst if things don’t change.’ — collaged

 

How can I do scream vocals in my singing?

‘By “screaming” I’m assuming you mean an aggressive, unclear, somewhat raspy distorted tone in the upper or upper-medium vocal range. Asking how to scream without hurting your voice is a bit like asking how to punch yourself in the face without bruising it. Screaming is abusive to the vocal cords, plain and simple. You might ask, “Well how come (insert famous screaming singer name here) can scream and doesn’t lose his/her voice and he/she’s been doing it for years?” Good question. Here are a few of the realities that explain it.

‘The reality is that the vast majority of screamers trashed their voices a long time ago. Most of them have had multiple surgeries, and many can no longer sing at all. What their voices MIGHT be able to handle in the recording studio once a year isn’t the same as handling that kind of abuse all the time. Many of these “screamers” (the smart ones) sing with softer and clearer voices outside the studio in order to try to save their voices from permanent damage.

‘Each person’s tissue has a different reaction to abuse. For instance, you might slap one person across the cheek and 5 minutes later there isn’t even a red mark. Do the same to someone else and they’ll be bruised for a week! Allot of times the singers you hear do this don’t have tissue that irritates as easily as the average person. Also, they aren’t singing as loudly as you think. If you “pretend” to scream loud, but you are actually singing at a soft or normal volume level holding way back, then you can let the microphone (with allot of reverb behind it) make it sound like a huge screaming voice.’ — Eric Bruner Vocal Studio Blog

 

Covers

Crucify Taymour: I couldn’t scream the way Danny screams in this song. I’m sorry about that. Watch my other covers, my highs are way better than this.

Stefani Lam: so yea, finally did one of the songs by one of my favorite bands!! might be doing Immaculate Misconception soon c; keep supporting! Like my band page.

FlamicArtan: Check out my band 😀 vote for… (dont forget to request as well)

Tyler Thurston: I’ve been screaming for about a month now and am still working out some kinks. I just started doin lows seriously yesterday so thats very new to me as well, feel free to leave comments and also check out my band Tr3ason.

ChealyTheNinja: Hope you like it 🙂 I struggled with the clean vocals a lot, but I felt I should still put them in instead of just doing the screams/growls 🙂 If you enjoyed it 😀 Thank you!

EdgeOfTheEarth91: my vocal cover of Abigail by Motionless In White, ALL screams are exhaled (false chord)

Johnny Gionette: For the people who have requested this cover, here is Abigail by Motionless In White! Maybe for one of the next covers I will do just one full take and no editing to show what I can do.

KtheScreamer: The mic I’m using doesn’t really pick the highs up too well, and I’m sick, which you can hear when I talk, but I tried. 🙂

VinCasey37: [Studio Quality]

Angel Sifuentez: I’LL SEE YOU WHEN WE BOTH BURN IN HELL. Mic NOT plugged in. Exhales.

KyleCVox: She’s a witch and i almost hit a squirrel

David Sky: Fucking shit up. You know, the usual.

UrSTHEtEaM: Just a cover i hope you like it and sry for the shitty quality i recorded with my phone:/ oh and the mic is fake it’s not working xD 😀

xxabrfreakxx: Thanks guys comment and like please! sorry for the mistakes.

PvtCaboose964: Song is by Motionless in White. Enjoy ^^

Kevan Rose: me doing scream cover of Motionless in White’s, Abigail. i only do ex-hails there where no in-hails at all. enjoy.

ScreamAndRawr: I did this song in Music class once 😛

SammyVengeance92: My first vocal cover for my fav band (: There are no effects on my screams, nor my clean vocals I literally recorded it straight.

Jamesrulezd00d: MOTIONLESS IN FUCKING WHITE! Currently my favorite band. I haven’t uploaded a cover in a while, and I haven’t screamed in a while so sorry if I’m not as awesome as usual :// lmao. I went to their show last weekend and got to scream into the mic in Abigail and Immaculate Misconception. The show was fucking awesome. After The Burial, Norma Jean, For The Fallen Dreams, Stray From The Path, and Nausicaa played that show with MIW. And btw, check out Nausicaa, they’re a local band here in Gainesville, FL. They’re fucking awesome. They were sick as shit at the show.

Cody Gallo: Sorry the shitty video quality, and im not sure what youtube is going to do with the timing so im sorry in advance for that.

iPwnUrScreams: Mic is a prop..(This is done with exhales, the way I learned it is just weird)My cover of Abigail by Motionless In White. I think I did fairly well but tell me what you think.

Screamingturtlez: I first heard this song a couple of days ago and have been listening to it like 100 times alreday! a new band to love?? Anyway i’m sorry for the singing parts i know they suck so just stand with it…:c

theconspiracy124578: Vocal Cover of Abigail By Motionless In White, I own no part of this song. All credit and rights to the music go to Motionless In White and Fearless Records.

Deithis: This is me doing my first attempt of “Abigail” by Motionless in White off their newest album called Creatures. Please let me know what you think, and subscribe if you wanna hear me do every song on the album. All inhale screams.

Kyle Pennell: do whatever. :]

Josh Allen: Cheeky cover, recorded just with the microphone on my camera so the quality isn’t the best. Let me know what you think.

Chad Cavender: whats up guys im 14 follow me on twitter at chadcavender1 🙂 and if you could share this with friends and possibly Facebook it will be greatly appreciated:D or share it on MIW Facebook wall or tweet it at them\m/

DropDeadDaws: Hey guys, I really love this song! One of my favourites from Motionless In White! If you enjoyed, please like, comment, favourite or share. It really helps me grow and I appreciate your help.

josh debey: motionless in white bro 🙂

Thomas Abigail: Recorded with inbuild laptop microphone

Jarett Laudadio: Attempted this. One take. Not super happy with it. I’ll probably redo it at some point.

TwoWithinMyEyes: jizz

IcameAsRussArm: 0:07- 0:23 – Fail. I know it. Sorry Guys

Dawson Staudt: tell me below what you think and if you want to here more! C:

Lucas James: Not my best but it works :p hope you guys enjoy it

BeforeTheGate: umm not a huge fan of this band but have had several requests so i hope yall like it 😀 COMMENT!!!

Chris Wilson: This is my screaming cover of Motionless in White’s Abigail. Comment, rate, and subscribe for more videos! Message me suggestions 😉

Josh Begbie: yee

DieForMeIfIPray: So, another cover. As always only exhale

VlogThatShoot: Our cover of Abigail by Motionless in White.

Jaybo1594: I own nothing.

Ryan Lawson: Old Cover, decided to start putting some videos up on Youtube 🙂

Asken0809: First MIW cover, hope you like it 😀 (no clean vocals yet D: )

OMFGITSTYL3R: Me and Scream1095 check it out!

AlterBridge2830: I felt like I could do alot better on this than I did on my other so I did it again! I hope you enjoy, no mic this time, adn all rights go to motionless in white!

Element3141: Cover of Motionless In White’s song Abigail, this song was a little different than what I’m use to, but that’s why I did it! 🙂 Check out my band here. “Like” Our page please it would really mean a lot to me! 🙂

Chris Welker: My first time screaming after I had strained my vocal chord.

CarnifexChoseMe: Confess For Your Sins

Chris Tito: Best Cover I’ve done haha, on a rooftop swag. Subscribe if you liked! Like my band on facebook please. facebook.com/EverlastingEmpire

Bradsvocalcovers: Hello everyone this is my first YouTube video as well my first vocal cover I have done and uploaded to YouTube. If you all could please give me feedback in the comments or inbox me that would be amazing! As well If you would like to see any other videos upon this channel please let me know and I’ll try and do my best to entertain everyone as possible. I don’t know why the video went sideways sorry, I’ll look into that!:)

blacktears210: I don’t own this song hope you enjoy 🙂

David Vargas: quí les va otro cover!!! espero que los disfrute 🙂

Cian Russell: Love this song so thought i would do a cover for the laugh, I recorded it off my shitty phone camera, So sorry for the bad quality. It’s mostly all high exhales i can also do low exhales which i will do in some other video, Hopefully i will have better equipment to record, Enjoy!

*

p.s. Hey. ** Rewritedept, Hi. Steve Martin has been/can be pretty great, but taking over for a super genius like Sellers is a no win. I see what you mean about the tag ‘artist’. It’s interesting that the term is more intimidating than identifying oneself as other things, I guess maybe because it’s a thorough and very committed self-definition. To say you’re an artist means it’ll always be there, and I guess if one doesn’t succeed at being an artist to the standards one applies to the notion of success and quits making art, there is a feeling that one is less an ex-artist than a failed artist? I mean it’s not like identifying yourself by the job you hold where your identity can be more fluid. Your day sounds like it was useful enough. My day was good. My great friend/collaborator Zac spent the afternoon rethinking and revising the script of the porn film we hope to make. And it was sunny and nice out. And I worked on the novel some, so it was very productive. Very glad that you’re through the withdrawal management. Stick to it, I say. Deerhunter, nice. I’ll finally be seeing them live for the first time at the end of October and hopefully finally having an in-person meet with Bradford, who used to be a d.l. of this blog way back when. ** œ, Hi. My mind tends to humidify stuff, but then my writing and voice kind of dries it out again or something. But I need things to be moist in my imagination. Maybe everyone does. Nice psychedelic Bambi butt, thanks! Really interesting thoughts on Smithson. More reasons why I need to dig back into his writings. It’s all kind of a blur. I didn’t know that he was close to WCW. That’s a curious idea. My sleep problems seem to be abating finally. They were a fluke for me, usually designated strictly for jet lag situations. Thank you so much about the chain. No rush, no, please. The thought and promise are beautiful enough. I hope you got some sleep last night! ** Lee, Hi. Twisty and devious, that’s interesting. I think I get what you’re referring to. I guess I see it or try to see it as courageous and generous in a weird way, but then I really like the eluding or fracturing, and I guess I see it less as deliberate than necessitated?  I like trying to find the source of his explosion, or making up a source or something. I don’t know. I see what you mean, though, yeah. Maybe he’s devious, I can see how that would be possible, but I don’t feel that going on, which is quite possibly my idiosyncrasies at work. I need to read Smithson again, like I said. I have this trace memory of dickishness or something resembling that, but I can’t parse it from this far away. Great, thank you for the link to the Serra/Holt film! Thanks a lot! Cool. Bon day, bud. ** Allesfliesst, Hey Kai. Yeah, on Sellers. Uh, yeah, I don’t think that condition you speak of is what I have or, yeah, I hope not. I don’t really have a fear of dying at the forefront, but then I have this intuition that I’m somehow magically immortal. Call it a hunch, ha ha. Anyway, I seem to have finally been cured of my morning malady as of two nights ago, fingers severely crossed. ‘More or less decent’ works for me. Let’s face it: If we spoke exactly, we’d put ‘more or less’ in front of every word except maybe ‘the’. ** David Ehrenstein, No progress yet with Greyson, weird. Why is this so complicated? I wonder what we don’t know. Great Sellers anecdote, thanks! ** S., I used that ‘Moon’ photo in a blog post, I can’t remember how or where. But I think I cropped out the dick ‘cos I wanted his reaction to float. Everyone, Here’s a NSFW S. thing called ‘The moon’. I prefer them unshaved. I like them to be theirs and not neutralized in order to be overly mine. Hugs back. ** Tosh Berman, That’s funny, and sorry if it’s irksome, but I did think about there being some kind of Sellers resemblance with you when I was making that post. Oh, your ‘Sparks-Tastic’ scrapbook looks very exciting to me! Cool! I will spend quality time with it once I get out of here. Thank you a lot, Tosh, and, yeah, new computer. Unfortunately that bullet must inevitably be bit. ** Steevee, Hi. I actually have been kind of surprised and shocked by the response to Manning’s gender change announcement, but I can be very idealistic. It’s weird to realize that how you and I and, I think, most everyone I know personally and respect feel about such things is as isolated as it is. I suppose it’s good in the long run that his announcement has forced people’s weird fears out into the open where the fears can at least potentially be made to seem as peculiar and unfounded as they are or something. But, yeah, really ugh on the reactions. I almost unfriended a bunch of people of Facebook yesterday, and I still might. I read your ‘Grandmaster’ review as I was coffeeing this morning. Very good, very interesting. A fine thing. Kudos. Everyone, the awesome Steevee aka noted critic Steve Erickson weighs in superbly on the new Wong Kar Wai film ‘The Grandmaster’ right here ** Gary gray, Oh, those scrapbook pages were for the failed novel I was writing about my friend George Miles. ‘Doris’ feels like a grower, yeah. The blog post was very interesting. I spent a fair amount of time peering at it and trying to decode it in the most intriguing feeling way. Have an awesome one. I had one yesterday, and I’m going to try for two. ** _Black_Acrylic, I will for sure see that film, thank you, Ben. ** Chris Dankland, Totally, about Sellers. He was all over the place and almost always genius every time. Oh, man, seriously, the interview is an honor. I’m excited. I was actually surprised by the ‘TMS’ word count. It seemed so low, but that’s probably because it was at least two times longer at one point. Take care, man! ** Misanthrope, Maybe you don’t like him because he played so many Asian characters, ha ha. Oh, re: confusion, you know me. I don’t think there’s any collective way to create order, just billions of different ways that would coexist very interestingly if given the chance. That’s actually a pretty good Beatles song. No title for the novel yet. A working title, but it’s my secret. Sweet on finishing the transcription. I hate transcribing. That’s the worst part, even worse than the writing part. Shit, your novel is huge, whoa. George and Harry sitting in a tree, … ** And so it goes. I dare anyone out there to watch/listen to all 53 metalcore vocal covers of Motionless in White’s ‘Abigail’ like I did and then report back on what that felt like. In any case, there you go, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

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