Category: Uncategorized (Page 622 of 1102)

* (an earlier incarnation of this post was co-created with Bill Hsu)

 

‘Butoh is an avant garde performance art, that has its origins in Japan in the 1960’s. After the second world war, Japan was a country in transition. It was a country still holding onto its old world traditional values while being forced into western democratic values by America’s conquest. During this time there was much student unrest and protest. Theatre groups were performing socially challenging pieces, and there were daily demonstrations in the streets. Butoh was born out of this chaos. Its founders were a young rebellious modern dancer named Tatsumi Hijikata (1928 – 1986), and his partner Kazuo Ohno (b. 1906 – 1010).

‘Hijikata was dissatisfied with the Japanese modern dance scene, feeling that it was merely a copy of the work being done in the West. He wanted to find a form of expression that was purely Japanese, and one that allowed the body to “speak” for itself, thru unconscious improvised movement. His first experiments were called Ankoku Butoh, or the Dance of Darkness. This darkness referred to the area of what was unknown to man, either within himself or in his surroundings. His butoh sought to tap the long dormant genetic forces that lay hidden in the shrinking consciousness of modern man.

‘His first public performances were wild, primal and sexually explicit. They quite naturally shocked the conservative Japanese dance community, and he was banned from appearing at future organized events. This was the spark that gave birth to butoh. Many of Japan’s dancers, poets, visual artists and theatre performers rallied around this exciting and dangerous new art form. Underground performances became increasingly popular, and soon there were numerous groups being formed in the Tokyo area. Musicians, photographers and writers including Japan’s leading novelist, Yukio Mishima joined Hijikata to collaborate on spectacular underground performances.

‘Butoh loosely translated means stomp dance, or earth dance. Hijikata believed that by distorting the body, and by moving slowly on bent legs he could get away from the traditional idea of the beautiful body, and return to a more organic natural beauty. The beauty of an old woman bent against a sharp wind, as she struggles home with a basket of rice on her back. Or the beauty of a lone child splashing about in a mud puddle – this was the natural movement Hijikata wanted to explore. Hijikata grew up in the harsh climate of Northern Japan in an area known as Tohoku. The grown-ups he watched worked long hours in the rice fields, and as a result, their bodies were often bent and twisted from the ravages of the physical labor. These were the bodies that resonated with Hijikata. Not the “perfect” upright bodies of western dance, or the consciously controlled movements of Noh and Kabuki. He sought a truthful, ritualistic and primal earthdance. One that allowed the performer to make discoveries as she/he created/was created by the dance.

‘It is easy to see how this dance, done in a trance-like state, on bent legs with rolled up eyes was disconcerting to the conservative Japanese modern dance community. But the work was soon to sweep the imagination of many younger artists, and by the 1970’s butoh began to gain world-wide attention, as groups such as Sankai juku and Dairakudakan were invited to perform internationally. Today there are a number of groups and solo artists performing in North America, with artists in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, New York, Vancouver and Toronto.

‘Butoh has tremendous value as a training method for artists of other disciplines as well. In a year-long experiment at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Hollywood, I worked with 2nd year acting students using butoh training methods to help unveil their natural expressiveness. We stripped away the socially acceptable movements and gestures, and encouraged the students to find and embrace hidden movements that lie buried beneath years of conditioned behavior. We bent the legs to view the world from a lower level, as might be considered by plants, animals and children. We purposely distorted the face, to keep out the natural desire to make the right expressions, or to give a calculated appearance. When the body is freed of its social constraints …… amazing things begin to happen. Hijikata often trained his dancers thru the use of images. He would use give the students surreal images and have them react to them, thus stimulating the body and the subconscious to respond. Examples would be: Butterflies are landing on your right arm, your left arm is covered with cockroaches. Or you are walking in mud and your eyes are on the back of your head. We used music or more specifically sound design creations by artists like Robert Rich, Tuu and Lustmord, to provide an other-worldly vista of auditory inspiration. The results we sudden and dramatic. Almost every student found within themselves a way of moving truthfully, and created many dramatic, original and emotionally charged improvisations. Hidden elements of ones personality also tended to surface during these experiments. These awakenings to the true nature of self proved extremely beneficial to their development as consciously aware human beings, and to the craft of acting as well.

‘Another aspect of butoh, that I find especially appealing is that every “body” is a perfect body. Meaning we are not so concerned as to whether or not the student has a perfectly fit and lithe body of a trained dancer, but rather that s/he finds organic expression through the body they have now. Most ballet and jazz dancers are sadly sent to pasture in their mid-thirties, and are soon passed over for younger more physically capable models. With butoh the mature body brings as much or more to the performance as does the youthful body. A prime example is the afore-mentioned Kazuo Ohno, who is now 96 and still performing with a vibrant inner intensity. His withered, aged body is his canvas and he paints with great beauty upon it. Least it sound like butoh is less an art form, than a therapeutic exercise, one must consider that butoh does have its techniques; strength, flexibility and balance are vital components. We learn to become one with the “other”. Butoh is a hybrid form of art, incorporating elements of theatre, dance, mime, Noh, Kabuki and at times the Chinese arts of Chi kung and Tai chi. It is up to the individual artist to find their own dance. But it should be a “dance” of discovery, rather than a calculated series of movements meant to manipulate the audience into a desired response.

‘Hijikata’s first dances were often grotesque, twisted, dark and perverse. Ohno’s butoh is more ethereal and floating, ever reaching to the light. Sankai juku are highly refined and tightly choreographed with their polished, other worldly movements of cat-like aliens. Or the masters of pure spectacle … Dairakudakan with their sensual, imagistic and highly theatrical happenings. Butoh is ever-changing, and is here to stay. Because it gives us a halted, reverberating picture of our muted struggle to be human in this technological age of the disenfranchised body.

‘Butoh was formed by an amalgamation of influences. The German expressionistic dances of Mary Wigman and Harald Krautzberg gave butoh its creative freedom. Western writers such as Genet, Artaud and de Sade were read by butoh groups. Surrealism and Dada were another source of inspiration. Ohno was influenced by Marcel Marceau and especially by the passion of a Flamenco dancer named La Argentina, who he first saw in 1923 when he was a young boy. Some modern butoh performers have come from the dance world, others such as myself from theatre, or more specifically from mime. One the greatest butoh performers, and protege of Hijikata was Yoko Ashikawa, who had no previous theatrical or dance experience. Today a great variety of styles and aesthetics can be found in butoh. It has ceased being an exclusively Japanese art-form and is developing all over the world.’ — Don McLeod, ‘An Art Form in Transition’

 

_____________
Dance of Darkness

‘Director Edin Velez’s documentary study of Butoh includes archival footage of early Butoh pioneer Tatsumi Hijikata, who is credited as the form’s originator. Kazuo Ohno, another early Butoh performer, is shown performing his famous “Admiring La Argentina,” and other works. Other companies whose works are shown include Akaji Mori’s Dai Rakuda Kan, Isamu Ohsuga’s Byakko Sha, and Yoko Ashikawa’s Hakutoboh. These examples reveal the depth and diversity of Butoh as it has evolved. Many of these dancers worked directly with Hijikata at some point and all speak to his influence, as they are interviewed about the art form. One performer, Akiko Motofuji, explains, “Ballet and modern dance spring from the earth … Hijikata created a dance, which crawls on the earth.”’ — Open Vault

 

____
Books

‘In Butoh: Dance of the Dark Soul, Ethan Hoffman creates virtually a new genre of photographic theatre and gives us an invaluable contribution to the literature of contemporary dance and theatre. The performers featured include Kazuo Ohno, Yoko Ashikawa, Akaji Maro and the group Dai Rakuda Kan, Min Tanaka, and many others.’ — ama

 

‘In Butoh: Shades of Darkness, Jean Viala gives helpful timelines for a lot of the groups, and groups them based on approach. He covers all the groups in Hoffman’s group, plus Akira Kasai, Teru Goi, Dance Love Machine, etc, with a quick overview of a number of younger groups. Some of these use very different imagery from the “classic” butoh. Most of the representative figures also wrote one-page notes on their approach.’ — Bill Hsu

 

‘Steven Barber’s Hijikata: Revolt of the Body is a good book on Hijikata. Lots of nutty details of Hijikata’s life, and good photos from performances.’ — Bill Hsu

 

‘Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata in the 1960s is the catalogue for the 2nd Kazuo Ohno Festival including the rare images of Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata in 1960s taken by American famous photographer William Klein and treasured photos from Tatumi Hijikata Archive at the Art Center of Keio University. It includes the interview with Yoshito Ohno as well.’ — Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio

 

Tempu-Tenshiki/Dairakudakan

 

___
Stills

 

_________
Select artists

Kazuo Ohno

Mother

The Written Face

 

Tatsumi Hijikata

Hosotan (Part 1)

A Girl

 

Dairakudakan

Excerpt

Excerpt

 

Sankai Juku

from ‘Tobari’

from ‘Kagemi’

 

Yoko Ashikawa

芦川羊子　白桃房

Forma Humana

 

Byakko Sha

from ‘Tao Matsu’ (Excerpt)

from ‘Tao Matsu’ (Excerpt)

 

Min Tanaka

“Min Tanaka & Maijuku” documentary Part 1/5

from ‘Rite of Spring’

 

Akira Kasai

KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2011

 

Masaki Iwana

Excerpt from ‘Magnetic Field’

Excerpt from ‘Magnetic Field’

 

Eiko & Koma

Excerpt from ‘Naked’

Eiko & Koma: My Parents 1/2

 

_____
Further

Kazuo Ohno
Tatsumi Hijikata
Dairakudakan
Sankai Juku
Yoko Ashikawa
Byakko-Sha
Min Tanaka
Akaji Maro
Akira Kasai
Masaki Iwana
Eiko & Koma

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I think my interest in MJ/MC speculation and presuming is exhausted. ** Ian, Hi, Ian. Awesome, I’m happy you liked ‘Castle Faggot’. Derek is a very special writer. His other novels are wonderful too. And thank you about the resourcefulness of my blog. I do hope it spreads stuff fruitfully. I’m all in on that theatrical production. I think there was a theater adaptation of one of his books, I can’t remember which. Have a lovely, lovely day, man. ** Damien Ark, Ha ha, the ultimate compliment! Thanks, D. ** Golnoosh, Hi, G! Yeah, Ryu Murakami … I’m not amazingly into his stuff. I interviewed him years ago — I think it’s in ‘Smothered in Hugs’ — and found him … lacking. Yes, I think Anne Carson, as serious as she is, must have a wicked sense of humor, because her decision to do that for the marathon was pretty weird in the best way. Hopefully the publisher picked the right voice for your audiobook.I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty particular about how my stuff should be read for maximum effect, and I suspect the kind of voicing I like is not the kind of voicing a publisher would choose. Intertextuality would be a nice outcome, wouldn’t it? You doing good? Is the harder lockdown causing you any notable problems? ** Jack Skelley, Howdy, Jack. I think you’re right, yes. Maybe it’s because the expectation around what works are supposed to do makes the canceling of words’ conventional skills via repetition feel oppressive? Musical notes are so wonderfully malleable. I like Caroline Bergvall’s work, yes. Huh, I should do a post about her. There’s the poet Jaap Blonk who works in that realm. Hit or miss, but sometimes kind of exciting. Top of the morning to you, bud. ** cal, Ah, you’re your job’s traffic cop or lighthouse keeper or something. Noble work, in my opinion. Favourite animated movies … huh. Totally off the top of my head, maybe ‘Tamala 2010: Punk Cat in Space’, ‘Pinocchio’, ‘A Scanner Darkly’, ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’, Stan Brakhage’s ‘Star Garden’, ‘Triplets of Belleville’, ‘Wall-E’, Hollis Frampton’s ‘(nostalgia)’, ‘Coraline’, … What are yours? ** David S. Estornell, Hey, D. I saw that yesterday. I thought parts of it were really funny and other parts seemed to be trying too hard. Fun, though. You like it? ** Bill, Hi. Yeah, I had a moment or rather afternoon when I got obsessively interested in psychoacoustics and took the blog along with me. One could disappear in there. Not me, I don’t think. ** Dominik, Hi, Dominick! I wish I’d thought to snap an iPhone pic of the poet because I’m sure if I had his face nearby I would love his poem anyway. Drat. Wow, that would be some tattoo. I just found a slave the other day who had some kind of text tattooed over every inch of body below the jawline. I think it might have been the Bible though, yuck. Love like this other skinny, teenaged slave I found the other day whose fetish is having his stomach inflated into a huge balloon and then going out in public and scaring people, Dennis. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yes, take every precaution or more during your trip to the Therapy Centre. That new strain sounds pretty spooky. Everything go okay? ** Jeremy McFarland, Hi, J! Cool about the post’s daylong effect! Aw, you guys are not only lovebirds but experimental sound artists to boot. You’re hitting the heights. Hm, I don’t think I really thought about being young when I was young, other than being acutely aware of how young people like myself were treated with insufficient respect. That feeling was acute. Getting older is really kind of interesting. There’s this kind of settling thing that happens that you have to recognise and fight with. I think that’s the main thing: keeping nostalgia as a sworn enemy. Otherwise, it’s kind of fine other than the growing realisation that life is way, way too short, of course. Happy Wednesday! ** Brian O’Connell, Hi Brian. Thanks about the post, man. Yeah, you keep nailing the reasons why ‘TMS’ is my favorite of my novels. That’s wild. It’s kind of the novel I always wanted to write from when I first wanted to be a novelist, but it took me a long time to get skilled enough and think things through sufficiently to be able to do it. Anyway, yeah, thank you. I think my fiends start drifting back into the city today, so things should start to happen in a less lonely way. You’re off to the city today? What did you do? What did you plan to do, and did you do what you planned? And all that good stuff? ** Right. Are you people out there familiar with the great Japanese art of Butoh? If not, here’s an intro for you. If so, here’s a dip into what you already know. I hope it suits. See you tomorrow.

 

‘Illusion arises when the perceptual system breaks down. Researchers study illusions to enhance their understanding of the otherwise hidden mechanisms responsible for accurate perception. Studying verbal illusions, therefore, may reveal something about the functioning of the language system. One such illusion is the verbal transformation effect, first reported by researchers in 1958. They found that listeners who were presented with a continuously repeating word or phrase began to perceive transformations — that is, changes in the repeating stimulus, relative to what the listener had perceived on preceding repetitions of the stimulus. Transformations ranged from one-phoneme alterations to drastic phonological distortions. For example, when presented with the word truce, participants reported hearing phonetically similar transformations, such as struce and truth, and the pseudoword struth, as well as dissimilar transformations, such as Esther.

 

 

‘This transformation is also related to semantic satiation, a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then processes the speech as repeated meaningless sounds. The phrase “semantic satiation” was coined by Leon Jakobovits James in his doctoral dissertation at McGill University, Montreal, Canada awarded in 1962. The dissertation presents several experiments that demonstrate the operation of the semantic satiation effect in various cognitive tasks such as rating words and figures that are presented repeatedly in a short time, verbally repeating words then grouping them into concepts, adding numbers after repeating them out loud, and bilingual translations of words repeated in one of the two languages. In each case subjects would repeat a word or number for several seconds, then perform the cognitive task using that word. It was demonstrated that repeating a word prior to its use in a task made the task somewhat more difficult. The explanation for the phenomenon was that verbal repetition repeatedly aroused a specific neural pattern in the cortex which corresponds to the meaning of the word. Rapid repetition causes both the peripheral sensorimotor activity and the central neural activation to fire repeatedly, which is known to cause reactive inhibition, hence a reduction in the intensity of the activity with each repetition.

 

 

‘What causes verbal transformations? The most detailed accounts of the verbal transformation effect to date are derived from a broad theory of speech perception and production known as node structure theory. Node structure theory is instantiated as a localist network model, with nodes (representational units) hierarchically organized into three levels: the muscle movement level, the phonological level, and the sentential level. The muscle movement level contains nodes specifically for the production of speech. Nodes at the phonological level represent sublexical linguistic units, such as syllables, sub-syllabic segments (e.g., onset or rhyme), and phonetic features. The sentential level contains lexical nodes for words and phrases.

 

 

‘Both perception and production operate on the same nodes at the phonological and sentential levels. In perception, speech input first primes nodes at the feature level. Priming produces increased subthreshold activity (but not activation, as the term is generally used) in a node.It spreads in parallel across nodes, with its strength being positively related to how well it matches the input. In the same fashion, priming spreads to the phonological nodes and, finally, to the lexical nodes. At each level, priming strength is a function of the match to the input from the preceding level. Although several nodes may be primed at once, only the node that is primed to a higher degree than all the others becomes activated.

 

 

‘How pseudowords are recognized and new lexical entries are formed is also described by node structure theory. Connections from nodes in the phonological system converge to form temporary lexical nodes that represent pseudowords. These connections are initially weak, and without frequent activation, these newly formed and fragile connections will decay. Repeated use of the pseudoword will eventually “commit” the node to permanent status, at which point it will become a new entry in the lexicon.

 

 

‘Unique among models of speech perception, node structure theory provides a detailed account of the dynamics of representational units during repeated stimulation, which allows one to make precise predictions regarding the verbal transformation effect. In node structure theory, verbal transformations occur because of node satiation, which is a drop in the maximum attainable priming level of a node. Nodes at the lexical level or at the phonological level can become satiated. Satiation occurs because of repeated activation (not merely priming) of a node from continual repetition of the same utterance (e.g., the word cast). As satiation increases, the node’s priming level drops, eventually falling below that of a competitor node (e.g., the lexical node for fast) that is only moderately primed by the speech input, because of one or more mismatching phonological segments. Because the most primed node becomes activated in node structure theory, the competitor node (e.g., the lexical node for fast), which now has the highest priming level, will then become activated, resulting in the perception of a transformation (i.e., the word fast) by the listener.

 

‘As the preceding description suggests, the amount of priming a node receives greatly influences the transformations perceived. A node that is unable to attain a great deal of priming will rarely become activated. One other factor that influences transformations, according to node structure theory, is neighborhood density, which is the number of lexical entries (i.e., neighbors) that are phonetically similar to the repeating stimulus. The more neighbors there are, the greater the number of possible competitors there are to become activated, resulting in a greater number and a wider range of transformations. Researchers have reported data that confirm this prediction.

 

 

‘At the heart of node structure theory’s account of the verbal transformation effect is the concept of lexical node stability, which refers to the extent to which a node remains activated over its competitors. The more stable a node is, the less frequently it will lose out to other lexical competitors becoming activated. Stability is a function of a number of variables, such as the amount of priming transmitted to the lexical node from phonological nodes (i.e., acoustic–phonetic fit), neighborhood density, and strength of its connections, which is directly related to frequency of use. Thus, node stability should be inversely related to transformation frequency. In particular, nodes for words, which have strong and well-formed representations, should be more stable than nodes for pseudowords. Data from a few experiments partially support this prediction. In 1966, researchers recorded the number of transformations that listeners reported when hearing words and pseudowords repeat. He found that pseudowords elicited more transformations than did words, suggesting that nodes for pseudowords are less stable than nodes for words. In an analysis of the specific transformations (i.e., forms) that listeners reported, one researcher found a similar asymmetry, with pseudowords eliciting more forms than did words. Natsoulas also discussed the verbal transformation effect in terms of satiation and perceptual stability.

 

 

‘Construction of an accurate model of word perception requires specifying the operation of representational units. At present, knowledge about their operation is lacking, which is why decisions on how to implement them in computational models, such as TRACE and Merge, must be guided by intuitions and indirect evidence. The hypothesized mechanisms of satiation and recovery, as embodied in node structure theory, begin to fill this gap by describing how reactivation of representational units might occur. The verbal transformation effect is well suited for testing the validity of this proposal, because the frequent perception of transformations provides a means of measuring node stability and, thus, linking it to one or more of these mechanisms.’ — Lisa Contos Shoaf & Mark A. Pitt, Ohio State University

 

Auditory Demonstrations

The demonstrations were designed for headphone listening, and since some of the effects involve different signals delivered to each ear, stereo headphones are recommended. If you click on the link, a new window will open and begin playing the sound file. You should adjust the playback so that the narrative portions are at a comfortable listening level.

RESTORATION OF ABSENT SOUNDS

Homophonic Temporal Induction
Broadband Noise
Tone (Fixed Levels)
Tone (Changing Fainter Level)

Heterophonic Temporal Induction
Tones

Temporal Induction of Speech:
Single Phonemic Restoration
Restoration by Noise

Temporal Induction of Speech:
Multiple Phonemic Restorations
Restoration by Noise


PITCH AND INFRAPITCH

Repetition of Frozen Noise Segments
“Whooshing” Infrapitch (2 Hz)
“Motorboating” Infrapitch (6 Hz)
“Motorboating” Infrapitch (15 Hz)
Noisy Pitch (40 Hz)
Pure Melodic Pitch (120 Hz)
Pure Melodic Pitch (300 Hz)


CONTRALATERAL INDUCTION OF TONE

Contralateral Induction


PERCEPTION OF ACOUSTIC SEQUENCES

Identification of Order
Nonverbal and Verbal Sounds

Global Pattern Recognition of Permuted Orders
Brief Nonverbal Sounds
Brief Speech Sounds:
The Vowel Sequence Illusion


ILLUSORY CHANGES OF REPEATED WORDS:
THE VERBAL TRANSFORMATION EFFECT

Diotic “Flame”
Dichotic “Flame”
Diotic Bisyllabic Reversible Word “Farewell/Welfare”
Dichotic “Farewell/Welfare”
Diotic Monosyllabic Reversible Word “Ace/Say”
Dichotic “Ace/Say”


test

 

‘The philosopher and musicologist Theodor W. Adorno describes material as something which is a self-sedimented spirit, predetermined by society, in the minds of people. Based on this theory, the artist can only choose from a limited range of materials as dealing intensively with the material inevitably leads to a discussion with society. If an artist consciously tries to abandon this repressive paradigm he or she might only partly succeed since historical patterns will immediately be recalled. Adorno exemplifies the shabbiness and abrasion of the diminished seventh chord or certain chromatic passing notes in the Palm Court Music of the 19th century as musical taboos. According to him, these tones were not only outmoded but utterly wrong and did not fulfill their function any more. The truth or non-truth of a material is not decided on its isolated appearance but on its position within the prevailing standards of aesthetics.

 

 

‘In music there are only few compositions that consist of merely perseverative repetitions. The composers rather express themselves by gradual changes of certain individual notes or entire figures. Minimal Art produces several pieces which use repetitions whose components do not change. Initially the repetitive moment is the most striking feature of Minimalist music. At the beginning of their Minimalist-oriented period many Minimalist composers work with highly repetitive patterns, like Philip Glass, who concentrates basically on repetition and static harmony for the electrically amplified violin in his composition Strung Out (1967). While Glass tends to vary the repetitions, Steve Reich employs this musical technique for his audiotape compositions and his piece Piano Phase (1967) in a continually unaltered way.

 

 

‘The Englishman Michael Nyman and the founder of the Scratch Orchestra, Cornelius Cardew (born in Gloucester in 1939, died in London in 1981), are the most important European representatives of Minimalism. In his compositions Nyman primarily uses historic models and exposes them to never-ending repetitive procedures which vary only insignificantly. In Minimalism repetition does not mean an approximation to inartificiality in the sense of Popular music, but rather creates a visual rhythm or specific motion models. Repetition creates patterns either according to an exactly defined plan or by chance. The first way usually means employing mathematical logical processes and takes place in an environment of which the artist is fully aware, while the final result of the second way, a random process, is not directly predictable.

 

 

‘Repetition is seen as one of the central characteristics of Minimalism but at the same time it is defamed as monotony or a consequence of a lack of originality. Minimalists are commonly accused of only seeking to disguise the centripetal force in music that inclines towards monotony. By the end of the 1970s at the latest, the term Minimalist is used more frequently as a swearword than as an art term. Nevertheless, retrospectively it is the expressionism that is to a large extent held responsible for the cultural setbacks during the Reagan era, while Minimalism in the 1960s, despite its restrictivity, allows for various cultural flows to develop. By restricting the material and the possibility of its modification, the criticised repetition inevitably leads to a Minimalist principle, even if some artists regard repetition as an independent movement. The composer Louis Andriessen (born in Utrecht in 1939) argues that for him the repetitive moment is always more important than the so-called Minimalism.’ — Christian Schrei

 

Terry Riley ‘In C’ (1964)

Steve Reich ‘It’s Gonna Rain’ (1965)

Steve Reich ‘Come Out’ (1966)

Philip Glass ‘Music with Changing Parts’ (1970)

Gavin Bryars ‘Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet’ (1971)

Michael Nyman ‘Time Lapse’ (1985)

 

 

*

p.s. RIP Lee Breuer ** David S. Estornell, Hi, David. What a strange part of Paris to live in. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t know anyone who lives out there. Huh. Hugs. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Everyone, Mr. Ehrenstein’s FaBlog takes on Trump’s phone call with that official in Georgia here. I think you give the past and MJ way too much power. ** Corey Heiferman, Hi. Cool, glad the work hit home. That Elite Gum ad had a hell of a theory about how to sell gum. Glad the job started and that you’re still upbeat re: it. I live in the 8th arr. Well, I live literally across the street from the 1st arr., so it’s more like I live in it. The area I live in is not my thing at all. It’s kind of an upscale shopping area and quite fashionable. I only live here because I had an extremely hard time getting an apartment due to my status, and my current apartment is literally the only one that accepted me. I like the apartment itself, and it’s very central. So it’s doable. I like giving in the center. I can’t imagine living away from that energy. I think I would get very depressed. It is hard to see video art online. That’s partly because video artists often work with galleries, and galleries sell the videos, so giving them away for free is counterproductive in their minds. You have to hunt. Some galleries feature some on their sites. Some artists have Vimeo accounts. But, no, there’s no big central easy, free resource for them that I know of. I am hoping my age will land me high-ish on the vaccination priority list, but I don’t know. The roll-out has been pretty confused here so far. ** Misanthrope, Thanks, G. ** Jack Skelley, Hey, Jack! I was happy to be one of that book’s portals. The Saturday confab was super great, and I’m looking forward to the next episode. And thank you for the works you sent. I’m very excited to read them. xo. ** Bill, Hi. Yeah, Guibert as kind of proto-NN guy makes sense. I wonder the NN people were followers of his stuff. I can’t remember the timing re: when his novels started getting published in the States. Butoh is tomorrow! ** Dominik, Hi, big D! Mm, I prefer reading physical books for sure, but I read a lot of eBooks and pdfs because it’s difficult to get books sent over here to Paris. A lot of the small press books I read a lot don’t even offer shipping to France. So I’m used to it, and it’s okay. Better than nothing or better than having to wait and wait to get the book itself. Ha ha, I saw that form of love selling its poems in a metro station a few weeks ago, strangely. I bought one. It’s in French so I’m lost, but I showed it to a French speaking friend, and he said the poem was really awful, ha ha. Love so shy and pretty it has to dress as a Goth to survive in this harsh world, Dennis. ** _Black_Acrylic, My total pleasure, Ben. ** Jeremy McFarland, Hey, Jeremy! Dude, you’re a graduate, you bought a house (!), you’re all jobbed up … good going, man. Feeling old when you’re young is kind of a nice idea. I think I’m the opposite or something. Which is okay too. I did a few virtual Zoom things in regards to that Diarmuid Hester book about me, but no readings or anything other than the Poetry project deal. It’s so nice to see you, and twice now. If it would please you not to be a stranger anytime, I’m seriously down with that. Take care, sir. ** Golnoosh, Hi! Oh, you can get her book using the bottom link in the post’s ‘Further’ section. Wait, … here. I don’t know what Soho Press does about audio books if anything. I think only one of my novels was ever an audio book — ‘God Jr.’ — and I didn’t do the voice, and I’ve never heard it. Kind of scared of it, I think. Have you done audio books of yours? Well, if it’s any consolation, Anne Carson’s thing was just a very short iPhone video of her and some guy throwing snowballs in the air. Not a word. Happy Tuesday! ** cal, Eek, about the covid-risky job. Please mask way the hell up and keep your hands clean enough to eat off of. A new work by you! Excellent! Everyone, cal is the DC’s screen name for the absolutely terrific writer Cal Graves, and there’s a new prose piece by him newly online and readable at the Crown & Pen zine site in their ‘Haunted’ issue, and a new Graves work is a rare treat. It’s called ‘O Lightbringer’, and you should go read it. You’ll be rewarded central. Use this link and then scroll down. Awesome, man! I’ll be over there reading pronto. ** Brian O’Connell, Hi, Brian. She’s strangely underknown, but I hope this book will change that. Oh, wow, thank you so, so much about ‘The Marbled Swarm’. It’s my favorite of my novels, as you probably know. You nailed it. It is an ‘architectural structure’. That’s exactly as I thought/think of it. So I’m excited that you felt/saw that. Yeah, thank you a lot again, that’s very heartening to hear. My first 2021 weekend was pretty lowkey. My holidaying Paris friends were still far away. It was chilly. It was a perfectly fine weekend but lacking in spectacularity. I hope this first ’21 week of yours is a kind of rocket booster sort of thing. Fine day to you in any case! ** Okay. I decided to use today’s post as a place to nerd out on sound construction. Join me, won’t you? See you tomorrow.