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Archive for the ‘Creative Projects’ Category

Digitizing and subsequently archiving my OP Magazine collection is now at the top of the to-do list. Problem number one was that I needed to acquire (albeit temporarily) an 11 X 17 scanner because, up to about half-way through the OP “alphabet,” the OPs are printed on tabloid-sized newsprint. After some mulling and a bit of research, I figured that scanning the pages with an appropriately sized scanner would be the best way to approach the process. It’s working!

 

More to come, but for now enjoy “Some Chickens…”

 

 

 

Some Chickens

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Ashgate’s collection of essays on debut albums “Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself”  (edited by George Plasketes) finally came in the mail. !!! While I’ve been busy with diss work and have had to put just about everything else on hold because of it I’ve had a chance to glance at my essay “Ready for the House: Jandek’s Inert Unveiling” and some of the others in the collection as well. I’m looking forward to having the chance to read more. I’m also looking forward to having some *time* to read.

George, if you’re reading this, thanks for putting the collection together!

And now…back to the dissertation!

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Cover of "Ready for the House"

Cover of Ready for the House

I received an email today regarding a book chapter I wrote on Jandek’s Ready for the House. Ashgate Press will be mailing me a copy of the book within the next month or so.

Reminder to self: you are not like Woody Allen (who had at one time said that he won’t watch his own films (unlike Tom Cruise–this is a presumption. Sue me)). You will crack the spine. You will read the book. You will re-read the chapter after not having set eyes on it for nearly a year. Chewing gum and toothpicks should do the trick if needed.

On a different note, I’d like to offer a  big fat, heart-felt thank you to anyone and everyone who has helped make this chapter happen. It is all the better for your much appreciated contributions and guidance.

And, to Mr. Jandek, thanks for the music.

http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409441762

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I’m remembering the words of Jim Tenney from a decade and a half ago when in composition seminar he drove home the point that music does effect positive change in society. Jim used the Beatles–specifically Lennon’s contribution–as an example of music’s impact.

There are plenty of days when listening, making, and writing about music seems thankless,  pointless even.

A consolation: remember that change is sometimes a long and subtle process.

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I found this on the doorstep the other day. Underground art has to be even more subversive to  stay underground now. After all, even the Duplex Planet guy got a TED talk.

And who the heck is Felipe X. Milstein? He makes some weird art. It’s probably not as weird as the art on the cover of Bananafish 14 appearing below. But who am I to judge?

2013-03-28 13.35.30

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We have no big plans this New Year’s Eve so it’s video making time.

And at least we have champagne.

 

 

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Now that this is all posted here, I feel that I can lay it to rest.

The process of posting this video reminds me of my old college radio program days. My program, called “In the Muse,”  ran on Tuesdays in the summer at CFBU Brock U Radio in Saint Catharines. When an ear-worm  would niggle its way into my brain, I used it as a thread for a show. It was as if playing it over the airwaves would somehow pour the sound out of my ears and into the universe. Or at least into the Student Building. Later that summer, my ear-worms reached the city proper when CFBU finally obtained their frequency license. My last show there was a tribute to William Burroughs who had passed away a week or two before the show aired. There’s nothing quite like gracing the city of Saint Catherine’s with:

T’ain’t no sin
To take off your skin
And dance around in your bones

Why the diversion from the video? Posting Adrian’s Apartment here is like sending it into the universe. It’s also like dancing around in my bones. It’s finished and we will never speak of it again.

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We’re almost done. I’m not all that keen on segments 3 and 4 and must admit that there is some teeth-gritting happening as I publish this. It’s one of those ‘hearing your own voice’ types of experiences, except here I am watching myself on my own doc, being filmed by my interviewee as he is talking (how did that reversal even happen?).

I’m posting this because it part of the process of posting the entire video. *It’s about the process, right?* About not focusing exclusively on the final product? That was, after all, part of the purpose of the doc to begin with. It’s not always a pretty sight.

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Part two of the VHS video from more than a decade ago. This segment, like part one, explores the process of figuring out several components of an installation that occurred at the AWOL  Gallery in Toronto in 2001. For a better description see below for the blog entry for part one.

Tuna Mind Melt had a very mellow session on Friday. I don’t think I’ll be posting anything from that particular sitting but will give it a listen again and will pin it up here if there is anything worthwhile. Process is always interesting to me, but not always interesting to others (especially when the yield of the process is insignificant).

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Sameness, stillness, slow changes.

This digitized version turned up on one of Rich’s machines. I was sure all backup copies had been accidentally erased minus the original VHS version. This is old school videotape, edited using two VHS machines. More than a decade ago Gab helped to clean up the static which showed up with each crude edit before it was transferred to mini DV. It’s been the victim of numerous analog and digital transfers since.

Things I like: the CRT screen in the apartment, the rack of ancient electronic equipment, dangling wires in front of Adrian’s Japanese Super 8 film footage projected on his apartment wall, kimchi ramen, matzos. Kitschy random switching back and forth between positive and negative images, close-up of the kettle and the blue gas flame, “There’s a Jew in me that just won’t die.”  Footage of a friend and me from a third of our lives ago. Glad that I can look back on those days and laugh with myself.

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