These are Martian sand dunes. More at The Boston Globe.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
WFMU's 24-Hour Marathon Starts TONIGHT!!!
Pledge here!
ABout WFMU:
WFMU-FM is a listener-supported, non-commercial radio station broadcasting at 91.1 Mhz FM in Jersey City, NJ, right across the Hudson from lower Manhattan. It is currently the longest running freeform radio station in the United States.
The station also broadcasts to the Hudson Valley and Lower Catskills in New York, Western New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania via its 90.1 signal at WMFU in Mount Hope, NY. The station maintains an extensive online presence at WFMU.ORG which includes live audio streaming in several formats, over 8 years of audio archives, podcasts and a popular blog.
Rolling Stone Magazine, The Village Voice, CMJ and the New York Press have all at one time or another called WFMU "the best radio station in the country" and the station has also been the subject of feature stories in The New York Times and on the BBC. In recent years the station has gained a large international following due its online operations and counts Simpson's creator Matt Groening, film director Jim Jarmusch and Velvet Underground founder Lou Reed, among others, as devoted fans of the station.
WFMU's programming ranges from flat-out uncategorizable strangeness to rock and roll, experimental music, 78 RPM Records, jazz, psychedelia, hip-hop, electronica, hand-cranked wax cylinders, punk rock, gospel, exotica, R&B, radio improvisation, cooking instructions, classic radio airchecks, found sound, dopey call-in shows, interviews with obscure radio personalities and notable science-world luminaries, spoken word collages, Andrew Lloyd Webber soundtracks in languages other than English as well as Country and western music.
All of the station's programming is controlled by individual DJs and is not beholden to any type of station-wide playlist or rotation schedule. Experimentation, spontaneity and humor are among the station's most frequently noted distinguishing traits. WFMU does not belong to any existing public radio network, and close to 100% of its programming originates at the station.
HOW DOES WFMU RECEIVE ITS FUNDING?
WFMU receives absolutely no corporate or government funding--we are 100% funded by our listeners through our annual on-air fundraising marathon as well as our annual record fair in Manhattan that occurs the first weekend of November, info for which can be found linked to our website at www.wfmu.org/recfair/.
Shortly before the closing of Upsala College on May 31, 1995, WFMU purchased the license from them, and is now fully independent. This meant a whole new layer of ghastly new expenses, but it also meant great new opportunities for high media subversion. WFMU's license is now owned by Auricle Communications, a non-profit group made up of current and former WFMU staff members and listeners
HOW CAN I LISTEN TO WFMU ON THE WEB?
Our signal is now available live, free of charge, over the web! See our audio page at wfmu.org/ssaudionet.shtml for more info and updates.
WHY ISN'T MY FAVORITE SHOW ON THE AIR ANYMORE?
WFMU changes its programming schedule twice a year, usually in October and May. There are many reasons why shows may not appear on new schedules, but the most common reason of all is that the DJ simply wanted to take a break. But there are many other reasons as well, and sometimes the DJ's reason is personal and therefore not made public. As Program Director, Brian Turner also occasionally takes programs off the schedule temporarily to allow for flexibility and to afford newer shows the same opportunity older shows were once given - the chance to get on the air in the first place. For more detailed explanations of why particular shows are not on the air, it's recommended to e-mail Brian Turner directly
HOW DO I REACH THE STATION
For individual staff members, see our staff contact page at wfmu.org/staff.html
Our snail-mail address is:
WFMU
PO Box 2011
Jersey City, NJ 07303
Station Manager: Ken Freedman
Assistant General Manager: Liz Berg
Program and Music Director: Brian Turner
Volunteer Director: Scott Williams
Listener Services Director / Swag Inquiries: Joe McGasko
Technology Director: Doron G.
Licensing Director: Jason Sigal
Folks wishing to have their music reviewed should send packages to Brian Turner at PO Box 5101, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
On-air telephone: (201) 200-9368
Office telephone: (201) 521-1416
IS THERE A PROGRAM GUIDE?
WFMU used to produce a program guide, "Lowest Common Denominator" (LCD) It featured strange articles on radio and records, and comics, and more. LCD is not currently being published, and when WFMU's schedule changes in June, a schedule change postcard is mailed out, and when the schedule changes in October, and small foldout schedule is sent out to current contributors.
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH WFMU'S BEWARE OF THE BLOG?
WFMU's Beware of the Blog is chock full of articles, MP3s, movies and more, all assembled by a consortium of WFMU staff members and listeners. The blog has a search engine window on it, which will help you track down older articles. We're always looking for new authors for the blog. If you would like to become an author and you have some experience blogging, e-mail Station Manager Ken.
WHERE ARE MY GOODIES PROMISED FOR MY MARATHON PLEDGE?
Contact our Tchotchke Services Department at (201) 521-1416 X229, or help@wfmu.org and we'll get to the bottom of it. Our marathon fulfillment does not immediately follow our March fundraisers. We usually gather together a small army and do our mail-outs of prizes, t-shirts etc. during the spring and summer, and we very much appreciate your patience and pledging!
HOW DO I GET ON THE AIR?
We are entirely open to new ideas to enhance our freeform programming, though the scene here for new DJs is pretty competitive. Program Director Brian Turner will review any tapes sent in, and is the point of contact for any kind of interest in getting involved with the station in an on-air context. A basic cornerstone of the audition process for WFMU is to basically get involved with the station's off-air activities (and even then there is no sure guarantee of an airshift). We rely a lot on volunteers to keep the day-to-day office operations continuing; so if you can give us some of your time either at the station or at our various functions (benefits, record fairs, etc.) that would be a good way to begin. To do basic volunteer work here at WFMU, contact our Volunteer Director at the phone number or email address listed above.
WFMU provides an hour weekly (Saturdays 9-10 AM) for individual listeners to take a stab at our programming. We issue questionnaires to folks upon request by either calling Program Director Brian Turner at (201) 521-1416 X223 leaving name and address, or emailing him
HOW DO I FIND A SONG PLAYED?
You can start by using our Time Search Page, which will help you figure out whose show you heard the song on. Best bet is to contact the individual DJ who spun the track, and to do that you can refer to our staff list at wfmu.org/staff.html. Some of our jocks post their playlists on a weekly basis onto the playlists page of the web.
HOW DO I GET AN EVENT PLUGGED ON AIR?
Public Service announcements can be sent to the mailing address above, noting: "Attn: PSA Department". We ask that all PSA's are sent typed, and as far in advance of specific events as possible.
Non-public service events can also be mailed to WFMU at the address above, or emailed to Brian Turner. We will include them in our events folders if we feel they pertain to our listeners and their interests.
DOES WFMU TAKE UNDERWRITING ANNOUNCEMENTS?
Nope.
DOES WFMU TAKE RECORD DONATIONS?
Absolutely. Please contact Station Manager Ken at (201) 521-1416 X225 or email him. Also, WFMU can issue certificates of donation for tax purposes.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WFMU MESSAGE BOARD?
The WFMU Message Board ran from 1999 until September 2006. It was ultimately removed due to lack of staff and listener participation, which was due in part to the fact that the board had been overrun with spam.
ABout WFMU:
WFMU-FM is a listener-supported, non-commercial radio station broadcasting at 91.1 Mhz FM in Jersey City, NJ, right across the Hudson from lower Manhattan. It is currently the longest running freeform radio station in the United States.
The station also broadcasts to the Hudson Valley and Lower Catskills in New York, Western New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania via its 90.1 signal at WMFU in Mount Hope, NY. The station maintains an extensive online presence at WFMU.ORG which includes live audio streaming in several formats, over 8 years of audio archives, podcasts and a popular blog.
Rolling Stone Magazine, The Village Voice, CMJ and the New York Press have all at one time or another called WFMU "the best radio station in the country" and the station has also been the subject of feature stories in The New York Times and on the BBC. In recent years the station has gained a large international following due its online operations and counts Simpson's creator Matt Groening, film director Jim Jarmusch and Velvet Underground founder Lou Reed, among others, as devoted fans of the station.
WFMU's programming ranges from flat-out uncategorizable strangeness to rock and roll, experimental music, 78 RPM Records, jazz, psychedelia, hip-hop, electronica, hand-cranked wax cylinders, punk rock, gospel, exotica, R&B, radio improvisation, cooking instructions, classic radio airchecks, found sound, dopey call-in shows, interviews with obscure radio personalities and notable science-world luminaries, spoken word collages, Andrew Lloyd Webber soundtracks in languages other than English as well as Country and western music.
All of the station's programming is controlled by individual DJs and is not beholden to any type of station-wide playlist or rotation schedule. Experimentation, spontaneity and humor are among the station's most frequently noted distinguishing traits. WFMU does not belong to any existing public radio network, and close to 100% of its programming originates at the station.
HOW DOES WFMU RECEIVE ITS FUNDING?
WFMU receives absolutely no corporate or government funding--we are 100% funded by our listeners through our annual on-air fundraising marathon as well as our annual record fair in Manhattan that occurs the first weekend of November, info for which can be found linked to our website at www.wfmu.org/recfair/.
Shortly before the closing of Upsala College on May 31, 1995, WFMU purchased the license from them, and is now fully independent. This meant a whole new layer of ghastly new expenses, but it also meant great new opportunities for high media subversion. WFMU's license is now owned by Auricle Communications, a non-profit group made up of current and former WFMU staff members and listeners
HOW CAN I LISTEN TO WFMU ON THE WEB?
Our signal is now available live, free of charge, over the web! See our audio page at wfmu.org/ssaudionet.shtml for more info and updates.
WHY ISN'T MY FAVORITE SHOW ON THE AIR ANYMORE?
WFMU changes its programming schedule twice a year, usually in October and May. There are many reasons why shows may not appear on new schedules, but the most common reason of all is that the DJ simply wanted to take a break. But there are many other reasons as well, and sometimes the DJ's reason is personal and therefore not made public. As Program Director, Brian Turner also occasionally takes programs off the schedule temporarily to allow for flexibility and to afford newer shows the same opportunity older shows were once given - the chance to get on the air in the first place. For more detailed explanations of why particular shows are not on the air, it's recommended to e-mail Brian Turner directly
HOW DO I REACH THE STATION
For individual staff members, see our staff contact page at wfmu.org/staff.html
Our snail-mail address is:
WFMU
PO Box 2011
Jersey City, NJ 07303
Station Manager: Ken Freedman
Assistant General Manager: Liz Berg
Program and Music Director: Brian Turner
Volunteer Director: Scott Williams
Listener Services Director / Swag Inquiries: Joe McGasko
Technology Director: Doron G.
Licensing Director: Jason Sigal
Folks wishing to have their music reviewed should send packages to Brian Turner at PO Box 5101, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
On-air telephone: (201) 200-9368
Office telephone: (201) 521-1416
IS THERE A PROGRAM GUIDE?
WFMU used to produce a program guide, "Lowest Common Denominator" (LCD) It featured strange articles on radio and records, and comics, and more. LCD is not currently being published, and when WFMU's schedule changes in June, a schedule change postcard is mailed out, and when the schedule changes in October, and small foldout schedule is sent out to current contributors.
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH WFMU'S BEWARE OF THE BLOG?
WFMU's Beware of the Blog is chock full of articles, MP3s, movies and more, all assembled by a consortium of WFMU staff members and listeners. The blog has a search engine window on it, which will help you track down older articles. We're always looking for new authors for the blog. If you would like to become an author and you have some experience blogging, e-mail Station Manager Ken.
WHERE ARE MY GOODIES PROMISED FOR MY MARATHON PLEDGE?
Contact our Tchotchke Services Department at (201) 521-1416 X229, or help@wfmu.org and we'll get to the bottom of it. Our marathon fulfillment does not immediately follow our March fundraisers. We usually gather together a small army and do our mail-outs of prizes, t-shirts etc. during the spring and summer, and we very much appreciate your patience and pledging!
HOW DO I GET ON THE AIR?
We are entirely open to new ideas to enhance our freeform programming, though the scene here for new DJs is pretty competitive. Program Director Brian Turner will review any tapes sent in, and is the point of contact for any kind of interest in getting involved with the station in an on-air context. A basic cornerstone of the audition process for WFMU is to basically get involved with the station's off-air activities (and even then there is no sure guarantee of an airshift). We rely a lot on volunteers to keep the day-to-day office operations continuing; so if you can give us some of your time either at the station or at our various functions (benefits, record fairs, etc.) that would be a good way to begin. To do basic volunteer work here at WFMU, contact our Volunteer Director at the phone number or email address listed above.
WFMU provides an hour weekly (Saturdays 9-10 AM) for individual listeners to take a stab at our programming. We issue questionnaires to folks upon request by either calling Program Director Brian Turner at (201) 521-1416 X223 leaving name and address, or emailing him
HOW DO I FIND A SONG PLAYED?
You can start by using our Time Search Page, which will help you figure out whose show you heard the song on. Best bet is to contact the individual DJ who spun the track, and to do that you can refer to our staff list at wfmu.org/staff.html. Some of our jocks post their playlists on a weekly basis onto the playlists page of the web.
HOW DO I GET AN EVENT PLUGGED ON AIR?
Public Service announcements can be sent to the mailing address above, noting: "Attn: PSA Department". We ask that all PSA's are sent typed, and as far in advance of specific events as possible.
Non-public service events can also be mailed to WFMU at the address above, or emailed to Brian Turner. We will include them in our events folders if we feel they pertain to our listeners and their interests.
DOES WFMU TAKE UNDERWRITING ANNOUNCEMENTS?
Nope.
DOES WFMU TAKE RECORD DONATIONS?
Absolutely. Please contact Station Manager Ken at (201) 521-1416 X225 or email him. Also, WFMU can issue certificates of donation for tax purposes.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WFMU MESSAGE BOARD?
The WFMU Message Board ran from 1999 until September 2006. It was ultimately removed due to lack of staff and listener participation, which was due in part to the fact that the board had been overrun with spam.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Significant Objects Lives!!!
From Joshua Glenn, one-half of the masterminds behind Significant Objects:
A few moments ago, we posted our 100th and final story -- by Jonathan Lethem. Although we launched without fanfare in July, last month some 18,000 unique visitors viewed over 130,000 pages. (This month, the flood of traffic actually crashed our server for a few days.) Also, we've auctioned off about $150 worth of thrift-store junk for $3,000+! As we parse the data, in the next weeks, we'll post our findings to the website.
http://significantobjects.com/
So why did Significant Objects become so popular? You can't rule out the appeal of top-notch talent, including such well-known authors as Lydia Millet, Nicholson Baker, Meg Cabot, Colson Whitehead, Sheila Heti, and Stewart O'Nan. Still, some of the top prices fetched in our eBay auctions have been for objects written about by lesser-known, though equally terrific authors like Doug Dorst, R.K. Scher, Ed Park, and Kate Bernheimer. All auction proceeds went to the authors; the only reward that Rob and I got from this experiment was the pleasure of working with our 100 writers.
Some observers claim that SO's success is due to the fact that we launched a new kind of literary journal, using eBay as a platform: The London Independent said that "Significant Objects combines one of the oldest of all media — the near-improvised short story — with the reinvigorated writer-reader relationship afforded by Web 2.0." Others (including the NYT's "Freakonomics" blog) suggest that we've anticipated an emergent model for publishing literature: Techdirt, for example, claims that Significant Objects is "one (fun) example ... of content creators smartly using infinite goods (the stories) to make a scarce good (the trinket) more valuable, and putting in place a business model to profit from it." Maybe!
If you've thought about bidding on one of our objects, you have ONE WEEK left to do so. There are currently six objects still for sale at eBay:
http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/significantobjects
Later this month, we'll most likely relaunch Significant Objects as a charitable fundraising project. Rob and I will continue to match authors with thrift-store objects, then publish the stories and sell the objects on eBay. So please keep visiting the website, posting comments on the stories, bidding on the objects, and spreading the word -- because from now on it's for a good cause (which one? That's to be determined soon). Also: Rob and I are floating a Significant Objects book proposal to publishers, via Rob's agent Elyse Cheney. Phew! Next week, maybe we'll take a break.
Thanks again, and please keep visiting the website. We'll announce details of the next iteration of Significant Objects very soon.
A few moments ago, we posted our 100th and final story -- by Jonathan Lethem. Although we launched without fanfare in July, last month some 18,000 unique visitors viewed over 130,000 pages. (This month, the flood of traffic actually crashed our server for a few days.) Also, we've auctioned off about $150 worth of thrift-store junk for $3,000+! As we parse the data, in the next weeks, we'll post our findings to the website.
http://significantobjects.com/
So why did Significant Objects become so popular? You can't rule out the appeal of top-notch talent, including such well-known authors as Lydia Millet, Nicholson Baker, Meg Cabot, Colson Whitehead, Sheila Heti, and Stewart O'Nan. Still, some of the top prices fetched in our eBay auctions have been for objects written about by lesser-known, though equally terrific authors like Doug Dorst, R.K. Scher, Ed Park, and Kate Bernheimer. All auction proceeds went to the authors; the only reward that Rob and I got from this experiment was the pleasure of working with our 100 writers.
Some observers claim that SO's success is due to the fact that we launched a new kind of literary journal, using eBay as a platform: The London Independent said that "Significant Objects combines one of the oldest of all media — the near-improvised short story — with the reinvigorated writer-reader relationship afforded by Web 2.0." Others (including the NYT's "Freakonomics" blog) suggest that we've anticipated an emergent model for publishing literature: Techdirt, for example, claims that Significant Objects is "one (fun) example ... of content creators smartly using infinite goods (the stories) to make a scarce good (the trinket) more valuable, and putting in place a business model to profit from it." Maybe!
If you've thought about bidding on one of our objects, you have ONE WEEK left to do so. There are currently six objects still for sale at eBay:
http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/significantobjects
Later this month, we'll most likely relaunch Significant Objects as a charitable fundraising project. Rob and I will continue to match authors with thrift-store objects, then publish the stories and sell the objects on eBay. So please keep visiting the website, posting comments on the stories, bidding on the objects, and spreading the word -- because from now on it's for a good cause (which one? That's to be determined soon). Also: Rob and I are floating a Significant Objects book proposal to publishers, via Rob's agent Elyse Cheney. Phew! Next week, maybe we'll take a break.
Thanks again, and please keep visiting the website. We'll announce details of the next iteration of Significant Objects very soon.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Pfizer to New London: Fuck You
Some of you might remember the 2005 Supreme Court case in which it was determined, 5-4, that state and local governments are permitted to use eminent domain laws to confiscate private property and hand it over to private developers. It's an outrageous and alarming decision, and interestingly the dissenting votes were from the four conservative justices, who made their decision out of respect for private property rights -- an object lesson in the dangers of corporate liberalism. I've spent some time in New London due to my two O'Neill residencies and my teaching gig at the National Theater Institute, and have seen the story unfold a little bit, mostly in the form of protest signs and visible devastation of a neighborhood.
Well, the NYT reports that Pfizer, the private company for whom the city of New London forcibly relocated its residents under threat of the removal 1,400 jobs, has decided to leave anyway, a powerful signal that corporate welfare is based on lies about job creation and economic growth (I'd also use this as a rebuttal to anyone who says "the arts should be more like private business," unless they literally mean that we should demand multibillion dollar subsidies and then do whatever we want). We are quite literally facing a choice between the collapse of our civilization within the next century (due to climate change, resource shortages, and massive systemic inequities) and reigning in inordinately powerful corporations. For more on this, see Douglas Rushkoff's excellent book Life, Inc.
Here's some more heartbreaking video from Democracy Now:
Well, the NYT reports that Pfizer, the private company for whom the city of New London forcibly relocated its residents under threat of the removal 1,400 jobs, has decided to leave anyway, a powerful signal that corporate welfare is based on lies about job creation and economic growth (I'd also use this as a rebuttal to anyone who says "the arts should be more like private business," unless they literally mean that we should demand multibillion dollar subsidies and then do whatever we want). We are quite literally facing a choice between the collapse of our civilization within the next century (due to climate change, resource shortages, and massive systemic inequities) and reigning in inordinately powerful corporations. For more on this, see Douglas Rushkoff's excellent book Life, Inc.
Here's some more heartbreaking video from Democracy Now:
Monday, November 09, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Not pulling the plug on the blog, yet
Hey, everyone, if there's anyone left who hasn't found this blog by googling either "1001 synopsis" or "Terry Gross Gene Simmons interview." I have not yet run out of things to say, and there are still a few episodes of The Acousmatic Theater Hour left to link, but I am totally swamped with projects (see below) and will be for the forseeable future. Also, in case you haven't noticed, the discourse has become so small, so fast, so shallow that our internet reading and writing has moved to Twitter and Facebook (in fact, if it wasn't such a hassle, I'd move this whole blog over to Tumblr, which seems like a better platform anyway).
So eventually I'll say something, and when I do I'll link to it on Twitter/FB, which seems the only way to ensure that people will actually read it. In the meantime, here's a great Kenneth Koch poem that describes my current state:
You Want a Social Life, With Friends -- by Kenneth Koch
You want a social life, with friends,
A passionate love life and as well
To work hard every day. What's true
Is of these three you may have two
And two can pay you dividends
But never may have three.
There isn't time enough, my friends --
Though dawn begins, yet midnight ends --
To find the time to have love, work, and friends.
Michelangelo had feeling
For Vittoria and the ceiling
But did he go to parties at day's end?
Homer nightly went to banquets
Wrote all day but had no lockets
Bright with pictures of his girl.
I know one who loves and parties
And has done so since his thirties
But writes hardly anything at all.
So eventually I'll say something, and when I do I'll link to it on Twitter/FB, which seems the only way to ensure that people will actually read it. In the meantime, here's a great Kenneth Koch poem that describes my current state:
You Want a Social Life, With Friends -- by Kenneth Koch
You want a social life, with friends,
A passionate love life and as well
To work hard every day. What's true
Is of these three you may have two
And two can pay you dividends
But never may have three.
There isn't time enough, my friends --
Though dawn begins, yet midnight ends --
To find the time to have love, work, and friends.
Michelangelo had feeling
For Vittoria and the ceiling
But did he go to parties at day's end?
Homer nightly went to banquets
Wrote all day but had no lockets
Bright with pictures of his girl.
I know one who loves and parties
And has done so since his thirties
But writes hardly anything at all.
James Parker: "Let Us Now Praise: The Cliché"
Great piece from James Parker in The Sunday Boston Globe.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
R.I.P. Teddy Kennedy, Niels Bohr, Jim Carroll, Roc Raida, and Larry Gelbart
I hate doing these group eulogies, but death doesn't take a holiday when I have no time to blog. Rest in peace, fellas.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
SO MANY IMPORTANT THINGS at The Conflux Festival
Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io
CONFLUX
The art and technology festival for the creative exploration of urban public space. Produced by Glowlab in New York since 2003. And Karinne and I created a radio play/audio walking tour for it.
Read the instructions below. Download link is at the bottom of the page.
This is a walking tour of anywhere. How this worked was this way: we approached multiple associates from around the world (novelists, poets, playwrights, journalists, academics, visual artists, the unclassifiable, and people who are not writers of any stripe) and asked them for psychogeographical travelogues. In return we got texts from as close as Midtown Manhattan or as distant as Jerusalem or Port au-Prince. In one case we even got a travelogue of someone's dreams. We also dropped in a few small pieces of found text by authors we do not know, and wrote things to stitch the piece together.
Is this an exercise in accidental psychogeography and pattern recognition, sort of like when you listen to "Dark Side of The Moon" while watching The Wizard of Oz? Or is it, as one friend put it, an exercise in "the vertiginous cosmopolitanism that psychogeography is designed to avoid?" We don't know. Also, you are smart and will be able to figure out what you think without us telling you.
Do this: download the linked file to your personal listening device. If you do not have an mp3 player, email Jason at jason (at) jasongrote.com and he will mail you a CD. Then, choose one of the five paths below and follow the walking tour. Have fun!
1) Once you have finished loading the audio onto your mp3 player, exit via the nearest door. Take a right. Follow the instructions on the audio.
2) Walk towards a place that you find dangerous for whatever reason. Get as close as you can to this place without risking your personal safety. Without crossing whatever your own boundaries are, follow the instructions on the audio.
3) Extinguish all of the lights wherever you are and lie down on the floor. In your imagination, follow the instructions on the audio.
4) Walk to a place you have never been but have always been curious about. Once there, follow the instructions on the audio.
5) Look at this graphic, either on a screen or printed on paper, while you listen to the audio. Enter the world of the picture and follow the instructions on the audio.
Download the audio tour
If you have any problems with the download, email jason [at] jasongrote.com
CREDITS:
Conceived, edited, produced, and directed by Karinne Keithley and Jason Grote, and performed by Jenny Seastone Stern. Written by Annie Nocenti, Amber Reed, Carlos Murillo, Drew Haxby, Elana Greenfield, Guy DeBord, Jason Grote, Jen Collins, Jennifer Dumpert, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Karinne Keithley, Leah Souffrant, Lorraine Martindale, Matthew Burgess, Mimi Lipson, Peggy Nelson, Rebecca Solnit, Susan L. Miller, and Walter Benjamin.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Montgomery Park, Or Opulence
OK, I lied -- I am going to make time see a small handful of can't-miss shows this fall. And this is one of them. If you haven't experienced my co-host's work, you owe it to yourself to go to this. It will be brilliant and weird. Info and tickets here.
Also, how awesome is it that it was supported by the NYC Department of Sanitation?
--
Announcing Montgomery Park, or Opulence
A new play by Karinne Keithley
An immersive, radiant, and paranormal psychic health experience. With songs.
SEPT. 18-20, 2009 at HERE Arts Center
Montgomery Park, Opulence charts the rise of terrible energy. Weaving together anachronistic storytelling with superabundant and ill-behaved sentences, in an environment of immersive video and sound, Montgomery Park embeds questions of mind in a spooky trespass between conscious minds and conscious buildings.
Written and directed by Karinne Keithley
Performed by David Brooks, Karinne Keithley, and Katy Pyle
Video appearance by Heidi Schreck
Choregraphy by Sara Smith
Sound and video by Karinne Keithley with additional video by Amber Reed
Lighting by Zack Brown
Stage managing and mind-reading by Lacy Post
Part of the Autumn Artist Lodge at
HERE Arts Center
145 6th Ave.
(Enter on Dominick, 1 Block South of Spring)
Performances are at 7PM Friday – Sunday, Sept. 18 – 20,
and at 2PM on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 19 – 20.
Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by visiting www.here.org or by calling 212-352-3101. Limited seating so sign up now.
Please come! And please forward the invite!
* *
"wonderfully uncategorizable" ; "Karinne Keithley’s affecting video. . . featured her singular, delicate voice and a gorgeous, miniature Neverland. . ."
- Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times
"Keithley clearly follows a skewed muse. Where exactly she is going is unmapped. Following her is often captivating, sometimes bewildering, always unusual. When she knows the way, she realizes the possibility of enchantment."
- Chris Dohse, Dance Insider
"Her writing is vital and unnerving, a lesson in the varieties of awareness the human animal can achieve."
- Gregory Pardlo, real live poet
* * *
This production is being presented through HERE’s Autumn Artist Lodge, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as technical and administrative support.
Montgomery Park was written, in part, during a residency at the MacDowell Colony.
This production has been put together with materials from Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs/NYC Department of Sanitation/NYC Department of Education.
Also, how awesome is it that it was supported by the NYC Department of Sanitation?
--
Announcing Montgomery Park, or Opulence
A new play by Karinne Keithley
An immersive, radiant, and paranormal psychic health experience. With songs.
SEPT. 18-20, 2009 at HERE Arts Center
Montgomery Park, Opulence charts the rise of terrible energy. Weaving together anachronistic storytelling with superabundant and ill-behaved sentences, in an environment of immersive video and sound, Montgomery Park embeds questions of mind in a spooky trespass between conscious minds and conscious buildings.
Written and directed by Karinne Keithley
Performed by David Brooks, Karinne Keithley, and Katy Pyle
Video appearance by Heidi Schreck
Choregraphy by Sara Smith
Sound and video by Karinne Keithley with additional video by Amber Reed
Lighting by Zack Brown
Stage managing and mind-reading by Lacy Post
Part of the Autumn Artist Lodge at
HERE Arts Center
145 6th Ave.
(Enter on Dominick, 1 Block South of Spring)
Performances are at 7PM Friday – Sunday, Sept. 18 – 20,
and at 2PM on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 19 – 20.
Tickets are $15 and can be purchased by visiting www.here.org or by calling 212-352-3101. Limited seating so sign up now.
Please come! And please forward the invite!
* *
"wonderfully uncategorizable" ; "Karinne Keithley’s affecting video. . . featured her singular, delicate voice and a gorgeous, miniature Neverland. . ."
- Claudia La Rocco, The New York Times
"Keithley clearly follows a skewed muse. Where exactly she is going is unmapped. Following her is often captivating, sometimes bewildering, always unusual. When she knows the way, she realizes the possibility of enchantment."
- Chris Dohse, Dance Insider
"Her writing is vital and unnerving, a lesson in the varieties of awareness the human animal can achieve."
- Gregory Pardlo, real live poet
* * *
This production is being presented through HERE’s Autumn Artist Lodge, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as technical and administrative support.
Montgomery Park was written, in part, during a residency at the MacDowell Colony.
This production has been put together with materials from Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs/NYC Department of Sanitation/NYC Department of Education.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Fall Roundup, or Why I Probably Won't Be Able To Make It To Your Show
Not that the blog world has been actively clamoring for my return (hasn't the "discourse," such as it is, all moved to Twitter by now anyway)? But I feel compelled to make one of my occasional public statements recounting all the stuff I have to do.
First, I'm starting another semester, which is as draining as it usually is, though considerably less so since I got a car. I'm also still doing the WFMU show every week (and will get back to linking each episode once I get a chance), and am doing a couple of radio-related events. First, on September 20, The Conflux Festival, a sort of mini-Burning Man in NYC (minus the drugs, nudity, huge installation pieces, the desert, and the burning effigy; in other words, not really like Burning Man at all). Karinne Keithley and I collaborated on a radio piece, So Many Important Things, a sort of surrealist, displaced audio tour. And October 22-24, I'll be "spinning" radio plays at The Ontological for Free 103.9's radio theater event. Next week I'll be having a closed reading of my Clubbed Thumb commission, Civilization (All You Can Eat). Then I'm starting a Sunday playwriting class at The National Theater Institute at The O'Neill, and at the end of the month I'll be heading out to Chicago for the Carlos Murillo-directed production of 1001 at DePaul. In the coming months I'll also be starting work on David Levine's HABIT, an installation that will be developed at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center and then go up at Toronto's Luminato Festival and Mass MoCA.
Also in the hopper: unfinished commissions from The Denver Center and ACT, and I'm finally getting serious about jumping ship for Hollywood, so I'm busting my hump on a spec script. And a few 2010 plans that I can't announce yet. So don't expect much outta me this fall, except perhaps for all the stuff I just rattled off.
First, I'm starting another semester, which is as draining as it usually is, though considerably less so since I got a car. I'm also still doing the WFMU show every week (and will get back to linking each episode once I get a chance), and am doing a couple of radio-related events. First, on September 20, The Conflux Festival, a sort of mini-Burning Man in NYC (minus the drugs, nudity, huge installation pieces, the desert, and the burning effigy; in other words, not really like Burning Man at all). Karinne Keithley and I collaborated on a radio piece, So Many Important Things, a sort of surrealist, displaced audio tour. And October 22-24, I'll be "spinning" radio plays at The Ontological for Free 103.9's radio theater event. Next week I'll be having a closed reading of my Clubbed Thumb commission, Civilization (All You Can Eat). Then I'm starting a Sunday playwriting class at The National Theater Institute at The O'Neill, and at the end of the month I'll be heading out to Chicago for the Carlos Murillo-directed production of 1001 at DePaul. In the coming months I'll also be starting work on David Levine's HABIT, an installation that will be developed at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center and then go up at Toronto's Luminato Festival and Mass MoCA.
Also in the hopper: unfinished commissions from The Denver Center and ACT, and I'm finally getting serious about jumping ship for Hollywood, so I'm busting my hump on a spec script. And a few 2010 plans that I can't announce yet. So don't expect much outta me this fall, except perhaps for all the stuff I just rattled off.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
The Bereaved
Just a quick note endorsing Partial Comfort's production of The Bereaved, by Thomas Bradshaw, directed by May Adrales. Anyone reading this blog probably knows who Tom is by now, but on the off-chance you don't, here's Hilton Als' typically astute profile of him in The New Yorker.
In the interests of full disclosure, Tom is a friend of mine, and I've been a supporter of his work for some years now -- but his work is extraordinarily difficult to pull off. He's had a number of local productions recently, with many different collaborators, and there's sometimes a tendency for directors to overdo it, to blunt the power of the text by winking at the audience, or pointing out that Bradshaw's characters behave "unrealistically," as if that isn't obvious from the plays themselves. While this play is definitely a comedy, and May has directed it as such, she wisely stays out of the way, directing the play as if it was straight up realism, which is by far the most effective style for Tom's work.
One of the most impressive things about the piece is that it seems to do the impossible. Last summer, while she and I were teaching at Hollins, Bonnie Metzgar shared an anti-Aristotelian Mac Wellman exercise: write a play about people who are happy... and then they get happier. Miraculously, for all of its grim humor, this play manages to pull off that difficult task, while still managing to be entertaining from beginning to end. So, if you've been curious about Tom's work, or have yet to see a version of it that you've liked, check this one out. It's a great time.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
WFMU Fest!!!
Holy shit this is going to be good. Faust was our Acousmatic Theater Hour theme song, before Karinne picked that Bernard Fevre song that makes it sound like we're going to be telling ghost stories.
---
WFMU, the premiere independent/freeform radio station, is producing and curating a three day festival at the Music Hall of Williamsburg from Thursday,
Friday and Saturday October 1-3.
66 North 6th Street, Brooklyn NY
http://www.musichallofwilliamsburg.com/ (advance tickets available)
WFMU FEST
Thursday Oct. 1, doors 8:00, showtime 9:00, $20
Faust, Cold Cave, Aluk Todolo
Friday, Oct. 2, doors 8:00, showtime 9:00, $15 ($12 advance)
Pissed Jeans, TV Ghost, VeeDee, Guinea Worms
Saturday, Oct. 3, doors 8:00, showtime 9:00, $20
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Sightings, Drunkdriver, Talk Normal
These shows will not be broadcast over the air/net.
WFMU Fest comes on the heels of a busy year of live events the station was involved with in 2008 for its 50th Anniversary that included shows with Sonic Youth, the Feelies, the Ex, Getatchew Mekuria, Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Eshete, Wire, Times New Viking. It also was involved with simulcasting some non-WFMU events including 2008's All Tomorrows Parties Festival (and will be broadcasting 2009's from September 11-13) in the Catskills, as well as a huge portion of the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, Spain this past May. The station has also curated two 14-band events at Austin's SXSW festival in 2008 and 2009, and its Free Music Archive hosted a party in April with the OhSees, Excepter and others.
More on the lineup for WFMU Fest:
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1st:
FAUST
Formed 1969 in Hamburg, Germany and considered the inventors of "Kraut Rock", iconoclasts extraordinaire Faust are key figures in 20th Century music. In the early 70's, along with Can and Kraftwerk, they re-invented pop music as a specifically European art-form. In their own studio they were able to revolutionize the whole process of musical production; they improvised with industrial noise, generated bizarre hypnotic grooves, indulged in shockingly willful studio-based collages, and dabbled with every conceivable musical genre, sometimes simultaneously. The touring members of this 2009 US Faust tour are original members Jean-Herve Peron and Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, along with James Johnston (Gallon Drunk, Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) and visual/video artist, painter, and musician Geraldine Swayne.
http: //faust-pages.com/
http: //frontporchproductions.org/artist/faust
COLD CAVE
Centered around Philly's Wesley Eisold, Cold Cave has been garnering attention via numerous recordings and live events as purveyors of dark industrial synth-pop via elements of power electronics. Cold Cave is a brand new signing to Matador Records, and recently issued music on Hospital Productions, Dais, and Wesley's own Heartworm label.
http://www.myspace.com/coldcave
ALUK TODOLO
Heavy weirdness from French occult combo (featuring members of Gunslingers and black metallist Diamatragon) described by Aquarius Records as: "ominous krautrock rhythms over Einsturzende style industrial clatter, some lost seventies psych rock holy grail channeled through modern post rock. Dreamy and dark and mesmerizing. Hypnotic guitar lines and simple shuffling rhythms that build into clattery propulsive jams, all clanging angular riffs and dense tangled drumming."
http://www.myspace.com/aluktodolo
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2nd:
PISSED JEANS
Pennsylvania's punk overlords exhuding copious amounts of SST,
Flipper, Drunks With Guns, and generally damaged American hardcore/post-hardcore through their sweaty pores. Their third and latest album has just hit, "King of Jeans", on Sub Pop. One of the more destroying live rock combos of the modern day.
http://www.subpop.com/artists/pissed_jeans
TV GHOST
From In the Red who's just issued their debut album:
"Lafayette, Indiana, creepers TV Ghost-- a band who ushers in a vile and squalid new disposition to ugly art punk and carves out a black hole of pestilence that will delight its sufferers to no end. If one can swim through the murky grime long enough to let one's frazzled senses adjust, it's clear how effectively TV Ghost incorporates the licentious nuances of The Cramps' earliest scuzz, no wave's cacophony, and Suicide's terrifying throb alongside cavernous bellows from the depths of the third layer of hell."
http://www.myspace.com/televisionghost
VEE DEE
Chicago punkoid swagger with copious forays into psychedelic scuzz-fuzz realms, joyfully bad trips to canoodle with the brain receptors most welcoming to the Stooges, Mudhoney, Misfits, Electric Eels, Original Sins.
http://www.myspace.com/veedee
GUINEA WORMS
Victim of Time: "The Columbus Ohio, Guinea Worms have been kicking around the fuzz bucket for a whopping decade now under the reptilian wing of Will Foster, but you'd never tell from their catalog which you could probably count on 4 fingers--CDRs included. Recently releasing their Box of Records 7" single on Columbus Discount Records, the accolades are rightfully raining down, as their mix of slightly sluggish 60s-style slingers smash directly into more urgent sounds of post-punk, and will stick in your gut like a parasitic worm." http://www.myspace.com/guineaworms
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3rd:
TEENAGE JESUS AND THE JERKS
Legends of New York's No Wave movement of the late 70's, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks were formed by Lydia Lunch and James Chance in 1976, with Chance later departing. With Lunch on vox and vicious slide electric guitar, the band was short-lived but made an enormous impact in the NYC underground and its followers for years to come. Their music was dark, nihilistic and emitted in short, violent blasts of what Rolling Stone referred to as "utterly unendurable" music, while tastemaker critics like Lester Bangs held Lydia and company up as pure genius and a complete deconstruction of the safe cruise control punk and new wave had settled into. They were one of the four
cornerstone NYC bands to appear on Brian Eno's "No New York"
compilation, and Atavistic later compiled all the bands recordings onto one
CD release. Lydia returned to the stage with the Jerks last year (Thurston
Moore, Jim Sclavunos in tow), this time out Al Kizys is on bass with Sclavunos (Sonic Youth, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Tav Falco's Panther Burns) on drumkit.
http://nowave.pair.com/no_wave/teenage.html
SIGHTINGS
Over the last decade the Hoffman/Lockie/Morgan trio has become one of thee live bands to see in NYC, taking cues from everything from early Neubauten to Japanese blowout psychedelia to cave-dwelling dub and even minimal house, all contained within a traditional guitar/bass/drums format. Sightings channel it all via noisy, organic rock with weirdly structured songs developed through a keen and alien vocabulary that constant playing and recording has developed to today's state of the band. Five years ago people first started to talk about them reaching new peaks, but they've only kept adding fuel to the fire and are really are destroying more every show.
http://myspace.com/sightings
DRUNKDRIVER
Brooklyn's rulers of agitpunk. Collective Zine: "Drunkdriver, while not exactly ploughing themselves a new furrow (see also: Brainbombs, Drunks With Guns et al), garnered a similarly joyous reaction thanks to the sheer blown-out bluster and mic-swallowing outrage of these nine songs: a stupid, f****d up mess that reduces three-chord frenzy to overdriven clumps of terminal noise and hectoring, drool-chinned bedshitting and makes every song something you have to fight your way through rather than passively endure."
http://www.myspace.com/drunkdriverusa
TALK NORMAL
The Brooklyn duo of Andrya Ambro and Sarah Register propel mysterious globs of percussion/synthesizer weirdness; arrhythmic yet hypnotic, extreme but accessible, keeping a distinct balance of abstract futurism and No Wave/postpunk purity. Their new full length due October 27 on Rare Book Room Records.
http://www.myspace.com/talknormaltalknormal
Contacts: Brian Turner, bt@wfmu.org, 201-521-1416 x223
---
WFMU, the premiere independent/freeform radio station, is producing and curating a three day festival at the Music Hall of Williamsburg from Thursday,
Friday and Saturday October 1-3.
66 North 6th Street, Brooklyn NY
http://www.musichallofwilliamsburg.com/ (advance tickets available)
WFMU FEST
Thursday Oct. 1, doors 8:00, showtime 9:00, $20
Faust, Cold Cave, Aluk Todolo
Friday, Oct. 2, doors 8:00, showtime 9:00, $15 ($12 advance)
Pissed Jeans, TV Ghost, VeeDee, Guinea Worms
Saturday, Oct. 3, doors 8:00, showtime 9:00, $20
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Sightings, Drunkdriver, Talk Normal
These shows will not be broadcast over the air/net.
WFMU Fest comes on the heels of a busy year of live events the station was involved with in 2008 for its 50th Anniversary that included shows with Sonic Youth, the Feelies, the Ex, Getatchew Mekuria, Mahmoud Ahmed, Alemayehu Eshete, Wire, Times New Viking. It also was involved with simulcasting some non-WFMU events including 2008's All Tomorrows Parties Festival (and will be broadcasting 2009's from September 11-13) in the Catskills, as well as a huge portion of the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, Spain this past May. The station has also curated two 14-band events at Austin's SXSW festival in 2008 and 2009, and its Free Music Archive hosted a party in April with the OhSees, Excepter and others.
More on the lineup for WFMU Fest:
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1st:
FAUST
Formed 1969 in Hamburg, Germany and considered the inventors of "Kraut Rock", iconoclasts extraordinaire Faust are key figures in 20th Century music. In the early 70's, along with Can and Kraftwerk, they re-invented pop music as a specifically European art-form. In their own studio they were able to revolutionize the whole process of musical production; they improvised with industrial noise, generated bizarre hypnotic grooves, indulged in shockingly willful studio-based collages, and dabbled with every conceivable musical genre, sometimes simultaneously. The touring members of this 2009 US Faust tour are original members Jean-Herve Peron and Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, along with James Johnston (Gallon Drunk, Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) and visual/video artist, painter, and musician Geraldine Swayne.
http: //faust-pages.com/
http: //frontporchproductions.org/artist/faust
COLD CAVE
Centered around Philly's Wesley Eisold, Cold Cave has been garnering attention via numerous recordings and live events as purveyors of dark industrial synth-pop via elements of power electronics. Cold Cave is a brand new signing to Matador Records, and recently issued music on Hospital Productions, Dais, and Wesley's own Heartworm label.
http://www.myspace.com/coldcave
ALUK TODOLO
Heavy weirdness from French occult combo (featuring members of Gunslingers and black metallist Diamatragon) described by Aquarius Records as: "ominous krautrock rhythms over Einsturzende style industrial clatter, some lost seventies psych rock holy grail channeled through modern post rock. Dreamy and dark and mesmerizing. Hypnotic guitar lines and simple shuffling rhythms that build into clattery propulsive jams, all clanging angular riffs and dense tangled drumming."
http://www.myspace.com/aluktodolo
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2nd:
PISSED JEANS
Pennsylvania's punk overlords exhuding copious amounts of SST,
Flipper, Drunks With Guns, and generally damaged American hardcore/post-hardcore through their sweaty pores. Their third and latest album has just hit, "King of Jeans", on Sub Pop. One of the more destroying live rock combos of the modern day.
http://www.subpop.com/artists/pissed_jeans
TV GHOST
From In the Red who's just issued their debut album:
"Lafayette, Indiana, creepers TV Ghost-- a band who ushers in a vile and squalid new disposition to ugly art punk and carves out a black hole of pestilence that will delight its sufferers to no end. If one can swim through the murky grime long enough to let one's frazzled senses adjust, it's clear how effectively TV Ghost incorporates the licentious nuances of The Cramps' earliest scuzz, no wave's cacophony, and Suicide's terrifying throb alongside cavernous bellows from the depths of the third layer of hell."
http://www.myspace.com/televisionghost
VEE DEE
Chicago punkoid swagger with copious forays into psychedelic scuzz-fuzz realms, joyfully bad trips to canoodle with the brain receptors most welcoming to the Stooges, Mudhoney, Misfits, Electric Eels, Original Sins.
http://www.myspace.com/veedee
GUINEA WORMS
Victim of Time: "The Columbus Ohio, Guinea Worms have been kicking around the fuzz bucket for a whopping decade now under the reptilian wing of Will Foster, but you'd never tell from their catalog which you could probably count on 4 fingers--CDRs included. Recently releasing their Box of Records 7" single on Columbus Discount Records, the accolades are rightfully raining down, as their mix of slightly sluggish 60s-style slingers smash directly into more urgent sounds of post-punk, and will stick in your gut like a parasitic worm." http://www.myspace.com/guineaworms
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3rd:
TEENAGE JESUS AND THE JERKS
Legends of New York's No Wave movement of the late 70's, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks were formed by Lydia Lunch and James Chance in 1976, with Chance later departing. With Lunch on vox and vicious slide electric guitar, the band was short-lived but made an enormous impact in the NYC underground and its followers for years to come. Their music was dark, nihilistic and emitted in short, violent blasts of what Rolling Stone referred to as "utterly unendurable" music, while tastemaker critics like Lester Bangs held Lydia and company up as pure genius and a complete deconstruction of the safe cruise control punk and new wave had settled into. They were one of the four
cornerstone NYC bands to appear on Brian Eno's "No New York"
compilation, and Atavistic later compiled all the bands recordings onto one
CD release. Lydia returned to the stage with the Jerks last year (Thurston
Moore, Jim Sclavunos in tow), this time out Al Kizys is on bass with Sclavunos (Sonic Youth, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Tav Falco's Panther Burns) on drumkit.
http://nowave.pair.com/no_wave/teenage.html
SIGHTINGS
Over the last decade the Hoffman/Lockie/Morgan trio has become one of thee live bands to see in NYC, taking cues from everything from early Neubauten to Japanese blowout psychedelia to cave-dwelling dub and even minimal house, all contained within a traditional guitar/bass/drums format. Sightings channel it all via noisy, organic rock with weirdly structured songs developed through a keen and alien vocabulary that constant playing and recording has developed to today's state of the band. Five years ago people first started to talk about them reaching new peaks, but they've only kept adding fuel to the fire and are really are destroying more every show.
http://myspace.com/sightings
DRUNKDRIVER
Brooklyn's rulers of agitpunk. Collective Zine: "Drunkdriver, while not exactly ploughing themselves a new furrow (see also: Brainbombs, Drunks With Guns et al), garnered a similarly joyous reaction thanks to the sheer blown-out bluster and mic-swallowing outrage of these nine songs: a stupid, f****d up mess that reduces three-chord frenzy to overdriven clumps of terminal noise and hectoring, drool-chinned bedshitting and makes every song something you have to fight your way through rather than passively endure."
http://www.myspace.com/drunkdriverusa
TALK NORMAL
The Brooklyn duo of Andrya Ambro and Sarah Register propel mysterious globs of percussion/synthesizer weirdness; arrhythmic yet hypnotic, extreme but accessible, keeping a distinct balance of abstract futurism and No Wave/postpunk purity. Their new full length due October 27 on Rare Book Room Records.
http://www.myspace.com/talknormaltalknormal
Contacts: Brian Turner, bt@wfmu.org, 201-521-1416 x223
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Passing Stones
I don't know why StSanders disabled embedding, but this is worth clicking through to YouTube. So, so funny.
Friday, August 28, 2009
From Ubu.com
Gathered, Not Made: A Brief History of Appropriative Writing
Raphael Rubinstein
This paper originally appeared in March/April 1999 edition of the The American Poetry Review
Combining his quest for total objectivity with passionate bibliophilia, Walter Benjamin once dreamed of authoring an essay that would consist entirely of quotations from his sources. I'm not sure what my motivations were, but last year I wrote a poem largely composed of direct quotes from a 1979 guide to artists' videos. For the texts of other recent poems I've lifted from such sources as the table of contents of a 1950s literary journal, a review of an obscure 1960s film, an article on the Swiss pop music scene, and the intermittently legible legend on an old Mexican retablo. In some cases I simply transcribed the passage I wanted, while in others I also had to translate it. What amazes me about these acts of literary larceny is how satisfying I find the process. Even though the words are not mine, I derive from them the same kind of pleasure and pride I get from lines I have written in a more conventional manner. Why, I wonder, should it be creatively satisfying to simply transpose lines someone else has written into a text I intend to sign with my own name?
Read the whole piece on Ubuweb.
Raphael Rubinstein
This paper originally appeared in March/April 1999 edition of the The American Poetry Review
Combining his quest for total objectivity with passionate bibliophilia, Walter Benjamin once dreamed of authoring an essay that would consist entirely of quotations from his sources. I'm not sure what my motivations were, but last year I wrote a poem largely composed of direct quotes from a 1979 guide to artists' videos. For the texts of other recent poems I've lifted from such sources as the table of contents of a 1950s literary journal, a review of an obscure 1960s film, an article on the Swiss pop music scene, and the intermittently legible legend on an old Mexican retablo. In some cases I simply transcribed the passage I wanted, while in others I also had to translate it. What amazes me about these acts of literary larceny is how satisfying I find the process. Even though the words are not mine, I derive from them the same kind of pleasure and pride I get from lines I have written in a more conventional manner. Why, I wonder, should it be creatively satisfying to simply transpose lines someone else has written into a text I intend to sign with my own name?
Read the whole piece on Ubuweb.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tom Scharpling Interview on Marvel.com
Great interview on comics with the very funny host of The Best Show on WFMU (as well as one half of the comedy duo Scharpling and Wurster, staff writer for Monk, and many other things). Click to read.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Weird Al Roundup
I can't figure out how to embed Jibjab videos (not that I've really tried), so you'll just have to click on over to Rolling Stone's website to learn about the next Weird Al joint, involving The White Stripes, Charles Nelson Reilly, and a whole lot of lifted-from-the-internet Chuck Norris jokes.
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