when sokurov speaks of music...

"yes it is true: it happens so
that sound is soul
and image is legs
image guides us.
image allows one to walk and sound allows one to fly.
i would say so
sound is more universal than image,
it is more human.
sound is free.
this freedom,
universality and humanity
make sound
such an extraordinary factor.
i think that
in this case we are all the heirs
of the huge emotional shock
that each of us experiences when intensely listening
to great music.
without great music there is no great literature
or great playwriting
if that harmony didn't exist.
because music music is simply
a harmony of sounds: ambient noise cannot be a harmony
music is a harmony.
it anticipates
what the rest of the arts created
absorbs it and expresses it.
architecture, painting, literature, playwriting and poetry
music absorbs it all,
comprehends and generalizes all to fit...
music is indeed
the grande dame of the arts...
music
is something
everyone comes to bow to
indeed."

subtitles from an interview with director alexander sokurov speaking about sound and music, as an extra on the dvd of his film elegy of a voyage. some of what he says about film and sound is quite wonderful, while some of what he says about contemporary art, and painting in general, are quite closed minded and difficult to take. he's a classicist surely, but it seems quite sad to exclude the entirety of modernism as having value... nonetheless, elegy is a beautiful poetic film (which would have been wholly impossible to make without reference to modern filmmaking...)

poetry in architecture...

let us speak in images

the floor is a theorem
the obelisk is an enigma
the fountain is a voice
the stair is a whirlpool
the roof navigates in the sky, its keel up
the vault is a flight
the balcony is a sailboat
the window is a transparency (it is sight, life)
the room is a world

text & drawing by gio ponti, from 'in praise of architecture', 1960

this is the order of the music of the morning...

i had initially thought that the short spoken poems on this columbia 78 were spoken by the poets themselves, until i noticed norman corwin's name on both sides of the label... fortunately, this beautiful excerpt from vachel lindsay's poem 'the santa fe trail', stellarly spoken by "america's poet laureate of radio" was a more than pleasant surprise.

lindsay's word forms and corwin's diction feels like the sounds of trains, and sounds like a combination of sound poetry, hillbilly music, and even a bit like the beats. lindsay suggested that while reading the piece, one should inject 'one third of music added by instinct'. he also mentions the poem as an experiment to carry the 'vaudeville form back towards the old greek precedent of the half chanted lyric' (an idea that not only comes through in the reading here, but resonates a bit with the ideas of harry partch).

the image of lindsay comes from a blog devoted to him, which is not only interesting but much more obsessive than a wikipedia entry...

click here to listen.

pattern simpler / patterns complex

"the nurses insisted
it is a clean white sheet
i admitted that it might be...
colors brighter by midnight
pattern simpler
once i almost saw
an unknown color"

jess, four intervals passing in a ward

yesterday, i finally managed to see the exhibition - jess/to and from the printed page at the pasadena museum of california art. the show focused mainly on jess's works that were created for print, and consisted mainly of collage works, printed books, broadsides, a few paintings, drawings, ephemera, etc.

i've been a fan of his work for a long time, initally discovering the collages, and eventually being floored over by his incredibly underrated paintings. two standouts (and surprises) in the show, were a 1969/70 recording of jess reading some of his own texts, and a short experimental film he made with filmmaker lawrence jordan in 1962.

the film, entitled 'the 40 and 1 nights, or jess's didactic nickelodeon', featured still images of collages, each accompanied by a snippet of sound from an LP, film soundtrack, and even a bit of james joyce's voice. the connect and disconnect between the images and the sound bits (which appear for only a few seconds), seem connected to the merce cunningham quote below in terms of sound and visual relationship potentials. i only wish the film were projected in a dark room rather than playing on a crappy small monitor with a pair of headphone dangling...

(and speaking of lawrence jordan, you should not miss this beautiful film of his i found on youtube)

the recording of jess speaking his own texts was also pretty darn wonderful. while the barrage of words made it difficult at times to to focus on the printed works in the exhibition, it gave all of the works in the show another level of vision. the animated sound of his deep voice was a butterfly-like spiderweb filling every empty corner and whitewall gap in the space; and very much presiding over the entire experience.

a footnote in the catalog mentions that a compiling of jess's text works is in the works, which will be a welcome addition to an artist's oeuvre that is already quite faceted - one can only hope the book will include a cd of these recordings of the artist reading...

"the sounding sea"...

"i know a pine tree bowed over close by the sea. noonday bestows on its tired trunk a shade measured out like our life and in the evening wind, passing through its needles, takes up a curious song, like the souls that have abolished death... once i spent a night beneath this tree. at dawn i was a new man, as if they had hewn me that very hour from the quarry."
george seferis

text, images and sound from a beautiful exhibition catalog titled music in the aegean, published in greece in 1987.

"compared with the oceans of the world the aegean is a mere deep blue, often turbulent, pond...but ranged beside the civilizations of the world, the aegean is a colussus. within its bounds lie traces of man's earliest gropings after culture..."
g.v. kavadias

fortunately that culture is preserved in the folk music of the region, and double fortunately it's further preserved on this nice little 7" tucked into the back of the catalog.

"the cicadas playing second fiddle till they become transparent at the moment when a rowing boat went by full of suffering, laden with songs and lights that flicker like mountain-tops."
odysseus elytis

...most of the recordings are from the early 80's, with one being from 1965. all are clearly excerpts, but the little fragments and shifts make it seem all the more like a little film or radio show... i've spliced side one and two together; and if you listen closely, near 8:40 or so you can hear a dog barking in the background...

click here to listen

gymnapoems...

lament of the confined (jonah and latude)
they are seated in the shade.
they are thinking.
many centuries separate them.
jonah says: i am the sailors' latude.
latude says: i am the french jonah.
according to them it smells musty.
it seems as if they can see the good old sun.
they dream only of escape.

on a lantern
nightime.
it is not light yet: you still have time.
you may light the lantern if you wish.
illuminate the path before you.
place your hand in front of the light.
take your hand away and put it in your pocket.
wait. wait.
extinguish.

hygenic advice
before breathing, boil your air.

three short poems by erik satie, from the chapbook erik satie, dried embryos, translated by trevor winkfield, and published by ian robinson's aloes press in 1972.

a hill of the sprites, the dance of the drums, and some muted strings...

well, i'm off to norway for the 100th anniversary of grieg's death, to gather material for a piece that will happen in the fall. the distance means that the archives here will be gathering dust until may 7 when i return. it is unlikely i'll have email or internet access... so here's a few gems to tide things over...

first is an old RPPC of edvard grieg's cabin at troldhaugen (which translates as the "hill of the sprites"). i am hoping the end of my visit will include this small cabin where grieg composed much of his work. there's a nice story from an old article i found on grieg that said he liked to leave notes for potential burglers inside the small writing cabin asking them to leave the manuscript papers and take whatever else they might want... i'm hoping to make some recordings there.

the second is left turn from norway, from a 78 set of music by uday shankar that i picked up last week. shankar was an indian dancer/choreographer, and also ravi shankar's older brother. the thing that got me interested me in him was the fact that guru dutt got his artistic start as a young dancer in shankar's troupe. the recordings are probably from around the time shankar's troupe toured the states in the late 1930's / early 1940's. all of the sides are amazing, but "tabla-taranga" is absolutely unbelievable! the liner notes say it "is almost a musical miracle"... and i think they might be right! it is played by vishnudass shirali while sitting in the center of 12 tablas each turned to a different pitch, playing with "the grace of seagulls on wing". it almost sounds like a string instrument and is totally from another world (i'll probably post the whole set on juju when i get back in town...)

click to listen to tabla-taranga

the last bit goes back to norway and one of my favorite writers... a quote from knut hamsun's a wanderer plays on muted strings:

"i stood for a long time upon the hillside, listening to the sough from heaven and earth; there was nothing else to be heard. then there might come a rustling sound, which would prove to be a shriveled, curled up leaf fluttering down through the frozen branches; it was like listening to a tiny fountain. then heaven and earth would sough again, a mildness enveloped me, as though all my strings were muted."

four poems by josef albers...

1.
the more
the sun shines
the more
water evaporates
clouds appear
and the sun
- shines less

the less
the sun shines
the less
water evaporates
clouds diminish
and the sun
-shines more

da capo

2.
calm down
what happens
happens mostly
without you

3.
one is walking
one is standing
who is more entitled
to the path

4.
easy - to know
that diamonds - are precious
good - to learn
that rubies - have depth
but more - to see
that pebbles - are miraculous

soap bubbles...

images from soap bubbles by c.v.boys, 1911...

in 1997, i made a small film called "astronomy" - filming a series of 1950's kid's astronomy experiments with a super 8 camera i had received for my 13th birthday. when i spotted this book at a used bookstore around the same time; my plan was to use it as a script for another film. unfortunately, i never got around to filming it; but the idea of both films (the one made and the one imagined) seem to go against c.v. boys' introductory text to this book:

"an experiment is not a conjuring trick, something simply to make you wonder, nor is it simply shown because it is beautiful... their chief object is to enable you to see for yourselves what the true answers are to the questions that i shall ask."

boys' answers, of course, carry weight and interest; but i have always found a different kind of truth in the experience of wonder and the exploration of beauty...

i love these images for their mystery and their ability to evoke things beyond illustration and understanding. taken out of context, they have the ability to be traveresed with eyes, fingers, and minds towards some greater unknown (plus how else do you arrive at a place connecting victorian soap bubble imagery with duchamp's rotoreliefs!). there's a whitman poem about astronomy that contradicts boys' introductory text beautifully:

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

of course, i'd take it a step further and hope that one could look down in perfect silence at the charts, diagrams, and numbers in their mystical air as well!

lastly, take a peek at the wonderful new woolgathersome blog... to see another printing of the same book here ....

when bauhauses collide...

i was digging through a box of my "childhood" 45's, and found one of the oddest things in the 4AD catalog. it's a 7" collaboration between bauhaus the band (actually bassist david jay) and surrealist poet/painter renee halkett who studied at bauhaus the school (in the 1920's).

halkett seems to be somewhat forgotten, as most of the online references to him are connected to this record; but i did find some images of early paintings here.

halkett lived in java following world war one, and then ended up in weimar at the bauhaus where he studied with oskar schlemmer, moholy-nagy, and walter gropius. he writes alot about the the dessau bauhaus contradicting the intentions of the experimental weimar school; and laments the fact that it was the beginning of what are now known as official schools of art and design (think MFA program...). despite his connection to early avant garde histories, he seems more connected to the beats in terms of wandering and irreverence.

in spite of the band name, i believe this was the only actual collaboration between a member of the school and a member of the band. i bought the 7" when it came out in 1981, just a few years before halkett's death in march of 1983.

the two tracks are not great, but totally worth a listen (particularly if you like drum machines and that early 80's post punk, right before the batcave thing started, type of sound). armour is somehwat hampered by jay's distracting music; but nothing is pretty darn good... with jay adding a subtler bed beneath halkett's fragile, yet slightly manic, delivery. halkett's voice is the thing here; and it kind of reminds me some of the things burroughs did (the voice... not the words...). i'm pretty sure this is the only released recording of him reading his own works; and it's a nice document of an artist who seems somewhat forgotten. i don't think this has been re-issued on cd, so i've posted both sides. take a listen... armour & nothing.

potentials...

of course, the obvious first impression to the scrawled 'note to self' in this book, is to laugh a little at the dead end this poor sap seemingly ran up against while reading some seriously stunning stories by joao guimaraes rosa; but maybe ino really loved them.

ino confirms for me that it would be impossible to read these stories and not find poetry in them (as it is with borges, calvino, robert walser, pessoa, etc.). i think there is an attempt to suggest that poetry and fiction claim different territories; but to define one of those territories in a simple phrase creates misunderstandings (or perhaps ino wasn't a great writer). ino seems to suggest that poetry is disconnected from fiction because it doesn't always make sense; but can making sense be exclusive to fiction, or not making sense exclusive to poetry?

found texts are often like a private message scrawled on a note and stuffed inside of a drifting glass bottle. their meanings are determined by their connection to the objects they are written on or hidden inside of. ino's text could not have been inscribed on a more perfect object; for guimaraes rosa's third bank story clearly reveals that there are new potentials to be found in the pre-defined; and that one can see a new presence in something already completely familiar.

if you ask someone looking at a river, which bank they like better, they would more than likely choose the left or the right assuming there are only two choices. guimaraes rosa chooses a third bank - creating a third space where others see only two. this previously ignored pre-existing space becomes a new space simply because it has been activated with a new potential of seeing or experincing it differently (similar to the landscape of treetops in calvino's baron in the trees, or the subscape of george nelson's furniture). this new space is born out of the connected space of two pre-existing others; perhaps like the space between fiction and poetry that guimaraes rosa's writing lives (for to place it exclusively in either would not do it justice).

certainly, great poetry and great fiction can contain an incredible depth of experience for a reader left with questions, unfinished business, and a picture that still needs some of the dots connected. this can reveal the experience of reading as a potential... as something that can keep growing inside of you long after the period of reading (and long after the limited time it takes for the questions in a text to be answered within the same text).

i go back to ino's short text thinking that 'too much like poetry...' was written because his, or her, heart was overwhelmed with guimaraes rosa's words; and that he, or she, simply couldn't get them out of his, or her, head. i am hoping, perhaps, that ino really loved this book tremendously and specifically because it absolutely is 'too much like poetry (and); doesn't always make sense'.

a solitary decoration...

robert creeley founded the divers press in 1950 while living in palma, mallorca, spain. divers was a small press that published a series of beautiful small editions for about 4 years, until creeley started working at black mountain college in 1955.

creeley met katue kitasono, a japanese artist, through kitasono's connection to kenneth rexroth. kitasono was a poet as well as an abstract painter and publisher in the 1930's of the avant garde poetry journal vou. vou,"introduced sound poems, dadaist absurdities and work harkening the eventual development of surrealism in japan." the journal was also championed by ezra pound, with whom kitasono had a lot of influence, through a 30 year written correspondence even though they'd never met.

in 1954 divers published a beautiful small book of kitasono's poems and pictures. it contains 5 poems and several geometric abstractions. in a 1987 interview, creeley said it was one of the divers books he remembered most vividly, and i think it was probably because of these crisp and quiet josef albers influenced images.

there are many beautiful moments in this little book, including phrases like "the lightning paints the street like a zebra" and "kissing is sad with smells of lead and gasoline and sea-weed"- that connect the seemingly simple language constructions, to the sweet little abstract images pictured above.

i really love the language; and since the english is kitasono's own translation from japanese, the words feel very particular - especially if you read the poems out loud. as with the images, if any bit of the language was changed, the whole thing would fall apart.

here's my favorite poem:

'a solitary decoration'

i lightly dodged, today too from my destiny
and went across a bridge of melancholy
passed through a small pagan town
which smelled of onion and leek;
then there came to be seen scattered under the cloudy sky,
decayed pales, boards, and roofs:
such a sight soothed me and gave
a balance to my heart.
i tread on the seaweeds, the drifting fragments,
and look at the waves bristling up, the sea-gulls on the wing:
i lie on the poor nettles like a withered collie
to recollect my little fame, my dispute, and my time of pleasure that are gone,
i muse on my light boat, my body, and my liquid medicine,
with my cheek against the slope of this dark century of calamity
i sadly call for an eternal cure.