Mere Outline 2025

461. "Fencing"

- Dianne & Dan's garden, Pittsburgh, PA, us@

- Sunday, June 1, 2025E.V.

- I'd been working on using a fencing foil as a controller for electronic sound since October, 2024. The 1st manifestation of that was a "Dual" that Roger Dannenberg & I performed at Fall Run Park on October, 2019. Roger was playing trumpet & I was playing fencing foil activated flanging & percussion mounted on a walker as well as a schalmei.

Roger was inspired by the foil electronics & offered to make a device to convert foil tip-button depressions into MIDI signals. Thanks to the usual impediment on my end of lack-of-money & to Roger's general business, the devlopment of the gear was slow-going. I labriously put together an Electronics Sleeve to mount the relevant gear on & Roger got some boxes more or less working & fabricated electronics shorts for attaching his gear to. I amassed the materials needed for both of us to be able to fence each other & we had some rehearsals.

Adding a 3rd character, "Te Hebephrenic" (partially in honor of "Blaster" Al Ackerman), I enlisted the aid of my neighbor, Dan Berg, & asked if we could perform at Diane & Dan's lovely garden.

SO, on Sunday, June 1, 2025, Roger & Dan & I gave a trial run,what I decided was a dress rehearsal rather than a full performance, to some neigbors that I'd text-messaged to announcing a "15 minute entertainment".

As I was setting up a camera, feedback started issuing from my gear & I shut off my amp. When I tried to turn it on again it wouldn't work. After som exasperation, I decided to go head with only Roger's gear working. Unfortunately, his foil tip wasn't activating electronics &, in general, hi synth seemed to be playing a sequece without relation to the foil.

We fenced, eventually Dan turned around, as instructed, & walked toward 'stage front', honking & squeezing a bulb horn & a squueze toy I'd mounted to the walker. He went between the 2 fencers, showing the sign on the front of the ealker to the (v)audience seated across th street. The sign said:

It's Always 6 O'Clock

Do You Know Where Your Parents Are?

I'd made this sign & attached it tothe walker in anticipation of an action intended for the 40th anniversary of neoism in Montréal in 2019. I'd been unable to present that action at the time.

Roger & I held our foils between our 2 stomachs & held our hands aloft. We then dropped the foils, turned the attendees, took our fencing masks off, & bowed.

- July 13, 2025 remembrace from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

462. "DOOMSDAY DOOMSDAY DOOMSDAY audience participation"

- AfterMAF, Art Rat Studios, Roanoke, VA, us@

- Friday, June 27, 2025E.V.

- I'd previously witnessed DOOMSDAY DOOMSDAY DOOMSDAY at the 1st AfterMAF I'd participated in in 2023. I liked them very much & was happy when they gave me a chance to be an audience participant using a siren handed to me. All in all, I loved the complexity, the wildness, thr humor, the comic morbidity, the chaos - & the obvious joy that the members got out of it all.

For this performance, before it even began, one of the members, Grayson, gsve me a task sheet:

I was delighted to be invited to participate. As they began, the audience was informed that it was all going to be precusely timed & Zora started a projection that included countdowns. At some point, audience members were handed out an "Intro Text" sheet:

I still hdn't figured out who the Food Kid was so I hadn't started with my "task". The audience was asked for a volunteer to be the "Secretary" so I was happy to do so. I was placed behind a desk, facing the audience, with a cell-phone. The number of the phone was displayed on a sign at the front of the desk & the audience was encouraged to call. The Food Kid was made obvious:

As far as I could tel, the Food Kid was meant to be an overeater who wa being exploited by the othr performers. I shouted encouragement to him. The cell phone rang & Ianswered it saying something like: "DOOMSDAY, How many I direct your call? I'm sorry, they're in a meeting." I didn't have a chair so Catherine Mehrl-Bennett apparently took pity on my & provided me with one. The Food Kid started protssting his exploitation.

I rejoined the audience, taking the mall table & the cell-phone with me. I called the provided cell-phone with my own & played with them to produce feedback. Catherine noticed & took some footage. Another volunteer wa called for, I wanted to do it but didn't want to hog the opportunities, &, eventually, a neighboring audience member went to a wate tub & stuck his bare feet in it. Ella immersed herself in the tub as well.

My recounting of all this is woefully incomplete. For a movie of this chaos, see Ralph Eaton's document: https://youtu.be/a0yIVxbXaS0?si=PTTDSHvus9I0EPzs .

- July 13, 2025 recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

463. "Jim Leftwich Memorial Readings: Poetry"

- AfterMAF, Art Rat Studios, Roanoke, VA, us@

- Saturday, June 28, 2025E.V.

- Jim Leftwich was very important in establishing the cultural scene that became AfterMAF. He moved away a few years ago & went on the road. He died earlier this year. I hadn't planned on participating in this Memorial because, while I'd known him, I din't now him or his work well enough to feel adequately qualified. Nonetheless, at the time that this was about to begin, Cathrine Mehrl-Bennett offered me a choice of Jim Leftwish masks that I assume she made that had Leftwich poems on the backs of them & I was so delighted that I picked one. The one I slected was a list of single words each having the same ending. I explained that I was planing to just read one word at a time.

The reading began with John M. Bennett. After he was done,the floor was announced open & I went * stood behind & to the audience left of John & read my 1st word & stopped. The audience seemed expectant of my reading more. One of the other readers realized that I was waitinf for them & jumped up to join in. I added the 2nd word. Other readers started getting into the spirit of the thing until all the readers were on stage & reading interactively. We moved around.

Witness Ralph Eaton's footage here: TXtH2oSnI?si=cWkrLHmDFRd0KWAf

- July 13, 2025 recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

464. "Fencing"

- AfterMAF, Art Rat Studios, Roanoke, VA, us@

- Saturday, June 28, 2025E.V.

- My friend Julie Gonzalez shave upside-down Facial Hair on the back of my head so that when I'd bow at the end of this the face would show right-side up.

"Fencing" - 1920 X 1440; 30fps, Stereo - 1:20:24

https://youtu.be/DHN90W8sHaA

https://archive.org/details/fencing_202507

"Fencing": When I attended a community college from 1973-1974 I took such classes as "Obstacle Courses" & "Fencing" as well as the more obvious "Music Theory" & "Music History". I was particularly fond of Fencing & even gave a demonstration at a nearby high school. 50 yrs later, I learned that competitive fencing now uses an electronic system for scoring in which the lamé (the vest) has a metal mesh that's grounded to & in which a button at the tip of the sword (in the case of what I use, a foil) that, when depressed, sends a signal to an electronic scoreboard that judges consult to see if a hit has been made. This inspired me to acquire some fencing gear to modify so that the foil can be used for triggering electronic sounds. I demonstrated this nascent idea to my friend & collaborator, Roger Dannenberg, in a brief improvisation that we played at the bottom of a waterfall.

Roger was then inspired to build some Fencing Electronics Boxes that contained a microprocessor that enabled a signal from the foil to be turned into a MIDI signal. When this works, a depression of the button triggers a random pitch, a button on the box triggers a random 5 note sequence out of a 6 note pitch-set, & contact between the foil tip & the lamé of one's opponent triggers a fast sequence. In reality, this has never worked quite right - probably because the fencing's vigorousness is quick to disconnect & otherwise disturb connections &, perhaps, even the interior of the Electronic Fencing Boxes. Nonetheless, Roger & I put quite a bit of work (& imagination) into working toward the desired end. My ultimate goal was to present this at AfterMAF 2025 (in Roanoke at Art Rat Studios).

Roger was unable to attend the festival so I was fortunate enough to have my old friend Brian Gentry be willing to be my fellow fencer. Somewhat surprisingly, he, too, had been a fencer when he was younger (as well as a martial artist) - ensuring that our fencing wouldn't be completely without vigor. Originally, I had imagined someone acting like a feeble old woman as the 3rd character in this event but I eventually decided for this character to be evocative of "Blaster" Al Ackerman's "Hebephrenic", a face well-known to those familiar with Blaster's work. Olchar Lindsann agreed to this role. The sign on the front of Olchar's walker reads: "It's Always 6 O'Clock - Do You Know Where Your Parents Are?". This sign & walker were originally designed to be part of my action at the 40th anniversary of Neoism in Montréal in 2019. I was both censored out of the festival by Monty Cantsin (Istvan Kantor) because he was afraid I'd oppose his desire to be the world leader & because I was too poor to get there. As such, this Fencing action is intended to be a wry commentary on Neoism, delayed until 6 years later.

In the actual AfterMAF presentation, my electronics regularly flew off my arm. This was unintentional & had never happened before but while it was happening I grew to welcome it because of its humorous effect. It's not like my life has always gone my way. The (v)audience seemed to enjoy it in the same spirit. This movie documents the entirety of the growth of this action, some may find it tediously detailed, others may relish its thoroughness. I even throw in a bit of an "irrelevant Interpolation" with Claire Elizabeth Barratt & Tomislav Butkovic because I was very entertained by it & because it wasn't on the official AfterMAF schedule & was, therefore, likely to've been missed by most of the attendees.

Tags: fencing, electronics, Usic, tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE, Roger Dannenberg, Brian Gentry, Olchar Lindsann, "Blaster" Al Ackerman, AfterMAF, experimental, Neoism, Anti-Neoism

The above are the notes I wrote for the appearance of the "Fencing" movie online. It's worth mentioning additionally tht whenever my electronics flew off my electronics sleeve Brian, my 'opponent', politely stopped & didn't take advantge of my weakness to score a hit. This was an indicator of what Brian's & my attitude was, we weren't trying to 'win' we were trying to enjoy the dance. It's also worth noting that Ella, of DOOMSDAY DOOMSDAY DOOMSAY, gave us a standing ovation. I'm glad she enjoyed it so much. Olchar E. Lindsann did an excelletn job as the 'Hebephrenic' interupting the fencing action.