381. on "Under the Floorboards"

- KGNU Radio Station, Boulder, us@

- Saturday, October 9, 2010 - 11PM-Midnight

- My old friend, the performer & radio DJ Little Fyodor, was kind enough to allow me to take over the entire hour of his "Under the Floorboards" radio program that he's been hosting for at least 25 years. The last time I'd been on it was in 1986 when I showed up just minutes before his show was over after I'd performed in Colorado during the "6 Fingers Crossed Country T.Ore/Ture".

For this program I was joined by poet/poem Amy Catanzano. I had a blast running through a slew of topics - starting with my 1st record, "The Official Wafer Face Record" & playing the "Dispersal" track off of that; going into my 2nd record, "Usic minus the square root of negative one" & playing & explaining some of the 1st side, a double-groove side with lock grooves; & overlapping from there into the specially cut side of my 3rd record, "Mechanically Repetitive / ReRecorded Records RECORD".

From there, Amy & I plugged her hoax book entitled "Conceptual Poetics vs Flarf: Taking Sides, We Can't Decide!" by the 'Nowhere Cooperative' while in the process of also plugging the chapbook of mine entitled "vii" that she had published by Kavyayantra Press. I read from & explained the majority of this latter - whipping out such crowd-pleaser lines as: "Was Cleopatra VII more SECRET about her enamourment with KAYVA paaJcaalikaa [puppet] than hers w/ Mark VII?".

Somewhere in all this I also played HiTEC 072's "Sheepdog" (composed by Kerrith Livengood with the Sheepdog being Ben Opie) [footage of the original show that this is the sound from can be witnessed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oYIc09Zxk4]

& HiTEC 069's "Persisting Resisting" (composed by me).

You can hear this program if you navigate to find it & click on the appropriate icon @:

http://kgnu.org/ht/listings.html?show=UnderTheFloorboards

Whether the program will still be archived by the time you get to this link is unknown to me.

- recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

380. Generic Tour / Narrative / Rubber-Stamp Collecting / Last Man on Earth

- PAC (Performing Arts Center), Naropa University, Boulder, us@

- Friday, October 8, 2010 - 8PM-10PM

- I was invited to Naropa's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics by my girlfriend of the time, Amy Catanzano, who's an administrator & teacher there. This was timed to coincide w/ the release of a chapbook by me entitled "vii" as part of "The Kavyayantra Press Reading Series" series of 10 chapbooks by visiting writers. My visit there was funded anonymously by 2 old friends of mine connected to the university. Amy widely sent out the following [somewhat adapted here] press release that she & I cowrote:

"Dear Writing (Etc.) Community:

"I, Amy Catanzano, have an invitation for you. But, first, a few questions:

"Are you willing to participate in a casual, quick, & unconventional "Generic Tour" of Naropa University on Friday, Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. in front of the Performing Arts Center at 2130 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder, CO 80302?

"Are you sometimes a little bored at readings?

"Are you interested in international cultural/art movements such as Fluxus and Mail Art, the Church of the SubGenius and Neoism?

"Are you exploring interdisciplinary approaches to writing or the relationship between creativity, identity, non-referentiality, and Adamitic language?

"Are you making or researching conceptual poetics?

"If you can answer "yes" to any of these questions, then I cordially invite you to visit Naropa on Friday, Oct. 8 at 8 p.m. for a reading and performance with our special guest, tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (read on for more information). Park for free in the Naropa parking lot on Marine St. off of Arapahoe Ave. Once we've taken the Generic Tour--this is optional, so if you miss it, meet in the Performing Arts Center no later than 8:10 p.m.--we'll convene inside. After the event, you're invited to a continued gathering (TBA). The event is free and open to the public. Be there or be squared.

"***

"Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, in conjunction with the generous support of Professor Anselm Hollo and Jane Dalrymple Hollo, is sponsoring an evening at the Performing Arts Center on Friday, Oct. 8th at 8 p.m., with "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE," whose name is the answer to the question: "What's your name?" cONVENIENCE, who calls himself a Mad Scientist / d composer / Sound Thinker / Thought Collector / As Been / Low Classicist / Psychopathfinder / Jack-Off-Of-All-Trades / criminally sane / Homonymphonemiac / Practicing PromoTextual / Sprocket Scientist / headitor & earchivist / Explicator / Imp Activist / Cognitive Dissident, is infamous for his associations with the Church of the SubGenius and the Neoist Movement. cONVENIENCE's twelve books include HiTEC (Encyclopedia Destructica, 2009) and footnotes (Six Gallery Press, 2006), and his many experimental movies include "Story of a Fructiferous Society" (2005).

"The evening will begin with a short Generic Tour of a small portion of the Naropa environs--convening in front of the Performing Arts Center at 8 p.m. This tour will lead into the Performing Arts Center itself where a Generic Tour of the World-at-Large will begin and abruptly terminate.

"A "Narrative" will happen next based on multiple realizations of the "Infinite Monkey Theorem" in which a group of Thought Experimenters are presented attempting to NOT make a narrative by transforming into monkeys while tENTATIVELY displays his Piano Illiterature using a GRAND.

"A slide lecture entitled "This Death Threat will be a Collector's Item" will titillate the (v)audience's endless thirst for knowledge and inspiration next by thoroughly elucidating cONVENIENCE's use of the rubber stamp as a medium for spreading ideas in what might often be ordinarily print-unfriendly places. Mementos of the evening will be available to people having objects that they wish to be stamped.

"The presentation will end with a projection of cONVENIENCE's visually and textually complex "Last Man on Earth" accompanied by a live electronic soundtrack. This explores literary history in the person of Mary Shelley, movie-making, experimental music-making in the form of cONVENIENCE's 'one-man-band,' and personal experiences in loneliness and alienation as tENTATIVELY's reflections of Shelley. A Q&A will follow."

I was wearing a full-body black leather motorcycle suit of extreme decreptitude & a latex severed head prop as a hat. The Generic Tour began as I exited thru the locked (to the public waiting outside) doors of PAC into the hallway/foyer, holding a camcorder, & extemporized:

"OK, Greetings, Everyone. I'm tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, I'm your Generic Tour Guide. Uh.. Standing in front of us is something that's different from something that's behind us but has certain things in common with it. So that's the beginning of the Tour, here. On our left is something that's more or less similar to what's on our right but not necessarily identical & not necessarily not identical. They're opposite each other. Underneath us is something that's underneath us & overtop of us is something that's overtop of us but that also is relative - so it's not necessarily that much different. &.. somewhere about sixty million miles that way is something that may or may not be similar to something that's about sixty million miles that way or.. whatever.. It's really hard to actually pin it down but there are definitely similarities & those similarities may or may not be important.

"So if you follow me this way, you'll see that something is alive near me & some other thing is alive near me & some other thing is alive that's near the 1st 2 things that were alive - but those things that are alive may or may not really be alive - it all depends on how you measure such things & what you determine to be life. Personally, I think they're all probably more or less alive, as you are probably more or less alive, but I'll leave that up to you because I don't want to overly determine these things for you because, even though I'm your Tour Guide, that doesn't necessarily mean that I know everything about everything even though I do know an enormous amount about alotof things which are sometimes similar & sometimes not similar.

"Now if you, if you touch this, for example, you'll find that it has a texture - but, even if you're not touching this, you may find that there are other textures that you're feeling that you weren't thinking about feeling before you touched this - & that really has nothing whatsoever to do with this tour except that it is related to your perceptual apparatus which you may or may not actually have - because, of course, as we all know, or don't know, that could be Maya, it could be an illusion - but, then again, it probably really isn't an illusion - but, then again, who am I to say? I'm just your Tour Guide here.

[arrival at the front of the Lincoln Building]

"Now I've never been in this object before & may not be able to enter into this object - but [I open the glass double doors] we'll give it a shot anyway. [someone in the tour group says something - apparently about the ability to exit] Now, according to the assistant to the Tour Guide here, we can not only come into this object but we can actually exit this object. I think that's something that alotof things have in common with each other - except for the things that we consider to be impenetrable - like various mysteries - so we'll go this way & we'll see whether the assistant to the Tour Guide actually knows what she's talking about.

"Alright, over here we have an image - & over here we have an image - but that's really not such a big deal because images are everywhere. & here we have a thing that's going down - & there we have a thing that's open - & here we have another thing that's open - & then we have some variety of openness in the form of the people who are there [we unexpectedly (to me) are heading down a hallway toward the PAC entrance again] who are expecting us to provoke certain opennesses but we're not going to do that yet - because.. that might be a little bit too predictable. SO.. openness, non-openness - you decide which is most important.

[I lead them out the original hallway that we began in but direct them in the opposite direction from where we went before - toward the parking lot]

"After all, we are here at Naropa & I really wouldn't want to bias you in this direction towards openness or non-openness because that might destroy your openness! [we arrive at a small sign that reads "THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING"] Now here there's a sign that says "Procrastinate Until Yesterday" & over there is another sign that says "Procrastinate Until the Day Before Yesterday".

"Alright, moving along, if you look about.. seventy million light years away, you'll see something.. that isn't there anymore. & then if you look about as deeply into the quantum structure of what's beneath your feet you'll also see something that isn't there anymore either.

"Now, if you look at yourselves, you might get confused because you might have to decide what yourself consists of & that's true no matter where you are - unless you're.. post-amnesiac. &, then, the other thing about this Generic Tour is that you have to decide whether the objects around you are also post-amnesiac or not.

[we turn around to go back to PAC]

"Now going back in this direction [I walk through the group] you'll see that there are a bunch of fleshy things all over the place, that you're actually in the midst of a bunch of fleshy things, & that these fleshy things are often dangerous, very very dangerous - but they're also incredibly safe - it depends on whether they're animate or inanimate.

"Uh.. &, once again, I can't stress enough, that no matter where you are, you can always conduct a Generic Tour - you just have to get your language right. So, coming this way, [Kimi Cunningham opens the door to PAC for me]

"I am coming into the room, &.. [the vaudeo transfer projection of the "Where We're" filmstrip begins on cue thanks to Allison] the lights in the room are probably going to go down - but, then again, whether one perceives them as going down or not depends on a whole set of factors - but the lights in the room should go down & the soundtrack for the dvd should be up [it wasn't because I'd forgotten to set my mixer correctly] - but we're not hearing it - & that's probably my fault - but it might not be. [I go on stage to check the equipment] It is not my fault, there is sound coming out.. - but we're not hearing it from there.. which is too bad because.. [I get the sound up on my mixer & I stop talking & the soundtrack is heard:]

"'Where We're'. [etta cetera's voice:] Anyway [something..] [my voice in the soundtrack:] Somewhere to the left is a structure. That structure sure is built, isn't it?"

The "Where We're" sundtrack continues the Generic Tour. I allow this to play for about 9 & a half minutes before shutting it off to cue Amy Catanzano's & Anselm Hollo's intros:

"Welcome everyone, and thank you, tENT, for our Generic Tour! I'm Amy Catanzano, Lecturer and Administrative Director of the Writing and Poetics Department in the Jack Kerouac School of Dismebodied Poetics here at Naropa, and next to me is Anselm Hollo, Professor of Poetics in the Kerouac School. It is our pleasure to be introducing tonight's performer, tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, whose name is the answer to the question: "What's your name?"

"tENTATIVELY, who calls himself a Mad Scientist / d composer / Sound Thinker / Thought Collector / As Been / Low Classicist / Psychopathfinder / Jack-Off-Of-All-Trades / criminally sane / Homonymphonemiac / Practicing PromoTextual / Sprocket Scientist / headitor & earchivist / Explicator / Imp Activist / and Cognitive Dissident, is infamous for his associations with the Neoism Movement, which he co-founded, Mail Art, and the Church of the SubGenius as well as his conceptual performances and anarchist actions. He is the author of twelve books, including footnotes (out from Six Gallery Press and available in the Naropa Bookstore), has published and edited numerous magazines, has made over 350 experimental movies, and regularly develops sound-based projects such as his pataphysical orchestra called HiTEC, which stands for Histrionic Thought Experiment Collective [actually it's "Cooperative"]. tENTATIVELY also has a large archive of other people's work; most recently he curated a 90-minute film program from his archive for the Three Rivers Film Festival in Pittsburgh, where he lives.

"Early on in his career in Baltimore, where he knew Anselm Hollo, tENTATIVELY was associated with the language poets, though later he says he didn't want to be "limited by any one theory of writing." That logic was an extension of his experimentation with creativity in multiple mediums, a strategy fueled by undermining what he calls "reality maintenance traps." As part of his experimentation with the public and private performance of identity, tENTATIVELY has written and performed under many names including tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, what he calls his "master-set name," a reference to set theory, and open-context names such as Monty Cantsin and Luther Blissett, which can be used by anyone and which have been at the center of international collaborative writing and performance projects for the last 30 years.

"tENTATIVELY's experiments, which I see as languages, remind me of something Michael Palmer said about translation, that the translation translates not just the text but the translator. Like Jerome Rothenberg's notion of "total translation," which suggests the translator translate untranslatable concepts by creating novel translations, tENTATIVELY's languages translate freely, uncensored, performing a special kind of freedom that frees by being free. The expression of freedom in his experiments ricochets with meticulous and conceptual formal structures and methodologies, colliding chaos and order. And the strong reactions and responses to his experiments, which challenge conventions of all kinds--societal,aesthetic--are part of the experiment. As I've written in a recent review of footnotes, some take the bluepill, some take the redpill....

"I'd now like to hand it over to Anselm Hollo, who is going to say a little bit about knowing tENT during their Baltimore days."

Anselm Hollo: "Well, that was pretty exhaustive, not exhausting, exhaustive. Um, a litany of names, dating back to my 2 sojourns in Baltimore. One was the early, the 1st one was in the early '70s, & the 2nd one was in the early '80s. & somewhere between those times, I had these friends in that, um, in that, um, fair town also know as Charm City [I say: "Also known as 'Harm City'."] - some people thought it was a gross irony, y'know? Uh, I still love that town. &, uh, there were people there - I have a whole litany of names. I'm happy to say that most of them are still with us, I think. There was cris cheek from England, there was Kirby Malone from somewhere down south - I forget exactly where. There was Marshall Reese, there was Nora Ligorano; & visitors included Allen Fisher - a well-known, recognized British poet; &, uh, I don't know if Bob Cobbing ever made it to Baltimore [I cry out: "Yes!"] - he was sortof the godfather of the English side of all of this. & I gather that, now, cris cheek is an associate professor at Miami University in Ohio; Kirby Malone is the artistic director of a group called Cyburbia, I like that, Cyburbia, come to Cyburbia Company - &, as we just heard, tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE is now an active neoist in Pittsburgh. So, it is a great pleasure to meet him again after something like 25 years - that's a quarter of a century, isn't it? & I should also mention Joe Cardarelli - who was a Maryland-born poet - & taught at the Maryland Art Institute for about as long as I've been teaching here. &, uh, y'know, it was a kind of, uh, focal person bringing, bringing many many poets to the Maryland Institute of Art - with which all these people were potentially associated as well [I got ripped off working there as a model - otherwise I found the place entirely too unimaginative & repressive]. So, please welcome tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE."

[Why do I include Anselm's intro? Partially because I LIKE Anselm alot & partially because I want the people mentioned in his list to be able to find these references if they ego-search so that they can know that they're remembered & referred to - this can help pass those lonely days.]

From Anselm's intro I went straight into "Narrative" - wch I'd never presented before. Audience middle: the projected vaudeo of the same name, audience left: me with ear plugs covered over by construction ear muffs playing a white baby grand piano. The "Narrative" movie is an edit of all the HiTEC footage with Managing of the "Infinite Monkey Theorem" System in which text appears. This text is the "narrative" even though the choosing of it through chronological & other systematic criteria creates something other than conventional narrative continuity. The purpose of "Infinite Monkey Theorem" is to encourage the Systems Managers to 'play' randomly & to not stop doing so until someone recognizes a tune in the 'randomness'. My live playing of the baby grand was meant to follow the same instruction & the hearing mutes were intended to inhibit my responding to the soundtrack too directly. I did throw in, in the spirit of a SABOTEUR, occasional quote fragments from a boogie-woogie, "Cool Mule", & a slight misquote from Erik Satie's "Premier Gymnopedie".

The next part consisted of the projection of a 35mm slide show entitled: "A Collector's Item: 25 Years of Rubber-Stamp Collecting" which I sometimes identify more sensationally as "This Death Threat will be a Collector's Item". I advance through the slides of rubber-stamps that I've had made & related images & explain the images & read from a detailed prepared text. These stamps cover a very broad range of topics from ways of contextualizing language, notions of approval, ways of subverting money, experimental language use, politics, graffiti, math, etc.. This took over a half hour - at the end of which I explained that most of the self-inking rubber stamps were located at the front of the stage & that attendees could stamp them on things at the end of the event so that they could have a memento.

After this, I premiered the new 3-in-one version of "Last Man on Earth" (see the entry for April 2, 2006 & the entry for July 7, 2007). "Last Man on Earth" uses footage from a 1992 improv session of mine on multiple instruments combined with a partial history of deaths surrounding Mary Shelley's & her writing of her novel "The Last Man". This version of the movie has 3 projections compressed into one that heavily exploits the possibilities of 3 side-by-side related projections. In the movie I'm wearing the same motorcycle suit that I was wearing this night but from 1992 before it had experienced the extreme distressing that I'd subjected it to. I played samples from the soundtrack of the vaudeo using an ASR-X-Pro sampler simultaneous with playing the soundtrack & sampling it live using my sampler/mixer. There's a preplanned outline for the playing that involves slight pitch manipulation of a D#5 sine-wave at the beginning, sampling & more drastic pitch/tempo manipulation of the vibraphone section, shadowing of the Experimental Musical Instruments Terrence Dougherty section nearer the end, & a much more 'breakbeat' section at the very end. Throughout, there's a plentitude of explanatory text(s) 'competing' for the perceiver's attention. This section was probably the most intense of all & it's possible that 1/4 of the vaudience left during this time.

The whole program was designed to present multiple facets of language use complicated by its relationship to environment, purpose, (M)Usic, imagery, history, & emotion. At the end, the house lights were brought up & people were encouraged to use the rubber-stamps.

- recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

387. Stray Birds

- Marsh Room, National Aviary, Pittsburgh, us@

- Sunday, June 26, 2011 - 11:00AM-11:30AM

- Michael Pestel organized a mnth long series of workshops & performances entitled "KIDBOP!" & "BEBOP!" in cooperation w/ the National Aviary, the Mattress Factory, & the Children's Museum. The basic idea was to bring Butoh dancer Taketeru Kudo from Tokyo, vocalist Caterina De Re from Australia by way of Seattle, movement artist Adelka Polak from Connecticut, dancer McLean Denny from Connecticut en route to Japan, musician Ben Opie from Pittsburgh, & (m)usician tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (myself) from Pittsburgh all together in one place to produce bird-related events.

KIDBOP was a series of workshops for kids under 15 that started in the last 3rd of June at the Mattress Factory & the Aviary & that culminated in a performance at the Rose Garden at the Aviary on the morning of Saturday, July 2, 2011. BEBOP was a series of workshops for people 15 & older at the Aviary that culminated in 2 performances at the Mattress Factory: one on Saturday, July 9, 2011, 2PM; & one on Friday, July 15, 2011, 8:15PM.

This particular performance was the 1st of 5 performances of the project & just involved Michael, Ben, Kudo, & myself (as well as the birds of course!). Michael (flutes, recorders, bird-calls, etc) & Ben (reeds) played a slow duet while Kudo entered clad in a loin-cloth & w/ streaks of make-up on his skin. Kudo's movements were delicate & complex - he's apparently beeen described as bird-like - hence his presence in this project.

I was sitting w/ a table in front of me w/ electronics on it (DX-27S keyboard, ASR-X Pro sampler, K1m wave-table synthesizer, mixer/sampler, etc) & a table to my right w/ percussion on it (5 differently sized frog rasps, an octoblock, ratchet, corrugated tube, crow-call, siren whistle, etc) wearing my dyed turkey-feather outfit that I'd originally made for the "Harps & Angles" performances that Michael & I did together in 2003 & 2004 - & wch I've used in other contexts since. I started playing around 10 minutes into Kudo's arrival. I had intended to use the samples that I'd used for Michael Pestel's The Birds of Rio Negro ( Saturday, April 23, 2005) for the 1st half of a projected hour-long performance & the samples I'd used for the Braxton Plays Pittsburgh Plays Braxton (Marsh Room, National Aviary, Pittsburgh, us@ - Sunday, June 1, 2008) for the 2nd half but the performance only lasted a half hour so I never made it to the 2nd set.These samples consist of 2 octaves of excerpts from the music of Hector Villa-Lobos & 3 octaves of Brasilian bird sounds.

At Michael's request, Kudo was the visual center of attention, so my playing & probably everyone else's was calculated somewhat to reinforce his actions. He entered slowly, jumped up onto a railing, lay on the floor & acted as if struggling to arise, climbed a dead tree, walked along a ledge, & tip-toed across my percussion table with great precision.

A short vaudeo of this by Rene Rosensteel can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQIioUO1Bb4

- July/August, 2011 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

388. BEBOP (Big Experimental Bird Orchestra of Pittsburgh)

- Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, us@

- Saturday, July 9, 2011 - 2:00PM-3:00PM

- Michael Pestel & Taketeru Kudo had given a sunrise performance in the Mattress factory garden & beyond to start the day off. Then there was this afternoon event. The MF garden has the modified ruins of the basement of a house. It's surrounded by 3 walls with the MF main building on the 4th side. Thru the middle of it is a trough with running water that leads to a sculpted opening in a wall that one can peer thru. On both sides of the trough are recessed areas of varying depths. On the side furthest away from the main building, there's a wooden chair inside a circle of plants that almost completely obscure the chair. A few feet away from that is a descending stairwell at the bottom of which is a slightly wet area with some debris. Above this, it's mostly open except for one fragment of ceiling that can be walked across. If one were to descend the steps & to continue on, one would have to make a U-turn to the left & thru a doorway into a sunken ampitheater.

I was wearing sky camouflage with the front covered with square metal pins with cloud pictures on them. I set up an extensive percussion array at the bottom of the steps that included my skin-head bass drum with a dragon drawn on one of the heads, my Total Mobile Home Suitcase with a loop of Triple-S Variety Show electronics of mine, a vibra-slap, a ratchet, a Flex-a-Tone, train whistle, siren whistle, chain, an orange squeeze toy in the shape of a carrot with a face, a squueze toy in the shape of a human foot, a plastic toy in the shape of a highly stylized bee that makes a buzzing sound when struck, & many other things.

Given that I was below ground level I didn't see much of what happened in this 1st section. Movement artist Adelka Polak was seated in the plant-surrounded chair with her legs sticking out from the foliage. The (v)audience was seated in a tented area on an even concrete floor with their backs at a diagonal to the main MF building. To their left was Michael Pestel playing flute & recorder & various other small winds such as bird calls. Across from Michael was Ben Opie playing reeds. Furthest away from them, in the right corner, was Jim Storch with a more portable percussion set-up than included a Bodhran with an ad for Murphy's Irish Stout on it. Caterina De Re was vocalizing.

I think the event basically started with gangly tall dancer Mclean Denny started in the furthest corner of the amphitheater from the audience & slowly made his way around the perimeter & elsewhere. I was invisible to the audience but I occasionally threw an object out of my pit in their direction. The 1st thing I threw hit the arch over my head & bounced back at me. Ben Opie told me that the 1st thing I succeeded in throwing out of the pit, the anthropomorhpized carrot squeeze toy landed with astonishing accidental accuracy in the narrow water trough.

Mclean wended his way to the stairs & descended them heading into the ampitheater pit. Michael announced the 'end' of the performance, to applause, & then lead the (v)audience into the Mattress factory room adjacent to this garden where Butoh dancer Taketeru Kudo began his performance. He was dressed in a more urban manner than he had been previously. Ben Opie took position in the back audience right corner. Michael was closer to the audience to the right. Jim Storch was in the back left corner & Caterina was opposite Michael. Kudo was the center of attention. The audience were seated facing this in conventional positioning.

I began my participation in this 2nd half by ascending out of the pit, the sky rising from the underworld, rolling my bass drum across the garden area toward the new performance area & leaving it outside the open glass doors that opened from this area to the garden. Kudo began dancing while the 4 musicians in rectangular array played. I gradually brought most of my percussion from the pit to the new area - mostly staying out of the center peformance area - choosing instead to circle around the (v)audience on its backside & flanks. I'd do things like play the chime tree behind the (v)audience & play a tuning fork & spin it near an audience member's ears. I skidded small cymbals across the performance floor into the center of attention & walked a marching machine sound effect into the area too. This latter device consists of wooden dowels suspended by string within a frame so that when it's walked across a surface, such as this floor, it sounds like marching men. Michael stuck his foot thru it & played it that way - breaking the string but producing a nice effect.

I took my Total Mobile Home Suitcase & opened the lid to activate the playing of the hidden tape loop & the sound of cascading electronics emerged. It was exactly the type of sound I was hoping for. Kudo's Butoh dancing was strongly evocative of human struggle.

389. Stray Birds Sunset Full Moon

- Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, us@

- Friday, July 15, 2011 - 8:15PM-9:30PM

- Alas, I'm writing this description almost exactly a year after this event so I don't remember it as well as I'd like. This was the last of the month-long KIDBOP & BEBOP series that Michael Pestel had organized at the National Aviary & the Mattress Factory & that largely centered around Butoh dancer Taketeru Kudo he'd brought from Japan.

The main building of the Mattress Factory is a large formerly industrial space the main entrance to which is arrived at by passing a garden area where the ruins of a former building have been imaginatively repurposed by an artist unknown to me. The 1st gallery reached has a wall of sliding window doors on one side that look out onto the garden. The night began with dancer Mclean Denny coming out from behind a curtain in this entrance gallery. Projected onto the walls & perhaps the ceiling of the space were multiple videos made by Caterina De Re for this purpose. The videos, as I recall, were mostly nature details such as running water & plants - probably with shots of Kudo as well. Mclean exaggerated his height even further by attaching a branch to his back that extended a few feet higher. His motions were slow & considered. Michael played flutes & small instruments, Ben Opie reeds (& electronics?), Jim Storch probably percussion, & Caterina sang. They eventually led the (v)audience outside as the sun was disappearing over the horizon.

Kudo was to take over as the main dancer here - with the hope being that the full moon would be prominent. Alas, various things probably prevented this latter - such as buildings & clouds. The garden space has the cellar & steps remains from a building. Separating these remains from a more flat area is a narrow channel with water running through it. Walls on 3 sides enclose the space. Ground level is perhaps 8 feet higher above one of these walls. At this higher level, Matt was processing the running water sounds through computer effects which were then heard (although not by me) coming from speakers - possibly placed near the former building's basement steps. A tent roof was placed over the concrete floor seating area & the action took place in the garden.

The (m)usicians were placed much as we had for the July 9, 2011 event with the exception of myself. I was to the right of the audience facing the garden. I was wearing my suit covered with brightly colored turkey feathers (taken from feather dusters). I was playing a keyboard controller to activate bird samples that I'd made. I also had percussion (such as a thunder sheet), a Small Nondo (an instrument made by Neil Feather that consists of a sheet of bowed metal held in this bowed position by piano wire strung to create 2 strings across the Nondo's concavity - generally played by rolling a metal rod across the strings & hitting the strings & the bar with a drum stick) to my left, & the SonLuminous to the left of that. To my, & the audience's, right, & in the corner of the garden least visible to the audience, Jim Storch was playing. Ben was past him, more visible. Michael was closest to the audience to their left.

Kudo appeared from somewhere, probably the top of a containing wall, as he took over from Mclean as the main dancer. He & Caterina prowled the garden. By prearrangement, Kudo came to the SonLuminous (a sound sculpture consisting of metal rods with optical fibers interwoven with them) & butted his head into its rods to activate a clanging. As he did this, I switched on the optical fiber lighting, which had previosuly been off, for dramatic effect. Kudo eventually held a torch above his head with the flames fearfully close to branches & the tent roof. However, true to Kudo's highly accurate form, nothing caught fire.

- July, 2012 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

403. "A Catamaran Animist Vigor"

- Babyland, Pittsburgh, us@

- Saturday, January 24, 2015

- The genesis of "A Catamaran Animist Vigor" is probably rooted in the fall of 2009. My friend the ever-inventive Mark Dixon had told me about his Selectric Piano - a typewriter that would play an 88 key electric piano. I started thinking about what text(s) I'd want to type on it. The idea of anagrams of "Anagrammatic Variations" appealed to me. I used an online generator to generate so many of them that the text file result was difficult to open. I narrowed it down to just the anagrams with "Catamaran" & "Catamarans" in them. In 2010. I went to visit Mark & to use the Selectric Piano. His associate Bart Trotman was generous & open enough to type the anagrams for me while I manipulated MIDI-activated electronics. Several movies were made of the results - images of catamarans were added to the mix. In 2014, I screened this by now dense movie at Abandoned Store while a group of 5 improvisors played. I shot footage of this. I went to great lengths to notate what the corresponding pitches were for each of the anagrams. The original movie + the Abandoned Store footage + the notation were combined into a Score Movie - a movie that gives instructions for the live creation of its own soundtrack. I rallied the musicians for playing this. We rehearsed. Finally, on Saturday, January 24, 2015, we presented the Score Movie to an attentive & excellent (v)audience at Babyland while the following 5 performed the score: Matt Aelmore (French horn), Roger Dannenberg (Laptop 'piano' chords), Kenny Haney (Bb clarinet), Brian Riordan (Laptop samples), tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (Percussion samples). The (M)Usic? Imagine an aleatoric minimalist/maximalist live musique concrete based on word-play & oh-so-much-more. This YouTube version isn't the complete piece, it's just the 'meat of the matter'. "A Catamaran Animist Vigor" was then followed by a performance by Anita Sphinx, a performance redolent of that same day's Summit Against Racism.

- 1st rehearsal broken into 3 parts on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here:

pt 1: http://youtu.be/cC5d-SriB6Y

pt 2: http://youtu.be/O2ToDm0HfKc

pt 3: http://youtu.be/Bh9p5Io83OQ

- 2nd rehearsal on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: http://youtu.be/9JueavuM5m0

- performance at Babyland on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: http://youtu.be/cn3U055X-2U

- August 19, 2015 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

404. "The Key to Success, from One Who Knows"

- Babyland, Pittsburgh, US@

- Friday, May 1, 2015

- Every year since at least 2009 there's been an at-least-annual cabaret in Pittsburgh, usually associated with a political event. Since 2010, there's also been an annual May Day Parade in the wonderful Polish Hill neighborhood. For most, if not all, of these May Day events there's been an accompanying cabaret, usually, if not always, the night before. This was the 1st of the May Day cabarets that I participated in. The request being that performers restrict themselves to 5 minutes or less, I managed to pull off the following in something like 2&1/2 minutes. I had originally developed this piece for something I'd been invited to participate in at a theater scheduled later in June. Anticipating that the organizer(s) of that would flake, as they did, I decided to present it at the more reliable May Day cabaret. Here's the script:

"The Key to Success, from One Who Knows"

- april 2015

Monolog:

I walk out from the wings with a chair in one hand on the audience side and a short ladder in the other hand. I put the ladder unobtrusively on the floor & set the chair down in profile. I face the audience & speak the next line while I reach down with my right hand, pull on my right boot-strap & lift my right leg up. While it's raised, I try to reach my left boot-strap & fail, stumbling a little.

"In the late 1970s, I met a young woman..

I sit in the chair & pull on both boot-straps pulling myself into a fetal position while I say the next line.

"She told me what she thought other people should do to succeed..

I set up the ladder so that its side is visible to the audience and so that I can ascend it from the direction I came from. I pull on my right boot-strap to lift my right foot onto the 1st rung of the ladder & repeat the process with alternating legs as much as possible while I say the next line.

"She was very stern and judgmental about it..

I walk to the wing to get the taller ladder & say the next line while I bring it on stage & set it up as the next prop in the chain - in the same arrangement as the last ladder.

"I've tried for years to follow the dictum..

I start to ascend this ladder in the same way that I did the last one while I say the next line.

"But no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do..

I continue ascending the ladder while I say the next line.

"I just can't seem to succeed..

When I get near the top my head should enter a pre-hung fake cloud hanging at a level that my head can reach in time. It's made out of cotton balls & hung with monofilament.

"No matter how much I put my head in the clouds where hers was..

I unhook the cloud from its attachment & wear it as a hat as I descend. Once I'm on the ground again, I say the next line.

"I still find my feet on the ground..

I take the big ladder down & carry it off-stage while I say the next line.

"No matter how much I try levity to defy gravity..

Back on stage again, I reach down to both boot-straps & make a feeble jump up while I say the next line.

"I still haven't managed to pull myself up by my boot-straps..

I pick up the chair & the small ladder while I say the next 2 lines.

"Oh, did I mention?

"She was a millionaire heiress living off a trust fund & I was working for less than minimum wage as a laborer..

I deliver the last line as I exit off-stage carrying the ladder and the chair.

"So I guess I'll just have to keep my feet on the ground and walk.."

- August 19, 2015 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

405. My 5th May Day Speech: Soap Box Opera Episode 4

bullhorn decorations: etta cetera; photo: Mark Knobil

- midway through the annual Polish Hill May Day Parade on the streets of Polish Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, us@

- Saturday, May 2, 2015

[I'd originally thought I started giving these May Day speeches in 2011 at the 2nd of the annual Polish Hill May Day Parades but I realiozed as of September, 2015, that I actually didn't start until the 3rd of the parades in 2012 so this was actually just the 4th of my speeches - as such, the movies online for 204 & 2015 are misnumbered]

- The text of my speech:

"In the early 1970s feminists made the case that housewives were underappreciated, undervalued & underpaid marginalized labor. The idea was that they did housework, child-rearing, & cooking for their family but were at the mercy of their husband's determination of what the value of their work was. They were taken for granted. If the marriage was healthy & the arrangement was consensual then maybe everything was fine. But if the marriage was unhealthy then the housewife was somewhat trapped by the marriage contract without much legal ability to redress her grievances.

"Things have changed since then insofar as gender roles aren't nearly as fixed as they were then & there're now far more married women making a living, far more men staying at home as "househusbands", & far more common options for not being stuck in either of those roles.

"HOWEVER, in many respects, we're all still stuck in just trying to survive in a world of marketplace forces that we didn't create & don't necessarily want much to do with. & that's where the work that I respect the most comes into play, a form of work that, like that of the housewife in 1970, is underappreciated, undervalued, & usually not paid at all by the monster known as "society-at-large".

"What's that work? It's the work that probably all of you here do on a regular, if not DAILY basis. It's the work that's exemplified by this absolutely wonderful annual May Day Parade, by the Variety Show, by the Marching Band, by the Softball Game, by the Kids Activities, by the Food & Drinks.

"In other words, it's the work we do for the sheer joy & love & thrills & inspiration & community-mindedness of it & NOT FOR MONEY. It's the things you actually LIKE TO DO, the things you FEEL ARE IMPORTANT. It's the prison activism, it's the resistance to people being reduced to little more than money-making machines, it's the embracing of creativity as a sign of life far more potent than a Lear jet or a diamond necklace.

"I wish we could suffer less, I wish the struggling were less desperate. There are many, many times when even having a few hundred dollars would make a huge positive difference in our lives - but if you don't have that few hundred dollars you probably at least have the ability to do something to brighten up your day & that of the ones around you. Don't lose it!!"

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: http://youtu.be/jImQyP8g_iQ

- August 19, 2015 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

409. "RonDodo"

- Lightlab 10, The Space Upstairs, Pittsburgh, us@

- Tuesday, November 10, 2015

- ""RonDodo" (September-December, 2015E.V.) I started (d) composing in 1974. I've done nothing but d teriorate since then (ka-boom!). "RonDodo"'s the latest evidence of that. I was probably daydreaming about the punning possibilities of the words "Rondo" (a simple musical form) & "Dodo" (a bird rendered extinct by humans several hundred years ago) & wondered about how to turn it into a score. Lo & Behold!, "RonDodo" was born! I drew an outline of a Dodo & made a connect-the-dots tracing of it that followed an extravagant RonDo form: A-B-A-C-A-D-A-E..A-Z-A & placed this over graph paper to provide a regularizing component. I then established rules about how the players should proceed from there. Unpromising as this may seem to some, a fairly interesting (d) composition was generated. Since I'm fortunate enough to have friends who actually find these pieces of mine challenging & fun to play, I was also fortunate enough to work with the following crew to bring "RonDodo" to life: Matt Aelmore: French horn; Jason Belcher: valve trombone; David Bernabo: keyboards; Roger Dannenberg: trumpet; Calder Dudgeon: conductor; Kenny Haney: clarinet; Julian Krishnamurti: violin; Ben Opie: alto saxophone; Brian Riordan: percussion; & myself (yes, I'm even friends with me): tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: (d) composer, sampler, moviemaker. This movie quasi-documents the piece's growth up 'til its premier performance as part of David Bernabo's "Lightlab 10" at the fabulous "The Space Upstairs" in Pittsburgh. Such details as rehearsals are primarily intended for the edification of geek scholars. Then again, if you're checking this whole business out in the 1st place you probably ARE a geek scholar in which case I greet you (albiet in this removed way) with thanks for your interest. The final version presented here is also available on CD as part of my "1975-2015" collection of selected works of mine for 40 years. Figuring out my email & writing to me is probably the best way to get a copy because I don't anticipate it's getting distributed otherwise." - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE onesownthoughts YouTube notes December 9, 2015

the percussion stand tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE designed & built for "RonDodo"

full "RonDodo" movie on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/CzsoiM8z1wk

411. Chalkboard Suit & Chernobylite Jokes

- Babyland, Pittsburgh, us@

- April 29, 2016, E.V.

photograph: Mark Knobil

- "Chalkboard Suit & Chernobylite Jokes": 2016 marked the 7th Annual Polish Hill May Day Parade. Each year, & for years even before the parade started, there've been Variety Shows open to public participation that precede the parade. This year I'd been reading about Chernobyl. The theme was of the parade was "Many heads, many hands" so I decided to paint a suit with chalkboard paint & invite audience members to draw hands & heads on them while I talked about radioactivity, etc. My prepared text was as follows:

This year's 7th annual Polish Hill May Day Parade theme is "Many Heads, Many Hands" in honor of the 'Many-Headed Hydra' of Mutual Aid & Resistance to Oppression. SO, I'm asking for volunteers to come up here & lay hands on me..

Do you like my suit? I feel a little stiff in it. Maybe that's because I painted it with chalkboard paint - & that's why I have chalk dangling from it. The idea is for the volunteer many heads & hands to draw many heads & hands on the suit.

While the volunteers are doing that, I'm going to talk about radioactivity. Did you know that this past Tuesday, April 26th, marked the 30th anniversary of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl?

For those of you who don't remember Chernobyl, it was a nuclear power plant in the Ukraine, right at the Belarus border, that had an explosion from which 60 to 70 percent of the radioactive fallout went into Belarus. Hundreds of thousands, if not hundreds of millions of people were, & still are, effected.

My stepfather worked for the Baltimore Gas & Electric Company as a sign painter. Every year, a lottery was held where male employees were picked to clean the nuclear power plant. According to my stepfather, if you said NO you could be fired.

Fortunately for him, he didn't have to say no because the younger guys were happy to do the job because they got extra pay. My stepfather's dead now, not from radioactivity, he was spared that, he had ALS, apparently from U.S. chemical weapons he was exposed to in the Korean War. He still managed to live a long life. But that's a different story.

I've been reading a book entitled "Voices from Chernobyl", a book of interviews with 'Chernobylites' compiled by a Belarusyn journalist named Svetlana Alexievich in 1996, 10 years after the disaster. I'm going to tell you a few of the Chernobylite jokes that she learned from the people she interviewed. They're a bit out of context but I think you'll get the drift:

"They asked the Armenian broadcaster: 'Maybe there are Chernobyl apples?' 'Sure, but you have to bury the core really deep.'"

"There was a Ukranian woman at the market selling big red apples. 'Come get your apples! Chernobyl apples!' Someone told her not to advertise that, no one will buy them. 'Don't worry!' she says. 'They buy anyway. Some need them for their mother-in-law, some for their boss.'"

"Guy comes home from work, says to his wife, "They told me that tomorrow I either go to Chernobyl or hand in my Party card." "But you're not in the Party." "Right, so I'm wondering how do I get a Party card by tomorrow morning?"

"After Chernobyl you can eat anything you want, but you have to bury your own shit in lead."

"This prisoner escapes from jail, and runs to the thirty-kilometer zone at Chernobyl. They catch him, bring him to the dosimeters. He's "glowing" so much, they can't possibly put him back in prison, can't take him to the hospital, can't put him around people."

"'Now all the stores have radio-products.' 'Impotents are divided into the radioactive & the radiopassive.'"

Now, imagine, dear volunteers, if I were radioactive would you be laying your hands on me? Thank you.

photograph: Mark Knobil

- a movie of this is on my Vimeo channel here: https://vimeo.com/164947710

- notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

413. "Limpolysemia"

- via Skype from Who Unit? in Pittsburgh, us@, to Minsk, Belarus; Rotterdam, Netherlands; Richmond, Virginia, us@; South Carolina, us@

- Sunday, August 8, 2016EV, noon in Pittsburgh, Richmond, & South Carolina; 7PM in Minsk & Rotterdam

- This was the premier of my sampling piece made for a video-teleconference of the same name. Sincee the main purpose of the conference was to establish communication between IMP ACTIVISTS in Belarus, who speak Russian, & IMP ACTIVISTS &/or Neoists in the us@ & the Netherlands who were speaking English, the samples were mostly in Russian - with the exceptions of quotes from a poem by Belarusyn Monty Cantsin. The performance of it that essentially opens the teleconference is at 12:53 in the feature-length movie that documents it on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/Iimpolysemia . Below are scans of the score & some scanned pages from the Russian coursebook that I took some of the Russian phrases from.

- September, 2016 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

423. "Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?"

- Spoken Word Open Mic, Biddle's Escape, Pittsburgh, us@

- Wednesday, January 10, 2018, 7:20PM

- I've been collecting alcohol bottles & cans that appeal to me for one reason or another but without any purpose in mind until I finally realized that they'd provide a relevant visual element to a reading of my text that was written in reponse to the Goodreads question "Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?". Throughout the reading, I placed these cans & bottles in front of me on the table, where I had the text, to create an atmosphere of comedic intoxication, even though I wasn't actually drinking alcohol. The 1st one I placed on the table was an empty bottle of "Walt Wit" beer that has a picture of poet Walt Whitman on the label.

still from the movie of the reading

https://www.goodreads.com/questions/268679-where-did-you-get-the-idea-for-your-most

Goodreads asked tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

(October, 2016?)

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Well, this isn't exactly about my most recent book ("tENTATIVELY, aN iNTERVIEW" in collaboration with Alan Davies) but it's the closest I can get at the moment. That age-old question of "Where did you get the idea"? can be answered by almost all creative people who're willing to be honest with a simple answer: from a series of books called "Ideas for _____s" - in this case "Ideas for Writers". I have one called "Ideas for Filmmakers" & one called "Ideas for Musicians" too. They're all pretty much the same with a few minor variations. I should clarify: they're not exactly books, they're things that display on my iTab, they're kindof expensive but the subscription's worth it because it keeps me ahead of the pack, so to speak, ahead of the wolves at my door. Unfortunately, I can't really afford to pay for a good iTab at the same time so I can't always read the microprint.

Anyway, just to give an example. I'm sitting here, alone, as usual, my inflatable amanuensis doll that answered to the name of Samuel Beckett deflated a while back & since then I haven't had any friends at all. SO, I'm trying to think: what can I write? I just look at the iTab "Ideas for Writers" & I see that zombies are in right now so I think "COOL, that's something different that I wouldn't have thought of on my own!" so I decide to make it a zombie story.

Well, lest you think that I'm lazy and that I'd just sit back on my haunches & knock back a six-pack after such an inspired moment, I THEN consult the iTab again & see that if I really want to corner a niche market I should make it targeted to an audience-in-search-of-'their'-writers so I decide to make it a queer youth novel, at least a little - not too much because I want to keep it outside of the rating system so I don't have any problems there.

Now I'm on a roll! A few more checks in the iTab & I've got the opening scene: two girls in a bedroom messing around, nothing too x-rated, just some exploratory kissing, maybe a little petting, again, not too much. The annoying little brother has been pounding his pud in the next room, he can hear everything so he knows what's going on. Now I don't explicitly say that's what he's been doing, it's implied, right? "Ideas for Writers" teaches you how to be subtle. SO, he bursts into his sister's room, his pajama fly is open, he's got the door-knocker in his hand, the sister & her friend see that he's a zombie so she blows his head off with a handy gun (every American home should have at least one in every room).

This is where I start to get really original: usually zombies get killed when their head gets blown off, right? In this case the brother keeps right on coming, he can't see anymore but it's ok, it's a small room, the bed's on the right, the school-desk's on the left & the window's straight ahead so it doesn't matter if he can't see anymore. I admit, I started to get lost here, I mean his door-knocker wants to "ring that bell-el-el-el-el-el-el" right but I can't let that happen, I've got to curb that heat-seeking missile.

Eureka! A VAMPIRE comes in the window at that very moment (I'm not making this shit up, it's all in the "Ideas for Writers" iTab) & starts sucking on the boy's neck-stump. It's like winning the lottery for the vampire. In no time at all, the boy's body is drained 'til he's little more than one of those party-whistles where you blow it & a tongue of rolled paper shoots out & then retracts again - you know what I mean? BUT HE'S STILL ALIVE! (Every time I start a sentence with "But" or use an ampersand or whatever a red line appears under it, the "Ideas for Writers" spellcheck doesn't like it at all but I can't help myself I'm so excited!) Nothing can kill this kid.

The girls have been watching all this, admittedly fascinated & a bit turned on, but, then, the vampire turns to look at them & she's got a weird look in her eye & they know what that means so they each take a nail-studded baseball bat that's there in case they run out of ammo & they each take a swing but the vampire's too smart for that & jumps out the window just in time & the bat hits the brother in what's left of his stomach instead &, & here's the shocker, his head pops out of his neck, he was only fooling, he's ok, & everybody hugs each other & we're back to being family-friendly.

I REALLY don't know where to go from here, I'm even more stumped than the brother (get it?!) so I consult the well-spring & find that making it a dream justifies anything so that gets me off the ratings hook a little. The sister wakes up, it turns out that she's fallen asleep in class, she's in school & a nun has awoken her by whapping a ruler across her knuckles. I got that from the iTab too - nice touch, eh?! See why the subscription's worth it?!

There's something weird about the nun. The reader doesn't know this yet, I just drop some hints, but the nun's actually a guy in drag who's in school as an undercover cop trying to catch some grafittists who've been carving a post-horn symbol in the ceilings & the cop can't even figure out how they get up there, he's just got to know. But that's not the only weird thing, the girl's starting to figure out that he's actually a guy because there's this protuberance at about three feet in the front of the nun's habit.

In other words, all is not as it seems - you don't want to make it too obvious for the reader. When the girl gets woken up, she knocks her iTool on the ground & when she leans over to pick it up in her Catholic School mini-skirt uniform her thong strap breaks & her woo-haa is exposed to the 'nun' who just happens to be bending over at the same time to help her pick up the thingie &, wouldn't you know it?, that nylon-wrapped protuberance slips right into the Garden of Eden!!

At this point, I'm a bit tipsy & I look at my "Ideas for Writers" & see that I've accidentally opened the ADULT version but there's no turning back now because I've lost track of where I am anyway. Well, the girl, the sister, right?, not the 'nun' sister, but the zombie-boy-in-the-dream's sister gets pretty excited by all this & that's when, to quote Dr. John Money, she gets derailed from her love-track. She's a goner. Nothing is EVER going to turn her on like this again, she's going to spend the rest of her life trying to reinstantiate but there's no hope for her, this was a one-of-a-kind experience. OR SO IT SEEMS!!

Fortunately for her, the undercover cop is actually her own age (within a year or two) so the story's in the clear there, & the reason why this particular cop specializes in nun-drag is NOT because he's one of the Sisters of Perpetual Motion, or whatever they're called, but because he has a physical abnormality that makes his crotch two feet above the ground & his heart at about three feet while his head is still at about the normal height.

Here's where the "Ideas for Writers" really gave me a kick: The protuberance, which everyone has been thinking is the member of the family who hangs onto the family jewels is ACTUALLY a stake that was driven through his unusual person's heart! The thing is: HE CAN'T TAKE THE STAKE OUT HIMSELF, that's against the rules, & he's too embarrassed to ask for help. WELLLLLL (another red underline), the stake gets caught in the honey pot & when the girl stands up it pops out of his chest & the wound immediately heals. BOY, is he grateful!

I barely need to tell you what happens after that, the story just sortof writes itself. The boy is actually some sort of super-powered shape-shifter who was elongating when the stake was driven in by a bad guy who was trying, of course, to kill him. The result was that he didn't get killed but he got stuck in this shape, right? & he's been an undercover cop in nun drag ever since. That's kinda harsh for such a young guy - even if he is precocious. That's made him more sensitive.

Once the stake's out, he remembers that HE's the grafittist & that his elongo powers have enabled him to carve into the ceiling with his titanium-hard fingernails. Everything fits together, he & the girl fall in love, his special powers make reinstantiation possible after all & they live happily ever after. That's just the 1st chapter, I've been misleading the reader, the real hero of the story is the writer but I'm too drunk now to read the "Ideas for Writers" anymore so I have to stop for now. Does that answer your question?!

- a movie of this is on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/beFRcoyT_SY

424. "Exorcising Capos"

- "The Exorcism", Glitter Box Theater, Pittsburgh, us@

- Saturday, February 3, 2018, 8:20PM

- My friend & collaborator Mr. Funky (aka Unfinished Symphonies) conceived of & invited me to be a participant an even called "The Exorcism". He explained this to the press thusly: "It's gonna be a series of short, punchy individual exorcisms. Each participant will pick a target and go for it with any strategy she/he chooses. Could be music, could be something else. At the end we'll have the audience write down what they want erased from the world, and we'll go out to the street and burn up their paper."

I decided to exorcise capos. I've always found capo use to be ridiculous. The idea was to use 5 or more altered quick-release capos in a binge of capo overkill to purge capo playing. If one's an alcoholic one could 'cure' oneself of it by drinking oneself to death (NOT RECOMMENDED OR EVEN SUGGESTED) because then one would be dead. I thought I'd apply the same logic to capo playing. As usual, the more I thought about it the more elaborate my idea became as to what to do.

The night of The Exorcism arrived & I was in a particularly stressed-out, distracted & unhappy mood. Even though I pulled it off in a way that appeared to entertain the (v)audience I was dissatisfied with all the things I forgot to do & with all the things that went wrong. The performance was still good anyway but for the purposes of this movie I've added some extra footage to make up for some of what was lost. Mr. Funky himself will put movies of each of the performances online so this only represents mine.

What I DID do was talk about learning guitar as a teenager & deonstrated some of what I was talking about. I'd altered 2 capos & I used those & an E-Bow & an EZ-Fret to indulge in an orgy of lazy playing. After I'd demonstrated this, as a way of avoiding a situation in which using a capo would even make any sense, I switched to a MIDI-guitar & ended on an acoustic piano. I played a D major chord, improvisied in a way that was irrelevant to scales, played a D minor chord, & ended on a D Major chord. The reason for this was two-fold: I wanted to introduce a musically conventional 'uplifitng triumphant' ending with a Picardy Third and to end on a D major chord because Unfinished Symphonies usually says that his songs are "in D", which, as far as I can tell, they never are - by which he apparently means that they begin & end on a D major chord.

The other performances were varied & generally excellent & were by: The Tortured Genius (Mr$. Funky), Emily Deferrero & a host of friends, Steve Pellegrino & Mary (on mandolin-banjo), Maurice Rickard, Eric, Matt Aelmore, & Unfinished Symphonies (Mr. Funky). It was a very special evening. Thanks, as always, to the wonderful Glitter Box Theater for being so open-minded & affordable.

- Unfinished Symphonies's raw footage of the Exorcism of Capos is here: https://youtu.be/J5SX8bkQW4c

- My edit, introducing supplementary materials, is on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/nTRdh4YnA2I

426. "Soap Box Opera episode 7"

- a srop on the Spit'n'Polish Hill May Day Parade, Pittsburgh, us@

- Saturday, May 5, 2018, 1:30PM

- Since 2010 there's been an annual May Day parade in the neighborhood I live in. It comes together in a somewhat chaotic way but still manages to be colorful & substantial & fun. Since 2012, I've been giving a speech as part of it. Each year I've tried to say something political & reinforcing of both the community & the individuals within the community. I usually think about what I'm going to say all year leading up to it. I, personally, don't enjoy political speeches very much. No matter how much I agree with the politics of the person speaking they always just come across as so much blah-blah to me. Not wanting to be just-another-political-speechmaker, I've leaned somewhat toward the performative in an effort to make the experience more interesting. This year, 2018, I decided to break out of the expected altogether & take advantage of the USB input in my megaphone.

Many months in advance, I wrote to many multilingual friends of mine all over the world & asked them for recordings of 10 seconds or less of something that they'd like to say to the May Day Paraders:

May Day 2018 multilingual speech proposal

Dear multilingual friends,

For the past 6 years I've given a short May Day speech at an unpermitted May Day Parade. This year, I want the speech to come from many voices in many languages. Since you speak a language other than English I'm asking for the following from you:

Please think of one sentance you'd like to say to a May Day Parade.

Please record your saying that sentence in a language other than English.

Please make it 10 seconds or less long.

Please send me the recording to idioideo at gmail dot com along with the sentence written out & an English translation.

The idea is that I'm going to collect all the recordings onto one USB drive & then play them through my megaphone.

PLEASE DO SO BY APRIL 1, 2018!

I'll probably only be able to use ±12 of what I receive so please don't be too disappointed if yours doesn't get picked.

THANK YOU!

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

Soap Box Opera episode 1: https://youtu.be/loBDoK5Gyi0

Soap Box Opera episode 2: http://youtu.be/7GHfd1JVuMQ

Soap Box Opera episode 3: http://youtu.be/FUY9DwiE1Dk

Soap Box Opera episode 4: http://youtu.be/jImQyP8g_iQ

Soap Box Opera episode 5: https://youtu.be/PD6IfIImVeY

Soap Box Opera episode 6: https://youtu.be/A_8Vgf97WMg

This invitation was written in 14 languages (thanks to Google Translate): Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Nederlans, Russian, Belarusian, Chinese, Magyar, Italian, Esperanto, Japanese, & Indonesian (with English also always a part of the invitation) & sent to 18 specific friends & as a general announcement to hundreds more. I expected this to be very easy for all the highly politically active friends of mine. Alas, I only got replies from 3 friends. Several others promised participation but didn't deliver. I put the 3 short speeches on orange cards in both the original languages & in translation to English to hand out to people so they could understand what was going on.

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/QDtcfwvUH58

- recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

427. "Sleeping Together"

- with Pamelia Stickney playing theremin

- Glitter Box Theater, Pittsburgh, us@

- Thursday, May 10, 2018, 10:15PM

- Pamelia Stickney & I planned a gig together for May 10. In a message exchange a little over a month before, Pamelia wrote "i am gonna be totally wasted tired with jetlag beyond that... needing to hit the hay recouping... but our improv theme could be - sonic nightcap, lullaby on a worknight, maybe even as we improv i start to fall asleep at the wheel... ha! anyhooo... lemme know whatcha think... i think it could be fun - getting sleeeepy and drowsy... try to make everyone sleepy drowsy along with us... maybe get peeps to lie down - tell them, bring a pillow! and i end up doing knob twisting lying down... like, is it possible to get into that halfdreamalmost asleep state and bringing out an improv while in it? that could be fucking cool... hehehe! but then i should have tried to book out glitterbox so that i just stay asleep so i dont have to pack my shit afterwards... hahaha... wake up next morning... hearing audience snoring... that would be fun... hehehe... anyhooo... even in tired state i know i still can musickify, and oh man, if i am sitting on a comfy chair, you know how when you start falling asleep and yer trying to talk sometimes your words go wonky and nonsensical? maybe that happens too as i get sleepy while playing?" & I countered by saying that "It'll give a new meaning to "sleeping together"."

As is my typical practive, I gave a substantial amunt of thought to what I might do with the theme & developed a few things in preparation - even getting a pair of Darth Vader pajama pants to wear. Pamelia started it by playing Brahms's "Lullaby" while I got ready for bed by changing into my PJs & switching on various nightlights. I opened my "Total Mobile Home Suitcase" which activated a tape loop of booing & removed a pillowcase. Closing the suitcase stopped the loop & I shook out the pillowcase before putting it on my pillow. I activated an "Envirascape Rainforest Fountain" which produced a waterfall lit by chaning light & has the option of 6 different soundtracks including rainforest & loons. The speaker to this was amplified with a contact mic that went into a 4 channel mixer & from there to a sampler mixer & then out to the sound system.

I also played my 5 music box instrument which had a version of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake", a version of the same with major 7ths added to the lower notes, & 3 other music box melodies of my own composing. This was also miked & fed into the sound system. There was a miked metronome.

There was also a radio miked halusi with 2 drone pipes that could be sounded with both out & in breathing.

Finally there was a megaphone that I'd altered by putting arms & a football-with-a-face mask on it. This latter was playing prerecorded heavy breathing sounds.

Both Pamelia & I gradually lay down & continued to manipulate our sound sources as we pretended to fall asleep. Pamelia introduced it as "gentle but mental" & I thought that was a pretty good description. I usually avoid drone-like audio production in favor of clashing disjunctive references but it was fun exploring this direction & using so many props & lightings. Pamelia was her usual excellent musician self. A good time was probably had by all.

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/Q_zMsJFB9Is

- recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

429. "Karaoke Orgy"

- UNDERAPPRECIATED MOVIEMAKERS FESTIVAL Afterbirth Party, Babyland Garage, Pittsburgh, us@

- Saturday, August 4, 2018

- Dick had the idea of releasing a recording of 4 old friends of his doing versions of his songs, one for each of them. The 4 being myself, Tom DiVenti, Carl Watson, & Daniel Higgs [Daniel has apparently dropped out & has been replaced by George Figgs]. Dick assigned me "Let's Have an Orgy". I substantially mutated the song but still left the original melody & overall structure. After finishing with the audio, which took a few labor-intensive weeks, I decided that it would be fun(ny) to make a karaoke movie version of it. I made 2 versions: one with my vocal & one without. The former is unlisted on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/jNGS8moOafE . Wanting this movie to actually function for karaoke at least once, I decided to have it be the opening act of the UNDERAPPRECIATED MOVIEMAKERS FESTIVAL Afterbirth Party. Those of us who took the karaoke challenge seemed to enjoy it. Of course, the idea was to take a song mutated beyond any hope of popularity & treat it as if it were somehow 'normal'. The relevant section of the UNDERAPPRECIATED movie is here: https://youtu.be/KwlfRxmRU3E?t=3h38m52s.

Unfinished Symphonies participating in the Karaoke Orgy.

dzum participating in the Karaoke Orgy.

Dave English participating in the Karaoke Orgy.

Florian Cramer participating in the Karaoke Orgy.

Greg Witt participating in the Karaoke Orgy.

- recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

432. "tENT-Weston"

- with Jeff Weston playing contrabass

- Crucible Sound, 3577 Studios, Pittsburgh, us@

- Thursday, December 6, 2018

- Jeff Weston & I had played together once before as the last day of a series of June, 2018, duets that're part of my 2018 project entitled "365". Here's information about & links to the footage of the entire duet:

550. "2018.06.30 duet with Jeff Weston - Pittsburgh, PA - in person"

- part of a series of duets played every day of June

- tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: moviemaking, electric guitar, guitar samples; Jeff Weston: acoustic stand-up bass

- edit finished June 30, 2018

- 28:24

- Custom HD 1920WX1440H

- uploaded to my onesownthoughts YouTube channel on August 13, 2018, here: https://youtu.be/UF-YSbGK0nE

& to the Internet Archive on the same day: https://archive.org/details/2018.06.30Jeff

 

An excerpt from this duet also exists as part of the "June, 2018" movie:

 

551. a. "June, 2018"

- edit finished June 30, 2018

- a document of me playing a duet every day of June, 2018

- 19:32

- Custom HD 1920WX1440H

b. "June, 2018 (titled)"

- edit finished June 30, 2018

- a document of me playing a duet every day of June, 2018

- 19:32

- Custom HD 1920WX1440H

- uploaded to my onesownthoughts YouTube channel on August 1, 2018, here: https://youtu.be/5eLDrLx9cjU

Anthony Levin-Decanini, the curator of Crucicble Sound, & other concerts checked out some of the footage of Jeff's & my duet & asked us if we'd play a new duet for one of his curations. We both agreed enthusiastically. Since the original duet had consisted of my using a guitar to trigger guitar samples that I made I thought of expanding on that & I even ordered some new gear online for this purpose. However, I'd been working on some other sound-making approaches that didn't involve guitar or any electronics & I decided to go in that direction instead. This decision was partially aided by my not getting everything I ordered in time for the gig.

SO, for the gig I constructed a tent of sorts out of black fabric I brought & a black tablecloth that I found at the venue. This covered 2 sides & the top completely, my back was to a wall, & there was an opening on a side not visible to the (v)audience. I wore all black clothes & put a long black graduation gown over them. I held the tent aloft with 2 tripods & an upturned trombone case. Hidden inside the tent were my Schoenhut baby grand toy piano, a Mexican ocarina, a Lilipudlian membranophone, an oboe mouthpiece, an alto sax mouthpiece, a clarinet mouthpiece, a trumpet mouthpiece, a trombone mouthpiece, & a Harmon tenor trombone wow-wow mute. Additionally, I had a trombone & a small collpasing plunger as another mute. My GoPro was mounted on one of the tripods & pointed down at my set-up from above. I had my iJones, a flashlight, a headlamp on my head, & a bundle of small cyalume light-sticks - numbering, perhaps, 20. I also had a halusi. Outside the tent was a small tripod close to the floor with a Vivitar 'sports camera' on it aimed at Jeff.

For about an hour or more before the show started, I stayed inside the tent so that the audience wouldn't know I was there. When I was informed that the show was about to start, I stretched an arm out from under the tent & started the camera that was aimed at Jeff, then started the GoPro that was aimed at me, finally starting the stop-watch on my iJones.

I wanted my sound souirces to be evocative & mysterious - hence my being hidden. At my request, Anthony turned the lights off so that Jeff & I were playing in the dark. This increased the oneiric feel. I started off playing the Mexican ocarina in a way that reminded me of the sounds of Mourning Doves with, perhaps, a touch of the Loon. I then paused & Jeff's playing became more prominent. I cracked the glass of one of the light-sticks, shook it, & rolled it under the tent edge in Jeff's direction so that there would be faint light under him. Through the session I did this: finally taking a whole handful & tossing them out & up & toward the (v)audience in arcs of small glowing cylinders. At other poinrs I pushed my head lamp under the tent & aimed it in Jeff's direction. When I pulled back the headlamp I rolled a small flashlight out. A little past midway thru I aimed my iJones camera out the side of the tent & shot a minute's worth of footage of Jeff with the iJones light illuminating it.

Inside, after rolling out the 1st light-stick, I played the membranophone. I switched to the various mouthpieces with the wow-wow mute so that I could modify their sound acoustically. At some point I switched to the halusi, which can be played while inhaling & exhaling. I probably started playing toy piano during this. Eventually the trombone came into play - this time using both mutes. The collapsing plunger mute enables particularly lovely grunting sounds.

At 2 points I interpolated short readings from "The Book of Neoism?! The Revelations to AMEN. (assembled by Istvan Kantor)":

"NEOISM?! may be compared to a net, a net of principles, life-tendencies, knots in the flow of life, vortices of force called matter. Pick up a knot of the net and the rest of the net comes with it.

"There is nothing at all new, strange, or unusual about NEOISM?! . You are already using it every day, every minute in fact. It is your natural power, the basic energy of the Universe, which you use constantly, whether or not you are aware of it." - p 16

"The confusion theory is The Theoretical Axis of NEOISM?! . The more confused you get by reading about NEOISM?! , the closer you get to the Principal Idea of NEOISM?! . The Confusing Structure of NEOISM?! is characterized by transphysical meditation, neuro-orthodox faith, obsession with absurd medical ideals, and belief in the divine predestination of the fish." - p 40

I also interjected the 1st 20 seconds or so of a WhatsApp voice message that I'd gotten from a friend of mine in Brazil earlier that day & then the entirety of another one. These were very faint but afterwards one audience member said he could definitely hear them. Jeff & I had agreed on a set length of between 20 & 30 minutes so at around 23 minutes I set the timer on my phone for 1 minute & then let the alarm ring when the time came. Jeff stopped played after perhaps 20 rings of the alarm & we both went quiet. After a medium pause Jeff said "Thank You", I echoed it, & the (v)audience applauded it. I then came out from inside the tent. Jeff's playing was phenomenal throughout.

There were 2 more acts after us: "V Mamigonian" (Patrick Breiner of Battle Trance) on solo tenor sax was the 1st of these. His was the most amazing tenor sax playing I've ever heard. He was followed by Ben Bennett (percussion) & Charmaine Lee (voice). They were also fabulously accomplished. If I had the resources I'd publish a CD of the night because I think it was possibly the best free improv concert I've ever heard.

A movie of Jeff's & my set is on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/j4vwPXLPLNg

- December 7, 2018 recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

435. ""365" at the Regent Square Theater"

- Regent Square Theater, Pittsburgh, us@

- Sunday, April 7, 2019, Noon to 2:17:00PM

- I shot footage of myself playing Usic every day of 2018. The 1st 3 months weren't necessarily differentiated from each other very much but each day's shot did tend to build from the previous days & I often upped my own ante by doing things like having a trick shot where I was playing with 4 other shots of myself to make a quintet, etc.. The finished movie, called "365", can be witnessed in my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/77xIr8hSsXU & on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/idioideo_verizon_365_201901. After March, I started making every month thematic & by June I was playing duets every day. By the time it was finished it was certainly one of my most ambitious projects & I wanted to screen it at least once in a large movie theater to properly present the custom High-Definition of the product. Pittsburgh Filmmakers's Regent Square Theater seemed like the best bet & it was. We agreed on a sliding scale of $3 to $20 with myself & the (m)usicians splitting the door with the theater. Such arrangements are common-sensical to me but most theaters would probably not be so community-friendly.

The next step was to plan how to present "365" with live sound in addition to its prerecorded sound in order to make it a more special event. I contacted all of the 17 local musicians who'd played duets with me during June (the other players had been via Skype & Facetime) to ask who was available &/or interested in participating. 8 replied positively, 1 of those had to cancel because his job wouldn't let him off & that left 7: Ben Opie: alto sax, Coal Hornet: EEb contra alto clarinet, Kenny Haney: Bb clarinet, Unfinished Symphonies: keyboard, Devin Sherman: electric guitar, Eric Lipsky: cello, Roger Dannenberg: trumpet. An excellent assortment of players!!

Devin Sherman playing during a piano solo of tENT's in "365" - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

I watched through the entire "365" & took notes about the contents of every shot, when it occurred, & how long it was. This became part of a score that specified that the (M)Usicans weren't to play during any scene where there was an actual duet, trio, or quartet,.Playing during "faux duets" (etc) where I was playing either with myself or someone else through editing trickery was ok. It was also suggested that when my "Official" CAMU (Cue Activated Modular Unit) from the days of my 'Official" Project from 1990 to 1994 (BalTimOre->Berlin) &/or when the theme from Frank Zappa's "King Kong" came up that people could play along. The players were then requested to follow this score while watching the movie & to make notes to themselves about when they'd want to play & what they'd play when they did.

Ben Opie (left) & Coal Hornet (right of Ben) playing along while a projection of tENT playing flute occurs - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

The idea was to equip each of the players wuth foot-activated extension cords to turn on directional lights pointed upward from the floor. When it came time for the player to play they were to click on the light & when they were done they were to click it off again. Given that the projection is relatively flat, the hope was that the players would provide a more '3D' presence when they played. There were 2 rehearsals at my house, largely to try out the lights (which turned out to be harder for some than I'd hoped).

Ben Opie & Coal Hornet play along with tENT's Bb clarinet playing - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

My events have been dramatically underattended in recent years no matter how hard I tried to advertise them through every available media but I gave it yet-another all-out try & this time it paid off! Mike Shanley wrote an article about it for Pittsburgh Current, a weekly, & he promoted it on WYEP, a popular radio station:

582. ""365" @ Regent Square Radio Spot 1"

- Mike Shanley of Pittsburgh Current promoting the premier of "365" on WYEP on April 2, 2019

- 2:20

- custom HD 1920W X 1440H

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/f4BXsnx2V8c

- on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/365RadioSpot1

Bill O'Driscoll, formerly the arts editor of Pittsburgh City Paper, another weekly, & a long-time supporter of my work (I can't thank Bill enough) invited me to come to a studio of his current employer, WESA, the local NPR station, to conduct a brief interview. I went & made a movie of the entire thing knowing that all Bill would be able to use was a tiny portion of it, WESA's edit made it to on-air & a somewhat more substantial written version with 3 stills from "365" made it online too. I made the following movie from my footage at the studio:

583. ""365" @ Regent Square Radio Spot 2"

- tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE promoting the premier of "365" on WESA with Bill O'Driscoll on April 2, 2019 augmented by relevant scenes & stills & other visuals

- 36:41

- custom HD 1920W X 1440H

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/DLl0plCseIU

- on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/365RadioSpot2

This was exceptionally good publicity! Additionally, I made a Facebook event, & sent out multiple bulk emails, as did some of the other participants - as well as made an 11X17" full color poster that was put around town at hotspots for people likely to be interested.

Coal Hornet & Eric Lipsky play while tENT plays lap guitar - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

Finally, April 7th came around & it was a sunny 72 degree Fahrenheit day outside - meaning that most people would probably choose to enjoy the weather instead of sitting in a dark movie theater witnessing a bunch of weirdos playing mostly-non-melody-oriented sounds. Despite such unauspicious conditions, about 25 people showed - actually a pretty good crowd for a Sunday at noon.

Ben Opie & Devin Sherman playing while tENT plays tuning forks - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

Coal Hornet, Devin Sherman, & Roger Dannenberg play while tENT plays electronics - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

Ben Opie & Unfinished Symphonies play while tENT plays electronics - note the shadows from US's light on the screen - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

Unfinished Symphonies playing while tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE plays a plastic 'rain stick' - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

Kenny Haney playing while tENT plays halusi - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

Coal Hornet & Roger Dannenberg playing while 4 of tENT play halusi & piano - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

Ben Opie, Devin Sherman, & Kenny Haney playing while tENT stir-fries veggie sausage & tomatoes - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

Devin Sherman & Roger Dannenberg playing while tENT plays toy piano - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

Roger Dannenberg playing while tENT plays toy piano - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

Ben Opie, Eric Lipsky, & Roger Dannenberg playing while tENT plays toy piano - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

the audience left half of the players: Ben, Coal, Kenny, US - still from "365 @ Regent Square"

My half of the door was $96, The bill for a Mexican lunch for 7 of us (Ben went home) was $95.56. I reckon one could say that I made 44¢ for 15 months worth of work. Better luck next time. Still, it was an excellent event & thanks to my copious documentation, it can go down in history on an extremely modest scale.

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/fsi5EVJaqUU

- on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/365RegentSquare

- recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

437. ""Soap Box Opera episode 8" at the Polish Hill May Day Parade"

- the corner of Finland & Melwood, Pittsburgh, us@

- Saturday, May 4, 2019

- The annual Polish Hill May Day Parade started in 2010. In 2012, I was aked to give a very short speech as part of it at what was turned into a Speaker's Corner near my house. I was probably asked because I'm fairly politically knowledgable about anarchist history & it was expected that I'd be able to say something articulate about May Day as a worker's struggle holiday, about it as a celebration of Spring - as well as to bring other less obvious lights on the subject.

It's also been a tradition to have a Variety Show the night before the Parade. Every year that I've given my speech, my "Soap Box Opera", I've asked other people involved with these events whether people still want me to talk. After all, it had never been my intention to monopolize this part of the parade. In 2017, I had loaned out my megaphone to someone under the condition that they turn it off as soon as they were finished with it or the batteries would die. They neglected to do that so the batteries were dead by the time for me to give my speech. Someone came to the rescue by repeating my text with the help of others as a "People's Megaphone". The thought was nice but it didn't work very well & not only was the cadence of the speech excessively lengthened, diminishing its dramatic delivery, but people still couldn't hear it very well. This year, when I once again inquired about whether I should give my speech, the same person who was responsible for my batteries being dead said that I needed help giving the speech because "people couldn't hear you" & suggested that I work with someone "who knew what to do". When I pointed out that the reason why people couldn't hear me was because the batteries were dead, the problematic person turned away & blushed but didn't acknowledge their responsibility. In the spirit of cooperation I agreed to work with the person "who knows what to do" ANYWAY. This person flaked & didn't come through wuth anything. As such, when the days approached, I decided to give my speech at the Variety Show in case it wasn't to be given at the Parade & I wrote an alternate speech for the Parade itself IF anyone seemed to care whether I gave my speech or not.

SO, I gave the speech on May 3rd, the night before the parade. Ordinarily, I wouldn't've wanted to give the speech again - especially not the very next day. Nonetheless, after a series of prompts, I decided to give a parade speech & to repeat the same one as from the night before rather than the alternate speech which I thought would be too critical & divisive.

May Day 2019 Speech - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

But what did that mean?! It could be interpreted as saying that the media is more powerful than the individual. But, no, really, I was just trying to surprise you & make you laugh. To me, being happy, especially without the aid of 'Happy Pills' & self-delusion & pre-fabricated conformist clichés, is IMPORTANT.

How many people would've interpreted this colorful grotesquerie as the arms of a megaphone giving me a nice big hug is ambiguous.

I call these speeches "Soap Box Operas". The reference is to speeches given in public on a slightly raised platform, such as a soap box, or this table. These are given at Speaker's Corners, most famously in Hyde Park, London, but also elsewhere in England, Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Trinidad & Tobago, Thailand, & the United States. The tradition goes back to at least the 19th century.

for others, dirty, paranoid, perverse-lunatic missionaries whose madness is language... men like MacGuinness ("I am not a paranoiac. Everyone is looking at me")". But that's just context. What I really want to talk to you about today is the use of lying & half-truths in Covert Warfare. I'll start with COINTELPRO:

That's an anagram for Counter-Intelligence Program, a series of covert projects conducted by the FBI aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations from 1956 to 1971 when it was made illegal. It seems reasonable to me that it might continue to this day in a new form.

street gang known as the Blackstone Rangers, they sent an anonymous letter to Jeff Fort, the head of the Rangers, dissing the Panthers & claiming that there was a hit out on Fort. The relations between the Party & the Rangers deteriorated almost immediately. FBI mission accomplished.

The CIA's so-called "Freedom Fighter's Manual" for covert warfare against the Nicaraguan government suggested spreading rumors, breaking typewriters, damaging books, etc.. - but it's the "spreading rumors" that I'm eventually concerned with here.

other than myself. The students started mocking me & asking me what kind of anarchist I was: anarcho-syndicalist, etc. They thought it was ridiculous that there were so many varieties. But, to me, the variety was appealing. I like people who are subcultures of one. The most interesting people are the ones who have the strength to be themselves.

Nonetheless, by the 1980s, when anarchism was on the upsurge, anarchists became criticized for being so fractious, there was plenty of infighting. I was threatened with bodily harm by an anarchist group in Chicago who were trying to discourage a group I was associated with from attending the Haymarket Centennial. I went anyway.

In the long run,

for most people to resist. But, when someone says something negative to me about someone I know, I tend to think of how the maligned person has treated ME personally. If they've been decent to me then I'm more likely to wonder negatively about the ulterior motives of the gossip.

But back to last year when this megaphone took control: Did the media take over my message? This year, I'm hoping that I have more control over the media again - but, you never know,

The idea here was that the vaudience would only see the megaphone with arms from the front at 1st but that I'd then turn sideways so that they could see the hands of the megaphone stabbing me in the back with a retractable joke shop knife. Some people did comment on seeing that but it's barely visible in this close-up.

Shortly before I decided to give the speech, a neighbor of mine, Dan, mentioned that the day was the anniversary of the Kent State murders & asked me if I might add mention of it on. I told him that I probably wouldn't but then I did anyway:

shot 13 people, 4 of whom died, one of them was just a person who was walking by on campus, etc. This was part of an of an ongoing conflict between student radicals & the authority figures. SO, just remember that. FOUR people, 4 young people who were on campus got murdered that day by the National Guard.

By this point, I'm not sure how many, if any, of the people were listening. I was one of the few people present who was alive when the Kent State murders happened & it's possible that that might not've been of much significance to the younger people present.

A movie that combines the footage from the Variety Show & the May Day Parade is here: https://youtu.be/F6nTCUV0A4I . The above images are stills from this movie & may make the speechifyin' seem more exciting than it actually was.

- recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

439. "Slightly Musical Conehead Temperature Gauge"

- text & samples etc from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

- samples made from Donald J. Borror's "The Songs of Insects" record

- main reader: Karen Lillis

- Steve Boyle's program on WRCT 88.3FM Pittsburgh, us@

- Saturday, July 13, 2019

- Slightly Musical Conehead Temperature Gauge

- an insect-related narrative from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

finally gotten out of my head & into written form starting May 26, 2019 (& 'finished' June 20, 2019)

I began life as an rice-shaped egg deposited in a groove in a tree. If there're too many of us, the branch we're on dies. That's not a very promising beginning is it? Once I hatched from the egg, I started to feed on the tree fluids. When I was ready to live a little, I crawled from the groove & fell to the ground. Ever wonder about that "Rock-a-Bye Baby" song?

Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree tops,

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,

When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,

And down will come baby, cradle and all.

That dates back to 1765 & I'm not sure anyone's ever figured it out. Maybe it's about me & my kind falling from the tree after we've started to grow up a little. Whatever the case, I fell to the ground & started digging until I found some roots to feed on. I reckon that doesn't make me too popular with my unwitting hosts.

I live underground for 17 years. In the fucking dark. Only tunneling & feeding. You think your 9 to 5 job is bad? Try living 17 years in the dirt.

So, yeah, big deal, we finally emerge into the sunlight as nymphs. We climb the nearest tree & shed our exoskeletons. Our wings inflate with fluid & our adult skin will harden. Then we're adults. Some people call us Imagoes. Time to party, right? Wrong. Sure, the guys sing, the gals respond, we get to mate.. but how long does this last? A measley 5 to 6 weeks.

Then we die, if we're lucky enough to even live that long. If we're not lucky, we might get eaten by birds, amphibians or mammal predators. And you think YOU'VE got problems. Imagine graduating from high school & then having some giant fucking [I can change this to "fracking"] bird swoop down on you on graduation day & ripping your head off.

- A version of this that isn't completely from the radio presentation is on my onesownthroughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/5EKRbeN1f9k

- recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

440. "The Ticket that Exploded @ the Library"

- Carnegie Library, Oakland Branch, Music Department, Pittsburgh, us@

- Sunday, January 19, 2020, 2:00PM

- By this point in the compiling of these reports on my public actions I give what might seem to be a ridiculous amount of detail in contrast to my reports from decades ago when I had very little documentation from things and I only wrote capsule descriptions that barely tell the reader anything. That, of course, is partially because I'm not in the age of cameras that produce files instead of film that has to be developed & printed - I can do everything at home without having to go to a copy shop, etc, etc. It makes my documenting job vastly easier but some might ask: Why BOTHER?! Obviously I think that what I do is important. This particular report may exemplify this 'overkill'.

When I was 15, probably in the summer of 1969, I heard the band Soft Machine's song "Hope for Happiness" on Baltimore rock radio & loved it. As I recall, most Baltimore radio was abysmal so I found Soft Machine to be of exceptional quality. It wasn't until perhaps 5 years later that I realized that the band had gotten their name from a William S. Burroughs novel. I read the book & was astounded. It was shocking.. & subversively stimulating. I read almost every Burroughs novel in quick succession, gradually losing interest somewhat but finding what seemed like the most experimental quintet of novels (Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, The Ticket that Exploded, Nova Express, & The Wild Boys) to be astonishing. I even got to witness Soft Machine live (Mike Ratledge, Roy Babbington, Karl Jenkins, John Marshall) in a dreary Baltimore bar when I was underage, using a fake ID. It was the beginning of the end for the band's quality (IMO) but they were still great. Now, 51 years later, I decided to finally name a (M)Usic project after the succesor book to The Soft Machine both as an homage to the band & the author AND because I like the name. Otherwise, the (M)Usic has little or nothing to do with any of the above. When I 1st thought of the project, perhaps as much as a decade before, I thought of having (M)Usical material somehow akin to what was the best of Soft Machine. An example would've been a piece of mine called "Birds of Villa Villa-Lobos (after Michael Pestel)" (published on record in a limited edition of 100 in Germany as part of the Fluxus series as Psych.KG 243 in July, 2015) but I quikcly discarded that idea. Originally, The Ticket that Exploded (or just The Ticket) was intended to be a quintet but it got reduced to the quartet of myself (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE), Roger Dannenberg, Ben Opie, & Jeff Weston. Mutations of the group can be expected.

In preparation for this gig at the library I approached the head librarian of the Music Deapatment & suggested that their humble display case be used to show work by members of the group that's in the library's collection + additional work to make the exhibit more throough. She entusiastically agreed. I have books, scores, & CDs available through the library; Ben & Roger both have CDs. All this + more scores by myself & Roger were put on display with myself doing the deaign work. This showcasing began on December 26, 2019 & ran until a few days after the gig.

In preparation for The Ticket that Exploded performances, I started working on an overall structure for out playing & I created 2 movies to slot into this structure the soundtracks of which were to be part of our playing. Both are online. Here're the relevant notes & links + stills::

"Bugle Call Medley" - 1080p HD 23.98p, Stereo - 5:00

https://youtu.be/tNlcpQdgqhc

https://archive.org/details/buglecallmedley

"Bugle Call Medley": This is the shortest of the 2 (d) compositions created for the Usical group somewhat named "The Ticket [that Exploded]" that consists of tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE on various (tuning forks, music boxes, SFX samples, percussion); Roger Dannenberg on trumpet & laptop; Ben Opie on reeds & electronics; & Jeff Weston on contrabass. Our sets are divided into sequences of progressively longer sections. This is the 1st section, weighing in at 5 minutes, "The Ticket" is our 6th section weighing in at 10 minutes. Since Bugle Calls represent a very specific language with clear meanings to those trained to listen & respond to them as commands, I thought it would be interesting to disrupt their context & put calls out of time slot orders & to present them as (recognizable) fragments that created a less linear & less PAVLOVIAN narrative - something more playful & less militaristic. A "medley" of bugle calls makes no sense in their original context. It's ok if you don't salivate to it. - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE notes December 25, 2019

"The Ticket" - 960 X 720 / 60fps - 10:00

https://youtu.be/6USs5zYf6jg

https://archive.org/details/theticket10min

"The Ticket": This movie, whose sound can be used seperately, is the 'theme song' for the Usical Group. The 1st minute, which consists of this sentence: "The Ticket is what ham radio operators call the license they get from the FCC after they prove their competence at keying Morse Code.", is meant to be presented with only me playing simultaneously. The remianing 9 minutes are meant to be played along with by the remaining members of the group. I've already made another relevant movie that interested people might want to check out: "Morse Code" - 41:35 - 2316 X 1988 / 60 fps - edit finished December 3, 2019 - on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/MX7BVbVvQg8 - on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/morsecode_201912 ; - December 10, 2019 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

Given the general business of all involved,, we only had a chnace to have one rehearsal the day before the Uncert, on January 18, 2020, ay my house, Who Unit?. I made a movie of this rehearsal which is on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/JXGa4kbGQaE .

Finally, to the gig at the library itself - which I also made a movie of. Interspersed in the movie s footage from the aforementioned display & its installation. Thanks very much to the library employees for being so open to such a 'strange' event. The piece, such as it is, is very simply structured:

The Ticket that Exploded OUTLINE

- tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - revised January 16, 2020

A TIMER IS REQUIRED.

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE playing a marching sound effect on an overturned copper baby bathtub at the beginning of "Bugle Call Medley"

0-5:00: Begin with the sound to "Bugle Call Medley" the 1st minute only tENT plays with the recording, the next 4 minutes everyone is welcome to join in. Players can either restrict themselves to the 5 notes of the bugle scale: C4, G4, C5, E5, G5 (actually one half step lower); or play whatever you feel like playing - the most important thing being to just play during the end 4 minutes & to then STOP for a brief pause between sections.

Jeff Weston & Ben Opie shown playing during part of a "Bugle Call Medley" "Funeral March" section.

5:05-11:05: tENT plays a solo for 1 minute. Everyone joins him for the ensuing 5 minutes & then STOP for a brief pause between sections.

tENT's score for his SFX samples premiered at this Uncert

11:10-18:10: Jeff Weston plays a solo for 1 minute. Everyone joins him for the ensuing 6 minutes & then STOP for a brief pause between sections.

18:15-26:15: Ben Opie plays a solo for 1 minute. Everyone joins him for the ensuing 7 minutes & then STOP for a brief pause between sections.

26:20-35:20: Roger Dannenberg plays a solo for 1 minute. Everyone joins him for the ensuing 8 minutes & then STOP for a brief pause between sections.

35:25-45:25: tENT plays along with the 1st minute of "The Ticket" soundtrack Everyone joins him for the ensuing 9 minutes & then STOP for a brief pause between sections.

45:30-56:30: An exactly 11 minute free-for-all.

The result is a somewhat oneiric morphing narrative. - February 5, 2020 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/Uw2sDzENK6o

- recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

441. "Heretic InExile in this ZOO(m)"

- various homes, Pittsburgh, us@

- Tuesday, April 28, 2020, 8:15PM

- In 1940, Hitler envisioned a New World Order governed by the German people. Germans were referred to as a single body of sorts, a superorganism threatened by the 'disease' of the ethnically & politically 'unclean' & 'degenerate'. Fortunately, he failed to establish his 1,000 year Reich - but not before millions of people were murdered.

Forty years later, in 1980, Reagan envisioned a New World Order, a one world government in which, apparently, the United States of America, being the 'good guys' similar to the white-hat-wearing cowboys of his movie roles, would be the police fighting off the 'evils of communism'. During this time he attended a ceremony honoring nazi SS officers at Bitburg, Germany. Fortunately, he failed to establish this New World Order - but not before multiple covert actions in Latin America had massacred people resisting having their natural resources plundered by American corporations.

Another 40 years later, in 2020, & the New World Odor stinks more than ever in the era of the G20 & the billionaires of the world whose pimple, Rump, exemplifies the dumbing-down of human consciousness. One World Government has been all but officially established in the name of 'our own good' & brainwashing has succeeded under the guise of health where previous excuses for GROUPTHINK had failed. Quarantyrrany has been established & economic dependence on Big Brother will help keep it that way.

People are under 'lockdown-lite', staying in our homes 'for our own good' & to 'Save Lives' during a time of a pandemic that entirely too many people believe in unquestioningly thanks to the fear-mongering of the mass media. In order to grab whatever snatches of sociability we can, many are using video-conferencing technology to meet 'virtually'. Hence on Tuesdays, starting April 21, 2020, & continuing indefinitely, Jeff Weston has organized a series of concerts using Zoom to bring together the players & audience in small groups. Instead of passively sitting in front of the boob tube soaking up the oversimplification of sound bytes & destroying our ability to freely think we proactively continue to produce our own culture. I think of the mathematicians gathered around the Anonymous statue in Budapest during the nazi occupation of Hungary. Perhaps that's too dramatic but I think a similar spirit is at work.

Short sets were played by Emily Cook, myself (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE), LeeJane Capps, David Gerard Matthews, & a trio called "threebee" consisting of Samir Gangwani, Andrew Hook, & Justin Kelly. For me, such a gathering of minds serves the purpose, feeble as it may be, of keeping individual intelligence alive in an era in which humanity is truly at risk of becoming a superorganism in which individuals might become completely abolished by brainwashing. It's possible, if not probable, that even my fellow players didn't & don't feel as harshly about all this as I do. I introduced myself as "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, Heretic InExile in this ZOO(m) & I just want to say that the New World Odor.. STINKS!".

My set consisted of playing Neil Feather's instrument, the Melocipede, set up to have 2 of its 4 pick-ups output to stereo speakers & 2 of its pick-ups mixed down to send a signal to a Pitch-to-MIDI converter that then sent a MIDI signal to a sampler playing my SFX samples. Additionally, I played a 2 octave set of Antique Cymbals with a touch of other percussion: chime tree, 2 frying pans, & 2 extremely cheap cymbals. .

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/DHn2KEiQQRY

- recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

442. "You'll Never See A Billionaire Standing In A Food Line"

- a chain supermarket, Pittsburgh, us@

- Monday, May 4, 2020

- Starting in 2000, in Australia, I've participated in 12 May Day Parades in the last 20 years. The last 10 of them have been in my neighborhood on an annual basis. For most or all of these there's been a cabaret the night before. I've participated in a few of those. I've given a speech as part of the last 8 parades. May Day in general, & these parades in particular, have been important to me. I think they're valuable expressions of worker solidarity and I've been honored to express my thoughts every year. Alas, last year, in 2019, I felt like the parade was getting subtly off-track, that it was harder & harder for me to feel part of the general political vibe. To address this issue I made a feature-length movie about all my May Day experiences & about my discomfort with the 2019 May Day. The movie's called "AMD", an acronym I created with humorous intent which stands for "Administrator Meeting Disorder". This movie is on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/IQgkC5OwPmw . After 2019, I decided that I probably wouldn't give any more May Day speeches, at least as part of the local parade, but that I'd still participate in the cabaret & the parade itself.

On March 19, 2020, the Governor of Pennsylvania, the state where Pittsburgh is, declared a quarantine the purpose of which was stated to be in prevention of an anticipated COVID-19 pandemic in the area. Only 'essential' businesses were to remain open, the 'non-essential' were to close for the duration of the pandemic. An example of an 'essential' business is Dunkin Donuts, an example of something 'non-essential' is the public library. In other words, big corporate businesses stayed open, including a business whose main function is to fill people up with sugar, while a free educational & entertainment service for the general public is closed. My own priorities find this completely despicable & suspect.

The level of dialog quickly deteriorated into a match between 'right-wing' resistance to the quarantine such as that by small business owners in areas where little or no occurences of COVID-19 occurred & the 'left-wing' who immediately uncritically embraced all justifications for the lockdown in order to avoid being tarred as 'right-wingers'. Any more subtle or analytical position was immediately squelched as treacherous to one side or the other. I was & still am disgusted since any opinions I tried to express have been attacked by GROUPTHINK regardless of whether the attacks have anything to do with what I'm actually saying.

Throughout it all, my preoccupation has been with socio-political elements that use the pandemic for justification. While I think that some aspects of the pandemic have been exaggerated by the mass media for its usual reason of SELLING SENSATIONALISM I've never denied that people have been getting sick & dying. Nonetheless, any criticism I put forth has been vehemently misinterpreted and viciously attacked by 'liberals' as if I'm insensitively denying that people are dying. This despicable practice is no different than what the current president does, in fact, it's in pretty much the same spirit - despite the 'liberals' positioning themselves as his opposite, in relation to what I call the PANDEMIC PANIC they're just as neo-nazi as he is on issues like immigration.

My extremely carefully considered & researched opinion is that this lockdown is a mind control experiment meant to test whther a seemingly legitimate cause can be used to justify unreasonable restrictions of civil liberty. Any analysis along these lines has been attacked with bullying & misrepresentation by people I no longer consider to be friends. None of these people have ever been as politically active as I am; none of them have written about politocal issues at length, as I have; none of them have made political movies, as I have. But NOW, they're suddenly condescending to tell me what to think. When browbeating me doesn't work, they say that I'm a Rump supporter even though they know I'm not. Such knowledge is neither here nor there, however, because to the bully what matters is to try to shame me back into their fold. Well their 'fold' is their ass-crack & I have no desire whatsoever to be there.

Somewhere along the line it was undemocratically decided that the May Day parade & other related activities wouldn't happen presumably so that the people involved would stay in compliance with the governor's orders. I was certainly never asked for my opinion. Heaven forbid that the revolution not get permission from the school principal.

SO, I decided to stage my own little rebellion all on my lonesome. The other people in the line could be a parade of sorts. Since it's my opinion that separating oneself from nature through sterilization & mask-wearing is more likely to weaken one's immune system than the oppositie, I've been particularly resistent to wearing the masks that've become required by law to be worn while entering businesses. Wanting to buy food at a place where a mask would be required for admission I decided that it would be funny to wear a mask of a certain famous billionaire with a moustache drawn on it evocative of another well-known dictator. While this billionaire is reputed to be against the lockdown I find him to be just as much a part of the problem as all the rest.

I waited in line, the requisite 6 feet between me & the other tired souls, & eventually entered the store, bought a few items, & left. At the cash register I said something to the effect of "You'll never see a billionaire standing in a food line so take advantage of it while you can." The workers accepted all this in good grace & at least 2 of them complimented me on the mask. Thanks to my own hidden camera & to a friend who acted as a clandestine cameraperson stationed in my parked car I got footage that I then used to make a short quasi-documentary with. Here're the online notes for that:

"You'll Never See A Billionaire Standing In A Food Line" notes - 4:55 - 1080p : I am a HERETIC. I think that the PANDEMIC PANIC is being used by opportunists to experiment with MIND CONTROL and to condition people to have their lives controlled 'for their own good'. This opinion is sometimes foolishly associated with 'Conservatives' by 'Liberals'. But, no, I'm not either, I'm a FREE THINKER, I'm CRIMINALLY SANE, I'm a THOUGHT CRIMINAL. The degree of pressure that's on the few of us who are trying to think outside the MONOLITHIC NARRATIVE is astounding. Since I exist mainly in a 'liberal' culture it's sickening to see this culture use bullying, misrepresentation, lying, brow-beating, and so on to try to force the few HERETICS and SKEPTICS into going along with the program(ming) instead of reaching our own conclusions. Because of this pressure, and it isn't 'peer pressure' because there's no way these people are even remotedly my 'peers', I think of 'Liberalism' as basically a new variation on Neo-Nazism: something I'm adamantly opposed to. No doubt, 'Liberals' will strenuously object to this observation of mine. As is usually the case, I see the ultra-wealthy and their institutions as being the culprits that this dumbing down of humanity into a passive superorganism will benefit. The masses are, indeed, as The Matrix depicted it, just an energy source for the Lords of the Flies. For the last 10 years I've participated in a May Day Parade, a parade celebrating worker's struggles and gains. For the last 8 years I've given a speech as part of this parade. Not so this year. The parade didn't happen. I deduce that it was decided against by people convinced that the QUARANTYRRANY is for the public good. This little action of mine, minor though it is, was my revolt, my tiny attempt to keep the struggle moving forward. - May 5, 2020 (Vision) notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

- Tags: May Day, tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE, ProjectileObjects, billionaires, PANDEMIC PANIC, masks, food lines, criminal sanity, thought criminal, heretics, skeptics

The speech that I used as the explanatory narrative for the movie is as follows:

"You'll Never See A Billionaire Standing In A Food Line"

- tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

- May 4, 2020 (Vision)

You'll never see a Billionaire standing in a food line and you're not seeing one now. Instead, you're seeing an anarchist with a mask on depicting a well-known billionaire adorned with a suggestive moustache. This gives the anarchist an excuse to use a media figurehead to get your attention for ideas that that figurehead would never express.

"There's no such thing as bad publicity" is sometimes attributed to 19th century American showman and circus owner P. T. Barnum but it might as well be the motto of a certain billionaire. My sense of the saying's application in this instance is that no matter how idiotic the quotes are that the billionaire generates it's still publicity that makes him seem familiar and the familiar, as with music, becomes consonant.

What if the purpose of this media bombardment, this constant presence, is to dumb down the general consciousness of the people of the world? The pro-Rump faction gets dumbed down by believing all the shit that the Rump emits while the anti-Rump faction gets dumbed down by ALSO believing that he means all the shit. The result is a highly polarized, divided and conquered society in which BOTH SIDES believe that 'if you're not with us, you're against us.'

But what about the rest of us? What about those of us who can pay attention to anyone's opinions and ideas and evaluate them on a basis that has nothing to do with what 'side' they supposedly generate from?

As a FREE THINKER I question the PANDEMIC PANIC. I see it as an opportunistic exploitation of the fear of death that's been hyper-exaggerated by mass media in order to distract the susceptible public into not noticing that a global reorganization of power is taking place.

According to my own life experience, which I value more highly than any doctor's opinion, it's unhealthy to not allow one's environment to immunize you through coexisting with it; it's unhealthy to be socially isolated; it's especially unhealthy to let other people run your life for you. Even if you MAKE MISTAKES, they're YOUR MISTAKES. I am NOT a worshipper at the Temple of the DOCTOR GODS nor at the temples of any other power-mad megalomaniacs who want to subjugate me - and claims of this subjugation being 'for my own good' are intuitively and intellectually experienced by me as the opposite. Any type of police state, even 'Medical Police State Lite', is not in my best interest.

Instead, I think that humanity is being psychologically conditioned to be a Pavlovian Dog, to essentially be ''living' in Virtual 'Reality'', to be so out of touch with unmediated real experience that only mediated non-experience is accepted as 'real' any more. As such, people whose attention is riveted to fear-mongering so-called 'news' and to the approved information sources that match their subcultural identities are more likely to believe prefabricated stories than they are the more immediate evidence of their own senses.

People not living in crowded cities, will still believe that they're as threatened by epidemic circumstances as people living in a city with a population density FIVE TIMES that of their own - even though that makes no sense.

With these, and many other critical and CRIMINALLY SANE THOUGHT CRIMES in mind, I prefer to not obey the laws that have been laid down 'for my own good'. Nonetheless, if I want to buy food from a store that requires a mask then a mask it is - but why wear just any old ordinary mask? Why not wear the mask of a well-known billionaire?

Because "You'll never see a Billionaire standing in a food line", after all, their servants do the food shopping and preparation for them. Let this remind you that no matter how much a figurehead pretends to be working class to manipulate a certain demographic into feeling like he's just another asshole in the family, he's NOT working class, he was born into extreme privilege and this P. T. Barnum act is based on the knowledge that 'a sucker is born every minute.' And the suckers are on BOTH sides of the great artificial divide.

I knew that as soon as I'd make this movie public at least one friend of mine would be outraged by it. He was & he had the kneejerk reaction that I'm denying that a pandemic exists. By this point, I was so sick of people misinterpreting my criticisms of the PANIC as denial of the PANDEMIC that I took my friend's outrage as a sign that he's hopelessly brainwashed & unfriended him, quite probably for good.

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/I_r8F-oMtYE

- on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/youll-never-see-a-billionaire

- recollections from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

445. "88 Instruments +"

- Art Rat Studios, Roanoke, VA, us@

- Sunday, June 12, 2022E.V.

- During the time of the QUARANTYRANNY most opportunities for me to present my Low Classical Usic &/or Sprocket Science in front of actual human beings has been by & large squelched by the climate of fear. People who previously would've been inclined to sponsor me are now terrified of appearing to not be in their approved subculture - in other words, I'm censored as 'unsafe' - not just as a 'disease carrier' but also as a dis-ease provoker, as a challenger to the almost completely omnipresent brainwashing.

Having gotten thoroughly SICK of this utterly insane state of things I decided it was time to play a gig somewhere. I started with trying to arrange one in my hometown, Pittsburgh. Alas, the zombies have almost completely taken over. Pittsburgh's a neoilliberal town par excellance, the artists & political activists are too incapable of analysis & too willingly enslaved to ASTROTURFING to dare to support aything that might challenge the norms of the Medical Industry Police State, no matter how subtly. 'Better Safe than.. Alive' might as well be the motto.

SO, I decided to visit a friend of mine in Tampa, FLA. Then I decided to visit a friend in Savannah, GA, & another in Roanoke, VA. The next obvious step being to try to arrange a gig in all 3 places. My friends in Tampa could arrange one but not on the short notice I was giving them. I tried contacting 4 venues in Savannah, explaining that I'm the most prolific moviemaker in the entire 127 year history of moviemaking. None of them even had the courtesy to reply.

In Roanoke, my old friend Brian Gentry hooked me up with Ralph Eaton at Art Rat Studios. Ralph initially discouraged me somewhat from presenting either of the 2 programs that I had in mind. Adaping to his input, I simplified my plan to at 1st be a free improvisation duet. Then my duet partner was essentially told by his wife that he wasn't allowed to go with me because, of course, he would 'get sick & die' from being in the car with me. Regardless of how irrational that fear was my friend was too weak to not let his wife dominate him so I was on my own.

The night before the gig I only got 4 hours of sleep. The quantity of gear that I took with me was so heavy I could barely move some of it but I managed to get the car loaded. It took, 6.5 hours to drive there. After a little R&R time I then spent 1.5 hours setting up. The UNCERT was only 24 minutes long. It took another 1.5 hours to tear down &, of course, I was also trying to sell merch. That night I also only got 4 hours of sleep & then it took me 7 hours & 10 minutes to drive back. I was profoundly exhausted at the end of it all. At age 68 I was proud of myself for being able to persevere but I don't know how much longer I can keep going at such a pace - not much longer, I'm sure.

Ralph's Art Rat Studios has a fantastic setting made of 'corrected' stuffed animals. His psychedelic light show is truly impressive. The GoBos are wonderful. Rather than projecting my own movies I decided to use his environment as my stage set. Wearing a Kuba Elephant Helmet Mask from the Congo, I started off by pushing a Faventia miniature street barrel piano on its miniature cart out of the 'backstage' area, playing, in a deliberately disjunctive manner, Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine". After I wheeled that out, I stood up (I had to kneel to wheel out the piano) & introduced myself & said a few words about the "60 & over Club", the name I was using for the presentation. Then I read this text:

MOTTOS & SLOGANS: Anything is Anything / No More Punching-Bag Clowns! / Neoism Now! & Then! / Kill Normality Before It Kills You! / The Revenge of the Impotent is to Try to Neuter the Fertile / Before You Decide Against Biting the Hand That Feeds You, Ask Why It Has So Much Food in the First Place / When MONEY is GOD, the POOR are HUMAN SACRIFICES / WE are all UNEQUAL under the LAW & THAT is its PURPOSE! / USICIAN, Use Thyself! / Better a Psychopath than a Robopath / Better a Thought Criminal than the Thought Police / Better a Free Thinker than Thoughtless / Better Thought-Provoking than a Secret Police Provocateur / Nurture your Resistance to Medicalization & Iatrogenesis / Dreams, Instinct, & Intuition are more important than your new Techno-Toy / Would you rather be feeble-minded or a Force of Nature? / The Medical Industry compromises your IMMUNE SYSTEM & then gets rich renting you an inferior substitute /Mind Control succeeds when you're afraid to express a different opinion on Social Media / The Medical Industry has become a CANCER crowding-out HEALTH to make room for WEALTH / Live Fast, Die Old / Your mind is a vestigial organ, leave the driving to us / You've been ASTROTURFED into committing CIVIC SUICIDE / History Belongs to the Victor, but only the Loser Believes It.

SELF-DESCRIPTION: Mad Scientist / d composer / Sound Thinker / Thought Collector / As Been / PIN-UP (Postal Interaction Network Underground Participant) / Headless Deadbeat of the Pup tENT Cult / booed usician / Low Classicist / H.D.J. (Hard Disc Jockey) / Psychopathfinder / Jack-Off-Of-All-Trades / criminally sane / Homonymphonemiac / Practicing PromoTextual / Air Dresser / Sprocket Scientist / headitor & earchivist / Explicator / Sexorcist / Professional Resister of Character Defamation / Proponent of Classification-Resistant What-Have-Yous / tOGGLE nUT cASE / Princess of Dorkness's Right Hand Man / Human Attention-ExSpanDex Speculum / Imp Activist / SPLEENIUS / Cognitive Dissident / Criminally Sane

SOCIAL ASSOCIATIONS: nuclear brain physics surgery's cool founder & graduate / Krononaut / Church of the SubGenius Santa / Neoist / Anti-Neoist / Pregroperativist / talent scout for Olfactories Organized / S.S.S.B.ite (Secret Society for Strange Behaviour -ite) / A.S.S.S.B. (Anti-Secret Society for Strange Behaviour Asshole Son-of-a-Bitch) / member of the I.S.C.D.S. (International Stop Continental Drift Society) / 1 time supporter of the ShiMo Underground / Ballooning One in the Fructiferous Society / founder & president of the N.A.A.M.C.P. (National Association for the Advancement of Multi-Colored Peoples) / co-founder of the S.P.C.S.M.E.F. (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sea Monkeys by Experimental Filmmakers) / Borderline Kneelite in the KNEEHIGHS GANG / emphatic member of the No-No Class / Street Rat Liberation Front / Money Against Capitalism / What?! Collective / Info Desk / HERETICS

After I finished reading the text, I went to behind the keyboard that I had set up with my "88 Instruments" score/map in front of it. I removed my African mask & started playing the samples.

Sustaining a looping sample chord I revealed a bronze Dali melting clock sculpture & played it as a percussion instrument with metal mallets intended for Crotales.

I returned to the sampler & played for another few minutes before sustaining another looping sample chord - this time using a Schalmei sample. Revealing the same Schalmei I played it while walking out ino the (v)audience.

I returned to the keyboard again, playing more & sustaining a sample chord loop that included the barrel piano. From there, I went to the barrel piano & played a bit of that returning, once again, to the sampler. Eventually, I sustained & looped some samples & switched to a piano voice in order to play a brief more 'pianistic' passage. For the finalé I reverse-wheeled the barrel piano back into the 'backstage' area, came out & stopped the sampler loop sustain.

- "roanokeydokey"

- shot in Roanoke, VA, at Ralph Eaton's Art Rat Studios on Sunday, June 12, 2022; uploaded on June 14, 2022

- 1920 X 1440, 30fps, Stereo

- 25:28

- on my onesownthoguhts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/jfaokqYcEVY

- on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/roanokeydokey

- June 15, 2022E.V. recollection from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

445. "Consciousness Expansion Score Movie"

- Art Rat Studios, Roanoke, VA, us@

- Saturday, August 13, 2022E.V.

- This gig exemplifies the degree of my dedication to my work. From October, 2020, to October, 2021, I built an addtion on my house the primary purpose of which was to double the size of my (M)Usic Rm. I documented this process with 6 detailed documentaries:

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 01"

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 02"

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 03"

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 4: The Winter of 2021"

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 05"

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 06"

2 audio sessions were recorded in the new expanded space & these were also documented:

"In Progress"

"Consciousness Expansion Kenny & tENT"

All of these documentaries were then reduced to one single one:

"Consciousness Expansion"

THIS was then reduced further & turned into a Score Movie, a movie meant to generate its soundtrack:

"Consciousness Expansion Score Movie"

A rehearsal was held using this Score Movie & that, too, was documented:

"Consciousness Expansion Score Movie Rehearsal 1"

I then revised the Score Movie, eliminating most of the introduction:

"Consciousness Expansion Score Movie (revised)"

A larger group then rehearsed with that & that, too, was documented:

"Consciousness Expansion Score Movie Rehearsal 2"

A version of the revised Score Movie was then made using the soundtrack from the 2nd rehearsal. This could stand for the finished product:

"Consciousness Expansion Score Movie (revised) (w/ soundtrack)"

Noe the time had come for the premier performance. SO, On Saturday, August 13, 2022, Eric Lipsky, Devin Sherman, & I (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) presented the premier of "Consciousness Expansion Score Movie". Eric played, cello, guiro, & Tibetan cowbell; Devin played guitar & cymbal; & I played ASR-X Pro sampler, micro-Korg synthesizer, Korg Kronos sampler, crotales, bongos, devil's fiddle, ratchet, Chinese gong, vibra-slap, & flex-a-tone. This was documented with 8 cameras, one of them operated by Ralph of Art Rat.

All in all, it was a phenomenal premier. Devin & Eric both contributed generously to the event, investing themselves heavily in it in support of my vision. I am deeply grateful to them. The playing was a challenge but I feel that we did an excellent job. It was as if we'd been airdropped onto a moving roller coaster, entrusted with the task of painting & oiling it as it moved with a prodigious speed (OK, so I exaggerate a tad). Thanks go to Ralph Eaton & Bill Counihan of Art Rat for the pleasant art ratmosphere.

Brian Gentry, an old friend who was generous enuf to host Eric & myself & who attended the premier wrote this email to myself & other relevant people expressing his analysis of the event & I gave some partial explanatory replies (in red):

Aug 20, 2022, at 11:38 AM, Brian Gentry wrote:

It was a privilege to witness this performance. While I imagine that as a performer it would be great to have had a larger turnout,

Indeed, yes, I wish there had been more people - but as is often the case w/ unusual events attracting small (v)audiences the (v)audiences are usually extraordinary people & such people are rare enuf to count for more than just one measley human.

I can attest that those in attendance were mesmerized.

Thank you for saying that.

I remember when the Willem Breuker Kollektief played at the 14 Karat Cabaret in BalTimOre in the early '90s there was a small (v)audience there. Possibly most of that (v)audience were in my big band, the "Official" Project (short version of the name). The Kollektief were booked for 2 nights, as was typical Cabaret practice, but after the 1st night they were considering cancelling the 2nd night b/c of the (v)audience sparsity. I talked to them & told them that while the 'crowd' was small they were some of the best musicians in BalTimOre & they definitely appreciated the music. SO, they played the 2nd night & the same people were in attendance again.

I wish that a few of the other Art Rat regulars and fans of tENT's work had been able to be there, such as Olchar, but that was down to the luck of the draw rather than lack of interest. Donnaah was completely amazed. IMO, it was a near-perfect setting - great space, comfortable seating, intimate and up-close.

Here is my official/unofficial expert/clueless insightful/rambling non-participant review, suitable for publishing!

& here's where a side of my personality comes to the fore that's probably a source of annoyance to many: what seems to be my 'contrarian' side but what's really my penchant-for-accuracy side.

I have been ruminating and kind of processing the performance since it happened. In my opinion, this is a sign of the best kind of work - one that leaves you coming back to it again and again. Not always in an analytical or thinking modality (though I have been doing that, too), but in a more experiential way. I suppose one could call it wrestling or engaging with the performance gestalt. One aspect in particular that I addressed in questions to tENT was the deliberate exceeding of sustained reaction time of the participants.

Brian & I did talk about this somewhat at the time but I didn't really explain it thoroughly.

1st, it's important to understand that while a great deal of information is fed to the (v)audience thru text in the Score Movie the players have actually rc'vd even more information in advance. The original Score Movie:

681. a. "Consciousness Expansion Score Movie"

- 1920 X 1440, 30fps, Stereo

- 1:26:49

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/YBYB_jfJR0s

- on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/consciousness-expansion-score-movie

was 6:55 longer than the revised version presented at Art Rat:

b. "Consciousness Expansion Score Movie (revised)"

- 1920 X 1440, 30fps, Stereo

- 1:19:54

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/OoyP35lrIhI

- on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/expansion-score-revised

The missing material was more explanatory bits at the beginning that were mostly just introductions to the terms used in the movie & were, therefore, felt by me to be excessive at the beginning. I removed them b/c I felt like the explanatory introduction was too long. This is the gist of what's left that's relevant to this discussion:

This is a Score Movie.

That means that the movie

is a score for the

production of its soundtrack.

In the movie there are

the following types of activities,

imagery, conditions, & objects.

Each of these is intended to

trigger correlative types

of playing & expression.

Instructions are presented in

roughly the order they 1st

appear in the Score Movie.

Most meaning(s) of scenes

are presented in writing.

There will be times when 2

or more meanings are present.

One can be chosen, or more

if possible.

Players aren't expected to respond

to every instruction but are,

instead, expected to go at the pace

of change that they feel comfortable with.

However, the more scored changes

they manage to respond to, the

stronger the overall form will be.

dates = motifs

Motifs should be no longer than 4 seconds.

A new motif can only be played when a

new date appears but a motif can continue

over the appearance of a new date.

The player can use a minimum of 2 motifs that

alternate OR use as many motifs as occur to them

OR use the 6 provided motifs OR use a

combination of these 2 latter. These motifs

are like templates, they can be transposed

in any way, to any octave. If played by

a sampler or any instrument that's not

necessarily conventionally pitched they

simply function as key-down instructions.

Their goal is to potentially produce

synchronicity & simple harmony without

having such results be mandatory.

The middle 3 of the above paragraphs were also removed. If I had kept them in & people had read them then what was happening wd've been clearer but I thought that they provided too much reading so I stripped the intro text down to just motif basics.

The video score simply moved too fast for anyone to keep up for an hour and twenty minutes.

SO, to quote from the excluded (edited here) paragraphs:

"Most meaning(s) of scenes are presented in writing. There will be times when 2 or more meanings are present. One can be chosen, or more if possible.

"Players aren't expected to respond to every instruction but are, instead, expected to go at the pace of change that they feel comfortable with. However, the more scored changes they manage to respond to, the stronger the overall form will be."

To digress on a musico-historical note: It's common in avant-garde classical music for composers to be sd to be challenging the players beyond their capabilities. That was sd, e.g., about Franz Kamin's piano music & probably about the piano music of Pierre Boulez & Karlheinz Stockhausen. Brian Ferneyhough's music has probably been similarly described.

As you can see in the above instructions, that wasn't my intention. When I was building the addition to my house I shot something like 700 hrs of footage. I made multiple documentaries from this that were discursive. These were all laboriously whittled down to produce the Score Movie. The result was intended to show all of the relevant building activities w/o necessarily producing a discursive narrative along the lines of the other documentaries already made.

These building activities were then described in musical terms, primarily but not entirely expression markings. These terms were interpolated into the movie simply where they were relevant - they weren't placed w/ any convenience or inconvenience to the performer considered. It was never my intention for the players to try to follow every instruction. In fact, some instructions are only relevant to certain instruments, others are simultaneously occuring contradictions, etc. Hence, "There will be times when 2 or more meanings are present. One can be chosen, or more if possible."

This resulted, from my pov, in a kind of phasing in and out of stricter adherence to the score and deviation from it. This was not periodic (as far as I could tell at the time), but rather seemed to be very much influenced by the interaction between performers,

The interaction between performers is not really of the conventional sort. There's very little spontaneous interplay - although that happens. For the string players there's the "Soli", a time when the string players were instructed to play Motif 1 in unison. They don't always notice when "Soli" appears. There was also a time when I played Morif 1 in unison w/ them as a deliberate deviation from the rules. There's also an instruction, "Bartok Pizzicato", when the string players are instructed to play pizzicato by pulling up their strings & causing them to slap on the neck. As I recall, there were 2 instances when this happened. There're also other instances when a following of instructions might seem like conventional interplay: e.g., players are instructed to play percussion. This is basically to provide a change from the more frequent tone colors. This happened fairly often. But, mostly, what might've seemed like conventional interplay was more likely players being simultaneously on top of the instructions. E.G.: I tend to use the excuse of "Melisma" to play intricate figuring & Devin seemed to play hammer-downs in response. Also, it was my impression that Eric & I both played:

painting = cantilena

a vocal melody or instrumental passage

in a smooth, lyrical style

once or twice & possibly more times together - but, again, that was more in response to the score than it was interplay. This is not to downplay interplay, wch I enjoy very much, but to emphasize that one of the challenges of this score is to try to respond mainly to the score rather than to meander off on other paths.

so that one or more of them could temporarily influence the direction. This seemed to include initiation or directing tempo or tone or instrumentation as well as a kind of counteraction of a (usually short-lived) dominant direction. Sometimes all three performers were clearly playing in a manner that could best be described as entrained (though not in lockstep), and at other times one or two or all three were either "doing their own thing" or appeared to be out of step or otherwise not coherently or cohesively connected in any way I could fathom. But keep in mind the time scale here - this was happening very fast so as soon as I had what I thought was an identifiable insight it had most often changed and they were on to another thread.

All in all, we responded to the instructions that we found easiest to respond to. The

hoisting = doit

Jazz term referring to a note that slides to

an indefinite pitch chromatically upwards

& the

dropping = drop

Jazz term referring to a note that slides to

an indefinite pitch chromatically downwards

were absent b/c those are best played by a saxophonist or trumpeter.

As far as I know, we all played all 6 motifs, wch is fairly simple to do. I, personally, responded to the following instructions:

still = held note

lifting = ascending pitch

sawing = Sforzando (sfz)

Loud sudden attack

drilling = Rubato

Not in a strict tempo

time-lapse = Prestissimo

As fast as possible (180 + )

building = Maestoso

Majestically (80 -104)

moving = Andante

In a walking tempo, moderately slow (80 ­ 96)

hammering = Marcato

Marked with distinctness, every note accented

opening = Fortepiano (fp)

Loud then immediately soft

raining = Agitato

carrying = Piu mosso

more motion; a little faster

drawing = Espressivo

With Expression

safety glasses = Lento

Slow & calm (but not as slow as Largo) (50)

screwing = Melisma

Ornament ordinarily held notes

cutting = tronco, tronca

Broken off, truncated

snowing = calma

Calm; so con calma, calmly. Also calmato

meaning calmed, relaxed

sweeping = alla valzer

In the style of a waltz

unrolling = Accelerando (Accel.)

Gradually increase the tempo

vacuuming = Fortissimo (ff)

Very strong or loud

ratcheting = playing ratchet

For the purposes of this Score Movie this

instruction is for a percussionist only & means

to literally play a ratchet

cleaning = morendo

Dying (i.e. dying away in dynamics, and

perhaps also in tempo)

insulating = Diminuendo (dim.)

Gradually softer

peeling = arpeggio

A chord in which the notes are not played

at once, but in some more or less consistent

sequence. For the purposes of this Score Movie

this can mean that instruments incapable of

producing chords must be temporarily

substituted for those that can so that the motif

can be played as a chord OR electronics can

be used to add an extra harmonic layer.

showing = bravura

Boldness; as in con bravura, boldly, flaunting

technical skill

spraying = triplet

For the purposes of this Score Movie, 3 notes

should be substituted for every two, keeping

those 3 in the same duration that the two

previously were.

installing = percussion

Switch briefly to playing percussion,

if not already a percussionist.

assembling = Ad Libertum (ad. lib.)

At the performer's discretion, improvisation

raising = Crescendo (cresc)

Gradually increase the volume

taping = bridge

For the purposes of this Score Movie,

spontaneously create a transitional

passage connecting the current motif

& the next one to be played.

painting = cantilena

a vocal melody or instrumental passage

in a smooth, lyrical style

tarring = bellicoso

Warlike, aggressive (English cognate is

"bellicose")

weed-wacking = Forte (f)

Strong or loud

stirring = Animato

In an animated style

sewing = tremolo

A rapid, measured or unmeasured

repetition of one or more notes.

unlocking = stornello

Originally truly 'improvised' now taken as

'appearing to be improvised'. For the

purposes of this Score Movie, the player

should have a stock phrase to use.

shelving = abandon

free, unrestrained, passionate

credits = tacet (Lat.)

Lit. "he/she keeps silent": do not play

But w/ varying degrees of success. E.G.: my "Abandon" was not necessarily distinquishable from my "Bravura". Other instructions were ones that were too hard for me to pull of quickly so I tended to pick the ones that were easiest for me. My "Bellicoso" was too simple-minded. Those criticisms of myself aside, I felt like I pulled it off impressively well. Eric & Devin tended to stay closer to the provided motifs, wch is as it shd be, but I tended to just try to be expressive & to return to the motifs as a sort of default. The combination of those 2 styles of playing tend to nicely compliment each other.

After a short time this resulted in a kind of cognitive dissonance that can be a very nice place to reside if you can relax and let yourself sit with it. It can be uncomfortable and I think a lot of folks don't like it,but I sure do.

For me, this rapid-fire phasing brings to mind as an analogy the complex interplay of excitatory and inhibitory inputs in neural networks in which very subtle intermediate states between extremes can be achieved. It makes me wonder about the role of stochasticity

I wdn't say that stochastics were involved - at least not in a Xenakis sense.

and randomness in the process

nor wd I call it 'random'.

(i.e., notions of 'structured improvisation').

Structured Improvisation, for me, is a way of upping the ante in a way that Free Improvisation can't & doesn't. It generally discourages players from falling back on their standard tropes - including conventional interplay (in this instance). At the same time, it's intended to be free enuf so that players are making creative decisions on a constant basis. This makes the process more fun for everyone - (v)audience & players alike.

From one perspective, each player interjects random elements from their own interpretation adding a stochastic or "noise" element (pun intended). From another, one could question whether or not these interjections are truly spontaneous, as they could be directly attributed to very immediate outside influence. Of course, they could also be due to other internal influences, such as a performer's feet starting to hurt that results in shifting around, a sense of boredom or lack of enthusiasm with a particular thread, a distracting itch, a perverse desire to mix things up, etc. It raises questions about sentience and self-consciousness, and to what extent we are really in control of anything or just responding to inputs at such a level of complexity that it appears as 'free will' because the process happens at scales that exceed our ability to differentiate the inputs, outputs, and nodes in the network. Perhaps it was an emergent phenomenon, and the distinction between these perspectives does notapply. As I often like to say, maybe that's asking the wrong question. However, going down these kinds of rabbit holes is a good way to not get invited to parties, to seriously reduce your number of friends, and to annoy your partners, so engage in this kind of speculation at your own risk. But if this is your cup of tea, it comes highly recommended.

brian

THX again for yr thoughtful analysis,

yr pal,

tENT

**********

On Aug 22, 2022, at 2:10 PM, Brian Gentry wrote:

But I have found that claiming one's ignorance and asking any sort of thoughtful question is usually better than remaining ignorant, as I am sure you would agree.

Indeed. If people did this more often there wd be less ignorance.

This brings up questions about the extent to which you did influence one another,

That's a hard one to answer accurately. Trying to stay on top of the score is pretty demanding but I'm sure there were times when one player's playing one motif wd influence another player's choice of motif at that time - either choosing the same one or a different one. That's, essentially, built into the piece.

Second, I am still curious about randomness and noise, but this shifts what I was thinking. Now I wonder about apparent vs. actual randomness. In short, oftentimes it appeared random to me,

For me, none of it's random but that's a matter of how one defines what's happening. 1st, the Score Movie has a narrative trajectory: it's built around the progression from no addition to completed addition w/ related parts such as the pants, instrument case, & vest. Then the expression markings are simply tagged onto the actions depicted. The motives provide a sort of melodic glue - they're composed to work to my satisfaction both horizontally & vertically, in sync or out-of-sync. The parts of the soundtrack that're kept in are all construction sounds or other sounds that contribute to the overall sound - speech is excluded. As such, if the appearance of hammering, e.g., seems 'random' in terms of a musical form that's conventional but not in use here it's NOT random b/c it fits into the narrative trajectory. I didn't take it out of that trajectory & put it into a particular location for 'musical effect', I left it where it was. The player's choices of motives might seem 'random' but that's only b/c their timing was chosen by them for reasons not obvious to the (v)audience. E.G.: I might choose Motif 6 (the one w/ the 2 glissandi) during a Prestissimo section b/c it's conducive to speed. OR I might choose Motif 1 b/c it's the easiest for me to play when I'm trying to plan something else.

I would imagine the structure to be very much more apparent to the performers than to the observer,

Eric & I had rehearsed it twice before, Devin had rehearsed it once. During the rehearsals I'd clarified things that the players had questions about. They also have hard-copies of the score that're enormously informative resources.

at least at first. Or maybe this is just my experience. What would be cool would be to see it performed multiple times, and with different players. Would the players rely less on their easiest motifs and begin to try others with more "practice?"

Well, of course, I try to 'master' some aspects 1st & then try new parts w/ each new iteration. I imagine everyone else does the same. I'm sure that every time I play it I'll tackle more challenges. It's fine, tho, if I/we don't b/c it's challenging & fulfilling enuf just to get thru it at all. None of the people I'm fortunate enuf to play w/ are lazy so there's no gratutitous irrelevant playing.

I wonder if it would still produce a Lem-like situation in which it is never fully grasped by the observer, or if there would be some kind of deeper understanding eventually.

'Fully grasping' it wd require telepathically following the process that every player undergoes. I don't expect that to happen. To me, it's probably most thrilling for the (v)audience to just pick up on relations between the score & the players's actions to whatever degree their alertness (or lack thereof) enables. That is a sort of oddball sport, a sport where there's plenty of action but not necessarily any aggressive competition.

695. "Consciousness Expansion Score Movie @ Art Rat Studios"

- 1:24:57

- 1990 X 1440, 25fps, Stereo

- shot at Art Rat Studios, Roanoke, VA, on August 13, 2022

- edit finished August 16, 2022

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/VQy-6Su-JUI

- on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/2022-highest-128k

- Art Rat Ralph Eaton's footage: https://youtu.be/IVip-ASP-JM

- August 21, 2022E.V. recollection from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

446. "Consciousness Expansion Score Movie"

- Harris Theater, Pittsburgh, PA, us@

- Sunday, October 2, 2022E.V.

- Having already written extensively about this piece in the preceding entry about its presentation at Art Rat Studios in Roanoke, the reader is referred back to that for details. For this realization of it, the previous performers: tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE; Eric Lipsky; & Devin Sherman were joined by Ben Opie (see the instrument credits in the 2 end images here).

Devin Sherman, mostly seen from the back by the audience

Ben Opie of the left & Eric Lipsky on the right

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

Perhaps this is the 'bifocal view'

I used 6 cameras to document this + the Score Movie (shown centrally)

One of the few shots that shows all of us more or less in focus

Unfortunately, Devin shows the least in all the shots

699. "Consciousness Expansion Score Movie @ the Harris Theater"

- featuring Eric Lipsky: cello, distortion, Tibetan cow-bell, guiro; Devin Sherman: electric guitar, effects, cymbal & cymbal stand; Ben Opie: plastic alto sax, school bell, ratchet; tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: 2 samplers, micro-Moog, devil's fiddle, crotales, ratcher, vibra-slap, flexi-tone, squeeze toy, 8 bell schalmei, bongos, Chinese gong, cymbal

- 1:26:35

- 1920X1440, 29.97fps, Stereo

- on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/Lgd7ME0U-1A

- on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/consciousness-harris

- October 7, 2022E.V. recollection from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

448. "Consciousness Expansion Score Movie"

- Lindsay Theater & Cultural Center, Sewickley, PA, us@

- Sunday, April 16, 2023E.V., 1:00PM

- This was the 3rd, &, probably, final, presentation of this piece - not because it's not worth being presented again, not because there aren't potential other venues to present it in , but because it feels like time for me to move on. As has already been explained in the entry for its 1st presentation on Saturday, August 13, 2022E.V @ Art Rat Studios in Roanoke, VA, us@:

"From October, 2020, to October, 2021, I built an addtion on my house the primary purpose of which was to double the size of my (M)Usic Rm. I documented this process with 6 detailed documentaries:

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 01"

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 02"

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 03"

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 4: The Winter of 2021"

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 05"

"Consciousness Expansion - Phase 06"

2 audio sessions were recorded in the new expanded space & these were also documented:

"In Progress"

"Consciousness Expansion Kenny & tENT"

All of these documentaries were then reduced to one single one:

"Consciousness Expansion"

THIS was then reduced further & turned into a Score Movie, a movie meant to generate its soundtrack:

"Consciousness Expansion Score Movie"

A rehearsal was held using this Score Movie & that, too, was documented:

"Consciousness Expansion Score Movie Rehearsal 1"

I then revised the Score Movie, eliminating most of the introduction:

"Consciousness Expansion Score Movie (revised)"

A larger group then rehearsed with that & that, too, was documented:

"Consciousness Expansion Score Movie Rehearsal 2"

A version of the revised Score Movie was then made using the soundtrack from the 2nd rehearsal. This could stand for the finished product:

"Consciousness Expansion Score Movie (revised) (w/ soundtrack)""

The 2nd public presentation of "Consciousness Expansion Score Movie" was at the Harris Theater in Pittsburgh on Sunday, Ocober 2, 2022. The personnel for the Lindsay gig was the same as that for the Harris:

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: electronics, percussion

Eric Lipsky: cello, percussion

Devin Sherman: guitar, percussion

& Ben Opie: alto sax, percussion

I'm extremely fortunate that these excellent players have been willing to dedicate their time to such an unusual & challenging project. In the process of editing 2 versions of the document from this gig I became even more aware than usual of how sensitively Ben Opie followed the score. Due to the usual tech problems with the recording, I can hear Ben better than Devin & Eric so I'm in a better position to note his exceptional playing. It's probable that if I could hear Eric & Devin better in the playback I'd be similarly impressed. Of the 3 public realizations of this piece, I might've been most satisfied with this one (although I was probably most exhilirated by the premier in Roanoke).

The Lindsay Theater space was one of the newest spaces I've ever presented work in & was refreshing for that reason. The theater had a 170 person seating capacity. Alas, only something like 13 people were in the audience. I, admittedly, was hoping for better. Admittedly, Sewickley's more than a bit off the beaten track for the mostly East End Pittsburgh people who might ordinarly constitute 'my audience' but I don't really think that's why the space was so empty.

That said, I still enjoyed the facilities of the space - such as the computer screen in the lobby advertising the event:

Access to the theater was made possible by:

Ross Nugent, Director of Education & Special Programming - to whom I'm deeply grateful. I was allowed ample time to set up before we began, a luxury not always available.

All in all, I found the performance magnificent!

& I'm always glad to be able to squeeze in a little after-show Q&A.

717. a. "Consciousness Expansion @ the Lindsay Theater"

- My document of the realization by Eric Lipsky (cello, percussion); Devin Sherman (guitar, percussion); Ben Opie (alto sax, percussion); tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (electronics, prcussion) at the Lindsay Theater & Cultural Center on Sunday, April 16th, 2023, 1PM

- This 1st version (not labelled as such in the movie itself) there're computer rendering errors that I (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) didn't ntoice until after it was uploaded - because of this I decided to make "(version 2)". I left 'version 1' on the Internet Archive & replaced it with "(version 2)" on YouTube

- 1920 X 1440, 30fps, stereo

- 1:49:02

- version 1 on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/consciousness-expansion-the-lindsay-theater

b. "Consciousness Expansion @ the Lindsay Theater (version 2)"

- My document of the realization by Eric Lipsky (cello, percussion); Devin Sherman (guitar, percussion); Ben Opie (alto sax, percussion); tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (electronics, prcussion) at the Lindsay Theater & Cultural Center on Sunday, April 16th, 2023, 1PM

- 1920 X 1440, 30fps, stereo

- 1:49:02

- version 2 on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/EVHniXMv0MY

- April 26, 2023E.V. recollection from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

451. "Pinball (sortof)"

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

- initiated & led by tENTATIVVELY, a cONVENIENCE

- Saturday, June 24th, 2023E.V.

- I've come to think of this as possibly my 1st dance piece.

This festival was organized using a Google Doc that potential participants could add themselves to - specifying a date & time & requesting housing & amplificatin assistance. I took advantage of the Google Doc to propose a group collaboration with the following:

"Since there're going to be so many interesting people collected together for this I propose that we do something together as a group. Thinking about it, I personally don't want to do a typical free-form improvisation b/c I've been free-improvising since 1972 & prefer something fresher, so I was laying in bed in the middle of the night trying to think of something simple we cd do that wd give everybody rm for doing their own thing but still impose a restriction that might make the overall result more interesting. Here's what I came up w/:

"Pinball (sortof)

"As many of the After-MAF participants who want to participate (preferably at least 50%) stand in staggered lines facing the audience. Hence, if there're 20 participants, there wd be 7 people in the front line, 6 in the middle line, & 7 in the back line. Participants wd be separated by roughly 3 ft or whatever distance is practicable. Participants wd be dressed in their ordinary clothing OR costumes OR naked. Any combination of those possibilities is fine. Participants wd also wear something to occlude their sight: a mask (I can bring many) either provided or of their own, blindfolds (I can bring many), or simply shutting their eyes. While simply standing participants wd have their arms at their sides & be standing upright w/ their legs together.

"At the sound of a whistle, everyone starts to perform - either thru motion, playing an instrument, or speaking or whatever. It's recommended that motions be cautious & gentle in order to avoid hurting one's self or other participants in the chaos of limited sight. As soon as a participant touches another participant they stop & resume the standing non-performing position. As soon as they're touched by someone else, the participant resumes performing. The piece ends at the 2nd sounding of the whistle. I'm imagining it taking 10 to 15 minutes."

Reid Wood, who I'd known through Mail Art for decades, & John M. Bennett, who I'd know similarly long, & C. Mehrl Bennett who I'd known of but not corresponded with until more recently, & Cilla Vee, who was new to me, & Warren Fry + Tomislav Butkovic + Olchar Lindsann (from Roanoke) all volunteered. (So did Collapsing but I didn't get to know who he was in time) I had bought 2 bustles & attached 4 styrofoam heads to them & put ltex masks on the heads. I wore a raincoat overtop of that & a Freddy Kruger mask over my head. Tomislav & Warren both wore blindfolds that I provided. John wore an old man mask I'd brought. Olchar & CillaVee wore masks from Olchar's collection that Olchar might've made. Reid wore all black, including a black mask over his eyes. Catherine wore a costume of her own devising made out of things like a plastic dry-cleaner's bag. John & I could see, in a highly limited way, out of our mask eteholes. Everyone else was basically sightless.

When in action, Tomislav read from William S. Burroughs's "The Soft Machine" by looking down through the crack between the bottom of his blindfold & hi face. Olchar prformed sound poetry & swing hi arms. Reid proceeded very cautiously, as did the Bennetts. CillaVee danced. Warren went through various histrionics. I danced & swing my bustles so that the masks would be clearer to the audience. I had a timer running so that I could keep track of our duration - which was intended to be no more than 10 minutes. As it was, I blew the stopping whistle around 8:35. Form what I could see through my mask eye-slits the uudience were all smiling & laughing. After it was over, everyone seemed surprisingly happy. Apparently the randomness of the suspense for the audience of watching us come close to touching but then not necessarily doing so was thrilling. .

- Ralph Eaton's front & center footage is here: https://youtu.be/iB0ZpVtm9zM

- The relevant excerpt from my documentary about the festival entitled "Caress of the Periphery of the After-Margin" sarts here: https://youtu.be/H_L3xPNLqm8?t=10060 . Some of my Pittsburgh prepatory footage is included before the main event.

- July 12, 2023E.V. recollection from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

453. "Not So Still Life #1"

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

- isolo presentation by tENTATIVVELY, a cONVENIENCE

- Saturday, June 24th, 2023E.V.

- I introduced this as "40 years of my life in 30 minutes".

To quote from the notes that accompany my movie of this as uploaded to YouTube & the Internet Archive:

""Not So Still Life #1" @ AfterMAF": Starting in 1987, I've made multiple movies intended to be fast-motion encapsulations of my life & work, generally intended to be used in performance. The 1st was a super-8mm film & was called "15 Hours of Video at 23 Times Its Original Speed", the 2nd was in video & was called "My Life Flashing Before You" (1989). Both were technically unsatisfactory. In June, 2022, I decided to try again under better conditions so I started a series called "Not So Still Life". The 1st of these consists of stills from movies of mine, each still presented at 1/5th of a second. The presentation of these movies, they range from 10 to 150 minutes long, is malleable.

"For the 1st presentation of one of the series I decided to premier it at the wonderful AfterMAF in Roanoke at Art Rat Studios on June 24, 2023. I added a soundtrack called "Photo Albums for Duchamp", originally an over-the-phone performance for the 100th anniversary of Marcel Duchamp's birthday called in to the SCP (Society for the Conservation of the Present) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I added the use of an electronic tanpura/tablas that drove, by pitch-to-MIDI, a Korg Volca FM (also manipulated manually). A Landscape HC-TT (Hand-Controlled Tape-Transport) was additionally used to manipulate the original tape recording of the phone call. The projection was at an angle from the side to make the image skewed. Given that this was my 5th performance of the day & that it was slightly technically challenging because I was trying some new, to me, techniques, all went sufficiently well & I was quite happy with the result. My document of the full festival is here: https://youtu.be/H_L3xPNLqm8 (YouTube) & here: https://archive.org/details/caress-of-the-periphery.. (Internet Archive)"

- Ralph Eaton's front & center footage is here: https://youtu.be/lBouMiKvf6A

- My multi-camera edit is on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/not-so-still-life-1-after-maf

- July 12, 2023E.V. recollection from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

454. "2023.06.30_16mm"

- a screening of some of my 16mm films made from 1980 to 1994

- Pittsburgh Sound + Image Essential Pittsburgh, Eberle Studios, Homestead, PA, us@

- Friday, June 30, 2023E.V.

- The event was free. The seating, being for about 40 people, was, perhaps, 2/3rds full. The attendees were givne a hand-out with releavnt pictures & a list of the films to be screened. The 1st film was a double projection of "Subtitles (16mm version)" onthe left & a video of a brain reseracher discussed fMRI data gotten by showing 2 volunteers a copy of "Subtitles" while they were being scanned. That was the 1st time that this had been presented correctly. The 2nd film, "Sound Along w/ t he Bounding Ball(s)" asked for audience participation in making the soundtrack. The audience was very spirited in its response. The 3rd film, "Bob Cobbing", was projected on a white spandex screen that I'd made for it. From behind, i grabbed the spandex & manipulated it. I also used 2 'party-lights' to complicate matters. Perhaps a highlight, for me, was when I used a strobe flash-light & 1. danced a Hula Dance in silhouette &, 2, did a partial strip-tease. This was another 1st. I spoke between & after each film, telling relevant stories meant to entertain & educate. Given that this may well be the last 16mm screening I ever give, I'd say that the audience got quite alot for their money.

To quote from the notes I wrote for the movie of this screening:

""2023.06.30_16mm" - 1920X1440, 30fps - 1:53:23

https://youtu.be/nJKZt1FKtCg

https://archive.org/details/2023.06.30-16mm

"2023.06.30_16mm": It seems like it's been at least 4 years that Steven Haines tried to arrange a screening of some of my 16mm films before we finally succeeded in pulling it all together. I've been making movies since 1975, starting with super-8mm. I added 1/2" reel-to-reel video to the mix in 1977. In 1980 I started making 16mm films but I didn't have my own camera until 1989. In 1995 that camera, a spring-wound Bolex, broke; 16mm was prohibitively expensive anyway at that point so I stopped making 16mm. Nonetheless, I made about 5 hours of 16mm during that time. Perhaps Steven & I will present more of my 16mm films in later programs. Once it became so easy to make acceptable quality digital movies that were easily transportable, 16mm became less practicable in contrast. For this 1st, &, possibly, last, of my 16mm programs in many a year, I screened several loops & then got into the main program:

"Double projection "Subtitles (16mm)" left, "What happens in the brain.." (vaudeo) right

""Sound Along w/ t he Bounding Ball(s)", audience participation

""Bob Cobbing", (16mm) left (spandex screen) - with rear projection manipulation & additional lighting

""National Cancer Institute Documentary"

""Ward of Mouth"

""Barfroom"

""Funny Farm Summit Meeting"

"This movie documents that screening. As with most or all of my documentaries, I'm not trying to reproduce a front-&-center experience because I think such approaches give a false sense of what an event is like. When an audience is at an event they're free to move around, to talk to people around them, etc - their heads aren't in vices with blinders on. They are exisiting in a non-flattened space. This document gives a variety of views, it's not just a frontal experience. As such, I hope it conveys more of what it's like to be a LIVE audience, having a LIVE experience. While the movie itself is unrealistic as far as what the audience could've perceived in the original situation, it's intended to inject a bit more LIFE into the flattened viewing experience."

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