I. Revenge of the Volkswagen?

A long day of location scouting began with the consolidation of cars. We met at O'Connell's Pub. Laurent Torno III and I were chatting about the movie we are making when Dawn Majors arrived.

We were discussing the vintage car we need for the picture. A '50s Volkswagen I could borrow for free had been supplanted by a more appropriate $200 rental '40s American model. I was left alone in my own Volkswagen as Dawn and Laurent shuttled their cars into the surrounding neighborhood, where I would pick them up.

But, suddenly, my car wouldn't start. The key wouldn't turn in the ignition.

Jiggling the steering wheel, an old ignition trick, I managed to lock the steering wheel to the far right. I thought a push-start might free up the ignition and steering. Given where I was parked, and the hard right position of the locked steering wheel, I would not have much space, once the car pop-started - to break before crashing into the pub.

Bad in any event, this would be made worse by the fact that O'Connell's is the family pub of a Poetry Scores board member and actor in the film, John Parker. In fact, we were meeting there that morning because the family pub was hosting a shooting launch dinner for the cast and crew at the end of the day.

After I called Dawn and Laurent back to push my car toward the pub, and while I was considering how little space I would have to start the car yet not hit the pub, into that narrow zone between Volkswagen and O'Connell's slid a delivery truck.

Now there would be no way to get up enough velocity to pop-start the car before we pushed it into the delivery truck - or the delivery men unloading product on a hot July St. Louis Saturday morning.

The delivery men declined moving the truck until we solved our problems: They were on a tight delivery schedule.



Dawn and Laurent conferred. Managing battery power for their cameras is a constant concern for them. Perhaps for this reason, they suggested it might be a drained car key battery. So off they went with my car key to get me a car key battery.

Then I put my hands on my hips. I detected what seemed to be a car key in my pocket. It was a car key.

It was a car key, it fit right into my ignition, and indeed it started the car. How did I have my car key, of Dawn and Laurent had my car key? Obviously, Dawn and Laurent were on their way to the battery store with the car key to my wife's Volkswagen, not mine.

I called them back. After all due explanations, apologies and calls home, we were off to scout locations in my car. "Remember," I told Laurent, "my car - a Volkwagen - froze up on us right after we were talking about taking the vintage Volkswagen out of the movie. I consider that an omen ..."

To be continued.

The Trinity test, thunderstorms and our first day of shooting

July 16, 1945, the day scheduled for the first test of the atomic bomb at the base camp south of Los Alamos, was predicted to experience thunderstorms and indeed it stormed all night. There was every chance the Trinity test would be cancelled, but in the end there was a break in the weather - and then a crack in the universe when the split atom bomb successfully detonated, fusing the desert floor around it into green glass.

We scored Stefene Russell's poem about the bomb, Go South for Animal Index, and are now preparing to make a silent movie to the score. Stefene's poem ranges wide in scope, geography and timeline, from Congolese uranium miners to European pioneers in nucleaur chemistry to Nevada fallout victims of the bomb testing that continued in the U.S. long after the immolation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There is enough archival footage out there to make a "see it, say it" style movie that illustrates the lines in the poem line by line as they unscroll in the poetry score, but that approach is not for me. In writing a silent movie scenario for Poetry Scores, I like to take the core themes of the poem and come up with a parallel story that we can cast and shoot as a fable using local actors and St. Louis locations.

I decided to end our movie with the Trinity test, stopping before the real death and suffering - those torched Japanese cities and the Downwinders - with one of history's most dramatic moments: evidence of the weaponized split atom dawning over the American desert. And I thought we should start shooting on July 16 (2010), beginning to shoot our action on the same calendar date on which our action will end on screen.

Good idea. Except I was returning from two weeks in Paris on July 13. Despite a heroic effort in my absence by V "Elly" Smith to assemble some props needed for one of our storylines, I could only pull together one day of scenes for our opening weekend of shooting. On July 16, rather than starting to shoot, we were still slogging through location scouting, which we did as a group, with a little moonshine to pour into the Earth in two holy places where we will be doing some of our work.

Then Saturday, July 17: a full day of location scouting and roadside shooting, in lieu of locations, costumes and actors in place to shoot anything else. This was a bizarre day, tinged by the supernatural, which will get its own separate development on this blog.

That brings us to today, Sunday, July 18, when shooting with actors was to begin. We were to spend half of the afternoon in the woods, and half of the afternoon at a lake.

The characters for these scenes are Coyote, Badger and Wife of Badger. Coyote and Badger are primal culture heroes for the Navajo, and Stefene wove into her poem many of the cultural patterns of the Navajos who mined much of the uranium that, enriched, went into American bombs.

Our Coyote is a tramp, played by Kyla Webb - the eternal trickster living off his wits, and his whiskey still, in the woods. Our Badger is a tribal scamp, played by Roland Frank, styled after the palm wine drinkard of African folklore (and reality). In a storyline intended as comic relief, an earthy counterpoint to the nuclear experiments of Lost Almost, Badger steals fish from the tribe, sneaks into the woods, and trades it to the Coyote for gourds of moonshine.


Coyote is making his moonshine from corn mash. He also is stealing his corn from the tribe. Out at the lake this evening, we had plans to shoot Wife of Badger (played by Charlois Lumpkin) farming corn, Coyote stealing it and getting caught, Wife of Badger chasing Coyote, and Coyote escaping into the woods. I have in mind a mixture of tribal folklore and silent film comedy that could be unique - and should help break up the arduous task of getting silent drama out of nuclear physics.

But alas, the thunderstorms that did not squelch the Trinity test in 1945 have rained out our first day of live action shooting for our movie itoday. So I just ate some of Badger's prop fish, some tasty smoked mackarel roundscad, and wrote up this. Maybe I'll move onto the prop moonshine next ...

Futuristika! interview with Chris King re "Blind Cat Black" movie

So as I have told anyone who would listen, and plenty who didn't, the first Poetry Scores movie Blind Cat Black is screening in two Turkish cities in July.

The connection is the late, great Turkish poet Ece Ayhan. He wrote Blind Cat Black, which Murat Nemet-Nejat translated into English. Poetry Scores scored the translation, then produced a movie to the score.

Ece Ayhan died as we were scoring Murat's translation of his poem. His death helped to spread his name. His work has been enjoying an intense, quasi-underground revival. This makes it weird, since our movie is a zombie movie - the revival and the undead.

The organizers of major Ece Ayhan events in July, including the screening of our movie, conducted a long interview with me (Chris King), in English. Baris and Ipek Yarsel published it in Turkish, in their magazine Futuristika! I wanted to wait a bit, and then publish it in English. Here it is.

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Well Baris, I really have to thank you for your interest. I will answer your questions and then tell you a few things.

Q1- We love zombie movies, we love silent movies, but for the first time we hear about a silent zombie movie. Did you have any inspritation from the German expressionist films such as The Golem, Nosferatu?

A2. Please understand first that I was a totally amateur first-time filmmaker, though I did have considerable help from more experienced movie people, particularly Aaron AuBuchon, Chad Ivins and Kevin Belford. But it was my vision and my deadline, and I don't think any of the other guys would consider their work on my movie to be one of the better things they have done.

I say all this to qualify any notion of our being "inspired" by these great movies. It so happens that I personally favor early silent film above all other kinds of film, which is one reason I wanted to make a feature movie with no speaking, only music, which was how the old "silents" were experienced. They were not, in fact, silent; they just were not talking, or "talkies". In fact, they were screened with live music. Our movie was filmed and edited to a "poetry score" I cowrote and coproduced in which we set to music, word for word, an English translation of the Ece Ayhan poem "Blind Cat Black".

By the way, when Aaron AuBuchon, a professor of video here in St. Louis, Missouri, agreed to help me with the movie, he had me over to his house and showed me "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" by Robert Weine. It is a classic of German Expressionist silent film. We agreed this film would be a great cinematic model for us. In the end, though, my amateurism and the rush of the deadline for the local filmmakers festival were such tremendous impediments to the quality of our movie that no one would think to mention these two films at the same time.


Q2- Zombie is mostly an American concept. According to us, Ece Ayhan is not a poet of a specific time and a place. In his poems, the underdogs, the ones gone astray, the ones left aside are important. Could we describe this movies' zombies in a similar concept? Or are your zombies party animals? Are they fierce? How do you portray them in the movie?

A2 - Ha! I love you! You have only seen bits and pieces of my movie on YouTube (I guess, if that), but you actually understand a defining premise of the movie - though it came about almost accidentally.

Let me explain a little bit. I consider the technique of Murat Nemet-Nejat's translation of "Blind Cat Black" to be Surrealist. So I wanted the film made to the score of the poem to have some Surrealist aesthetic. But the last thing I would want to do would be to imitate Surrealist films I have seen. I also really wanted to make a narrative movie, with characters who interact in a complicated story, rather than some purely experimental thing.

At some point in working all this out, Aaron AuBuchon made a passing reference to the Zombie Squad, or to there being zombies all over St. Louis. It is true, and I had no idea. Since I moved back to St. Louis almost six years ago, I have been a newspaper journalist with a small child, so my life is mostly very settled between work and home. I don't know much about some of these flourishing subcultures in our city, like the Zombie Squad, who mix very serious survivalist concepts, and wonderful community things like blood drives (get it? blood?), with the fun of dressing up like a zombie and running around.

I believe in working with what you have, and it turns out zombies are an abundant natural resource here in St. Louis. So I had the idea of casting a large number of zombies and having them people the film, as a kind of all-purpose Surrealist effect.

Having served that necessary (to me) purpose, the zombies also then took on the symbolism of the life that is death that is the life of the streets, the scary urban underworld. "Blind Cat Black," as a Surrealist and imagistic poem, is subjective to infinite interpretations, but in my concept for the movie I followed the translator's reading of the poem as a story about a boy streetwalker (or a transgendered streetwalker) who comes of age. This makes the zombies a symbol of the dangerous hustlers that surround the boy/girl and threaten to drag him/her down.

Q3- Are you interested in any other Turkish poets?

A3 - Very much so. My best friend when I lived in New York was Defne Halman. Her father is Professor Talat S. Halman, the most important figure in getting Turkish poetry into English. Murat got me started on this journey, by giving me his translation of "Blind Cat Black," but through the Halmans (and also, later, Murat again) I came to know many more Turkish poets. I have also set to music short poems by the Garip poets (Orhan Veli, Oktay Rifat, Melih Cevdet), and Defne Halman and I co-translated all of Orhan Veli's poems into English.

Q4- Since you met with Ece Ayhan's inner world, what do you think has changed in your life?

Q4 - When I first was given "Blind Cat Black" by Murat, the book was brand new, the only time you can sell a book review. I was fortunate to review it for a great New York-based magazine, The Nation (my review also was translated into Turkish and published there; amazingly, Professor Halman knew me through this review when his daughter first introduced us). In that review, I say I think "Blind Cat Black" is the saddest book I have ever read. I still think that. The poem gave me many images, colors, moods for sadness and disappointment, for alienation, for the failure to connect, for love and sex that is impossible. Before I settled down and started a family, my life as a rock musician was sometimes very reckless and dangerous, and "Blind Cat Black" is a prism that helps me look back at those years. It gives me a vocabulary I did not have before.

Q5- We guess you already know by now that many names in Turkish language have a substantial meaning and Ece means "The Queen, The Almighty, The Leader"; it is an ancient, pure Turkish name. Your surname is "King". We love coincidences though we don't believe in them; everything in life happens by either conscious and/or unconscious chioces of individuals. How did/do you feel about such a cross match?

Q5. Well, this really amazes me. I am kind of speechless. (I am typing this answer in an email, but in a deep sense I am speechless.) No one told me that about his name before. Now I understand the part of the poem I set to music as the song "My Son is a Queen" is a pun on the poet's name. But, comparing the poet Queen with the filmmaker King brings us back to the movie and the concept of the movie.

Following Murat's idea that the poem is about a boy or transgendered prostitute, I wanted to dramatize this by having two lead characters, a tough girl who sometimes presents as a boy, and a boy so pretty he could be a girl and sometimes presents as a girl. This didn't quite work out, as the pretty boy I wanted to cast failed the makeup test (that was his opinion) and decided he would look ugly as a girl. So we settled with a male actor who had a tougher look, and because of his rougher look and edgier energy we had to play around with the duality in different ways. It made for a very different movie than the one in my head, but I still like the way it turned out.

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mp3
"My Son is a Queen"
(Ece Ayhan, Chris King)
Three Fried Men
From Blind Cat Black

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Prior coverage of Blind Cat Black in Futuristika!

"Wheelbarrow" (James Joyce needs Natalie Merchant)

More Molly Bloom monologue from Joyce's Ulysses that wants to be a song, I think.

"Wheelbarrow"

Irish homemade beauties
soldiers daughters
am I ay
and whose are you

bootmakers and publicans

I beg your pardon coach
I thought you were a wheelbarrow

they die down dead off their feet
if ever they got a chance
of walking down the Alameda
on an officers arm like me

Sort of reads like early 10,000 Maniacs lyrics; something off Sitting in the Wishing Chair. Maybe I can get my old penpal Natalie to sing this one. To write it, even?

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The complete "Songs from Ulysses" series

"The sailors playing all birds fly"
"And the sun shines for you today"
"Half the ships of the world"
"He rests"
"Less reprehensible"
"Example?"
"Restless. Solitary."
"I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea"
"Pretty pretty petticoats"
"Music without Words, pray for us"
"SIGNOR MAFFEI: (With a sinister smile)"
"Sad music"
"Monkey puzzle"
"What kind of a present to give"
"Fires in the houses of poor people"
"Christfox in leather trews"
"All future plunges to the past"
"She was humming"
"Silly billies:"
"Happy Happy"
"A sugarsticky girl"
"Everybody eating everyone else"
"Blood not mine"
"Sell your soul for that"
"Over the motley slush"
"My childhood bends"
"Don't you play the giddy ox with me!"

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Wheelbarrow images from Chest of Books.

"Half the ships of the world" (Joyce reminding us where Elvis Costello got it)

In carving rock song lyrics from James Joyce's Ulysses, I am down to the last splash: the long monoloque by Molly Bloom that ends the day and the tale.

Her monologue is pretty much one long, rhapsodic, quirky song, so I'll be curious to see what I noted along the way to pluck out of it.

"Half the ships of the world"

with her switch of false hair on her
and vain about her appearance
ugly as she was near 80 or 100
her face a mass of wrinkles
with all her religion domineering

because she never could get over the Atlantic fleet
coming in half the ships of the world

and the Union Jack flying with all her carabineros
because 4 drunken English sailors
took all the rock from them

and because I didn't run into mass often enough
in Santa Maria to please her
with her shawl up on her
except when there was a marriage on
with all her miracles of the saints

and her blessed black virgin with the silver dress
and the sun dancing 3 times on Easter Sunday morning
and when the priest was going by with the bell
bringing the vatican to the dying
blessing herself

This reads to me like Elvis Costello lyrics at his very best, ca. Trust - there is a world out there and a fully realized story, which I believe in without really understanding any of it.

Various online trots for this difficult novel spell connect these images Molly has for Mrs. Rubio - a Spanish house servant from her youth - to events in the history of Gibraltar.

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The complete "Songs from Ulysses" series

"The sailors playing all birds fly"
"And the sun shines for you today"
"Half the ships of the world"
"He rests"
"Less reprehensible"
"Example?"
"Restless. Solitary."
"I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea"
"Pretty pretty petticoats"
"Music without Words, pray for us"
"SIGNOR MAFFEI: (With a sinister smile)"
"Sad music"
"Monkey puzzle"
"What kind of a present to give"
"Fires in the houses of poor people"
"Christfox in leather trews"
"All future plunges to the past"
"She was humming"
"Silly billies:"
"Happy Happy"
"A sugarsticky girl"
"Everybody eating everyone else"
"Blood not mine"
"Sell your soul for that"
"Over the motley slush"
"My childhood bends"
"Don't you play the giddy ox with me!"

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Image of a naval invasion of Gibraltar from a history of the Chipulina family of that peninsula.

Jack Ruby's FBI file (the greatest hits)

I wanted to document the presentation on Jack Ruby's FBI file that I gave last night at the Missouri History Museum.

This piece was written to be read aloud knowing I would be following David Clewell reading from the first two parts of his poem Jack Ruby's America, which we are scoring. So you aught to go read “Jack Ruby Orders the Chicken Salad: November 21, 1963” and "The Chicago Cowboy," before reading my excerpts from the FBI file. Or you can listen to the poet read them himself, from the recording that will form the basis of our score.

Now, to my bit:

So, thanks to Clewell’s poem, I got into Jack Ruby. I went and found online from the Mary Ferrell Foundation a copy of Ruby’s FBI file. A lot of it connects right up with Clewell’s poem.

Clewell read the opening part of his poem, “Jack Ruby Orders the Chicken Salad: November 21, 1963.” Ruby really did order a lot of chicken salad sandwiches. One of his favorite sandwich spots was Phil’s Delicatessen, 3531 Oak Lawn in Dallas, as we know from Ruby’s FBI file. The FBI paid a visit to Phil’s on December 1, 1963, just 10 days after Ruby’s visit that Clewell imagines in his poem you just heard. The agents' visit to Phil’s was reported and filed, dutifully, and I would like to read from the agents’ report. If I might borrow a phrase from Clewell’s poem, I would like to call this report “Jack Ruby orders the corned beef, with black cherry soda, celery tonic and extra pickles”. I will quote verbatim, using the all caps style that seems to be standard for the FBI.

EMPLOYEES WHO SOLD SANDWICHES AT PHIL-S DELICATESSES, THREE FIVE THREE ONE OAK LAWN, DALLAS, RECALL THAT JACK RUBY SOMETIME BETWEEN EIGHT AND TEN P. M. NIGHT OF NOV. TWENTYTWO, SIXTYTHREE, PURCHASED EIGHT CORNED BEEF SANDWICHES WITH MUSTARD, TEN COLD DRINKS, EIGHT BLACK CHERRY AND TWO CELERY TONIC, ONE HALF LOAF BREAD, THREE CUPS BUTTER, AND EXTRA PICKLES, STATING THAT DISCJOCKEYS AT RADIO STATION KLIF, DALLAS, WERE WORKING LATE AND THAT HE WOULD TAKE THESE SANDWICHES TO THEM.

MENTION WAS MADE OF THE ASSASSINATION OF THE PRESIDENT, BUT HIS COMMENT, WAS THAT IT WAS A TERRIBLE THING.

HE MENTIONED THAT THEY WERE CLOSED AT KLIF BUT THAT HE WAS SURE HE COULD GET IN WITH THE SANDWICHES. RUBY MENTIONED THAT HIS CLUB, CAROUSEL, WAS CLOSED FOR THREE NIGHTS, BEGINNING THAT NIGHT. WHEN ASKED WHY, HE STATED THERE WERE OTHER THINGS IMPORTANT BESIDES MONEY. HE MADE PHONE CALL AND WAS OVERHEARD TO SAY SOMETHING TO THE EFFECT THAT HE WOULD TRY TO QUOTE SLIP BACK UNQUOTE TO THE CLUB LATER.

HE WAS WEARING SOFT GRAY FELT HAT WHICH HE ALWAYS WEARS. TOTAL BILL WAS NINE DOLLARS FIFTY CENTS PLUS AND HE PAID FOR IT WITH A TWENTY DOLLAR BILL. HE GAVE THE COUNTERMAN WHO PREPARED SANDWICHES A BUSINESS CARD WHICH HE STATED WOULD ENTITLE HIM TO FREE ADMISSION EITHER AT THE CUB VEGAS OR THE CAROUSEL. HE DID NOT ORDER ANYTHING FOR HIMSELF AT THE DELICATESSEN. THE COUNTERMAN CARRIED THE SANDWICHES OUT AND PUT THEM IN A FOUR-DOOR WHITE AUTOMOBILE.

We hear quite a bit about this Oldsmobile in Clewell's poem, and the dogs he left in it, which is why we are doing a dog and car wash in August as part of our Year of Ruby.

Clewell gives us Jack Ruby as a Jewish man, as what we might call a tough Jew, in a tough business: He owned a burlesque club in Dallas, of all places, in the 1950s and early 60s. The FBI took a look into this burlesque club business of Jack’s, as you might expect.

Also on December 1, 1963, which seemed to have been a busy day for the FBI in more than one field office, two agents caught up with one Robert McEwan at a Club Galazie in Newport, Kentucky, where McEwan must have been working that night. McEwan is referred to somewhat unfortunately by the agents as a “song and dance man” who worked under the stage name Bobby O-Day. At the time, McEwan was living out of a hotel in Cincinnati, but using a cousin in Michigan for his permanent address, which sort of suggests the kind of seedy circuit Ruby’s Carousel club was on.

Over the Christmas holidays of 1962-1963, McEwan did a stand at the Carousel Club. It amounted to a little less than a month. The agents record that McEwan “saw Ruby daily during that period but did not become particularly friendly with Ruby,” which gives us a nice, inside look at how Ruby handled his male talent. We learn from McEwan that Ruby was proud of his people and defended their honor. We also learn that Jack could get a little rowdy at the New Year’s Eve motel party, if there were fireworks at the party. I’ll read from this report, which I’d like to think of under the title: “My people have suffered enough”.

DURING THE PERIOD OF ONE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS, NINETEEN SIXTY TWO UNTIL TWO WEEKS IN JANUARY, NINETEEN SIXTYTHREE, MC EWAN APPEARED AS AN ENTERTAINER AT THE CAROUSEL NIGHT CLUB, DALLAS, TEXAS. HE THEN BECAME ACQUAINTED WITH JACK RUBY WHO MANAGED THE CLUB AND SAW RUBY DAILY DURING THAT PERIOD BUT DID NOT BECOME PARTICULARLY FRIENDLY WITH RUBY. RUBY LIVED IN A SINGLE ROOM BEHIND THE CLUB IN WHICH ROOM HE KEPT TWO DOGS. THE ROOM HAVING A VERY UNTIDY APPEARANCE.

MC EWAN-S ACT WENT WELL AT THE CAROUSEL FOR ABOUT ONE AND ONE HALF WEEKS AT THIS TIME MC EWAN TOLD TWO OR THREE JOKES WHICH HE CHARACTERIZES AS QUOTE INOFFENSIVE END QUOTE RELATIVE TO THE JEWISH PEOPLE. RUBY CONFRONTED MC EWAN IMMEDIATELY UPON TERMINATION OF MC EWAN-S ACT. RUBY WAS EXCITED AND TOOK OFFENSE AT THE JOKES SAYING QUOTE MY PEOPLE HAVE SUFFERED ENOUGH UNQUOTE. MC EWAN HAD BEEN TELLING JOKES REFERRING TO OTHER NATIONALITIES AND RACIAL GROUPS TO WHICH RUBY HAD TAKEN NO EXCEPTION. MC EWAN SAID RUBY WAS EASILY EXCITED AND SEEMED TO HIM TO BE ERRATIC AND NERVOUS.

ON NEW YEARS EVE NINETEEN SIXTY TWO DASH SIXTY THREE, MC EWAN RECALLS HE WAS AT A NEW YEARS EVE PARTY AT A MOTEL, NAME NOT NOW RECALLABLE, WHERE HE AND OTHER ENTERTAINERS WERE STAYING IN DALLAS. RUBY WAS ALSO THERE. HE RECALLS RUBY THROWING FIRE CRACKERS AND QUOTE CHERRY BOMBS UNQUOTE FIREWORKS IN THE SWIMMING POOL, BUT THIS ACTIVITY WAS NOT OUT OF KEEPING WITH THE GENERAL ACTIVITIES OF THOSE AT THE PARTY.

I’d like to end with a St. Louis connection. This report from the Ruby FBI file shows Ruby in a very human light. It suggests why Clewell’s research led him ultimately to portray Jack Ruby as a sympathetic character, which is unexpected for an assassin who criminally brought to an abrupt and violent end perhaps the most important investigation in modern American history: the investigation into who killed John F. Kennedy, and if it was indeed Lee Harvey Oswald, why did he do it and did he have any help.

This report was made on November 25^th, 1963 just a few days after Kennedy was killed – and the day after Ruby shot Oswald dead on live TV. Special Agent Thomas H. Bresson paid a visit on that date to one Robert Kirkwood, then living at 1277 Bryden Road in Columbus, Ohio. Kirkwood, who could neither read nor write, asked for the FBI interview. When we hear the report on that interview from the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI field office in Cincinatti, I think we get a sense for why Kirkwood wanted to testify. He doesn’t have the goods on Ruby, doesn’t really even have any dirt. He is volunteering as a character witness, in effect. And his story starts right here in St. Louis:

KIRKWOOD EXPLAINED HE LEFT HOME ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, IN NINETEEN FIFTYNINE, HITCHHIKED TO VENICE, TEXAS TO VISIT GIRL. KIRKWOOD ARRIVED IN DALLAS SEVERAL DAYS LATER WITHOUT FUNDS AND STAYED AT YMCA WHERE HE MET JACK RUBY IN THE WEIGHT-LIFTING ROOM. RUBY LEARNED KIRKWOOD WAS WITHOUT FUNDS AND GAVE HIM A JOB AS CLEANING MAN AT THE VEGAS CLUB, DALLAS, AND FURNISHED HIM ROOM AT HIS RESIDENCE. KIRKWOOD STATED THERE WERE THREE BEDROOMS AT THIS RESIDENCE, LOCATION NOT RECALLED, RUBY SLEEPING IN ONE BEDROOM, KIRKWOOD ANOTHER AND AN UNIDENTIFIED MAN IN THE THIRD ROOM. KIRKWOOD STATED HE NEVER MET THIRD INDIVIDUAL AND COULD NOT RECALL HIS NAME.

KIRKWOOD DID NOT KNOW ANY ASSOCIATES OF RUBY, OTHER THAN EMPLOYEES WHOSE NAMES HE COULD NOT RECALL WHO WORKED AT THE VEGAS CLUB. HE DESCRIBED RUBY AS A NICE PERSON WITH A VERY HOT TEMPER. HE NEVER HEARD RUBY ENGAGE IN POLITICAL DISCUSSION AND DESCRIBED HIM AS A LOYAL AMERICAN.

 

"He rests"

One more song from the chapter in Joyce's Ulysses cast in the form of questions and answers.

I hear this one in my head as a lullaby in a miniature.

There should be a lush acoustic part - a first part, a verse part - that is instrumental. Then the second part is sung. The first pass through the second part, you sing, "Womb? Weary?" then back to the instrumental figure. Sing that again the second time through that second part. And then return to the first part, but this time sing over it, sing: "He rests. He has travelled." Then maybe play the second part instrumentall as an outro.

"He rests"

Womb? Weary?
He rests. He has travelled.

It would be tempting to depart from the order these words appear in the narrative of the novel, because this wants to be a last song. But I have a few more to go.

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The complete "Songs from Ulysses" series

"The sailors playing all birds fly"
"And the sun shines for you today"
"Half the ships of the world"
"He rests"
"Less reprehensible"
"Example?"
"Restless. Solitary."
"I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea"
"Pretty pretty petticoats"
"Music without Words, pray for us"
"SIGNOR MAFFEI: (With a sinister smile)"
"Sad music"
"Monkey puzzle"
"What kind of a present to give"
"Fires in the houses of poor people"
"Christfox in leather trews"
"All future plunges to the past"
"She was humming"
"Silly billies:"
"Happy Happy"
"A sugarsticky girl"
"Everybody eating everyone else"
"Blood not mine"
"Sell your soul for that"
"Over the motley slush"
"My childhood bends"
"Don't you play the giddy ox with me!"

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Image from Don't Rest Your Head, a game.