Belly of the beast, mind of the first Missouri poet laureate

Poetry Scores received this enchanting letter in the mail today, the actual physical mail, from one Walter Bargen.

December 22, 2010:

Dear Poetry Scores:

I just finished listening to David Clewell's Jack Ruby's America for the second time. It's a wonderful and moving work by both the poet and musicians. As I sat back in my chair to savor the experience, the idea came to mind that you might be interested in continuing the project, that is, of recording Missouri Poet Laureates (I'm the first one). I thought what work of mine might fit with the structure found on Jack Ruby's America CD, and the prose poem sequence, Belly of the Beast, in the book The Feast came to mind. The Feast won the William Rockhill Nelson Award in 2005 and Belly of the Beast won the Quarter After Eight Prize in 1996.

Belly of the Beast is a retelling of the Jonah and fish story in the Old Testament but this Jonah is a modern day character who is standing in a cashier's line at Wal-Mart with a plastic bag filled with water and fish or sitting at an office desk, all the while contemplating "where the ribs curve up into studded stars, sparkling with the remnants of the last backwash of cosmic debris, up the many rickety ladders, frayed ropes and tow-rope-thick varicose veins, along greasy precipitous ledges, that all led to his bone-roofed hermitage." I call the form of Belly of the Beast a povella (A word that I coined.), which is a series of prose poems that have a luminal narrative thrust that may focus on a character, an image, an experience, or something else. In this sequence, Jonah flounders upon Jessabelle, his future wife, on a North Miami nude beach when he is expelled from his fish. Jonah and Jessabelle are characters in six of the eight povellas found in The Feast.

If you're not familiar with the prose poem, it reads with all the rhythm and music of a versed poem. Charles Baudelaire describes the intention of the prose poem in the following way:

Which of us, in his ambitious moments, has not dreamed of the miracle of a poetic prose -- musical, but without (conventional) rhythm and rhyme, and supple enough to adapt itself to the lyrical impulses of the soul, the undulations of the psyche, the promptings of the unconscious?

I've enclosed a copy of The Feast and Belly of the Beast is the first povella. If greater length is needed, I think sections of other povellas that involve Jonah and Jesse could be added.

Sincerely,

Walter Bargen

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Thank you, Walter Bargen! We will certainly read Belly of the Beast and the rest of The Feast and let you know what we think!

The antique x-ray movie prop donation letters

So it all started when an old rock & roll buddy, now in the medical field, offered us an antique x-ray machine as a prop for the silent movie we are making, Go South for Animal Index, which is a fable of Los Alamos, of the making of the first atomic bomb. The good doctor asked me what did I think.

I wrote back

I think I love you.YES!YES!YES!

The good doctor responded,

FANTASTIC!

can't wait for you guys to get the stuff. you will love it. i found some really old x-ray tubes...straight from a classic frankenstein b & w.
also, i can let you guys borrow a few old x-ray light boxes and a few old x-rays to lighten up in the background if you are interested.

very cool.

I agreed, very cool; and wondered what was the next movie. The good doctor had a plan.

so here is the deal...

we need to set up a time where you can come over here (with some help) and have some fun.
you will need a truck or decent sized trunk to fit stuff in.
so we don't die in the process, we need to find someone who is familiar with electricity, better yet radiology.

i will make a few calls regarding the dismantling of it, but i am pretty sure that it will only take disconnecting the fuse and chopping some wires.

I told the story of the donation in a blog post and sent a link to the doctor with a note.

The fricking ridiculous thing is, our zombie wrangler is a radiologist who lives on the East Side. He is copied.

We make silent movies with zombies. This requires a zombie wrangler. Ours happens to have a degree in radiology. I know, this is weird, because in this movie the zombies are uranium-poisoned uranium miners and millers. The zombie wrangler /  radiologist played spoiler about the antique x-ray machine thing, though.

Well, I'm going to be a spoiler. Those exam tables weigh tonage. And everything else is just cabinets. Lotsa weight there. The face of the control panel would be very cool. Inside the cabinet, the generator usually looks like a telephone pole transformer kinda. The problem with all of this stuff is that it has cooling oil in parts of it that is likely full of PCBs,especially inside the exam head where the x-ray rotor is. So I'd be careful about dragging it around and where you put it. You might wind up with a Superfund site in the back of your pickup.

If this is a functioning machine, has he checked into donating to any schools?

I sent this to the good doctor, with a defeated note.

Maybe light bulb going off during lunar eclipse about tearing apart radiological devices is dangerous.

The good doctor was not convinced, however.

I agree about the table but there are other things that are only electrical but look cool that I am sure we can piece out. We will not be touching anything that has PCBs in it for sure. It is not worth getting poisoned for a silent film in my opinion. Great idea about the schools but no one wants to deal with the table even though it is functioning unit. It is a shame but I have tried for 2 years and the table is just too big and heavy. I almost had it shipped off to Africa, but that too fell through.

Still interested in the non PCB stuff?

I said something like ... I ... think ... so, now ... being a little spooked. This really was a light bulb about radiation that went off during the lunar eclipse.

The good doctor went out and got his own expert opinion from one of his previous radiology professors. Professor said:

I think the concern about the "box" (actually I think they are talking about the transformer) is due to the type of insulating oil found inside. If the unit is old, and I think a Westinghouse single phase fits that category, there is a real possibility that the oil is PCB (polychlorobiphenyl) which is toxic. If that's true then that same oil was probably also used in the tube head. I suppose you could have it tested although I don't know who does that kind of testing in this area.

There is no radioactivity to consider here. However, when you remove the federal terminal cables you might get some oil leakage. Thus the nature of that oil is important.

It may be that there was an elective "oil change" sometime in the past and the PCB oil was replaced by mineral oil. If that's the case then there is no toxic hazard.

As far as dismantling, I've always left that up to the professionals. If you choose to try, just be careful as some parts are quite heavy. I had a former classmate who tried to move his x-ray unit and ended up breaking his arm as the tubehead went flying when he removed the counterweights!

So we won't be poisoned, but we might snap off an arm. No, said the doctor.

i don't think we will break any arms since we will not be messing with anything heavy, we're just gonna strip the cool looking stuff.

let it roll.

Okay, let it roll.

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Image from One Letter Words.

Antique x-ray machine donated to Poetry Scores prop shop

These photographs popped up in the email today, sent by a dear friend I met through rock & roll as a manchild many years ago.

He has since gone into the health care field as a primary care practitioner, but he follows our weird doings. So he knows we are making a silent movie about the making of the atomic bomb.

The good doctor writes,

holy shit, i can't believe i just thought of this.

after 2 years of trying to donate my antiquated x-ray machine to a country in need, i am in the process of junking it. what a better place to junk it to than as a prop in a los alamos lab scene.

you interested? it would nearly be impossible for you to take the whole unit, however, i am sure you could rip some pieces off of the unit that just look cool.

Holy shit! We are interested. If it is impossible to take the whole unit, we will just rip some pieces off of the unit that just look cool.

"The sailors playing all birds fly"

And yet one more scrap of Molly Bloom's monologue from James Joyce's Ulysses that wants to be a song.

"The sailors playing all birds fly"

he asked me to say yes
and I wouldn't answer first
only looked out over the sea and the sky

I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of
Mr Stanhope and Hester
and father and old Captain Groves
the sailors playing all birds fly

and I say stoop and washing up dishes
they called it on the pier
and the sentry in front of the governors house
with the thing round his white helmet

poor devil half roasted
and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls
and their tall combs
and the auctions in the morning

the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs
and the devil knows who else
from all the ends of Europe and Duke street
and the fowl market all clucking outside

Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping
half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks
asleep in the shade on the steps
and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls

and the old castle
thousands of years old
yes

I hear this as a story song, bit of Pogues perhaps, with the verse from which I chose the title recycled as a chorus from time to time.

Well, this is the last scrap of the great novel I set aside for poetry-scoring when I finally finished reading the damn thing last year. I now have a catalogue of 27 songs-to-be -- with one of them already in the can.

If you are a songwriter and want to play along, then get to clicking below, pick your poem, and email brodog [@] hotmail.com to talk shop.

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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 sunnybuick's Flickr.

And the sun shines for you today; maybe you, Fred Friction & Maureen

And yet more Molly Bloom monologue from James Joyce's Ulysses that wants to be a song, I think.

"And the sun shines for you today"

he said I was a flower of the mountain
yes
so we are
flowers all a womans body
yes that was one true thing
he said in his life
and the sun shines for you today
yes
that was why I liked him

The vocal I imagine is like Maureen Sullivan from the Red-Headed Strangers. I am thinking of the great singing Maureen did on "Bottle-a-Day" on the impeccable Fred Friction record, Jesus Drank Wine.

In fact, this would work just fine as a Fred Friction song, and his junk yard angel rock band concept would be just right for it. Looks like I will be buttering up Freddy (again).

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!"

*

Fred Friction working his basement bar from the Flickr of Roy Francis Kasten. The sun may shine for Fred, but seldom on him.

Spaghetti Western music for O sadness over rage O rage over sadness

Poetry Scores has embarked on a new score called O sadness over rage O rage over sadness. We are scoring a text by K. Curtis Lyle, though this is a little different for us.

Rather than starting with a completed poem, we started with the idea for a movie. The idea was pretty simple: we want to make a silent Western! So, I started casting about for a poem of the right length with themes that lend themselves to making a Western.

From the beginning, I was saying we should be thinking about making an Indian and Cowboy picture, with the script flipped and the emphasis on the Indian. This made me think of K. Curtis Lyle and all the poems he has written that deal with American Indian themes.

Curtis is an African American with Choctaw blood. He also hails from California and is something of a cowboy. He is something of a Black Indian Cowboy. I figured we could work something out with him.

And, indeed, I believe we have. Curtis sent me a batch of poems, and I made a selection and suggested a sequence. He raised some objections, so I re-ordered the sequence, which he approved of. The title of the composite poem is drawn from one of the constituent pieces, O sadness over rage O rage over sadness.

I put out a call for source recordings to consider for the score, and heard right back from my friend Andrea Van Cleef in northern Italy. "I got a bunch of old songs that could fit your needs!" he wrote. "You know, we invented Spaghetti Western."

Here are three. The titles listed here are the ones Andrea gave them. They will be retitled as they are intergrated into the score, using language from the poem. There are opportunities for sung text here too, with the attractive idea of writing melodies to Andrea's music for Curtis' poetry and then flipping it back to Andrea to sing in Italy. Who knows?

mp3s

"Bring me the head of Christopher Walken"
(Andrea Van Cleef)
Andrea Van Cleef



"Three baby steps"
(Andrea Van Cleef)
Andrea Van Cleef

"Kernunnos' dream"
(Andrea Van Cleef)
Andrea Van Cleef

Text

O sadness over rage O rage over sadness
By K. Curtis Lyle

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The photo is of Andrea Van Cleef.

Two Adam Long projects nominated for Grammy Awards

We've brilliant news to report about one of our own.

Adam Long, who mixes and masters our poetry scores, once again has two projects he mixed/mastered this year being nominated for a Grammy Award. It is the third year running the boy genius has had two projects advance to "the envelope, please" in the same year.

In the Origial Broadway Cast Recording category, Fela! was nominated. Adam Long mixed and mastered it with Robert Sher producing. This is the third year a Sher/Long recording has been nominated in this category.

Lecrae, Rehab was nominated in the Best Rap or Rock Gospel category, the third year a project Adam mixed/mastered was nominated in this category.

All of Adam's projects are mixed and mastered in his St. Louis studio. He does recording for the Broadway projects in New York. Adam's collaboration with Sher has resulted in a Broadway recording producer shifting to dual residene status with a foot on the ground in St. Louis.

For the record, none of Adam's previous nominations has ended in the big enchilada. It's hard to avoid thinking Fela! has a good chance this year. We will be celebrating with him either way it goes.

Adam Long discography with Poetry Scores

Jack Ruby's America (2010), mastered
The Sydney Highrise Variations (2009), mastered, co-mixed
Go South for Animal Index (2008), mastered, co-mixed, co-recorded
Blind Cat Black (2007), mastered, co-mixed, co-recorded