Uranium Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro to screen "Go South for Animal Index"

 

Poetry Scores was excited to learn that our movie "Go South for Animal Index" has been accepted to screen at the 2014 Uranium Film Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

It is one of 53 movies involving uranium that will screen May 14 to May 24 in the Cinemateque of Rio de Janeiro´s Modern Art Museum. It will be considered for a 2014 "Yellow Oscar" Award; winners will be announced at the awards ceremony May 24.

We owe this honor to Dan Cross, who edited our movie and is one of its directors of photography and cinematographers. Dan spotted the festival, went through the trouble of subtitling our movie so it would be eligible, submitted it, and managed the submissions process. A big thanks to Dan, who is a volunteer on our projects, like everyone else in Poetry Scores.

We hope to raise funds to send Stefene Russell to Rio for the screening. Stefene wrote the poem "Go South for Animal Index," which was set to post-punk rock music by Matt Fuller and Chris King. Chris then imagined and directed a silent zombie movie to that post-punk rock score, and our movie is the result. Stefene also provides voice on the score and plays a major part in the movie.

This will be "Go South for Animal Index"'s second appearance at an international film festival - it played November 2013 at the St. Louis International Film Festival - but its first screening overseas and Poetry Scores' first screening at an international film festival outside of the U.S.

Our first movie, "Blind Cat Black," has screened at independent public screenings in Istanbul and Cannakale, Turkey.

The Uranium Film Festival organizers asked for a director's statement, so we provided one, even though Poetry Scores' collective way of making movies doesn't square very well with the auteur notion of filmmaking by a director who gets sole credit for a film.

*

"Go South for Animal Index"
Director's Statement

I directed "Go South for Animal Index," a cinematic fable of Los Alamos, with the St. Louis (Missouri, U.S.)-based arts collective Poetry Scores, which translates poetry into other media. Our movie started as a poem about the Bomb by Stefene Russell, who grew up downwind of the Nevada Test Site. We scored Stefene's poem for post-punk rock music, and then shot and edited a feature-length silent zombie movie to that post-punk rock score. Stefene's poem is really about the psychic burden of the Bomb's existence and encodes the Bomb's history from the infancy of nuclear physics to the present day. Our movie uses many of her poem's ideas, especially its Navajo cosmogony, but narrows the narrative to Los Alamos and adopts the primitive storytelling style of the fable. Our movie was shot on no budget and directed by an amateur. The editor, Dan Cross, assembled the 90-minute movie from director's notes that have the brevity of a folk tale, so the end visual result was a surprise to all of us. It reminds me somewhat of Michael Jackson's narrative videos, the American television classic "Gilligan's Island" (Gilligan's Alamos) and low-budget Turkish adaptations of "Star Wars."   -- Chris King

*

Here are all the films selected for the 4th International Film Festival Rio de Janeiro.

11:02 DE 1945. Brasil/Argentina, 2014, 31 min, Director Roberto Fernández
25 JAHRE TSCHERNOBYL, Germany/Ukraina, 27 min, Director Rainer Ludwigs
A WOMAN FROM FUKUSHIMA. Japan, 2014, 56 min, Director Yumiko Hayakawa.
A2-B-C. Japan, 2013, 71 min, Director Ian Thomas Ash.
AFTER ALL. Poland, 2013, 5 min, Director Bogna Kowalczyk.
ANOTHER CHERNOBYL. Ukraine, 2011, 56 min, Director Andrii Mykhailyk.
ATOMIC AFRICA. Germany, 80 min, Director Marcel Kolvenbach.
ATOMIC AUSTRALIA. Italy, 2006, 6 min, Director and Producer Ricardo Russo.
BEYOND THE CLOUD.France/Japan, 2013, 94 min, Director Keiko Courdy.
BEYOND THE WAVE. Germany/Japan, 2013, 83 min, Director Kyoko Miyake.
ETERNAL TEARS. Ukraine, 2011, 11 min, Director Kseniva Simonova.
EVOLUTION OF BEASTLINESS. Russia, 2014, 4 min, Director Collective Work Chidren’s “Detective”.
EXPLOSIONS BRING US CLOSER TOGETHER. USA, 2010, 2 min, Director Jonathan Johnson
FALLOUT . Australia, 2013, 86 min, Director Lawrence Johnston
FIGHT FOR THE ISLAND – PUNSU NO TAO. Taiwan/China, 2013, 65 min. Directors Kolas Yotaka, Chang, Jia-Wei
FINAL PICTURE. Germany, 2013, 92 min, Director Michael von Hohenberg
FLASHES OF HOPE: Hibakusha Traveling the World. Japan/Costa Rica, 2009, 61 min, Director Erika Bagnarello
FOUR STORIES ABOUT WATER. USA, 2012, 37 min, Directors Deborah Begel and David Lindblom.
FUKUSHAME. THE LOST JAPAN. Italy, 2013, 64 min, Director Alessandro Tesei
GO SOUTH FOR ANIMAL INDEX. USA, 2013, 90 min, Director Chris King
HIBAKUSHA. AT THE END OF THE WORLD.Japan, 2003, 116 min, Director Hitomi Kamanaka.
HOGAR, HOGAR. Spain, 2013, 17 min, Director Carlos Alonso Ojea
IN MY LIFETIME: The Nuclear World Project. USA, 2011, 109 min, Director Robert E. Frye
INHERITANCE. UK, 2013, 10 min, Director Margaret Cox
JOURNEY TO THE SAFEST PLACEE ON EARTH. Switzerland, 2013, 100 min, Director Edgar Hagen
KERN. Germany, 2013, 9 min, Director s Szu Ni Wen and Yichen Huang
LA FUGA B. Mexico, 2012, 2 min, Director Adrian Regnier Chavez
LA FUGA H. Mexico, 8 min, Director Adrian Regnier Chavez
MINING ON THE SWELL . USA, 2012, 18 min, Director and Producer Michael T. Searcy
NUCLEAR WASTE IN MY BACKYARD.Germany, 2012, 29 min, Director Irja Martens
NUCLEAR WINTER . Ireland, 2012, 5 min, Director Eimhin McNamara
POISON DUST. Armas DU radioativo em Irak. USA, 2005, 56 min, Director Sue Harris
RADIATION STORIES. India, 2010, 54 min, Director Amudhan R.P.
RARE EARTH. USA, 2014, 54 min, Director Elizabeth Knafo
REMOTE VIEWING. France, 2012, 5 min, Director and producer Cris Uberman
ROCK FLATS: LEGACY. USA, 2011, 23 min, Director Producer Scott Bison
SARDINIA’S DEADLY SECRET. Italy/Germany, 2012, 30 min, Director Birgit Hermes
SONG N°14. France, 2011, 5 min, Director Céline TROUILLET.
THE CLOUD HAS PASSED OVER US. Turkey, 2012, 15 min, Director Arif Karagulle.
THE HORSES OF FUKUSHIMA. Japan, 2013, 64 min, Director Yojyu Matsubayashi
THE NUCLEAR BOY SCOUT. UK, 2003, 24 min, Director Bindu Mathur.
THE RACE FOR URANIUM. France, 2009, 52 min, Director Patrick Forestier
THE UNIVERSITY OF NUCLEAR BOMBS. USA,2010, 55 min, Directors Mohamed Elsawi and Joshua King Ortis.
THE MYTH OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE – IMAGE FILM by Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
TO DIG OR NOT TO DIG/THE BATTLE FOR GREENLAND. Norway, 2013, 8 min, Director Espen Rasmussen.
U - A STORY ABOUT URANIUM AND US. Canada, 2008, 9 min, Directors Shawn Arscott and Darlene Buckingham.
URANIUM: THE NAVAJO NUCLEAR LEGACY. USA,1997, 13 min, Directors and Producer Doug Brugge
WAKE UP. Australia, 12 min, Director Tony Barry
WARM – GLOW. Switzerland, 2013, 50 min, Director Marina Belobrovaja
WHEN THE DUST SETTLES ICBUW | ICBUW and IKV Pax Christi – Short Animation
WYHL? NAI HAEMMER GSAIT! - Der Widerstand gegen das Atomkraftwerk am Kaiserstuhl, Germany, 2013, 44 min, Director Goggo Gensch
YELLOW FEVER. The Uranium Legacy. USA, 56 min, Director Sophie Rousmaniere.
ZEITBOMBE. USA, 2010, 27 min, Director Edward Saint Pe’.

 

"Go South for Animal Index" to screen at SWIC in Belleville

Poetry Scores' movie Go South for Animal Index: a Fable of Los Alamos will screen 7 p.m. Friday, April 4 in the Liberal Arts Theater, Room LAC 1350, at Southwestern Illinois Community College (SWIC), 2500 Carlyle, Belleville, Illinois.

This SWIC faculty screening is free and open to the public.

Dan Cross, professor of film at SWIC, edited Go South for Animal Index and was one of its directors of photography and camera operators. He also directed many of the scenes he shot. He even makes an actor cameo as a uranium-mining Debased Cog, the movie's zombie-equivalents at the bottom of the atomic bomb effort.

"Dan joined our shoot as a zombie extra, but we soon realized we had the movie-making equivalent of atomic energy on our hands," says Chris King, director, a Granite City native. "He was shooting on every scene we could get him from that day on, and often left alone to direct the scenes he shot. Then, when we were done shooting, we just handed him all the footage, with some pretty spare editing instructions, and let him assemble the movie."

"The edit has taken nearly a year of work, but I was happy to do it because the of the quality of the material," Cross told the Belleville News-Democrat before the film's appearance in the 2013 St. Louis International Film Festival.

Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/2013/07/10/2689950/local-talent-shines-at-st-louis.html#storylink=cpy

Cross is sharing director credit with King on the next Poetry Scores movie, Jack Ruby's America, and will also direct photography on that movie and edit it.

Cross is an accomplished filmmaker in his own right, including the animated short Dive, which premiered at the St. Louis International Film Festival on the same bill as A: Anonymous by Daniel Bowers, widely recognized as the best independent feature film produced in St. Louis.

Go South for Animal Index, a 90-minute feature, will screen with a new short film by Stacy Singh, a SWIC colleague.

Following the screening, Cross and Singh will be joined by Chris King, director of Go South for Animal Index, to discuss their movies with the audience.

A Belleville people note: Chris King played in the band Enormous Richard, which was active in the early St. Louis alternative country scene with Belleville's own Uncle Tupelo. He also was close with Pops Farrar, father of the Farrar boys in Belleville, and produced a record for Pops, Memory Music: Songs and Stories from the Merchant Marine.

DIRECTIONS TO THE THEATER

Southwestern Illinois College is easily accessible by Metrolink. Just take the train east to the College Station stop. When you get off the train, walk straight across campus to the northwest corner, closest to Lowe's and you should see a sign for the film screening.  

If driving from the west, you can take 1-64 to the Greenmount Road exit (#16). Turn right on Greenmount and you'll come to Highway 161 in four miles. The college is at that intersection. The best place to park is the lot by the Liberal Arts Theater (the one closest to Lowe's, next to 161).  

If you go in the doors closest to that parking lot, the Liberal Arts Theater will be right inside those doors.  

The screening will start promptly at 7, so try to arrive early.  

For more information, email Dan Cross at dan.cross@swic.edu.

Dan Cross, directing and shooting a scene
from "Go South for Animal Index" in Cuba, Missouri.

MORE ON GO SOUTH

Go South for Animal Index was produced by Poetry Scores, an all-volunteer international arts organization dedicated to translating poetry into other media, based in St. Louis, but with outposts in Hilo (Hawaii), Los Angeles, Nashville and Istanbul.

The movie was directed by Chris King and edited by Dan Cross, based on a poem by Stefene Russell. Poetry Scores previously scored Stefene's poem to post-punk rock, and this movie was written, shot and edited to that score. So Go South can be considered a 90-minute silent movie with a rock & roll soundtrack.

Shot on location in St. Louis and Cuba, Missouri, Go South for Animal Index follows four related storylines: the development of the nuclear bomb on a secret military base; the nuclear-waste-related illness of a tribal girl living nearby; the travels of the widow and daughter of a nuclear scientist who dies on the base; and the drafting into military service of a vendor of stuffed animals. The quartet of stories intersects dramatically in the context of the first successful test of the atomic bomb.

Cinema St. Louis writes: "Setting Stefene Russell’s poem to an exceptional rock-music score and eschewing spoken dialogue, Go South for Animal Index freely mixes zombies, experimental elements, and silent-film tropes in a bold genre mash-up. The large ensemble cast includes many well-known St. Louisans: poet Russell; former fire chief Sherman George; international burlesque stars Lola van Ella and Kyla Webb; African-dance impresario Mama Lisa Gage; architectural historian and preservationist Michael R. Allen; and the late George Malich in his final big screen performance."

REACTIONS TO GO SOUTH

Go South premiered at the 2013 St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase. Here were some reactions:

"Go South for Animal Index is a beautiful visual poem." - Chris Clark, artistic director, Cinema St. Louis

"Heck of a good movie." - Joe Edwards, manager of Chuck Berry and owner of Blueberry Hill

"Go South for Animal Index reminds us of Nietzsche's admonition: ‘Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.’” – Michael A. Wolff, dean and professor of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law; former chief justice, Missouri Supreme Court

“This poedocudrama kept us all reaching back to refresh our memories of local, national and world histories.” – Mama Lisa Gage, arts organizer, choreographer, dancer

"Go South for Animal Index is an instrument of a higher power.” – Ellen Sheire, Jungian analyst

OTHER MEDIA ON GO SOUTH

A brief (6:33) documentary on the making of Go South for Animal Index, produced by Thomas Crone and directed by Andy Alton

A feature story on Go South for Animal Index from The Alton Telegraph

The original musical score to Go South for Animal Index, produced by Matt Fuller and Chris King (the soundtrack to the movie has additional music by Tory Z Starbuck and Middle Sleep)

"The form of the object" : Carl Pandolfi scores Wittgenstein

A form of an object (in Carl Pandolfi's kitchen)
 

Poetry Scores is at the very beginning of a very long process of scoring Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical prose poem Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921).

Soon enough we'll create an index page where the entire score can be followed in sequence, but for now we'll post finished mixes as they arrive, in or out of order.

Next up: "The form of the object" by Carl Pandolfi, which sets to music Proposition 2.013 through Proposition 2.0141 of the Tractatus.


*

free mp3

"The form of the object"
(Wittgenstein, Ogden, Ramsey, Pandolfi)
Carl Pandolfi

Produced and recorded by Carl Pandolfi in St. Louis.

Carl Pandolfi plays piano, keyboards, electric guitar, electric bass, drums, harmonica and sings all vocals.

 

Executive producer: Chris King for Poetry Scores

Music (c) 2014 Carl Pandolfi

 *

We are scoring the first English translation of the Tractatus that C. K. Ogden commissioned and published and took credit for, but F. P. Ramsey actually performed, with benefit of Wittgenstein's corrections, delivered personally, mouth to ear, as Wittgenstein liked to do poetry (philosophy). Their translation is in the public domain and posted on Project Gutenberg, but here is the part Carl scored in "Form of the object."

*

 

from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

by Ludwig Wittgenstein

translated from German
by C. K. Ogden and F. P. Ramsey

 

2.013        Every thing is, as it were, in a space of possible atomic facts. I can think of this space as empty, but not of the thing without the space.

2.0131      A special object must lie in infinite space. (A point in space is an argument place.)

                 A speck in a visual field need not be red, but it must have a colour ; it has, so to speak, a colour space round it. A tone must have a pitch, the object of the sense of touch a hardness, etc.

2.014        Objects contain the possibility of all states of affairs.

2.0141      The possibility of its occurrence in atomic facts is the form of the object.

*

This has some amazing stuff in it. "I can think of this space as empty, but not of the thing without the space." -- that's one of those noggin knucklers that pretty cleanly divides people who take an interest in philosophical problems from those who do not.

I love the idea of a "colour space round" objects. And I love Ogden and Ramsey's British spelling of "color" and "around". I'm reminded of my first close British friend calling me when he lived in St. Louis. "Shall I come round?"

And what could be more fun than to sing, "(A point in space is an argument place.)"? That's how my print edition of the Ogden/Ramsey translation reads. The Project Gutenberg transcription of that translation that I gave to Carl reads, "(A point in space is a place for an argument.)" That's what Carl sings. That's some stunning language, either way you spot the rhyme.


*

Carl Pandolfi

 

This is the third and final song in what I think of as Carl Pandolfi's "Atomic Facts Suite," though we'll hear more from him in songs he is writing with Mike Burgett, one of his bandmates in The Lettuce Heads, one of St. Louis' greatest-ever rock bands. He also played in another band that fits that description, The Painkillers. Carl has a terrific solo record, What Kind of Life, and is on SoundCloud. He also teaches music at The College School. 

*

The Ogden/Ramsey translation of the Tractatus is in the public domain. The music is (c) 2014 by Carl Pandolfi. Free sharing of this mp3 is welcome and encouraged, but please consult Poetry Scores for production-quality audio and composer permission before making any commercial use. Thanks!

*

PREVIOUSLY ON "SCORING THE TRACTATUS"

Carl Pandolfi scores the title of Wittgenstein's "Tractatus"

"Atomic facts" : Pandolfi scores Wittgenstein

"In the nature of the object" : Pandolfi scores Wittgenstein

Project announcement

 

"In the nature of the object" : Pandolfi scores Wittgenstein

Poetry Scores is at the very beginning of a very long process of scoring Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical prose poem Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921).

Soon enough we'll create an index page where the entire score can be followed in sequence, but for now we'll post finished mixes as they arrive, in or out of order.

Next up: "In the nature of the object" by Carl Pandolfi, which sets to music Proposition 2.0122 through Proposition 2.0124 of the Tractatus.


*

free mp3

"In the nature of the object"
(Wittgenstein, Ogden, Ramsey, Pandolfi)
Carl Pandolfi

Produced and recorded by Carl Pandolfi in St. Louis.

Carl Pandolfi plays piano, electric bass and sings all vocals.

 

Executive producer: Chris King for Poetry Scores

Music (c) 2014 Carl Pandolfi

 *

We are scoring the first English translation of the Tractatus that C. K. Ogden commissioned and published and took credit for, but F. P. Ramsey actually performed, with benefit of Wittgenstein's corrections, delivered personally, mouth to ear, as Wittgenstein liked to do poetry (philosophy). Their translation is in the public domain and posted on Project Gutenberg, but here is the part Carl scored in "In the nature of the object."

*

 

from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

by Ludwig Wittgenstein

translated from German
by C. K. Ogden and F. P. Ramsey

 

2.0122      The thing is independent, in so far as it can occur in all possible circumstances, but this form of independence is a form of connexion with the atomic fact, a form of dependence. (It is impossible for words to occur in two different ways, alone and in the proposition.)

2.0123      If I know an object, then I also know all the possibilities of its occurrence in atomic facts.

                  (Every such possibility must lie in the nature of the object.)

                  A new possibility cannot subsequently be found.

2.01231    In order to know an object, I must know not its external but all its internal qualities.

2.0124      If all objects are given, then thereby are all possible atomic facts also given.

*

However, if you are patient (crazy) enough to read along in the Tractatus while listening to Carl sing, you will see he scored it out of order.

With a repetition here and there I'm not printing, and leaving out the numbers of the propositions, Carl scored and sings this lyric:

*

In order to know an object, I must know not its external but all its internal qualities.

The thing is independent, in so far as it can occur in all possible circumstances, but this form of independence is a form of connexion with the atomic fact, a form of dependence. (It is impossible for words to occur in two different ways, alone and in the proposition.)

If I know an object, then I also know all the possibilities of its occurrence in atomic facts.

If all objects are given, then thereby are all possible atomic facts also given.

(Every such possibility must lie in the nature of the object.)

A new possibility cannot subsequently be found.

 

*

This starts at Proposition 2.01231 (which is not where Carl left off on the previous song in the Tractatus score, "Atomic Facts"). Then he jumps back in the text to Proposition 2.0122, which is in fact where he had previously left off, and scores that. He keeps going into Proposition 2.0123, well and fine, but then leaps forward to Proposition 2.0124, leaving two lines from 2.0123 unsung, which he then goes back and scores to close the song. It's from this previously orphaned scrap of 2.0123 that Carl gets his outro and title, "In the nature of the object."

Technically, this breaks one of the few rules of a poetry score, which is to score every word of the poem in the order written by the poet. But the song is so brilliant, we forgive him.

 

*

Carl Pandolfi

 

Since this song shows more of Carl's classical training and skills, maybe now is the time to say he is classically trained, with composition degrees from Webster University and the Indiana University School of Music. His work has been performed by none other than the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He is also a veteran contributor to Poetry Scores and countless other creative projects and bands, notably The Lettuce Heads and The Painkillers. He is on SoundCloud too.

*

"Started as an improvisation using piano and voice simultaneously," Carl said of this score. "Did some editing, adding all the words I had tried to get away with avoiding. Drones soaked in reverb makes music fun."

*

The Ogden/Ramsey translation of the Tractatus is in the public domain. The music is (c) 2014 by Carl Pandolfi. Free sharing of this mp3 is welcome and encouraged, but please consult Poetry Scores for production-quality audio and composer permission before making any commercial use. Thanks!

*

PREVIOUSLY ON "SCORING THE TRACTATUS"

Carl Pandolfi scores the title of Wittgenstein's "Tractatus"

"Atomic facts" : Pandolfi scores Wittgenstein

*

 

Object image from Object: Australian Design Center

 

"Shape of a man" translated into rock music and Russian

 

 

The poetry scorer scored: one of my own poems, "Shape of a man," has been scored for rock music by Nick Barbieri and translated into Russian by Kanat Omar.

Kanat has performed his translation in his hometown of Astana, Kazakhstan. With the help of our friend Joachim Faust, I performed my poem in Astana with Kanat that night without even leaving St. Louis.

Here is all that stuff in the order it happened, starting with my poem.


*


SHAPE OF A MAN

It is said (by my mother,
for one) that a woman will shape up a man
only for the man to move
on to another woman, more attractive
than she, superficially,
only available to the man because
he’s shaped up, now. It is sad,
she said, but it’s in our nature. There’s nothing
a woman can do. We can’t
stand a man to be so shapeless. But he can’t
stand still long enough for us
to shape up his sorry heart and soul the way
we clean up all his awful
things and body habits, just before he goes.

-- Chris King

*

 

 

Nick Barbieri's score of the poem.

 

 

"Shape of a Man"

(Nick Barbieri, Chris King)

Nick Barbieri

 

Nick Barbieri: drums, rhythm and lead electric guitar, vocals

Mark Buckheit: electric guitar

David Melson: bass

 

Produced and recorded by Nick Barbieri in St. Louis, Mo.

 

Mixed by Meghan Gohil at Hollywood Recording Studio in Los Angeles, CA

 

Mastered by Elijah "LIJ" Shaw at the Toy Box Studio in East Nashville, TN

 

This free download is intended for free sharing and non-commercial use with (c) reserved by Nick Barbieri/Chris King. Contact us regarding any commercial use. Thanks.

 

 

*

 

Nick Barbieri, hotel selfie
 

 

*

 

 

Kanat Omar's translation of the poem into Russian.

 

                                                                                                                                               Крис Кинг

ОБЛИК МУЖЧИНЫ



Было сказано (также и
моей матерью), что женщина лепит мужчину
только для того, чтобы он ушел
к другой женщине, более притягательной,
чем она сама, но разве что внешне,
доступной мужчине только потому, что
теперь он обрел черты. Это печально,
сказала она, но такова наша натура. Женщина
ничего не может с собой поделать. Мы не можем
оставить мужчину столь бесформенным. Но и он
не может оставаться с нами столько,
сколько надобно, чтобы вылепить его огорченное сердце и душу,
мы отскабливаем все его ужасные
свойства и телесные привычки просто перед тем, как он уходит.

- Перевод с английского Каната Омара
 

 

 

*

 

Kanat Omar via Skype,
looking over the shoulder of Joachim Faust
 

  

*

 

And then we have Kanat Omar performing his translation in Astana, prefaced by me performing the poem via Skype some 6,151 miles away in St. Louis. The beginning of my bit is slightly clipped.

 

 

 

 

I enjoy how the fancy coffee machines speak their international language in the background. Not sure why the camera operator focused on the bookshelf, not the poet.

 

*

 

Kanat Omar is a Kazakh poet, journalist and filmmaker who visited the Center for the Humanities at Washington University last year for a five-week CEC Artslink Residency. Mary Laurita, a humanities dean at Washington University, introduced Kanat to Poetry Scores.

 

We have high hopes for working much more with Kanat, translating poetry in and out of our respective languages and other media. Stefene Russell of Poetry Scores is currently working on English translations of Kanat's poetry with Joachim Faust, and more St. Louis poetry is being translated into Russian by Kanat, his friend Pavel Bannikov, and others. Stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Atomic facts" : Pandolfi scores Wittgenstein

Like we were saying, Poetry Scores has various composers setting Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical prose poem Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) to music.

We'll eventually create an index page where the entire score can be followed as it emerges, but for now, in the beginning, we'll post finished mixes as they arrive, in or out of order.

Next up: "Atomic facts" by Carl Pandolfi, which sets to music Proposition 2 through Proposition 2.0123 of the Tractatus.

*

Free mp3

"Atomic facts"
(Wittgenstein, Ogden, Ramsey, Pandolfi)
Carl Pandolfi

Produced, composed, recorded and performed by Carl Pandolfi in St. Louis, Missouri.

Carl Pandolfi plays acoustic guitar, electric bass, piano, snare drum, electric guitar and sings all vocals.

 

Executive producer: Chris King for Poetry Scores

Music (c) 2014 Carl Pandolfi

 *

We are scoring the first English translation of the Tractatus that C. K. Ogden commissioned and published and took credit for, but F. P. Ramsey actually performed, with benefit of Wittgenstein's corrections, delivered personally, mouth to ear, as Wittgenstein liked to do philosophy (poetry). Their translation is in the public domain and posted on Project Gutenberg, but here is the part Carl scored in "Atomic facts."

Just once, listen to the song while looking at the part of the Tractatus it scores.

*

 

from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
by Ludwig Wittgenstein

translated from German
by C. K. Ogden and F. P. Ramsey

2         What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.

2.01     An atomic fact is a combination of objects (entities, things).

2.011   It is essential to a thing that it can be a constituent part of an atomic fact.

2.012   In logic nothing is accidental : if a thing can occur in an atomic fact the possibility of that atomic fact must already be prejudged in the thing.

2.0121  It would, so to speak, appear as an accident, when to a thing that could exist alone on its own account, subsequently a state of affairs could be made to fit.

             If things can occur in atomic facts, this possibility must already lie in them.
         
            (A logical entity cannot be merely possible. Logic treats of every possibility, and all possibilities are its facts.)

            Just as we cannot think of spatial objects at all apart from space, or temporal objects apart from time, so we cannot think of any object apart from the possibility of its connexion with other things.

             If I can think of an object in the context of an atomic fact, I cannot think of it apart from the possibility of this context.


*

"From a philosophical point of view, the translation 'atomic fact' is less fortunate than 'state of things,'" says Jaap van der Does, our resident scholar for our Scoring the Tractatus project, "but so be it ..."

Ah, but "atomic fact" is much more fortunate from a poetic point of view!


*

The composer and one-man-band Carl Pandolfi is a veteran contributor to Poetry Scores and countless other creative projects and bands, notably The Lettuce Heads. This is the atomic fact of one of his eyes. Him on SoundCloud too.

"Kind of turned out like a cross between TMBG (They Might Be Giants) and Leon Russell, but still mainly Schoolhouse Rock," Carl said of this score.

*

The Ogden/Ramsey translation of the Tractatus is in the public domain. The music is (c) 2014 by Carl Pandolfi. Free sharing of this mp3 is welcome, but please consult Poetry Scores for production-quality audio and composer permission before making any commercial use. Thanks!

*

PREVIOUSLY ON "SCORING THE TRACTATUS"

Carl Pandolfi scores the title of Wittgenstein's "Tractatus"

Carl Pandolfi scores the title of Wittgenstein's "Tractatus"

Poetry Scores recently announced that we are going to translate Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) by Ludwig Wittgenstein into other media, starting with music.

We have songwriters scoring Wittgenstein's great philosophical prose poem, in the original English translation that Wittgenstein went over personally with the person who did most of the work on it, F. P. Ramsey. The first English translation was commissioned, edited and published by C. K. Ogden, who took sole credit for the translation; but we are giving Wittgenstein, Ramsey and Ogden a shared lyrical credit.

St. Louis composer Carl Pandolfi has finished the first piece of our poetry score, which sets to music the very first part of the poem, and that is the title, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

*

Free mp3

"Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
(Wittgenstein, Ogden, Ramsey, Moore, Pandolfi)
Carl Pandolfi

Produced, composed, recorded and performed by Carl Pandolfi in St. Louis, Missouri.

 

Carl Pandolfi sings all vocals and plays Casio auto drumbeat (from a 1990s-era keyboard), electric guitars, electric bass, synthesizer, snare drum and piano.

Executive producer: Chris King for Poetry Scores

Music (c) 2014 Carl Pandolfi

*

Carl Pandolfi described his creative process:

I was playing around with the title words using a cheap songwriting toy that Mike Burgett had that "sings" your spoken words for you. One of the funky rhythmic responses stuck in my head and came out as this dance track after I decided to complete it in the style of a quasi-Gregorian chordal chant (organum, loosely).

*

The title of Wittgenstein's book, Latin for "Treatise on Logic and Philosophy," was suggested by the English philosopher G. E. Moore (who, with Bertrand Russell, was an early and primary influence on Wittgenstein's thought). We think Moore deserves a share of the credit for the title song as well, since he came up with the title.

Moore was echoing Spinoza's title Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, but we figured we'd leave Spinoza off the songwriting team. Wittgenstein himself preferred his original German title, Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung.

Moore's title for Wittgenstein's poem was scored by St. Louis composer Carl Pandolfi, a longtime contributor to Poetry Scores, among countless other creative projects and bands.

Carl Pandolfi
 

We understand that Wittgenstein's books are shelved in the philosophy section and taught in philosophy departments, but they certainly can be enjoyed (and scored) as poetry. Wittgenstein himself wrote, "I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said philosophy ought really to be written as a poetic composition" (from his personal notebooks, published in Culture and Value, translated by Peter Winch).

The Ogden/Ramsey translation of the Tractatus is in the public domain. The music is (c) 2014 by Carl Pandolfi. Free sharing of this mp3 is welcome, but please consult Poetry Scores for production-quality audio and composer permission before making any commercial use. Thanks!

NOTE:

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Missouri - St. Louis has thoughtfully organized a Talk about Wittgenstein's Tractatus 5:30-8 pm Tuesday, February 25 in Clark Hall Room 411. Professors Waldemar Rohloff and Rebecca Schuman invite anyone to attend and encourage you to prepare by reading the Preface and Propositions 6.4-7 of the Tractatus.