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.

"Less reprehensible" (James Joyce's outlaw song)

Soldiering forward on the busting up into song lyrics the part of James Joyce's Ulysses I liked the best when I finally read the great book.

Still plucking from the chapter, deep in the text, written in Q&A form. The bit below I would like to hear set to music forms the midde part of a long answer to the question "Equanimity?"

I think of this as James Joyce's outlaw song.

"Less reprehensible"

As less reprehensible than theft,
highway robbery, cruelty to children
and animals, obtaining money
under false pretenses, forgery,
embezzlement, misappropriation
of public money, betrayal
of public trust, malingering,
mayhem, corruption of minors,
criminal libel, blackmail, contempt
of court, arson,treason, felony, mutiny
on the high seas, trespass,
burglary, jailbreaking, practice
of unnatural vice, desertion
from armed forces in the field,
perjury, poaching, usury,
intelligence with the king's enemies,
impersonation, criminal assault,
manslaughter, wilful
and premeditated murder.

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More in this series

"Example?"

"Restless. Solitary." (maybe after Samuel Barber)
"I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea"
"Pretty pretty petticoats"
"Music without Words, pray for us" (instrumental, or not)
"SIGNOR MAFFEI: (With a sinister smile)"
"Sad music" (instrumental)
"Monkey puzzle" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"What kind of a present to give"
"Fires in the houses of poor people" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"Christfox in leather trews" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"All future plunges to the past" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"She was humming" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"Silly billies:" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"Happy Happy" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"A sugarsticky girl" (Joyce, King, A Better Guitar Player Than Me)
"Everybody eating everyone else" (Joyce, King, You)
"Blood not mine" (Joyce, King, Your Name Here)
"Sell your soul for that" (Joyce, King, Your Name Here)
"Over the motley slush" (Joyce, King, Whoever Helps Me)"My childhood bends" (Joyce, King)"
"Don't you play the giddy ox with me!" (Joyce, King)

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Image from Sodahead.

"Example?"

Early last June I got a good run up on Bloomsday by posting song lyrics I had carved from James Joyce's Ulysses. (Bloomsday is June 16, the day the events of that novel transpire.) I seemed to have kept at it until August, and up to page 608 of my batterd Penguin edition of the great novel, with less than 100 pages to go ... when I just stopped.

Well, its not exactly reading aloud from Ulysses in an Irish pub, soaked in Guiness and surrounded by stately, plump companions, but I will observe Bloomsday 2010 by resuming my song lyric series with an eye toward actually finishing this time around. I only have nine other pages of this edition noted as pregnant with lyrical potential, so in a week or so I should have a complete list of song lyrics to start scoring - or distributing among stately, plump friends to score.

This bit is from the chapter of the novel that is written in Q&A format. So despite the litany of choice song titles in these lines - "New hat with rain" maybe being the best - I'll use the Q that provokes the A as the song title. It has an art-rocksiness to it. Like Game Theory, a band much influenced by Joyce.

"Example?"

She disliked umbrella with rain,
he liked woman with umbrella,
she disliked new hat with rain,
he liked woman with new hat,
he bought new hat with rain,
she carried umbrella with new hat.

There are just a hundred lovely ways you could set a sequence of lines like that to music. The one I'd like to try first is a six verse song, where verse one is the first line, verse two is the first two lines, verse three the first three lines, and so on, and then the song ends with the last line of the sixth verse, which is the first time you sing the sixth and last line - "she carried umbrella with new hat" - though maybe that line would be looped as an outro refrain ... six times.

More in this series

"Restless. Solitary." (maybe after Samuel Barber)
"I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea"
"Pretty pretty petticoats"
"Music without Words, pray for us" (instrumental, or not)
"SIGNOR MAFFEI: (With a sinister smile)"
"Sad music" (instrumental)
"Monkey puzzle" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"What kind of a present to give"
"Fires in the houses of poor people" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"Christfox in leather trews" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"All future plunges to the past" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"She was humming" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"Silly billies:" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"Happy Happy" (Fuller, Joyce, King)
"A sugarsticky girl" (Joyce, King, A Better Guitar Player Than Me)
"Everybody eating everyone else" (Joyce, King, You)
"Blood not mine" (Joyce, King, Your Name Here)
"Sell your soul for that" (Joyce, King, Your Name Here)
"Over the motley slush" (Joyce, King, Whoever Helps Me)"My childhood bends" (Joyce, King)"
"Don't you play the giddy ox with me!" (Joyce, King)

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Image from Kissed by a Rain God.

My windy introduction of Clewell for our Missouri History Museum program

At 7 p.m. Thursday, June 17, Poetry Scores will kick off its (half) Year of Ruby in the downstairs Lee Auditorium of the Missouri History Museum with "Jack Ruby and the FBI: A Poetic Exploration," featuring Missouri Poet Laureate David Clewell reading from part of his long poem Jack Ruby's America that embeds what might be called a conspiracy theory for why Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. This, or something like it, will be my introduction.

I would like to thank you for coming out tonight to see "Jack Ruby and the FBI: A Poetic Exploration". I am Chris King, creative director of Poetry Scores, which put together tonight's event. I would like to thank the Missouri History Museum for sponsoring the event and promoting it. The initial promotions promised Missouri Poet Laureate David Clewell and parapolitical researcher Kenn Thomas. In the end, we only have Clewell. This means we will get out a little early and get over to The Royale a little early for the afterparty and to chew over what we have heard tonight. It also means, sorry, you will get a little more of me and of Poetry Scores.

So, I am going to talk for a few minutes about Poetry Scores and the work we are doing with David Clewell's great poem Jack Ruby's America. I will talk a bit about the poem and how we will approach it tonight. And then I will introduce the poet laureate of our state, who will read from some parts of Jack Ruby's America that might have turned up in the FBI file of Mr. Ruby, who of course shot dead Lee Harvey Oswald, who of course had been arrested and charged with the murders of President John F. Kennedy and Police Officer J.D. Tippit.

Tonight's event kicks off The Year - or half-year, I guess - of Ruby that Poetry Scores has organized around Clewell's poem. Poetry Scores is a Missouri non-profit arts organization that translates poetry into other media. Our core form is in fact the poetry score, where we set long poems to music as one would score a film, then release them on CD.

These scores tend to be difficult to reproduce live, so we hit upon the idea of releasing the CDs in conjunction with an Art Invitational, where we invite 50 or so artists to make new, original art that responds to the poem we have scored. The artist is required to title their piece after a verbatim quote from the poem, and then we hang the art in the gallery space according to where in the flow of the poem the language chosen for the title of the work appears. In this way, in a sense, it is the poem that hangs the show.

Then, since we have these things called "scores" and we had started to branch out into other media, and because I adore silent cinema, we began to write, shoot, and edit silent movies to our poetry scores. Up until now we have released four Poetry Scores CDs and made a movie to one of them, "Blind Cat Black", which premiered at the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase two years ago and next month is screening in two cities in Turkey.

Turkey? "Blind Cat Black" is by a Turkish poet, Ece Ayhan, who is enjoying something of a renaissance right now. Like two of the four poets we have scored to date, Ece Ayhan died while we were scoring his poem, and as we all know death is good for business when it comes to poets.

We are already done, more or less, with our score to Clewell's poem, though we encourage him to live long enough to see us release the score on CD, and so put us over the .500 mark for poets successfully living through the experience of having their poems set to music by Poetry Scores. In fact, we intend for Clewell to live long enough to see the silent movie we plan to eventually make for our Jack Ruby's America score, which Clewell and I sort of hit upon together when he was telling me about a zombie marionette show he had seen recently. (We like to have zombies in our movies; just one of those things.) Since it would be a bore to do yet another feature film around Ruby and Kennedy based on archival footage, and we could never afford to shoot live action on location in all these famous Dallas locations, I am thinking to do our Jack Ruby movie as a silent marionette movie - a silent zombie marionette movie.

The zombie puppets, I am thinking, will be the mobsters, the gangsters. And this brings us around, finally, to our theme for tonight, "Jack Ruby and the FBI: A Poetic Exploration".

For many Americans and armchair historians all over the world, the murders of Kennedy, Tippit, and even Oswald remain unsolved mysteries. We saw Kennedy and Oswald killed, on television or in newsreel footage. In the case of Oswald, we even saw quite clearly who killed him: the hero of our poem, Jack Ruby, born Jacob Rubenstein, a tough Jew from Chicago. But Oswald was killed - by Ruby - before he had his day in court, and he denied having killed the president or the police officer. Famously, Oswald said, "I'm just a patsy." And our criminal justice system prosecutes conspiracy to murder as well as murder itself, so anyone who doubts the lone gunman theories - what Clewell's poem calls "Oswald, only Oswald" and "Ruby, only Ruby" - would have to classify these murders as still unsolved.

Clewell's poem offers a theory for what happened in Dallas during those November days of 1963, and since it accounts for a conspiracy, it is by definition a conspiracy theory. But it is a conspiracy theory offered in a poem, and it is the poetry that interests us foremost. Tonight, David Clewell will read from part two, "The Chicago Cowboy", of this five-part poem, Jack Ruby's America. As you will hear in a moment, Clewell opens the section with two epigraphs that deny Ruby had any connections to a larger conspiracy to kill the president and rub out the "patsy," Oswald. One is the very famous quote from The Warren Commission Report: "We could not establish a significant link between Ruby and organized crime."

As this part of David Clewell's poem unfolds, however, we see that the poet has established some "significant links between Ruby and organized crime". After we finish the poetry score and come back to make a silent marionette zombie movie out of Jack Ruby's America, if we cast the mobsters as zombies, we'll definitely be making us some zombie puppets.

Now I'd like to introduce my dear friend, the great poet and - thanks to First Lady Georganne Nixon and an obviously intelligent commission established by the governor - the poet laureate of the State of Missouri, David Clewell.

Introducing: The Larry Weir Memorial Chair in Zombie Dramatics

So, this evening we are hosting our third Experiential Auction. Doing public events are nailbiters always. But this year another mood besides anxiety was cast over the event.

We started to plan our second movie as the auction was coming together. Our plan is to always involve zombies in our movies in some way. I recalled that one of the experiences we sold last auction was to play a zombie in our next movie.

We auctioned off the experience to two different people, since volume is good when casting zombies. I got in touch with Scott Splater, one zombie experience buyer; he said he was good to go. But I had a problem with the other zombie actor we picked up through the auction. He had died.

It was Larry Weir. Larry, of course, was one of the original KDHX operatives and a longtime curator of songwriting in St. Louis. Also, always, a bon vivant and up for anything interesting. He would have made a great zombie. But he had died.

Larry had attended that auction with his wife, Kathy. I thought of Kathy. A lot of people have been thinking about Kathy. I got in touch with her.

Kathy, like many people I have been thinking about you. And now something odd has come up. We are starting our second movie, and Larry has a role in it as zombie he purchased on auction. I can tell you that and we can leave it privately with a smile; or if your spirit is right for it we could have some fun in Larry's honor. Think about it and talk to me.

Kathy wrote back right away.

It did make me smile. Larry was really looking forward to that! If timing permits, I'd love to take his place. I know he'd be very excited to know that you're starting on the new movie!

My move.

That was my suggestion! Further, I'd like to install The Larry Weir Memorial Chair in Zombie Dramatics for our future movies, with you as the first endowed chairperson. And publicize this in our offbeat way. Is that okay with your sense of things?

Kathy laughed out loud and said, "Yes. he'd get a kick out of it."

And so at this point, Poetry Scores is introducing: The Larry Weir Memorial Chair in Zombie Dramatics, and welcoming to the Go South for Animal Index cast the inaugural chairholder, Kathy Weir.

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My photograph of Kathy and Larry is at The Royale during the auction where Larry bought the zombie experience. He also bought the experience of having a custom case of beer made to his specifications, then later wrote a nice essay, "Beer, baseball, and friends: a case," about that experience for us.

Poetry Scores 2010 Experiential Auction

Poetry Scores will hold its 2010 Experiential Auction from 5-8 p.m. Sunday, June 6 at Atomic Cowboy, 4140 Manchester Ave. in St. Louis. Admission is $10, which will be discounted from your first winning bid. All proceeds from the auction will go to Poetry Scores, a St. Louis-based arts organization that translates poetry into other media.

If you can’t attend the event on Sunday and like the looks of some of the experiences listed below, you can bid in advance at brodog@hotmail.com and hope you win. You can also send proxy bid ceilings in advance to brodog@hotmail.com, and on Sunday we will appoint someone to bid on your behalf up to your stated limit for any experience. NOTE: This is a community enterprise; bidding starts at $10 minimum and usually goes up in increments of $10 or less. By the nature of the auction, your money will be managed conservatively.

We prefer cash, but accept checks (made out to “Poetry Scores”), PayPal or credit.

The unique experiences on silent and live auctions are:

* Dinner and a symphony concert with Fred Bronstein, president of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

* Private tasting and tour with Schlafly head brewer Stephen Hale

* A burlesque lesson from Lola van Ella, producer of The Show-Me Burlesque Festival.

* Frontyard Features screens a movie on the big screen in your backyard.

* A private flight in a Piper Cherokee 160 aircraft with Brant Hadfield, who first soloed on his 16th birthday and obtained his private pilot's license on his 17th birthday (both FAA minimum age).

* A deluxe photo shoot with Wiley Price, photojournalist for The St Louis American

* Tour of the Missouri Capitol with retiring state Rep. Rachel Storch.

* Be alderwoman for a day as you shadow Ald. Kacie Starr Triplett.

* Tour of City Hall and lunch with Ald. Antonio D. French.

* A private tour of the City Museum for up to four people.

* A researched article on the history of your home or building by architectural historian Michael R. Allen.

* Missouri Poet Laureate David Clewell inscribes your baseball with a UFO drawing and poem.

* A trip to the gun range with Steve Fitzpatrick Smith, proprietor of The Royale.

* The artist Kim Keek Richardson paints your dream and gives you the signed painting.

* The artist Tim McAvin paints your band and gives you the signed painting.

* The artist Wiktor Szostalo draws you in the nude and you get to keep the signed portrait.

* A free class in “Falling Down with Sammich the Tramp” – a lesson in physical skit comedy with Kyla Webb.

* Atomic Cowboy bartender Matt Obermark offers his services as mixologist for two hours at your dinner party – U.S. Bartending Guild member headed to New Orleans for a national drink contest, he is.

* Lunch or dinner at O'Connell's Pub for 2-4 with legendary founder Jack Parker; food is on Jack, booze if any is on you.

* A romantic dinner for two at Senor Pique, the area’s finest Mexican dining

* You name a menu item at The Fountain on Locust (owners have veto power over obscene or offensive titles).

* You see the concert of your choice at The Pageant with Matt Fernandes of the Rock Candy blog on StlToday.com.

* Kieran Molloy treats your party to two hours of live Irish music and songs

* You get six free appraisals on old toys or baseball items from Andy's Toys, Vintage Toy Shop (11624 Gravois Rd ~ Sunset Hills), a $20 gift certificate for the shop, and a copy of the new Surrealist Movement book: HYDROLITH.

* An Old North Flickr Tour with Old North resident and passionate amateur photographer Thom Fletcher

* Watch a Cardinals game at the location of your choice with James Blackwood and learn to score a baseball game.

* Poet and Tarot diviner Stefene Russell does your Tarot reading

* Artist and diviner Marth Rose reads your future from your palm and regales you with stories of Jack Ruby, her father's friend, over a bottle of good cheap red wine.

* Bodybag Man (aka Typewriter Tim Jordan) teaches you how to stay alive in a bodybag and to hop around in it.

* Wellness specialist Dianna Lucas treats you to yoga and a picnic in the park

* St. Louis bluesman Bob Case writes and records a blues song with, or for, you.

Again, send proxy bid ceilings to brodog@hotmail.com if you can’t come on Sunday to the Atomic Cowboy, 5-8 p.m. Throughout the event (and afterwards), Atomic Cowboy will be serving food and drinks, in its normal course of operation.

All bidding for all experiences starts at $10 minimum. You may email a proxy bid ceiling for any experience to brodog@hotmail.com (please put “Experiential Auction” in the subject line). Someone from Poetry Scores will confirm that your bid has been received. At the auction, your proxy will open bidding for you at $10 on your experience(s), and raise any competition you have $10 at a time until you win or get outbid beyond your ceiling.

Winners will receive a certificate stating they were the winning bidder for their experience and contact information for their experience donor. Poetry Scores also will follow through and make introductions between all experience donors and winners. The winners will have a complete calendar year (starting June 6, 2010) to collect on their experiences, and will need to sign a simple waiver taking personal responsibility for their health and well being while having their experiences.

All proceeds benefit Poetry Scores, a non-profit St. Louis-based arts organization that translates poetry into other media, including music, movies and visual art. For much more information, visit the blog at www.poetryscores.blogspot.com.

Questions? Contact creative director Chris King at brodog@hotmail.com or 314-265-1435.

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