This online NoboDaddy in the Lower World realization is dedicated to Seattle percussionist, teacher and artist extraordinaire Paul Kikuchi. Paul encouraged me (relentlessly) for years to save this collaborative recording from obscurity. When I finally woke up and agreed that the project was worth doing, Paul further expedited the idea by graciously digitizing the original, 1985 1/4-inch 4-track analog recording so that I could commence a mixdown. He then recommended the superb engineer and musician, Evan Schiller, to create a professional mix and final master. This website and the CD we created from the final master would never have happened without Paul's years of tireless support, encouragement and professional technical expertise. Steven Weinberg and I will be forever grateful for the vision that Paul Kikuchi had for this artistic enterprise, recorded so many years ago - and for helping us to bring it to fruition.
(NB: Text in Cinnamon Red constitutes the titles and the "libretto" for the CD tracks)
Track 1:
It’s All Very Definite—No, Not Exactly Missing
It is all very definite/No, not exactly missing.
It is all missing/No, not exactly definite.
(Quote from improvised version, recorded
with Nobodaddy in the Lower World on Whidbey Island,
Washington, 1986.)
1. “ Seed” Draft—Original Draft
You are growing into the shell of your family. It is all very definite in retrospect.
First you are looking at the inside of the shell, and now you try to remember the textures that were in there: the colors, the young faces of your family. Your father and mother have smoother features, flowing movement. Your older brother hums as he pastes stamps in his book. He would paste you in his book if he could, but you don’t listen to him. He’s selfish and brutish and thinks because he is oldest he is best loved. You are the one they love, though. They love you precisely because you don’t listen. You are the one they can’t pin down. They wonder what you do in the woods by yourself, in your room after dinner, where you are when they wake early summer mornings. Sometimes you walk bare-chested, barefooted in the forest, picking blueberries and setting box traps for rabbits, or in your room you climb from your bed to the air conditioner in the window and see a water tower in the distance—a spaceship you will enter at some future time. Then there is the raining magic and hearing of music in your shell—the day you chanted for the rain to go away, and when you opened your eyes it had. You chanted, and the sky listened. You closed your eyes again and heard the music of the heavens whirling in your ears like a singing yellow saucer. As you stood there, your body vibrated; the song sprouted seven songs, all overlapping and resonating at that terribly high pitch. Your limbs took flight from your body: an exploding flock of fingers, arms, legs, and eyes. The yellow sky imploded and swallowed itself: there you stood outside the shell of your family, faces old and distant, your father’s fear of death perched on your shoulder like your own hand, your mother looking bourgeois but happy inside her old soft
Flesh.
As you stand outside the shell, you notice your older brother is missing. No, not exactly missing, just stiff and angular—an extension of his adding machine. You say to him, “798311777 divided by 00.” He takes it as an insult, but before he can yell at you, you slice the zeroes like onions and he begins to cry.
You back through the membrane of the shell once again, becoming gradually smaller in the flashing tracer of memory until you reach the base of the spaceship. It is an early summer morning; no one is awake yet. You climb the metal ladder. Your ears seem large and sensitive—you hear birds screaming in unfamiliar patterns from the distant woods . . .
Sj Weinberg
1974
NOTE: Entered here from photocopied handwritten “seed” version originally on lined three-hole notebook paper. At the top of the original I specified “seed” because I used this text as the basis for a progressive series of cut-up versions. I took the above text, cut it into pieces, rearranged the phrases and words, and rewrote randomly assembled segments to make sense for a new composition. Then I repeated the process with each new version a few more times. I used subsequent experiments as the basis for my improvised vocalizing/reading when Thomas, Paul, and I recorded in 1986. My recorded improvisations pick up words and phrases and riff beyond them, leading to: “It’s all very definite/No, not exactly missing.” I read some sentences and passages in their entirety or let my eye/mind/voice grab text on the fly, according to rhythms and sounds spontaneously composed by my compatriots. The recorded oral interpretation/improvisation picks up single words: “blueberries” and “box” (see cut-up version below). I discovered themes and ideas in the process of collaboration, returning to, repeating and then taking off in directions that made musical or verbal sense.
NOTE: Baltimore—1950s—4509 Norfolk Avenue (Forest Park neighborhood).
The text itself references my memories of looking out from the small upstairs bedroom I shared with my brother Jeffrey. My bed was beside a window, and I would stand on my bed to look out at the spaceship-like water tower in the distance. When outside, I also wondered about that spaceship and the skies above. I remember standing perfectly still outside on our small front lawn, and listening to all the sounds, extending my consciousness to the limits of what my ears could hear. I would, for example, listen to an airplane in the distance as it would fly closer overhead, and let my ears and eyes follow the plane until it reached the absolute limits of my ability to see and hear it. I exercised my attention, hoping to determine the circumference of my sphere of perception. When testing limits of perception, I sometimes heard what I wanted to hear (like a song, as if playing on a transistor radio in the distance) and confuse myself. I would really hear the song—wondering which sounds were real, and which ones I had imagined into my personal reality.
The family drama is, emotionally, at the heart of the text—mother, father, and older brother—as my child narrator seeks to differentiate and find a place. Yes, I was the middle child. My Baltimore city residential neighborhood of cottage-like homes, Forest Park (notable unforested, but by a park), grew to accommodate WWII veterans ready for family life. We were a true neighborhood, in that we knew most families for blocks around our home, and we children freely played outside, nearly always unsupervised and unrestricted, with the proviso we return home at appointed mealtimes. My parents were kind and loving and supported us with great care for our well-being. My brothers and I fought with each other too much, but as adults we have become great friends; and even as fighting children we felt love and respect for one another, though the physical fighting was not good for us. The above text surfaced as an expression of emotions I remembered about struggling with my place in relation to my parents and my brothers. Our sister was, and is, six years younger than I am; she and I never experienced the strife and battles of brothers. In the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, we create personal mythology.
NOTE: To find texts like this one from the scores of boxes stored for many years, I had to recall key words and phrases in order to scan and identify original handwritten or mechanically typed versions.
I still marvel at strange, sometimes elegant, water tower spaceships.
⦿
The following draft (2) resulted from cutting the above “seed” draft into four sections, like a window of four panes, and shuffling the quadrants to create new connections I wrote down by hand and revised to make unexpected sense of the material, a kind of cubist reconstruction of the original. The draft that follows the first cut-up (3), followed from one of four cut-up experiments, possibly number two. The others are missing.
On October 10, 2016, I typed from handwritten cursive versions, photocopies of the originals written on lined paper.
2. Cut-up Versions—Recorded Track
Blueberry. Box. Arm. Leg. [eye.] The pink pattern has smooth rabbit features in your room and thinks. Because he is you climb from your bed. He tells you he is sorry. The color is a spaceship you will enter to remember the textures. You are growing into the shell, the faces’ old and distant window, and see water. You closed your eyes again to him. He’s selfish and brute of the shell once again. You pitch your limbs high—whirling. They love you in your ears like in the shell. You notice sometimes you walk barechested of memory until you reach and become gradually smaller. Hear the music of heaven like your own hand and forgive him! Pat him on the back and vibrate the song. Sprout a singing yellow saucer. You are the one they can’t pin, just stiff and angular flesh. As you stand outside it has your eyes. You chant hearing of music for the rain to go. Perched on your shoulders, and down, they wonder, “What is your father’s fear of death?” 798311777 divided by 00: he, your older brother, is missing. Then there is the raining music. Close in the book, where you are when they slice the zeroes in the woods. By yourself.
As you stand there, your body’s distant woods take the base of the spaceship and your father and mother away when you open the young faces of your family. The air conditioner in an early summer. Outside the shell of your family seven songs all overlap insider her old soft birds looking bourgeois but happy taking flight from your body.
Barechested in the forest, picking it as an insult, now you try looking at the inside of the shell. If you can. But you won’t listen before he can yell at you. Your ears seem large and there you stand—morning—no one is awake, an exploding flock of fingers screaming in an unfamiliar tower in the distance. You back through the membrane.
You climb the metal. It is all very definite—no, not exactly missing.
In your shell the day you chanted precisely. Because you don’t listen he would paste you. Is the one they love oldest? He is best loved. Resonate at that terribly. Retrospect: first you are at some future time. He hums as he pastes stamps. Wake up early summer mornings : if sensitive you hear your family—the flashing tracer. Like onions he begins to cry. “Machine,” you say to him. Flowing movement. Your older brother Sky had listened. Sky imploded and swallowed.
3. Next Generation Cut-up from Another Cut-up
: if sensitive you hear him bare-chested of memory until like onions he begins to cry bare-chested in the forest picing it as an insult. Flowing movement. Your older brother tries looking at the inside of the shell. If you can . . . but Sky imploded and swallowed before he could yell at you. Your ears remember the textures. You are growing into the shell, the faces’ old and distant mirror, and see water. You closed your eyes again to soft birds looking bourgeois and happy taking flight from body’s
raining magic.
Close in the book a spacehip you will enter, zeroes in the woods, by yourself
(SPACE) Faces of your family put him on the back and
and vibrate the shell of your family.
(SPACE)
You are at some future time. He hums because you wake up early summer mornings; love oldest. ? Family—the flashing tracer. Retrospect.: first “Machine,” you say to him, “Paste stamps.” Brother Sky had listened 4 quarters. You notice that sometimes you walk limbs high whirling. They love you (SPACE)
(SPACE)
(SPACE)
(SPACE}
like your own hand and forgive him! The air conditioner in an early summer. Outside seven songs all overlap inside her old Blueberry Box Arm Leg [eye. The pink pattern has smooth rabbit features. In your shell the day you chanted precisely, the song sprouted singing, “ Don’t listen, he will paste you.” Is the one they pin just stiff and angular flesh? He is best loved. Resonate at that terribly. Eyes, you chant hearing of music. Yellow saucer, you are the one they can’t see. Morning. No one is awake as you stand outside. Is it you screaming in an unfamiliar way for the rain to go? Perched on the membrane, “What is your father’s fear of death?” You climb. The metal is missing. Then
there is the
in your room
and thinks. Because he is, you climb from your bed. Now you are him. He’s selfish and brute of the shell once again. You pitch yourself. You won’t listen. Distant woods take the base . . . they seem large and there you stand, away, when you open the young exploding flock of fingers where you are when they slice the tower in the distance. You’re back. As you stand there, you reach your body’s spaceship and your father and mother and become gradually smaller. Hear the music of heaven : He tells you he is sorry. The color is rearranged quarters of ④
Your shoulder,
and down,
they wonder—
798311777 divided by 00 = he, your older brother.
It is all very definite—no, not exactly missing . . .
(SPACE
in your ears like in the shell.
(SPACE)
(SPACE)
⦿
Apetito de Realidad
El silbo de un pajaro despierta ias semillas
envueltas en la miel del mediodia.
La mente es una cerca donde salta un pajaro
que picotea en el tramo de la percepcion
con apetito de realidad,
afirmacion solemne de la vida fecunda.
--Jorge Carrera Andrade
Appetite for Reality
The whistle of a watchful bird wakes seeds
coated in the honey of noon.
The mind is a fence where a bird jumps
Pecking at the field of perception
With an appetite for reality,
Solemn affirmation of fecund life.
--Jorge Carrera Andrade
Translated by Steven Jay Weinberg, 1974
Track 2:
Titles & Zones
from TITLES—1985
a highly improbable purchase
alligator hoola-hoop.
inhaling gasses :
helium
legs yodeling
imponderable
mantras
pedunculated
roses
odoriferously
babbling.
a bilious
lily-livered
elephant
puking urchin,
rears
coughs
hacks
a savage
empirically.
◎
ZONE: Every zone or area of space holds a symbolic
significance deriving from its level on the vertical
axis and its situation in relation to the cardinal points.
I the broadest sense, zone may, by analog, be equated
with degree or mode. The colors are really only zones
of the spectrum, and, by this token, any arrangement of
zones is susceptible of interpretation as a serial whole.
from: A Dictionary of Symbols
by J.E. Cirlot
questions
to zones
a stone sinks
ba-lup
slow through
inhibiting water (s)
memory
selects &/
or reflects
forward answer (s)
demanding
consideration.
where
were you
going
with that lost
look screwing
up your face
the sleep
I mean sleet
making
impossible
your galoshes grip
to the road ?
I know you
know
you asking
whether that’s
light on
leaves or
white blossoms
on branches
I know you
need to move
closer
to find out
facts.
when dawn
was gaining
superseding
night
I under
stood empa
thized
with your
faul
tering per
ception of
dog
fire
hydrant
dog.
O honey
sky !
sound
bound
bouncing
along a
spectrum
of colors
rubber-headed
mallets awakening
color-coded
xylophone
keys.
fascinating
overlays
maps
divide
brain
into lobes
& crosscut
layers never
approaching
SPIRIT
FORMLESS
FREEDOM
etc.,…
neither white
blossoms nor
light-leaves
snow mounds
and small peaks
collect along
the trees’ branched
sticks.
hydrant
mistaken for
dog wrapped in
trance by nightskin
split-
ting open
sunrays spin
ning into
black pupils
white lace net
ting over any
thought to
move.
a hydrant.
truth
partially hidden
by love
partially masked
with moon
partially obscured
in cloud and
darkness
my heart
an aluminum slinky
descends stairs
coiled head
flipping over
coiled tail
to your
waiting hands.
to north and
south and east
and west and
fathomless
center
questions spark
questions spinning
off
and from where
into every
Zone.
Sj Weinberg
May 1983
Published 1985—Staple Diet Magazine/Pig Press/Durham, England
Sj Weinberg
May 1983
Published 1985—Staple Diet Magazine/Pig Press/Durham, England
This morning I saw a pretty street
whose name is gone. –Guillaume Apollinaire
◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈
from TITLES—1985
(BONUS)
TrainWhistleCrane
Tracks,
rails, arms
into now.
Wings,
high in stars,
trail
little earth.
Curious
rancid atmosphere—
night eels.
◎
Sj Weinberg
NOTE: This poem and “a highly improbable purchase”
are from a manuscript of twelve poems determined by titles.
The title of each poem came first. Combining the first
letter of every word spells out the title. I let a title
come to mind, then enjoyed seeing words arrive
on the page.
◎
TRACK 3
Alphabets—1974 to 1986
In the tenth century […] the Grand Vizier of Persia, Abdul Kassem Ismael, in order not to part with his collection of 117, 000 volumes when traveling, had them carried by a caravan of four hundred camels trained to walk in alphabetical order. —A HISTORY OF READING, Alberto Manguel
A
the man walks. the woman walks.
the child walks. there is a tower
the feet move toward. there is a tower
the legs uphold. in the evening
swallows go crazy in the orchard.
old trees rooted deep in dark earth
no longer bear fruit.
.
B
brains. barn swallows. the baker’s daughter.
bills. bombs. she lies in a brass bed naked
and laughing. he plays a porcelain flute.
the child spins dizzy ‘til there’s no
standing up. everybody claps. so many
grasses in the field, his eyes helpless.
a river. a shadow.
binoculars.
C
crab has a hard shell, moves sideways,
crawls, clings to rocks, knows all the crannies.
o pincers of delight, claws of self defense.
still it’s easy. there is a way to pick up
a crab behind its claws, leaving it
totally helpless. the cooper shoots
flames into a barrel. dinner is served
in a cabin in the woods. the cake tastes moist.
remove yourself…
D
darts. disappointment. the dentist an artist
with his drill, Death a master swordsman. in toledo
a sword tempered in human blood. this dream.
this door. the doctor with his vessels and flasks.
given a capsule twice a day: beheaded.
dread. deeds. doom. darkness.
drama.
H
hands. heart. head. heat. one hour alone in
the morning and one hour alone in the evening. the attic
so hot the bats left. her. the sink the floors
the laundry the baby and more than that. the boat
left harbor at 6 a.m. and he was on it.
he wouldn’t return that night or any night. a rancher
delivered his prize cow to slaughter and
later to his freezer. haunches. she made
a bowl of pea soup, expecting him at the
regular hour. later she removed the hock
and gnawed on it. she knew it would come to this
and what she would do if it did.
she shaved her head, sold her baby on
the black market, sailed around the world
with a group of radical feminist Jesus freaks.
◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈
M
a large fly
dances on the wall
martian
from
our garbage
dances
on the wall
◈◈◈
N
nest of
twerps
balled up
chirping twerps
swallow their
suffering worms
and natter
until
nightfall
◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈
N
nitrogen. to him nuggets of soil were gems.
never. who can understand. someone. the streets
narrower there. waterways. posted a message
on a board in the laundromat: SOLDIER OF
FORTUNE SEEKS EMPLOYMENT. they
wash out the sweat. and dirt. dispose of
the gems. i put five down on Blue Baby and
lost by a nose. you can always catch a shower
at a university when you act like a student.
and cheap food’s edible at hospital cafeterias.
here’s the problem—building up a large
enough stash. maybe nine to ten grand.
enough to stay a while and come back with
over five hundred. these folks think peanut brittle
is getting back to nature. the horse came before
the cart full of vegetables. that was proof enough.
he receded from the field. gums receded
from his teeth. they sent a strange gas by train
through the night.
O
spoils dwindle. oranges. potatoes grow limbs.
a mildewed burlap sack. an exclamation representative
of surprise. or is it a round greeting: hellooo. if you are
a stranger it goes unnoticed. a deaf ear to you, stranger—
invisible, silent, vacuum-packed stranger. who would suppose
you feel anything. the way you pack your rotten vegetables
around is abhorrent. only other strangers speak with you
and there seems no way in or out. you are where you are—
in a trunk, handcuffed and gagged, left with 2 ½ minutes oxygen.
a simple trick, really. but how did it go. let’s see. the shark
beached itself and a man with red hair twirled it around
by the tail, tossing it back. they think all the banging around,
the frantic racket and rocking, is part of the trick. you really
have forgotten, though. the larder is bare. t he shark
beaches itself again.
P
prance. paw marks. across a meadow then up a tree.
smoky and practical, yet dangerous if unprepared.
cinch up. tighten the straps. if you recall, that time
you were in several places at once. were you
on television, at home, on vacation, in the news-
papers, buying insurance, on the radio, pruning
trees, speaking long distance to italy, and cooking
a cozy dinner for two that evening? it seems so.
then the interruptions came. several units of un-
planned spacers divided the whole thing up on
a herky-jerky conveyor belt. proper hardware was added
but made it all too weighty. the tusk became too
heavy to carry, but one ripe papaya added balance
to the scheme. fruit flies flourished, comanches
set fire to the wagons, it swirled from the center
of the chest: an uncontrollable outpouring.
then scurried.
Q
a quiet inquiry into the ecologist’s home life to see what dirty truths we might dig up. we crumbled potato chips in the receiver, jammed the mouthpiece full of marmalade. the guy’s a garbage collector, runs a big recycling campaign, scrounged his penny loafers and recommends a battery-powered world—works at a grassroots level handing out flashlights. quasar. quark. a quirk of speech. a large silver mouthpiece. his lips flapping around inside tepid metal. tuba. he waves from a caboose like a pro. can wave from a caboose with the best of them, but it’s plain he never took a music lesson. his teenage daughter frequents an alleged mafioso establishment. pull your arrow from its quiver, and watch rose petals fall. silent satellites beam a thousand eyes at quiescent Quakers.
S
in the sanctity of the home mother indoctrinates
junior while daddy wins the bacon. crackling grease
of apprehension spurs the child toward revolt. the barn
on fire, their neighing stallion bucks and gallops off
in flames. food coloring camouflages the emptiness
of his diet. chickens roast, their broken eggs sizzling
into omelets. a conversion ignites the barnyard into
a raucous chorus. by then mommy and daddy grow
old. looking back at the disaster, junior concludes
it wasn’t all bad—he survived. it smolders. he kicks
dirt over it. it persists. all parties refuse to withdraw.
delicate emotions leaf out—dependencies behind
which they hide. shields. & the egyptians buried me
alive to attend the prince. that sucker! still,
i love the egyptians.
T
time. forget it. it will leave you behind.
an increment is too much. the tzar collects
sawdust. now his saw needs sharpening.
teeth. rust. tomorrow. they captured
the bengal tiger that terrorized us. Mrs. A.,
the wife of a british railroad official, is
expected to birth the first test-tube baby
in approximately eight months.
U
usurper. union. the axe and club. put that fucker in place.
orb shouldered across horizon by dung beetle. a chariot.
crossbow. cannon. in feudal times those who loved their lord
received his bounty. his stone wall protected—no loss of freedom.
our pilot took off, ripping through a blanket of starlings—
smoking feathers in the jets. though well above clouds, not a single
detail forgotten. that dream in which you stand at the top
of a steeply vertical building and must jump to a narrow
ledge far below, where you necessarily leap further
to reach ground. the first jump ruins knees or ankles or both—
if you make it. and the second… the uprising spurred on
by those who stood to gain. the propellers. i knelt
to kiss his ring.
◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈
V
down a narrow
cobbled avenue
around a curve
to a cul-de-sac
and into an
an empty cinema
in air
conditioned
darkness
where we
drown out
the world
where our
sorrow
goes on.
image-velum,
veil, psyche’s
communal membrane
issuing sharks
sharks!
⦿
Sj Weinberg
September 11, 1980
NOTE: M, N, P, and V were included in one of seven Chinatown lined blank books of various sizes.
The version of V above is more developed and revised than the blank-book , handwritten draft;
and it is the version above I’m sure I used for vocal improvisation.
◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈
Y
she said, “you think so,” out of the blue air,
“drinking tea quiets the mind.” i didn’t
understand but ventured a guess and said,
“yes, the one who holds the feather
holds the floor. there is no leader here.”
a traveling feather.
anything may go unsaid. in dire circumstance.
a Chinese bell may ring. listen, we stand on the same
ground. you think someone should know about it—
someone does. you do. if you think the door
should be locked, lock it. that would be good.
the animal dance is in session. your bear
claw—as insubstantial as theory. you may
growl. such lovely
thighs. i tell you
i don’t know.
◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈
A
Attack Attack Attack Attack
is the watchword of our fathers
and of our forefathers and of
ourselves on this continent we
love for its expansiveness.
we are the military
we are the military
nation of men and women always
ready to attack
take by storm
the shore
for glory and for gold.
yes we are new Spaniards
claiming
by force
lands
of those
who refuse
to buckle
under at
a simple
sounding
of our name.
we are the U.S. of A.
B
bread and water and the love
of our spouses and faith have
never been enough. to baste
our bodies in the blood
of weaker nations is
high ceremony echoing
christ’s sacrement.
guzzling raw borscht
from the still hairy
skulls of our enemies
we holy conquerors
hereafter and forever
bear the one true
word and our all-engaging
violence forward
in warm snifters
once the heads
of our brothers
D
in the dead of night lit
by flares scribing the air
overhead he made his way
to the throat of a
yellow man and slit
it there and took
his coat.
E
invisible coded messages
bouncing off the E layer and
flying death ships
of the E region make a
case in point that
what cannot be seen
may hurt you. out of
sight driving
you out
of your mind. and
the fear is
all of ours. if it
could only be erased . . .
but Eos would
then be
the death of us.
◈◈◈◈
NOTE: On the recording, “Eos” sounds like “eels.”
◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈
NOTE:
On September 28, 2015, I finally found in a cardboard box, in a room storing at least thirty-five cardboard boxes of books, my handwritten collection A Feather—26 Letters, including alphabet poems/letter meditations originally written while working on Vashon Island, June and July 1978 (when I was twenty-eight years old). I dedicated the book to Sheila, who I met that summer in Seattle. I also shared this book with my mother, who died of cancer only a few years after reading it. Inside my little book is a folded piece of yellow paper upon which my dear mum noted my misspelled words (which I’ve now corrected while revising). I owe my love of the written word to my mother, Pearl Molofsky Weinberg (Peggy), and I smile when I recall her considerate reminder that the word “across” has only one C.
Note: In trusting to subterranean, associative levels of letters, visual words
frequently feature the letter under consideration/meditation positioned silently or secondarily
mid word. Also there are instances of spontaneous homonym (eye and i). My method
was/is intuitional, not entirely rational, and I break with rules of capitalization
and punctuation, yielding to the poem. I might capitalize a name to avoid confusion,
or at times I favor a period where a question mark might be more correct, drawn toward
a kind of ambiguity that makes sense to me and, I believe, will make sense to a reader
willing to go with the nature of the phrasing. When first composed, and in recent processes
of revision, I cozied up to enigma while pitting irrational intuition and cold rationality
against each other. Likewise, visual and vocal elements contend with each other. When reading the original pieces along with instrumental music and sound, I, like my playful compatriots, followed the spontaneity of interactive moments. I favored lower case, putting greater emphasis on line breaks and spacing for clarification.
NOTE: Alphabet poems. I realized the potential of mining the alphabet as an indefatigable source in approximately 1974. I cannot claim any deep understanding of Kabbalah, but my readings about Jewish mysticism and fascination with the physical and metaphysical and psychological/spiritual depths and limits of letters gradually set me to exploring them in poems and prose poems, setting my mind free in a meditative mode, also at times relinquishing my will to the kind of automatic writing I understood figured into surrealistic experimentation. I wished to arrive at unpredictable ends and to discover levels of my personal alphabet. My alphabet prose poems were originally written/calligraphed by hand for more directly sensual and personal connection with letters.
I had studied calligraphy in a cursory way in 1971 and practiced it sincerely in my own quirky style with pen and then with Japanese brushes. I recall an inspiring workshop led by a serious scholar and devotee of the influential calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds. Young Tim Girvin, then a fellow student at Evergreen State College, assisted in that workshop and later calligraphically interpreted a small collection of Issa poems my friend and fellow poet George Evans and I translated from Japanese. George worked the literal translations, and we collaborated on creating versions in English. I believe Tim sold the work to a private collector. I discovered a photocopy of the manuscript while in search for my little book of alphabet poems.
◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈ ◈◈◈◈
TRACK 4
And These Words Were His Only Arteries
Imaginary Houses and Buildings
Self-conscious. I feel like a suburban kitchen. To tell
myself something: “steel sink … dishwasher.” The attempt
must be made.
I was eating potato salad when,
through no reason, I knew it wasn’t another place. It
was the same suburban kitchen and hung there as
an artifact.
A piece of road placed ahead and behind,
I was tireless. The road was equally without substance—
a stocking to be removed. ⦿⦿ The piece of road
a rotten door and cracked enough for wind
to shriek through. A potato print.
The window frame floated behind him.
The door and frame of window behind him. Where
the livestock’s golden wool? Behind him. He
stepped out of the mud—the Anywhere. He
didn’t have a throat. And these words
were his only arteries.
NOTE: Listening to the recording after three decades, the following line jumped out at me:
“And these words were/ his only arteries.”
IMAGINARY HOUSES
sketches
ONE.
from a glass
bedroom
with aquarium
walls
past fish
into quilled
hallway
to a bathroom
with blue
sink guarded
by stuffed marlin
and waterbuffalo head
where I bathe
In murky water
from a red
ceramic
carboy
and listen
to wife’s
cowrie shells
rattle around
her neck and
ankles in
our quiet
atrium
a usual
motionless lizard
asleep
in the crease
of a giant frond.
⦿
TWO.
this one
built with
adobe brick
is
serpent
on
hardpan
the door
behind
fangs and
awning jaw
cool
to the touch
⦿
THREE.
long horizontal steel glass and
aggregate cantilever out
over hillside suburbia
above freeway
ice melting
in whiskey
each thought
precedes
another
slipping
into
stark blue
sky trousers
⦿⦿⦿
Sj Weinberg
INTERLUDE:
Imaginary House #5
ice-domed
igloo
sparkling
sunlight
far over the hill
of one shoulder
⦿
Sj Weinberg
9.16.82
Handwritten draft
entered from a
Chinatown
empty book
October 8, 2016.
NOTE: On 8 October 2016, I discovered the handwritten version, one of eight Imaginary Houses, the eighth crossed out, and number five, above, titled as an interlude. In the moment of improvising with Thomas and Paul, I intuitively selected this poem and riffed on the image, repeating lines to integrate with their sounds and my connection to the poem.
i, highrise—i am/i am not
a building
living in the building
that, yes, is my body or
some facsimile thereof,
exoskeleton immersed in
pains plaited by so much
resistance to taking
an erect stance in
the face of . . .
but I’ve no need to tell you
what bends, gives you the bends,
my friend
windows aren’t quake-proof
one good wave of the earth
and glass flies
guillotine blades unleashed
toward busy consumers and
business-folk flopping
fish-like on cement sidewalk
my foundation isn’t buffered
by a large Teflon plate and,
anyway, physical substance
is a fraction of the formula
determining yield and resistance
to vectors of force—please
refer to
arrows on blueprint:
pg 4, section B-9,
“i am/i am not
a building”
refer to
Human Anatomy—
Facts and Foibles
of Mortal Design
my identity isn’t
absolutely quantifiable
refer to
lines of introduction in
Modern Social Discourse,
Ch.6 “Boredom is Being”:
“How do you do?
My name is . . . “
that woman has big tits
i wonder about her quim,
these unspoken thoughts
i see on the face of a man
that man appears to be a
sexy breadwinner and i bet
he’d fall prey to my
interior designs,
a woman daydreams
for days and nights
in succession
a feeling, a stainless
steel elevator rising
64 floors, starts
in the balls of my feet
and charges
through spine
‘til it blows off
my head.
all my office cubicles
overflow with nausea at
thoughts of making order
of all the papers
on all my desks.
the corps of sad little
union janitors open
black lunch pails
but can’t bring themselves
to unwrap wax paper
from white sandwiches.
my video cameras set
on all entrances and exits
reveal no intruders
according to my security guards
who i trust implicitly
to scan my monitors
nerve center
accurately programmed
triggers lights precisely.
for some days now
i’ve felt like
a shiny man
made of steel
and glass
but i worry
that the world
is only using me
that i am temporary
that the earth itself
may cave in
beneath me.
H
it is likely it will remain unquantifiable.
at its height it manufactured the great civilizations.
in retrospect, too early to say what is going on.
we’ll know later perhaps. maybe not . . .
the hordes, whoever they are, may
never know. whatever it is. pure speculation
is one of the few joys left. any subject will do.
or none at all. the hours are confined to
60 minutes a piece. which is stifling
no matter which way you look at them.
too short or too long. hail stones
have instigated a broad appreciation
for hats this winter. at the brim of
certain jagged edges
ideas occur and fall
away. water to ice
back to water again is
the natural progression we
have come to expect but
water to gaseous cloud
returning in fine spray
is a statistical calculation
meteorologists divine as
another variable to be considered.
information filters down
to the masses and soaks
in slowly
after a long time
and after experts
have turned
in for the evening
with other, newer,
equations stopping
up their gutters and
drainpipes.
we, who
equate the weather with
intelligence, can’t put
a price tag on our
yellow rain slickers
but are notorious for
ignoring the roofs
of our houses.
TRACK 5
Silence: Other People Talk as if They Have One—A Voice
Yourself (a modern blues)
miracle story
before the words came to mouth
and though machines were well oiled
the sleek fist
a bird
hit its target
worming up through sod
and divided its prey—
owning this act
he spoke
and cut his partner
away from silence
as well, the deaf and deafening
steel set in motion
so many people
trained to know
the works of their invention
which came to be a border
to their refinement
and measure
of imagination.
incredible
silence
undivided
itself became
a breeding ground
for quiet
that could not be located
and remained undiminished
despite action
and the products of action
inbreeding to
unknown conclusions.
⦿
Sj Weinberg
January 1984
Untitled/Undated
(early or mid 1980s)
edge come
of the choice made
in what is all
of a piece ⦿.
a constant question
turned statement
at time of
definition ⦿.
as much asphalt
highway as the alder
and fir ⦿.
kick a boot off
kick a head in
kick a stone
always eat lying down
don’t chew your food so well
the bigger the ball
in your stomach
the longer its
separate life
first she said:
if I could leave this planet
i would
then she did.
NOTE: I much enjoyed a feature on the IBM Selectric typewriter—the interchangeable type balls with different fonts, and the way I could type over letters to create odd monograms and visual symbols to embellish space, to note ends of lines, stanzas, paragraphs, or entire compositions. In current computer versions, like the one above, I have made do with available symbols. In original typed Selectric copies the word spacing is wider than computer versions, so I often inserted two spaces between words where I deemed it necessary to approximate the original. Much of mid-20thcentury and contemporary American poetry regards the visual poem as a score for the voice, as well as a printed document for the eye. Spacing, therefore, becomes an important element. The reader should be able to read the voice with eye where the poet strays from more traditional/conventional typographic representation. The poem lives in the nexus of eye/voice/body/imagination/emotion/intellection.
living
room
sun
an
irish setter
running
then sinking
down
behind
our couch
….
2. moon
television
shameless
mirror
….
Sj Weinberg
Revised 1983
NOTE: When improvising with Nobodaddy on our 1986 Whidbey Island reel-to-reel analog recording, I plucked part two for inclusion in our rollin’ and tumblin’ play, intuitively latched on to the image, skipping over part one entirely. The revised 1983 draft favors a pared down version of the original draft.
VOICE
NIETHER SING
ULAR NOR PLURAL
it/they
move(s), a
wind sweeping
or rain falling,
naturally.
it,
they,
include(s) you,
me, events,
rhythms, pre-,
present, and
post.
i’ve heard people talk
as if they have one—
a voice. or
of developing one: traders
in a market, salesman
who misrepresent
the facts. as if there
were facts.
range & depth #4
for Sheila
out of night sky—
rain
a thousand razors
dive
slash
darkness
to shreds.
so much black
confetti our fears
ripped and
scattered.
wind’s
transparent
foreground background
reconciliation:
movement
and rest
ranging through
thick red
hair while
tussling
her skirt.
Sj Weinberg
Revised 10.11.2016
NOTE: This draft is made from three different drafts of this poem—
all exhibiting points of varied word choice and spacing .
YOURSELF (a modern blues)
you gotta feel somebody
else through yourself
you can’t feel someone
else without yourself
you can’t feel anybody
‘til you felt yourself
when you feel somebody
else how much
do you feel them
for yourself
and when you feel somebody
else how
do you feel yourself
when you feel like yourself
how much do you feel
like somebody else
and when you feel somebody
else how much do you feel
like yourself
[REPEAT]
O do you ever
really feel
like yourself
do you ever
really feel
like yourself
⦿
Sj Weinberg
October 25, 1975
TRACK 6
In the Lower World
Neither written nor discovered in the order presented below (rediscovered in boxes August 2015 & October 2016/handwritten or typed early 1980s). Some versions dated 1983.
1.
In the lower world
admiring a window and its frame. a wooden frame oiled, by appearances never
painted. oiled-wood-sheen surrounds a window of old rippled glass.
glass in motion, active, and old glass thicker at pane bottom.
i am inclined to feel the thickening window jammed or painted shut.
watching glass ripple light it throws down at an angle across the floor.
a sun. some say more than one…
That may have been a thought of my own. no use in concern with
speculation as to—outside. this window meets two worlds and
will not open. glass ripples with various tensions and pressures
straining (striving) to own the window. i don’t know. here, physics
remains secret but to those who pass freely, like light through
a window, back and forth between places. I believe in other rooms
and windows—rooms with people and windows that open.
no sound indicates anyone anywhere and rippled glass only reveals
blurrrs, dapples, colors. at least this …
2.
In the lower world
with a wall. its unending beauty not impinging on imagination.
a wall, its color feeling head-on and from disparate angles, maintains
color. am having a somewhat cerebral discussion with a friend
who is in charge of painting walls, determining proper colors.
in fact, there is a wall in back of offices downstairs,
beyond the administrative wing, where he conducts
color tests. that wall painted as many as four times in a week.
i’ve stood with him before that wall and discussed qualities
of a wall/a color. a wall, unselfconscious, can suddenly capture
you in its forthrightness and strength. some bear the load while
the job of others is to separate and/or create
specific places.
This wall stands alone and has a door in the middle,
a satisfyingly high wall—it is monumental. as we know,
there are stage walls only meant to impart an illusion
of strength, made in a manner to easily bring them down.
this one, the wall we are discussing,
is not one of those.
3.
Once in the lower world
i met someone who resembled you. (not) the way you look (but)/and
every other way. this person was sometimes: owl. other times it
loped along shorthaired and alert. it could (not) hide by changing
shape or disguising its voice. I could (not) see into it. it could(n’t)
frighten me by turning inside out. I was (not) frightened and told it
i could read it. I could see its whole life from incubation on, like a
motion picture. it stopped hiding itself, there was no use hiding,
and showed itself. it, I say it, was (not) like you in every/(no) detail
of its character. it was (not) you. And went away leaving something/
(nothing) behind.
NOTE: In the Lower World contradictory states coincide.
4.
In the lower world
every thing whispers. trees have a way. like a child
whispering a feared thing. like this child telling a
forbidden secret, a confidence broken, weakness seeps
into the child’s voice. a tree will whisper knowledge
before it falls, having creaked all its days to hide it.
birds carrying knowledge of trees whistle what can
only be whispered, inspiring soft translations. everyone
in the lower world knows this. It is imparted here. there
isn’t a way to keep it out. everyone knowing, adds to it.
5.
In the lower world
there are volumes beyond number, books describing
all permutations of possible circumstance. and to read
one volume is to want to enter them all. and
there are those who think in time,
being infinite, as it is there—
all of these volumes can be devoured.
they are the ones who are pitied.
they are the ones, whose tortured minds
sink lower
to worlds for which there is
no description.
Sj Weinberg
3.18.1983
NOTE: Digitally entered, accounting for variables
in multiple copies, 8 October 2016.
TRACK 7
Lion Paws of Fire / A Music on the Verge of Percussion
praises to a woman like a lion
give me your lion paws of fire and venus sparks
in the woods
no frightful bowl of condiments
behind a tree
our ears
buried in the backyard
are corkscrew clouds
yanking sky
I praise your glow
o words
want high winds too
but my tongue
grazing in thoughts
as a pony in a meadow
wishes to be on the other side
of barbed wire
so my praise
frames the door as you walk through it
runs hot in the shower as you take one
rises from your stew as you eat it
and if geese are born in your right hand
as daggers take shape in your left
it’s a fair gamble
birds will swim in my blood
before you’re done with me
so I set your mane ablaze
with compliments
from the very start
⦿
Sj Weinberg
Untitled
on a reef a frmmm of strings
loosely wound on their pegs
thwap against necks
a music on the verge of percussion
a twaddle of sounds
unwinds
from cello guitar
violin viola slack piano strings
(cocked piano hammer
worn pick
unraveled bow)
in our mutual
dissonance
we join
and can’t
stop coming
in our
swirl
of disorder
we come and come
⦿
Sj Weinberg
NOTE: Most of the pieces in the binder containing the above poem, part of a coherent short manuscript, are not dated. The ones dated range from 1979 to 1983. This poem/verbal score is another example of one that accrues power in Nobodaddy’s driving, spontaneous performance. Such an assessment is from the point of view of hearing the recordings after thirty years, pleasantly surprised at our energy and synched musical/verbal intuition.
TRACK 8
November—29—5:30 a.m.
darkness
a measurement
for waking
moon
disavows
perfect
darkness
& limits
of space
indeterminate
it’s time
to go to work
early
to the job
of spending
warmth
shovel after
shovel of
earth
taken from
one spot
to another
how many shovels
of earth
make an earth
warmth
sweat
make a definition
of self
the
task
is the
man
performed
shovelful
of life
a task
of weight
lifting
weight
to what
purpose
the question
undoes
the questioner
but acts
as rule
to measure
complacency
all
measurement
meaningless
in the face
of not finding
face
&
still a precision
is maintained in
light
in weight
in the warmth
and sweat
in the motion
of life’s
daily
work
⦿
Sj Weinberg
Published 1985
Staple Diet/
Pig Press
Durham, England
TRACK 9: 1:12:35
Film Noir
not listening
phillip marlowe’s
black wool socks
with dark blue
clocks
white gulls and black crows
pass between buildings and
telephone wires over
alleyway
discs
wheels
belts
cog silence
a woman’s smooth
ear streams by
in a red carmen ghia
the ear
passive
emerging from slow
flicker-movie walk
through alternating
cold shadow
warm sunlight
the well-dressed
detective
is not listening
⦿
Sj Weinberg
2/9—2/10 1982
NOTE: transcribed from handwritten original October 8, 2016
A Mystery
film noir
taking a place
on the scene
behind camera
arranging
composing
fluid visuals
to the extent
within control
they slip
away
each element
moving to state
itself purely
denies
vision
the ideogram
states itself
man floating pond window
which loosely translates as
the man’s imagination is
a window onto water
or
projecting himself through
his illusion
he floats there
or
the man
floating on a pond
opens himself
or
man-pond
floating
in window
or
afloat
on a pond
it passes
and closing one eye
i shot the scene
leaving it
to state itself
within boundaries
not
mine
⬧⬧⬧
ringlets
opening outward—
(a tight shot opening out
and back
slowly the lens
may be our
window
the one we share
microcosm
of the other
one)
expanded
by them
eyes come
to resemble
ponds
(outside the frame
standing or sitting
on the bank a
swimmer daydreamer or
bodhisattva leaves
or enters a reverie
to throw
a stone mindfully
or mindlessly
into our sphere
within a rectangle) —
a twig snaps
wind rattles
dry husks
⬧⬧⬧
(film noir)
no longer penetrating
the eye of the mask
leaving the interior
& crust of the organism
to fragile networkings
riding
a shriveling flower
into oblivious sleep
a rusty gate
clanks over dirt
driveway
hungry ghosts divide
their tithe
the darkness
(camera spinning
like a gyroscope
captures fragments
comedy
and light :
tortured eye
blinding headlight
intruding on
temporarily frozen
luminaries —
Trespass
⬧⬧⬧
october
pumpkins filled with blood
bones scattered
between a row of broccoli
and a row of corn
large green squash twisting
from vines fill
a woven basket
moles turn dark earth
luminous moon bone
leaf claw
nodding pine
virgin cedar
hungry ghosts
and the unborn
strain toward a future
extending out beyond
the meadow and
hand-split fence
knife in a pumpkin
spilling blood
from its orange hull
⬧⬧⬧
august
bright yellow
corn stalks
rise tall
above
a white dress
drenched
red
⬧⬧⬧
at the bar
he sips a beer
eats peanuts
perspiration
(slow zoom
close-up)
his eyes
in the mirror
approaching
behind him
the widow:
“there is a pond
not far from here
10 minutes
by car
there is something
there i wish to
show you”
⬧⬧⬧
car door
opens
legs rustle
tall grass
a tree
they walk
beneath it
( fade
to
black . . .
Sj Weinberg
Originally handwritten into
a small Chinatown empty book
1981—Seattle, WA
NOBODADDY IN THE LOWER WORLD
1986 four-track readings/musical improvisations (Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury, Steven J. Weinberg.
August 2015 and October to November 2016 I entered writings digitally from handwritten documents, from writings originally typed on IBM Selectric, and from pieces published in the late Ric Cadell’s STAPLE DIET issue featuring my poems (PIG PRESS/issue #7_September ’85).
Reflections: Nobodaddy in the Lower World
When naming our fully collaborative triad of like-minded fellows out for good times, ready to lose our minds in sounds/words/music, William Blake’s mythology and illuminated poetry occupied my thinking—not in a deep or scholarly manner, but I co-opted and made sense of his term Nobodaddy in my own way. I was about to become a father, and I responded to “Nobodaddy” as “nobody’s daddy.” I was soon to become somebody’s daddy, a beautiful little girl born August 25, 1986 (Ariadne Claire Weinberg).
I had been reading books of interviews, of studies, or of transcriptions from shaman from around the world, so the idea of a “lower world” (or lower worlds)—other states simultaneous with consensus realities—played upon my imagination and addressed inexplicable experiences from intensive LSD experimentation at age 16-17. Music and sound as vehicles for traveling into other states of mind and experience, and to celebrate spontaneous, timeless Now, is an ancient concept and practice—most often employing drums, rattles, horns, bells, voice/chant/poetry, etc. Thomas, a dedicated investigator into ethnographic music and recordings (OCORA/Radio France), shared astounding indigenous global music from his extensive collection of LPs, opening my mind to something already residing in my heart and temperament. He also possessed a wide-ranging library of jazz recordings (still does)—extending my haphazard, but life-changing early exposure to Thelonius Monk, Sonny Rollins, and others.
When I was thirteen, I purchased a Monk album because the cover intrigued me. Who was this guy in a profile portrait painting, sitting in the cockpit of a prop plane? The LP, SOLO MONK (a late Monk recording on the COLUMBIA label), made me question what music could be. Were those mistakes, or were those, what I later knew as blue notes, purposeful soundings? The more I listened, the more I understood. I would lay down on a thinly carpeted floor, my head evenly between the speakers of our console record player, close my eyes, and open myself to Monk’s sounds and defined spaces between single notes and chords assembled in angular clusters, his pianistic inventions transporting my impressionable consciousness. At age sixteen, disappointed with my junior prom, I grabbed my date after fifteen minutes of mirrorball-lighting among masses of stiff, formally attired adolescents and teacher chaperones, and whisked her off to see the English film ALFIE, soundtrack by Sonny Rollins. The next day, in a state of excited anticipation, I purchased the soundtrack (double album, IMPULSE label). That same year I attended by myself a jazz festival sponsored by The Left Bank Jazz Society, at Laurel Race Track (Laurel, Maryland), and sat close by the stage with a kind young film crew, the stage graced with the presence of such luminaries as Monk, Rollins, Cannonball Adderly, Gary Burton, Art Blakey, and a host of others. Thomas knows jazz inside out, and years later he kindly shared his insights and knowledge—personal, historical, mainstream, and esoteric. That we also played together in Nobodaddy is one of those treasures of a time, a place, and a friendship that continues into the mysteries of aging, time passing and not passing.
In the mid 80s, both Thomas and I were involved in Zen meditation, a very different approach/perspective rooted in practicing single-minded breath identification and stillness. Enough said. That is how we met, and is when our friendship originally formed in a foggy, gray Seattle.
Thomas and Paul had a separate history of friendship, collaboration, and mutual respect based upon their simpatico temperaments and passionate interests in art and music. I hope Thomas will write about their connections and progression as friends and musicians. Paul’s untimely, unnecessary death makes our recording together all the more precious.
ℵ
From the beginning of my necessary involvements with poetry, 1970 (a year of deep, sustained depression in need of poetic exorcism), I was drawn to the power of word, line, stanza, alphabetic and graphic eye experience, and voice/body verbal knowledge. I learned that understanding and knowing a difficult poem often comes from reading it aloud, allowing it to enter the voice/body and resonate there, then filter to a more literal, interpretive comprehension. The voice, the American idiom (finding one’s own particular American voice) and poetic play of diction and syntax, opened my mind (heart and head and body) to intellectual, emotional, and (though the words are sticky) spiritual/metaphysical possibilities. Reading aloud (summer 1971/College Park, Maryland) from Galway Kinnell’s Book of Nightmares, did exorcise painfully-intrusive dark images from my mind. One summer morning, following many months of psychological disturbance and pain, as I read aloud from Kinnell’s book, my mind cleared, disturbing imagery vanishing once and for all, and my mind settled, my heart stilled itself. Words, specifically poetry read aloud, cured me. The world and I were cleansed, renewed. Years later, I had the good fortune to attend a reading at the University of Maryland where I personally thanked Galway Kinnell for his healing book-length poem. I had learned great lessons concerning poetry embodied in actual vocal soundings of distilled, composed language.
Formalities and freedoms, forms and so-called open form, challenged (still challenge) what a poem is and can become. The prose-poem appealed to me from the very start as one way to defy limitations of prose and strictures of traditional poetic forms. Just as the body lives in space, occupies and reshapes it when moving through it, letters, words, lines, sentences, stanzas, and paragraphs dance on the page or in the air, and almost always in the mind. Simultaneously, the advantages of varying forms became clearer, and the possibility of taking advantage of compositional opportunities and intuiting their benefits for mining insights and composing expression were furthered in reading widely and writing adventurously. I write to discover what is there to discover, and to know what I can know. Furthermore, poetry and acts of writing heal me.
Arrangements of words—visual and aural—charm a reader. Likewise, music/sound strike the flesh of a listener and/or a player. Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury, and I came together to play with concentrated abandon, to discover and focus whatever we would playfully create.
Sj Weinberg—August 12, 2015 and October 4&28-29, and November 15, 2016
NOTE: Facebook Post/August 2015, response to a question by Richard Wells:
I don't remember when Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury, and I started shivering sound molecules together, but we did have our one public performance in 1986 at New City Poetry (at New City Theater, the building later occupied by The Richard Hugo House). I curated a year of readings (second Monday of the month), the first literary series from that old mortuary building turned theater, in 1985-1986. I am grateful to the New City Theater folks (John Kazanjian, Jim Ragland, and Charlie Rathbun) for opening their heads, hearts, and theater for excellent poets: Steven Bernstein, George Evans, August Kleinzahler, Kirby Olsen, Richard Caddel, Marilyn Stablein, Phillip Yellowhawk Minthorn, Kenward Elmslie, Elizabeth Woody, our Nobodaddy in the Lower World, and others. I gave the take at the door to the poets, made a spot for writers from out of town to sleep in our one-bedroom apartment at The Deluxe Apartments on Capitol Hill (18th and Howell), and I bought the beer. So, Nobodaddy in the Lower World (our full name) predated the readings series, but I don't remember exactly when we decided to lose our minds for the first time.
NOTE: The Lower World is a shamanistic reference. For a general overview of shamanism, see Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism
NOTES: Alphabet poems. I realized the potential of mining the alphabet as an indefatigable source in approximately 1974. I cannot claim any deep understanding of Kabbalah, but my readings about Jewish mysticism and fascination with the physical and metaphysical and psychological/spiritual depths and limits of letters set me to exploring them in poems and prose poems, setting my mind free in a meditative alphabetic mode, also at times relinquishing my will to the kind of automatic writing I understood figured into surrealist experimentation. I had dedicatedly studied/practiced Tai Chi Chuan and was sincerely exploring zazen and kinhin (sitting and walking meditation). I lived in a Tai Chi house w/teacher and students in Olympia, Washington; attended periodic weekend Zen meditation at San Francisco Zen Center; and read books on Taoism, Buddhism, and Judaism.
Letters: I wished to arrive at unpredictable ends and to discover levels of my personal alphabet. Letters, I discovered, are unfathomable. Every letter, not only the first letter of a word, is associatively connected to every word containing that letter; and our life experiences are connected to every word and letter, experience in-forming letters, letters reflecting experience. These frames of mind infused my approach to our musical moments.
My alphabet prose poems were originally written/calligraphed by hand for more direct sensual and personal connection with letters. I had studied calligraphy in a cursory way in 1971 and practiced it in my own quirky way with pen and then with Japanese brushes. I recall an inspiring workshop led by a serious scholar and devotee of the influential calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds. Young Tim Girvin (graphic artist, then a fellow student at Evergreen State College), assisted in that workshop and later calligraphically interpreted a small collection of Issa haiku my friend and fellow poet George Evans and I translated/reinterpreted from Japanese to English. George worked the literal translations, and we collaborated on creating readable contemporary American English versions. Tim sold the work to a private collector. I recently discovered a photocopy of Tim’s manuscript while searching for my little book of handwritten alphabet poems.
At points in the Nobodaddy recording, I break from literal words to play word sounds for their music and syllabic content, allowing my mouth and voice to explore consonants and vowels, pure vocalizations becoming another meaning-texture. This play between speaking and singing, entirely spontaneous at the time of recording, and without any influences in mind, is rooted in my feelings for Dada sound poetry (ie, Dada poet Kurt Schwitters) and my attraction to exploring how one might vocally sound concrete/visual poetry. I was also familiar with use of paralinguistic sound, repeated and phrased within spiritual traditions (ie. Native American Chant, as well as personal experience with Zen Buddhist chant). Less esoteric, every American kid knows how appealing nonsense words and sounds, full of innuendo, enhance blues, rock and roll, punk, new wave, hip hop, and other popular forms. In jazz, there is scat as a direct reference to such vocal play. In our recording, we create interplay of instrumental music with oral verbal music, rational and irrational narrative expression developing musical and verbal/vocal passages cohering in ways surprising us all when we listened back to our ninety-minute, continuous reel. In spontaneous moments of interplay, results can be impressionistic, at other times certainly expressionistic. When I would fracture lines and phrases for restatement, rearrangement, and new vocalization, the mode could be characterized as cubist. Without any of those artistic movements in mind, we reveled in our own mindful/mindless unpredictability.
The spirit of our purposeful openness to coincidence, delightfully synchronous events, was seriously playful, all chips in, and full of good humor. Why not go for broke, when you got nothing to lose?
NOTE: Most writings in this manuscript employ primarily lower case, and I often omit punctuation, emphasizing spacing and line breaks to maintain and play with clarity of thought and oral phrasing. However, I used punctuation and capitalization where it best served the poem. Today I feel greater freedom with capitalization and punctuation, but my then self-imposed limitations helped me hone processes of that time.
YouTube—Voice
Kurt Schwitters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGAnINpvSeo
Native American Chant: https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A86.J3c1lstVmg8ACgUnnIlQ;_ylc=X1MDMTM1MTE5NTY4NwRfcgMyBGZyA3locy1tb3ppbGxhLTAwMwRncHJpZANNVFNPazRWclJ6U0RaeVFuN3JqNWpBBG5fcnNsdAMwBG5fc3VnZwMyBG9yaWdpbgNzZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tBHBvcwMxBHBxc3RyA3lvdXR1YmUgbmF0aXZlIGFtZXJpY2FuIGNoYW50BHBxc3RybAMyOQRxc3RybAMyOQRxdWVyeQN5b3V0dWJlIG5hdGl2ZSBhbWVyaWNhbiBjaGFudAR0X3N0bXADMTQzOTQwNTY0NQ--?p=youtube+native+american+chant&fr2=sa-gp-search&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-003)
Scat Singing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scat_singing
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=youtube+scat+singing&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-003
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EXTRAS—NOTE:
The following two poems are pieces we regularly riffed on but did not include in the Whidbey Island session.
“Self if Everyone.” 1, 7, 3
There will be dead. Your dead. 5, 6, 7, 8
Voodoo Please 2, 4
Weave the third and only answer: “You talk too much.” 8
footnotes:
1. Yours is the land in front.
Behind me the place
that is of me.
2. No answer.
I will knock again and
leave a note.
3. The law of learning events:
Every man a slave in that
every man is alone outside
himself.
4. Another time counters all—
Impossible !
5. Suicide is as the eye/mind
projector sees it.
6. It is impossible to determine
by examination of a single molecule
whether it was a forward
experiment.
7. There were too many.
8. Silence was duly recognized.
Songs and schools of silence.
Illustration: not only were there
Trees in that place/ trees
oscillating in the jump/ you can’t
see or hear.
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Untitled/5.28.1982 (handwritten—computer symbols used to simulate
doodles on the original handwritten copy)
- when it moves through air it doesn’t know it
- when it moves through water it doesn’t know it
- when it is exhausted by fire it doesn’t know it
- when it burrows through earth it doesn’t know it
- when compressed into ore it doesn’t know it
- residing in the heart of a mouse
- it will soon reside in the heart of a bird
- residing in the heart of a bird
- it is destined for the heart of a cat
- residing in the cat’s heart
- for the dog’s consuming heart
1. falling down it knows 2. rising up 3. its appearance
no other way is its nature is how we know
the current
it is the current
1. its voice is married to it 2. what spins from it
it is voice is its home
3. leave-taking is its arrival 4. spinning its home it departs
5. having nowhere to go
it goes
home
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