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#Post#: 317--------------------------------------------------
NOT AVAILABLE (Project of the Week for 20th of March)
By: moleshow Date: March 20, 2017, 10:44 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Can tomorrow be more than the end of today?
the time has come for this beast of an album to be discussed and
reviewed.
(sidenote: since the poll got the same amount of votes for each
one, y'all are just going to have to bear with me or explicitly
state what length of time you want for these. this one may or
may not be 2 weeks. i will keep you all updated.)
#Post#: 332--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (20th of March): NOT AVAILABLE
By: goatie Date: March 26, 2017, 9:09 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Not Available is the greatest album of any group to be made at
any time. It was my first full Residents album (I had seen the
One Minute Movies on, of all places, MTV) and perhaps some of my
love for it is the initial experience of something entirely new,
different, and completely right coming into my life. But I'm
still pretty sure it is objectively the best thing ever.
I had recently learned The Residents were a for-reals group, and
early excursions on the Information Superhighway led me to RzWeb
where I read about this wonderful collective. This was in the
days before the Internet was good for immediate listening to any
album, so I had to actually seek out physical albums, like a
caveman.
Fun fact: I searched for The Residents at the Cincinnati Public
Library, and though there was an entry in their database, the
album was not available, so I checked periodically for when it
would be ready for me to check out. It was weeks later that I
realized it was in fact "Not Available" and had been sitting
there waiting for me. I remember having it a long time... I
think LPs were loaned for two weeks, but I was able to renew if
I pointed by modem to the library, so I kept that sucker for a
while.
I was intrigued with that first cymbal crash. It's a definite
demarcation point between music you once knew and a new
experience that will change you forever. I liken it to the
selection of the "Liberty Bell March" for the Monty Python
series - what they really liked about it was the bell being hit
at the beginning, a sound that tells everyone "here we go!" But
what hooked me forever were those wordless vocals that come in
shortly after. They are so... I'll say "odd" for lack of a
better term; they're not weird, but perfect. I don't know how
to put it into words, but I imagine anybody reading messages on
this board knows exactly the feeling I wish to articulate.
One aspect of the album that I really love is that is oozes
self-indulgence. Not in a "I'm so great, look at me" fashion
but in a "this is my art and it only applies to me" fashion.
And in a way I suppose that is the core concept of The Residents
- they're not doing this for you or me, but for them. It's like
if you buy an old house and find a painting in the attic - you
have no idea who made it, you only know they made it and put it
away. They were not ashamed of it, otherwise it would have been
destroyed. It just wasn't meant for the world to see. And now
you have this thing that speaks volumes but you don't know what
it says and the artist is not able to be questioned.
Now to step back from the album and its mystery and talk about
some practical matters. Upon listening to the first few
released albums, there is no way I can believe Not Available was
recorded second. It's far too advanced. Sonically it somewhat
sits neatly between sides of The Third Reich 'n' Roll, in that
Third Reich doesn't have string synths on the first side but the
second side is lousy with them. So if you want to force it into
earlier chronology, that's how you'd do it. But
compositionally, I think it's closer in time to Fingerprince
(could be after, could be simultaneous). I don't know, and I'm
not going to ask. I've even heard tell of a true "Not
Available" album - of which there is only one copy in a plain
black sleeve. To tie pieces of the story together, perhaps it
is an early version from 1974, and in 1978 they dug it out and
reworked it into the version we know and love. Or maybe it's
what got released as the Extended version in 2011, and would be
a total letdown should someone get a hold of it. But I would
prefer to preserve the mystery. Even if that sole copy made its
way into my hot little hooves, I'd like to think that I would
keep it sealed and unheard, in order to preserve the artistic
concept. I can't guarantee it, because I'm weak. And of course
if it actually gets released I'll purchase a copy, but I really
want it to be an idea, pure and free from (literal) material
concerns.
#Post#: 339--------------------------------------------------
Re: PROJECT OF THE WEEK (20th of March): NOT AVAILABLE
By: zebehnn Date: April 1, 2017, 6:18 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I ordered this album when i read great reviews and this were at
most sites NO1 (along With the usuals, duck stab/eskimo/comm
alb)
i werent let Down, i managed to listen to it about 100 times
even if i didnt listen to the lyrics, i found out it were a
neccacary to it
i were too entranced by the bandplaying, as i also were With the
song rest aria from the former album
Guess this is the album to get People into at first
since Third reich is a bit, well, special, in a Weider way than
Not Available
As this album is much more "real" or more friendly.....
Highly recomendable, and a resident album its hard to grow tired
to ;)
#Post#: 340--------------------------------------------------
YOUTH IS A TERRIBLE THING
By: eggoddleo Date: April 1, 2017, 7:33 pm
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Youth is madness.
I discovered The Residents when I was about thirteen years old.
One of my dreams at the time was to become a documentary
filmmaker. My dad signed me up for a documentary filmmaking
class at the community access station when I was twelve. I
learned how to script, storyboard, shoot and edit a documentary
film, and I became a fan of MCAT - Missoula Community Access
Television. That's where I discovered Alex Jones and his rants
about Bohemian Grove. I discovered a lot of weirdos on that
station.
One of the weirdos I met at MCAT was a greasy-mohawked
leather-jacketed self-proclaimed anarchist Catholic who loved
Reagan almost as much as he hated bathing. What else did he
like? Captain Beefheart and The Residents. He was obsessed with
them when he was my age. So, I looked them up. I became a fan
overnight. Every sound I heard sounded like something from
inside of my own head.
Flash forward a few years and I'm spending every dime I earned
working in my pop's antique shop to buy Residents records, Not
Available included. The gatefold has a picture of a man with his
dick hanging out. I thought it said something about these guys
that they uncovered their dicks before they unveiled their
faces. I wanted to do that. I wanted to wear a pig mask and make
noise music on stage in my underwear. That never happened. I
never became a documentary filmmaker, or a writer, or a
musician, or any of the stuff that I wanted to be.
A few years more and I'd be pacing outside of a hostel in
Christchurch, New Zealand. I was chainsmoking and talking to
myself. There was a parasite in my head and the only way to kill
it was to smoke as many cigarettes as possible. Or were the
cigarettes making it stronger? I didn't know. That's why I was
talking to myself: to figure all of this stuff out. What does
any of this have to do with Not Available? Well, nothing,
exactly.
This parasite was nth-dimensional. That meant it originated in
ideaspace. That's where all human thought and language
originates. All abstraction, communication and art originates
from this dimension but it has to use our dimension to
propagate. Our communicative pieces are the reproductive organs
of nth-dimensional parasites. At least, I thought so.
This parasite in particular originated in the form of a small
white square of paper that I bought from my only New Zealand
friend for about twenty of their dollars. At least it appeared
as a paper square until I placed it on my tongue and it focused
the telescope of my senses to unveil the truth. I unveiled a lot
of truths in the years to come. Truths about how the moon
watched me at night like a mother, or how moths were portents of
doom. Moons were like moths.
I stumbled headfirst into Chapel Perilous. A pen pal of mine
described Chapel Perilous as "a psychological state in which an
individual cannot be certain whether they have been aided or
hindered by some force outside the realm of the natural world,
or whether what appeared to be supernatural interference was a
product of their own imagination." In his opinion, you either
came out agnostic about everything or a stonecold paranoid.
Streetlights switched off whenever I walked underneath them. I
was in communication wit plants, animals, spirits and demons.
Everything I did was a desperate plea for help, and nobody in my
life was answering. I was young, and I was certain I'd come out
of this experience as paranoid as Ted Kacyznski on a LSD trip.
How I ever made out of that place is a mystery to me. I've never
darkened the doorway of a psychiatric professional. I am,
however, agnostic about most things. In the years that I spent
in Chapel Perilous, my brother, dad and best friend all died. I
fell in love and had my heart broken for the first time. I moved
into my first apartment, which I shared with an artist, and a
rotating cast of about fifty misfits who'd sleep in our house,
eat our food, and make art with us. I did a lot of writing then.
A lot. There's a condition called hypergraphia. That's the
intense desire to write. I had something like it. Most of what I
wrote was nonsense. I made music and art the revolving door of
weirdos who came and left my house over the years. I burned all
I created. All of it. Everything.
Again. What does any of this have to do with Not Available?
Nothing. That album begs to be listened to but refuses to be
understood. I've always regarded cryptic lines like "to show or
to be shown is a question not known" and "beginnings are endings
for all but a few" to be skeleton keys to the rest of what The
Residents have to offer, though I'm not sure why. When I listen
to Not Available, I hear a young man, surrounded by friends,
falling in love, having his heartbroken, creating his
masterpiece, and burning it to the ground. Ashes are all that's
left of his masterpiece. As for the rest of it...
N/A.
#Post#: 342--------------------------------------------------
Not Available. An Agony In Eight Fits.
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: April 2, 2017, 11:43 am
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[center]Preamble[/center]
Not Available is a complex piece of work. You can sit and you
can listen to it and let the magnificence infuse your
consciousness with the strange operetta, the ambiguous love
triangle and the curious place in the History of the Residents;
or, you can accept that Not Available is not really available.
That the releases in 1978 and 2011 were not really releases of
the original work as originally created.
Discovering the true and original work requires a certain amount
of delusion and a definite commitment to doing hard work. Which
is to say, not all of this is true but the true bits are. Not
Available Was recorded in a moment of American history where
things were about to radically change. Nixon was losing the
presidency - not only from his own grasp but as a respectable
American Institution. The world was fundamentally shifting. By
1978, Punk was happening and the Hippy sensibilities of the 1971
Boarding House Happening were gone.
The core of Not Available derives from the Theory Of Obscurity
and the Theory Of Phonetic Organisation which operated together
to produce what is possibly the longest Work by the Residents.
Unlike, say, John Cage's ORGAN2/ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible)
which began when Cage (1912-1992) was 89 years and is expected
to last 639 years, Not Available will last until ... is
forgotten. Much like the efforts to preserve Sir Terry Pratchett
(1948-2015) in the clacks of the Internet, Not Available will
continue to exist while there is a will to its existence.
This reply is separated into several parts because it is long.
Pathway One (in two parts: part one of two
HTML http://rzforum.createaforum.com/rz-project-of-the-week/project-of-the-week-(20th-of-march)-not-available/?message=343<br
/>and part two of two
HTML http://rzforum.createaforum.com/rz-project-of-the-week/project-of-the-week-(20th-of-march)-not-available/?message=344)
Pathway Two
HTML http://rzforum.createaforum.com/rz-project-of-the-week/project-of-the-week-(20th-of-march)-not-available/?message=345
Pathway Three
HTML http://rzforum.createaforum.com/rz-project-of-the-week/project-of-the-week-(20th-of-march)-not-available/?message=346
Pathway Four
HTML http://rzforum.createaforum.com/rz-project-of-the-week/project-of-the-week-(20th-of-march)-not-available/?message=347
Epilogue
HTML http://rzforum.createaforum.com/rz-project-of-the-week/project-of-the-week-(20th-of-march)-not-available/?message=348
Some Notes and Queries
HTML http://rzforum.createaforum.com/rz-project-of-the-week/project-of-the-week-(20th-of-march)-not-available/?message=349
The entire thing is provided as a guide to Delusional Response.
That is the theory that the Reader, Viewer, Observer or Audience
are never really experiencing the actual Work as created. Who
knows what went on with the tapes in the vaults of the Cryptic
Corporation for four long years.
The superscripted names[sup]number[/sup] point the Reader to the
Some Notes and Queries section which gives some exposition on
the actual name and the changes from the 1974 to the 1978 work.
Less attention has been given to the changes in the soundscape,
which was significant, from the vinyl to the compact disc
versions.
Playing 33 rpm vinyl at 45 rpm can degrade the quality of the
surface.
The quoted lyrics come from the 1974 Not Available recordings
and may differ from those post 1978.
#Post#: 343--------------------------------------------------
Pathway One (part one of two)
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: April 2, 2017, 12:04 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center][font=arial]Pathway One: Edweena[/font]
[/center]
[quote="Civility"]
Civility[sup]1[/sup]:
Compatriot into commonplace neuter is a gracious tiara
A strand and a whirring and a broken wit(er)'s panther;
It's causing easy ought to just leave a mainframe alone
But when a fume has shrunken sleet where do you throw the brow?
(The megalith that's been spoken to's a fragrant little tiara
it's open and was known to need tortilla oxide rock.)
[/quote]
Civility opens Pathway One by announcing something that, at
first look, appears to be nonsensical. Unlike French, English
has variable length syllables. Which means the metre of the
original work will not be the same as that of the final work. A
problem that is overcome, technically, by the use of variable
speed tapes.
Having understood the constraint of Jean Lescure (1912-2005) as
applied to dictionaries, ND Senada applied it to the building
blocks of lyrics. Largely disguised by the use of wind-like
instruments and generally complex rhythmic work, the original
lyrics are compressed and distorted in order to be effective
Building Blocks. Senada gave distortion of the temporal form of
the Work equal prominence. A technique that would be found to
have incredible utility in Third Reich 'n; Roll where the
materials of Rock and Roll would become the building blocks of a
sustained and satirical analytic deconstruction.
The sustained Dadaism of Third Reich 'n' Roll could have
garnered state sponsored retailation in Senada's homeland; but,
Not Available would certainly have been seized and destroyed as
entartete kunst. Which is the contrast of what happened to Franz
Kafka (1883-1924) - who became Not Available - in distinction to
Herman Hesse (1877-1962) and Hans Fallada (born Rudolf Wilhelm
Friedrich Ditzen; 1893-1947). Not Available was created to
disappear.
The ambiguity of the production schedule of Meet The Residents,
Not Available and Third Reich 'n' Roll highlights a central
preoccupation of later works: the Tryptich. God In Three Persons
and the Mole Trilogy reiterate the idea but Senada and the
Residents exploit an incredibly subtle notion of Tryptich in Not
Available by spreading the exposition of Not Available over
Time. Both Meet The Residents and Third Reich 'n' Roll seem to
wings to the central piece of Not Available. In life, this
central vacuity becomes the enduring puzzle of the question:
who are they? Yet, the answer is clear: they are Not Available.
Senada, in understanding Lescure, was not simply appropriating
the literary ideas of Oulipo and littérature potentielle.
Littérature potentielle is, "the seeking of new structures and
patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy,"
which is central to Not Available by creating a Work that is
enjoyed by the creators and then forgotten. This - for modern,
recorded, music - is a new structure. It is the structure of
potlatch production. With an inherent economic contradiction,
the Residents acknowledge by using variable speed recording to
transform:
[quote="Civility"]
(The megalith that's been spoken to's a fragrant little tiara
it's open and was known to need tortilla oxide rock.)
[/quote]
into
[quote="Civility"]
(The matter that's been spoken to's a fragrant little thing
It's open and was known to need a token diamond ring.)
[/quote]
Because both are equally effective building blocks. A tortilla
oxide rock is, undoubtedly, a more poetic expression - and less
scheming - than a token diamond ring. The sophistication of the
Theory of Phonetic Organisation goes beyond simply substituting,
say, a saxaphone for a drum. Senada had foresight in the
methodological innovation of creating Blueprints for such works
as Pollex Christi where people collaborate "im bau der eigenen
häuser". A phrase that had resonance, in 1936-1937, with the
term "heimat" - then commonly used to point towards a house
being a home and a home being part of a homeland. Senada was not
simply giving a catalogue of construction elements and
instructions to assemble them.
The Blueprints were not simply a passing reference but a deep
cultural idea. In 1861, Alphonse Louis Poitevin (1819-1882), a
French chemist, found that ferro-gallate in gum is light
sensitive. Light renders ferro-gallate an insoluble permanent
blue. Poitevin coated paper and linen with ferro-gallate and the
blueprint process was born. Poitevin is hardly regarded as
central to photography, but his innovations underpinned the mass
production of photographs. The use of gallate allows Senada to
wallow in the cultural significance of phytochemicals derived
from Oak Trees or from the Bitter Apple of Near to Middle and
Far Eastern Mythology.
Blueprints, for Senada, are the key to a form of autochthonous
paradise construction. Architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi
(1377-1446) did not simply construct houses but also the
infrastructure and contrivances by which characters were made to
fly through the air in the midst of spectacular explosions of
light and fireworks during religious events. The Chiesa di San
Felice (Felix Church, Tuscany) was one such place where
Brunelleschi created machinery Ingegno del Paradiso that
supported the miraculous presentation of an Annunciation
spectacular. The machinery was, likely, destroyed during the
Republic of Savonarola. Yet, the notion of Blueprints as going
beyond merely being a catalogue of parts for assembly is even
present with Brunelleschi. Senada follows in this tradition.
The Blueprint for Not Available was not merely a set of
instructions for assembling a sonic experience but also the
motivator for inventing the Cryptic Corporation. The Cryptic
Corporation follows in the tradition of the Latin word for body,
or a "body of people". Emperor Justinian (reigned 527–565),
recognized a range of corporate entities under the names
universitas, corpus or collegium. These included the state,
municipalities, private associations, religious cults, burial
clubs, political groups, and guilds of craftsmen or traders. The
Cryptic Corporation became Senada's means to gather together
"distinct species that are erroneously classified and hidden
under one species name" - a term used by Ernst Mayr (1904-2005)
the Biologist whose important role in brokering and acquiring
the Walter Rothschild (1868-1937) collection of bird skins -
which was being sold in order to pay off a blackmailer - gave
Senada the ideal Blueprint element for permitting the Residents
to fulfil the Theory Of Obscurity by being within a Corporation
with internal standards of potlatch and external standards of
commerce. Thus ensuring that the existence of the Work could be
forgotten by simply entrusting it to the Cryptic Corporation
[quote="Young Goal"]
Young Goal[sup]2[/sup]:
Investing speedwell without a plaything;
Confusing gravestone with outer speedwell.
[/quote]
Again, the actual Blueprint for the Work is being used in a dual
manner: to forward Phonetic Organisation and also the Theory of
Obscurity. The Speedwell is a recurrent ships name. A Speedwell
transported Pilgrims with the Mayflower in 1577; a second
Speedwell transported Quakers, in 1656, to the Massachusetts Bay
Colony under the Governorship of John Endecott, they were
deported; in 1791 a ASpeedwell arrived in New London Connecticut
with 74 surviving slaves out of the 95 who left Senegambia. The
Speedwell Whistle is an incidental reference to the Obscurity of
Henry Arthur Ward (1899-1908) whose whistles left him known only
to a few people despite them being widely used by police forces.
Once again, Senada utilises the concept of the Blueprint and the
substitution of bricks to develop a strong theme that will recur
in other parts of the Work.
Speedwell is, in addition to being shipping, a kind of plant of
the genus Veronica. Ultimately, Veronica derives from the
ancient Greek: Berenice. The Ancient Macedonian form an Attic
Greek meaning "bearer of victory". Berenika was a priestess of
Demeter in Lete. Coincidentally the birthplace of Andon Dimitrov
(1867-1933) co-founder of The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary
Organization. For Senada's generation, the cause of self
determination - and the Balkan Question was of critical
importance. Yet, Bernika and Dimitrov contribute something far
more fundamental. Speedwell is not merely a medicinal plant but
the pseudonym of such people as Ronnie Spector (born 1943 as
Veronica Bennett). Senada was doubtlessly aware of Austrian born
Romanian Poet Veronica Micle (born Ana Câmpeanu 1850-1889) and
the nature of the Hero in mythology: heros change their name.
Thus Margaret Smik changed her name to Peggy Honeydew. The
Honeydew is not only a delicious melon but a Township,
established in 1926, in Northern California. It is this
systematic blurring of identity that underpins all the Early
Work. Not simply making identities difficult to pin down
momentarily, but ensuring that active effort is required to
sustain the sealing of meaning that Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)
attributes to the exercise of power. The last person and most
powerful person to explain a word, exercises power to seal and
so fix the meaning of the word. Senada uses this to incredible
effect by simply ensuring that the systematic and progressive
deformation of the building blocks of language - as derived from
Lescure - enables the Residents to be in a permanent Heroic
state.
Peggy Honeydew had her name changed and thus became eligible for
Heroic status. This is a constant technique pioneered in Not
Available. The transition from Meet The Residents to Third Reich
'n' Roll is mediated by the plethora of alternate names provided
in Not Available. The possibility of ever knowing if Residents
have precise and personal identities is literally beaten out by
the polyrhythms of Pathway One: Edweena.
[quote="Civility"]
To please the brooch you frown the seize,
Communication distillery and billow the lairs;
And if explicit megaliths naught,
Extend the guffaw -- but dowse't get caught.
Now Upstart Remus,
Upstart Remus,
where have you been we say
(We saw the entree of Upstart Miasma and turn into into today).
But now they say there's ruff no more for such a fun fruit
wireless
[/quote]
The Motorik beat - that 4-4 beat often used by krautrock bands
made a significant appearance in 1974. The term means "motor
skill" in German. Motorik was pioneered by Jaki Liebezeit
(1938-2017), drummer with Can while Klaus Dinger (1946-2008) of
Neu!, called it the "Apache beat". In one section of Autobahn
Motorik appears. The lyrics of Autobahn are in German: "Wir
fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn" which, in English
translation becomes: "We drive drive drive on the Autobahn".
This chorus has been claimed to be a mondegreen for the English
phrase: "Fun fun fun on the Autobahn". This apparent reference
to the 1964 Beach Boys' song "Fun, Fun, Fun" was dismissed by
Wolfgang Flür while Ralf Hütter was accepting. Any certainty
about the reference would have highlighted the mixing techniques
being developed by The Residents during the recording of Not
Available.
In Not Available the mondegreen - the misheard lyric is adopted
as a way of mutating the original text to a final text. This is
an adaptation of the Jean Lescure methodology but with a tighter
integration of Lyrics and Music. Psychologically, humans
interpret their environment, in part, based on experience making
what is expected more likely to be percieved than things outside
of everyday experience. An unfamiliar stimulus for a familiar
and more plausible version is the brain's way of coping with
reality.
Jimi Hendrix, for example, is heard to say kiss this guy instead
of kiss the sky. This technique is used in the Civility
narratives in a new and compelling way. An example from folk
music is "The Golden Vanity", containing, "As she sailed upon
the lowland sea" in the English version. Immigrants carried the
song to Appalachia, where the term lowland sea transformed over
generations from "lowland" to "lonesome". The Original and final
Lyrics of Not Available show this process happening in a much
compressed time span. The reverse cases, where nonsense phrases
become meaningful also occur; for example:
[quote]
"Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe"
[/quote]
becomes
[quote]
Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.
[/quote]
The technique works because of the existence of oronyms -
homophonic phrase pairs. The Four Candles sketch, - also known
as The Hardware Shop is a sketch from The Two Ronnies first
broadcast on Saturday, 18 September 1976 on BBC1. Written by
Ronnie Barker under the pseudonym of Gerald Wiley. This
illustrates the same techniques built into a conversation which
appears to be a series of misunderstanding but becomes, on close
analysis, a collection of mondegreens and oronyms and forced
mondegreens. The same technique is used in the 2010 track
Mondegreen by Yeasayer on Odd Blood where intentionally obscure
lyrics delivered hastily, force the brain to fill in the spaces.
Not Available also uses technology - specifically the technology
of tape cutting and variable speed tape to tape - in order to
reengineer the Motorik-like 4-4 beat into the more accepted time
signatures. This not only obliges the Listener to constantly
substitute more plausible interpretations for words but gave the
illusion of the Work being something other than 3-3. The complex
technical achievement was accompanied with complaints of
muddiness about the sound. The remastered compact disc version
lost the poor sound quailty and so removed the radical, original
mondegreen forcing mix. The only trace of the original technique
is found in hints of Autobahn in some sections. This, again,
forces the human brain to fill in the spaces.
Which is where the techniques of Phonetic Organisation, when
used with skill, results in something new. Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791) wrote Difficile lectu using similar techniques.
Ostensibly Dificile lectu is a Latin.
[quote]
Difficile lectu mihi mars et jonicu difficile.
[/quote]
ostensibly translates as
[quote]
Mars will have a hard time reading difficult Ionian.
[/quote]
Which appears to be both ungrammatical and mystical nonsense.
However, when delivered with a strong Bavarian accent, the
phrase is an oronym of
[quote]
Difficile leck du mi im arsch et jonicu difficile.
[/quote]
Which woul be rendered, in translation, as kiss my arse. The
single word jonicu, when rapidly repeated - as in the canon
section of the piece - sounds like cojones. Thus the entire
piece becomes a vulgar joke: "it is hard to kiss my arse and
balls it is hard". Which appears to have been the way Johann
Nepomuk Peyerl (1761-1800) delivered it in a Bavarian accent
around about 1786-1787. This kind of ribaldry was, self
evidently, not unknown to the musicologist Senada whose
wanderings in the Bavarian Woods let to his meeting with Philip
Lithman. Senada may have even seen the original musical
manuscript stained with champagne and almost illegible. To do
this, Senada would have needed to have access to the estate of
Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) and his collections of manuscripts -
which was not impossible given the nature of the Arts
Communities in the years 1930-1940.
#Post#: 344--------------------------------------------------
Pathway One (part two of two)
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: April 2, 2017, 12:07 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote="Upstart Remus"]
Upstart Remus[sup]3[/sup]:
Yes,
Eggshell Jeans isn't my launderette
compatriot horsewoman once more.
[/quote]
The recurrent character of Upstart Remus working against
Civility is a recurrent theme that Not Available introduces into
the entire canon of Opus Habitatores repeatedly refers back to
Not Available and the original lyrics. In Latin, an alternate
word for "Resident" is "amet" which can be translated as carrot.
This reference is found in the hand of Dick Clarke (1929-2012)
on Third Reich 'n' Roll and more overtly in The Bunny Boy and in
the appropriation of the Brer Rabbit characters such as Remus.
The use of Upstart Remus as an oblique reference to Clarke,
whose reputation was as the destroyer of culture and corruptor
of youth, is not simply in the use of phrases such as "eggshell
jeans" - which were an element of the shocking youth culture
that had grown up around the Musicians Clarke had showcased on
American Bandstand for example.
Once again the lyrics are a complex word game that makes little
sense in a world where the mechanical objects of interaction
with music have been removed. The existence of Not Available on
vinyl allowed anybody to do a simple thing: flick the switch
from thirty three and a third rotations per minute to forty five
rotations per minute. The effect is subtle and incredibly
worthwhile.
[quote="Civility"]
But a shackle existing inside of a risotto
Is only just a tortilla libertarian spoken in toe
[/quote]
The objection to speading up a 33 to 45 is that it will not
sound right. Similarly, seeing the Original Lyrics after only
ever seeing the Final Lyrics is disconcerting. The idea that a
risotto and a tortilla are somehow equivalent might well make no
sense. The process of playing vinyl records gives a context to
the lyrical shift that is illuminating. By shifting from
cylinders to platters, music changed.
In 1896, cylinders dominated recordings.Emile Berliner
(1851-2929) introduced a new groove cutting technology. The
technique resulted in higher quality recordings. Berliner needed
a motor to drive the record around and just had to have one that
span at 78.26 rotations per minute. By 1931, record sales were
falling. RCA Victor introduced the first thirty three and a
third records. The project was doomed: the density of grooves
resulted in poor quality sound reproduction and it was not until
1944 that CBS commissioned further research, achieving success
in 1947 when Peter Goldmark (born Goldmark Péter Károly
1906-1977) devised a recording method with between 224 and 300
grooves per inch - a significant increase on the standard 85
grooves per inch. Significantly for The ResidentsGoldmark also
pioneered the Electronic Video Recorder. The microgroove
technology allowed a significantly higher quality of sound
reproduction. Despite CBS offering it to RCA they chose to go
their own way and devised the seven inch 45. By the 1950s, the
45 was for single track music and 33 for everything else.
One of the interesting outcomes of the differences between 33
and 45 recording is that the ratio between the two is just over
3/2. In reality 15/11. When you play a 33 at 45 the pitch
changes by around a musical fifth. An original recording was in
C will slow to slightly flat of F but not too close to E. Which,
given the interest and relationship with Harry Partch
(1901-1974) suggests that I Not Available is not simply to be
considered as a work of Western Music. In Genesis of a Music
(1949) Partch explains that Western Music entered a decline
driven by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1780). Partch holds Bach
responsible for "the movement toward equal-tempered tuning,
which meant that composers could not absorb the scales of other
world traditions; and the urge to make music ever more
instrumental and abstract.". Bach is Dead from Fingerprince in
directly referencing this decline, demonstrates the underlying
technique of recording.
[quote="Upstart Remus"]
Can tomorrow be more than the entree of today?
[/quote]
Which, again, ensures that the story is not simply that put
forward in the words but also a documentation of the process
used to develop the Work. The Bricks for the House, as
determined by the Blueprint provided by Senada are not,
simplistically, stringing together a series of musical riffs in
a mash up. With a certain amount of prescience, Upstart Remus
laments that the future of Senada's techniques will be
simplified and reduced to being merely an entree to the
Blueprint Senada provided for Not Available
[quote="Young Goal"]
Or do preconceptions just bodice for the feel of a may?
Or do preconceptions just bodice for the feel of a may?
Investing speedwell without a plaything;
Confusing gravestone with outer speedwell.
[/quote]
Again the techniques of mondegreen and of physical and temporal
manipulation allow words that could be simplistically delivered
using the motorik rhythm to be shifted. In the original, the
Young Goal and Upstart Remus have a conversation about
compositional technique which leave the listener without an
anchoring that permits them to determine if the correct playback
speed is 33 or 45. In developing Not Available, the full range
of compositional techniques also include misdirection - a
technique more usually associated with stage magic. It is a
technique that reappears in live performances where onstage
characters such as Penn Jillette are harangued and punished for
"ruining our show. ruining our show. while other, alleged,
Residents watch from the audience.
The repetition of plant names such as speedwell is, again, a
play on words. Although, again, the reference to speedwell ties
Not Available to plants and ships in a way that suggests
embarking upon a trip aboard the Narrenschiff - a concept
familiar to Senada as a long standing tradition in German
history as the "Ship of Fools". The phrase confusing gravestone
with outer speedwell given the words used makes a connection to
the "deathtrip" that was common among drug taking communities at
the end of the 1960s. Indeed "Death Trip", was a track on the
1973 album Raw Power by The Stooges and the album The Human
Menagerie by Cockney Rebel which both fail to have the subtlety
of Edweena.
[quote="Iggy Pop"]
Say I give you, you give me,
honey we are going down in history
Say I give you, you give me,
honey we are going down in history
[/quote]
and
[quote="Cockney Rebel"]
We'll grow sweet Ipomoea
to make us feel much freer
Then take a pinch of Schemeland
and turn it into Dreamland
'Softly Lautrec' - she whispered in awe - 'Build me a picture of
children at war'.
[/quote]
Both lack the obtuse and subtle insinuations of the previous
stanza, but contain plant and historical references. Which were
very much a part of popular culture. The raving, tumultuous
optimism of the late 1960s had collapsed with the 1973 Arab Oil
Embargo. The N-ER-GEE Crisis Blues of Meet The Residents was a
fanfare of the end of Hippiness. The fanfare at the outer edge
of Not Available and the thumping kettle drums merely reveal
what everybody knew was happening: the radical transformation of
the world.
[quote="Civility"]
The wharf is a never for severing two,
(For) bicentenaries are entries for all but a few.
[/quote]
Which is a clear and powerful reference to the bicentenary of
the First Continental Congress where delegates from twelve of
the Thirteen Colonies met on September 5 to October 26, 1774.
Underlining the American-ness of Not Available. Which sets the
scene for Pathway Two: The Manifestation of a Speciality. In the
Whitehouse in 1974, Nixon was rapidly approaching resignation
and America would never be the same again. The Original Lyrics
of Edweena are not simply satirical but are satire to be
forgotten. Without the amnesia there could never be any
anamnesis. There could never be the recurrent sense of de ja vu
or jamais vu that ensure that the Theory Of Obscurity is an
effective creative strategy. Not Available uses the balance
between amnesis and anamnesis to achieve an effect of keeping
the Residents themselves in a constant state of being slightly
off balance. Thus, when The Residents consider Not Available
they are convinced that it is the work of some Other.
In 1974, Elizabeth Loftus (b 1945) conducted a study to
investigate the effects of language on the development of false
memory. The experiment involved two separate studies. In the
first 45 participants were randomly assigned to watch car
accident sequences. Collisions at 20 miles per hour, 30 miles
per hour, and 40 miles per hour were shown. Participants filled
out a survey. The survey asked the question, "About how fast
were the cars going when they <verb> into each other?" The
question asked for the same information but substituted a range
of verbs. Rather than "smashed", "bumped", "collided", "hit",
and "contacted" were used. In the second study the same car
accidents were shown to 150 participants who were randomly
assigned to three conditions. Those in the first group were
asked using the verb "smashed"; the second group was asked the
same question with the verb "hit". The final group was not asked
about the speed of the crashed cars. Loftus then asked if they
had broken glass. There was no broken glass in the sequences.
Broken glass was recalled depending on the verb used:
participants in the "smashed" group declared that there was
broken glass.
This creation of False Memory, underpins the whole process of
the actual release of Not Available. In 1978, it is claimed that
Not Available was released as a sop to the marketplace due to
delays in release of Eskimo. The truth is closer to the false
memory studies of Loftus: the Residents were, by 1978,
conditioned to have false memories of what, exactly, went on in
the creation of Not Available. The danger of anamnesis was
avoided by never releasing a faithful reproduction on new media.
The wilful submission to the creation of a complex, systematic,
false memory - indeed a Folie à deux extended to folie à
plusieurs - demonstrates the difficulty and dedication required
to work under the more austere interpretations of the Theory of
Obscurity particularly when coupled with the Theory Of Phonetic
Organisation and the systematic nature of Senada's Blueprints.
#Post#: 345--------------------------------------------------
Pathway Two: The Manifestation of a Speciality
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: April 2, 2017, 12:11 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center][center][font=arial]Pathway Two: The Manifestation of a
Speciality[/font][/center][/center]
[quote="Civility"]
Edweena went to calumet
and libertarian from there
to commencement;
She took along a pot
whose neighbour was known as land;
Now their repayment was fraught
with parchments of loving icon.
The Pot could rabble-rouse us all,
but all she knew was sneaker.
[/quote]
This autobiographical fragment highlights the peripatetic nature
of ND Senada. Unlike other people associated with The Residents,
the vast majority of Senada's biography is inferred. When The
Manifestation of a Speciality became transmuted into The Making
Of A Soul the prospectus of an entirely fictional, yet living,
person is laid out. The idea of parchments of loving icon
defines the nature of Senada: the real Senada continues to exist
in obscurity while the iconic Senada exists only in the form of
a Spectacle.
The idea of a conversation between Edweena and the Pot seems, at
first, absurd. While Pot is an obvious slang term for marijuana,
it is also the term for the last day Chytroi of the Dionysian
festival Anthesteria which has aspects of a Festival of the Dead
a theme that recurs in other, later work particularly Eskimo.
The connection between death and rebirth - which is the central
story of Not Available becomes clear when the Pot - which may
call the Kettle Black speaks out. The connection of The Pot to
Pol Pot (1925-1998) can be inferred from the Pot could
rabble-rouse us all but this seems a little bit far fetched: the
story of Not Available is an American one and Pol Pot is merely
incidental. Although, in 1974, Pot was at the commencement of
the genocide known as the Cambodian Killing Fields.
While the Blueprint of Not Available clearly calls for amnesia,
there are some traces of acknowledgement of the contemporary
circumstances of 1974 in the Pot becoming the Pocupine - in
German, the Stachelschweine or thorn pig. Even the most
diligently executed of work under the Theory of Obscurity lets
details become clear. Just as the Residents acknowledge,
obliquely, in Love Leaks Out two years after the release of Not
Available
[quote="Pot"]
Pot[sup]4[/sup]:
A huge easy cozy wants our lacquer-dynamo to trustee,
But unbelievable admits -
Some rabble-rousers receive a guy to shibboleth you up.
How much matriarch variants a woodland to pistol-up infinity?
Is a mamba hid-a-bender the final horsewoman of Spanish
flagship?
Is flash cosy merrier under gloves of less important madman?
We wreath.
But federation moves ahead;
For the iceman just took a turn for the birthday
And a small office footpaths from his musician;
A daring, juggler, schoolteachers dress the belted edition
tangerine
And you have the modular optimistic skater-in-lead-in
overbalance.
Whitewash to the optics of Jupiter.
[/quote]
Again the autobiography of Senada is conflated with the overtly
fictional Dewey Largo. the gay music teacher who can. according
to Lisa Simpson, "suck the soul out of any piece of music" which
is largely at odds with the technical skills required to
assemble the building blocks of Not Available at both 33 and 45
rotations per minute. The existence of Dewey Largo remained
concealed until December 1989 which ensures that he is not
simply a pastiche of Charles Bobuck but a warning about where
careless obscurity leads to. Unlike Ralph Melish whose character
became Hans Moleman, in 1991, or Bleeding Gums Murphy who, like
Mister Skull is somehow able to perform post-mortuary, Dewey
Largo is the deliverer of shibboleths - those unpronounceable
words that identify specific groups.
[quote="Book Of Judges"]
And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the
Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which
were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said
unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay; Then said
they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he
could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and
slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time
of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
[/quote]
Again there is a hint that the real world really did intrude
into the creation and recording process. The dissipation of the
autobiography of Senada into popular culture and the
reappearance in the form of Dewey Largo hints, quite obliquely,
that one of the Residents was a woman. Which is the kind of
garbled message that can be extricated both from the name
Edweena, the original lyric, "Is a mamba hid-a-bender the final
horsewoman of Spanish flagship?" and the pet dog Santa's Little
Helper being the favourite pet of the saxaphone playing Lisa
Simpson and the Beatles baiting The Yellow Album. The ability to
spread a joke across decades is foreshadowed in the phrase
"Whitewash to the optics of Jupiter; or, perhaps, it is simply a
joke about 2001: A Space Oddesey.
[quote="Civility"]
Edweena never knowing why
her fume would ravine so
She silo him out
libertarian pout
to bleed upon the solarium.
[/quote]
Which is exactly what would happen in any sane conversation: the
person with their faculties intact would not know why the raver
raves. The recurrent image of the libertarian and the future
association of the Residents with such Libertarian's as Penn
Jilette is, again, a form of leakage from the original
performance and lyrics into the real world. The lyrics as heard
in 1978 are, "to bleed upon the snow" which is almost the
opposite of "to bleed upon the solarium" and hints at the
departure of Senada for the North.
[quote="Pot"]
Mourning Goldmines open only after noon begins;
The open and the broken have begun to bluebottle again.
They frown a shipwreck about the nerve
Of nectar and of lair;
They leave a smack, they whiff a grieve
Friar Mourning's never free.
[/quote]
The repetitions of Pot reinforce the process of amnesia for
those involved in the 1974 recording. The bluebottle, for
example, entirely vanishes in the 1978 release. The complicated
building of different vocal patterns and the questionable mixing
techniques ensure that the Listener is never really privy to the
actual singer. Without hearing the original 1974 recording, it
is difficult to know if the actual voices heard are a result of
the speeding and slowing of tapes or supple impressionism or a
mixture of techniques. Certainly the mondegreen technique has
the effect of keeping the Listener permanently off balance. The
imagery of shipwrecks reinforces the Narrenschiff elements that
Senada incorporated into the Blueprint for Not Available and
also foreshadows Pathway Three: Show-off's a Goin' Dress which
transmutes into Part Three: Ship's A'Going Down in a typically
obscure, and alchemical, transformation.
[quote="Upstart Remus"]
The aching and the breaking are the manifestation of a
speciality.
(The empties that have been returned relieve us of a goose).
[/quote]
[quote="Civility"]
Now who is gone and who is right
And who is libertarian to see
For who is libertarian is just a few
Can two be more than three?
[/quote]
The Upstart Remus, newly liberated from the more traditional
Uncle Remus role, by such recordings as Apostrophe (') by Frank
Zappa (1940-1993) and George Duke (1946-2013) realistically ends
the second section. Uncle Remus appeared as a fictional narrator
in a collection of African-American folktales adapted and
compiled by Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) whose phonetic
rendition of Gullah stories were published in book form in
1881. The Upstart Remus is beginning to be fundamentally
different to the Uncle Remus that has become more closely
identified with American Reconstruction Era racism.
Not only has Upstart Remus fallen into the role of rabble-rouser
with all of the earlier connotations of that role but Remus is
beginning to sway Civility away from certainty. The libertarian
viewpoint - which may differ, fundamentally, from the political,
liberal, economic libertarianism of the 1980s - seems to be
holding sway. Civility is giving way to the fundamentals of
libertarianism in the metaphysical sense. In the 1978 release
Part Two: The Making Of A Soul neatly obscures the 1974 Pathway
Two: The Manifestation Of A Speciality. A piece of linguistic
gymnastics that effectively makes the existence of N Senada
little more than a College Cheer. Perhaps a little more complex
than the "Brek-ek-ek-ex ko-ax, ko-ax. Oh-op-op. Parabalou.” of
1880s Yale. The Residents were not really wont to plunder
Arisophanes as blatantly as Yale.
#Post#: 346--------------------------------------------------
Pathway Three: Show-off's a Goin' Dress
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: April 2, 2017, 12:14 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center][font=arial]Pathway Three: Show-off's a Goin'
Dress[/font] [/center]
Pathway Three: Show-off's a Goin' Dress reveals that one of the
Residents is most certainly a woman. The evidence is removed
from the 1978 Not Available, not only because it compromises the
essential obscurity but because Part Three: Ship's A'Going Down
made a far greater, far more subtle, point in 1978.
[quote="Catbird"]
Catbird[sup]5[/sup]:
Why not live?
[/quote]
[quote="Civility"]
The catbird shrilled!
[/quote]
[quote="Catbird"]
And give a hall a cheat!
For soon the motorboat will skin-diver a twist and I'll be
libertarian to deb.
[/quote]
[quote="Upstart Remus"]
Well, students have libertarian on longer travesties before.
[/quote]
The conversation goes back and forward, ostensibly, between a
black man and a white woman. The historical context being the
fallout from the 1960's Civil Rights Movement. The same themes
arise in Mister Wonderful from Demons Dance Alone particularly
when performed live. In retrospect, this conversation highlights
how the Residents repeatedly return to ideas that are central to
their Work. While Not Available had a Blueprint which would
allow the construction of a musical work under the constraints
of The Theory Of Obscurity the consequences of realising that
work resonate down through subsequent pieces. Not Available is
not simply a disposable piece of pop culture that can be
consumed. Not Available becomes a cultural durable.
The Residents are well known for consuming popular culture.
Third Reich 'n' Roll highlights how adept they are at taking the
recommendations of Dick Clarke and turning them into something
disturbingly different. Not Available highlights how that same
consumption of popular culture can be far from trivial. Three:
Show-off's a Goin' Dress highlights the impacts of the strange
politics of 1974. Rather than being something that the Residents
could forget, the collapse of the Nixon era was something they,
like others, might want to forget.
[quote="Catbird"]
Yes,
shibboleth and shout, and century,
a stable, to be a mockery!
Exist inside a lido duodenum
and century no wrongdoing to be.
If after all this oleo a splashdown of eating exists,
We'll set atom a common title
'twixt fume and who he's kissed.
[/quote]
In August 1974, the use of pseudonyms and doubtful or obscured
identities was of concern to the Media. The Symbionese
Liberation Army had, according to some accounts, kidnapped Patty
Hearst (b 1954) and according to others seduced her into
membership. Whichever is the case, the consequence in the media
was that hidden identities were open to scrutiny. The paranoid
style of Nixonian Politics - where conversations were recorded
and crudely edited - led to the collapse of the Republican
Administration. The Catbird - Upstart Remus conversations could
be taken as veiled references to imagined Patty Hearst and
William DeFreeze conversations. However it is much more likely -
given the role of the Enigmatic Follow-through" that the whole
section is a riotous critique of Nixon.
Since the Residents were, in the 1970's, committed to variable
speed tape machines and physical tape editing to achieve much of
their sound, they could hardly have missed the crass stupidity
of Nixon in erasing tapes after secretly recording conversations
shibboleth and shout sums up the whole fiasco of the Nixon
tapes: the words that could not be spoken were erased and
everything else roared derision thus leading to everything to be
a mockery!. Had Nixon hired a decent tape editor, he might have
finished that tricky second Administration.
.
[quote="Enigmatic Follow-through"]
Enigmatic Follow-through[sup]6[/sup]:
He throw-in
the entree was overdue,
but daybroke him instead,
And consequently what he read
was never what he said.
And dowse't you never,
[/quote]
Which outlines, briefly, the problem Nixon had with his tapes:
they had gaps. The whole transcript of the Nixon Tapes are known
to be unreliable. Not through failure to transcribe but through
the nature of surveillance taping. Which introduces the role of
the Residents' self built studio. Already in use for the
recording of Vileness Flats, the recording of Not Available
might well have been, in 1974, the out takes of Vileness Flats:
conversations and anecdotes reimagined, through the lense of the
Motorik rhythm and then redesigned to be a complex rhythmic and
tonal work. The kind of cover up that Richard Milhouse Nixon
(1913-1994) could only have dreamed about.
The idea that daybroke him instead, and consequently what he
read was never what he said is a perfect summary of the entire
process of Phonetic Organisation as practiced unde the Theory Of
Obscurity. The Enigmatic Follow-through is not only describing
some arcane story but also the entire environment in which the
story is being created.
[quote="Civility"]
Said the ever Enigmatic Follow-through
[/quote]
[quote="Enigmatic Follow-through"]
Lose your coroner,
or after screening,
They'll find me horse
woman in bender.
[/quote]
The Enigmatic Follow-through clearly refers to Vileness Flats
the invented world hidden in 20 Sycamore Street. The intention
to screen the film, but technology and ennui railroaded the
Residents into other things. The 1974 Not Available clearly
refers to Women and their role in the day to day happenings of
Sycamore Street. The Enigmatic Follow-through reveals
diminishing amounts of information and eventually makes all
notions of individuals fold in on themselves. Leaving distinctly
mythopoetic names - such as Catbird - that distance the
performers from their own selves.
[quote="Catbird"]
What hoover you raven,
you fate a taking and a mating motor;
Confuse to lose
and quake to brittle
are simple saddlers to you.
Why send a curly heave to bender
and know her sensibilities too?
[/quote]
The piling up of names and meanings onto the top of each other
results in some curious language. Yet, with effort, it is
possible to see the clear references to Marcel Duchamp
(1887-1968) in phrases such as "mating motor". Which alludes,
obliquely to the alchemical possibilities embodied in a lot of
the Residents output. Duchamp regularly masqueraded as rRose
Selavy whose eponymous pun announces exactly what she is. The
constant reference to people - for example President Hoover
(1874-1964) - and literature - for example the poem "The Raven"
by Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) builds up too much for any one
person to remember. The effect is, even if nobody realised it,
of a ship where the deckchairs are being rapidly, and
repeatedly, rearranged.
[quote="Enigmatic Follow-through"]
Goner it dress you dripping coda,
and be not busy, too;
If a needy,
if a seedy
lets him come on through.
Knapsacks are not thrust open squibs, and neither is a broken
string!
There are cockpit that heartbreak't been worn,
Forfeits that heartbreak't been shorn,
There's centuries that heartbreak't been given a proffer.
Need I say more?
[/quote]
The Enigmatic Follow-through lives up to their name by
performing a form of aural collage that provides hypnotic sound
sculptures. Much like the Fluxus Indians headdress being similar
to an eyeball, the sound sculpture becomes similar to a
conversation. Which not only gives a narrative that appears to
push the Pathway Three: Show-off's a Goin' Dress narrative
towards some kind of conclusion. The truth is that, like the
Fluxus Indian headdress, the narrative is principally an
artefact of the Listener seekingto make sense of the sounds. It
is the mondegreeen technique finally bearing fruit and obliging
the Listener to suppose that they remember something that has,
quite patently, never been told to them. Which is causally
dismissed by Upstart Remus, yet the Enigmatic Follow-through
makes an observation that does not seem to vanish: "There's
centuries that heartbreak't been given a proffer" even in the
1978 Not Available record. Which leaves the Upstart Remus with
almost nothing useful to say except to introduce the finale.
[quote="Upstart Remus"]
The sot spoken electroplate was a close flatmate
With the warped open crematoriums so many.
[/quote]
Simply connects the conversation to the tragic outcome of the
entire Pathway Three the Show-off - who is never really
identified, except by being a she - getting dressed. The
possibility that the whole preceding section has been a covert,
salacious tale is rapidly dismissed in by the arrival of Pathway
Four and the arrive of the Never Known Rabble-rousers but made
all the more intriguing by the transmutation from The show-off
she's a goin' dress to The ship's going down. Given the
references to the Speedwell and the Calumet, there is an untold
and quite outrageously rude anecdote being forgotten in the
cause of the techniques of Obscurity. Sadly for anybody, the
actual anecdote is obliged to be lost in order to preserve the
artistic integrity of Not Available
[quote="All"]
All[sup]7[/sup]:
The quick bribe drained the main
And the show-offs a goin' dress
me mediators,
The show-off she's a goin' dress.
The show-off' she's a goin' dress.
[/quote]
Which brings everything to the dramatic climax. Again the
effects of the 15/11 ratio are heard in the jazz age saxaphone
which is almost a solo leading into Pathway Four and a more
complex series of layers of musical bricks. In the transition
from the 1974 vinyl to the 1978 was less abrupt than the
transition to Compact Disc technology. While Senada might well
have appreciated that technological transitions influence music
profoundly - having witnessed the development of 33 and 45
recording technologies with their various possibilities - there
is little scope for being able to predict the precise detail of
innovation. In acknowledgement of this, the Never Known
Rabble-rousers simply wraps a story up, while continuing the
systematic derangement of the senses recommended by Rimbaud
(1854-1891) in his savage experiment.
#Post#: 347--------------------------------------------------
Pathway Four: Never Known Rabble-rousers
By: CheerfulHypocrite Date: April 2, 2017, 12:16 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[center][font=arial]Pathway Four: Never Known
Rabble-rousers[/font] [/center]
[quote="Civility"]
The cockscomb continues
and the squirrel diminishes
Without even the
Homeland of a golliwog.
Is glowing a
continuous promontory
Or dormouses the squirrel
Find its wharf out where
It needs to be. Wharf out where
It needs to be.
Squirrel the rot,
oh squirrel the rot,
Oh squirrel the rot we say.
Squirrel the rot
they tell the
Trail while feeding
him some say.
Squirrel the rot,
oh squirrel the
Rot and then
you'll be oratory.
Squirrel the rot,
oh squirrel the rot,
but still you'd birthday pray.
[/quote]
Civility becomes revealed as something more than a traditional
Greek, Dramatic, Chorus. The inclusion of words like 'golliwog'
which have become taboo with the passage of time ensure that the
Performers have an increasing social need to suppress any memory
of having been involved. While large scale social changes define
the world that we live in, it is the minutiae of daily existence
by which people are judged. The whole of Not Available contains
language which can be considered offensive on the basis of
current cultural mores. Which is where Not Availabe might well
seem locked to a particular moment: that of 1974.
In 1974, Gustav Metzger (1926-2017) called for artists to
withdraw their labour for a minimum of three years. This Art
Strike coincided with the period of inacessibility for Not
Available and underlined that the Theory Of Obscurity and
Phonetic Organisation were not merely sidelines to Art History
but an integral part of the stream of large scale social change.
Pete Townshend (b 1945) studied under Metzger and the Who used
projections of Metzger's work at live performances.
Fundamentally, the Residents were not doing anything
outrageously different to the rest of the world. They were doing
something stranger and more deliberate: subjecting themselves to
their own Art Theory. More radically, this was not simply the
application of Art Theory but of anti-Art Theory.
Anti-Art Theory seeks to render prior definitions of Art
rejected and all Art subject to question. The Dadaists are
understood to be the exponents par-excellence of Anti-Art; and,
Dadaist influence can be seen in the adoption of Mister Skull as
a front-being. At Hollywood Palace show on December 26, 1985,
Mr. Red Eye was stolen. Although returned it had become unclean
and was, therefore, replaced by Mister Skull. Which echoes back
to the Photograph In Voluptua Mors by Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
and Phillipe Halsman (1906-1979). Created in 1951, In Voluptua
Mors constructs a skull out of seven female nudes. The use of
people as building block - a practice common enough in
industrialised society - combined with the Art Strike
perspective of Metzger makes Mister Skull more of a militant
defence of Obscurity than a reaction to a theft.
Fundamentally, Not Available created the means by which all
future Residents responses could be understood. From the Art
Strike of Metzger to the Occultation of the Collège de
'Pataphysique (1975-2000 vulg.) there was nothing unusual about
Obscurity. There is something far more unusual about
transforming a squirrel into a spot. Indeed had The Spot by
Snakefinger (Charles Lithman 1949-1987) been The Squirrel the
Residents and their fellow travellers would have been considered
merely a light comedy act and not something serious. However the
changes from language that was becoming unacceptable to slightly
disorienting oronymic linguistic gymnastics that both revealed
and concealed the fundamentally difficult compositional and
orchestration problems that would continue from the adoption of
Obscurity, Phonetic Organisation and even Microtonality
[quote="Pot"]
When Edweena made me natures,
She ate the groin and gully the guitar;
My muddle made me eat boysenberries,
But my gracious sapphires just ate me flashbulb.
Calling cashes and polling watercourses are just to many... See?
Calling cashes and winking baths are just a wharf to see.
Calling cashes and winking baths are just the wharf to be?
Falling gymkhanas and winking baths are just a need today.
Falling gymkhanas and winking baths are just my needs. Oratory?
Oratory?
Oratory! Oratory! Oratory! Oratory! Oratory!...
To show or
To be shown
Is a rabble-rouser never, never known not even by many to exist.
[/quote]
The difficulties of microtonality are evident inNot Available.
Where some claim there is a muddy mix, there can be, in fact, an
intentional use of microtonality. Partch had read Herman von
Helmholtz (1821-1894) Sensations of Tone which motivated him to
develop just intonation and microtonality. When Partch set up a
studio in late 1962 in Petaluma, California, in a former chicken
hatchery, he was returning to past pastures. The parallels to
the life of Charles Bobuck do not end there but the influence on
Charles Bobuck was simply one of several. The microtonality of
Partch was a serious affair with little room for the humour that
infects the Residents from Bobuck. While Partch could, and in
some cases would, score "Oratory!" and "Oratory?" in different
ways within the confines of a single piece. Bobuck seems to have
considered the possibility that a tone should change over time.
That Not Available in 2174 would not be identical to Not
Available in 1974 or 1978.
This long term view places Not Available into a different
category of work from, say, The Commercial Album where Bobuck
exercises precise, controlled skills to produce precise,
controlled and tiny works. Not Available is built to be a large,
uncontrolled, sprawling work. The appreciation of the total work
can only be achieved by those who have become, like Alfred Jarry
(1873-1907) a transcendental satrap of 'Pataphysics, inhabiting
Ethernity.
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