“Dance #1” is a brief 8mm film I made for a performance in San Francisco, back in 1976.  It was made up of footage from home movies and from old silent movies.  I did a few films like this, but this was the only one to be screened.

Here’s what you saw:

1. water pouring into a glass bowl (color): 15″

2. a fight in a saloon (black & white): 5″

3. my mother in the kitchen (color): 15″

4. two seated women; a gun barrel lowers from overhead (black & white): 5″

5. water pouring into a glass bowl (color): 15″

6. a glass falls to the floor and shatters (color): 5″

7. two seated women; one passes her hand over her eyes, then screams (black & white): 15″

In 1976, I joined Michele Larsson for a performance by her nascent company Flywheel.  I had forgotten about it until I turned up this program.

One of my infrequent forays into serialism.  For another, look here.

In 2002, I gave a talk about John Keel and the Mothman Prophecies (with, I add, his blessing) at the Fortean Times UnConvention and at the FortFest held by the International Fortean Organization.  The idea was to drum up interest in the movie — and, more particularly, the book.  Dave Singer has posted the INFO version here.

A melancholy round, based on a traditional quatrain.

For the 1996 FortFest, the annual gathering of the International Fortean Organization, I delivered a talk on John Dee, that intriguing Elizabethan polymath.  I had already composed and performed a song cycle based on Dee’s dream diary; so when Phyllis Benjamin, the head of INFO, suggested a Dee talk, I took his dreams as a framing device.  Each dream generated a mock interpretation, which then bloomed into a consideration of one part of his life.

Here’s the first page:

“Cinderella’s Glass Eye” is a bit of fairy tale music, scored for tuba and piano.  There is a story to go with it; here it is.  (Some readers have complained that the images are too small; let me remind them, gently, that you can enlarge a thumbnail by clicking on it.)

And here’s the brooding counterpoint that begins it, before the waltz.

David Gold and I performed in “The Speakeasy Series,” produced by Studio B in Maplewood, NJ, March 24, 2012.

Our set:

Make a Wish
Never Shtup a Nutjob
Fa La La La La
The Gypsy (by Billy Reid)
Don’t Talk To Me
Good Night

I wrote the score for Katie Nelson’s dance “Blunders” back in 1980.  Frankie Mann recorded it; I played all the instruments, including piano, toy piano, ‘cello, organ, and percussion.  Here’s the first page.

Matt Staggs interviewed me about my old friend, the inimitable John A. Keel, for his “Disinfocast.”  You can listen to it here.