June 28th, 2011 · Comments Off on Songs 1

The photocopied dossier you see here collects 49 pages of my songs, mostly for voice and piano. Do let me know if you would like one.
The songs (and the texts) are:
Epitaph (Richard Corbett)
Greenaway Pictures (Kate Greenaway, Jane and Ann Taylor)
We Have No Life Beyond Our Daily Life (Doug Skinner)
En Route (Blaise Cendrars, in my translation)
When I Sleep (Gertrude Stein)
Anecdote (Jean de La Fontaine, in my translation)
My Mistake (Doug Skinner)
Why Do We Have To Die? (from The Book of Wonders)
Im Hinterland (H. L. Mencken)
The Inchworm (Doug Skinner)
The Oatmeal Song (Doug Skinner)
Tags: *Music · S
This slice of life appeared in the sole issue of Carousel Comics and Stories in 2004.

Tags: *Cartoons · R

These are pinbacks; let me know if you want one.
Tags: *Words · Q
June 27th, 2011 · Comments Off on Oh
“Oh,” for psaltery or keyboard, is brief, diatonic, freely metered. It’s a simple stirring of the strings, often landing on sevenths and sixths; it’s as slight as I could make it. Here’s how it begins.

Tags: *Music · O
June 27th, 2011 · Comments Off on Never Shtup a Nutjob
White Knuckle Sandwich used to perform this lively number. I’ve resurrected it, added a viola part, and am now performing it with David Gold. And it begins in this way.

Tags: *Music · N
This piece is written for the “cloudboard,” a keyboard instrument that generates clouds; naturally, it uses the standard symbols for cloud formations. Since the instrument does not exist, the piece cannot be performed. I regret the inconvenience.
You have the first bit of the piece here.
And now might be a good time to reread Baudelaire’s “L’étranger,” from Le Spleen de Paris.

Tags: *Music · P
June 25th, 2011 · Comments Off on Let’s Ask Skinner
“Let’s Ask Skinner” ran in Crimewave USA, edited by Mark Maynard and Linette Lao, from 1996 to 2003. It usually included both accurate and inaccurate misinformation, plugs for my other projects, toilet humor, and mockery of organized skeptics and the Grateful Dead — the last not from any animus on my part, but simply to provoke peevish mail from certain readers who held those topics sacred. The questions were sent in by readers, provided by the editors, or swiped from other publications. Here’s a sample.

Tags: *Words · L
June 24th, 2011 · Comments Off on Tales of the Twilight Typist

George Kuchar and John Keel visit my studio, in one of George’s inimitable videos. In other sections, George visits Mimi Gross and Whitley Strieber.
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June 24th, 2011 · Comments Off on Under the Weather
I wrote this glum little tune back in 1983, when I was staying in Nancy. It was choreographed by Pam Quinn for a concert at Dance Theater Workshop (in NYC) in 1985.
Here’s the first part of it.

Tags: *Music · U
June 23rd, 2011 · Comments Off on Mozart at the Cannery Works
This realization of Mozart’s “Musical Game in C” (K.516f) was written for an evening organized by the Cannery Works on Mozart’s birthday, January 27, 2005. Mozart’s piece gave the materials to construct minuets on the names of his friends; I applied it to “Cannery Works,” and harmonized the result.

Tags: *Music · M