For Virginia Matthews’s dance “Check Mate,” I provided piano music (severe, contrapuntal, and diatonic), a spoken text (scrambled chess instructions), and chess pieces with bells in them.  This was all back in 1980, in San Francisco.

“Clowns” was an orchestration exercise I did in high school, back when I was sixteen. Fortunately, the public school I went to in D.C. had an orchestra, so I was able to hear what I did. My subject was a piano piece by Joaquin Turina, chosen simply because it was short and suitable. I had started to orchestrate one of Satie’s “Nocturnes,” only to discover that it was stubbornly pianistic. “Clowns,” however, was not.

On December 17, 2011, I did my bit for the annual “Filthy Song Night,” at the Jalopy Theater in Brooklyn.  I brought out my baritone horn, which I seldom play in public, and offered a traditional variant of the hymn tune “Old 100th.”  You can listen to it here.

Addendum: No, I guess you can’t.  Whoever posted it removed it.

When I was 13, I played ‘cello in a city-wide youth orchestra in Washington, D.C.  I had forgotten about this performance at the White House until I rediscovered this program.  Simply to amuse myself, I slipped “played ‘cello at the White House” into a couple of bios.  So, if you happen across one of those, remember: it’s true.

For my first appearance at the UnConvention, the weekend bender organized by the Fortean Times, I gave talks on the Count of Saint-Germain and Richard Shaver.  The nice folks at FT even hired a ‘cellist for me, so that I could sing a couple of the Count’s songs with a proper continuo.

A 1979 mini-comic, given to the world under the name of my whilom character, Red Telephone.

Every year, Meg Reichardt holds a holiday recording party.  Everyone writes a seasonal song; and records it with whoever and whatever is available.  My contributions for 2011, “Jesus Under the Mistletoe” and “The Easter Bunny’s Noel,” are now online over here.

I also participated in 2009, with “Or So I’ve Been Told” and a round about Jesus.

As far as I know, I’ve only been quoted once in Hustler magazine. The occasion was an article on Forteana by Skylaire Alfvegren, in the November 2006 issue.

A tape cassette of my songs, from 1991, in the days when people made tape cassettes.  This, of course, is the artwork; which was cut, folded, and inserted into the little plastic box.

“Warburton’s Cook” is a one-act play based on the melancholy literary anecdote of John Warburton, a collector of rare manuscripts, who discovered that his cook had used many of them to line her pie tins. The cast was a treat; and I enjoyed tailoring the script to their talents.