response poem

From: radmeow
Subject: response poem
Date: April 26, 2008 2:57:23 PM EDT
To: olindsann, warrenfry, tomislav

hacienda irrevocably wrote a response poem to warren and olchar's performance of
'A Society Function for Snakes and Marmosets'

feel free to recite
or wait until it is recited upon you

see attachment

attachment:

{{ response piece to 'A Society Function for Snakes and Marmosets'
as performed by warren frye olchar lindsann
entitled: parapalegic peace-burger
by: hacienda irrevocably
}}

{{ note:
symbols and punctuation provided should either be pronounced as sound
or used to indicate how certain phrases should be uttered (ie rising tone, cookie monster voice, etc)
usage should be kept consistant throughout
but no direction is provided for their use
blank key provided for notation
}}

$$ .drown .the $$ ^rump-roast [...] .preen-
.twill .the ;cabin {
;contain .and ]pressurize @ \|
*pee-*ewe- @ @@
pw+w+w+w+w+w+eeeeee
[...] ]crendolant
*in *its- ]lusterment
$$ %!denial $$
.swim ^tragic ]underment
^unguent ^import ^attend
.the ^frizzle *fry %!steak "house
attain *pwone-^elguise-^matric-^lamont[...]^ramant te
attain *pwone-^elguise-^matric-^lamont[...]^ramant te
attain *pwone-^elguise-^matric-^lamont[...]^ramant te
attain *pwone-^elguise-^matric-^lamont[...]^ramant te
attain *pwone-^elguise-^matric-^lamont[...]^ramant te
~~`~~ ~~`~~ `!` `!` # # r r %!moumpt
.the .sun %?alone %?attends ^ataish .a %!taste \|
%?pronounce .a %?key ;alone ;attend .a .trace
%!atone @ %!a %?place %!a .cunt .fuck .dump %!preen
$$ %!couch %!stone %!swim $$
$$ %!couch %!stone %!swim $$
$$ %!couch %!stone %!swim $$



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all wrongs reserved | hacienda irrevocably

FIDDLESTICKS 4 VIDEOS !!!

Here at long last is the video from FIDDLESTICKS 4!! Olchar's report below contextualizes this installment's events, which acquired a certain consistency.

This poem was written by the late Mr. Hugo's fellow rat and protege, the Bar Bar Baron, relayed via David Beris Edward's blog from Warren to Olchar to Tomislav, and then declaimed by a puppet made by dadaDavid Hartke.

Two Post-Neo simultaneous poems: Olchar and Warren perform David Beris Edwards' A Society Function for Snakes and Marmosets, and Tomislav joins them for his own Direct Decree by the Price on Her Head, Version 4.3.

Warren, Olchar, and Tomislav perform a four-part text by Tom Taylor.

Alex performs his piece Close it Closet.

Reports and Documentation of FIDDLESTICKS 5 as soon as we can manage to find time to get it up here!

Olchar's Report for Fiddlesticks #4

This one was quite a journey (aren't they all).

It began for me on the Friday night, working with Tsubasa to (finally) get Angee's floor tiles installed in the space. In many ways, putting on these kinds of shows and events are simply an excuse to get to prepare them with each other (in many ways the opposite is true as well, of course). Usually this preparation is pretty frenetic, in the earlier stages we're all brainstorming excitedly in a dozen different directions, in the latter stages running about like chickens with our heads lopped off, trying to salvage whatever is going to happen from the ruins of what we'd planned to happen even as those ruins continue to fall down upon us, all adreneline and (pointless) purpose. This has been for me one of the most durable and characteristic experiences of Post-Neo, whether with Catharsism of Narcotica in Ohio, with the Itinerant Mirror in England, with the Fiddlesticks shows here.... So it was particularly nice to install these with Tsubasa in a completely different manner, talking quietly and calmly as we both knelt on the floor, tearing off smaller and smaller pieces of tape as the roll disappeared; and an opportunity to take in at least a bit of his sensibility as he patiently compared tiles, grouped and regrouped them, placing each one with a care that made me feel a bit of the barbarian (bar bar bar).


The performances for this installment evolved in unexpected ways. We'd known a couple weeks in advance that Alex would be performing that night, but didn't know what he would be doing (we'd rather get to experience the piece like everyone else); and as of a week or so before we'd planned to do a set of Post-Neo Simultaneous Poems. Then we learned about Mr. Hugo Ball-Rat's illness.

We'd already done the Familiars' Hospital the week before, an undertaking that shows how some of us have come to relate to these inanimate rubber ids; and now a similar situation had struck us not with familiars, but with pets--not entirely different, but: alive. And in it David had suggested a Medicinal Poem; so this was added to the schedule for Saturday. A poem to read to everyone here, both written by and dedicated to a rat in England who could never read or write it (despite having done so)--and a gesture of friendship and empathy between two far-flung communities.

A couple days later, we learned of Tom's illness; and in the notion of the Medicinal Poem that David had put forward on behalf of a beloved pet on another continent, we found one form through which to materialise our concern, gratitude, and friendship to to this man on the other side of our own continent, whom none of us has met in person but with whom a number of us have collaborated, corresponded, and engaged with as readers. And so we added to Saturday's event a performance of a text Tom had sent me to play around with a few months ago.

So Saturday arrives, etc. etc. forgot we don't have key-cards etc. the printer doesn't etc. etc. etc. where's etc. etc. which ones should etc. etc. etc. etc. Oh shit, we thought you meant a digital etc. etc. etc. etc., and we prepare for the poetic chain-gang we had planned for Mr. Ball-Rat's medicinal poem: Warren reading it aloud from David's blog in the computer lab, shouting it to me standing in the doorway, shouting it in turn to Tomislav who finally delivers it to our guests in the gallery via Dave Hartke's puppet. (This mirrors a piece we had done in England a couple years ago at the Itinerant Mirror Cabaret: Warren had called in from the States to David Edwards at the desk of King Ludd bookshop; they eventually ended up downstairs in the basement where Natalie Waldbaum had to act them out.) It is as we are about to read the poem that Warren learns from that blog that Mr. Hugo Ball-Rat had just died. And so the poem became a Funereal Poem or Anti-Eulogy (a rodent Adonais); delivered with great aplomb by Dave's puppet.

Then it's onto the simultaneous poems--now pared down to only two, one by David (we did a few more at Fiddlesticks 5, which you'll see eventually) and one by Tom. Great fun as always; I think I've performed David's 'Society Function...' four or five times and have never to this day managed to gather the apple and nearly-empty-fast-food-cup-with-a-straw that the score calls for.

Then Tom Taylor's texts; Warren, Tom and I had scored them for three voices, treating each section differently, using techniques quite different from those of the simultaneous poems we'd just performed: performing them as canons, reading in different directions, following various visual cues--following the approach of the Be Blank Consort, many of whom have known and worked with Tom for decades. The texts were great fun to do; I'd like to read more Taylor aloud when I have the opportunity.

And finally there is Alex's piece, which turns out to be a very touching and understated vignette on the death of his grandmother. It manages to be simultaneously very direct--it is what it says what it is (yes), and it has an immediate emotional impact--and also quite readably indirect--we only hear his responses as he talks on the phone, not wanting to talk about it, yet, at least. And it gathers together the theme/s that have, gradually, turned into a very sad week, and affirms that, nonetheless, it can be dealt with, and that somehow, indeed, it seems to have tied itself together.

And as usual, most of us remained behind for hours afterward, ordered pizza and ate it in Jamie's studio; at one point Alan's remaining City Poems were retrieved from the gallery and passed around again; etc etc etc., far into the night.

And then onward to Fiddlesticks 5--reports and documentation when we can! Huzzah!

FIDDLESTICKS #6, POST-NEO LECTURE, FREE PIZZA, and THE HOME-STRETCH TO THE FESTIVAL!!

THIS SATURDAY EVENING IS THE LAST FIDDLESTICKS SHOW!!!

After this we will be laying publicly low for a month while we prepare for THE ANTI-FESTIVAL IN JUNE

yes, June.

In this FINAL INSTALLATION OF FIDDLESTICKS:

*Long-time Post-Neos/ mail artists/ dollmakers/ other

-things-ers bela b. Grimm (Columbus, OH) and Megan Blafas (Washington, D.C.),
*Mail artist/poet/archivist/theorist/other-things-er Jim Leftwich (Roanoke, VA),
*Painter(s)/installer(s)/puppetfilmer(s)/other-thing-ers-as-well Sarah Granett (Newark, NJ) and Surprise (surprise)!
*AND if you haven't seen it already, check out the contribution from Steve Dolnack (New Brunswick, NJ) installed during our off-week.
AND!:
At 8:00 PM on THIS SATURDAY, April 26, roundabouts the Lost & Found Gallery, come see the show and treat yourself to a long-overdue (or not) group lecture:
WHAT IS POST-NEOABSURDISM?

We all think we know New Jersey Post-Neo, but here is a RARE chance to get a relatively co--he--rent--(?) introduction to the (anti-)artists, communities, and histories of Post-Neo from its womb in Ohio to everywhere else that it is now--from a panel of five real live Post-Neos ranging from co-founders of the movement to those just beginning to put their stamp on it. These people boast a combined 12--21 years experience post-ing and neo-ing and absurdist-ing (depending on how you count) and many have been involved with multiple Post-Neo groups around the world:

Megan Blafas (Ohio/ Washington, D.C./ Mail Art)
Tomislav Butković (New Jersey/ Mail Art)
Evan Damerow (New Jersey/ Florida) (assuming that our videoconferencing from his Anti-outpost in Florida works)
Warren Fry (Ohio/ New Jersey/ Mail Art)
Olchar E. Lindsann (Ohio/ United Kingdom/ New Jersey/Mail Art)

This is an opportunity to learn more about many of the artists whose work you have seen at FIDDLESTICKS, the people who WILL BE VISITING HERE IN JUNE, and to contextualise what happens in New Jersey or wherever else you are in relation to Post-Neo activity as it continues to develop all over the place.

This will eventually end up online as well so that those of you who live everywhere else can see too, right here on this very blog.

ALSO:
For those of you returning hungry from the WHIFFLE-HURLING GAME that afternoon, or those of you hungry for other reasons, or who generally enjoy scrounging, WE WILL BRIBE YOU WITH FREE PIZZA for those who come to give us a listen; call us by 6:30 if you plan to show up and eat some so our broke arses know how much to buy!

Megan will be up from Washington and Sarah probably down from Newark, so no doubt some fun will be had afterward as well.

IF YOU 'HAVEN'T MADE IT' TO FIDDLESTICKS YET, THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!

8:00 PM on THIS SATURDAY, April 26 !!!!

Olchar's Fiddlesticks 3 Report finally!

Sorry about the sporadic blog updates, if anyone's trying to read them, but we're busy as motherfuckers out here trying to keep Fiddlesticks going and attempting to get everything ready for June (especially since so few people are communicating via the blog, which of course results in more work for us). But better late than never, so here's my (admittedly basic) report on the events for Fiddlesticks #3; we'll get reports and documentation up for the next two asap, along with other goodies.

Video documentation of all of this is a bit further down the blog.

Of course, by the time this thing went down, UPS still hadn't delivered Angee's contribution, though I'd had several arguments with them concerning it over the phone. So in the meantime, we tried to give her a presence by producing a puppet play based on an episode from her comic book Mossdale Estate. Initially this seemed like an unlikely decision, and it was certainly quite different from the prototypical Post-Neo puppet play, with its cartoon voices, screaming, shouting of nonsense, vomiting, pounding mayhem; like the comic book it was (relatively, at least) understated and sober. But both in the production of the play itself and in the story that Angee sent us to (anti-)dramatize, it showed how Post-Neo can and has existed in a very wide variety of modes that despite being very different on many levels, nonetheless inform and enrich and even directly develop each other. On the one hand, Mossdale Estate and Angee's work in general is aesthetically and even conceptually very different from the most noisy and assertive tendencies in Post-Neo. It is accessible and down-to-earth; in fact it is generally not even 'absurd' at all (the same could be said of many other people who have been vital parts of the Post-Neo community--Emily Panzeri, Edward Lense, Alan Reed, Casey Bradley, Imogene Engine, and many others). On the other hand, Angee, as one of the earliest collaborators on the Mr. Squibbles films, in fact helped to pioneer the Post-Neo puppet aesthetic which was here expanded to reach back toward what her work is. So on one level this puppet play was a new direction for Anti-puppetry to exlore, while on another level it was a homecoming. And the passage that she chose for us to perform also treats this encounter of the raucous face of Post-Neo with the everyday, with 'real people': her nursing-home resident Rose has come by chance upon the album of the first Post-Neo group, Catharsism of Narcotica, and we watch her quietly come to terms with her encounter with this 'thing' that she has no way to even contextualize.

Next Warren read a poem of his own, one of my favourites from Synapse 3, and four phonetic poems by William Clippenger (no relation to Martha Clippenger as far as I know--correct me if I'm wrong; I've corresponded a bit but never met him in person). These are precisely the kinds of phonetic poems Warren excels at reading: repetitive cycles morphing slightly upon each return, plenty of open vowels that allow him to hurl his voice unrelentingly against the wall in wave upon sharp wave, with the no-nonsense attack of an a-verbal battering-ram, atavistic and throaty. I've actually not seen Warren perform per se nearly as much as I'd like or expect ince I came to New Jersey, and it was refreshing.

I myself have scarcely performed at all since I came here either, and actually this was my first solo performance since I arrived! (needless to say, Brute Salon and soirees are something else, really, more like conversing.) I did my sub-phonetic poem Prayer for the Poison-Child, the first from this body of work I've performed for over a year; and I've missed it. Due to the nature of New Jersey's particular version of Post-Neo, in which group automatism is more the focus than discreet or semi-discreet poems, plays, and sketches as it was in Britain, and also due to my having nowhere to rehearse and exercise my vocal apparatus for a few hours a week as I used to, it was a bit strained, and my breathing was especially shoddy; for the most part though I settled into the poem like an old glove (which it is), and my time apart from the score may actually have helped me to find a greater range of interpretations. Hope to rehearse and do another, longer one at the festival in June.

After all the performances we all went up and hung out in Jamie Bruno's studio, which has just about become a little Fiddlesticks tradition; talked about whatever it was we talked about (hey, it's been three weeks), did some exquisite corpses and other games while Jamie drew on her wall, and finally split about 4:30 AM or some such ungodly time.

And that was that.

FIDDLESTICKS #3: Puppet Play by A. Lennard, readings by W. Fry & O. Lindsann

Warren & Olchar do the most subtle (?) Post-Neo puppet play ever, an adaptation from a scene from Angee Lennard's comic book Mossdale Estate. In it, the nursing home resident Rose comes upon an album by the firs Post-Neo Group, Catharsism of Narcotica--Dave Hartke and Aaron Andrews (work going up in Fiddlesticks 4 this afternoon), Lindsann, and Bradley Chriss (Fiddlesticks 1).

Warren's reading of his own poem The Dipthong of FQ and four phonetic poems by William Clippenger from Synapse 4.

Olchar performs his sub-phonetic poem Prayer for the Poison-Child. For compare and contrast, see the video of his performance of this piece in England a year or two ago on his facebook page, or the score for it in Puking Trolley.

FAMILIAR SURGERY PHOTOS!

Tsubasa Berg was on hand to record the series of delicate procedures carried out in the Lost & Found Gallery/operating theatre during FIDDLESTICKS 2 (Dr. Fry's report has been filed below):

Doctors Fry, Dolnak, Lindsann, and Butkivić gather round the operating table to examine the horribly-mangled Anti-Tom.

Drs. Butković & Fry work on the Anti-Tom in the Staple Room, as Dolnak and Salazar observe.

Dr. Steve Dolnak coping with the pressure.

The newly reconstructed Anti-Tom

A close-up of his luv-er-ly new face.

Miss Ricketts, sans tongue!

Miss Ricketts on the table, a Familiar-sized bottle of 'anesthetic' beside her.

Dr. Butković with that other rubber chicken.

Comptroller Needleman goes under the cosmetic knife.

After the surgery, he demands more 'anesthetic'.

Take a look at your new face, Comptroller!

After seeing his new face, he goes back to the bottle again.

Hector Clam's state as s/he entered the emergency room

Hey, that new snake-tail has to be put on there somehow.

And then there was hot wax for some reason.

Hector's mane is now a beard, and his broken jaw is still strong enough to grasp a paint brush!

The recovery room: plenty of soft string and hard ice.

Puppetriage: Un-Surgeons Report March 8th A.Da. 92

While enjoying a martini with friends at the Lost and Found Anti-Officers Club my fellow anti-nurses, dada-doctors, and barr-barr-barbers we suddenly heard the call over the loud speaker “Incoming wounded, incoming wounded! All surgeons to the Puppetriage! That is all!” It looked like daddy B.S. and the Institute for Aesthletics were at it again...some triumphant maneuver called Bosch on Ice! As some un-general gets his medals, I thought to myself, we'd be knee deep in rubber, glue, and wood, the real gore on our hands. I raced to Puppetriage, where one at a time we laid the dieing on the operating table.

Name: Anti-Tom
DOB: January 29^th 2006
Medical History: Acute Titalitise and teething.
Symptoms: crushed scull, body in three pieces, other pieces assumed missing or destroyed.
Diagnosis: HOLY SHIT!
Treatment: Dr. Olchar was committed to an orthodontic angioplasty to the skull. We agreed. Dr. Salazar lovingly executed a hick-teeth positioning procedure. Dr. Butkovic and I delicately carried Anti-Tom to the SR (staple room) where the team held Anti-Tom down and gave him a haircut while we sutured the gangrenous gums to the patients cavernous temple. A rousing success. The medical team positioned bits of duct-tape around the torso and started cobbling the limbs together: Subdeltoid Bursa mashed against Iliopubic Head of Pelvis and Femur jambed into Caracoid Process, whatever the devil that means! New eyes were arbitrarily added at no extra expense. The patient was taken to the Jamie Bruno Recovery Wing of the hospital and given a bed of dusty string.

Name: Miss Rickets
DOB: January 23^rd 1986
Medical History: Patient's lingua has been ripped off, stolen, escaped, or simply fallen off once or twice a month for past year and a half. 'Baked tongue' (erythematous and/or atrophic glossitis) resulting in blackening and the accumulation of foreign bodies upon the tongue. Emaciation of the torso. Cosmetic surgery: 2^nd fin. Malt vinegar enema treatment in England to no avail.
Symptoms: Nausea and projectile vomiting.
Diagnosis: Rheumatology and Nervous Affection (towards appendage alien to patient's species)
Treatment: 400+ cc's Vodka administered via plastic umbilicus and EMD (Emergency Medicinal Deputizing) to sublimate patient's Nervous Affection.
Notes: Patient arrived wailing incessantly about her-his missing tongue, which was not yet recovered from the combat zone. We ignored her obvious undernourishment and superficial lacerations. The attending Pataphysicians decided inebriation and the bestowing of a superficial office were best. We poured 20 cc's of Vodka over her blow-hole. It wasn't going in at all so we quickly increased the dosage to our entire supply. Her-his eyes were then unresponsive to his-her pulse normalized. We prepared the dorsal fin for conjoinment with the ornaments of make-believe office. Dr. Dolnac, Tsubasa, and I executed the trusty Rusted Nail'n Hammer procedure driving the plastic star into her r(bl)ubber. As we pierced the patient's flesh she-he violently rejected the new responsibility and it took 1,000 of us to hold her down. Dr. Olchar recommended a full psych evaluation.

Name: Comptroller Needleman
DOB: December 25^th 1963
Medical History: Alcoholic polyneuropathy from birth. Feet dismembered at an early age during an attack of rabid, Jesus worshiping dolphins. Loss of nose after blacking out at Catharcism of Narcotica show. Received liquid nitrogen Bath
Symptoms: Nausea and projectile vomiting.
Diagnosis: Hypertrophic scarring around the nose and feet, loutishness.
Treatment: 400+ cc's Jack Daniels whiskey administered orally, orthopedic surgery on feet, prosthetic hirsutism.
Notes: We decided to use hair cut from the recovering Anti-Tom (which would lessen the weight on his-her collapsing head) for the patient's prosthetic beard after we applying med-goop in generous pools around the patients face. He blinked up at us in wonderment as skillful hands applied a mustache in the shape of an upside-down T to cover his hideous non-nose. Dr. Olchar recommended prosthetic feet. The team decided on a plastic fork and silver candle which were enthusiastically jammed into the patient's empty ankle sockets. After a lacing of goop Dr. Butkovic began administering a 'healthy' dose of whiskey. The patient appeared already saturated with alcohol, he-she began reeling in delight and consumed our entire stock and finally wet him-herself with wild abandon. We sterilized (torched) the piss-born humors now expunged from the patient's rotting wood-flesh. Dr Dolnac administers an anti-aromatherapy ritual: burning plastic fork prongs.

Name: John Doe
DOB: some fucking time or other...
Medical History: Extreme flaccidity of the torso from birth, not being alive.
Symptoms: Nausea and projectile vomiting.
Diagnosis: Maximal laceration of the abdomen sustained while beating a drum with Tsubasa.
Treatment: Staple sutures.
Notes: This poor sod was so far gone, having never been alive in the first place, we decided it best to barely try at all. Dr. Butkovic and I slammed staples into this flapping skin-bag as though we were humping a dead rhinoceros. Unfortunately he survived.

Name: Viceroy Hector Clam
DOB: circa 1918
Medical History: Some minor infections from tattoos, pink eye.
Symptoms: Nausea and projectile vomiting.
Diagnosis: Splitting of the torso in twain from severe blunt force trauma to an ice-rink.
Treatment: Emergency mane reconstruction, waxing of the skull, and snake/tail substitution.
Notes: Corpsmen at the scene, lead by Patamedic Reid Bingham, had skillfully reconstructed the patient using available pythons and a hollowed out horse-head. Upon inspection we found the indefatigable equine to be holding up far better than first expected. Drops of hot wax were used to annul the patient's head injuries while an asp was driven into its steaming tail-hole. The patient's dismembered mane was attached round the lower jay using some string in a risky procedure known as Adenovimician Vommar Capularvimation. Hector Clam was feeling so chipper after the surgery she-he trotted over to the recovery room.

AND THE DAY AFTER THAT... AND THE DAY AFTER THAT...

FUCK NJ-TRANSIT for not having any workable ticket machines at ANY station, AND for slapping a $5.50 surcharge at Newark Int'l Airport for NO FUCKING REASON. Ehem.

ALSO,

Hi boys and girls. I'm Tommy B and I'm the post-neo of the group.

Anyway, here are some photos of the newly acquired post-neoabsurdist anti-commune high-rise head[un]quaters.

This building will feature much boredom, obnoxiousness, absurdity, and certainty for those of you that are bourgeoise.

For those of you that are not; welcome to the home of myself, olchar, warren and evan.





Other news to be posted on a day not Saturday 15th, ADa 92.

Check out Frank Zappa if you haven't.

And while I'm whoring and dropping names, check out http://nationalinitiative.us

Bosch on Ice - Aesthletics and (other) b.s.

It was a breezy day. I dropped off Tom Russoti at the Protec Hockey rink in New Brunswick New Jersey and we unloaded sleds, pre-fab costumes, 'aesthletics' equipment and other props from the back of his family car and then off to CSB where I picked up Jesse Douglas, John Peltonen and two of their friends for a 15 min ride back to the rink where we would engage in Bosch on Ice, the culmination of Russotti's MFA thesis exhibit, a 'Garden of Earthly Delights' inspired broom-ball variant.

We made it in time to begin suiting up for the first period: Eden. Tom explained the rules pertaining to each creature. Some could run others had to crawl, some could hold the ball while others could only kick it. B.s. was going to take the field during the second and third periods, Earth and Hell. Eden saw one goal and the antics of aesthletes trying to sport while honoring their archetypal character from the Bosch painting! Swaddeling ducks, lurching beetles and two-person elephants grappled and slipped about the ice while mirthfully trying to score!

After a brief rest Earth began. I remember slipping on the ice and my drum flying onto the rink as Olchar lead Steve Dolnack, John Peltonen and others onto the ice from the other bench. Drumming, shouting, and hijinks of every kind made the game nearly impossible as aesthletes began partaking in the anarchic spleandor! Ah, humanities wrath upon the garden! Jen Park was in the midst of the action filming with a video camera dodging sled-bound creatures and rubber balls! Tomislav Butkovic and Olchar grabbed a traffic cone and transformed it into the North Winds of the impending apocalypse. While mercilessly bashing the purple drum (by now a b.s. hero) I saw from the corner of my eye Hector Clam's torso shattered in twain by some mysterious reveler! With quick thinking Reed Bingham bound him up with a snake so his torso would hold out until he could be properly looked after. We cleaned the ice and waited for Hell.

After some negotiations the apocalypse was staved off for 15 minutes allowing the opposing Brooklyn and New Brunswick teams to have at one another without any b.s. Hell arrived with Crista Lenze and I dragged out as mock-corpses on a sledge. B.s. stomped and drummed out the dead for another quarter hour until time was called.

Some Photos:

Anne Percoco as a leopard!



Members of the Brooklyn team

the big drum in a room of 200 hundred makes you feel better about the 2 trillion

And so it starts! [as soon as I figure out how to post photos on this thing; SHOULDN'T take very long...]

And my tongue hurts. Fucking christ...

Either way, this couldn't have started without a nice ROMEO Y JULIETA, [CHURCHILL EN TUBO] from hit it big and caressing it around while apparently shredding my lungs. Apparently I was better than everyone else because of my Churchill.

DA! DA! DA!

Somewhere along the line I entered with Brad Chriss' 'Hermaphrodite' reading where he had just started Chapter [5] of blue spandex of two mates' copulation ['Copulation'] with lilac teeth? Sliding.

And then into John M. Bennett readings where things were fucking sweet. I haven't heard Brad read any Bennett before so it was interesting to see his configur/tranfor-mation. Its an interesting comparison to any of Olchar's performances since their (that of their performances') mode of existance have a harsh execution with different skins.

The stack of Bennett poems/mailings at once started a whirlpool even escaping the pool quite a bit until I got around to it... apparently translating it into this:

I remember one what told me: 'craemb'

After a few short minutes, this bastard offspring rolled around sort of unknowingly in its vile and bastard-like bowels all over the space and out the door (and up the steps, [into the elevator], down the hall, into a wooden rack, on the wall, onto a screw, back out the door, into the elevator, and up the steps, and behind the steps into the door, in reverse and eventually back into the room. When the wind cleared, you could smell the caramelized stench of a slick, roasted brut saloon. - Mmmmmmmm.

Within it, this happened (It happened.): cell phone coagulating feedback, slide whistle tails, [mike gravel], bennett, lung crackling shredding, cigars, fedoras, glass, tape, an exquisite corpse, pens, markers, people, sarah granett, tomorrow never dies, old ink, french, palindrome, a man who once drew naked in front of machines because he thought they were alive,


[a;rsogiajrja;laksjdf<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>]

Anyway, photos could do some of the approximating too.

LNYLNYLNY

Eric [?], ?, Steve D[?], William Salmon, Brad Chriss, ?

Brad Chriss

?, Naqeeb

Brad Chriss, Martha Clippenger, Eric, ?, O. Lindsann

Christa Lenz

Lindsann

Left: Sarah Granett

'Tsubasa Berg'

And... That's it for now since its 4:29am on a Sunday Night.

Good Morning and Good Night.

----

Don't forget Fiddle Sticks, this Saturday, March 8th with a 'Hector Clan meets Britney's Plastic Surgen' meets Silent Soiree meets Iuk Kide reading.

Fry Report: Feb 22nd (Fiddlesticks One)

On Feb. 22nd Brad, Olchar and I showed up to the Lost and Found Gallery for the first Fiddlesticks show after some breakfast. Jamie Bruno was just finishing up her addition to the room and Lenny Corea had added his marks (ranks upon ranks of ink-drawn, zygote like nodules) the night before. The two had opened up the ceiling to expose the organs of the building overhead, officially breaking the seal on the Post-NeoAbsurdist Perpetual Exhibition Machine. Jamie explained the lighting they'd set up while we navigated the string bound corners of the room and examined the miniature, yarn entanglements that alighted around Lenny's ink-leavings. For some hours, between running errands and spreading the word around the building I sat and talked with Tsubasa, Olchar and Brad as he painted leg-lobed vagipenises issuing from the sides of Lenny's wall drawing. It reminded me of the days when Brad used to paint in a room adjoining our living room at our place in Columbus Ohio. Talking with Brad in this social nerve center of the household as he worked was a daily activity.

At 8:00pm after some of the first visitors arrived Brad laid into a reading of Chants de Maldoror and explained the passage's significance in terms of how Lautréamont addresses the hermaphrodite and his interest in its existence as an undecidable subject. The hermaphrodite is beaten and prayed for. More people began to arrive. Brad read two new poems from a book he made (hint hint) for the exhibition entitled hermaphrodite. The poems seemed to detail the extra-romantic encounters of some as yet unborn Post-Neo sexual (thank you Evan Damrow). By the end of his second poem the relatively structured language broke down into herky-jerky spasms of garble-words reminiscent of his Split Tongue.

With anti-gears well lubed we commenced with the John M. Bennett reading. Olchar struck first, dexterously lip-locking the words with the aplomb of an ardent Bennettere. I planted myself and let one rip. Brad fiendishly chawed another with his tell-tale jabber-shouts. We handed the poems around to the gathered visitors giving everyone a chance to put down their noisemaker and operate one of John's phonetic jungle gyms. Tomislav V. Butkovic interpreted a poem using a slide-whistle. Olchar read a poem torn in half. Brad and I read a poem backwards. Jamie, who couldn't be there that night, read poems over the speaker on a cellphone generously loaned to us by Kate Illes. Lenny Corea, Megan Blafas, Steve Dolnack, and Andy Wolf also contributed their own distinct interpretations. As the tempo grew John's poems began intermixing with randomly derived performo-vocal exchanges between veterans of brute salon and PNA-New Jersey soirées. This resulted in noisemaker sculpture, free-style conversations in Bennett inspired tongues, and the random interspersing of 'vim's, 'barr's, 'blit's, 'the shirt's, 'vom's, 'blat's, 'the sheet's, and 'anti's within and around the poems.

Stay tuned for more images and video detailing Fiddlesticks: A Post-Neoabsurdist Perpetual Exhibition Machine's second escapade which includes work by Alan Reed, Charlotte Whalen, Angie Lennard, and Tsubasa Berg. We're planning a 'Familiar Hospital' event to coincide with the opening; Hector Clam is in critical condition after injuries sustained at last night's Bosche on Ice (more on this later) and most of you've heard of Professor Aristotle's continuing struggle with neck-leprosy. The evening will be capped off off with a Silent Soirée at our apartment leading into Olchar's reading of poems by Imogene Engine.

Video from the FIDDLESTICKS #1 Reading

Here are some highlights from the readings of Brad Chriss's and John M. Bennett's work at the kick-off for the first installment of the FIDDLESTICKS gallery:

Chriss introduces his set with commentary and a chapter from the Comte de Lautréamont's 'Chants de Maldoror' of 1869.

Introductory commentary and Chriss reads his poem 'A Divine Crackle'





Chriss reads his poem 'hermaphrodite.'





W. Fry reads Bennett's 'Jleeber'; O. Lindsann & B. Chriss rip J.M. Bennett; Fry & Chriss rorrim Bennett.





Lindsann and Fry tag-team Bennett





B. Chriss chortles JMB





The whole crowd gives Bennett a go in turns, culminating in T. Butković translating him into horn.





W. Fry stirs up Bennett's 'La M al'





Lindsann and a guest split duties on a Be Blank Consort piece.





W. Fry & T. Butković turn Bennett upside down and inside out





A little Noisemaker-tower of babel is constructed to Bennett as babbled by Fry and Lenny Corea (responsible for the wall drawing facing the door of the gallery).





Chriss and Butković shred Bennett with their lungs.





Lindsann throttles Cantar del Huff in the midst of inexcusable craziness that is ENTIRELY John Bennett's fault, we assure you.





Jamie Bruno (responsible for the forest strings amidst which this all takes place) phones Bennett in from a lavatory someplace, to the support of everyone else. Everyone else pulls their cell phones out too.





Megan Blafas and Warren Fry trap Bennett between a rock and a hard place.




We may post a few more over the next couple days, we're still going through the footage! And look out VERY soon for official information on the next FIDDLESTICKS evolution this coming Saturday as Tsubasa Berg, Charlotte Whalen, Angee Lennard, and Alan Reed move in to the L&F Gallery.

Olchar's Report on the Chriss/Bennett Reading

The FIDDLESTICKS exhibition, a three-month show at the Lost & Found Gallery leading up to the Anti-Festival in June, opened last Saturday with work by Bradley Chriss, Lenny Corea, and Jamie Bruno. Photos and a video of what they did with the space are posted below, Lenny's vaguely Cthuloid clusters of phalluses wrapping around the wall, merging into Brad's choratic and androgenous prima materia, with Jamie's string angling across the space, slicing off the corners, and wrapping itself around the appendages of Lenny's drawing.

At 8:00 the series kicked off with a reading by Chriss, followed by a reading by all of us of poems by John M. Bennett. Here's my own report of the event, hopefully other people who were there/involved will post their own too.

Brad's reading, formulated around the notion of the Hermaphrodite, moved back and forth between his thoughts on the hermaphrodite as a figure, and his poems in which he engages with it. He started out with a reading of the chapter on the hermaphrodite from Lautréamont's Chants de Maldoror (Book II, Strophe 7), which certainly made my fucking day at the very least. As the chapter progressed, his rhythms and cadences began to subtly disrupt the text, they developed their own ebb and flow that worked independently of the grammar and sense of the passage. It's the first time I've heard someone other than myself voice this seminal text, and it was nice seeing this gesture of turning back to examine this tradition that he (and we all) are continuing, so that we can all take a measure of both how an Anti-Tradition has developed and changed, and also of the continual projects and concerns that we share with our counterparts 150 years ago... Brad then read two other poems on the hermaphrodite from his book-in-progress, hermaphrodite. These poems are quite a bit more constrained and refined than his earlier stuff (formally at least; in most other ways they're still pretty, mm, balls-out shall we say?) and his reading was more restrained as well, which (as a kind of microcosm of the progress of his set as a whole) made the final, a-semic strophe of the second poem that much more effective as it broke apart into rhythmic phonetics.

Which led us right into the Bennett reading.

We began with the (by now ritual) Distribution of the Noise-Makers. Warren, Brad, Tomislav Butković, and myself planned to take turns reading at random from a stack of Bennett poems to the accompaniment of everyone else--we had La M al, Sound Dirt, Cantar del Huff, Backwords (Quite a bit of Konstelanetz got read somewhere during the evening as well, an interesting added dimension of a joint endeavour on that book's model), and a thick sheaf of printouts of recent poems, especially from John's Globbolalia series. We would offer the opportunity to any of our guests to come up and give it a go themselves. As so often happens with New Jersey Post-Neo crowds, their energy was too restless to allow anything so straightforward to proceed. After several poems, Brad sent a stack of poems around the room, forcing everybody to step into John's linguistic world at least once. As the texts began to crisscross the room, there would sometimes be a couple going at once, sometimes read intentionally as simultaneous poems and sometimes nearly oblivious to each other; an impromptu assemblage grew out of the floor, and it took on the quality of a Brute Salon (the gatherings of collective automatism that have been going on intermittently in New Brunswick for the last couple of years), though the spine of Bennett's texts being read--sometimes as the centre of activity, sometimes on the periphery--provided a textual and (a-)linguistic continuity. Not what we had expected or planned, but it is nice to be surprised by your friends sometimes. Whenever new people showed up they were commanded to perform duets with us--Lenny, Andy Wolf, Megan Blafas when she arrived from Washington at the height of the thing. Jamie was unable to attend the event in person, so she called in to a speaker phone lent to us by the audience and belted out some Bennett poems from a bathroom stall someplace for about 15 minutes. (a side-note: as it happens, the set of Bennett poems performed by David Beris Edwards and I at the Anti-Festival in England a year and a half ago also took place in the toilet.) The phone sparked off some other ideas and Steve Dolnack started playing feedback produced by playing two cell phones off each other. At this point precise memories begin to fail me, perhaps other people can fill you in, but--eventually it all ended, apparently, everyone very kindly pitched in cleaning the place up, and a group of us went out and got pizza, then back home for further refreshments.

There will be some photos and video posted as soon as possible; we've got a pretty driving schedule here but we're getting everything up as quickly as possible.

This weekend--in fact later today--is BOSCH ON ICE, organised by Tom Russotti, which we'll get reports up on as well once we can do so; and the following weekend FIDDLESTICKS will undergo its first metamorphosis as Tsubasa Berg (New Brunswick), Alan Reed (Quebec), Charlotte Whalen (New Brunswick), and Angee Lennard (Chicago) move their stuff in; celebrated by (among other things) a Silent Soiree (this idea's been in the air for a long time) and a reading by myself (Olchar) of poems by the Ohio Post-Neo, Imogene Engine.

JOHN M. BENNETT READING Photos

Here are a few photos of the John M.Bennett reading at the Lost & Found Gallery, taken by Tsubasa Berg and other people as the camera was passed around. We'll get some video up presently as well, and a flickr account with more photos.

Brad Chriss reads from Lautréamont.


Chriss reads hermaphrodite.

Warren Fry reads John M. Bennett


Brad Chriss reads Bennett


Sarah Grannet gives Bennett a go


Olchar and a guest perform a Be Blank Consort piece.


Chriss Bemused by Bennett.


...and then this happened...


Jamie Bruno belts Bennett through a mobile phone.