a. a fishbowl
and
b. dramatic lighting
(n.)
12.29.2006
12.20.2006
12.19.2006
On the failure of the phenomenon of sainthood
On Beatification (I momentarily lack the source for this):
The next step toward sainthood is beatification. Beatification allows a person to be honored by a particular group or region. In order to beatify a candidate, it must be shown that the person is responsible for a posthumous miracle. Martyrs, those who died for their religious cause, can be beatified without evidence of a miracle.
Right, so if I go out and get myself killed for God, I don’t actually have to perform a posthumous miracle, which honestly, seems somewhat inconvenient, what with being dead and all.
Food for thought.
(n.)
The next step toward sainthood is beatification. Beatification allows a person to be honored by a particular group or region. In order to beatify a candidate, it must be shown that the person is responsible for a posthumous miracle. Martyrs, those who died for their religious cause, can be beatified without evidence of a miracle.
Right, so if I go out and get myself killed for God, I don’t actually have to perform a posthumous miracle, which honestly, seems somewhat inconvenient, what with being dead and all.
Food for thought.
(n.)
Rejects 2
Rejected Failures!
Here are some of the failures that were considered for character/plot elements in the opera (going up in Chicago in April) and were subsequently rejected.
(…err…at least maybe…I still don’t really know what’s going on with anything in Act 1.)
They are categorized according to the type / cause of failure, and further judged as to whether they are “tragic,” or “just a failure.”
Google any of them for further information. Fictional characters/events regarded, for these purposes as “real.”
CAUSELESS / INEXPLICABLE FAILURE
The state of North Dakota
Just a failure
George W. Bush
Just a failure
The US Railroad System
Just a failure
FAILURE OF LOGIC
The Prodigal Son’s Brother
We had a fight about this one
George W. Bush might also fit in this category
Again, just a failure
MAN-MADE "NATURAL DISASTERS"
Centralia, PA
Just a failure
Tacoma Narrows Bridge
Just a failure
Cuyahoga River
Just a failure
Nauru
Tragic
Killer Bees
Just a failure (and doubly so...since they also, like Y2K, failed to be the threat they were trumped up to be)
"BRAVE," BUT SHIT ON BY NATURE
Hemingway’s Santiago
Tragic
Thomas Harvey Smith
Undecided
"BRAVE" BUT MISGUIDED
Eilmer of Malmesbury
Just a Failure
(Eilmer might still make the cut and slip into the show)
Thomas Harvey Smith could possibly be here too
The Weathermen / Weather Underground
Just Failures
"BRAVE," NOT MISGUIDED, BUT SHIT ON BY OTHER PEOPLE
Don Quixote
Tragic
John Brown
Tragic
St. Ursula was also in this category and decidedly tragic…I think the aim is to make her walk the line of "tragic" and "just a failure."
PAWNS IN A GREATER GAME
Stravinsky’s Rake
Undecided
Berg’s Wozzeck
Just a failure
Hagar
Tragic
TOO FAMOUS (FAILED TO BE AT ALL OBSCURE)
The Hindenburg
We had a fight about this one too
Das Boot
Tragic
(not the movie, the sub and the guys in the movie)
Howard Hughes Spruce Goose
(We actually fought about whether or not this was even a failure in the technical sense…I mean, the thing flew, albeit years too late, and billions of dollars too expensively.)
PS.
We had discussed the repeated assassination of the now lame-duck W as a substantial plot element, but maybe the democratic congress will take care of that for us.
If you type “greatest failure in history” into Google, the biography of George Bush is the no. 3 hit. He used to be no.2, but the Iraq War has taken over at no.1.
Ahh, Google, the arbiter of the collective consciousness.
(n.)
Here are some of the failures that were considered for character/plot elements in the opera (going up in Chicago in April) and were subsequently rejected.
(…err…at least maybe…I still don’t really know what’s going on with anything in Act 1.)
They are categorized according to the type / cause of failure, and further judged as to whether they are “tragic,” or “just a failure.”
Google any of them for further information. Fictional characters/events regarded, for these purposes as “real.”
CAUSELESS / INEXPLICABLE FAILURE
The state of North Dakota
Just a failure
George W. Bush
Just a failure
The US Railroad System
Just a failure
FAILURE OF LOGIC
The Prodigal Son’s Brother
We had a fight about this one
George W. Bush might also fit in this category
Again, just a failure
MAN-MADE "NATURAL DISASTERS"
Centralia, PA
Just a failure
Tacoma Narrows Bridge
Just a failure
Cuyahoga River
Just a failure
Nauru
Tragic
Killer Bees
Just a failure (and doubly so...since they also, like Y2K, failed to be the threat they were trumped up to be)
"BRAVE," BUT SHIT ON BY NATURE
Hemingway’s Santiago
Tragic
Thomas Harvey Smith
Undecided
"BRAVE" BUT MISGUIDED
Eilmer of Malmesbury
Just a Failure
(Eilmer might still make the cut and slip into the show)
Thomas Harvey Smith could possibly be here too
The Weathermen / Weather Underground
Just Failures
"BRAVE," NOT MISGUIDED, BUT SHIT ON BY OTHER PEOPLE
Don Quixote
Tragic
John Brown
Tragic
St. Ursula was also in this category and decidedly tragic…I think the aim is to make her walk the line of "tragic" and "just a failure."
PAWNS IN A GREATER GAME
Stravinsky’s Rake
Undecided
Berg’s Wozzeck
Just a failure
Hagar
Tragic
TOO FAMOUS (FAILED TO BE AT ALL OBSCURE)
The Hindenburg
We had a fight about this one too
Das Boot
Tragic
(not the movie, the sub and the guys in the movie)
Howard Hughes Spruce Goose
(We actually fought about whether or not this was even a failure in the technical sense…I mean, the thing flew, albeit years too late, and billions of dollars too expensively.)
PS.
We had discussed the repeated assassination of the now lame-duck W as a substantial plot element, but maybe the democratic congress will take care of that for us.
If you type “greatest failure in history” into Google, the biography of George Bush is the no. 3 hit. He used to be no.2, but the Iraq War has taken over at no.1.
Ahh, Google, the arbiter of the collective consciousness.
(n.)
Well, I was hoping it would spit out ME...(though I can't say I'm ENTIRELY disappointed with the result)
Which fucked-up genius composer are you?
Tom Waits... charismatic story-teller with a penchant for freaky people and unusual settings. You thrive on the concept of the underdog coming out on top.
Take this quiz!
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12.14.2006
Rejects 1
In the spirit of:
1. failure,
2. the recent spectacular premier of my sax quartet - Drawling the Rusted Vacuum Breath (one
sunset too many) by the PRISM Quartet in NYC/Philadelphia (did you go?),
3. the ongoing need to title the opera, the "draft" of which has not only been presented to the powers that be but also to the performers that be,
I hereby present the list of reject titles for the sax quartet: (** this is NOT a contrived list...these were actual potential titles that were, for however briefly, considered in the title-making process.)
And at the end of the day, then what?
Like a sideshow pony ride walking in circles…
careful…it’s a bit of Levy
Far Away Looking at Numbers
The Only Way
A Reexamination of the American Condition, Part I
A Reconsideration of the American Condition, Part 14
A Reconsideration of the History of the Integral Musician in the New World
A Reexamination of the History of the Tenor Aria in the New World
Your Guess is as good as mine.
The Rebirth of the Tenor Aria in the New World
Ten. Or so prano al to baritone
Outside: Music.
beyond vision looking at numbers
a revised history of integers
a reconsideration of the history of integers: outside
Historically Preceded
Defining Performance Practice: (insert agrarian reference here)
Reconsidering (insert integral object here) in an Old Historical Context.
(insert anonymous laborer here)
anonymity is relative
Lomax the Lorax
Lomax’s Thorax
Lomax’s Thoracic
The Forgotten Labors of the Monochromatistriadinae Centipede
(which, historically, was not always invisible)
And Now, We Stridulate.
Morning Stridulations.
AM Stridor
Till Can’t See
From Can’t See Till
Field Mutations.
Mutated Stridulations
In the Distance, Looking at Numbers
The Invisible Labors of the Monochromatic Striadinae Centipedinae
(which has not always been forgotten)
Lieder ohne Tanzen
Far Away Reexamining the Numbers Far Away
A Good Old Fashioned Stridulaiton
Stridulate, Just Like We Used To
Which Has Not Always Been Forgotten
The Invisible Motions of
Forgotten Motions Invisible
Oxidized Stridulations (which have not always been invisible)
De-oxidizing Stridulations
Rusted Breath and the promise of the Never Ending Melody
aint yo mamas dramaturgy
Oxidized Stridulations, (which did not always exist in a vacuum)
Oxidized Stridulations (which did not always keep time with an axe)
did not always keep time with an axe
Rusted Vacuum Breath
Drawling the Rusted Vacuum Breath (Lomax revisits/redux)
Drawling the Rusted Vacuum Breath (one sunset too many)
How Lomax Uncrushed the Thorax of the Monochromatistriadinae Centipede
How Lomax Uncrushed the Centipede
Rosie Lomax
counterpoint: the other species
The Other Species
The Other Species’s Counterpoint
one sunset too many
my bulldog takes sugar in his coffee
The title of this piece is excerpted from the following conversation, which never took place on the twelfth of October, 20-- :
(n.)
1. failure,
2. the recent spectacular premier of my sax quartet - Drawling the Rusted Vacuum Breath (one
sunset too many) by the PRISM Quartet in NYC/Philadelphia (did you go?),
3. the ongoing need to title the opera, the "draft" of which has not only been presented to the powers that be but also to the performers that be,
I hereby present the list of reject titles for the sax quartet: (** this is NOT a contrived list...these were actual potential titles that were, for however briefly, considered in the title-making process.)
And at the end of the day, then what?
Like a sideshow pony ride walking in circles…
careful…it’s a bit of Levy
Far Away Looking at Numbers
The Only Way
A Reexamination of the American Condition, Part I
A Reconsideration of the American Condition, Part 14
A Reconsideration of the History of the Integral Musician in the New World
A Reexamination of the History of the Tenor Aria in the New World
Your Guess is as good as mine.
The Rebirth of the Tenor Aria in the New World
Ten. Or so prano al to baritone
Outside: Music.
beyond vision looking at numbers
a revised history of integers
a reconsideration of the history of integers: outside
Historically Preceded
Defining Performance Practice: (insert agrarian reference here)
Reconsidering (insert integral object here) in an Old Historical Context.
(insert anonymous laborer here)
anonymity is relative
Lomax the Lorax
Lomax’s Thorax
Lomax’s Thoracic
The Forgotten Labors of the Monochromatistriadinae Centipede
(which, historically, was not always invisible)
And Now, We Stridulate.
Morning Stridulations.
AM Stridor
Till Can’t See
From Can’t See Till
Field Mutations.
Mutated Stridulations
In the Distance, Looking at Numbers
The Invisible Labors of the Monochromatic Striadinae Centipedinae
(which has not always been forgotten)
Lieder ohne Tanzen
Far Away Reexamining the Numbers Far Away
A Good Old Fashioned Stridulaiton
Stridulate, Just Like We Used To
Which Has Not Always Been Forgotten
The Invisible Motions of
Forgotten Motions Invisible
Oxidized Stridulations (which have not always been invisible)
De-oxidizing Stridulations
Rusted Breath and the promise of the Never Ending Melody
aint yo mamas dramaturgy
Oxidized Stridulations, (which did not always exist in a vacuum)
Oxidized Stridulations (which did not always keep time with an axe)
did not always keep time with an axe
Rusted Vacuum Breath
Drawling the Rusted Vacuum Breath (Lomax revisits/redux)
Drawling the Rusted Vacuum Breath (one sunset too many)
How Lomax Uncrushed the Thorax of the Monochromatistriadinae Centipede
How Lomax Uncrushed the Centipede
Rosie Lomax
counterpoint: the other species
The Other Species
The Other Species’s Counterpoint
one sunset too many
my bulldog takes sugar in his coffee
The title of this piece is excerpted from the following conversation, which never took place on the twelfth of October, 20-- :
(n.)
12.08.2006
Like the waxing and waning of the tides
...deadlines come...deadlines go....
nothing changes (has changed?) really.
In other Opera Cabal news:
~ Nobody wins a cheesecake and I still don't have a title.
~ Arianna Pilram is on board to compile/edit our "Found Film."
(Send us found film so that Arianna has something to do! So far I've been promised Super-8 footage of parka-wrapped kids staring at an Alaskan moose...and that's it really.)
~ I decided that cabbage soup is for people who don't have access to late-night burrito shops.
(n.)
12.07.2006
Found Film + Feldman
Saturday April 7, 2:30pm
ZB Art Center
as part of the Collusions Festival,
Opera Cabal will present
Morton Feldman's
"For Christian Wolff"
Accompanying this wonderfully long and compulsively static piece of music is a three-ish-hour-long film that hasn't been made yet.
We have the Feldman,
we need the "found film."
We're looking for video clips of any length (preferably not shorter than 10 seconds or so, but as long as you like, not exceeding 3 hours) of you or anyone or anything you know doing anything interesting or not interesting so that we can create the non-existent film.
In the great traditions of found objects and found letters, we're having a go at "found film." We will string together the clips that we receive into one 3-hour film that will be played with Feldman on the afternoon of April 7 in the Zhou gallery. Higher-quality footage is great, lower quality footage will suffice.
Consider anything, and consider that the theme of the festival (Collusions) is something to the effect of "unlikely pairings," so for example, footage of you pretending to be Christian Wolff pretending to be that little clone girl who terrorizes the old woman in that Aphex Twin video, and your best friend pretending to be the Richard D James-devil-head-thing climbing out of the TV, all staged inside a retired diesel submarine and shot on Super-8 when you turned 18 would be PERFECT.
You can send clips to: <operacabal@gmail.com>. You can also hand off
tapes (preferably mini-dv, vhs will do) to me in La Jolla, Jon in
Winnipeg, Lisa in New York, or Majel in Chicago.
Warning: if you send us material, it may very well be played in public.
If you were considering buying any of us a Christmas present, please consider
submitting a videotape instead.
(PS. I believe the Feldman image belongs to the music library at SUNY Buffalo.)
(n.)
ZB Art Center
as part of the Collusions Festival,
Opera Cabal will present
Morton Feldman's 
"For Christian Wolff"
Accompanying this wonderfully long and compulsively static piece of music is a three-ish-hour-long film that hasn't been made yet.
We have the Feldman,
we need the "found film."
We're looking for video clips of any length (preferably not shorter than 10 seconds or so, but as long as you like, not exceeding 3 hours) of you or anyone or anything you know doing anything interesting or not interesting so that we can create the non-existent film.
In the great traditions of found objects and found letters, we're having a go at "found film." We will string together the clips that we receive into one 3-hour film that will be played with Feldman on the afternoon of April 7 in the Zhou gallery. Higher-quality footage is great, lower quality footage will suffice.
Consider anything, and consider that the theme of the festival (Collusions) is something to the effect of "unlikely pairings," so for example, footage of you pretending to be Christian Wolff pretending to be that little clone girl who terrorizes the old woman in that Aphex Twin video, and your best friend pretending to be the Richard D James-devil-head-thing climbing out of the TV, all staged inside a retired diesel submarine and shot on Super-8 when you turned 18 would be PERFECT.
You can send clips to: <operacabal@gmail.com>. You can also hand off
tapes (preferably mini-dv, vhs will do) to me in La Jolla, Jon in
Winnipeg, Lisa in New York, or Majel in Chicago.
Warning: if you send us material, it may very well be played in public.
If you were considering buying any of us a Christmas present, please consider
submitting a videotape instead.
(PS. I believe the Feldman image belongs to the music library at SUNY Buffalo.)
(n.)
12.06.2006
12.04.2006
"Sometimes you set out walking briskly on the path to disaster"
With those words, Ira Glass introduced last week's episode of TAL.
Here's my particular itinerary:
http://www.cabbage-soup-diet.com
I'm thinking of it less as a "diet" and more of a "consumption experiment," what with 3 and half days until deadline and a disclaimer that says, "you should only go on this diet for one week at a time, then resume your normal eating for at least two weeks. The cabbage soup diet is too low in complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins and minerals to continue for longer than this."
Fasting turns me into a useless heap of non-productivity (y'know, lying about counting the number of times you blink between sips of lemon-juice/cayanne water). This seems like it might strike a balance....asceticism for the hedonist.
For example, today I've consumed:
2.5 lbs of mixed berries (yum yum)
1 apple (fuji - very sweet)
32 oz. pure unfiltered blueberry juice
2.5 lbs. of red seedless grapes (- well, I didn't eat the stems, so maybe less than that)
16oz. coffee (no dairy/sugar)
lots of water
The namesake soup is simmering as I type. I'm a little LESS excited about this, but all in the name of the experiment, yes?
Perhaps in a flash of not enough complex carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, and minerals I'll come up with a title for the opera.
Maybe that will happen on nothing-but-bananas-and-skim-milk-day.
(n.)
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