Saturday, April 24, 2010
Typing in Public.
On Saturday, May 15, 2010, volunteers paired with typewriters will be stationed at various locations in the city of San Luis Obispo. Anyone is allowed to sit and type for 10-15 minutes (we'll have timers). It can be something you've composed or something you've read (with attribution).
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I was thrilled to be asked by Mignon Khargie to contribute a "spur" for budding typists-in-public; a sentence or a few to help people who are participating in Typing in Public to get started. My mind immediately went back to that game you play where one person writes two lines on a piece of paper, folds it over so there's only one line visible, and hands it off to the next person. Here's what happened:
I can't wait to see if people write stories using this as their starter. After May 15, I'll report back, and perhaps even write a wee story here myself, or at least explain how "I always case the exits" sprang to mind. You can see some of the other "spurs" here.
Posted at 10:14 AM
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Publisher's Notice
By openlibrary.org
From a wonderful book find I made today: Dr. Chase's Third, Last and Complete Receipt Book and Household Physician, or, Practical Knowledge for the People, published in 1897.
Posted at 4:45 PM
Saturday, April 17, 2010
A choir as big as the Internet.
185 voices from 12 countries join a choir that spans the globe: "Lux Aurumque," composed and conducted by Eric Whitacre, merges hundreds of tracks individually recorded and posted to YouTube.
I heard somewhere once that the measure of a city's cultural capital was the number of choirs it has. Isn't it wonderful that in spite of the choristers sitting alone in their rooms, they are able to produce this? Seems like the next step forward from projects like A Bicycle Built for Two Thousand, a project by Aaron Koblin and Daniel Massey, another of my favourite web experiments.
If you compare the two pieces, deconstruction of the physical proximity is obvious. Distinct bits of a work joined together. I've sung in choirs before - Handel's Messiah with Mum & Sister & our friend Jo, in fact - so I've felt joy in deliberate collective (choral) action in a physical place. There's really nothing like it. But now, suddenly, perhaps there is. Even just the look of ethereal joy on the solo soprano's face in Whitacre's (albeit slightly cheesy) performance seems like some sort of transcendence. To me at least. Even in spite of the oddness of imagining the other 184 people singing their hearts out in isolation in their bedrooms.
The polyphony of Whitacre's piece and re-use of A Bicycle Built for Two are both interesting projections of the internet. Those all-major-keys-all-at-once and that-song-that-lots-of-people-know both reflect a curious breadth of us.
Reminds me too of a fabulous video piece I saw SFMoMA some time ago, ON VIEW by Candice Breitz, although that construction seems more terrestrial in some way; not contrived to be created and exist solely on the internet.
Imagine 25 of the most ardent John Lennon fans simultaneously singing along to his first solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970), from beginning to end. Artist Candice Breitz gathered such a group, selecting Lennon devotees from around the world to individually pay tribute to their idol. Displayed on 25 screens, the resulting video installation, Working Class Hero (A Portrait of John Lennon) (2006), synchronizes the fans' performances in off-kilter harmony. The impassioned chorus sings for 39 minutes and 55 seconds (the exact length of the album).
Breitz edits. Koblin and Massey manipulate. Whitacre conducts. I'm not sure why this jumped out at me. Feels like there's a butterfly flapping its wings somewhere.
Posted at 10:43 AM
Friday, April 16, 2010
Artifacts of Paper Torture
By George
I was recently in Washington DC for a symposium at which I took lots of notes that I intend to transcribe. In the meantime, here's a picture I took within the bowels of the Smithsonian Archive; the archive of the museum itself. A lovely couple of hours (thank you Tammy & Effie) spent trawling the depths of various accession records and a few choice gems including a letter written by a Wright brother and a draft of Smithson's will.
It really is one of my favourite things, to be introduced to a collection, in person, by the people who know it.