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July 27, 2005
Week 20 and We Are All Liars, Everyone
That's Asashoryu. Small but still the Champ. And those are shittake mushrooms. A whole lot of 'em.
So I lied last week. I said it was Week 20. And then I got all Stalin just now and changed the text so it said Week 19. The web is good like that. You can realize your inner Stalin.
Enough. Poems from Mel Nichols; photos from Heather Fuller; more poems from Rod Smith. What do they have in common, besides all the ass-kickin? They're all reading together in Baltimore on Saturday, July 30. At Once.Twice: Sound. Get it on.
(Turn back to Week 17 for more details on that.)
Once again thanks, Raj, for view from around the world. Stay safe.
This is a lot more than we usually assign for a week. We believe in you.
Week 20 Contents
Tons-o-matic from Heather Fuller, Mel Nichols and Rod Smith
Voiceover, Mel Nichols
Ghost Brain, Rod Smith
Neighbors, Heather Fuller (photography)
Poem, Rod Smith
Ghost Brain, Rod Smith (a different Ghost Brain)
3 Poems, Mel Nichols
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:50 AM
Voiceover
Mel Nichols
in a minute you'll see the heart--it's very beautiful cut to the surgeon and the wax man yellow with his chest wide open red don't touch anything blue or green the profusionist said while the nurse writes the instrument count on the board the airplane pinned beneath a swath of water on your way to luxurious grass once again we enter the stream there is nothing I need or don't need
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:45 AM
Ghost Brain
Rod Smith
the sun like a toasted amarillis
tips lightly half-backward & ups
its likely faultlike effervescing forwarrd
four times & I find my socks.
the legalities
tumble then
twice &
loom, hippylike, out, final, serious, clumsily costumed --
the knuckles placate in’em, roost there, pals
encapsulate or a path opens
the hope which is poetry
& my heart maybe it
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:40 AM
Neighbors
Heather Fuller
(click to enlarge)
***
***
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:30 AM
Poem
Rod Smith
our world, it is inappropriate
the land of the fee
kitty heads in the percussion cage
& great morphed insult-sized harbingers
a lastly alphabetbotlike feedback-loop &--
secret--
brazen then them awake
this totaled hope again
brazen then them awake
this totaled hope
this totaled hope
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:15 AM
Ghost Brain
Rod Smith
Big fun, like
a selected text. Moron
for example
or **nude twilight**
the dang adverb’s got
‘emsef a humbing-dandy
pre-poseishun.
jerkladen howdies
to yr mammy & pappy.
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:14 AM
3 Poems
Mel Nichols
Day Poem
everything
snow cones
25 cents
please knock on door
two bolts in the mouth
and a pie in the face
while I am always sleeping
reading glasses found
under a bag of potato chips
a stack of Styrofoam cups
with the bottoms hacked off
an unmarked car
with a marked man
a girl with jacki-O hair and rectangle glasses
a new year
tell me tell me tell
me tell me something
I can hold onto for a week
or two
we are going to get serious
about project management
we are going to spend
a lot of money on project
management software to prove it
soy sauce mixed with wasabi
in a a disposable cup on the desk
hey hey someone’s got a new manpurse
hey someone’s got collapsible
chopsticks in his pocket
the beer was freezing
and we never finished building the igloo
I was totally under-prepared to
conjugate my –ir verbs but hey
I’m feeling lucky
***
Day Poem
don’t let the door slam can’t you
effing read don’t let the door slam
don’t slam it
guess they don’t get a lot of snow
in Kentucky
everyone kept telling the one about
the time they used a car hood as a sled
love of machines
love of country
love of the card game
love of while you were out
I wrote you a memo on
a pink pad of paper
He’s the George Burns of trance.
the roof was pulling
away from the walls
I can hear the pages turn
as you read
the rain was leaking in
***
Day Poem
I opened the door and saw
an entire chunk of roof had fallen
into the back yard
does it come with a TV mini-series
can it make a three-minute pesto
I wanted our keys to be
tangled up together in your pocket
there is rain in this and also fire and also snow
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:10 AM
July 20, 2005
Week 19 Loves You Tender, Loves You Blue
This week we bring you a long-awaited track from Rod Smith's new CD "Fear the Sky" (Narrowhouse Recordings) and accompanying text for the read-along-at-home audience.
So it seemd to be a good time to interview Narrowhouse Recordings' chief instigators, Justin Sirois, whose works been 'round these parts. We need people like Justin with Narrowhouse -- or Rod with the Bridgestreet reading series -- who are creating channels for the rest of us to share our work and carving out their own space in the culture machine.
Rock Heals wants to spread the word on what it takes to put together your own thing -- the ease, difficulty, cost, effort, reward -- to make it more human and achievable and to help get us off our collective asses and building more of these spaces, projects, or what have you in your own special way. If you have a story to tell along these lines -- hit us with them at < submit at rockheals dot com >. The same goes for any other work that ready for the sharin'.
Next week is Rod's CD release party (July 30) so we'll run some more release-related shizzle for you 7 short days from now.
Week 19 Contents
Identity is the Cause of Warts by Rod Smith (audio and text)
12+ Questions with Narrowhouse Recordings
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:50 AM
Identity is the Cause of Warts
Rod Smith
Listen to the poem (MP3, 2:05, 2.5MB) from Rod's new CD "Fear the Sky" (Narrowhouse Recordings, 2005).
i have a toad. its name is buber. buber the toad. buber raises rabbits. the rabbits live in a big can named big can. or rabbit can. mostly they complain. buber bangs the lid for them to calm down. it doesn't work. at the last annual convening of the international monetary fund buber spoke to a packed house about toadstuff. he talked it up good & the bankers banged their lids. sometimes buber & me smoke pot. other times usually while banging buber has a twitch of sympathy but always for himself & he calls the phone & it says anything so he bangs on it too Π& i feel sorry for it & hang around with all these other things in the room wondering about this banging toad in my life. buber gets a bygosh bygolly expression which on a toad looks like all their other expressions but that toad'll sing "Little girl I don't work in no candy kitchen / Na & I don't sell no chewin' gum." do any of you folks have toads. can you help me through my toad difficulties. sometimes i lie asleep all night. i just can't take it anywhere anymore. sometimes i think i should get a frog instead but my friend jigs casey has a frog & he built a nuclear weapon with it & i'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't call me anymore.
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:40 AM
12+ Questions for Narrowhouse Recordings
Over the course of the past few months, leading up to their latest CD release, I chatted up one of the Narrowhouse brains, Justin Sirois. You’ve seen his work around these and other parts. If you haven’t, you should.
+++
Rock Heals: What is Narrowhouse Recordings and how did you get started?
Justin: I’ve struggled with describing narrow house to people for the past year and a half. At first we [Andrew Miller and I] approached it as an “avant garde poetry record label”, but the term was too loaded and people were like, “what the hell is avant garde, anyway”. Now I just tell folks we’re a record label which produces progressive writing, some political work and some experimental poetry. Maybe approaching the label from an indie rock background might have made the whole thing seem odd, but it’s definitely interesting to treat poems the way you would a full length album.
We were definitely fly by night when we started. Anselm Berrigan agreed to record in the summer of 2003 after reading at the Washington Printmaker’s Gallery. I remember being a bit nervous about asking him to do a record because I really had no idea what I was doing. At that point we didn’t have a proper studio (not that we do now) so Andrew and I drove to New York to record the album. Fortunately, and this might sound completely insane, a friend of mine worked as an IT guy at Quad Studios in Manhattan – the infamous place where 2Pac got shot (first, nonfatal) in the lobby and where hundreds of pop stars have recorded.
We were all a bit weirded out by the whole experience, but Anselm was extremely professional while the 90 channel solid state logic SL 9000 J series did its thing. That’s probably the most ridiculous part about the experience, using one channel on a million dollar sound board for a CD of poems… if The Rza only knew. Seven hours later we had all the tracks down and we left. Legally we couldn’t credit Quad because we recorded it independently, off their clock, but the irony endures. We even found packs of Dutch Masters and unopened Playstation 2’s under the bed in one of the studio guest suites… nice!
So where's the name come from?
Narrow house is an old euphemism for a coffin. I’ve seen it used in older poems, not sure who wrote it originally… just Googled it and Dickinson popped up. It’s also Baltimore feeling/sounding. All the city row houses are narrow and the coffin imagery evokes a bit of (the) Poe who has a strong presence here, you know, with the Ravens being so popular. Yikes!
One of the hurdles facing any new venture, and one that keeps most of us from starting, is resources. We see time and time again, a little ingenuity go a long way in getting a new project off the ground. What has it taken to keep Narrowhouse afloat?
I’ve been paying for all of the recordings and related expenses, but we initially started off with an individual awards grant from the Maryland State Art Council. It’s been a bit rough starting out, but that’s expected from any new “business.”
As far as promotion, we rely solely on the website acting as the main resource for audio downloads, photos, and interviews. Kevin Thurston has helped a great deal with spreading the word with his interviews and reviews section (double.wide:) and we try to talk to as many people as we can at readings and openings. The more established creative community in DC has been extremely generous; I’d feel a bit out of the loop without them. We do need to focus on distribution though, hopefully SPD will pick us up when Rod’s project is complete.
[Random dialog, and then Narrowhouse turns the interview around a moment.]
Are you going to the Ottobar tonight (Will Oldham)?
Yeah. [Ed note: I didn’t have tickets and the show was sold out – which I didn’t expect, I thought the place held many more people. The people ahead of us in the sold out line had a pretty lady who sweet-talked their group in. I just looked at the door guys and said, yeah, I can’t really compete with that. We drank upstairs for about 20 minutes, and then got in later after some crowd had filtered out, or pity got the better of said doormen. It was a great show.]
How do you go about planning, selecting and soliciting each release?
I guess we stumble into writers as we go. For the most part we’ve known each writer for a short period of time before we approach them, or they’re friends of friends. Garrett Caples, who lives in Oakland, will be an experiment for us though, in a few different ways. He might engineer the entire album by himself (vis-à-vis his home studio) and then send us the audio so we can choose an artist/photographer that fits the sound for the layout. His project will be a blend of poetry and very heady trip/hip hop – should be a fun album.
Planning varies from project to project. We’ll travel if we have to or train/bus/fly writers out to our studio. We mainly rely on the internet to keep in touch with everyone while a project is being engineered and designed – sending PDF proofs or snail mailing CDs for approval. Andrew and I have a plan to streamline the recording process a bit, we were a bit sloppy with Rod’s sessions, but only because of technical difficulties (multiple locations for recording, traveling from Baltimore to DC, computers burning and not burning correctly).
How’s distribution going?
We need to get on that. Right now you can order directly from our website and people in the area can travel to Bridge Street Books in DC. Hopefully SPD will pick us up once Rod’s CD is finished. They should, we’ve had everyone from John Yau to Anselm write letters of recommendation to them. I understand if people are finicky about CD projects, they can be corny, but we’re trying our hardest not to be.
More on resources – how much does "business sense" (likelihood of breaking even even, or even getting a head a little to help fund more stuff) factor into the projects you undertake?
If or when Narrow House begins turning a profit I’ll begin treating it like a business. Until then it’s something fun and meaningful that I do. Of course I have to think about sales (which is a bummer) and we choose more established writers who will most likely sell enough copies for us to break even, but that goes for any industry unless you’re ceiling or costs are next to nothing. We give promotional copies away to universities, the media and friends in the field, but we can’t hand out CDs or leave them at bus stops like your favorite “Free Xerox At Work Press”.
Funding slows us down a bit. Our goal is to release a project once every six months. I can afford to do that out of my own pocket, but it does hurt a bit. We’ve had help from benefactors which is both flattering and encouraging and I give much love (free buttons!) to the real people who give us cash instead of napster-ing Berrigan tracks. That would be a gas.
Do you find it difficult to "keep it going" after the initial adrenaline rush of your first release?
I go through irritating bouts of self doubt, but no more than the (normal?) creative person. Going to readings and talking to like-minded people keeps us motivated because writers are interested in what we’re doing. It sounds cliché, but when you love someone/something the feeling definitely changes or seems less potent, but then you learn to adore it/him/her differently or you appreciate other aspects you didn’t notice before.
The Third Factory Attention Span 2004 listing made us smile and we Google ourselves (everyone’s guilty pleasure) to see who has linked us up, all of that keeps us believing. Most of all I love the community which is growing around the label, it’s the type of culture work that is the most rewarding.
To date, what was the best Narrowhouse moment?
I’d have to say… right now it would be recording Anselm’s record at Quad with tall boys of MGD and 2 Pac’s ghost cringing in the sound booth. Or, when on the way back from our anniversary party at the Bowery Poetry Club we stopped to get gas and watched a U-Haul burn in the parking lot. It was horrible to watch fire fighters pull chunks of melting furniture out of the back of a smoking truck, but it was also kind of beautiful. Hopefully the family was insured.
The worst?
Drunk driving in a Howard Johnson parking lot in St. Mary’s Maryland at three in the morning (where the Women in the Avant Garde CD was recorded) and sailing over an invisible median. Andrew’s rim was bent so bad that he had to replace it along with the shredded tire; we spent the next day getting (more) drunk at a creepy diner across the street from the mechanics.
So, tell us about the new Rod Smith CD.
It’s definitely the funniest of the projects that we’ve produced, funny in a jabbing at your kidneys kind of Rod Smith way.
The opening line is “Sorry Officer, I thought you were a shape shifting rat,” which, I think, is one of the revolving titles of Snips (a cut up poem that changes each time it is read). Originally the first line was “Junior, stop making faces at the chickens.” That cracked me up even more, but we accidentally cut off Junior and it ended up sounding like “unior”. With all the roadblocks we had with this project we opted to cut the second title in there, appropriated from a line in the middle of the piece, to avoid a fifth recording session. Thankfully, the nature of the poem allowed us to do so without ruining the integrity of the work.
I love the whole CD and I think the recording adds a lot of personality to the work that doesn’t translate onto the page. Rod has a very dry, rough style of reading, but his deadpan delivery is perfect for the content and rhythm of the work.
For some reason he reminds me of a really heady, abstract Lewis Black. He might not like that and it might not make any sense, but his work kind of asks, “You know what I’m saying?” and you’re like, “For the most part, yeah.” It’s political, intellectual and humorous but only fully accessible if you pay attention. Did I say Lewis Black?
Rod was very intuitive about the continuity of the tracks, we shared a vision about how it would flow; a few not so serious tracks moving into very language based, more challenging work and then back into something like “All of It’s Gone to Moneyland,” a poem he co-wrote with his daughter that’s cute and anti-capitalistic. I believe that you have to take a lot of care when you organize an album like this. You’ve got to balance the work so the audience doesn’t get bored with too much preachy political work or too much difficult language all crammed together that might take five, ten, twenty replays to understand. Like Anselm’s CD, there’s a section of a long poem at the end of the album, one of my favorite pieces “The Good House,” the entirety of which could fill an album by itself. Then there are very short tracks that are under a minute long to break up the pacing. Basically, it’s the same philosophy as creating a mixtape, you have to be sensitive about how it flows, from beginning to end.
[Rod and I] are both thrilled with the art work as well. Tim Davis, a brilliant photographer from NYC who teaches at Bard, offered up three photos. They’re all very different and it was difficult making them work together into a package, but the whole project turned out great.
What's next for Narrowhouse?
John Yau has agreed to record and we’re extremely excited about that. Personally, I own him a lot as far as turning me onto the New York School poets and Nathanial West and a bunch of other great writers when I was in college.
He is a special type of creative person, one who has, over the course of his career, bridged many gaps between the art world and the poetry world. You look at the scene and you’re like, “everyone should be collaborating with each other in this cross disciplinary way,” but it’s not happening so much. It’ll be cool to have John choose an artist for the packaging, someone who complements his work both orally and in conjunction with the content. He’s an outstanding reader and an audio project might open him up to an even larger audience. After that, Garrett Caples will definitely break some ground with his album, I’m super curious about his trip/hip hop/poem style and how he’ll develop it for the record. Hopefully we can release some CDR projects with lower print runs as well.
Who do you want to record most?
After hearing c.’81 by Alice Notley on the Frequency/Penn Sound site I can’t get it out of my head. A project with her might be in the works via Rod and Anselm (her son). I’d love to work with David Berman or Dan Higgs, both are writers I respect for a number of reasons and I know their projects would expose a younger audience to great writing. I’d love to put out any audio interviews William T. Vollmann might have stashed away, maybe some Tenderloin- or Sarajevo-related recordings if they exist. These people aren’t active in the “poetry scene”, but they’re writers who would benefit from recording their work and sharing it.
Locally… Blaster Al Ackerman would be perfect, he’s a real gem.
Ashbery would be great for obvious reasons.
Since you are running a poetry record label, who is the most interesting reader you've heard and what is the reading you wish you had recorded?
Even though I can’t get through even one page of his written work, Kenny Goldsmith’s performances are outstanding. I need a pocket recorder.
Things Rock Heals didn’t get around to asking about, though Justin wishes we had: elves, diet soda, video games, CNN, arm wrestling and peanut brittle.
+++
Narrowhouse Recording’s latest release is Fear the Sky by Rod Smith. It’s chock full o’ great poems, order directly from Narrowhouse Recordings. It should be at Bridgestreet Books (DC) soon enough, and maybe SPD, down the road.
Learn more about Narrowhouse’s releases and projects at http://www.narrowhouserecordings.com/
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:30 AM
July 13, 2005
Week 18 Is Wall-to-Wall Swelter
The living is easy. But the living is too damn hot.
From the shadows of our air conditioned fortress we've dispatched our man Jon Lee to the field.
What important assignment is keeping him from the glorious humidity? Heat, heat and more heat -- high-tailing his butt down to the Dominican Republic to catch the festival of St. Carmen. He should be reporting back to us soon with special things -- such as a correction on the name and spelling of the festival.
In the meantime, we'll share something completely different from Jon -- part of a something something he's calling the Phoenix Notebook. It's no secret that we love some drama. Enjoy, ladies.
Week 18 Contents
Drama from Jon Lee's Phoenix Notebook:
Simon and Carl
Maryann and Ashton
Ignoramus and Loser
Posted by Rock Heals at 04:50 AM
Phoenix Diaries: Simon and Carl
Jon Lee
SIMON: I want to fuck you.
CARL: You're so blunt.
SIMON: Damn straight I'm blunt.
CARL: I need a man who's subtle.
SIMON: I can only be so subtle with my tool.
CARL: I want a man who will romance me.
SIMON: Sweety, you know I can romance you.
CARL: Then talk about something other than your cock.
SIMON: I love the way your package sticks out of your shorts.
CARL: This is insane.
SIMON: Oh baby.
CARL: I'm dating a 12 year old.
SIMON: 12 year olds don't have cocks like this.
Posted by Rock Heals at 04:40 AM
Phoenix Diaries: Maryann and Ashton
Jon Lee
MARYANN: Blow me down.
ASHTON: Shiver my timbers?
MARYANN: It's the new thing to say.
ASHTON: Not new at all sweety. Popeye used to say that.
MARYANN: Who's Popeye?
ASHTON: You're too young for that.
MARYANN: You always say that, come on tell me.
ASHTON: No, sweetie. I mean. Ha. I mean you are too young to have
remembered Popeye. He was an old cartoon. Also a very contrived movie
starring Robin Williams.
MARYANN: I know Robin Williams.
ASHTON: There you go, now we have something in common.
MARYANN: Does Mom know who Popeye is?
ASHTON: No, no she doesn't sweetie.
Posted by Rock Heals at 04:30 AM
Phoenix Diaries: Ignoramus and Loser
Jon Lee
IGNORAMUS: Dood, you're such a loser.
LOSER: You stink.
IGN: Fuck yeah I do.
LOSER: I can never stink as good as you.
IGN: Fuck yeah you can. Run around the block.
(LOSER runs around the block.)
IGN: Woah, you don't smell at all.
LOSER: See?
IGN: Yeah. Huh. Run around the block again.
(LOSER runs around the block.)
IGN: Dood, I can't smell a thing. Come closer.
IGN smells LOSER's pits.
LOSER: Well, anything?
IGN: Nope. Nothing.
LOSER: Damn it. I wanna smell.
(LOSER runs around the block.)
LOSER: Damn I'm tired.
IGN: Um dood?
LOSER: Yeah?
IGN: You smell really good.
LOSER: Shit.
Posted by Rock Heals at 04:20 AM
July 06, 2005
Week 17: A Huge Tonic for the Do-It-Yourself Giant
You may have heard mention before that Adam Good is DC's Anselm Berrigan. If that doesn't mean shit to you, who cares, read the goodness herein. Enjoy -- Adam's a youngin' and there is sure to be much much more from him. Well, unless he gives up poetry to become an arms dealer in Africa. You never know.
And beware of the false Adams Good! They are legion!
Meanwhile, our friends at Narrow House Recordings are almost set to release a new CD of work from Rod Smith. Info on the release party below. Check back here in the coming weeks for an interview with Narrow House and audio from Rod as the release gets closer.
Week 17 Contents
A selection from Little is the New Chicken; and
the gift both from Adam Good
... and an event notice for Rod Smith's upcoming CD Release party in Baltimore (July 30)
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:50 AM
from Little is the New Chicken
Adam Good
there are systems
we live among
and to see them
is to be redeployed
* * *
oh,
currents
* * *
your resources
are probably national
your auto-completion
yields “yours truly”
this is a stem-cell
statement
of material
poetics.
check it out,
late fees.
* * *
hogs
split
with
cause,
get
spilt
with
clause,
owls
do it
for the glory
* * *
one moves
between reading
and re-reading
and re-reading
and re-reading.
space begins
to happen.
* * *
there are no ambitious people
only trees
and scores
sweat’s dial
and the law
* * *
you can meet 25
of anyone
[Ed note: Just a sample from a longer work Adam is working on. Edited it down to what would work best here, but trust me, there is much more to see in this work wherever it does finally land.]
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:40 AM
Rod Smith CD Release Party: Baltimore, July 30
Read the flyer. Get the details. Be merry.
You'll be reminded.
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:30 AM
the gift
Adam Good
(6/22/05)
to
give with
brood what
studio of
food
the clouds are
pregnant and
almost present
pageantry amidst
the swallows
in flight from
fear or an occasionally
awkward silence
the monitors can't
prove
allow or provide
allowance for the kids
run with wind-up
dollies in the aisles
of recuperative volley
after remunerative
volley
time after time's
collateral
damage
reversal
i wasn't thinking
anything i was just
thinking
they try to tell you
things, railroads,
everybody working
on battery life
bar none
non
starters
for starters
aimless
flounder
in better ed
learned
eventually to
just click
on SPEAK
to commune
with the living
dead in the
splendid
flood
of plod
and west of
which &
what
is due
aurally de
parted rig
of trigger's
basic visual
lingo lingers
in the lick
of rhapsody
graphic users
interface
occasionally
as furniture
kick the habitat
back in homage to
the first formal exposure
to now playing
at controlling
the net
from the paint
by numbers
jet and data
set these thing
pieces touch
me with interest
building up
accounts of
what might
get started
in time
or in other
words
begin?
Posted by Rock Heals at 12:20 AM
