Mix Tape was lost! Vol. 32

Art from the Archive: Lost Character Sketches

I found these in a notebook from my childhood - I propose we resurrect these undeveloped characters - Fatty & Queeker & Stuck Duck & the whole crew - into some syndicated adventures or something.

an extra drawing to make the scribd link below work!

two love poems for girls who don't exist (and one for one who does)

Two Love Poems for Girls Who Don't Exist (and One for One Who Does)

For Hallowe'en: Watch out! Scary Bulgary Vampire/Zombie Flick "The Horrors of the Sunflowers"

Mr Islas posted our movie on Hallowe'en, & what a good idea. This summer, our traveling itwaslost correspondents made a movie starring Grainne Proinseas, myself, & a bunch of small town Bulgarian school children. The soundtrack is by myself, Olaf Mary Mohammad, & late Turkish pop star Barış Manço. Happy All Hallow's Eve! (We've raided a community musical theater's storage warehouse for their Alice in Wonderland costumes.) Rent a projector, my friends! Play The Horrors of the Sunflowers largely. Spread it around the youtubes. Five Stars!

Bacon 'n' Gold: Incomplete Lyrics

The song "Bacon in Gold" is spreading like burnt toast around the world. I believe I mentioned that the complete song was an open-ended epic by Dr Benway & Prof. Bremselhäcker, & we only chose to record four choice lyrics for the hit single. Since then, other of their friends have submitted additional lyrics, & I'll update this post with others as they arrive. The county doctor e-mailed it out with chords in G, but I will write them in D as I played it in the recording (& has a more singable range.)

Bacon and Gold (trad.)

---

D - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - G
When I lived back in the Olde Country,
D - - - - - - - - - - - - - - b min, A**
For many a year I was told
D - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -G
That beyond those briny deep waters, boys,
- - - - -D - - -- - - - A - - - - - -D
They sizzled their bacon with gold.

Chorus
D - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - G
They sizzled their bacon with gold, boys
D - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -bmin, A**
They sizzled their bacon with gold,
D - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -G
Beyond those briney deep waters, boys
D - - - - - - - - - - -A - - - - - - -D
They sizzled their bacon with gold.

(All choruses are simply repetitions of the last verse line punctuated by a single repetition of the third verse line.)
[**I play this A with an open fourth string (d instead of e), which is prettier. -ed]

When I looked around at my uncles,
Who seasoned their bacon with mold,
I said to myself, 'Danny Boy,
'you've got to sizzle your bacon with gold.'

The next day I hired on a whaler,
And left old Kilarney of old,
And set off for that beautiful shore, where,
They sizzled their bacon with gold.

On the high sea we met with some pirates,
And off into slav'ry were sold,
And believe you me boys when I tell ye,
They et all their bacon dead cold.

I soon fetched up in old Jakartee,
And fell into their Ori'ental thrall,
The temples, boys, surely are something, but,
There's no bacon to be had at all.

I came to the Mexican shore, lads,
My fortunes there for to seek,
The streets there they run with gold, but
Human flesh is the bacon they eat.

I worked my way up to old 'Frisco,
But there I could not stay,
I got myself drunk in the brothel and,
Gambled my bacon away.

I sailed from there to the Yukon,
Where the ground is perpetu'ally cold,
And sadly despite my predictions,
They did not eat their bacon with gold.

I next tried my luck in old Greenland,
That land locked forever in ice,
And there they have bacon and gold both,
But the bacon is too cold to slice.

I shortly fell in with some smugglers,
They accepted me into their fold,
We now live on jolly Pitcairn, boys,
And smother our bacon with gold.

And here is my lesson to ye, young boys,
Wheresoever you may be,
'Tis good to eat bacon with gold, yes,
But stay off the briney old sea.

Additional verses from Dr. Twinglebrook-Hastings:

My youth in the East I squandered
Trudgin' the path eightfold
If ya want to leave behin' suffrin', boys
Then fry up that bacon with gold!

From S. Sandrigon (written, because, when I was pre-recording the guitar part, I thought they might only have two or three verses. They then arrived with an enormous white-board with the full epic.)

They say out West in San Francisc-ée
Where the weather in summer is cold
There's a secret chinaman fricassée
They stir-fry their bacon in gold.

Posted originally here, & this mp3 can be downloaded here.

Doha of the Day

सोरठ रागिनीसे:

Sorath mhe thāne dekhiyā, jājha jhular maé

Jāné chamaki bijali, gudalé bādal maé

Sorath, I saw you in the midst of the large crowd;

Your beautiful face was like a flash of lightening
In the middle of the thick clouds.

Live Updates from the Hottub

ssandrigon
About to soak in a hottub all afternoon with @grainnefrances. We might either shut off all communications, or, alternately, live-blog it.
about 5 hours ago from txt

ssandrigon
Decided to live-tweet instead. Have infiltrated the pool area of a schmancy gated apartment complex in downtown oakland, with flavored vodka
about 4 hours ago from txt

ssandrigon
Live-twitting from the hot-tub Part 2: reading out loud "The Hunting of the Snark", interspersed with Allure mag, history of pantyhose &c.
about 4 hours ago from txt

ssandrigon
Live-twit no. 3: This apartment complex is BRANDED: it has a logo. Their pool should be deeper & hottub hotter.
about 3 hours ago from txt

ssandrigon
Live from the hottub no. 4: This musaak is beginning to get to me, & I think the unnamed Baker has come across a snark...?
about 2 hours ago from txt

ssandrigon
Live-twit no 5: It was a boojum. We softly & suddenly vanish away.
about 1 hour ago from txt

Correspondences: Weekly Letter No. 2 from G.F.M. to J.H.W.

Song: Gospel Train (Special 2009 "Red Hook" Version)

Originally, this song was the titular track from my homemade album "Gospel Train". I'm now re-recording it with my electric ukulele & synthesizers for my on-going Friends Around the Campfire Special Electric Ukulele Summer Covers EP - you better believe I'm still working on my summer project. Also, my covers album has broadened to allow me to cover my own songs. The 2006 recording of "Gospel Train" was once posted with the lyrics here.
Today's recording we refer to as the "Red Hook" version, for obvious reasons.


If you require to download this mp3, the album Stuck Home Syndrome available here! Friends around the Campfire on facebooks here!

More Chatting: "Segue-test Film Ever Made"

Remember when we played guess-the-director for the upcoming weird "Bad Lieutenant" movie. Mr Quill just sent me an article with an update on the movie, the headline in Paste: "Werner Herzog's Bizarro Nic Cage Flick Railroaded on Theatrical Release." We weren't sure what that means:

me: railroaded?

James: I think that's bad

8:45 AM me: Hmm

Like, on the fast train to DVD?

I can't figure it out. We're supposed to know if we're hollywoody types I guess.

Did you hear Herzog's film has been zeppelined?

James: great!

me: Why would call that great?

8:46 AM James: just guessing

me: Remember when Scorsese's Mary-Kate Olsen project was Zeppelined?

And it made them both hovercraft?

8:47 AM It was a total skateboard.

James: was our film ever segued?

me: Segue-test film ever made!

8:48 AM James: that's a relief

8:49 AM me: Our film - man, what a gem.

James: still underappreciated on the youtube

Florian Freyer Makes Contact

I admit that I thought that Mr. Freyer was fucking with me, but I couldn't figure out to what ends...

7:19 PM Florian: dude, do you have a sec?
me: yeah
7:20 PM Florian: sweet!i need you as a native speaker!
me: haha
ok
Florian: here's the deal
i'll give you some proverbs and you have to...
7:21 PM ...give me the correct proverbs because they're WRONG
ok?
me: ok...
I'll see what I can do
7:22 PM Florian: no. 1:
I can’t spell to save my loaf
(they might not make sense at all...)
7:23 PM me: do you need this for something?
loaf should be life
Florian: haha, i knew it!
yeah, i'll tell you in a sec!
i thought it's LOVE
ok, next one:
7:24 PM You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t eat it too.
me: haha
but you can't make it drink
Florian: haha! i love it
me: I like yours better
7:25 PM Florian: no. 3
I’m always crying over spilt chickens before they’re hatched.
me: well, there's "Don't cry over spilt milk" and "don't count your chickens before they're hatched"
7:26 PM Florian: NICE! you're da man!
me: what's it for?
Florian: no. 4: Yeah, you give ‘em an inch, it’s worth two in the bush.
that's the last one!
7:27 PM me: "you give 'em an inch and they take a mile" or "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"
7:28 PM Florian: wow - i'm impressed!
ok, i'm gonna use this video for my english class to introduce grammar mistakes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3p4UX47WfM&feature=player_embedded
7:29 PM unfortunately i had no clue what the wrong proverbs meant...
you've been a great help, really
7:30 PM thanks, sir
me: there's also "you can't have your cake and eat it too"
but I hate that proverb
Florian: ah, cheers
so they're all mixed up
7:31 PM don't like friends - the show - either
me: right
Florian: but i thought this might be a nice intro, ISN'T IT?
me: yeah
what's your class?
7:32 PM Florian: well, i would have preferred a scene from arrested development
i teach dem bastards. 11th grade.
me: ouch
7:33 PM Florian: no worries
me: thanks for the exercise in proverbs
7:34 PM Florian: haha, you should come tomorrow
me: I'd love to
7:35 PM Florian: dude, i need to prepare this lesson now. thanks heaps for you're help. whenever you're in trouble finding the right german proverb - i'll be there for you!
7:36 PM me: don't think I won't collect on that
good luck
Florian: thx

Song: Bacon in Gold

Whilst prominent symbologist blogger Gottlob K. Bremselhäcker, M.A. (Oxon.) was visiting from somewhere near Eurasia, he & Dr Benway penned this song about bacon in gold. We just set down a few synth ocarina tracks for it &, with myself & Mrs Benway, recorded the vocals last night, as a single for their Incorrigible Runt-chestra. An epic, the total lyrics sprawl past ten verses, & growing: this single merely a best-of. This mp3 can be downloaded here.

Ally Given, installment #1

“Many times man lives and dies
Between these two eternities-
That of race and that of soul"

-W.B Yeats

The smell of baking potatoes wakes her up.
On the corner, someone is crossing herself as she passes the Walsh’s Marystone. Old people do this after 10 o'clock mass every day. Strangers do it; people you won’t see again, you might just remember them crossing themselves on the corner.
Down the gleaming wet stripe of pavement in the middle of the street come two of the boys from the class ahead of Ally’s at school.
‘fuck you think you’re doing?!...’
‘aaaah hah…’

The fat one scrambles away, leaving the other to claw a handful of dusty, pissy snow out of the neck of his sweatshirt.

Ally is 14. In her neighborhood she knows one thing; she is in her neighborhood.

The smell of blood, rosemary and salt comes up to the open window beside her bed.

Murphy is going to miss St. Patrick’s Day supper. Shouldn’t have gone to Public school. You get what you ask for.

Aer lingus goes over. It’s just taken off from Logan and is still low enough she can see the shamrock on the side of the jet. She is not a hundred percent Irish. Mom had said “well, what’s so great about being a hundred percent Irish? Irish people aren’t any better than anyone else”. That one kid had called her a WASP.

On the way down the stairs she touches the faces of JFK and John Paul II.

The passenger seat of Dad’s Buick is plush in steel. The car goes as if it knows its own way through side streets, takes the left at Saint Elizabeth’s, careens, windows open, past Lamberts, sew-fisticated, Bradlee’s, the pizza shop, the gas stations and Linda Mae’s. On the other side of the 4-lane, used car lots, pointed colored flags snapping in the wind.
Dorchester Bay. The gas tanks. Whitecaps. Now Dad is gunning it past Carson Beach.

“You know, Ally, that’s the last place I was happy. 20 years ago”.
Maybe that’s his idea of a joke. Now he’s saying something about responsibility. She’s not listening because she doesn’t want to hear it.

Mary Ellen McCormick projects. Old Colony. Some black kids her age eating cheetos on a cement stoop. She ducks her head so they won’t see her.

Dad parks the Buick in Uncle Mike’s driveway. They walk through the dense crowd of green, drunkenness, noise. Spectator yuppies. Belligerence. Cops in Kilts playing bagpipes are on the march.


Ally overheard Mom one time saying something about when Dad had an affair. While she was pregnant with Murphy, Ally thinks that was the story anyway, but dad doesn’t seem like such a bad guy.. The flannel shirt, the jeans, he seems normal, just like everyone else’s dad. Maybe nicer, though, most of the time. Well, not to Murphy, but to her. Maureen’s dad, now that guy is a jerk. Calls the pancakes her mom makes burnt, even when they’re not, just so he can throw them out.

What does Lucky mean, she wants to know. They say ‘luck of the Irish’, like now, on Saint Patrick’s day, everyone is saying how lucky they are, but she knows a lot of people who call themselves Irish and not that many of them seem to think they’re lucky. Not anytime other than on Saint Patrick’s day when they’re wearing a shirt that says it.

“Eddie! What the fuck is up, brother?” Some guy comes from the crowd with a clear plastic cup of green beer sloshing in his hand. He elbows past a bunch of people until he gets to dad, and then awkwardly tries to shake dad’s hand with his left, even though he’s obviously a rightie, which is why he’s holding the green beer in his right. It’s kind of embarrassing and Ally tries not to look at him.
“Hey, Mattie, this is my kid. Al, say hi to Matt- he’s a plumber.”
Hi, Matt the plumber, she thinks. She nods in his direction, then looks away again. Matt starts into a rant about how the union told him he can’t take his retirement for another ten years, the sons of bitches. Ally sees a Mexican guy go by selling cotton candy, which is kind of funny. That’s how it is at the Dorchester day parade, too. The Vietnamese people who live in half of Dorchester and you see every other day in Savin Hill don’t show up, no floats, no Vietnamese dragons or anything, and the Mexican guy is there selling cotton candy even though there’s no Mexican people in Dorchester, at least not this part, not that she’s seen, except when there’s a parade.

Read Ally Given, installment #2

Mix Tape was lost! Vol. 31

dear listeners: this was the quickest mixing of a digital cassette tape ever. i hope it treats you well. also: thank you for listening. remember: i care about you all, and i hope you enjoy the music provided here. soon: a whole other blog entirely dedicated to mixtapes and dee-jay'ing and another one dedicated to drawings.
we should all hang out sometime.

Hunters Chapter 1

"You have to burn them." Our father gazed with affected gravity at my little brother Edward before gracing me with a momentary scowl. He struck a match and tossed it onto the hastily-assembled pyre. I inhaled frantically, always loathe to miss the comforting smell of sulfur. My eyes were closed when I heard our father curse, probably realizing that the match had expired in mid-air. He was always careless, a trait he hated to see mirrored in me.

"Matches don't grow on trees," I uttered automatically, my mind as usual a step behind my mouth. It was one of my father's favorite aphorisms, which he repeated until we all forgot where it came from. I blame the repetition for our family's general negligence. If you don't think about what you say, why would you think about you do?

I took a step toward the path. The indoctrination was intended for Edward anyway. I already understood the ritual better than he did. Chop the head off and burn the body. That was good enough for my father, who never bothered to ask questions. But everyone said he was the best and vocally wondered how his son had passed his fifteenth birthday without bagging one.

Behind me the fire roared to life, casting the long shadows of the maples before me. Fires don't start that fast. He must have used some fuel, a sin overlooked if you have 24 notches on your belt. 25 now.

The leaves crackled hypnotically beneath my feet. I wasn't surprised to feel a small hand slip into mine.

"God damn it, Edward. Are you trying to get me in more trouble?" I yanked my hand away and looked into his inhuman blue eyes. I could tell he was on the cusp and I didn't know which way to push him. At seven years old, he could hit a can flying through the air at 50 yards with a .22 but he cried when our cat got eaten. Somehow I ended up with a black eye when that happened.

Edward shoved his hands in his pockets and fell into step with me. I glanced back before running my hand through his greasy blond hair, an act I knew we both enjoyed, mostly because it irritated our father. He began talking as he did only with me, without hesitation or an extensive muttering prologue.

"It had such beautiful eyes. So big. I think maybe he was the same age as me..."

I shuddered. I didn't know if he was intentionally violating several of our unspoken laws. Edward was in worse shape than I was at his age. He sees them as practically human.

He was staring at me as we walked. He possessed none of my clumsiness, navigating the path with his infallible physical memory while I kept my eyes trained on the ground at all times.

"Why do we hunt them, Joe? And why do they hunt us?"

I shook my head at his characteristic bluntness bordering on blasphemy. Characteristic when he spoke to me anyway. I suppose we couldn't find many of these moments together. "You've been to Pastor Jesse's sermons, Ed. You know why."

"But you know more. You've talked to him."

I could see the lights of our house through the trees, so I stopped and checked to see if our father had caught up. He would be watching the flames for a little longer. Edward must have slipped away when he was in his trance.

"You know everything already, Ed. You know where they came from. They started it, burned our cities to the ground." I pronounced the word "cities" with the emphasis that they used to give it the religious significance that prevented people from asking what a 'city' was. "But we got 'em back and now they're stuck here."

"But how come we gotta burn 'em?"

"Don't you know anything? That's how their souls get back home. Joke's on them, of course." I gestured vaguely toward the sky. "That's where it used to be, a big red star, they say."

He looked up and then back at me, his eyes echoing the question I once asked at his age. You don't really believe that, do you? I looked over his shoulder, passively imploring him to know better than to ask anyone else.

For the first time, Edward looked nervous, shifting from one foot to the other and looking around. "But... you know more than Pastor Jesse. What was he like?"

I stumbled, trying to look relaxed as I reached out for a tree to lean on. "ummm... what was who like?"

Edward regained his innocence or his confidence. Sometimes they were indistinguishable. "I heard that you, ya know, had one. In the barn..."

"There he is!" Our father emerged from the trees with his indomitable stride. He placed his arm around Edward and guided him toward the house. "There's my little champion marksman. Where'd ya go? Come on. Let's see what mom's got for dinner."

I ran my hand across the tree bark. I never found out which version he heard. Counting in my head, I tried to see how slowly I could get to the door.

Read Hunters Chapter 2

Demo Mp3 of "Ortonville" on electric guitar

I've been singing this hymn from the Sacred Harp with guitar for a few years. I recorded it yesterday to practice recording with electric guitar at home, which I can never get to sound very good. I'm not that satisfied with the results, but for anyone who wants a homemade recording of my version of this song, I'll put it up.



(I sung the same song into youtubes a year or so ago.) "Ortonville", 68b in the Sacred Harp, was written in 1837 by Thomas Hastings. The text is from John Newton (who also wrote "Amazing Grace"):

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
in a believer’s ear!
It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,
and drives away his fear.

It makes the wounded spirit whole
and calms the troubled breast,
is manna to the hungry soul
and to the weary rest.

Dear name! the rock on which I build,
my shield and hiding place,
my never failing treasury, filled
with boundless stores of grace:

Phone Messages: Executive Koala

Confound it! I had a slew of great saved phone messages in my voice mail, that I was going to record & add to my Department of the Mundane. But they're none of them not there no more. There was a dozen from this guy in Colorado, desperately trying to contact a James who was supposed to organize some sort of church team (?) with him. They increased in urgency & frustration. And there was a long accidental pocket phone call from Cosmo Wernicky, where I can only assume it was at a pygmy rave. Mr Olaf Mary sent me messages over every medium he could think of yesterday to get me to come watch a movie, which I politely declined due to my rigorous social calender:

Correspondences: Weekly Letter No. 1 from G.F.M. to J.H.W.

News from Nevada: Bear Break-in!

In almost thirty years in their house at Lake Tahoe, my parents have never had a bear break & enter. But the population has grown in recent years - apparently, some mothers are even having three cubs - due to their accumulated intelligence on how harvest from the neighboring human abundance. Both my parents sent out e-mails today, you can compare for style:

from "Sue W____" ______@yahoo.com reply-to _____@yahoo.com to [many addresses] date Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 9:01 AM subject Bear Break-In

A bear broke into our garage last night (see photo). I actually heard him. I went to bed late, around 11:10, because I had some classwork to do, and couldn't get to sleep because of noises. I finally got to sleep about 12:10, when the noises subsided. I probably should have awakened John, but thought maybe it was just a car outside.

He cleaned out our garage refrigerator of apples, muffins, cheese, and bread. He didn't like the beer or wine. He toppled one closed trash can, and we don't know what he got there. We are pretty careful about putting any food stuff in zip lock bags. Dog bones are all over the floor. Perhaps he ate some, but certainly didn't eat them all. They were in a box on top of the fridge. He also ignored a box of oranges.

Love, Sue

from "John W_____" ______@att.net to [many addresses] date Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 8:32 AM subject new doggy door

All, last night a bear enjoyed a midnight snack of cheese, Costco muffins, and apples in our garage. It didn't like our box wine or Bud beer. John

______________________

Colbert is right - they are the number one threat to America.

From the Lewis Carroll Society Blog: Portmanteaus on This American Life

Mrs Eley & I are slowly starting our new gig as editors for one of the sections at the Knight Letter, the magazine from the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. I'll also be blogging for them at lcsna.blogspot.com. Here's a re-print of my inaugural post over there:

_______________________________________

Lewis Carroll was not mentioned by name, nor was the word 'portmanteau' ever dropped, but Humpty Dumpty's spirit lurked around the September 13th, 2009, episode of This American Life (#389 Frenemies). Starting at 29:45 in the episode, Ira Glass interviews lexicographer Erin McKean, whom he had asked to research the word 'frenemy'. She found the first attempted coinage by gossip columnist Walter Winchell in 1953, who wrote "how's about calling the Russians our 'frenemies'?", although the word didn't really take off till decades later.

Their conversation, transcribed, starting at 32:00 in the episode:

Glass: Wait, are there other words like this, where they sound alike, and then they get smashed together into one word?
McKean: Oh, it happens, like, all the time. I mean, think, there's, like 'guesstimate', right? And that's from 1936.
Glass: Do you have another one?
McKean: I love this one, and people say this one all the time with a little thrill of thinking they're the first person ever to say it: You know, that someone is entering their 'anecdotage.'
Glass: I've never heard that. So you get old, and then you start telling your anecdotes, and that's it?
McKean: Right, and I think the central part, is that you start telling the same anecdotes over and over again.
Glass: Right. You got another one?
McKean: Lots of people think that they are the first person to create the word 'linner'.
Glass: Linner?
McKean: Linner is that meal you must have between lunch and dinner.
Glass: That just makes me feel mad at somebody, hearing that...

(They go on to discuss the word 'slanguage' and lexical gaps.) The lexicographer and the radio host condescend a bit to these enthusiastic amateur wordsmiths, but they're far from being the first people to think they've coined a clever portmanteau. Mark Burstein quotes from James Atherton's The Books at the Wake, when he discusses the creation and later development of word-smashing techniques from Carroll to Finnegans Wake:

It must have astonished [James] Joyce, that avant-garde innovator, proud of his Irish nationality, contemptuous of the Church of England, and confident of his own originality, to find that he had been forestalled in so many of his discoveries by a mid-Victorian Englishman in minor Anglican orders.

Of course, Humpty Dumpty doesn't claim to have invented the practice, nor any of the portmanteaus of which he is the master. And back to Ira Glass, it's a shame they didn't get into the history of "smashing together" words, but it's interesting to learn that part of a lexicographer's job is to let people down when they learn they didn't invent words like 'anecdotage'.

-originally posted here.

Portrait of the Photagrapher photographing the Photographer photographing

from "grainne proinseas" ______@gmail.com to "S. Sandrigon" _@itwaslost.org date Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 9:43 PM subject photo mailed-by gmail.com signed-by gmail.com

James Henry-

one of your photos from Lom is of me taking a picture of you taking a picture of me. The attached photo is the picture I was taking of you while you were taking a picture of me taking a picture of you.

grace

--
Tá Tír na nÓg ar chúl an tí,
Tír álainn trína chéile

I photoshopp'd it a tiny bit. Lom is a city at the end of the rail-line, up by the Danube in Bulgaria. And here's the photo of her she was referring to:

Illuminations: Emanation Prayer

Good Morning, again. Here is the fifth illumination for the five-part series of poems Five Prayers, "Emanation Prayer". The original text of this poem was posted here. Click on the images to read the poetry full screen. When we're all done, the entire thing will be included in the updated version of Prophecy & Doggerel, as well as get its own Scribd book! Others of this 'Prayer' poetry, including the illuminations for the Seven Prayers, can be found if you peruse around itwaslost's Department of Prayers. I hope everything's going okay on your end as well.

A Pretentious New Business Card

Good Riddance to Heath Ledger - there are always three A-list actors to replace you

Damn it all, I was ready to go see The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus tonight at midnight, but I had some misinformation about when it came out - I think only an advance UK Premier is tonight. There were some great quotes in this joint interview with Terry Gilliam & Tom Waits in the October 6th London Times. About the late Heath Ledger:

We hated him. An idiot. Asshole. Good riddance.

-Terry Gilliam

Ledger of course died midway thru shooting Doctor Parnassus, a cruel twist to another of Mr Gilliam's cursed projects. I loudly recommend the documentary Lost in La Mancha as a back-story to Terry Gilliam's strange bad luck with quixotic productions. (I'm never quite sure if parts of that film aren't 100% authentic...) & also The Battle of Brazil, which can be found on the Criterion edition of Brazil. Having Mr Ledger die so mysteriously was par for the course for any of Gilliam's major doomed masterpieces.

I’ve always said, with every film, I’m not making it, the film is making itself. The film gods are up there doing what they do, and this film was making itself. So Heath dies in the middle of the movie. The last roll of film goes through the camera and Bill Vince, the producer, dies. Then a few months later, I get hit by a car and break my back. The gods failed! They weren’t so lucky the third time. They tried to clear away the star, the producer and the director! Wouldn’t that have been tidy? But the world is not so tidy.

-Terry Gilliam

He scrapped the project, but then his daughter made him finish it. "Together they hit upon the inspired notion of using other actors to play different facets of Ledger’s slippery, shape-shifting character," it says in the Times. "It is testament to the huge goodwill enjoyed by both star and director that Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell all signed on at short notice, donating their fees to Ledger’s young daughter, Matilda Rose."

That’s my warning to all young actors now: Don’t ever not turn up for work, because there are three A-list actors ready to take your part.

-Terry Gilliam

Tom Waits, who plays the devil, has cameo'd in a few interesting movies - Gilliam's The Fisher King (where he's uncredited), Mystery Men (what a bizarre, bad movie, right?), & his work with Jim Jarmusch. I wonder what he'll be like in this one.

I said yes because Terry wanted me in the movie. I didn’t care what he wanted me to do. I probably would have painted sets, honestly.

-Tom Waits

Pitchfork was just discussing the live album Waits is about to release, Glitter & Doom, the second disc of which, labeled "Tom Tales", will be "entirely Tom Waits stage patter!" I fear that Mr Waits, after his monster Orphans, is getting a bit too encyclopedic in his later years.

Mix Tape was lost! Vol. 30

A Public Demand To the Greatest Editor

I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE REST OF YOU ARE, BUT I CERTAINLY AM NOT IN NOR NEAR SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO. I AM ALSO AWARE THAT OUR VERY OWN COSMO P. WERNICKY IS NO LONGER WITHIN THE GREAT PENINSULA. ALSO, GRAINNE IS ABUNDANTLY NOT IN THAT LESS DIVERSE CITY NEXT TO A MORE FAMOUS CITY. SHE IS IN THE MOST DIVERSE CITY IN THE NATION THAT IS ALSO NEXT TO A MORE FAMOUS CITY, SEPARATED BY A BODY OF WATER, ON THE SIDE OF A BAY WHICH THREE OF OUR GREATER INNER ITWASLOST COMMUNITY NOW CURRENTLY RESIDE. THIS IS CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION AND AN UPDATE IN OUR CONTRIBUTORS COLUMN.

THANK YOU.

Breaking News: Man plays both piano parts for Steve Reich's "Piano Phase"

Miss Shani sent me this video today of pianist Peter Aidu exhibiting what he can do with his amazing brain. It makes me think of composer Robert Schumann, who had to give up the career of budding piano virtuoso because of a mysterious finger injury - he rigged up a mechanical device (pictured to the left) to separate his pinkie finger from his ring finger (you know how you can't lower your pinkie without some movement from the ring?) to increase fingering possibilities, & ended up damaging his hand permanently. (The other theory is that it was a syphilis symptom). Anyway, Steve Reich's early minimalist classic "Piano Phase" is an experiment with the same pattern played on two instruments coming in & out of phase. How Mr Aidu is able to separate his brain & phase with himself I chalk up to either some sort of mechanical device or perhaps a symptom of syphilis.

Song of 28

Yesterday, after twenty-eight years on earth, & after several victorious games of indoor bowling, Miss Grainne Proinseas & I sat down around a hookah & split a forty ounce bottle of Budweiser, & wrote upon this large piece of paper some accumulated wisdom. I find this advice may be helpful not just to those who have not yet reached this weathered age, but also to our elders who may have forgotten. (Clicking on the image will make it full-screen.)

Also, for your convenience, I have uploaded it as a book on Scribd.

Song of 28

Ukulele Song: "My Girlfriend is a Doula"

I just wrote this thirty-second song, "My Girlfriend is a Doula", for my doula friend & her boyfriend. Rather than develop the song properly, I opted for the slow fade with synthesizer rock-out. The subject matter is of course a development on the universal theme, difficulties of dating women engaged in the midwifery trade. Download it here, if you wish.

Guess the Movie's Director: Bad Lieutenant; also, R. Kelly's Real Talk

This is a special itwaslost.org game where you have to watch the trailer for an upcoming movie & guess the director by the time it's revealed at the end. (This one is especially surprising in comparison to this director's most recent film...)



In related news, my friend Miss Lucas played this R. Kelly song for me today, in celebration of his recently announced illiteracy. It's an amazing revelation, that someone with such a gift for words could make it so far in a society where illiteracy is such a disadvantage - Mr Kelly is really one of the gems amongst our public artists. This song, for instance, doesn't seem to have a hook or any palpable rhymes:

	R. Kelly - Real Talk
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Photographs of our Traveling Party on Trains ad Bulgarium

Some more of my film has been developed (using an ancient chemical process), & I'll sort them out thematically. A lot of our time in Eastern Europe this summer was spent bumming around by bus or train with a motley entourage, some of them you know as contributors to this website. The first three are en route to the Big Little, & the latter four was our slow local train out from Vratsa to Lom.