Belief Quartet
I.
This morning I was listening to Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” on my headphones sitting outside drinking coffee, a 56-minute commitment to listen to in its entirety. The score is recorded live in one take; the instruments played so uncharacteristically that they sound put through a sequencer. Much of Reich’s music is about timbre, acoustic capacities, and the melodic “negative space” between syncopated notes. When some bass clarinets came in pulsing thick and strong, I felt deep droning reverberations in my chest cavity, so visceral it was, so moved by the spiritual score — until I realized a large truck approaching behind me, shaking the ground, its driver the 19th musician.
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August 19th, 2010 / 2:04 pm
August 19th, 2010 / 2:04 pm
‘Steve Reich Hears a Pentecostal Preacher’ by Adam Robinson, from ‘Adam Robison’
It’s not quite available for the masses yet, but to get you hype for the forthcoming release of Adam Robinson‘s debut book of poems, pleasantly titled ‘Adam Robison and Other Poems’ (and forthcoming in the next few months from Narrow House Press) we’ve got two special treats lined up.
The first is said book’s publisher’s new blog: Narrow House press blog, which is a pleasant introduction to the group and their releases, which span from records to full length poetry books.
Secondly, culled from what might be quite a length of dirty video recordings captured this weekend at the post-510 Reading Series bar assault (in which your current blogger and said ‘Adam Robison’ aka ‘Magic Acorn’ were asked to ‘stop wrestling in the bar or leave’), is Adam Robinson’s fine drunken performance of his poem ‘Steve Reich Hears a Pentecostal Preacher.’
Please enjoy (and thanks to Michael Kimball for the sweet capture).
You should have seen him breakdancing a few minutes later. It was a poem in itself. Though the guys at the pizza shop were less thrilled with Adam and some other weird dude screaming about dick and pouring water on each other in a beer haze. Poem video life.
Also, for your consumption, the brilliant introduction to ‘Adam Robison,’ published here at Otoliths, which contains the paragraph:
So what’s the story, Anne Carson? I mean, what’s my story? I’m riding my bike home with a video camera strapped to the handlebars, through the glittering downtown into the crumbling neighborhoods of Baltimore’s east side.
I, for one, am quite excited.
Faux-Democratizing Links Section * Opportunity Knoxxxxxx
In the spirit of broadening the Giant’s beholden link section (**SELF AGGRANDIZING CONTAINED** since our link taste is so badass), and because we already have established ourselves firmly in the elite anti-email response genre of outfits like Octopus, Action Yes, Pitchfork, Dump Tumumbulum, and etc., here is your opportunity to help us help ourselves so that we quit looking like secret handshakehandjob daddies (which we are).
The links section of the Giant (seen to the right here, and inclusive of only a small smattering of print presses and online journals, etc.) was constructed in about 8 minutes of ‘this is what I look at most’ from one editor’s head. The sole criterion, outside of being places often frequented, was that the aesthetic of the journal, or such places, is in its own way singular and tasty. That is, no ug pieces and no ga-ga. Beyond this short list, there are several many places I go at to do looks, but these are the ones I thought of in those 8 minutes.
Now, readers, I open it up to you: who should we be linking. All suggestions will be taken whole-heartedly, if then either ignored or scoffed at for their self-pointing, or just laziness, or just because the whole intentionally smarmy tone insists that we now ignore any fruits that are borne from it.
Really we like a lot of people, and we just haven’t felt the urge.
But yeah, let’s hear it. What should be linked? Should we include authors or just institutions? What deserves attention? How many people we aren’t already sucking on read this site anyway?
How far up my own ass should my fist fit?
Am I getting older too fast? Is the Sunn o))) discography a bunch of ass-palpitating bullshit or is the sound my refrigerator makes actually a deleted Steve Reich composition?
What happened to all the tits?
Dick and tit submissions are mailable to htmlgiant [at] gmail [dot] com 24/7/364 (fuck you, I sleep on Thanksgiving).