Muzak/Karaoke Tracks

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Max on 19 October 2015.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy

Art:

Hope you're doing well! Long time, no see! 

I'm swamped as I often am during the school year, but I had a good idea, especially if you're not swamped. 

I was thinking of doing some fundraisers where we just invite select people to my home or other people's homes and have a "freewill offering." Instead of practicing a ton and making major mistakes anyway, I had the following awesome idea (inspired in part by the concept behind Maria Bamford's The Special Special Special): 

You create muzak/karaoke tracks for a good set list of Arthur White songs. Ideally, use a heavily produced, saccharine, polished sound. You can add your own "spin." Late 90's keyboard sound, nothing vintage or cool. With my voice and content, this will assuredly be disturbing without resorting to any Nine Inch Nails high jinks. I'm talking like this synth break that comes in Palace's "West Palm Beach," but even more immersive, that is, no implied irony/critical distance. It's like an attempt to be optimistic and uplifting in a socially appropriate way that ends up being so inappropriate--all the more inappropriate for trying to pretend like it was appropriate in the first place! If you could get some awesome canned backing tracks, you could also play guitar over the top and I would just get wheeled into the room and sing the songs. I've talked about this idea before in the blog post about Pino Marelli. A couple up-tempo disco numbers would be good as well! 

I actually had a chance to see Will Oldham (now Bonnie "Prince" Billy) do a set a lot like this in Chicago, where he just pressed play on a tape deck and it played horribly "uplifting" synth/muzak versions of his songs while he attempted to play along with his out-of-tune guitar and flawed voice. It was so disturbing and satisfying at the same time! I did a similar thing back in the 90's, recording my songs direct to my Wurlitzer Funmaker tape deck. You might be able to find a cheap MIDI option where you can just plug in the chords and mess around with the voices.

Max:

It's great to hear from you! I've missed our Tuesday sessions, but I've been really busy with drawing and film studies and yadayadayada. Also, I enrolled in a drawing class on Tuesdays and Thursdays at LCC, but that is ending a week from now. But hopefully I won't be any less busy because ideally I'll just fill that empty space with more drawing, as I am trying to get really really good. That being said, I am really interested in this "house show" as us youngsters like to call them. With my class done, I'd like to open up more time in my schedule for music. I got some really good software with some really great sample instruments which, though they may be too cool for what you are talking about, could be of use in this next endeavor. I'll attach a video of a short little track I made with it so u can get an idea of what it can do. The program would also be of really great use in rehearsals if we ever get those started again! But anyways, just to be clear I am down for this show! It's sounds awesome.

2-Year Plan

The following is an excerpt from an email sent from Art to Will on 7 September 2015.

I do think I came up with something for "Old Habits Die Hard." If you can, send me the lyrics again and I should be able to put it together.

My year is shaping up to be quite a bit busier than expected. I wanted to float the following idea: start the recording July 4, 2016. Have someone take high contrast black-and-white photos, film everything. In short, get as many artifacts out of it as possible.

I want our core group to be totally ready to play the songs well at that point. I may want to just use what I've recorded on keyboard as a spine and have you guys record your parts, then me come in and do the vocals.

At any rate, that's not the main point. The main point is that I don't want what we do next year to be the finished product. I want to take that raw recording and meditate on it for the following year. Then, I'd like to find the remaining pieces and return to the studio in summer 2017. At that point, we'd have identified lead guitarists, background vocalists, keyboardists, horn sections, etc. to add the finishing touches.

Now, we could put out whatever we do summer 2016, saying it was the raw unfinished takes from that Joe Lazarus collaboration--the Joe Lazarus tapes. And now, with the permission of the Arthur White estate and/or Joseph Lazarus III, we're trying to fully realize those recordings. Actually, that might facilitate some actual participation via the blog and social media--inviting feedback, suggestions. Would-be collaborators could upload videos of guitar solos, etc.

So I'm liking that 2-year plan, and now that I'm thinking about it, it might be a perfect opportunity to finally allow our audiences to participate in something: the 2016-to-2017 process of working up the songs.

And maybe we could use that as a way to earn some money for that next session. Make it available on Bandcamp for "whatever you want to pay" and by buying the 2016 tracks on Bandcamp, you've preordered your copy of the 2017 album.

What Kind of Garbage Would That Make?

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Liza to the group on 28 May 2015.

And Steffi's hand, too

Where to begin!

I like all of this. I especially like your idea that the more packaged garbage you buy, the closer you are to qualifying for packaged nothingness. Gold-Member/Street-Cred status. Perhaps with the first batch of packaged garbage, the buyer also receives a packaged Frequent Buyer card. Only instead of punching holes in the same card with each subsequent purchase, we just send out a brand new packaged card with an additional punched-hole in it. Eventually, we'll have punched so many holes in the card that the card will be a hole. Or, in other words, packaged nothingness. How gritty! How raw, how sacred, how holey! Blessed are the hungry, for theirs is the kingdom of garbage.

Thou must waste abundantly in order to be-holed this abundance of waste, ye loyal customers. In proliferating, ye shall eradicate!

This all makes perfect sense to me (but don't worry--not too much sense). Over-consumption of trash, after all, fills us fully with an existential emptiness. This is a wasting that is also an abundance.

"For we on garbage-bins hath fed, and shrunk to ilks of nothingness" (Coleridge, kind of).

The more we eat the more we shrink. The more we replenish, the more we diminish.

My thinking is a bit scattered right now from a succession of strange, long days, so I’m going to let Bob Moorehead summarize part of what I’m trying to get at here:

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less. We have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, but less time. 

The quote is quite long, but the following non-sequential excerpts (that I've formatted sequentially--I am a shameful academic) are worthy of mention:

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, and short character; steep profits, and shallow relationships; more kinds of food, but less nutrition. These are days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stockroom; a time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

Relating this oppositional accord that Moorehead's laid out to the gar(b)age sale that we've laid out, the less we feel, the more we buy. The more we buy, the less we value. The less we value, the more we waste. The more we waste, the fuller we are. The fuller we are, the emptier we are. And so it goes forever.

It could also be said that the more Carlton cleans up the garbage, the more of a mess he makes. Isn't this, ultimately, what Gilbert is doing to the city of Detroit, too? (More to come on Gilbert's own cunning methods of displacing the city's "garbage" in a future message.)

So, then, it only makes sense that the charity's top benefactors earn their way to packaged nothingness. They have gorged themselves on the garbage until "(n)othing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck (Detroit?), boundless and bare" (“Ozymandias”--and more Gilbert symbolism).  How commendable! I feel like there should also be packaged plaques. Or maybe once they've cleared the trash from their specific lots and therefore achieved nothingness, they get the honor and glory of sending their own trash to the same curb they helped "clean up." You know, to give someone else the same opportunity. To ritualize the process. Maybe, if they're feeling extra high on charity, they could even sponsor a poor neighborhood kid or something. Carlton Farthington, after all, is fo' the chilrun.

Moving along, this all waywardly circles back to that sketch of Carlton from a few weeks back. Art, perhaps it makes a bit more sense now in both its original context (DeLillo’s Underworld) and my recontextualization of it (White’s Sweet World).

The original quote,

Marian and I saw products as garbage even when they sat gleaming on store shelves, yet unbought. We didn’t say, "What kind of casserole will that make?" We said, "What kind of garbage will that make?"

The recontextualized quote in regards to all of the above:

In the sketch, Carlton doesn’t think about the delicious pie he could make from the apple because he’s too busy thinking about the garbage he will make. And now, as he packages this garbage and sends it off to others, they no longer ask themselves, 'What kind of garbage will this make?' They ask themselves 'What kind of nothingness will this make?' Where once there was garbage, now there is a hole. They see only the absence of the garbage.

Not to probe too much deeper into this, but the sketch could also be interpreted as the way people utilize the gleaming new products that drop from the Apple tree at genetically modified speeds. Though in theory this technology could be used to deepen our connections with others and to engage in the world in innovative ways, we most widely use it to disconnect and disengage. We’ve turned an object with great potential to be an agent of positive social change into an agent of unsocial change. Or, to paraphrase Moorehead, our computers have not taught us how to communicate but rather how to copy. Repost, Retweet, Recycle.

The sexualization of the apple as a women’s body in the sketch also ties into this garbage theme, but I’ll save that for another time.

In the interim, think: degradation, objectification, disposability, the Big Emptiness, womb envy, and on and on.  

Sounds like a riveting segue into my next e-mail regarding my thoughts on the relationship shared between the wild band of savage sisters and Arthur. Hmmm....

All of that, and more, tomorrow!

When
I will sing a song of garbage,

Liza

The Savage Sisters (Part 1 of 2)

The following is an excerpt of an email from Art to the group sent 22 May 2015.

Wow!

Where to start...! You've laid out some pretty compelling options.

I like all of it, but I think I like the packaged trash idea the most.

And then, once we've got them hooked, take it to the next level: packaged nothingness (I like that my phone knows when I type "packaged" that the next word is "nothingness.")

I think some of the other options are too difficult and distract from the "empty frames" motif that is central to the project.

We could even give the whole thing a bogus charitable pretense too, like so many cults and large-group awareness trainings promote to distract attention away from their brainwashing and/or profiteering activities. Maybe pictures of the place the trash was picked up? Maybe suggesting that you have in some sense "adopted" that spot? Maybe that you can keep buying trash from this one spot in Detroit in order to keep transporting it out of town--with the hilarious aspect being that we create more packaging to do this! Then again, maybe that's too much content. I think the point is to have context without text...or tent without content?

Here are some posts that might provide some insight as to why the empty/trash-filled box makes a LOT of sense:

• Another Arch in the Proscenium - May 21, 2014
• Cataclysmic Changes (Part 2 of 3) - May 31, 2014

Actually, a lot of stuff in the April - May 2014 range deals with nothingness in a box, in a frame, on stage.

Other fun tidbits:

• Can we get people to buy nothingness from Detroit? Like having a little black hole in your living room radiating street cred. Better than a "Detroit vs. Everybody" shirt. Of course, don't get too close to the event horizon of the box. Kind of like tanning.

• I guess I can see the relevance of transporting bat shit and ghosts out of Detroit too. All these things--trash, nothingness, black holes, bat shit, ghosts--seem to fit into the same category.

• Like Henry Ford before him, Dan Gilbert is definitely basking daily in the dark light of the lodestone, listening to The Most Authentic Detroiter Ever speed rap in Old Icelandic.

• Who is making these products? Followers of Farthington? Of Steffi? Of Victoria Woolf or Shakespeare's Sister? It feels like some of the latter-day, post-Farthington people. I like them being members of some kind of female-only version of Yahowa's Savage Sons. The Savage Daughters of Shakespeare's Sister? Sworn enemies of Dan Gilbert, buying up vacant lots in Detroit and fighting his henchmen on the banks of the river beneath a river. I'm not sure if they are friendly, hostile, or indifferent to Arthur White and company. And they live in harmony with the land. So it makes sense that they might sell Poop Paper, Guano Tea, Moisturizers, Dung Masks, Sea Salt Scrubs. Maybe it doesn't make sense that they create more packaging.

Marxism and Form

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Liza to the group on 21 May 2015.

Abandoned structure at the corner of Orleans & Wilkins, Eastern Market, Detroit

Ding, ding, ding! Exactly!

To quote Frederic Jameson's Marxism and Form, "The profound vocation of the work of art in a commodity society [is] not to be a commodity, not to be consumed, to be unpleasurable in the commodity sense" (395).

From my experience working as a content writer for an indoor-gardening supplier, labeling something "Made with Cave-Dwelling Bat Dung!" is as effective of a selling point as "Made in Detroit!" Such products, without fail, flew off of our shelves. Whether buying the bullshit I rambled on about in the product descriptions ("Nature's Super-Food!", "Multipurpose Elixir!", "Unmatched Organic Activator!", "Cannot be Duplicated in a Laboratory!") or the literal bat shit, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the people liked it, loved it, had to have it.

While I was (mostly) being fecesious about marketing it for human consumption, there are a multitude of other options. While I don't think they're the right options by any means, they're options nonetheless.

1. Paper. While traveling in Botswana, I learned how to make paper out of elephant dung (rich in fiber!).

• Pros: realistic, simple process, unique product, low production cost.
• Cons: would need a steady supply of elephant dung. The thought of the effort involved in the procurement process alone has already got me mentally pooped.

2. Guano-Tea. As a cost-efficient alternative to working bat guano directly into the topsoil, many of our customers fashioned nylons and old pillowcases into guano-filled tea bags. Similar to compost teas, the steeping process extracts optimal amounts of nitrogen, phosphorous, and "flourishing microbes!" from the guano, increasing both a plant’s and product's life spans (“content writing” at its finest).

• Pros: also realistic, easy, and cheap.
• Cons: limited target audience, small profit window.

3. Guano Moisturizers, Dung Masks, Sea Salt Scrubs ("Go against the grain with these skin-smoothing salt blends!"), or Anti-Aging Serums ("The secret to eternally youthful skin discovered in cave-dwelling bats!"). Of course, there would be no actual guano in any of these products, which would be made clear on the packaging.

• Pros: futile to list because the
• Cons: are way too expansive and expensive.

At this point in the e-mail, I give you all full permission to trash all of the ideas I’ve thrown out thus far in order to make room in your brains for the following schemes. In four words, “Less Work, More Gain!”

1. Upcycled (though this word makes me seethe) Garbage. While this idea is by no means novel, I think it still carries the most potential for success. Every time I go to Eastern Market, Rust Belt, or any local craft fair, it seems like every single booth is simply littered (can’t stop, won’t stop) with these sorts of products (ie: jewelry, clothes, bags, lamps, furniture, frames, uncategorizable tchotchkes, etc.). And they’re expensive. And they sell. Owning a piece of Detroit’s world famous ruins is like owning a piece of the Berlin Wall. It’s the aura made tangible, and people are dazzled by it.

• Pros: minimal production cost, widely marketable, allowance for drastic variation in terms of price, size, practicality, and aesthetic.  
• Cons: some effort required, the word upcycled.

2. DIY Junk Kits. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and repair!” Customers would have three (or more!) options to choose from. One option would include a collection of random trash with no cohesion and no guidance. The tabula rasa of all trash kits. The fate of these specific types of trash boxes would lie completely in the hands of the buyer to make it (or not make it!) into whatever they want it to be. For an up-charge, they’ll even get a map of origin for their box of garbage. The second option would include a partially constructed product. Included in this kit’s box would be the remaining pieces of trash needed to finish the product, if the buyer so desired. For an up-charge, their box will include an instruction booklet to help guide them through the upcycling process. The third option is the Diversity Kit: a mixture of garbage from a variety of trashcans in a variety of neighborhoods. This option offers the full Detroit experience! It also encourages the buyer to mix in some of their own trash, an experience that will help the buyer feel more connected to the garbage’s creators. It will eradicate their loneliness. It will offer them an intimacy like no other. Maybe there’s an app for this option: the Find My Garbage! app. This option will offer transglobal connection like never before. Strangers will connect over what they’ve chosen to destroy. (Cue DeLillo: “America can be saved only by what it’s trying to destroy.”)

• Pros: mostly realistic.
• Cons: slightly unrealistic.

3. Haunted Remains. Relating to the creepypasta trope, we could sell pieces of Detroit's most haunted history. The options would be expansive, but for the sake of visualization, picture, if you will: plastic bottles found in Belle Isle's haunted woods filled with water from Elmwood Cemetery's haunted creek (that, according to folklore, once ran red from the blood of fallen British soldiers during the Battle of Bloody Run). "Two haunts for the price of one! Open at your own risk!"

• Pros: Navigating haunted places at nightfall to collect garbage.
• Cons: Navigating haunted places at nightfall to collect garbage.

4. DIY Dan Gilbert Voodoo Doll Kits. As Dan Gilbert profits off of trashing Detroit’s history, perhaps we could help Detroit profit off of Gilbert's trash.  Hair strands, chewed gum, clothing scraps. Of course, with this scenario we would be morally obligated to donate all proceeds to the poor souls of Gilbertory who have been displaced by his empire and victimized by Quicken Loans’ predatory lending. If this isn’t a Fair Trade, though, I don’t know what is.  Eat yer heart out, Dr. Bronner.

• Pros: iViva la Justicia!
• Cons: Nice knowing you guys. Big Gilbert is watching. Bring on the lawsuits.

Under the spreading chestnut tree,
Liza

Very Biblical and American at the Same Time!

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 1 January 2015. It should be noted that, since 1 November 2014, all Art's emails have originated from Farthington's account.


"Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze, MMA-NYC, 1851" by Emanuel Leutze - The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Bullet points of serendipity suggest rightness.

Absolutely, the Concert has become Arthur's dome in air. This meshes somewhat well with Farthington, although this is not some mythical location in the Far East, but one that is, at least according to our recent exchanges, the essential source and summit of the White American Dream in its inchoate, primordial, inarticulate form.

I agree that this could be a 1976/2016, always/never, show/not-a-show. I do like the Fr. Bernard frame story ("Thank you all for coming in support of Arthur's healing and wholeness," directly addressing the actual audience before the show begins) as our innocent-enough introduction to the larger conceit.

Could we do a series of these concerts leading up to the 40 year anniversary, 2016? Very biblical and American at the same time!

I like the 60's Hamlet idea, but I was, in part, cutting costs with the straightforward approach. I did want reality set up by Fr. Bernard at the beginning to break down in one or more ways, though, so we can go that route.

Other ideas to share:

• I want a cheap program made for the show, with various diegetical/exegetical/fake biographical things included in its pages. One that I have clearly visualized is "Fr. Bernard's Corner" or "Chaplain's Corner" (scrawled in horrible with Blackadder font, perhaps with Comic Sans as the body font) where we let Father write a page of whatever he wants about the show. He obviously has some understanding of the show idea that resonates with him religiously. In some way, his is just one interpretation among many, but I do want to give him a couple spots within the overall experience that give him and his viewpoint some primacy (another one that I'm fantasizing is a closing prayer!). Other things would be a page calling for benefactors, guarantors, volunteers, etc. We could even potentially sell some advertising space to defray the cost. And by "sell," I want us to ideally take the approach of "Could you buy my costume, a straitjacket, a set of related props, scrubs for the orderlies, etc?" remembering that people prefer providing things not money.

• I want to enable a social media explosion, especially from members of the band. At the first meeting (after prayer, of course), I want to have everyone get Twitter, Instagram, and Vine on their phones. Whenever there is a spare moment to tweet (Twitter), to take a picture (Twitter or Instagram), or shoot a video (Instagram or Vine), I want us to do that, whether together or alone. Who knows, maybe it may even get built into the payout algorithm. In the show's program, I want to give people the Twitter hashtag #ConcertforIceland to allow them to do the same. Father Bernard can even make mention of this in his opening monologue: "Photographs with a vintage filter, in particular, will go a long way toward convincing Arthur that this actually happened" (Twitter has actually added a bunch of filters to compete with Instagram).

• A good money-making side thing might be a Concert for Iceland t-shirt drive. There are a lot of these sites out there nowadays, and it seems like a much better alternative to your usual Kickstarter. I was thinking black t-shirts with text like "Who is Arthur White?" or "Will is the finisher" or "Carlton Farthington died in the tunnels" or "Tough as Kryystyylzz" with an appropriate stylized photo. On the back, Concert for Iceland tour dates (which would be primarily locations in Iceland, I suppose, maybe kicking off in Tokyo, hitting Rome, Oslo, Detroit--the biggies). Do we have anyone who we could talk to about design? I have a pretty clear idea of the look.

Here's a couple of ideas I had for the show itself:

After Father's explanatory intro, orderlies wheel me in, shaved head, unshaven beard in a straitjacket. As I get closer, I dive onto the stage, roll around, get up, trying to free myself. Orderlies tackle me, lift me up and place me before the microphone à la this iconic moment with David Bowie and Klaus Nomi on Saturday Night Live (by the way, check out some more Klaus Nomi if you haven't). Start undoing the shackles as I sing. They first of all tighten some ridiculously loose pants. I've got some other things that make me a patchwork of mismatched motley particolored patterns (I guess identifying me as high jester or Lord of Misrule). They put a ridiculous winter hat on my head, which I promptly take off and throw at you (hat motif: Will's attempts to comfort, confine Arthur's mind; rationalism in general, etc.).

At some point after that first song, I realize that it's really Rustyy Kryystyylzz over at the other microphone. I edge over there and have a loud, funny, whispered conversation with him into the microphone with an excessive amount of heavy breathing, plosive pops, and saliva. "Where'd they pick you up?" "You look perfect." "Why'd they dress me like this?" "Why are the band members dressed like orderlies?" Until someone says, "We can hear you! You're talking into the microphone!" I want a very West African/postmodern aesthetic that always seeks to make the listener aware of the instrument (as opposed to the European aesthetic, which tries to make as little of it as possible).

With the Farthington encounter, much later in the show, I want whoever that is to wander in and have a conversation with Arthur, either as the band members pretend to play on silently or go into some strange interlude. I would like someone to actually do the live text-to-voice typing and have that conversation be somewhat scripted but improvised. Essentially, we need to communicate some of what has happened to Farthington since the failed Concert for Iceland. Perhaps there is a shifting of text-to-voice personas until Farthington settles on a female voice and reveals herself as Steffi. I think this would be a good time for the obligatory Arthur leaving the building moment, walking out hand in hand with the Sea Demon.

This may be near the end, and as Arthur climbs up on the nearest pillar-type thing. Perhaps this is when Fr. Bernard does his closing prayer. Then, we can all run back in for a smashing finale (a reprise of the end of "Agniezscka's Song" or "The Ladder"?).

One last thought re: multiple shows. Were we to have them, I think we should build in some variations that would occur from show to show. Perhaps we could have more than one Rustyy Kryystyylzz (e.g. Russ and your cousin). Perhaps we could play a slightly different list of songs, swapping out 2 or 3 each time from a total of about 15. We could also identify a few other areas that could easily be shifted from show to show. Especially if there are plot elements that we disagree about, would these be opportunities for having multiple story lines?

As for practicing, we'll have to identify the personnel. Maybe the band can plan a big vacation weekend up at your place in early summer!

This Ongoing Dream of Art-in-Itself

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 1 January 2015. It should be noted that, since 1 November 2014, all Art's emails have originated from Farthington's account.

Ron Asheton with Niagara

Okay, that last one was not something that a Will would like to hear from an Art.

I have this ongoing dream of art-in-itself, and any radiation would be a mere byproduct of ever-increasing inward-looking artness.

You are the finisher! I shouldn't have to do this!

Well, I am just getting over the flu and I should take a quick moment to say Happy New Year! I have been spending the last few days in bed, which is why I am finally coming to at 2 a.m. feeling vaguely queasy but beginning to think about the project (not to mention the planning and pile of papers I still have to finish by Monday).

What about another show?

I really think the one I mapped out where Arthur's doctors have recommended this as a way to bring him closure and hopefully getting him to stop climbing up on pillars was feasible. I think July 4th weekend might make the most sense, since that was when it was originally supposed to be held in 1976. The other option is around Christmas, since many of the songs are thematically tied to that season. I know that is when a lot of students are gone too, so I would be open to another option (May again?).

Why so feasible?

Father already has everything he would need for the show (clerical garb). We would just need each band member to buy scrubs (we could assign a color scheme and tell them where to pick it up; reimburse later?). Russ, as the real Rustyy Kryystyylzz, would be the only one who might need to get some actual duds. I'm thinking along these lines. And you already have some good has-been Will Witkowski duds. I would need a shaved head, maybe a wig, strait jacket, institutional garb, etc.

Beyond that, some cheap props that we could probably find.

Our musicians would not need to look like anyone in particular, since they are just orderlies at the mental institution who happen to play instruments. We don't need vintage equipment. We don't know who the original line up of the Concert for Iceland was supposed to be, but with this story, we wouldn't need to know.

I do have one big-ticket item on the wishlist for that show: a large, life-size mascot costume of Carlton Farthington, but altered in several terrible ways, à la deadmau5, but way more DIY and scary. I'm thinking red, gray, charcoal with x's in place of his eyes--a looming, terrible, demonic mascot that resembles the CFCC one, but does not infringe on copyright (so as to avoid this). I'm going to ask my cousins whether they might be able to do that. Other artists who do that kind of stuff?

If we do this, I'd also like us to set up some version of our payout algorithm mentioned before, to encourage every single band member to play full out in getting every single person they can to attend the show--and to reward the ones who do, at least a little more handsomely.

What do you think? I'm trying. I'm not a finisher!

Glasnost

The following is an excerpt of a 29 November 2014 email exchange between Art and Will. It should be noted that, since 1 November 2014, all Art's emails have originated from Farthington's account.


"Reagan and Gorbachev signing" di White House Photographic Office - National Archives and Records Administration ARC Identifier 198588, courtesy Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: Source URL: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/large/c44071-15a.jpg Source page: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/gorby.html. Con licenza Pubblico dominio tramite Wikimedia Commons.

Well, things have been cracking pretty good on the Worldwide Interweb today, thanks to your stirring the pot. Got the highest number of pageviews ever on the blog. I don't understand Facebook stats, but our "Reach" is in the hundreds for each of our recent posts.

This experiment has engendered some new thinking for me, which is exactly what I hoped it would do!

It reminded me of an idea we had early on in the project. It's so interesting that there apparently are no new ideas in this project, only rediscovering the old ones! Ecclesiastes, anyone?

Are you ready? Wait for it...wait for it...wait for it...

TRYOUTS!!!

Yes, that's right. Tryouts. People are trying out for the band. Now, we obviously don't have widespread devotion (I'm thinking Adrien Belew begging Frank Zappa for a second audition), but we could twist a few people's arms into choosing a song to play along with that we can post. This would initially happen through direct communications to musicians we would like to audition.

Then have a voting stage, wherein fans choose between among the different band members! And then, maybe those band members will do a show!

To me, this sounds like a challenge. This sounds like fun. And it feels like it's the missing link, the answer to that critical question: how can we make participating fun for people?

Now, rollout is important. See if the following sequence makes sense:

1. All the Iceland songs should be available on the playlist, which will take some more time
2. We should line up some people, twist their arm into choosing a song, recording it, and having a backlog ready when we make the announcement; they can be recorded alone or with the bare-bones accompaniment of the YouTube video
3. Then we wait a few days and start releasing some of the demos as if they flooded in, hopefully getting some new ones as people get emboldened watching the auditions
4. Finally, you can have people vote on the best demos with videos as choices as you may have seen in Carlton Farthington's latest post

The additional cool thing about this is that there is no lull. Now, our project may very well die for any number of other reasons. People seem to not want to go anywhere near it.

Even in its new glasnost phase, it does little to make itself palatable to anyone!

But lull = death in the zeitgeist and there will be no letdown for this project until we choose to close up shop. Lull will not, in other words, be our cause of death. Blog posts, low-budget online audition/talent show, an ongoing stream of YouTube videos and recordings, etc. No lull.

I guess the final question is, do we need to make it worth people's while? I think the promise of a well-attended show with a decent payout that might be enough. I'm reminded of my algorithm idea for encouraging everyone to drum up interest (15 September 2013 email):

Secondly, I want us to make money on the show.  Here's an idea for that: at the door, in addition to someone collecting money and/or tickets, there would be someone asking whose guest they are. This person would tally the number of guests of mine, of yours, etc. etc. Then, after the show, there would be some agreed-upon algorithm for divvying up the money. I like the idea of a little friendly competition between stakeholders, which would doubtless lead to a larger take. Once everyone has his or her money in hand, we can individually decide if we want to collectively reinvest any of it back into the project. What do you think?

So Opposite of Facebook

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Will to Art on 29 May 2014.

I got caught up on the blog and I've enjoyed seeing it mixed up a little more with email excerpts, phone calls, and music.

"so antagonistic to the default settings of Facebook"

I like the idea of using fame as a way of protecting our stuff, but things like lists and memes are mostly what get reposted on Facebook. I'm happy to promote the blog on Facebook; that's super easy for me and I've done it a few times. But it doesn't have an easy point of entry for anybody trying to learn about the project. There's so much you need to know in order to follow any of it. That makes it ideal for elitist hipsters and intellectuals, but bad for drawing most people into the project.

That's not a criticism. I like the blog as it is, but that's because it's targeted to the three of us! I see it as being most useful as a chapbook, a repository of our ideas.

If we want it to be a tool that draws people into the project, we've got to simplify it and make it easy for people to enter the background of the story. That's not super appealing to me, though; it runs us into the problem of putting a lot of effort into things that aren't about developing the story. Right now, I see the best use of our time as developing the TV show and the music. The blog as it stands really helps me with the TV show by creating a type of greatest hits of our communications. I'll work at promoting it, though, because I'd love to see what happens with something so antagonistic to the default settings of Facebook. Maybe it's so opposite of Facebook that there's a place for it.

Fame could be a strategy to protect our content, but I'd like to still use some old fashioned legal approaches. I have a long tradition of half-writing pilots and movies and then either deciding they stink or solving all the problems in my head and losing interest.

In other words, huge dreams and very little attention to practical reality.

The Church and the Pyramids

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 10 October 2012.

Financing is an interesting problem.

There aren't many ways around it, though.  At the risk of sounding pitiful, I basically have NO disposable income at all, with no prospects of having any in the near future.

Of all the possible routes to take, I'm most comfortable sitting down with my uncle, who has been a big fan and who paid to get my sheet music made.  I wouldn't borrow from anyone but family, so personal liability would not enter into the equation.  I do plan to talk to him about the logistics of paying (or not paying) collaborators and band members.  Whom, how much, at what point in the process, etc...

Part of what I'm struggling with right now is staying centered.

I do feel that the Holy Spirit has been at work in all this.  There are moments, however, when I feel confronted by an endless array of possibilities and I don't know what to do first.   Being short of time and money has been a blessing in a way because I know that, whatever I choose to do, I've got to make it "count."  I've got to choose the most practical course of action and make as much headway as possible before the hurricane comes back.  For me, that means getting these songs ready for launch under any circumstances.  While I still feel drawn to the Thoreauvian idea of building one's castles in the air, I find the approach of building from the ground up sounder.

It's like the women who brought enough oil to meet the bridegroom: focus on the fundamentals and the transcendent will eventually arrive.  As I said, I like Death as the best advisor in matters of importance.

Of course, this project may not truly be important in the wider scheme of things, but Death can rank order things even within a limited context.  So my question is: What if I were to die, say, at the end of this year?  What would be the best steps to take in terms of bringing the project to fulfillment?  I keep falling back on getting the mock-ups complete.  If I got the mock-ups complete, along with the sheet music, and made this available to people who are committed to the music, they could do the rest.  Now, hopefully I survive beyond this year, but if I don't, what I've built is something that can weather anything the world can throw at it.  Take your potential move coming up--this step would allow us to begin the recording process miles apart or prepare for your return.

But the bottom line is the old cliché about putting one step in front of the other.  What I would add to that cliché is that the step should be the best, most productive step available.  And, generally speaking, that it needn't be a leap or a lunge.

At some point, there will need to be some intervention from above.  I mean that in terms of God's grace, but it could also manifest as powerful benefactors, knowledgeable guides, and/or talented collaborators.  The correct disposition strikes me as being akin to what mystics have remarked about the spiritual life: you need to humbly slog it out with the rudiments and then God eventually comes down and infuses your pitiful efforts with divine grace.

Novices tend to grasp at the transcendent experiences when the only way to keep them is to keep one's eyes to the ground.  I've had enough things happen to know that God does seem to have some plan for this project, even if it is merely to move us all closer toward renunciation. I used to stress about how it would come about, when I saw other people winning the Hopwood or having a book published or whatnot.  But those successes were either part of the Pyramids or part of the Church.  If they were pyramids, they achieved nothing.

As I get older, I want less and less to spend time building pyramids.

So, we're about to enter into the year and, at least for me, it will mean a big slowdown with this project.  The financing is not likely a step that I will address much this year, although I will keep my eyes and ears open.  As with your moving, I want to prepare you for my disappearance into another busy school year.  It's not that I'm an especially intense teacher, it's just that I'm a moderately intense teacher with a wife and 6 kids!

I hope to emerge on the other side a few steps closer to total mobilization.  I'm honored and humbled at the amount of interest you take in the project.  If you did nothing but work on drum parts for the songs as I send them along (Garageband files, from now on), that would be huge.  If you can figure out how to lay down those parts on Garageband and send them back, that would be amazing.  Perhaps you want to devote yourself to something else, like the wikipedia story...whatever you do, I'm totally psyched.

Veni Sancte Spiritus!

As With Natural Disasters, People Prefer to Give Concrete Things, Not Money

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 15 September 2013 on the subject of funding The Concert for Iceland.

I'm not sure when this show would occur (baby #7 due in November) or if you're even interested in having a hand in this anymore. 

It sounds like we're looking to do Apotheosis with another drummer, but your talents would certainly be welcome as a writer, promoter, actor again.  If we do look into doing this again, I'd like to take a different fiscal approach.

Firstly, I want to address the issue of being resource poor before the show. 

I'd like to have the money up front to purchase things for the show, not hoping that we make enough to recoup our losses.  Here's my idea, one I've expressed before: I'd like to get the personnel and story squared away first.  Then I'd like to brainstorm and price out all all the accoutrements necessary for the show's production and get each member's picture taken with the desired outfits.  Then, fundraise on the front end of things. 

Inside a wedding registry-type paradigm, benefactors could purchase the clothing of one or more characters.  Perhaps we could set something up with your vintage clothes lady.  As with natural disasters, people prefer to give concrete things, not money.  We may want to have some prizes or recognition associated with each level of support.

Secondly, I want us to make money on the show.  Here's an idea for that: at the door, in addition to someone collecting money and/or tickets, there would be someone asking whose guest they are.  This person would tally the number of guests of mine, of yours, etc. etc.  Then, after the show, there would be some agreed-upon algorithm for divvying up the money. 

I like the idea of a little friendly competition between stakeholders, which would doubtless lead to a larger take.  Once everyone has his or her money in hand, we can individually decide if we want to collectively reinvest any of it back into the project.