Wednesday, November 22, 2023 by Montez Press Radio #interviews #readings
The Whitney Review of New Writing
Inside the launch issue of the Whitney Review (Spring/Summer 2023), including excerpted audio from the feature interview between Brontez Purnell and Michael Bullock and a reading of Philippa Snow's essay about Y2K celebrity fiction by Pamela Anderson, Nicole Richie, and the Kardashians.
The Whitney Review is the biannual print review dedicated to new writing you've been waiting for -- founded and edited by Whitney Mallett and art directed by Immanuel Yang. The first issue includes interviews with Brontez Purnell, Tamara Faith Berger, Ishmael Reed, and Samuel Delany and reviews of novels, poetry, nonfiction,, art books, periodicals, and more.
The first issue sold out so enjoy the audio supplement :) Listen ➚here.
Tuesday, May 9, 2023 by DJ Uncertain #performance
Comte Des Cierges
We produced a play in a lobby by, with, and about the psychic worlds of doormen as part of our residency with The Kitchen and in collaboration with The Working Theater.
Comte Des Cierges is a play written by Carlos Cotto and draws from his decade of experience as a former doorman. Directed and organized by Salome Oggenfuss, starring professional and amateur doormen and actors, Jim Fletcher, Ruby Max Fury, Anthony Delfi, Emily Davis, Sophie Becker, Gordon Landenberger, N'yomi Stewart, Timothy Allan, Lluca Huatuco, John Ayala, and Pam Hammond.
Comte Des Cierges was performed on March 23rd, 2023 in the lobby of the Seward Park Cooperative apartment on Grand Street in Manhattan. It was produced in collaboration with The Kitchen and The Working Theater.
We also recorded this fascinating conversation about the work, work, and ➚The Working Theater with Salome Oggenfuss.
The Working Theater exists to create theater specifically for, about and with working people; the community that makes up the majority of the overall metropolitan workforce. To that end, Working Theater makes their productions relevant, accessible and affordable to all regardless of geography or socio-economic status because they believe that theater should be a part of everyone’s everyday culture.
Listen to the radio play on ➚MPR here:
Tuesday, May 9, 2023 by DJ Uncertain #music
No Spotlight Like the Sun
No Spotlight Like the Sun is an hour-long playlist inspired by Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. Go put on that new bathing suit and imagine an OC where Heidi dumps Spencer, Trey and Stephen explore their sexuality, and Lauren’s just a little less shady… I’ve always been the nice girl but this year I realized sometimes you just have to go after what you want.
Since 2012, Lm Listening has made eight playlists with GarageBand—four with Adobe Audition—and has liked nearly 1,500 songs on Soundcloud. Lm absorbs and shares music the same way lots of people do with images: kind of obliviously.
Tuesday, May 9, 2023 by DJ Uncertain #art #music
Frederick Weston
Harry Tafoya sent us this conversation recorded with the late great Frederick Weston and we cut it with some of Weston's music (deep cuts provided by ➚Gordon Raubichaux who manage his estate, and just closed a great ➚exhibition of his). Weston (1946–2020) was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and raised in Detroit, Michigan where he participated in the club scene before moving to New York City in the mid-1970s and worked at concession stands in porno theaters in a very different Times Square (He was once interviewed by ➚Samuel Delany on the subject). Weston was a self-taught, interdisciplinary artist who developed a vast encyclopedic archive of images and ephemera related to fashion, the body, advertising, AIDS (which he contracted in 1996), race, and queer subjects.
This interview was recorded in 2019 while Harry was still in journalism school, two years before Weston's passing. When he was asked to write about the club scene, naturally he went to Frederick. It is a record of a life lived to the fullest. ➚ Listen to the whole two hours here:
Frederick Weston's obituary by Alex Vadukal in the New York Times is beautifully written, and if you're curious to hear more about the art, craft, and trade secrets of NYT obit writing in general, Kaitlin Phillips, Alex Traub, and Alex Vadukul (City Correspondent and former Obit desk at the NYT) did a whole episode on just that which you can ➚listen to here:
Tuesday, May 9, 2023 by DJ Uncertain #art #music
Tellus
Revisiting an early, formative segment with Adrian Rew (Ergot Records) and Carol Parkinson who co-produced Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine from 1983-1993. A subscription to Tellus would get you a bi-monthly cassette in the mail with recordings featuring poets, artists, no wave punks, and new music composers, mostly downtown NYC (though sometimes issues were made up of entirely China-based contributors). ➚Every issue of tellus is online at Harvestworks here.
A favorite work in Tellus is from issue #22 from 1988 where Gretchen Bender's Artificial Treatment layers multiple outtakes of a television news anchor reporting a gruesome scene, leaving a listener to imagine it. The anchor's well-rehearsed takes synch robotically until each gives way to some all too human mistake. The result is a terrifying and uncanny revelation of the fairly banal process of mediating reality. Bender was not only a great artist, she also worked in mainstream media producing things like Megadeath music videos and the intro to the TV hit America's Most Wanted.
➚Listen to the conversation with Carol and Adrian here.
Tuesday, May 9, 2023 by DJ Uncertain #art #music
Dieter Roth's Verlag
Considered one of the most influential contemporary artists, Dieter Roth produced artworks in various media, from graphics, drawings, and sculptures, to assemblages / ready-made, sound and music recordings. Dieter Roth's Verlag was founded in 1974.
Featuring: Colette Roper “Piano Pieces” / Dieter Roth “Thy Quatsch Est Min Castello" / Nam June Paik "My Jubilee Ist Unverhemmet"
Colette Roper’s “Piano Pieces”, which was released in 1979, was one of the hardest to find albums among Dieter Roth's Verlag catalogues. Much is unknown about Colette Roper and “Piano Pieces” was her only album. Remastered by Jos Smolder in 2022 and released March 3, 2023 as a split between Art Into Life and Tochnit Aleph/Rumpsti Pumsti (Musik).
From 1977 to 1979 Dieter Roth and Nam June Paik made artistic interventions that manipulated the speed of Arnold Schoenberg's play "Verklärte Nacht, opus 4". Titled "My Jubilee Ist Unverhemmet", Paik's version played the record 4 times slower (on 16 RPM) in a Merce Cunningham dance event. When Roth heard Paik's version, he played "Verklärte Nacht, opus 4" at four times the original speed and recorded this accelerated version as his own piece of music on vinyl. The title of his version is: "THY QUATSCH est min Castello"
From the sleave of Colette Roper “Piano Pieces”:
Nam June Paik’s "My Jubilee Ist Unverhemmet", is slowed up Schoenberg to match a classic immigrant’s tale of great hope followed by disappointment and absurd levels of persistence. I love this story, in his words a pic I took at the Nam Jun Paik museum outside of Seoul:
➚Listen to the whole segment here on MPR ---->
Wednesday, April 12, 2023 by DJ Uncertain #poetry #performance
MOON_Gehenna’s Fire
As do prayers to a god
Not from faith but desire
I color these words
With vulgar sacrament
In my devotion to you
신에게 기도하는 대부분이 그러하듯
신앙에서 나온 것이 아닌
욕망에서 시작된 상스러운 기도문에
성스러운 음색을 담아 당신께 보냅니다
Go on and reap me, don’t you
거두어 가지 않으시나요, 저를
Born in the birthplace of sin
And here at its furthest reach
죄가 시작된 곳에서 태어나
죄의 끝이 닿아있는 이곳에서
While the season which began with ending my own
Goes on streaming
스스로 끊어낸 생의 계절이 계속 흘러가는데
Lamentation sinks into travesty
Like smoke trapped in glass flourishes
In this moment
As I turn only to you
허망하게 내려앉은 비탄의 울음만이
유리 속에 갇혀 버린 연기처럼 흐드러지는 지금
당신만을 바라봅니다
For what sin or matter
Do I try for death as I live on
In the fetters of contradictions
In search of you if you ask
무슨 죄로 무슨 일로
죽으려 하면서도 살아가는 모순의 굴레에 갇혀
당신을 찾느냐고 물으신다면
No answer can be given
아무런 대답도 하지 못합니다
Poor days
Unfinished and
Rested on is yesterday falling
As today I wait on wordlessness
And tomorrow that won’t be met
가렶은 시절
끝내지 못한 바람에
기대어 쓰러지는 어제와
무언을 기다리는 오늘
그리고 마주치지 않을 내일
Do they tremor because the sun hasn’t risen
Do they tremor because the moon hasn’t risen
태양이 뜨지 않아 흔들리는 것인지
달이 뜨지 않아 흔들리는 것인지
Between stomping and darkness
I dance hanged by the neck
And ask you
밟음과 어둠 그 사이에서
목을 매고 춤을 추며
당신께 묻습니다
For I’m childless
If I instead burn my soul in Gehenna
Do I get what I want
나는 아이가 없으니
대신 영혼을 게헨나에서 불태우면
원하는 것을 얻을 수 있나요
Could life be on my terms
내가 원하는 삶을 살 수 있나요
I will forsake/betray my god
And come to you
내가 모시던 신을 버리고
당신께 가겠습니다
For it is already bent and raveled here
Where I can neither live nor die with an innocent mind
이미 어긋나 뒤엉켜버린 이곳에서
순수한 마음을 지키며 살지도 죽지도 못하기에
As in to go extinct for the end never arrived
종말 하지 않아 멸종되는 것처럼
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Listen ➚here to the whole poetry reading, from under votive statue of the Gangnam Style Hands at The Gangnam Mall, organized by ➚Fuckery Poetry Group ➚-->