Archive for August, 2009

Strange Punctuation

Strange Punctuation Album Cover

It was an enjoyable challenge to create this spoken word album.

I brought a manuscript of poems to the recording studio, along with some very old notebooks. In the first session, we recorded words only. In later sessions, we edited the original recordings by adding layers of other sounds to them. It was important to be associative rather than strictly illustrative.

Along the way, I discovered that editing sound is very much like editing printed words. You can add, subtract, rearrange the sounds in very much the same way that you can on the page. With sound there are other ways to edit. You can revise the speed, pitch, volume, echo and decay of the words. It was this discovery that prompted me to title the album “Strange Punctuation”.

Infinity’s Kitchen

I’m the editor of a zine called Infinity’s Kitchen. It’s a graphic literary journal of experimental literature, published independently, in print and online.

If you think that “experimental literature” is synonymous with “nonsense” you may be right, but you’re in the wrong place, with Infinity’s Kitchen. Nonsense has a place in writing, the way pepper has a place in certain foods. It is best used sparingly, sometimes never at all, and it should never be served up all by itself.

Street Preacher

In 2001 I was a sophomore in college, with a bit more time on my hands than I can imagine now. I wrote a play called “Street Preacher”.

Turning Japanese

Nearing the end of my High School career, I took stock of the imminent future. At the time, it felt like “the future had yawned out before me into an abyss”. I felt unready, unsure about what comes next, but I decided to take a year as an exchange student.

I chose a destination with dart-on-the-map-board precision: Japan. It was as far from home as I could get without coming back, literally the opposite side of the planet.

These are my observations, written during that year.