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I'm a Frisbeetarian -- Shane Schneider

I'm a Frisbeetarian. We believe that after you die, your soul gets stuck on a rooftop and you can't get it down.

Beer Breakfast With Anthony Cobb

Anthony Cobb licked a pane of glass for nearly four hours at the John Cage Music Circus in Chicago. He had placed himself, unmoving, in a turquoise cubicle amidst Dan Flavin's multicolored flourescent light exhibit . The licking was rapid, or should I say rabid, and there was a fractal streak of white saliva on the glass, a Fibonacci of spit. He held the corners of the glass from the center of his palm. About an hour into the performance, Bryan Markovitz sat down with a notebook and counted each time the tongue hit the target, in thick, black, permanent ink.

The day before, during a Howloosanation beer breakfast, I had the chance to ask him a few questions.



DM: So tell me about your project for the music circus -- what's your approach? what are you thinking internally?

A C: I think I'm still trying to figure that out, actually. But I can say that, so far, what I have been thinking about it separation. And I don't know exactly where that's going to end up, but that's what I read into it. It's something about separation to me. Ot her than that I don't have anything that's totally concrete. That's about the gist of it at this point. I have some sort of strange attraction t o working with glass right now, so this is my first time working with glass -- I have quite a few ideas I'm wil ling to explore. So I guess I'm still exploring. couldn't really say there is any deep meaning behind it. It's all about this idea of separation and I'm sure something will come out of it along the way.

DM: So when you say separation, do you mean separation between national borders, for example, or separation between people or psyches?

AC: What comes to mind immediately is on a smaller scale, so an example would be not necessarily individuals, but between people and their selves.

DM: You mean the false self and the persona, or the real self?

AC: Yeah, or maybe it's taking a step back. Maybe it's about observation. Maybe there's something about revealing one's self, also. There was a project where I ate as many onions as I could, fed to me by another performer. We didn't touch each other. I would take an onion, bite it, take an onion from their mouth, eat it.

DM: Heartburn city?

AC: No, actually I didn't get heartburn.

DM: Esophagus seared?

AC: Yeah, I experienced that.

DM: Did you get any bile or upchuck?

AC: I never threw up or anything. I surprised myself.

DM: How many onions did you eat? Where they white onions?

AC: (nodding) I think it was four onions total.

DM: Whole?

AC: Whole onions. It was about relationships. A lot of this is sort of loosely based. It's just about an idea, about presenting an idea, and an audience can take from it what it wants. That was the theme that came up and that's how we chose to present it.

DM: Right. So it's almost like improvising musicians who come to the table with a certain approach or angle but they don't know exactly what they're going to do -- it's more process-oriented.

AC: I wouldn't say it's exactly improvised -- it's definitely thought-through, although you don't necessarily know the outcome, you probably will plan for an outcome. Say, you plan to eat twenty onions, if you eat more than twenty onions and you're still standing, you might do this or that. Then you know the possibility that at some point the ending will not go at all how was expected. But at some point I wasn't thinking so clearly, so I stopped.

DM: Did you start hallucinating?

AC: No, I didn't start hallucinating, but, physically and perhaps emotionally I could not continue. I didn't get sick. At times there were waves of sickness that would come. But it didn't affect me that much, it was more about the inside of my mouth. That was the level where I just c ouldn't physically do it. For a lot of people that was hard to understand, because they said, you didn't throw up, or pass out. It didn't happen. It didn't affect me that way. But it did affect me so there was no way I could put something else in my mou th. So I just gently said, no more. No more. That was not expected at all. It did affect the way I was thinking, my emotional state. I knew how we were supposed to end the piece, but that somewhere was gone. And I could have physically performed that ending, but that was gone.

DM: What was the ending?

AC: Well, it was a simple ending. If something happened where I was ill, or my body just gave out, the performer feeding me the onions would turn, walk away, and I would follow. That simple. But that so mehow w as gone from my mind. And then that ending did happen, but there was a little addition to it.

Din, Din, Din, Raymond Federman Is In

David Moscovich (You) meets Raymond Federman (He Said). Chicago. Friday, September 30, 2005.
Here are the highlights:

Din, din, din, ruffy din, din, din. Pasta, pasti, pasta pasty waste inca, litchka, kafka, broddka, gun, gun, gun, gunny shista, shitsa McBista, pista, lissa, lissa, lissa, you. A size seven shoe. Lissa, you, fatha hey farther you hay the frather you bathe. The way you stare wearing monster cock underwear, there's a yellow beak under there. This mahton, mahton, mccormick and shist. Lomy, ginny, gin, gin, gin bore yee, hompdatwinkle, take a tinkle in your din, din, din. Just as prehappens, per chapps, per chapps, po chapps I recieved an email you were in my cargo, key largo, shicargo, key largo, chicargo. Fall caps, happen staps, ansee, wankle, winkla fingerman, fingerman, finger your man, fenger your meng, fengler you'll tie the long, wet, sloppy winter, are you bund, did you bind, you flatter, Moscovich you slobber, you are too friendly, too cold, too old, too sorrowful and expatriated your kindness for a bottle of genna-lee whickey, whickey wong. That's me. Whickey Wong.It's All One Novel, he said. All The Books Are One Novel, he said. Federman said. In Many Installments, Yes. Many Installments. Yes, he said and admitted as much and very warm and very warm with eyes and generous with his stories, generous to the point you wonder how he keeps giving it, doing it, you a libra, you a toy, you a district seven boy, you are voy, voy you are, void you are, you are voi, you are, too, cake man two, who shuska, kafra, capra, kofta, simulacrayon, simultation, simultitted, pencilbaited, switch inflate, switch and wait, coddle, custle, hustle custard, mustard waiting for who brought you? Whatever You Do You Must Be Free, That's Why I Write, he said. Federman said. Whatever You Do You Must Be Free. De la mechanismu care te asteapta. (Free of the machine that awaits you). I never saw him take a drink, though believe me, his glass was filled with Merlot. Put down the pen, Moscovich, there are live people in the room and a jukebox, no, keep writing, your voice is louder this way, you don't have the din, din, din, ote, ote, ote, it's so terribly convenient not to have a wife. Poata si tot te asteapta -- toata viata m-am scapat de realitate, zice Federman, It's A Nice Place To Visit, Reality, But I Wouldn't Want To Stay For Long, he said. Federman said. Now you're getting lost in the Romanian subjunctive, he seemed to sparkle when he found out who I was. It's Guys Like You That Keep Me Writing The Way I Write, Federman said. You know your ignorance is an immeasurable void so you only listened. When the Russian approached Federman and said, you know, you should shorten your phrases, it's rather like a twitch the way you tell stories, he said. Why is it the Jews are always telling long-winded stories, ah? The Russian was playing his hand but he laid it down too soon, he was too drunk and lost in the din, Federman just winkled and went on. That's a twinkle and a wink. Because they travelled so much, to put it simply, they always carried the book with them. And When You Are Writing A Novel, You Are Working On It All The Time, he said. Federman said. We were watching Critical Mass from the third floor when he brings up the insanity, or was it the bat, who turned to me and said, I Eat Boys Like You For Breakfast. And what do you do for hors d'ourves, I asked and Federman started to quote Beckett, he said, We Are All Born Crazy Only a Few Remain So. A Laudal, de laudal, der monda, dei fondu, dei corpu, dumnezeu pe cuvintu meu, cu dumnezeu am fost in conversatie, draga, alceneva nu putea sa ma crede. No one else would have believed me, but Federman believed me, he belived me when I said I had somewhere to go. I thought I had somewhere to go. But there was nowhere to go. There was Wine and Sam's Sara.

Tale From a Transylvanian Village (Bilingual Transmission) 3

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Tale From a Transylvanian Village (Bilingual Transmission) 2

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Tale From a Transylvanian Village (Bilingual Transmission)

this is an audio post - click to play

More Romanian Particularities



Fiecare Are Pasaricǎ Lui-
Everyone Has Their Own Little Bird

Nu Să Mănîncă în Toate Zilele Placintă: You Can't Eat Cheese Pie Every Day

Interview With Romanian Actress Gabriela Marinescu


they gave me water so crisp and cold it froze my cheeks, water right out of the well, and we ate romanian meatballs you wouldn't believe, on the grill, and he was drunk like a horse, flattened, he didn't know his name and he kept pinching me

was he older?

no, he was 45-50 years old, much younger than me, he looked old, but he wasn't old, he was from the country (muncit), he worked his whole life and it showed in his hands, he kept pinching me on the ass, i didn't know how to get away from him -- they had chickens and ducks and geese and a dog that started barking when i went to the WC, a big black dog started barking at me -- it was chained, lucky me he was chained then we ate the grilled meatballs then palinkă (plum wine) and they said drink, drink, drink, bai mă că e palinkă!

my god

don't drink that unless you put a little water in it because it will burn the hell out of your throat

it's plum wine, right?

yes, ţuica, palinka

ţuica e palinka?

da, sau şliboviţa

şliboviţa

are aşa un sunet

you take the ţuica, and more ţuica, and let's drink some more, and they say, hi ma mai mănîncă -- ce ma nu mănîncă -- she doesn't eat, she doesn't eat at all, nothing, nothing at all, and then her father says, now i would like to see how she eats. I like the way she looks now i want to see what she eats. how she eats. and when she eats. when? when?

i say well i don't eat in the morning only coffee, i'm not hungry in the morning and at noon i might eat a little something, mayube a little salad or something

he says, a little salad? what's that?

then at night, and doina interrupts saying, oh, yes, at night she eats something if you can catch her eating

so then we went to sleep around nine

nine?

it was one of those obscure little villages -- not even romanians know about it -- poor as hell, but they have pigs, geese, vegetables, chickens, everything they need -- and they have a store they get newspapers and flour they make bread in an adobe oven at home -- they gave us a chicken, they caught it they defeathered it and boiled it

ai să jumulesc pă tine

they put the whole thing in hot water

then they grabbed some fresh eggs, hot right from the chicken's ass, you know that? they were hot, hot, and fresh milk with cream on top, right from the cow, only when i was little girl i drank milk right from the cow, fantastic, fantastic, a totally different flavor you know i don't drink milk otherwise

she was looking for her money and i don't know how many jackets she had and two or three hats on her head, and there was such heat in there

i had very few clothes

she was going from room to room in the whole house to find her money not mine, she didn't want to rob you she was interested in her own money, and finally she left and doina says, Tanti Prucină, culcă-te, te rog, te rog, culcă-te frate

she says i don't have any money, and that's how it was all night she didn't sleep all night that's how it was she spent the whole night looking for her money

she had almost 98 years you had to keep your eyes on her she kept trying to run away from home

she must have put it under the mattress

but she wasn't looking under the mattress