A member of bend of bay recently participated in a recording of John McDonough’s John Cage tribute “Landscape Under Construction.”  This recording will be part of “The Radio Pieces,” a two CD set forthcoming from mode records. In addition to Landscape Under Construction, the set will include Radio Music, Imaginary Landscape #4, and world premiere recordings of Speech and WBAI.

Landscape Under Construction is performed using boom boxes. In this particular realization, all CDs were performances released as part of mode records’ Complete John Cage Edition. Performers were given a score which generally contained instructions as to when to start or pause the CD, or raise or lower the volume. Some parts required more decisions on the performer’s part or prior preperation. A clock served as conductor.

More pictures from the session can be found on this Flikr page by vidiot, from which this image was taken.

I have decided to attempt a realization of Section II of Projects Finnegans Wake. This section calls for participants to read assigned sections of the text at a specific time. The reading can be performed at a location of the participant’s choosing or wherever they happen to be at the time. Participation doesn’t require any particular knowledge of Joyce or previous experience with Finnegans Wake. All that is required is interest in taking part in an event that attempts to bring Finnegans Wake to the world in as inclusive a manner as possible. Its premise is that Joyce meant the work to be read and enjoyed.

If you have never read Finnegans Wake, the full text is available here. Be sure to read aloud, because a great deal of the sense comes through the sound of the words. The length of the passage assigned will depend on how many readers we line up.

If you are interested in participating, please leave a comment on this page.  Please note that comments will not be published so feel free to ask as many questions as you like.  You can also use bend of bay’s contact form or write info@bendofbay.org.

This page will be updated as details are finalized.

- apc

For reference, the full text of PROJECTS Finnegans Wake as it appears in bend of bay’s projects section is copied below.

PROJECTS Finnegans Wake

PROJECT Finnegans Wake to expand the book and condense it into a small space, scatter and compress its sounds, draw together and separate readers and listeners in space, time and sound, reread the book in its entirety.

Critical attention has been placed on the structure of Finnegans Wake and hundreds of hours devoted to structural exegesis. Criticism frequently emphasizes structure in a manner which is reductive and risks trivializing the book. Joyce used structure and method as a means to an end and not for their own sake. His book cannot be restrained by structure or the meanings in language: They are free.

PROJECT Finnegans Wake brings the book to the world in as inclusive a manner as possible. Its premise is that Joyce meant the work to be read and enjoyed.

ActiONs:

I Sequential Reading in Different Locations

You have chosen or have been assigned a number of pages and start time and select a location from which to read. At the appointed second, read this section then go home. Envision readers positioning themselves on street corners, in supermarkets, airplanes or anywhere else where they would be reasonably conspicuous. The only positions preselected are the first (riverrun) and the last (the), which take place before Rauschenberg’s Bed in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

II Simultaneous Reading in Different Locations

The difference between this version and version I is that in this case everyone reads their passage at the same time. The sounds are compressed in time but not in space.

III Sequential Reading in the Same Location

For this version a large hall is rented and the public is invited to enter and leave as desired. A carnival atmosphere develops in and around the hall. This is the microcosm, the counterpart to the carnival of the world surrounding each reader in version I.

IV Simultaneous Reading in the Same Location

For this version, the hall is filled with readers and at the appointed tunw everyone reads together. The public is invited to listen.

The four readings can be performed in any order. For example, IV can be performed as an overture to III, but this is not essential. All or some can be performed simultaneously. Each can be performed more than once.

Manifesto on Structure: Time

Time rigorously applied includes all aspects of the physical universe. The readers move the work through space and time.

The details of time are worked out in advance by the organizer. The organizer establishes the time it takes to read a representative page aloud without performing exegesis of each word and motif. The number of readers determines the length and duration of each passage. Each reader is assigned starting and ending page and line numbers, a start time, and duration. Each reader fills this duration exactly. Readers practice their sections to ensure each performance is in fact sequential or simultaneous. The personality of the reader is not essential. The blank of this page, and those appearing at the break between each chapter and book, is included in each duration. The duration applied is the time it would theoretically take to complete the page if words appeared. The silences are as important as the words.

Manifesto on Structure: Space

BegIN in this space or in any other space.

Manifesto on Structure: The Readers.

Here Comes Everybody

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The scenario for these performances of Finnegans Wake by James Joyce were developed in 1980 and a slightly different version appeared in the Winter 1992-1993 issue of The Abiko Literary Rag.

Develop a rhythm.

When to inhale, when to exhale.

Can you count?

He wanted to color it in.

There were three platoons. They drove from coast to coast working in kitchens, carnivals and shelters.

The van broke down. They met a man with money and jokes and food.

They fought over the bottle.

She said he had two kids somewhere. Maybe we should tell them he is dead.

Soldiers, children, stand by cradling Kalashnikovs. Some smile. Some struggle for seriousness of expression adopting mannerisms from satellite TV.

- Join our movement. We have satellite TV.

Meanwhile food is running low. Green broth in steel drums. Is it food, or something else? Coolant.

- Don’t worry. It’s loaded with vitamins and nutrients. Enough to see you through the day.

The line snakes and swells back to Eden and forward to judgement day. Children keep order.

- You there. Get back in line. You there. Keep moving.

A rumor rolls forward.

- There is not enough food. There is not enough for everyone.

- Don’t worry.

The voice of reason.

- They will bring more.

More is coming.

Sandstorm in the distance.

- Those are trucks. See. More is coming.

The trucks arrive. Soldiers.

- What? No food?

That is a problem.

In this day and age, no less.

What went before, happened next.

John Ashbery sat staring at the page for hours. He only had one or two good hours in him at most and here he was, late in the day, with nothing to show for it.

John Ashbery sat staring at the page. It was late in the day. He only had one, maybe two hours to go. And nothing to show.

John Ashbery sat staring at the page.

J. A. sat staring.

J. A. sat.

J. A.

J.

When tired, they slept. Tall grass by water.

Tall grass by water. Developers. Paradise. They have been coming here for years, and plan coming for years more. There are plans for a major new development with a community center and system of roads connecting it with last year’s church and hospital complex. Thus it will be easy for them to move between the two, unmolested in paradise.

J.A: It is like dropping a bucket into the mind to see what comes up.

They spend their days waiting for the construction to begin. Waiting for the tap tap tap of JA’s typewriter. He only has two or so hours to go. Sometimes they avoid the roads and walk on the water instead.

John Ashbery stood up, leaving the typewriter and a blank page, its blankness duly noted and catalogued by his assistant and companion of thirty five years.

NEWARK — John E. List, a former Sunday school teacher who was on the run for more than 17 years after killing his family in 1971, has died while serving a life term for their murders, authorities said Monday. He was 82.

Someone from the town wanted to hang him, hang him high.

“String him up,” he said.

I did not want to string him up. I wanted to speak with him for a minute first and try to find out what it was that made him do it.

“What made you do it,” I’d ask.

I would ask, and he would tell me.

After I found out what made him do it, after he told me what is was that made him do it, I would write it down. When I wrote it down, I would try and remember exactly what he said, what his words were, what his exact words were word for word and not the words I thought he said or perhaps really should have said because they would have made what he said that much more clear. No, I would write down his words, exactly what he said, word for word, exactly as he had said it. But if I could not remember exactly what his words were, I would do my best to keep the essence of what he had said intact.

After I wrote it all down, I would read it over and over again. As I read, I would concentrate on the man, my interview with the man in the cell, the interview where I asked him why he did it and what was going through his head when he did it and so on and so forth. I would read and concentrate and as I read I might notice some things I got wrong, subtle nuances I failed to capture, or things I just plain forgot. Reading what I had written over and over again in this fashion will serve, with each pass through what I had written, to bring the two versions further into line. I would read what I had written as many times as necessary to ensure that what I had written was faithful to what the man had said and the environment in which he had said it.

At his point I would have full convergence and a factual story. I would have a record of why the man did what he did and why he did it, why he said that he did it, and if he had to do it all over again what he would do differently. I would know that if he could change one thing, any one thing at all, what this one thing was. I would know something about this man and what he might have become if he had changed this one thing, if in fact he had wanted to change one thing at all.

Daddy had the same question.

Latrun was a disaster, boy. Some of our men were survivors just off the boat from Europe.

They parked, took the Metro, checked the map, asked for directions, found the spot.

Children in fatigues, standing with their fathers, press their fingers against stone.

Now that we have all the facts of the case, we can start to recreate the story of his life. Whether we will be able to solve its mysteries is another question.

There was something about the lungs. They seemed to have shown some radiation damage. What could have caused this? I suspect the x-rays.

They asked about alcohol, although there was no sign of liver or other damage. How much of this is based on hearsay, or the suspicions of people like us or the embellishments of the landlord? Read this section with some care.

His lungs had apparently been compromised for some time. What words were used? I have the autopsy. Whatever it was it was unexplained and so the question is whether the cause of this was the same as the cause of what happened to his heart. And what of the radiation - - could it have just been the series of x-rays he got over the years or was one of them botched?

Now that we have the whole story, from beginning to end, we can start to write down the whole story, from beginning to end, and then back again.