Music From The Other Room
Multimedia lab experimenting with image and sound. We try to do things as they are not supposed to be done.
Listen and subscribe on RadioPublic or wherever you catch your podcasts: https://play.radiopublic.com/the-white-whale-6rMkNW/ Find entire season, Samples from Anodyne, with transcripts on CyNar Pictures: http://www.cynarpictures.com/the-white-whale/tape-extracts/?category=Samples+From+Anodyne So what is Samples from Anodyne? It's series 3 of The White Whale. It's a podcast. It's a zine. It's a podcast about a zine.
Today's teaser just needed to have some visuals. It started as something simple and then became what is not atypical for this group. Watch, listen, enjoy. Series drops tomorrow (as long as technical glitches do not get in the way).
So what is Samples from Anodyne? It's series 3 of The White Whale. It's a podcast. It's a zine. It's a podcast about a zine. It's a podcast about a zine run by Julie Shapiro that she has rebirthed through a tumblr page and steadfast commitment to continued print distribution as time and life permits; a gift for those generous enough to contribute. It's a podcast about a zine about how one grows up, how one gets old, how one comes to terms with a life so excruciatingly unknowable and uncontrollable despite best efforts put forth everyday to know and understand.
It's a story built on its own finite; where only the briefest of moments could allow its narrative to be true. Originating in an era that now seems unfathomable - pre-internet - where you connected with people in person or through the transference of something physical - even an analog phone or shortwave transmission had a certain weight we're uncertain of today; to now where nothing seems tangible, everything smoke and mirrors wafting away just as soon as you think you've grasped it. A story about the interweave of fact and fiction and the value of that conflation when driven toward positive means of love, community, and connectivity.
It's about living in the abstractions of daily life and finding the poetry that lies beneath.
This series feels very much like a story The White Whale was built to tell and it's an honor to have been provided the opportunity. There will be one more trailer tomorrow and then the entire series will drop later this week.
"Enjoy the centerfold. Enjoy the tape. Enjoy the fact that you have great taste in music."
The last time we posted here was about a new logo for CyNar. Something evolved with its age and increasing abstraction from the typical methods of media production.
Now, The White Whale is following suit. As we are finishing up Series 3, and already looking beyond to other material, a new face seemed appropriate. One that speaks to its continued understanding of itself and the evolution of its presentation in this self reflection. So, with that, here is the new look as well as a new Facebook page devoted to its own malfeasance! Enjoy.
For a while now, a composition has been in the works to encapsulate an imagining of end times. A feeling of collapse one may retreat to in an attempted understanding of the world we inhabit and the world on horizon.
Today marks the release of said endeavor. Titled 3 Minutes to Midnight, in light of the famous clock forecasting proximity to the end of the world; this piece is not meant to ground you or provide escape for what is certainly coming. This is a sound experiment of experience - a presentation of what it may be when the last 57 minutes of existence do take shape. An accounting of last breaths, imagining a blink out with the last 3 minutes of the last hour silent, nothingness, as something new directs course to an unknown destination.
This is collapse. Either by climate change, nuclear impulse, or some unforeseen decimation. The pings of signal flare outs, reverberations of metal, and the desolation of noise. Let the movie play in your head as the sound washes over you. Waves upon waves of absoluteness. Let "[t]he images dies as soon as they are created...dispelled by the very light they cast...like a spring constantly compressed and constantly released, that carries all time within itself and consumes it there and then."
In 2015 Don Chambers hosted "a music and other things entertainment" each month called The Last Thursday. Each month had its own theme and governed not only the types of content, but way of presentation for the evening. These evenings lived and died in the moment with very little social media promotion or archiving. In the second season of The White Whale we offer snippets of these evenings; providing first glimpses beyond the nights of what went down and why their existence foregoing online permanence is important. Visit http://www.donchambersmusic.com/ for music and more.
In 2015 Don Chambers hosted "a music and other things entertainment" each month called The Last Thursday. Each month had its own theme and governed not only the types of content, but way of presentation for the evening. These evenings lived and died in the moment with very little social media promotion or archiving.
In the second season of The White Whale we offer snippets of these evenings; providing first glimpses beyond the nights of what went down and why their existence foregoing online permanence is important.
Visit Don Chambers for music and more.
Radiohead did a call out for some original video work and we obliged.
Originally publishing by Anobium on August 7, 2013.
The soda cost fifty cents. But the machine dispersed whatever flavor it wanted no matter the selection.
In Duane’s dreams he was an air force pilot. He was never really sure why an air force pilot. Nothing came to mind that allowed recounting. But it was the air force. He wanted to be in the air. Doing important things. Doing dangerous things. He wanted to be someone to write home about.
He thought of this every morning while standing at the pop machine deciding which to select even though he knew it wouldn’t matter. It was a risk to not select. Even if the selection was meaningless.
On this morning in particular he received a Mello Yello. It was not what he wanted. Not his choice.
Across the lunch room sat Sophie. She had a Diet Coke. Duane wanted a Diet Coke. Sophie was someone Duane had ogled since his employment started eight years ago. In that time he had said maybe five words to her and usually by accident, actively choosing to speak with her was a burden he couldn’t bear.
But now she had something he wanted.
What should he say? How could he approach the situation? He watched her reading. Diet Coke sweating on the table. Unopened as far he could tell.
One foot after the other he began to walk in her general direction. Pretending to be sidetracked by the minimal library encased in the lunch room, he used it to buy time, shifting between the books and Sophie.
Her book’s cover was turned away from him. He thought he might use it as a conversation starter, but without that he thought maybe he could pick another book and go with it. But none of the spines looked appealing. He didn’t want to pick any of them up. He imagined reading them if he had in fact achieved his dream of being an air force pilot, but as he was not, these could not do.
A shuffling of Sophie. Packing up her things.
“Excuse me?” Duane spoke with a stutter to illicit certain sympathy, hoping Sophie would not remember that he never stuttered before.
Sophie turned. “Yes? Oh, hi!”
Hi! Hi! Duane could not think of what he wanted to ask. The words didn’t move up from his bowels.
“Can I help you with something?”
Mouth opened slightly. Saliva on the tongue. “Did you want your Diet Coke?”
Sophie’s face shifted. “Um…”
“I got Mello Yello today. I really didn’t want Mello Yello. Of course, if you really wanted Diet Coke I couldn’t dream of taking it, but since you hadn’t opened it I assumed you may have gotten the wrong drink as well.”
This entire series took an intense amount of time as Duane had to remember to stutter a significant amount to produce the desired effect without overdoing it so that he would just sound like a jumbling mess.
“Oh…umm…sure. No problem. I was going to drink it at my desk, but Mello Yello will do just fine by me. Give me a kick. Get more work done.” She smiled as if trying to sell this line of thought to herself. Duane wasn’t sure. “Here.” Sophie picked up the Diet Coke and handed it to Duane. He took the soda and gave her his in return.
With that, Sophie picked up the rest of her things and made her way to the exit.
*
Sophie didn’t know what to make of Duane. She remembered him vaguely. His absent quality made him interesting. He was the only guy who had not found her interesting.
The only man at a distance.
*
When no one was looking, Duane sketched airplanes on his rolodex. Planes he wanted to fly. Planes he knew existed.
*
From time to time, Sophie walked by and caught a glimpse before Duane realized she was there. She never made notice of what she saw. Never drew attention to her actions. For all she knew, Duane was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
For all he knew, he didn’t exist.
*
On the morning of April the 2nd fire broke out in the observatory. People ran, the fire fighters attended, the cleanup crew came to pick up the pieces. Duane stayed at his desk not knowing anything had happened. As Sophie walked by to collect her things she wondered how he was back already, calm and composed like everything was as it should be. All in its right place.
*
In the days to come they would all go back to their normal routines.
Sophie couldn’t stop thinking about Duane.
Duane couldn’t stop drawing planes.
*
The following Monday, Duane got up from his chair. He moved amongst the work flows deliberately touching the seemingly ordered randomly. He was conscious. On fire with thought. He looked at Sophie and then shot through the exterior window.
*
Sophie told the police everything she knew about Duane. She confided her love to them and his lack of reciprocation. During all this time she had never once noticed Duane. Never once found him fascinating.
But now he was in Sophie’s mind, being recalled with a rhythm maintained by the twirling of her hair.
New film out today in support of the track No Way Out, which appears on the new album from This Line - Murder in the Dark.
Stream and download the new album at American Residue Records: americanresiduerecords.bandcamp.com/album/murder-in-the-dark
Recently we interviewed Minnesota composer Paul Fonfara (maker of the above Kickstarter campaign) for an episode of The White Whale that should be out next week. Paul is not unknown to the worlds of CyNar, as we did a number of live films and music videos for his band the Painted Saints a few years back.
What many may not know is that this year he was recipient of a grant to fund his development as a composer. This project is coming to a conclusion at The Cedar with Jim White and Brass Messengers on December 5th.
If you know Paul's work you know he is a unique in crowds of complacency. Never wanting to dumb it down or limit his natural inclinations in the musical arena, he is going forth into narrative storytelling with the same considerations - hoping that what is normal for him could become normal for cinematic sensibilities.
As part of the show he has also been amassing some incredible artwork and a host of players who should really help bring this multimedia extravaganza to a head as Paul performs the entire album with films playing at the head.
If you are interested check out the record on Soundcloud and support his current Kickstarter campaign to help offset some of the costs not covered by the grant.