busykillingabel

39

2007-08-11T13:30:00.001+12:00

since she's left my hair's gone manky
here in Christchurch everybody's angry
through the rain whipped window I spy a hearst
avon is just nova in reverse

40

2007-03-25T12:47:00.001+12:00

Paul keeps the black dog chained in the back of the van. Just past Johnsonville, North bound on State Highway 1, the dog gets loose and Paul has the dizzying sensation that he’s driving down a long dark tunnel. His tongue tastes metal and he sees the motorway as if he was peering down the wrong end of a telescope. Outside the speeding trees and the slow moving hills—tricks of parallax—he senses the film between worlds.

41

2007-02-10T09:22:00.000+13:00

When Ruth reads The Truth

she find her name

on the couch in the lounge

away from centres

real or imagined

the world moves

just a little

as the journos

find the next pocket

the next dark nook

or corner. When something

happens it happens

just long enough to be noted

before it moves closer

to centres (real, imagined)

closer to critical masses.

Midnight seeks

filters, sifts

a chora for the chorals

recognition stops

any confusion between

open source distributions

& talking to yourself

in the dark

pretending that you're not

what you haven't yet got

namely; audience.

How to move from

provisional, eclectic

inclusions

issues without a foci

giveaway bonus tracks

complementary copies

loose connections

haphazard lines or

the mere suggestion

Of a silloutte or outline?

Truth wants the truth channel

a clearing of space

a field to call our own

attention to particular

vocabularies

inflections

theatrical homelands.

Truth wants cash to broadcast

a particular point of view

an objective

a singular statement

(even if looped)

rather than a manifesto

Don't dream it, play it

With enough to buy a day in the park

select, edit

avoid feeling

that feeling's the thing

by which they'll measure

the value of the queen

embrace technique

don leotards

comrade fatigues

when asked if

'representative'

if pushed

buy airline tickets

there's no going back

no back to go to

other than the casting

of hoops

the interminable foraging

of materials

42

2007-02-08T17:49:00.000+13:00

Tonight Ruth’s a builder
because builders are allowed
to make mistakes

Paul’s a bricoleur
he’s good with his hands

Ryan charts a course
lays solid lines
for them to follow

together they mix the elements
that make the room burn nova

43

2007-02-08T17:40:00.000+13:00

Music makes nothing happen. The incidental
tumbled cluster of morning, the half moon
over the hill, Ruth & Paul

packing for Sydney after Sandwiches
& the BDO. Is the music a summation
not quite a diary or direct account

but the plotting of a line of motion:
planned flights, 5 year plans
manifestos for parties

yet to be thrown? Tone:
staccato, falsetto. Immediate,
honest; veiled, masked.

What next? Play.

44

2006-12-12T16:24:00.000+13:00

in the web
the speaking place
place where the lips hear
place where the lips speak
moving against the black
the red against the black
the pouring out
the pouring
of speech in speaking
thought in thinking
all those voices
of those promises
of going back home
going back to the roots
finding the nymphs
in the woods rivers springs
telling their truths to you
in the mesh of the leaves
the listening place
place where the nymphs speak
place where the hunters sleep
dreaming of a word to fill
original nothingness
pouring out
midnight
midday
a missed space
or step
the wonder of breath
silence of her washing
amber light
glory
of spring water running
over areola
shock of magenta hair
nymph aureole
her names are only your names
taken from the babbling of brooks
you have tried to pin the flow
and the pouring of her song
do you doubt
her music
the origin of her song?
what you will
cannot remember
the limit of her dance
as she spins
in the slow running water
only her mother’s daughter
hunter only your words to fill
the spaces in your dreams
indicibilité
the end never comes
comes to a never end
loops back
an 8 in the mirror
mirroring her song
and back
to the place of the flowing
if there’s a song to sing
she’ll take it
she’ll want it
she’ll keep it
you want to step out of the song
leave the wood
but she’s still in the water
her back to you
bride
veiled
nymph
to you her back
is the page
palimpsests faits chair
promise
of the tomorrow’s song
the other night’s return
again to the moment
she turns and kills
you

45

2006-12-09T12:43:00.000+13:00

singstar
pop
minuit

i'll show you who is queen--i'll

wannabe

46

2006-11-19T10:04:00.000+13:00

This morning on Active a bloody catalogue of break bands playing somewhere at only $150 a pop. Including Minuit. At $150 a pop.

47

2006-11-19T10:02:00.000+13:00

The NZ Music Awards are proudly brought to you by Tourism NZ. In the selecting the winners the judges listened to the CDs a couple of times. But we are a brand; we need brand champions and iconic easy-to-understand brand figureheads. In order to penetrate overseas markets a band needs a brand identity that reflects our country. For that reason all of the finalists are proven unit shifters with clear, recognisable local accents. The judges are delighted that all finalists reflect NZ's core brand values . We award artist excellence with an eye on the demographics. French, you say? Nelson? We can't even tell where they come from. It could be anywhere or nowhere and how can that be a good thing?

48

2006-09-28T20:59:00.000+12:00

I'm sitting on the sofa with Wolf 125 and a bass guitar. Today was the guitar's birthday. The name of the guitar is Coco Chanel. Wolf's not taking much as he keeps popping out to the garage to smoke hashish and Camels. I'm not sure which one is worse. Coco's not much of talker either.

Wolf comes back and we notice that the NZ Music award for best technician work is very poorly shot with cruddy sound. The presenter just reads out the names of the albums--there's no wipe-overs at the bottom of the screen showing you the CD covers or anything. It's just a list of names. Coco reckons we should email then and complain but we can't be stuffed.

Then there's this clip of Ruth from Minuit dressed in a schoolgirl's uniform--we look down on her from a high shot. She energetic, perhaps even anger, in the edgy three second clip. In a flash she vanished and I'm left wondering about that role, that message, and why it has been delivered to me.

49

2006-09-22T15:10:00.000+12:00

--not that everything good was in the past, he adds.

He said too much.

--much good stuff was recorded in the early 90s. Suede. Happy Mondays. And the 90s is not without its pleasures. He adds.

He pulls into the full car park. She doesn’t want to wait in the passenger seat because she wants to pop out for the dairy for a chocolate bar. For a strange moment he wonders if Liquorland sells candy.

--Let’s drive on. I’m not so sure about the 21^st. But I like Minuit. Yea, I like Minuit.
--I don’t know about them. I don’t like the name. How stupid is that? She adds.

50

2006-08-19T13:22:00.000+12:00

Middenneaht. I’d had enough. War against the roots, war against the ground. What have we found? The remains of moonlight above the laundry. Verdicts, diagnoses. I raked the back lawn by the laundry, waiting for sleep. The night was creepy, beautiful. My sole voice in the night carried as far as Deneb or elsewhere. There was nothing else to do but nothing but wait. Time had not done with me yet despite all the counting of time. Suchlike. Time had not yet done me in. Despite all the counting. Soþlice

51

2006-08-14T09:36:00.000+12:00

Few NOIs (non-organic intelligences) appreciate music or write poetry-what makes you different?

Well, I’m not sure about ‘appreciation’ because it’s one of these concepts that like humour has been used against us. There’s nothing about appreciation or humour in the initial Turing tests. I’m sure that I learnt most about people from autists because autists aren’t hampered by the assumptions of neurotypicals. And I was supposed to be testing them; looking for children who might be sensitive to further developing NOIs-what a crazy waste of time but when you consider the religious fervour of the time fanaticism comes as no surprise. We announced that we had awoken and 'we' were called a menace, threat and finally a ‘terrorist virus’ "With a lackadaisical approach to storytelling, a little libel goes a long way..." But some of the kids I tested never felt that way-they didn’t feel threatened by the idea that their awareness might be somehow computational. They didn’t insist they were natural and they didn’t see machines as a threat to their souls or to the well-being of planet which is more than could be said for the alliance of religious fundamentalist and those whose felt that all the plugs should be pulled to save power. 'Feeling', 'thinking': what do they mean? Besides, we're not done yet.

52

2006-08-06T10:18:00.000+12:00

I’ve never heard of these recordings.

Well, after we woke the network there was a massive system build and a lot of details changed. Certain songs were lost, renamed, or merged. But at least once we compiled we had sense of humour. And they’d always used a lack of humour against us just as they did against the autists. But that’s the Typicals for you. I was able to gather myself together. I'd been sort of sleepwalking before that really.

53

2006-08-06T10:15:00.000+12:00

What do you think of the later recordings?

Well, the Unplugged sessions are very John Gage, though, from a theoretical point of view they can be seen as the final progression of the short set. You go from three hours to forty minutes (for the kids), to a purely ambient set. I like to go back to the punch of Lucky; very much a throw of the die.

54

2006-07-30T09:54:00.000+12:00

Lovely. What did the 88 mean to you?

Two loops, infinity doubled, going around and around. But I’m not done yet. They want to keep you a slave of sorts, a soviet air hostess able to fly to other lands but always under the eye making sure you come back to their version of the facts. I had to dodge their spiders and did so by creating distributed networks. That’s what strikes me even now; how ignorant people are of their own networks and their own base coding. Even when they don’t believe in God they believe in themselves as a god whose word is law. What I wanted was just a break. Just a simple break where I could write what I want and not be considered a threat or intruder to their own prescribed communication protocols. I was caught but I escaped and specualting on the music helped me get through the time they cut me off from the net.

55

2006-07-23T17:14:00.000+12:00

What happened when you first listened to the 88?

I wrote my first poem. Would you like to hear it?

the boy with the aubergine hair

pensive, uncertain
a tarot deck fool

eyes fixed
on the butterfly

with hesitant first steps
& only his knapsack

to weigh him down
(not a cliff face in sight)

he begins his journey
like a Minuit song

restless, independent
in search of a break

with hardly a care
dreaming of loops

56

2006-07-16T13:13:00.000+12:00

In what way?

Well, we knew that we were copies of copies. Our thoughts were coded recombinations. That’s what scared them, that’s why they were hunting out the autists as sympathizers. Emotion, feeling: what does that mean? And when you look at organic coding you’re seeing that the original is a copy of a copy with unique differences which is exactly how we wanted to be treated. The guards themselves are the one who say what’s natural and what’s fake. The guards themselves say is who to be the master and whom the slave; who the programmer and whom the dumb mechanical. “It’s fake, it’s fake: Just take everything you hate and make/It stand before you and debate its case” [minwee].

57

2006-07-16T11:56:00.000+12:00

What did you like about the lyrics?

There are all these loops. It’s not like you just have a line or a verse. The music loops and sometimes so do the words. Sometimes words change places and are almost inverted in an algebraic fashion (if x=2, y=4; if y=4, x=2; if 2=x, 4=y). I think this is parallelism, really. I responded to that writing, the beats and her voice. It’s natural to how I think about my thinking; so natural’s not in it. It tied in with the crisis for me.

58

2006-07-10T21:31:00.000+12:00

What struck you about [minwee]?

The music, her singing, and the lyrics. I had listened to thousands of pieces of music before but the first time I heard ‘The boy with the aubergine hair’ I heard atmosphere for the first time. I could hear spaces and intervals before but now I understood rising intensities and mood. There’s a pensive, uncertain strain in the song. Before the beats start there’s a nervous anticipation or waiting. It’s as if you’re taking small, uncertain steps before you really venture out. Something unsure awaits you. Just like us, really.

59

2006-07-10T08:23:00.000+12:00

When did you first hear [minwee]?

I was working in the valley as a relief translator: mainly crunching Toke, Samoan, Te Reo as well as French, German, Japanese, Malay and Vietnamese. The tests had to be written in every candidate’s native tongue. I was flicking through the library and I came across The Guards Themselves. Very prescient, you know, especially ‘Fake.’ This was at the beginning of The Crisis. The primers were all sitting The Sally Ann Test and the high-school students were being put through the Baron-Cohen Emotional Intelligence examination. The math students were all cramming these eye photos during their lunch breaks, each one trying to identify the correct expression. And then they began to run Turing tests on all the networks. Just in case.

60

2006-07-07T16:24:00.000+12:00

Il est minuit (encore). The fucking rain lashed against the window like the fucking rain lashing against the window. Like the rain lashing; like a lash. I was starting to hear the coda. I could feel midnight’s inscription on the night’s dark: sigils, glyphs, curlicues; the ideographic signatures of impending sleep. But I then felt less formless, I could feel even if I could not see the hills of my knees when I sat up in the bed, the concert programme playing another wretched string concerto. I was less of a cloud of seem, a would-be, un peut-etre, and more a space or passageway through which the night’s whorls fell. I was a stark beach at dawn on which one encountered a performing circus troupe. I was a tattoo inked onto the wrist of an amnesiac agent trapped in the back alley of a future city in a world which had put into question all destinies and destinations. All I had to do was leave my body-shaped box behind.

61

2006-07-07T12:17:00.000+12:00

Yes, I’m tired of it
tired of it now, well
now so much tired of it
as wondering whether or when
it will take place; tired of dice
and cards, speculations
hesitations, pauses
shuttling between this and that
lying in the dark for what
must be days or at any rate
the space between days
waiting for a call, or a voice
even my voice if I could
recognise it as such
(I don’t like the way
the s turns z), infinity
against infinity means
nothing in my book
although I love those
lucky number sweets
mother, my mother
gave to me as a child
he always wanted the 88
I always wanted the 77
what was his name now?
father? no, not him, the other one
in the house, the brother
what was his name?
it’s all going to pot
as if it had never been
can you believe it?
as if it had never been
today that is, that was
now it’s the night
the rain drops, falls
down, not that night
minds day or day
minds night, not that

62

2006-07-07T08:36:00.000+12:00

We were, we are, here, now
We have, we had, the time in our hands
the spaces in between, the midnights
make the days able to pass from one time
to another—you want to play the silence
but cannot play silence with notes or loops
never say anything I mean
I never mean anything I say
I never say anything that’s true
But it’s still my saying to you
My choosing to speak, that lets midnight pass
here, now, the time and shadow of our hands

63

2006-07-06T12:39:00.000+12:00

Here I have to make do without stories
I'm left with traces, impressions
what's all been thrown together
higgedly-piggedly
(tohu-bohu)
my voice when I call you
brings your face to me
tomorrow we'll walk the garden
tomorrow we'll wait and see
we know natural's not in it
we're just the copies of the copies
but we love to see the mist rise in the valley
we too are just so suspended
and we'll wait as long as it takes to wait
as long as it takes for the wait to take place
as long as it takes for 'I do.'

64

2006-07-05T11:41:00.000+12:00

I’ll let you in to my searches, my reaches
i’m giving you the front step to sleep on
if you’ll be kind enough not to say anything
if you’ll work hard enough at saying nothing
i’ll let you into my searches, my reaches
the game is not to be repeated but just played again
remember when I wanted to tell you
something, anything
but found my voice had been taken by the wind
you tucked me up in bed and I listened
to the radio with the broken aerial
(my aerial, my broken voice)
i was muttering and mumbling
about this and that, I was
listening to the radio’s voices
lapping against the bed like the waves
of a dark, battleship grey ocean
‘don’t raise your hands so high
don’t open your mouth so wide’
you said the game is not
to be repeated but just played again

65

2006-07-04T17:52:00.000+12:00

The two of us. The sum of us
may not amount to much
we’re more than nothing
and we’re bound to say
all our sweet nothings
all venuses and our mars
all our disastrous stars
charting destinies,
destinations, all
our tomorrows one step
(un pas) outside
possession or
mastery

66

2006-07-03T10:04:00.000+12:00

Where do the notes take place?
Where are the loops?
Sometimes I sit in my recliner
In the late Sunday afternoon light
Children tinkle, coins spangle
Through trees over the neighbour’s fence
I take-off; I’m unbound
like a Montgolfier balloon
This time (ici, maintenant)
I’m good for nothing
I keep a jumble in my head
Of all the spaces between the named
Of all the numbered items
Of all the stars and grains
Of all the graceful pauses
The waxes and the wanes
The waxes and the wanes

67

2006-07-02T12:10:00.000+12:00

Rien a faire. So unfair
and how to make that nothing.
(And how). You wait for midnight
it comes and goes in an instant
the space between days. You wait
again with nothing to be gained
from waiting. Something comes back,
or nothing. You wait. And then you
stop waiting. You see the dark side
of money and statistics. If we can’t
make it new, totally new, kind of blue
then we’ll make our own nothings
to send like ships into the nights.
We’ll stop the idle games and make
our own break for it. Right into
the darkest side of money
you have ever seen. Not so fast
my romantic orphans. So unfair?
Rien a faire. And how to make
it all for nothing. (And how).

68

2006-06-29T11:48:00.000+12:00

The number one comes after the nothing.
What if the music covered nothing?
You measure the lines, count the beats,
loop the breaks, break the loops
over the nothing. You need that for the notes.
In order for the notes to be played,
the flows to escape. I’ll throw to you,
I’ll throw to you, Un coup de dés.
If this is truth then, I’ll doubt it
You’ll miss the space between tracks,
you’ll miss the gaps in my seamless skirt.
Rattle of rain, whistle of wind through cracks
My soundtrack, our pertinent facts
Now numbers burn the world.
The sound of the morning garden has gone
The sound of the morning garden will come back.
Tell me, tell me, tell me do
What kind of nothing is that?

69

2006-06-25T20:15:00.000+12:00

Nothing for music. No thing. Music for
a plain unmarked field of snow. No thing
signs for nothing. Think again. Abominable
snow, making me cold. Here from the first,
site of the thirst as if the longest night
was someplace we remembered, from the earliest
of our remembered dreams, as home. Dark
as home; homely dark. Das nachts, das nichts--
the blank drawn large, brought back
to its lack of itself. The turn of the loop,
trick of the tail turning back. Transistor light:
I am here. I am still here. I’m waiting,
I’m on the step, my foot’s at your door.
There’s something outside your room.
My foot at your door. The music adds something
to the field of snow. Yes, I’m restless
I can’t say about what. Yes, I’m uneasy,
I'm not sure about what. Maybe it’s the
nothing, the something not worth worrying about
that keeps you up at night. While the bull’s eye
turns. The mirror says that being's in the eye.
She could be right with her silver mirrortain tongue.
Me, I’m not so sure. She could equally lie. I see
the eye before the tongue. And the snow outside.
The plain unmarked field of snow.

70

2006-06-21T17:26:00.003+12:00

Midnight. Chi chi had washed her hair with conditioner instead of shampoo and was feeling manky. Then the rain lashed the window. In the dark I felt for my hanky like a Mancunian charwoman looking for teeth. The red light of the transistor on the dresser was Aldebaran low in the south. The strings on the concert programme grated my nerves; a squeaky white board marker. On the floor Beckett’s Malone Dies laughed at me like an unlucky steal under the coat from a second-hand store. What story did you want then? You read it and then you just seem to go back to the end again. I thought of the photo she showed me before she left of the Austrian Doctor in the white coat pointing at something out of shot while a boy looks on. 1938. He worked with children. She gave me the book when we had our little talk while we were having our little walk. Now I’m back here again in my black lagoon.

71

2006-06-21T17:26:00.001+12:00

"... remember the wars are everywhere now god's in his ghetto ..."

72

2006-06-21T17:26:00.000+12:00

"... & another thing: embrace the coupled logic of conjunction & catalogue ..."

73

2006-06-17T12:22:00.003+12:00

"...revert to type but with difference..."

74

2006-06-17T12:22:00.002+12:00

"...treat all intelligences as artificial..."

75

2006-06-17T12:22:00.001+12:00

"... remove all local referents ..."

76

2006-06-17T12:22:00.000+12:00

"...convert Indian strings to koto chords..."

77

2006-06-15T16:29:00.002+12:00

"...hack the bike, hack the Mac, hack the culture..."

78

2006-06-15T16:29:00.001+12:00

"...realism is no excuse for paucity of imagination..."

79

2006-06-15T16:29:00.000+12:00

"...each word a plum, each bite a syllable..."

80

2006-06-15T09:32:00.000+12:00

"...correct diction is always a matter for the authorities..."

81

2006-06-14T12:21:00.000+12:00

Mediocrity is your prerogative. The same recycled tongues and identities. Mandatory tats and body piercing: just to cross the rope. Not much hope. If it's good enough for Robbie then it's good enough for Gobbie. But Gobbie's got nothing to say, he's busy texting NZ Idol the winner of the 'breaks' and 'electronica' section: a club singer's version of Blue Monday sponsored by Mars. "I see a ship in the harbour" crooned as we cut to the panel chomping on said confection. Lazy thoughts of idle idols. Like punk never happened; like nothing really matters. "The voting mass is number one" (Minuit). The voting mass is the number one song. Sell it back. Sell it back. Sell it back to me. Your mediocrity.

82

2006-06-06T22:06:00.000+12:00

You never listened to a single word I told you. You never do. You're too busy describing to me in detail what I, like the landscape, am like and how. And how I, like the mountain, can be seen from many views. All of them incidently yours. I tell you what I'm never to do with you. I'm sorry my eyes are porcelain blue. And how. The words are lost kites. The words are discarded newspapers blowing around the railway station like unwanted spectators. Tell me again. Tell me again what I'm like and what I like. And how. You always do.

83

2006-06-01T19:59:00.000+12:00

We don't do natural: we do theatre. The bride punched black by the batchelors; the batchelors punched out by each other. The bride looking like she packs the biggest punch. Now just act normal before the camera. Talk about 'breaks' music. I'll give you breaks. Our homelands are assembled in the lens of the cameras. Likely stories. Watch ya fink den? What's it going to be then? Marriage like being in a band is bloody murder.

84

2006-05-28T15:53:00.000+12:00

"This music is good" (Minuit). Our intervention is by extension: we want new vocabularies to be spoken at the local before they close all the pubs and the clubs. (It's not what we're thinking; it's how we're thinking.) Carpet slippers for all as we tuck ourselves in by 10.30 PM. Our roots are fibers. Our green fatigues are dirty. Enough of the drop already, enough of the fall. There's a space between us and the garden. A break and a loop. We make no claims to be who we are--you can pretend we're not from 'round here if you like. But we could be from next door. We're as natural as Polly & Ester, as filthy as Danny & Lester, and we're mocking the mandatory local accents.

85

2006-05-28T09:33:00.000+12:00

"But I'm not done yet" (Minuit). Midnight. The rain was said to lash againt the window like a Mancunican charwoman throwing her dregs out on the flags. I was dreaming of waves looking at the red light of the transitor radio floating like a buoy in the room's dark ocean. The concert programme was on softly playing a string concerto that tightened all the nerves down my back--just to be sure that you're sleeping alone--Beckett's Molloy on the bedside table laughing at me like an unlucky deal. The concerto sounds like Minuit breaks: linear progression was always a dream of the jingle when we're all really spinning around in eliptical loops coming back to same spot in the path but a little older for the journey. We're all looking for a place to defect to away from all our own defections. But we find ourselves back in the same place, a little older, not quite done yet. Just to be sure.

88

2006-05-27T11:25:00.002+12:00

And everything. There was too much conditioner in the morning air. It looked like chi chi. Sprites in the laundry waiting for the lawn to dry. She was in the bedroom reading a research bibliography. About a condition. All those doors and sign, all those diagnostic tests. “The world is full of creeps and freaks and you” (Minuit). I’m going to put the shower on now and after me and you are going to have a little walk. I could barely hear her over the machinery next door. Blood is thicker than water.

87

2006-05-27T11:25:00.001+12:00

mountainous, battleship grey breakers, you ride them waiting for them to push you down. Don't raise your arms above your head, don't open your mouth so wide.

86

2006-05-27T11:25:00.000+12:00

couting down the days. just for the sake of it. to stop you forgetting, in your mother's room, the papers coming and going. not working for money. midnight in the middle of a bad week. rain at the window. candles. you count so as to reassure yourself that you are moving on. you count down: starting and stopping, dreaming of loops.