The Sound of Mr Neal Rockwell III

To clarify I did actually hear the sound of Mr Neal Rockwell, he was the breathy character at the beginning of his radio play, he has a voice utterly charmant, whether it’s exaggerated or not. He has a very funny ring to him. I keep getting derailed from recalling his sound piece because these are such auditory days. Autumn is maybe our most auditory season. Today alone there was a car wash of sounds around my ears without even having to listen.

Ugh disaster, just typed an epic description on the sound of Neal Rockwell and the internet mysteriously gobbled it up. I am yet again derailed from detailing it. Sweet mercy divine! How long can this thwarting persist? I had even named the two voices besotted with chicken legs (bwcl) and Pedantic with assurity (Pwa). The cruelty of technology.

Red Saturday

My head is licht, my heart is weak, my een are growing blin’;

The bairn is faen’ aff my knee -Oh! John catch haud o’ him,

From The Last Sark Ellen Johnson (factory poet, 1859) (found in Working Class Women Poets in Victorian Britain edited by the deft and marvelous Florence S Boos)

Red

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FscO-2sS9LE&hl=en&fs=1&]

Sums up this Saturday morrow perfectly. Occasionally only Red can encapsulate it. It’s a red morning, bruised with green in every sense.

Rhotic 5

Mé iarr ceisteanna roinnt daoine  (no b’fhéidir D’iarr mé ar na ceisteanna ar dhaoine …) an tseachtain seo agus ní bheidh aon D’fhreagair. An bhfuil an iarraidh na ceisteanna níos lú inghlactha san áit seo? Nó do na daoine cheana féin na freagraí.

Tá sé greannmhar is féidir liom a iarraidh ceisteanna agat i nGaeilge nach bhféadfadh leomh mé i mBéarla.

Bhí tú ceart éist mé le báisteach agus codladh níos fearr. Ní dóigh liom go maith codlata na laethanta.

Tá baisteach athraigh Ding anois is féidir liom é a chloisteáil thuas dom a thagann as an spéir.

bhí sé ar maidin uafásach

Rhotic 4

Bhí rud éigin nach raibh tuiscint agam inniu ach mé dearmad a bhfuil sé.

Tá sútha talún sa ghairdín fós.

Tá sé seo ag cur báistí. Éisteacht leat nach bhfuil sé ar an mbóthar an fhuinneog.

Tá súil agam gur féidir leat a chloisteáil dom Ding.

VC Peculiarities

strawberries in the garden in November

fruit flies in the kitchen in November

Robert Moses road vistas you do not notice on the bus.

Ineffective drains that are besieged by the most modest of leaves.

Blue orange combo chairs at Church’s Chicken.

Rhotic 3

Fear a bhí Dornálaíochta an aeir lá atá inniu ann, ach ní raibh rud ar bith ann.

Fear eile a bhí ag comhrá le fear na glúine

Cad é ag na fir Ding?

Abair liomsa.

The sound of Neal Rockwell II

Today I actually ate chicken legs. My companion asked me to remove the batter from his portions. My fingers sunk themselves into the task. Their ensued a pile of napkins and a great deal of complaint about the corn. He said he was more of a breast man.

It’s a Vancouver institution I said of the place where we sat. And listen to the great Euro pop music.

My companion asserted that far from Euro pop it was a radio station that every man was familiar with.

This encounter with actual chicken, in actual batter, on actual plastic seats has temporarily derailed me from the sound of Neal Rockwell. Neal Rockwell has become the older woman beside me who along with her husband bought a box of baby wipes with her and her husband reached into a red carrier bag and fed her 5 green or purple figs.  You married well, I wanted to call across but was put off by the matter of us all drinking fizzy pop that will drive us up and back in the dental chair regardless of who we marry or how many figs we eat or whether Neal Rockwell can hear us.

Rhotic 2

Cén fáth a dhéanann gach rud tús agus deireadh le madraí agus bia i Vancouver Ding?

Seo mo cheist Dé Máirt.

Agus tá tú an cailín ach is féidir leo é a fhreagairt

Bia agus madrai aris.

Sound of Neal Rockwell I

Had quite the caper to encounter Neal Rockwell’s sound piece at Chapel Arts, part of LIVE Biennale. It was raining, a good reason not to have an auditory adventure, but what of it? Rain be damned, the Eustachian tubes are most deserving. The sound piece was a little tricky to locate in the building. Where is it? I asked a few people. In the other room and there it was. A cassette player. A set of headphones. Sat on a low brown table. A woman sat on a green chair nearby talking on a mobile phone.

The cassette player was a particular shape that was prevalant in the eighties, rectangular RCA brand.   There were a few of us standing around, reminiscing briefly on old technology and delilah to see the merry old cassette in it’s shoe box shaped player.. then one man retreated to the roundtable meeting next door and it was me and the tape machine, which I poked and pushed and put the earphones on to dead silence. No hiss. No miss No sound.

I concluded this lack of sound must be part of the piece. Another man joined me and we speculated. P’haps we are to record the piece. I opened the tape. It read Neal: Radio Play. Maybe we’ve to write the radio play?

A few others joined us. We stood around the tape player. A man took out the headphones and cranked it up and joy! A male voice burst out of the tape player telling us he once worked at the Best Western Hotel and had an encounter with a man who ate chicken legs. (not an accurate quote). The voice was high pitched and elongated: very funny. The group of us started laughing. I was happy that we might hear the piece as a group. But then a bloke said “we’re starting soon” about the roundtable meeting in the room beside us somehow rounded everyone up.

Everyone dispersed. It was me and the machine. I plugged the headphones I had no faith in, into the machine and like most agnostic ruminations they did not disappoint.

Silence. The high, breathy male voice banging on about chicken legs was gegangen.

Tomorrow I will tell you further about my adventure to try to hear the sound of Mr Neal Rockwell.