New Mutable Author Explains Spiny Retinas!

Here I am explaining what SPINY RETINAS is.

It is an epic poem, or if you prefer, a narrative poem, or perhaps still if you prefer, a “hybrid text piece” that was compiled slowly over the course of the last six years (2006 – 2012). Perhaps you do not prefer. I love you just the same. 

It was constructed using automatic writing technique and addresses and/or speaks to war, politics, and religion (stereotypes and cultural myths explored through use of military and theological hierarchical titles); rape culture, gender roles, and sexism; and pop culture in general. The following books, films, and/or television shows were used as reference points to create SPINY RETINAS: I Dream of Jeanie episodes, John Ashbery’s Girls on the Run, David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Jennifer Chambers Lynch’s Boxing Helena, and Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America. 

This piece was created using aleatoric method/approach and poetic language was used carelessly, unabashedly, often with such extreme force the author found herself shaking simultaneously with utter pleasure and despair. It was a freeing exercise, like running around nude in a random suburban neighborhood at 2 a.m. with a clear squirt gun or picking the first cucumber of the season or even hanging upside down on the monkey bars.

Paperback Book
8" x 5.25"
60 Pages
$12.00
Now Available

Lawrence & Gibson

In the Mutableye

Lawrence & Gibson is a publishing cooperative hailing from New Zealand who have released the work of satirical rake, Richard Meros, wry short stories by William Dewey, the mysterious and notorious Urlich Haarburste’s novel of Roy Orbison in Cling Film, and of course A D Jameson’s Giant Slugs.

Some time ago, a Skype conversation was had between the offices of Mutable and our friends down in Wellington. Hopefully our numbers will only grow! Soon, the world will be full of small publishers holding hands across the globe as they change the very fabric of thought using the tools at their disposal, the printed word in all its pristine glory!

Please, go to their websiteand learn about them and who they are!

In the Mutableye is a segment that sometimes showcases something interesting that is happening somewhere in the world at this moment, and sometimes showcases some fad or person from the past that we here at Mutable acknowledge is still cool s**t.

Swan Dive With Chuck

Mutable Sound of the Month

Ramses (Retrograde)’s Jason Allen—also of ComoRevi Butterfly and the Blank Bankers—who played on and produced Mutable’s No Place to Die—who has been affiliated with FROG (FRiends Of Gamelan), is a great lover and student of Indonesian music, and is friends with Alex Yoffe among others—has graciously shared his library of casio compositions, and we here at Mutable chose this as one of the saner options. Enjoy!

Mutable is pleased to present a unique musical experience every month or so by ourselves or someone we’ve been introduced to. These are from the reel-to-reels and tascams of the garages and basements of the world. Send tracks to mail@mutablesound.com along with credits and a brief description.

Wonder Woman and The Hammer meet at Thalia

A S Hamrah

(A S Hamrah, known to us affectionately as “The Hammer”, as in, “And the hammer came down…”, has always astounded us with the precision of his observations and the general power of his critical punch. Recently, he interviewed Lynda Carter, better known as Wonder Woman. The first few paragraphs of this interview can be found below.)

“You look hot.” The first words Lynda Carter spoke to me were a variation of the same ones I had spent more than 30 years waiting to say to her. But Ms. Carter did not mean “hot” that way. What she meant was that I was a mess, and sweating. By the time my long wait to meet her was over—it ended at the Thalia restaurant in midtown on a humid afternoon last Wednesday—I was in rough shape.

I had had a few decades to prepare for this interview with Wonder Woman. When I finally got the chance, the one superpower I possess kicked in—my ability to melt when the dew point hits 60. The closet thing I resembled to a superhero was Frosty the Snowman, in warm weather, two eyes made out of coal swimming in a pool of water.

I had just gotten off a delayed flight at J.F.K. Sitting at the bar waiting for Ms. Carter, wearing the same clothes I had been in for the past 28 hours, during which time I had not slept because the guy sitting next to me on the plane spent the flight jabbing me with his elbow while playing video games on an iPad, I could not be trusted to hold a door for her, much less coherently discuss her days as Wonder Woman on television, her singing gig at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room or her new recording, Crazy Little Things. Where was the bartender with that soda water I ordered?

Before he could deliver it, Ms. Carter appeared in the doorway of the restaurant, silhouetted by the noon sun streaming in from Eighth Avenue, outlined like a four-color drawing in a comic book but in 3-D.

[The rest of this article can be found at The New York Observer.]

In the Mutableye is a segment that sometimes showcases something interesting that is happening somewhere in the world at this moment, and sometimes showcases some fad or person from the past that we here at Mutable acknowledge is still cool s**t.

Never-ending Theater

In the Mutableye

Mutable favorite Jason Grote is working on a new project: HABIT, an installation piece by David Levine, which uses a three-character “realistic” play Levine commissioned from Grote. The actors will move into the installation and perform Grote’s play over and over again on a loop. Among other things, it’s a riposte to those who claim that “experimental” playwrights do what we/they (depending on whether or not you think Grote’s experimental) do because we/they “can’t” write “normal” or “well-made” plays. Open rehearsal May 1. To learn more about the piece click here.

In the Mutableye is a segment that sometimes showcases something interesting that is happening somewhere in the world at this moment, and sometimes showcases some fad or person from the past that we here at Mutable acknowledge is still cool s**t.

Fish Cake Attack

Mutable Sound of the Month

Fish Cake Attack was written and recorded in a single day for a short film entitled Monkey Hour, about a young woman with a graveyard shift slowly losing her mind and haunted by a strange gorilla. The film was written and directed by Adrianne Jorge as part of Video Salon Night, a semi-monthly experiment from the first few years of the new millenium in which a film was shot and edited in a single day with all in-camera edits. Many of the stories were bizarre pilots to shows would never see the light of day. A divorced couple cop buddy film featuring a senior citizen adoption crime ring for example, or a psychadelic rock group whose music is used as a weapon of mass destruction on the homeworld of an alien posing as their manager, and the Monkey Hour was no exception.

Most of these films included live soundtracks recorded on the premises in the days previous, and we have selected this particular song for its wonderful bone-chilling scream and because it is a prime example of the amateur aesthetic was the foundation for Video Salon Night. Fish Cake Attack was written and recorded by Annie Heringer (lead guitar & vox) and Dalton Eljer (guitar) of the Box Kites, as well as Corey Tatarczuk (bass), and Cathy Cathodic (drums). “My pussy’s black! Fish cake attack!”

To learn more about Monkey Hour and other films made at Exile as part of the Video Salon Night series, go here.

Mutable is pleased to present a unique musical experience every month or so by ourselves or someone we’ve been introduced to. These are from the reel-to-reels and tascams of the garages and basements of the world. Send tracks to mail@mutablesound.com along with credits and a brief description.

Video: The Pigeon Game

In the Mutableye

The Pigeon Game is a documentary on the disappearing culture of homing pigeon racing in New York City made by Mutable favorite, Annie Heringer. Unknown to most people, there are still men and women who raise birds on their rooftops and race them from distances up to 600 miles. The scenes of Marlon Brando at his pigeon loft in On the Waterfront may have secured the sport in the history of the city, but The Pigeon Game proves that the tradition still exists today among a small but dedicated group of fliers.

In the Mutableye is a segment that sometimes showcases something interesting that is happening somewhere in the world at this moment, and sometimes showcases some fad or person from the past that we here at Mutable acknowledge is still cool s**t.

Video: The Patchwork Girl of Oz

In the Mutableye

Long before the more famous Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland, L. Frank Baum himself made a series of Oz films with his company, The Oz Film Manufacturing Company. The blow film was released in 1914, and was directed by J. Farrell MacDonald. It was the first film made by his esteemed company, and after its failure, Baum found it increasingly more difficult to find distribution, and eventually his production company went under, but we can still enjoy this amusing fantastical romp with its rectangular cardboard cat, Woozy, and its Lonesome Zoop, seductive statuette, and the loopy Patchwork Girl herself. Enjoy!

L Frank Baum's film of his fairy tale "The Patchwork Girl of Oz"Violet MacMillan...Ojo, a Munchkin BoyFrank Moore...Unc Nunkie, Ojo's GuardianRaymond Russell...Dr. Pipt, the Crooked MagicianLeontine Dranet...Margolotte, his wife, who makes the Patchwork GirlBobbie Gould...Jesseva, his daughter, betrothed to DanxMarie Wayne...Jinjur, a Maid in the Emerald CityRichard Rosson...Danx, a Noble

In the Mutableye is a segment that sometimes showcases something interesting that is happening somewhere in the world at this moment, and sometimes showcases some fad or person from the past that we here at Mutable acknowledge is still cool s**t.