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A photo of my 5.5"x8.5" Canson sketchbook with a 4 panel, loose diary comic about this morning. APR 2ND Panel 1: [no "panels" have a border, they are merely implied as separate units of text and images to be separate thoughts in the completion of this comic statement] Percy woke me early and we went downstairs to eat. [I am shown with some sleepy/drunken emanata walking down the stairs. Percy is a cat and is in my arms and is smiling and has hearts coming out of his head. Mon ange. The railing is wrapped with Christmas lights - they are colorful but this comic only uses black ink and blue colored pencil for accents. On the wall are two pieces of art by Ashley Roark and also an arrow balancing on some tacks] Panel 2: I felt compelled to shoot a video about this -- and how getting up early also serves the REVOLUTION. [Speech bubble] "...Now I'm gonna make Cream of Wheat and continue the work of the resistance (play)." Panel 3: [In dramatic letters that slide the same slope as the stairs above them] Pulled a card [now normal letters] from my Marina Abrimovic Method deck I got at IMMA [https://imma.ie/] [The drawing shows my hand holding one of the oracle cards from the deck, which are all a photo of Marina doing something genius. In this one she is sitting staring at a skull, which is facing out towards us. She is seated behind the skull with her hands open behind it. I explain the meaning of the card in quotes, paraphrasing:] "Stare at urself in a mirror for one hour, startin' now!" [more text] ...it also said to note what comes 2 mind. Panel 4: [An image of my key holder mirror thing by the door. It has a Gumby figurine I just got from AJ on left side of the mirror, and a Bernie Williams baseball card on the right. Text reads:] The first thing I noticed was my cowlick, it is irreverant and youthful. I have not learned the rules yet. [My face is shown, with glasses. My expression is flat. I have a cowlick]

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The back cover of South Pacific the LP from the film version of the musical - 1958. Here is the auto copied text:

LSO-1032
SIDE 1 - South Pacific Overture • Dites-moi • A Cockeyed Optimist • Twin Soliloquies • Some Enchanted Evening • Bloody Mary • My Girl Back Home - There Is Nothin' Like a Dame • Bali Ha'i
SIDE 2 -I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair • A Wonderful Guy • Younger Than Springtime • Happy Talk • Honey Bun - Carefully Taught • This Nearly Was Mine • Finale
AN ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK RECORDING RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN
Present
SOUTH PACIFIC
Produced in
TODDÃO
Developed by American Optical Company
starring
ROSSANO BRAZZI
MITZI GAYNOR
JOHN KERR
RAY WALSTON
The singing voice of Emile de Beque: GIORGIO TOZZI
Screenplay by PAUL OSBORN
Adapted from the Play "South Pacific" by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Il and Joshua Logan
Based on "TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC" by JAMES A. MICHENER
Originally Produced on the Stage by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, II, Leland Hayward and Joshua Logan
Music by RICHARD RODGERS
Lyrics by OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN, !!
Released by Magna Theatre Corporation
Music Supervised and Conducted by ALFRED NEWMAN
Associate KEN DARBY
Produced by
BUDDY ADLER
JOSHUA LOGAN
Just as stage pantomime and ballet have developed ways of telling stories without words, so have record albums like this one created in recent years the newer art of telling a story to the ear without benefit of what the eye can see. When a medium of entertainment approaches us through only one of our senses, it automatically demands of us more attention, more contribution from our own imagination to compensate for the sense we are not permitted to use. Thus to listen to an album of this kind, and to be called upon to supply one's own visual accompaniment, can be a most rewarding pastime. If one has already seen the film of "South Pacific" one can recapture to a degree the appearance of the characters as they sang, the emotions they portrayed and the backgrounds against which they performed.
If one has not seen the picture, then one can conjure up from his own fund of experiences and fancies and desires what he thinks the characters should look like, how he thinks they should be portraying their roles, and where he thinks should be the scenes in which the songs are sung.
This is a "sound track" album. That means that when you play it you are hearing the songs sung exactly as they are sung in the picture.
If you find, as we do, that these records are unusually "alive," if the personalities of the singers and the characters they play seem to emerge as you listen to them, it is because the songs were recorded with as much concern for their dramatic significance as for their vocal and orchestral per-formances.
On the sound stages of 20th Century-Fox Studios in Hollywood, Alfred Newman conducted his orchestra with the care and the command for which he is noted. For many weeks before this he had been supervising musical arrangements, working with his vocal director, Kenneth Darby, to perfect the interpretations of the singing principals and choruses. But on these sound stages, as the tracks were being made, there was one other element represented by Joshua Logan, the director of the picture. He too had been working with the singers, on dramatic interpretations. As they made these tracks he was watching them and listening to them.
He was there to create characterization, to project the songs out into the South Sea islands where they were meant to be. That is why this album seems to have a quality that is almost visual. A great deal of what the characters are feeling in their hearts can be heard in their voices. There is something more here than mere "singing."
Those who are familiar with the show score of
"South Pacific" will discover a new musical number in this collection. It is called "My Girl Back Home."
Strictly speaking it is not new because it was written for the original production. The necessity of cutting the show down to a reasonable playing time forced us to eliminate this song before it ever was tried on an audience. We have always been a little wistful about this and wondered whether it was a wise decision. We have restored the song to the score of the film version. We believe it adds value to the story. It emphasizes the plight of Cable and Nellie who, like so many young Americans during World War II, found themselves in strange places, leading lives for which they had never been prepared. "My Girl Back Home" brings back to them - and to the audience - the recollection of their backgrounds, so incongruous with their current problems. We think it adds depth to our understanding of the special situations Cable and Nellie face, and that therefore it belongs in the score.
In common with most authors and composers we are inclined to be hypercritical when our songs are being performed. We make this confession in order to add weight to our endorsement of these sound tracks. If we could have this whole score re-recorded, the corrections we would suggest would be negligible. We are very happy to have in our possession an oral document of "South Pacific so complete and so satisfying as we find this one.
RICHARD RODGERS
OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN, II
IMPORTANT NOTICE
This is a TRUE STEREOPHONIC RECORD specifically designed to be played only on phonographs equipped for stereophonic reproduction. This record will also give outstanding monaural performance on many conventional high fidelity phonographs by a replacement of the cartridge. See your local dealer or serviceman.
© by Radio Corporation of America, 1958
Printed In U.S. A.
LSO-1032

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A photo of Percy on the couch with his front legs (arms?) stretched out longggg in front of him. He is looking at the camera and has a total goober face. He is a black cat with a white triangle spot on his chest. He was left in a car for 2.5 days by negligent law enforcement officers in Vermont, and discovered by my friend Teppi and a very kind impound lot employee named Erin in my totaled car wrapped up in a blanked soaked in piss, TOTALLY UNHARMED. He is my bestie and I am so glad he is safe. I called the lot and talked to the woman Erin and thanked her too. I can’t believe that people who are paid to serve us didn’t see a live animal in my vehicle when I was away from the car for at least 45 minutes.

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A scan of a cut out from a newspaper, it is the newspaper Seven Days, one of the last Alt Weeklys in America. They underpay their local cartoonists but do what they can, I guess. I quit, but even after being in there for a decade, there was no way to pay me more than $180/mo because they are following an antiquated model of payment for journalists and contributors. They also have poor leadership in Paula Routley, who is duplicitous and does not put her money where her mouth is — she thinks she knows what’s up but she is just talking to herself and misplace her influence. I also have NO permalinks to any of my 293 strips I’ve done for this paper, because it’s just too complicated to show that level of respect and investment in the futures of FEMALE CONTRIBUTORS AT A PAPER THAT HANGS ITS HAT ON WOMEN CREATING IT AND SUPPORTING CREATIVITY IN THE COMMUNITY. SUPER READERS TAKE NOTE.

The description of the strip, published 2/15/2017.

Panel 1:

An exterior shot of my old apartment on russell street in the ONE. I lived there for 8 years and love my neighbors still. I ride by on my board multiple times every day. Sorry dog in that house that absolutely hates me, and also sorry to the owner who is probably a remote working POS who doesn’t contribute to our local economy and buys gear for their road bike online instead of at OGE or Ski Rack. At the top left of the panel it reads “HOME” - it is highlighted. This highlighting is a technique I introduced once I started using color, I generally like B&W. The apartment is green with purple shutters (not actually the case with my house, but reflective of the architecture of the neighborhood). There is also detail woodwork that creates a fringe of sorts across the front of the house, which also has a porch. The fringe is puple as well. Recycling spills out of bins next to a small tree on the green strip between the road and the sidewalk. A streetlamp affixed to a telephone pole is nested in the far right of the panel - the telephone lines stretch from right to left. It is snowing and there is some wind. This is a detailed panel!! A speech bubble extends from the house. Also a technique I started using in order to do an establishment shot and also move the story along — not losing a panel to a landscape without any other information. The speechbubble says “Hey West? Have you seen my—”

Panel 2 [A long panel that takes up the space of 2]: “Glove??” We see my character, wearing bright blue with my red US Ski Team hat that belonged to my dad, wearing one yellow glove (that classic leather glove with the yellow hue), which is still on the doorknob. I have walked into a wild scene. West is my character’s roommate - we are both kind of made up. Stretching across the panel are gloves and various things they are interacting with. A yellow glove vapes on top of a dollhouse, in which 2 gloves sleep and the others chill outside in the yard as one red glove “mans” the grill. Some gloves are learning math. Others are doing life painting and wearing little berets to indicate they are artists (another technique I made up when I was little. I used to wear a beret bc I am an artist). On a book shelf, Bessie the bong, Weston’s pet bong that one of my campers once referred to as a “pot” [insert crying laughing then crying crying emojis]. I did not adjust the adult content of this strip as a result because I am in an alt weekly not a kids magazine. Smoke is puffing out of Bessie like smoke from a cartoon choo choo train. Behind her is a climbing wall a la a climbing gym where one glove sits at the top waiting for its buddy to reach them. String lights of some kind of booze bottle extend across the panel. OF COURSE TWO GLOVES ARE ALSO SKATING A HALF PIPE AND THE HALF PIPE IS NARROW AF AND THAT IS NOT GONNA WORK OUT. ALSO I TAGGED THE HALF PIPE. A drawing of an alien is taped to the wall. finally, to finish out the panel, Weston sits on his bed, with a placid expression, feeding a small (baby sized) pink mitten with a bottle of milk. He does not look up to register my entry into the room. My character is shocked to see this scene.

Panel 4: My character looks at West with a half-raised unibrow - indicating skepticism.

My character: …Why are there DOZENS of MISMATCHED GLOVES in your room?

[I rarely use the bolded text technique, see Dykes to Watch out For, but I did in this one because I really wanted there to be a cadence to the way people read this to themselves… a bit of hand holding I suppose]

West: [Still looking at the glove and not me] Oh it’s not my ROOM anymore- it’s Weston’s Home for Handless Gloves!!

Panel 5: A speech bubble is inset into a black, square panel. Text introduces what becomes a 4 panel scene with overlayed text boxes. The text reads:

Every TEN SECONDS, a glove is SEPARATED from its PARTNER-

ABANDONED! [shows a scene of someone with a tea in a mason jar LOLZ THAT’S GOOD walking away from a glove left on a counter. She is wearing a PUSSY HAT OMG! WOW THE DETAIL MY BRAIN NO LONGER DOES - DON’T DO DRUGS]

HELPLESS: A more elegant looking glove, leather?, is shown draped over the arm of a chair in what looks like a waiting room… therapy?]

SUBJECTED TO THE ELEMENTS: A two toned teal and light orange glove is shown in the snow, collecting snow, with swirly winds blowing upon it.

…AND THE ABJECT CRUELTY OF THE HUMAN RACE!!: A boot is shown stepping on a red glove - it says “crunch”

Panel 6: A silohoutte in tones of blue gray… weed smoke billows in the background. I do this signatuare thing with weed smoke where I put little stars, and squigglies, and saturns into the smoke to show it’s WACKY TABACCY.

West: Here at Weston’s, it is our MISSION to provide a home- when there is… NO HAND.

Panel 7: My character is unamused and not interested in the imagination game today. She grabs her other glove, OF COURSE THE SKATER ONE, off the half pipe and says: Right… well, here’s MY HAND, and here’s MY GLOVE, so I’ll be going.

I am waving my hand sightly (4 droits!) to support the statement “here’s my hand”

Panel 8: West looks at me finally. He has the baby mitten up against his shoulder, he is burping the mitten like a wee baby. A wiggly lined, yellow speech bubble reads “BURP.” West, who is wearing all hemp clothing and has white guy dreads with Rastafarian Jamaican wrap at the bottom and also has plugs. Dude is def from Jersey and a former emo kid elder millenial. But actually this character was based on a city market customer who was a white guy with dreads and represented the population of Benevolent Stoners I adored but also hated because white ppl and dreads are … idk not my fave. That’s why I sunset this character during BLM. He is now back and has also appeared as his true age — in which he appears with male pattern baldness and no dreds, but still carrying Bessie.

West: Well, ok- but don’t put it in your POCKET- it’s a TRIGGER ENVIRONMENT.

This joke was playing on how fucking annoying therapy speak is and I know other ppl hate it too so don’t be afraid to talk about how therapy doesn’t work for everyone, and also please don’t use language emptily.

FIN.

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A photo of the Yorktown Central School District School News newsletter, Volume 5, Number 1, Dec 2001. It features a section about an art exhibit reacting to 9/11. The text reads:
Voice Through the Dust
Exhibit Gives Expression to Emotion
An exhibit of original artwork, poetry, letters, and photographs at Yorktown High School last month gave expression to the multitude of emotions felt throughout the district in the aftermath of September 11.
[A photo shows two students looking at art in the art show.]
Juniors Susan Slotoroff and Anna Mikkelsen view some of the works on exhibit.
[Next to that is a photo of my piece, an American flag that uses words to create the stripes --- this is not a Jasper Johns ref but def thinking about that now. Saw a great show of his at Katonah Museum a few years after that... definitely would be interesting to revisit that body of work - iykyk - now given the complex relationship with the flag]
Freshman Rachel Lindsay created an American flag with each blue stripe expressing the many emotions felt about the World Trade Center Attacks.
[another image, this one a collage of news clippings - where is this now!!!!! - cut into the shape of the NY skyline, with the WTC in it]
Sara Galeotti, Heather Schnell, Katherine Sclafani and Yi Wang, members of an environmental awareness group Green People, used newspaper reports of the attacks to create a collage skyline of New York City before September 11.
Featuring tributes from elementary through high school students, parents, faculty, and community members, the work was displayed in the Arts and Sciences computer lab, creatively transformed into an art gallery.

Fittingly entitled "Voices Through the Dust," the exhibit was conceived and organized by members of the editorial board of Soupstone, Yorktown High School's art and literary magazine [I would later be managing editor], under the guidance of English teacher Trish Calhoun. Said Soupstone editor Sarah Capua [the COOLEST], "I felt it was really important for us to help people.

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The back page of the circular that was distrod in the DIY tent at coachella. It was called "[something] pool" or "pool [something]" in reality, I don't remember! It was a wonderland fucking oasis no lie. There was a giant horse outside for no reason. I thought it was an allusion to Megan Thee Stallion, my queen. There is an image of a fucking HOTTIE DAYUMN STOP RIGHT THERE with very full lips and stunner shades and pretty great... I mean I'll stop there. Holding up a collage that she/they/kin have presumably made. Below her image - which is blown out by light a la an old American Apparel ad (IYKYK) - is a crossword puzzle. OH there it is! "Public Pool" that's what it was called. Ok, here's the text of the rest of the page:

CLASSIFIEDS

Me: The sunblock victim, burning corneas, barely able to blink. You: The medic who spent two hours flushing my eyes until I could see again. And when I finally did--whew, you did not disappoint. Then someone witha broken ankle stole your attention, and just like that, you were gone. Meet meback at the medical tent by Main Stage, Saturday at 6PM?

[line]

CampGroundsCrawler, saw you moving through the crowd at the silent disco. Only got to speak to you briefly before you got kicked out, for the third time. Last I saw you were in Lot 8 crawling your way home. How about you crawl into my heart next?

[line]

Calling all little monsters! One hour before our Mother Gaga graces the stage, let's gather to the left of the main stage, in front of the VIP exits. Paws up, babes.

[line]

MISS THE COACHELLA ART STUDIOS? Don't worry - we got you. Sign up for our Patreon and get the same craft supplies you used at Coachella Delivered to your door every month.

Patreon.com/Group_Project

[line]

Bruh didn't realize the desert was windy, cold, or loud. Super desperate for a mallet, beanie, or earplugs. I'd say meet me at my tent, but it's tumbleweeding across the campground.

[line] Omg. My IG boyfriend and I just broke up and my tripod got stuck in shipping - help! really trying to get featured on @coachellaartstudios

[line]

To the original Coachella Icon - “Wasted Guy”, the legend who went viral in 2010 for struggling to get his foot into his sandal - I think of you often.. Where are you now? Are you still out there, fighting the good fight against flip-flops? I hope you’re thriving.

[line]

Just like Mook did Gaitok, I’ll drop your guard. Get out of the friend zone and into the Do Lab, let’s meet mid-day , and dance like everybody is watching.

SUBMIT YOUR CLASSIFIEDS TO BE PART OF THE GROUP PROJECT: @coachellaartstudios

JOIN US

@COACHELLAARTSTUDIOS

PATREON.COM/GROUP_PROJECT

[clues for crossword]

ACROSS

5 Stage name is slang in the Bay Area, for spending a day doing nothing but smoking marijuana

7 Stefani Germanotta

10 Desert located in Southwestern United States

11 Beyonce performed here

13 This band headlined in 1999

14 Desert in the northern China and southern Mongolia

15 This headliner was kicked out of Coachella in 2011 after cussing out a security guard and sprayin ghim with a water gun

16 This headliner’s special guest was Grupo Frontera

19 Arts and crafts tent that we love

DOWN

1 A smaller outdoor stage

2 Desert spanning across North America

3 First all girl group to headline

4 Stage name is after his favorite uncle and childhood idol, Kid Cudi

6 A galaxy’s core that contains a super massive black hole that’s feeding on gas and dust

8 Named in the early 1980’s by Gary Tovar, after a strain of marijuana

9 Your current location

12 Desert that covers northwestern Mexican state, as well as southwest United States

17 Lower elevation of the Sonoran Desert

18 Born on July 4, 1995

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A photo of two newspaper clippings of my comic strips published in Seven Days 7/6/13 and 7/13/13. I  had just gotten my book deal but needed some sort of job so I ended up getting hired by Erin to b a cashier and creemee gal. I SUCK at using a creemee machine holy cow u gotta have some SERIOUS FINESSE!! Also a "creemee" is what they call soft-serve ice cream in VT. I will describe the strips here and put what ever else doesnt fit in the alt text repository on my website, rachellivesherenow.com, "Other" tab.

comic 1: pub 7/6/2013

Panel 1: the exterior of a bedroom door at the top of the stairs. the walls are green and we see the edge of a pink poster on the wall. On the door a yellow sign posted up off-kilter says "KEEP OUT" but the word "KEEP" is crossed out and the word "CHILL" is written instead (chill out). A speech bubble reads: T-Minus 10 minutes 'til SHIFT NUMERO UNO! [this character is a notorious benevolent stoner lay-about, for context]

Panel 2: We see the inside of the room. A poster of The Dude (Big Lebowski) is on the wall. A lava lamp is next to an anthropomorphized bong on a desktop. A solo cup sits a top text books in the background. A trustafarian white man is fastening a bow tie. He is wearing a powder blue tux vest and one of those hemp beanie hats that covers dreds-- which he has, as well as gaged ears. The character, Weston, says to the anthropomorphized bong: Whaddaya think, Bessie? Do I look the part of a blossoming young professional?

Panel 3: borderless panel. silohouette of charactwrbwith tusk tails marching  forward, side view. Speech bubbles read: Wish dad could see me now- en route to a BRIGHT FUTURE!!

panel 4:

exterior of creemee window- Weston is inside giving a thumbs up and smiling. a yellow sign above the window says creemees. we can see the edge of the menu as well.

panel 5: a darkened back room. boxes are all around- ice cream cones, cups, spoons. Weston is "taking five" and eating a vanilla chocolate swirl creemee. We see he has two different color low top converse on- pink and green. A speech bubble comes from out of the frame: Hello?

Weston responds: First customer.

Panel 6: A close up of Weston's face, looking joyful and ready to CRUSH as a stellar employee. We see the edge of the window as he is communicating w the customer. He says: Hey! Hey! How's it--

Panel 7: We see Weston lean out of the window towards the customer. His gaze looks down. We see a white middle aged man with a grayish white beard and a red bandana. He is nude except the bandana and white tube socks. There is a black box covering where his penis would be [Note: It is legal to be nude in public in Vermont if you leave your house nude-- no undressing at will!! Occasionally there is a streak of a streaker in town. this guy with the bandana was one of them. also note: i have NEVER seen a WOMAN or TRANS PERSON naked in town and THAT is a direct action!!!!!]

Panel 8:

weston addresses the man with a sly look on his face: Well, I was gonna say: 'How's it hangin?' but I guess I already know. 

The man has a flat smile.

NEXT COMIC

published 7/13/16

Panel 1:

text in corner reads "Quittin Time"

West is about to walk out of frame- wearing his blue tux and eating a creemee- ice cream messily spread all around his mouth. he says: That's a wrap! Esta tamarra, boss!

A fake boss (who looks nothing like the real owner) behind a register adorned with chips  says "Just a sec, West-"

Panel 2:

The two characters face each other. The register is between them. Weston munches his creemee. The boss says: You did a great job back there today- but you've GOTTA wkrk on your form.

Panel 3:

Borderless panel- image of just Weston's head with a speech bubble: Ohh- you mean my [large font, underlined] STYLE

Panel 4:

Panel borders are wavy lines to indicate flash back. Text in the corner reads "Earlier..." Weston is shown leaning out the creemee window handing a lack luster in aesthetics creemee-- drooping tip instead of a tall proud swirl. Weston says: THIS one's a little SASSY I call her "Leyla."

Panel 5:

Panel border is wavy for flashback. West is again handing a creemee to a customer. Weston says: This one's MYSTERIOUS I call him "Antonio"

Panel 6:

A sort of fantasy panel- we are back to normal borders. Weston is depicted in front of a yellow background with creemees in cones patterned across the panel-- its like a fabric repeat backdrop. Weston has his eyes closed and finger up and pointing, as if proudly making a point. He says: It is my goal to bring ARTISINAL INTEGRITY to the CREEMEE MAKING CRAFT, each cone an INDIVIDUAL!

Panel 7:

We return to full reality- normal panel borders, again the scene with Weston and his boss. She is holding a perfectly dispensed creemee-- swirl is good. She says: West- THIS is a creemee.

Panel 8:

West responds pleasantly: Looks more like a "Mildred" to me, but YOU'RE the BOSS!"

Title: Please Support Artists

Rachel Lindsay • Hyde St, Burlington

Posted to: Old North End

This is an appeal to this town from a 12 year resident of the Old North End.

The social problems in this town, aside from clearly a lack of capable leadership, are the result of the pervasive white supremacist mentality and a history of Eugenics in Vermont that most of this audience ignores by cloistering yourselves in your wealth or fake activism. The mentality is a problem for anyone that can be categorized into a space of oppression.

I am a public servant, a former essential worker, and for what I was getting paid working for a statewide paper, a public servant professionally as well.

I have been totally cut off and abused in a place I have outright, explicitly by name devoted my career to, and the closemindedness of those in this community who hold the financial reins will never open their minds to what is needed in the community to actually have a vibrant and healthy space. That includes supporting the arts community which encompasses disabled artists, who are all now disadvantaged by the loss of Inclusive Arts Vermont - an arts organization here for 40 years that did not receive the elevation and priority it should have. There are MANY MORE organizations to donate to besides the Food Shelf and people need to start doing their homework about where they donate.

This state's lack of foresight when people would rather buy a new road bike than have interest in the perpetuation of culture is staggering -- it is also a very American mentality. There are 300 people living on the street if you want some other ideas for where that money might be of use -- maybe a bus ticket for them to get somewhere else because they were told to come here by their local social services and there's nothing for them except menacing glances.

Newcomers, Burlington was a vibrant community with freak show artists walking down the street that made me inspired to be alive and create.

Newcomers, I don't know what y'all do because I am unpartnered, which means I am an untouchable in Vermont, so I don't hang out with your fam, but please think about where you are spending your money and definitely don't waste your time waiting for anyone to hire you if you're a working artist.

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this is a great spread for this moment. text reads:

You May Not Have a Passport, But Most of Your Stuff Does

When your parents grew up, they might have been able to spend a day without using anything made outside of this country. Today, it's completely impossible.
Switzerland
I'll prove it with a homey
example.

This morning, an average morning, I awoke to the ringing of my alarm clock. The clock is a product of the Sony Corporation, a Japanese-based manufacturer with operations around the globe. My particular clock was assembled in Brazil, in a Japanese/Brazilian-owned plant from components produced in
Japan, Mexico and Germany. It was shipped to the United States in a Greek-owned ship manufactured
in Sweden, financed in New York,
licensed in Africa, insured in England, and staffed by
a Norwegian and Filipino crew.
And that was before I even got out of bed.
If I could figure out some way to collect, I'd be willing to bet a half-gallon of very fattening ice cream that, this instant, you are touching something that was out of the country less than 12 months ago.
I won't count this book (printed in South Korea, or the food, water and air in your body, some of which is unavoidably from across the border. I'm talking about your clothes and shoes. Either the fabric, thread, dyes, leather or labor are from overseas. It's virtually guaranteed.

If you're touching anything man-made besides your clothes, like a pencil (Chile, Brazil and Korea), then I'd be willing to double my bet. Today, most of the stuff you eat, drink, watch, wear, use, carry, or ride on, is partially or entirely from overseas. Like it or not, you're a modern jet setter, an international citizen and consumer.

[we see an image of a kid with every item he(?) is holding- baseball glove, clothes, coca cola, and a skateboard American made!!!!]

Portrait of an
Internationally
Famous American [we see the head of Bugs Bunnywith a horror struck expression, mouth agape]
The Japanese might make the best cars, the Germans the best beers, the French the best perfumes, and the italians the best pizza, but Americans
make the best dreams
American TV, film and music dominate the world's
mass markets. While
American made computers, cars, steel and tools struggle Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd and Mickey Mouse are cleaning just about the biggest export the U.S. produces. For better or Every backroads world traveler has a favorite story about being lost, hungry and hundreds of miles off the edge of any map when a friendly native suddenly appears to lead him to a hut. Crawling inside, the traveler finds himself staring at a rerun of Dynasty on the generator-powered TV and a poster of Michael Jordan on the mud wall.
It's scary.

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image 2:

full text of page:

able assurance to the seventeenth century or earlier, and particularly from two elements of that music, namely, its polyrhythmie beat and its microtonality, although both these elements were
considerably attenuated in America.
Indeed, what else should we expect? The slaves brought their music with them, a complex, distinctive, and very expressive mu-sic; but like all radically displaced people in history, they lost touch with their cultural origins, partly through "normal" dis-sociation, partly because their whole heritage, religious and cul-tural, was intentionally suppressed by the slaveowners. (Drum-ming, for instance, was forbidden on the grounds, not entirely unlikely, that it was used by blacks to communicate from one plantation to another and therefore was a means to foment rebel-lion.) Thus although we can hear polyrhythmic elements in spiri-tuals, hollers, and other black music deriving from slavery, as heard in the field recordings made by Alan Lomax in the 1930s, and although a polyrhythmic tendency is discernible in the recorded instrumental work of early blues musicians, especially guitarists, this important aspect of black musical consciousness is greatly simplified in comparison to the extraordinary recorded performances of West African drumming. As the years passed, Afroamerican music, including the blues, became more and more fixed on a plain 4/4 measure, no matter how the beats were ac-cented. The polyrhythmic tradition, the feeling, was gone, or at least much weakened. In fact very talented drummers in recent decades, like Max Roach and Shelly Manne, have had to relearn the concepts of polyrhythmic figuration partly by listening to "eth-nological" recordings from Africa.
By polyrhythm I mean the imposition of different meters upon one another in a controlled, significant, and apprehensible pat-tern, a kind of layering that reaches almost inconceivable com-plexity— at least to Euroamerican senses-among the multi-percussive ensembles of Africa.
When it comes to the melodic element of the blues, which is what primarily concerns me here, the case is both more complicated and more interesting. In African music one can hear melodic figures of three distinct pitches within one semi-tone. This is true of both vocal and instrumental performances. I emphasize that this microtonality is pure and natural, however sophisti-cated; it is the intrinsic factor of African musical expressiveness.
But in America it ran head on into the European diatonic scale

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a mode in conflict with itself, a microtonal pitch seeking and failing to find its place in a diatonic scale. The blues could not have happened without Africa. Equally they could not have happened without Europe.
The blues are a seeking and a failure. And they are perpetual: both musically and in all other ways, the blues have no resolution, The final chord may be the dominant, but it does not yield a musical conclusion precisely because the dominant (the fifth) is a blues pitch, slurred and uncertain, and often blues players actually end with a diminished chord: the sound goes silent but it never ends. If I try to describe the effect of blues in words, I find over and over again that I cannot. If I say, for example, that the blues note induces a sense of twisting or wrenching, this connotes physical pain, but although a kind of pain is involved, it is not like a headache or a broken arm. If I say that the blues note is orgasmic, this implies sexuality, but although an analogy exists between the sensuality of sex and the sensuality of blues, again it is not the same. And so on. I could go through the whole emotive vocabulary, as people often do, saying "joy," "sorrow," "agony," etc., and never arrive at a linguistic formulation of the musical expressiveness of the blues. The best I have been able to do so far is to say that it is a sensual experience of seeking and failing, that is, of inadequacy.
Again, if I say that the blues are the musical expression of existentialist thought and feeling, or even if I say that the experience of the blues is consonant with the experience of existentialist thought and feeling, I am obviously overstepping the bounds of historical license. I cannot prove it; neither can anyone else. Yet I believe this is an aspect of the truth of our time. Quite aside from the immense cultural place occupied by Afroamerican music itself in our civilization, its reverberations elsewhere are perhaps a kind of proof. The songs of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht are neither blues nor jazz; but Weil's music, in its totally different en-vironment, nevertheless has some demonstrable affinities with Afroamerican music, and not many people would deny a direct influence. The combination of those blues-like melodies with Brecht's sardonic verses makes a reflection of what we call German expressionist feeling in the 1920s that is remarkably acute; and it is without doubt existentialist. Only this can account for the continuing popularity of songs composed so long before our present monstrous life began. (Nostalgia is not enough.) The

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NOTES
1. I am not a musicologist, but a poet. Like most artists I distrust scholarship, especially its disposition toward misplaced emphasis and narrow pedantry; yet I must rely on the work of scholars. Much of what I have written so far here, though it can be found in many sources, has been taken from Deep Blues, by Robert Palmer (New York, 1981), which is a readable, brief account. But I must add that Palmer's concentration on the blues of the Delta (central Mississippi and part of eastern Arkan-sas) results in a very distorted history; moreover, his implication throughout that musicians who could sight-read "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" must be automatically disqualified from consideration is unfortunate to say the least. My own view is the opposite. Musicians like Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet in the 1920s extended and enhanced the blues, made them more, not less, bluesy, as did the best of their white imitators, musicians like Bix Beiderbecke and Pee Wee Russell. They did this precisely because their musical awareness, which came in part from training, permitted them to hear the more developed and more expressive chordal modulations implicit in the primitive blues of the earlier pe-riod. Meanwhile the country blues singers and musicians of the Delta, although they made considerable merely stylistic advance, added nothing harmonically or melodically to the basic concept of the blues.
2. Is the evolution and meaning of literature, especially poetry, in the twentieth century analogous to the blues? Yes. Poetry has become more and more improvisatory, unfinishable, and subjective. To reduce poetry to its sensual element alone is much more difficult than finding the blues scale in the blues; still I believe a formal searching and failing is a sensory semeiosis of our poetry. One thinks immediately of W.C. Williams and the
"variable foot," then of the prosodic stretching in work by Levertov, Creeley, Duncan, and others. But essentially the same awareness of formal inadequacy is the expressive element in the best work of Yeats and even Frost, and indeed in all the most characteristic writing of the existentialist era. This is a point to be considered at more length elsewhere.