Archived News from the Poison Pie Publishing House.

News Updates From 2017:

 

On-going Blog Series
2017: The Year of the Every-Day Magician; updated daily in 2017
A Survey of Bestiaries; updated each Saturday in 2017

December 28, 2017
Twelve Sides of Vinyl from Derek Bailey
Unexpectedly (at least to the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House) three lps originally released in the 1970's and 1980's on the Incus label have been reissued, each with an additional lp containing unreleased material. We briefly discuss the reissues in this review.

All three reissues feature the British non-idiomatic improvisational guitarist, Derek Bailey (January 29, 1930 - December 25, 2005) either solo or in duos with the American saxophonist, Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945), and Dutch drummer, Han Bennink (born April 17, 1942). Of the twelve sides of music, seven have been previously released and five are previously unreleased. There is a special joy in unanticipated delights at year's end.

As a matter of coincidence, the on-going novel, serially published on a daily basis at the Poison Pie Publishing House, 2017: The Year of the Every-Day Magician, A Second-Hand Account of the Rise and Fall of the Renegades of the American Muslim Registry, has associated with each daily passage a piece of music, to which the author listened during the creative process. For the month of December, the author chose to listen to releases by Derek Bailey, with each day featuring a different collaborator or ensemble. (The particular details of each piece of music are noted after the passage.)

 

December 15, 2017
Roy Poonawala - Classmates EP
Roy Poonawala released his debut record, the Classmates EP, on November 30, 2017. The release is available via bandcamp. The EP collects the hit single Cool Kids Club featuring Nina. More details of the release are available at the discogs.com entry. If one wonders whether this Poonawala bears any relation to Ms. M. Poonawala, whose work is featured in the Experimental Laboratory of Symbology and the associated Experimental Cemetery of Symbology housed within the recesses of the gallery of the Poison Pie Publishing House, wonder no longer. Our sources confirm that such a relation exists.

 

November 12, 2017
Stargazing in New Market, Tennessee

The staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House went out stargazing with Mr. Frank Holiway. We share a view of the sunset from the hill atop of which the telescope was perched.

 

November 2, 2017
Big Ears Music Festival 2018 Line-Up Announced
The Big Ears Music Festival is held each spring in Knoxville, Tennessee, the hometown of the Poison Pie Publishing House. A non-negligible portion of the festival is relevant to music of non-idiomatic improvisation, a topic dear to the hearts of the PPPH staff. The line-up for the 2018 festival was announced yesterday. There are many luminaries on the docket, including various folks that have previously made appearances on this blog. Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble will perform (see a trio of quotes from Parker on purpose and individuality here). Roscoe Mitchell will perform in trios (see a 2015 review from the PPPH of his The Complete Remastered Recordings On Black Saint And Soul Note here). Mary Halvorson will perform in the trio Bangs (see a whimsical and highly geometric review of four albums by Ms. Halvorson, and four children's books by the French author and illustrator, Mr. Régis Faller, published in 2016 in the International Journal of Exploratory Meta-Living here). Many other exciting musicians will perform at the festival, including Milford Graves, Tyshawn Sorey, Craig Taborn and Rova (performing John Coltrane's Ascension (1966), which they have been re-interpreting in various ensembles since their first release of the piece on the Italian Black Saint label in 1997.)

 

November 1, 2017
Muhal Richard Abrams (September 19, 1930 - October 29, 2017)
The American pianist, improviser and composer, Muhal Richard Abrams, died on Monday. He was a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago in 1965. For the next fifty years he not only created non-idiomatic improvisational music but nurtured environments in which others could also create music according to their own vision. In the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's he released music on a variety of labels including more than a dozen albums on the Italian jazz label, Black Saint. Within the past five years, two volumes of Abrams' music, containing seventeen albums, have been remastered and reissued in two box sets. The staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House reviewed the 2016 release of Muhal Richard Abrams: The Complete Remastered Recordings On Black Saint And Soul Note Volume 2 earlier this year.

 

October 28, 2017
An Ornithological Grimoire of East Tennessee

H. Crustuliniforme presents a book of spells derived from birds dwelling in East Tennessee, illustrated in felt, featuring bird-themed finger puppets designed by Ms. Ruth Marie Keffer. More information on this book can be found here. A full-color, perfect-bound paperback version of the book is available from lulu.com.

 

October 6, 2017
An International Journal of Exploratory Meta-Living
 An International Journal of Exploratory Meta-Living has published an interview with the American pedal steel guitar player, Ms. Susan Alcorn, titled "You Haven't Seen Everything Until You've Seen a Woman Playing Pedal Steel Guitar". As always, the content of this issue and all previous issues from IJEML is available via free, anonymous download.

 

September 30, 2017
2017: The Year of the Every-Day Magician
September thirtieth was the 273rd day of 2017. Three quarters of the year has already disappeared. For each of the first 273 days, a passage from the experiment in the literature of non-idiomatic improvisation, a novel titled, 2017: The Year of the Every-Day Magician, has been serially published on the blog of the Poison Pie Publishing Website. The writing has appeared on the same day as it was generated at this location.

The novel is subtitled A Second-Hand Account of the Rise and Fall of the Renegades of the American Muslim Registry. It follows two neighborhood boys, Oscar and Omar. Oscar is a member of a white working class family, whose fortunes are in decline. Omar is the son of first-generation immigrants, professionals from Iran. These two boys navigate a friendship in the social landscape reflecting in real-time the political events of 2017 and the social tensions created by the current president and his policies.

Much of the inspiration behind a literature of non-idiomatic improvisation comes from non-idiomatic improvised music. The author has written a passage each day while listening to a different album. For the curious, several indices are being generated, noting the artists, labels, countries and years of the recordings. As three quarters of the year has passed, the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House have posted the indices as they stand today. The page numbers in the index correspond to a book, which currently does not exist, in which each page contains the writing from a single day of the year. Thus an entry of "1" in the index corresponds to January 1, 2017 and an entry of "273" corresponds to September 30, 2017. The index is posted as a pdf file here.

 

September 22, 2017
Rocket Man vs. the Mentally Deranged U.S. Dotard, A Poem
DPRK Anti-American poster. source: New York Times.

Rocket Man is on a suicide mission
for himself and for his regime.
I will surely and definitely tame
the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.

The United States has great strength and patience,
but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies,
we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.
Rocket Man is on a suicide mission
for himself and for his regime.

Now that Trump has denied the existence of
and insulted me and my country
in front of the eyes of the world
and made the most ferocious declaration
of a war in history that he would destroy
the D.P.R.K. [Democratic People's Republic of Korea],
we will consider with seriousness
exercising of a corresponding, highest level
of hard-line countermeasure in history.
I will surely and definitely tame
the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.

Rocket Man is on a suicide mission
for himself and for his regime.
I will surely and definitely tame
the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.

poem composed jointly by Donald J. Trump & Kim Jong-un

"Full text of Trump's 2017 U.N. speech transcript", Politico, September 19, 2017. full text: Politico.
"Full Text of Kim Jong-un's Response to President Trump", New York Times, September 22, 2017. full text: New York Times.

 

September 8, 2017
Wild Naked Ladies Loose at the Poison Pie Publishing House
Amaryllis Belladonna, otherwise known as Naked Ladies, appeared again this fall at random places in the yard of the Poison Pie Publishing House. We don't know why they return here each year. Certainly, we have never done anything to explicitly encourage them. Perhaps, they just sense that the Poison Pie Publishing House is home to many species of books and other creatures who don't fit in anywhere else.

 

August 21, 2017
Total Solar Eclipse
While Knoxville, the home of the Poison Pie Publishing House, was not in the path of the total solar eclipse, the staff traveled south about half an hour to Maryville, Tennessee to experience totality.

 

July 8, 2017
Three Kings Arrived Bearing Gifts
Ambassadors from three kingdoms--Animalia, Plantae & Fungi--arrived at the Poison Pie Publishing House this morning, each bearing gifts. The emissary from Kingdom Animalia bore dew drops upon his back. The emissary from Kingdom Plantae brought with her a scent in the air. The emissary from Kingdom Fungi delivered decay, a presentiment of death. We accepted each gift with an appropriate measure of equanimity, as we didn't know, at the time, which would prove most valuable during the course of the day.

 

June 30, 2017
2017: The Year of the Every-Day Magician
June thirtieth was the 181st day of 2017. Half the year has already disappeared. For each of the first 181 days, a passage from the experiment in the literature of non-idiomatic improvisation, a novel titled, 2017: The Year of the Every-Day Magician, has been serially published on the blog of the Poison Pie Publishing Website. The writing has appeared on the same day as it was generated at this location.

The novel is subtitled A Second-Hand Account of the Rise and Fall of the Renegades of the American Muslim Registry. It follows two neighborhood boys, Oscar and Omar. Oscar is a member of a family that could be described as white working class and one whose fortunes are in decline. Omar is the son of first-generation immigrants, professionals from Iran. These two boys navigate a friendship in the social landscape reflecting in real-time the political events of 2017 and the social tensions created by the current president and his policies.

Much of the inspiration behind a literature of non-idiomatic improvisation comes from non-idiomatic improvised music. The author has written a passage each day while listening to a different album. For the curious, several indices are being generated, noting the artists, labels, countries and years of the recordings. As the first half of the year has passed, the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House have posted the indices as they stand today. The page numbers in the index correspond to a book, which currently does not exist, in which each page contains the writing from a single day of the year. Thus an entry of "1" in the index corresponds to January 1, 2017 and an entry of "181" corresponds to June 30, 2017. The index is posted as a pdf file here.

 

June 21, 2017
An International Journal of Exploratory Meta-Living
 An International Journal of Exploratory Meta-Living has published an interview with Ms. Hebeloma Crustuliniforme, staff member of the Poison Pie Publishing House. In this interview, conducted by the inimitable Mr. Otis Gardener, Ms. Crustuliniforme speaks on a variety of topics including the essential nature of failure as it relates to their otherwise inscrutable business model. This issue is loosely associated with the approaching fifth anniversary of the current manifestation of the Poison Pie Publishing House, since it was electronically reincarnated with a web-based presence in the fall of 2012. As always, the content of this issue and all previous issues from IJEML is available via free, anonymous download.

 

May 23, 2017
Phallus impudicus
The yard in front of the Poison Pie Publishing House was invaded by none other than Phallus impudicus, also known as the common stinkhorn. For those unfamiliar with the stinkhorn mushroom family, the gooey poopy-looking stuff on top is an integral part of its reproductive system. The spore mass smells of dung and attracts flies to help disperse the spores. In truth, it did not smell quite as disgusting as it looked. We have encountered close relatives of this creature in the past and included them in the illustrated story, Poison Pie vs. Stinky Squid. For those who wish to skip straight to the images, the story includes several encounters with stinky squid and one with the elegant stinkhorn. (There was also an unusual pfifferling.) This story dates from June, 2000 in Knoxville, Tennessee.

 

April 14, 2017
Cherry & Dogwood Blossoms in April
The blossoms on the cherry and dogwood trees in the yard of the Poison Pie Publishing House have arrived on schedule, each in their characteristic forms.

 

April 6, 2017
Myxomycetes
The staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House have maintained an interest not only in fungi but in myxomycetes (slime molds) as well. The myxomycetes in this picture was photographed at the Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville, Tennessee in the year 2000. The myxomycetes felt finger puppet (also pictured) has appeared in two illustrated books published by the Poison Pie Publishing House: Tales of the Mushroom People (2011) and Tales of the Mushroom People II: Call of Cthulhushroom (2012).

Why do we mention this? It turns out that a new documentary on myxomycetes, The Creeping Garden, has been recently released. We recently viewed it and discovered a meandering pace and an artistic vision that appealed to us. Moreover, the soundtrack to the feature-length film is by the fellow practitioner of non-idiomatic improvisation, Jim O'Rourke. The most recent instalment of the trio featuring O'Rourke with Keiji Haino and Oren Ambarchi, I wonder if you noticed "I'm Sorry" is such a lovely sound It keeps things from getting worse, made our list of favorite records released in 2016.

 

April 5, 2017
Tulips in April
The staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House discovered five tulips along the side of the house. These flowers were also planted by the previous occupant of the building, presumably somewhere around the turn of the century. Some number of them (usually less than five) have continued to appear each year over the course of more than a decade.

 

March 31, 2017
2017: The Year of the Every-Day Magician Index of Musicians
An experiment in the literature of non-idiomatic improvisation, a novel titled, 2017: The Year of the Every-Day Magician, continues. As of today, one quarter of the year, or 90 days, have passed. On each day of 2017, a short passage is written and added to the novel. The writing appears on the same day as it is generated at this location. Interested readers are encouraged to bookmark the location and establish a routine in which they check back daily. Each day the writing is performed while listening to a different piece of music, which is identified after the passage. For the curious, several indices are being generated, noting the artists, labels, countries and years of the recordings. As the first quarter of the year has passed, the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House have posted the indices as they stand today. The page numbers in the index correspond to a book, which currently does not exist, in which each page contains the writing from a single day of the year. Thus an entry of "1" in the index corresponds to January 1, 2017 and an entry of "90" corresponds to March 31, 2017. The index is posted as a pdf file here.

 

March 10, 2017
New Issue of the International Journal of Exploratory Meta-Living
 The International Journal of Exploratory Meta-Living has published a commentary on the changing perception of Sisyphus and the futility that he represents. It focuses on how the human institutions of our modern society have created a new interpretation of Sisyphus. It seems especially relevant in this current climate of corporate efficiency and political partisanship. As always, the content of this issue and all previous issues from IJEML is available via free, anonymous download.

 

February 19, 2017
Cherry Laurel Sound-Effects
The lone cherry laurel located on the boulevard, where the Poison Pie Publishing House sits, is the first tree to bloom in the spring. We approached it to admire the blossoms and were soon encompassed by the buzz of activity of numerous other creatures already drawn to the attraction.

 

February 16, 2017
Daffodils in February
The staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House discovered three daffodils along the front of the house. These flowers were planted by the previous occupant of the building but have continued to appear each year over the course of more than a decade. These flowers can be considered a resilient gift from someone we knew only briefly and then in a transactional way.

 

February 10, 2017
Penumbral Lunar Eclipse
The staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House ventured outside this February evening to observe a penumbral lunar eclipse. Those among us with a taste for the brash found this celestial phenomena to be a rather understated affair. This photo was taken from Knoxville, Tennessee at about 7:44 PM, near the height of the action.

 

January 1, 2017
2017: The Year of the Every-Day Magician Begins
An experiment in the literature of non-idiomatic improvisation, a novel titled 2017: The Year of the Every-Day Magician, is begun today. It will consist of 365 short passages, one composed for each day of the year. The writing will appear on the same day as it is generated at this location. Interested readers are encouraged to bookmark the location and establish a routine in which they check back daily. Since it has not yet been written, at this point we can, of course, say no more about the nature of the work, since it remains fluid and ambiguous.

 

January 1, 2017
2016: The Year in Review at the Poison Pie Publishing House
As noted in the previous End-of-the-Year Report for 2015, the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House was mortified to discover that they had achieved all of their goals set forth for the year. They resolved to not be so productive (a bourgeois virtue if ever there was one) in 2016. Accordingly, only two modest goals were set for the upcoming year: the publication of a new post-existential fantasy generated through a non-idiomatic improvisational creative process, The Portable Library of Hong Samud and an illustrated book based on the work being conducted by Miss Ruth Marie Keffer in the experimental laboratory.

It is with no small degree of pride that we report utter failure on both counts! Neither book was published. The editors at the Poison Pie Publishing House (PPPH) decided The Portable Library of Hong Samud possessed too many virtues to submit to the indignities of what the PPPH claims to call the publication process. Thus, after careful editing, it was privately printed in a very limited edition and then made immediately unavailable. A few copies were given away. To emphasize the uselessness of the endeavor, they did not even claim these business expenses as a tax-deductible loss. As for the promised illustrated book, while substantial progress was made on the illustrations, their in-house writer of non-idiomatic improvisation utterly refused to participate in the process, claiming his attentions were solely devoted to another project (only recently completed) The Ornithological Collection of Uwetsiageyv. Thus this illustrated project remains in limbo.

So what, if anything, was accomplished by the PPPH staff during the long year of 2016? Well, funny you should ask. We note five items below.

The staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House is no longer setting annual goals. Here they aspire to a much lower standard, namely thinking, idly if possible, about potential activities in the following year. A variation on the non-idiomatic improvisational process is under way, titled 2017: The Year of the Every-Day Magician. This manuscript shall be posted to this blog as each piece is written. We also remain optimistic that the work of Miss Ruth Marie Keffer in the experimental laboratory may lead to an illustrated book in 2017. We have, of course, high hopes.

To our readers, we, the staff of the Poison Pie Publishing House, thank you for your patronage and support and we look forward to another mutually creative and unpredictable year.