Alphabet associations - I

[hedgehog]

Right ho, here we go! If it makes sense to anyone, it'll be done with before kick-off!

As “Z” made an “A” it spawned that which first played into the hands of a Cage/Satie mind-melt.


( And if it's just double Dutch then blame Anna, for that's what you get when you throw a bonnet over a windmill )

[Nick Armstrong]

Throw caution to the wind and your bonnet over the windmill hedgehog!!

[mercia]

don't know if Z is a person, if not I can offer zukunftsharmoniesystem

but truthfully I don't understand the question

[hedgehog]

DNA 100% human

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As “Z” made an “A” it spawned that which first played into the hands of a Cage/Satie mind-melt.

Paul Zukofsky, perhaps.


By the way, can you lot either stop throwing your ruddy bonnets over my windmill or throw harder. That's the fourth this week I've had to retrieve from the roof.

[hedgehog]

Paul Zukofsky, perhaps.


By the way, can you lot either stop throwing your ruddy bonnets over my windmill or throw harder. That's the fourth this week I've had to retrieve from the roof.

Yes! Could you explain the rest please? (As for bonnet throwing, it's a sport I've only just taken up so I haven't quite got the trajectory sorted re windmills. I grew up next to a tennis court though, so I do have some experience in a related sport, throwing tennis balls over a 5 metre high fence.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, the Cage/Satie mind-meld is Cheap Imitation: Cage arranged Satie's Socrate for piano duet for a Merce Cunningham choreography, only to have Satie's publisher forbid them copyright. So Cage and Zukofsky (whose help was necessary - it was literally hours before the first night!) took the harmonies and rhythms of the original (to which the dancers had been practising) and superimposed new thematic ideas.

Don't get the "A" and "spawned" bit, but violinist Zukofsky has premiered many works by American composers, including Babbitt and Glass (a man of catholic tastes!) - and is the curatorof his parents' poetry. (It is nearly unknown for anyone to be given permission to quote from these in essays or theses, so possessive is Zukofsky of his legacy. Someone should use the rhythms and line divisions of the originals and put new syllables to them!)

[hedgehog]

I'll give it to you, so close as you are ferneyhoughgeliebte.

Pa Zukovsky, the poet, "spawned" Paul Zukovsky. He wrote a very long set of poems called "A". If anyone has a print of these they are rich! I should have corrected you on Paul Zukovsky, the answer was 2 times "Zukovsky".

[Nick Armstrong]

Phew.... I could only stand and stare and learn from that one. Thank heavens for ferney

[Quarky]

Well done hedgehog.

Still working on a Z - I will have to save it for later.

[Flay]

He wrote a very long set of poems called "A". If anyone has a print of these they are rich!

Here's what Wiki has to say about "A"

Louis Zukofsky (23 January 1904 – 12 May 1978)

Zukofsky's major work was the long poem "A" - he never referred to it without the quotation marks - which he began in 1927 and was to work on for the rest of his life, albeit with an eight-year hiatus between 1940 and 1948. The poem was divided into 24 sections, reflecting the hours of the day. The first eleven sections contain a lot of overtly political passages but interweave them with formal concerns and models that range from medieval Italian canzone through sonnets to free verse and the music of Bach. Especially the sections of "A" written shortly before World War II are political: Section 10 for example, published in 1940, is an intense and horrifying response to the fall of France.
The tone of the poem changes for good with Section 12, which is longer than the first eleven sections combined. Zukofsky introduces material from his family life and celebrates his love for his wife Celia and his son Paul. From here on "A" interweaves the political, historical and personal in more or less equal measure. The extensive use of music in this work reflects the importance of Zukofsky's collaborations with his wife and son, both professional musicians. "A" grew frequently difficult and even eccentric (section 16 is only four words long). The complete poem, 826 pages long, beginning with the word "A" and ending with "Zion", was published in 1978.

Anyone fancy shelling out?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Anyone fancy shelling out?

I'm genuinely tempted! (I think I'd heard of the work from somewhere, but hadn't made the connection with violinist Paul.)

Moving on:

The Frogs, Dick & Harry feature this A you'll be amazed (or Crossed) to hear.

[Nick Armstrong]

The Frogs, Dick & Harry feature this A you'll be amazed (or Crossed) to hear.

Well 'A' and Frogs makes one instantly think Aristophanes... But I doubt that it can be that easy, and I can't see how Dick &c. would fit...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well 'A' and Frogs makes one instantly think Aristophanes... But I doubt that it can be that easy,

It isn't.

[Nick Armstrong]

It isn't.