Victor Borge of the New Millennium

For those of you unfamiliar with Lane Savant, he is the alter ego of Doug Palmer, eccentric erratic, intelligent and unique blogmaster of FEEL FREE TO LAUGH, and of course, co-blog mate on this site. Sometimes his imagination is really out there, which then kicks mine into gear. Here is a bit of wit and fluff for your edification.

Imaginary music

"Invention for soloist and five conductors";

Five audience members are chosen to be conductors to "conduct" while the soloist trys to follow.

"Cage for a golden bird";

For prepared piano narrator and dancer.Narrator announces the piece then apologizes for the lateness in arrival of the pianoNarrator describes the modifications made to the piano which start as simply as deadened strings and tacks on the hammers and escalate to the bizzare and impossible, The "dancer" is waiting by the entrance to the stage waiting for the piano to arrive.Narrator looks querulously several times at dancer as if wondering where the piano is. Dancer shrugs.Finally, dancer smiles and mimes pushing piano on stage. Narrator and dancer sit and audience listens to this piano of our minds.

"Fuga Petrum";

A fugue especially designed for stone hall made of several sub-halls of varying lengths tuned for specific echo delays so that one need only play the first subject on the organ and the various halls will echo in at the proper intervals and create not only the answering counterpoint but even create new subjects.Grants are being sought as we speak.

posted by Lane Savant


Alex Shapiro said...

Doug, you are the Victor Borge of the New Millennium, with a little Stockhausen and Schicklele thrown in.Thanks, because we desperately need one!That's great about the upcoming Salon presentation...

butch said...

Oh yes, I can see it clearly now. Like Elton John sang,"There's a boat on the reef --it has a broken back--and I can see it clearly now!"

There it will stand, the newest edifice, the incredibly futuristic structure that made Frank Lloyd Wright turn over in his coffin, made those idiots in Ballard who are trying to hold back a developer from tearing down a boarded up old Denny's because it's architecture is in the style of Century 21 and the Space Needle, wet themselves with excitement, created another message from beyond from Emily Dickinson, brought Alex Shapiro and her significant other down from the islands, brought Sherman Alexie in from his office on Aurora, shook Butch out of his doldrums and made him drive all the way up to the Emerald City, the Jet City, the Seven Hilled City, to Seattle, to that hilltop above Madrona where THE PALMER PALACE OF THE ARTS has been erected. And of course the inaugural event would be the Palmer set of original compositions that has made critics tear their hair out, and has made Lane Savant, the Artistic Director into a celebrity and media whore over night!!!

INVENTION FOR SOLOIST AND 5 CONDUCTORS could be a show stopper, rife with humor, and a definite challenge for the musician. Because each night the audience members would change, then the music would change, different styles, and depending on the instrument we would listen to the blues, classical riffs, boogie woogie, rock and roll, and yes even be bop and rap and maybe even stripped down disco, capped by jazz; jazz violin, jazz piano, jazz then flamenco guitar, saxophone gone berserk, clarinet blowing its reed, cello heating up its thick strings and pounding on the floor, acoustic then electric guitar, sitar, organ, banjo, french horn, tuba, flutes, trumpets, fluggle horns--Christ, what a happening, with the audience clapping, laughing, yahooing, stamping their feet, pulling off their clothes, dancing in the aisles and on the backs of the seats, fist fighting, screaming, giggling, howling, and here and there in the dark corners having sex. The Palmer Palace will become an international event and sensation based on the one, this first piece.

CAGE FOR A GOLDEN BIRD would be a stab at humor, at mime, at the stroking of and the hammering of audience imagination. You might send out peanut vendors and hot dog salesmen during the lulls, and use scrims with slides of every kind of piano, and a laser show without music as the dancer and the narrator/pianist sits and stares directly into the befuddled faces of the audience, barely settled down from the first compostion; this is a fine follow up, letting them catch their breath, scratch their heads, turn off their cell phones, exchange confused looks, smile, frown, or go to the restroom.

FUGA PETRUM sounds fascinating, but have you thought how you would transport the audience to the stone hall from the main auditorium? Maybe that will be yet another innovative aspect to the PALMER PALACE, an anteroom, an alernate auditorioum that the audience is actually physically ushered into by usherettes in mini skirts, push up bras, and blond wigs, wearing tiny red hats cocked at clever angles, just like the usherettes of the old movie palaces. And once the audience has settled into the hard wooden benches and metal folding chairs, the stone walls all begin to light up in different colors, and curtains rise in ten directions, and the sub-halls present themselves, and we meet the organist, and see a magnificent pipe organ that would make a Mormon weep with envy, and with one hand, not looking at it, just smiling at the audience the organist hits "some" notes, and the great echo experience begins, augmented by a light show, wind and sounds of the surf, and suddenly the audience becomes aware that the walls of the sub-halls are adjustable, and can be turned vertically or horizontally to create different pitchs and tones.

Then from the ceiling a platform, with a cage of golden and chrome bars drops down, and there is Lane Savant feverishly working a motherboard, and creating an echo concerto, a fugue for the ages; dropping down like the doppleganger for the Wizard of Oz, the real "Man Behind the Curtain". A man in a zoot suit walks out onto one corner of the stage, and stands in a spotlight, holding a mike, and he says,"Do not pay any attention to the man in the cage." He repeats this several times, in several languages, and then otherworldly music, sythesized stuff, pours from hidden speakers, and Cirque acrobats pour into the auditorium, doing hand springs and tumbling down the aisles, making their way to the stage. Colorful balloons are released from the ceiling, the hot dog and peanut vendors return, hawking their wares in French, in Italian, in Russian, in Chinese.

Ropes drop down from the rafters, adjacent to Lane Savant who is still conducting the fugue, cirus acrobats leap from the audience in street clothes and grap the ropes and begin to do routines in time to the organ music, the Savant composition, and we hear a pretaped full orchestra playing circus concertos, like in a Fellini movie. A mime comes out on a unicyle. The acrobats do several intricate pyramids on the stage, the motor cycle group from Seattle, the Cossacks come out from behind a curtain, on their Harleys, already doing their famous human pyramid; the sounds of the many languages, the Harley motors, the full orchestra, the vendors, the organ fugure, all intermingle into a masterful cachopany of sound, and then Lane Savant lifts a red baton, and on the downswing, complete silence is at hand. The man in the zoot suit enthusiastically says, "Fuck Paul Allen." Everyone bows, and up come the house lights.

Yes, oh yes, I can hear it all, see it all, and what an evening you have provided us with. Like Teatro Zinzani, you will create both a musical and cultural event, laced with your essence of humor, intellect, and irreverance.Thank you for an unforgettable evening. I thank you, God thanks you, Emily thanks you, even MP thanks you. We clapped until our hands bled. We hollered until we became hoarse. You are an original, sir.

Butch

Lane Savant said...

Jeeeez Butch, it's dangerous to excite your imagination.


Perhaps it is dangerous, or pehaps it is just inevitable; either way it is an artistic party and a hell of a lot of fun, enit?

Glenn Buttkus