Likely Pairings: Joe Frank & intuition

since i never bothered to convert to digital television, the radio's been on in my house a lot these days: mostly the classical station because i can't write when there are other words in my ears.

but the other night, i randomly landed on a radio program that juxtaposed audio footage of different speakers who, it became clear, has been recorded in phone conversation by whomever they'd been on the phone with. In between monologue samples and soundtracked behind them was this dreamy, slightly ominous and repetitive sonic landscape music. one woman very matter of factly told a story about a woman who had died, not, as you'd expect, from the physical trauma caused by a mass of some kind of sea larva that, after incubating in her body, had started emerging from her vagina, but from a head injury she suffered from falling and hitting her head sharply due to the shock of discovering what was happening to her. i think her mom or husband found her dead on the bathroom floor. this story may also involve the erotic use of a lobster, that being the initial route of the sea larva transmission; but i'm purposefully not fully remembering that part out of sheer horror. the absurdity of the story, the lulling music, and the eclecticism of the other audio samples that followed were stunning: "stunning" in that the effects were both shock and admiration, both recognition of truth and total disorientation in the face of the new.

so this is how i discovered joe frank for myself, one of the "icons of the last generation of radiophonic producers" (quoting stephen hill, who is himself an icon of radiophonic radio). a friend w/ deep knowledge of underground and private press music had mentioned frank to me a year ago (and introduced me to hill), but sometimes you're not ready to know things, you know? who knows how many choice recommendations - books, music, places, people - i've let slip due to inattention in the moment? this friend also published one of the rare interviews with frank that's out there, appropriately conducted over the phone, in 1994.

i've heard just one frank program, but it defamiliarized and provoked me in the way that only great art does. the first time i can remember feeling as riveted to a radio program was in the late 80's when i'd tune in to this wnyc produced radio program that aired from 1984-1988, kids america, and exist, for an hour, in an audioscape of campy characters and kid friendly pop hits in the format of an educational variety show of the kind that the 70's and early 80's perfected: other examples being the electric company, schoolhouse rock!, and, of course, sesame street.

in the aftermath of the digital television revolution, i'm really pleased that it's the radio that's blowing my mind these days.

i also like thinking of my (re)discovery of frank (i can't really count douglas's mention of him my first dicovery, though i did register his recommendation well enough to recall it, a year later) in terms of the exercises in intuition and coincidence that i'm practicing, in order to develop my intuitive resources. some people call it psychic ability, but until i can say that without even a small amount of skepticism or derision, i'm going to stick with "intuition," in which i do firmly believe. more on this soon -- but basically, the book i'm reading to work on all of this likens intuitive ability to a radio; it's got to be on and working to pick up all the signals that might be out there.

from what i know of frank's mysticism, it seems appropriate that my discovery of his work should inaugurate my entry into the world of the not-quite-rational and not-entirely-explicable.... radio on!!



(video by new zealand youtube user "heraldstreet" - thanks!!)

food: lentil, blueberry & watercress salad. and a pluot.
music: 102.1 KDFC & "Roadrunner" by the Modern Lovers
art: 94.1 KPFA Joe Frank "tales from the urban jungle"
text: the psychic pathway