___________________________________TRACK 3 / PAGE 599 LINE 9
Signifying, if tungs may tolkan, that, primeval condi-
tions having gradually receded but nevertheless the emplacement
of solid and fluid having to a great extent persisted through
intermittences of sullemn fulminance, sollemn nuptialism, sallemn
sepulture and providential divining, making possible and even
inevitable, after his a time has a tense haves and havenots hesitency,
at the place and period under consideration a socially organic
entity of a millenary military maritory monetary morphological
circumformation in a more or less settled state of equonomic
ecolube equalobe equilab equilibbrium. Gam on, Gearge! Nomo-
morphemy for me! Lessnatbe angardsmanlake! You jast gat a
tache of army on the stumuk. To the Angar at Anker. Aecquo-
tincts. Seeworthy. Lots thankyouful, polite pointsins! There's
a tavarn in the tarn.
Tip. Take Tamotimo's topical. Tip. Browne yet Noland. Tip.
Advert.
Where. Cumulonubulocirrhonimbant heaven electing, the dart
of desire has gored the heart of secret waters and the poplarest
wood in the entire district is being grown at present, eminently
adapted for the requirements of pacnincstricken humanity and,
between all the goings up and the whole of the comings down and
the fog of the cloud in which we toil and the cloud of the fog
under which we labour, bomb the thing's to be domb about it so
that, beyond indicating the locality, it is felt that one cannot with
advantage add a very great deal to the aforegoing by what, such as
it is to be, follows, just mentioning however that the old man of
the sea and the old woman in the sky if they don't say nothings
about it they don't tell us lie, the gist of the pantomime, from
600 UP
cannibal king to the property horse, being, slumply and slopely, to
remind us how, in this drury world of ours, Father Times and
Mother Spacies boil their kettle with their crutch. Which every
lad and lass in the lane knows. Hence.
____________________________________TRACK 2 / PAGE 598 LINE 27
Tim!
To them in Ysat Loka. Hearing. The urb it orbs. Then's now
with now's then in tense continuant. Heard. Who having has
he shall have had. Hear! Upon the thuds trokes truck, chim,
it will be exactlyso fewer hours by so many minutes of the
ope of the diurn of the sennight of the maaned of the yere of
the age of the madamanvantora of Grossguy and Littleylady,
our hugibus hugibum and our weewee mother, actaman house-
truewith, and their childer and their napirs and their napirs'
childers napirs and their chattels and their servance and their
______________________________________________________599 UP
cognance and their ilks and their orts and their everythings that
is be will was theirs.
Much obliged. Time-o'-Thay! But wherth, O clerk?
Whithr a clonk? Vartman! See you not soo the pfath they
pfunded, oura vatars that arred in Himmal, harruad bathar na-
mas, the gow, the stiar, the tigara, the liofant, when even thurst
was athar vetals, mid trefoils slipped the sable rampant, hoof,
hoof, hoof, hoof, padapodopudupedding on fattafottafutt.
____________________________________TRACK 1 / PAGE 628 LINE 13
End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a
long the
riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to
Howth Castle and Environs.
Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen-
core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy
isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor
had topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse
to Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumper
all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to
tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a
kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair in
vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a
peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory
end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.
The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-
ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-
nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later
on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the
offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan,
erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends
an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes:
and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park
where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since dev-
linsfirst loved livvy.
____________________________________
A way a lone a lost a last a loved a long the
audiovisual narration of Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
We are a trio performing passages from the Wake. Using an aquarium, electroacoustic sounds and words to create a faithfully unfaithful renarration of the story.
Finnegans Wake is often seen as the most difficult work produced in literature. If you look beyond, you discover the rich, bizarre imagination of a man who had a highly idiosyncratic vision of the world. Joyce opposed the glorification of violence, he tried to pierce the dogmatic gender roles of men and women and he was very critical of religion. This were progressive ideas for the strict Catholic Ireland of the early twentieth century, but also for the time in which we live now. The infinite imagination and elegant, socially engaged thoughts make Finnegans Wake unique and urgent reading, hence we started this project.
Since the book takes the form of a dream, Joyce made a dream language. A language that breaks the rules of grammar and spelling, in which words of different languages are glued together, in a prose mixed with musical forms constructed with onomatopoeic qualities. The first page states for example: The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!)
Refers to the fall of man from paradise, but also the fall of Humpty-Dumpty from the wall in the old English children's song. The fall is followed by a so-called thunder-word, a word composed by the word thunder in different languages that mimics the sound of thunder and someone falling down the stairs. The language appears in first instance as absurd, comical nonsense, yet it contains all sorts of meanings and references below the surface. This meaningful playfulness is what attracts us in Finnegans Wake.
Besides the strong musical aspect of the language, the visual aspect of the text is also vital to the story. To create a frame where the text is projected, we use an aquarium as a metaphor for the book that flows in water, the feminine principle, from beginning to end. The text starts in a river, produces clouds, rain and ends in the ocean in the last page to eventually become a river again.
We want to emphasize that the language is a character in Finnegans Wake: it comments on events by changing themselves following the same events. We focus on developing a piece in which fragments of Finnegans Wake are told and sung, accompanied by electro acoustic music, guitar, violin, banjo, sample loops, patterns, iterations and vocals. The computer code behind the setup enables us to control and sample on-the-fly, yet also delivers unexpected artifacts, sounds and structures. This leads to a performance which is more an open network of possibilities, associations and interpretations, an analogy to the book.
This project follows our contribution in Waywords and Meansigns (2015) a complete musical version of Finnegans Wake produced by American writer and radio producer Derek Pyle, for which we did the last and first chapter of the book. http://www.waywordsandmeansigns.com/first-edition.html
This production is made possible thanks to the support of AFK — Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst.