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Shake, Rattle, Roll 0:00
Shake, rattle, roll. Shake, rattle, roll. Shake, rattle, roll. The kind of strange and paradoxical fate of language out of the body, language once it continues to move through . . . Song For a Punch-Drunk Disembody 1:04 My body flies over the ocean My body flies over the sea . . . Won't you please bring back my body Oh, bring back my body to me. My body flies over the ocean The problem with bodies is the reason for antibodies, and the problem with antibodies is no body at all. Very, very, very good. Let's consider the proposition proved. Shake, rattle, roll ( . . . ) Get wired, stick a needle in the brain and spin those tunes, baby, 'cause you're a tightly twisted roller derby brand of wild thing. I am the prosthesis. A land where the unutterable is uttered . . . And this is what I mean by shake, rattle, and roll. That it is not just a place of sanctuary, but also a place of danger. Not just dreams, revelations and sanctuary, but nightmares, madness, and danger. The Cave of the Imagination.
Now in the wake of each fresh plane crash, I confess to being one of those morbid souls who reads survivor accounts with intense curiosity. And I do keep voluminous files. Such accounts almost invariably refer to violent rattles moments before disaster. So as the luggage compartments sprang open
above our heads and those little miniature Samsonites coming down
onto us, I felt certain that we were moments away from rattling
right into a burn unit. Proof Positive (10:31) Several hours later in a typically incongruous late twentieth century change of scene, I sat watching the surfers ride the waves at Waikiki with a Qantas complimentary cocktail - I think it was a banana daiquiri, though I was so rattled I have no idea what it was - but I was downing them as quickly as they could bring them. I thought about other waves, air waves, the risks of mechanical vibration. I thought about all the radio art transmissions that dump their fuel and make premature landings, about the countless audio aircraft that never arrive at their true destination, or that shake, rattle, and roll violently, without ever coming to the climax. And after three or four more complimentary cocktails, the voices in my head piled up like drowned rats . . . Liturgy for Radio Utopia (12:00)
How Fast My Body Flies (14:04) Slower, slower, slower . . . The local daily newspaper alluded only to, and I quote, A sinister dance of satanic voices, group necrophilia, and degenerate gobbledegook . . . " And this is what I mean by: shake, rattle, and roll. Radio Thanatos (15:09) Shake, rattle, roll ( . . . ) You're on the air.
From stone cold hard fact, larynx exposed at every stage of physical decomposition; from talk show golden throats cut with a scalpel, transected, then taped back together and beamed across the airwaves; from voices that have been severed from the body for so long they don't remember which body they belong to or whether they belong to anybody at all; from pop-monster giggle bodies guaranteed to shake your boodie; from artificial tissue folds, sneak-stitched and distilled into computer synthesis and digital processing; from mechanical chatterboxes dead to begin with; from cyberphonic antibodies taking flight and crashing to pieces on air. From down and dirty drive-time jingles to spotless digital recording of Handel's Messiah. Sit-com patter becomes fused in the memory with the speeches of candidates and the numbing rhythms of traffic reports and weather forecasts. Needles are an inescapable fact of life in the schizophonic and still amply animate the radio body, even if the world's fastest fake fingers, laser-beams, have made it possible to get off without them. As the possibility of public discourse collapses, at least in the United States, into communal lip-sync extravaganzas, perhaps the most direct form of radio art, and certainly the cheapest, is to simply get wired, stick a needle in the brain and spin those tunes 'cause you're a tightly twisted rollerderby brand of wild thing. (...) This is what I mean by shake, rattle, and roll. A World Without Lips (17:49) Now let's try to repeat the proposition without opening our mouths: "The problem with bodies is the reason for antibodies, and the problem with antibodies is no body at all." Very, very good. Some of course just heard other voices, one called in and said, "They have been telling me I'm a schizophrenic, but after listening to you I think I may only be a schizophonic." But others describe various forms of uncontrollable voices that would erupt from their throats at the most embarrassing times. Several were acutely aware that their language had become infected by the electronic media, that their language was in fact no longer their own, and often found themselves talking like cartoon characters. Shake, rattle, roll ( . . . )The Dangers of This Night (19:15) Ok, is the glass of water still being . . . ? Actually, it's a glass of wine since we are going to do a liturgy. Think wafer. Yes, they do get a bit sticky on the throat. We probably better have a glass of water of wine or two. Ok, and . . . You can always tear off a piece of cardboard at a pinch. Yes. Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, oh Lord, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and the dangers of this night. We, I think, are beginning to move toward the liturgical mode. Dangers of this night! Yes . . . Book of Common Prayer. Yes. Are we ready? I believe so. Song for a Punch-Drunk Disembody (19:59)
Nothing More Than That (20:38) How would you like to go through life hearing nothing more than that?
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