Here’s another song from White Knuckle Sandwich, giving me a chance to sing gloomy lyrics in my lower range. I’ve also performed this with David Gold adding an obbligato on viola and duck call.

In 2017, Black Scat Books published Le Scat Noir Encyclopaedia, which presented “all human knowledge in a single volume.” A sequel is now in preparation, offering even more of all human knowledge. I wrote a few entries, including these on music and popular entertainment.

ALEATORIC TEMPERAMENT. Rather than choosing pitches by the ratios of frequencies, or by an equal division of the scale, aleatoric temperament determines them by chance. Randomly generated integers give the number of pitches in the octave, and then their frequencies. If, for example, you obtain fifteen pitches between A440 and A880, you might then obtain the series 457, 463, 480, 514, 551, 603, 649, 707, 756, 787, 790, 824, 835, 837, and 861, and tune your instrument accordingly. You can, of course, use a different temperament for each octave.

BOXING KANGAROO RATS. In the late 19th century, the popularity of boxing matches between men and kangaroos, in both Australia and Europe, prompted American showmen to offer similar attractions. Kangaroos were rare and expensive, so other animals were substituted. America’s only native marsupial, the opossum, was easy to obtain, but its habit of playing dead when threatened failed to entertain audiences. Consequently, several outfits, including Pixley’s Dime Museum and Carter’s Combined Menagerie, turned to kangaroo rats. Although the rats did hop like kangaroos, they were too small to present a challenge to human boxers, and even the most sadistic crowds balked at watching a grown man punch a tiny defenseless animal. Boxing kangaroo rats are now a mere footnote in American popular entertainment.

A keyboard version of a bit of my String Quartet 15: harmonizations of two street vendors’ cries notated by Friedrich Weber in 1887.

In this gripping tale, our hapless narrator tries to reconcile the competing demands of the cerebral and physical. Here’s the first part; the whole thing is slated for the next issue of the Black Scat Review.

THE MORNING WALK

It was a beautiful spring morning, so I decided to take a walk.

The decision was not an easy one, since a walk would prevent me from doing other things. I could not, for example, both swim and walk, because swimming is done in water, and walking on land. Nor could I wash dishes and walk, because dishwashing requires standing at a sink. I could walk around the kitchen between dishes, taking a little stroll between a pot and a plate, but would have to alternate the two activities. Swimming and washing dishes, however, could be combined, if necessary, by placing the dishes in a pool or other body of water.

Not all activities are incompatible with walking. I could, for example, play music and walk at the same time. Many people do, particularly in marching bands. Some instruments have even been redesigned to be easier to carry. The celebrated bandleader John Philip Sousa, for example, took time out from writing his famous marches to create the modified tuba we know as the Sousaphone. This ingenious invention wraps around the player, freeing his or her hands. I have always regretted that Sousa never redesigned other bulky instruments. The marimba, for example, cannot lend its bright and distinctive timbre to parades. As I considered this, I felt the creative spark kindling within me, and yearned to complete the work he had left unfinished. But just as he could not write marches and redesign instruments at the same time, I could not take a walk and solve the problem of the marching marimba. True, nothing prevented me from thinking about it, as I placed one foot after the other, but I would have to leave my workbench behind…

My 16th string quartet consists of arrangements of some of the piano music I’ve written over the years. Here’s “Radio Valentine,” written for a radio show in San Francisco long ago.

In the course of my miscellaneous musical reading, I found an article by the organist and composer Friedrich (or, in England, Frederic) Weber, “On Melody in Speech,” in the Feb. 1887 issue of Longman’s Magazine (pp. 399-410). Weber notated the pitches and rhythms of the cries of several animals (dogs, birds, donkeys), and added some transcriptions of human speech. I don’t think his notations are particularly accurate, but I do like their wayward tunes and irregular rhythms, so I harmonized them for string quartet.

The world is none too rosy at the moment. I might as well write some piano music.

The 2oth issue of “Black Scat Review” is now available from Black Scat Books! This one is devoted to black humor, 106 pages of it. I contributed a squalid fairy tale, “The Fisherman’s Wish,” a misanthropic song, “We Are Not a Pretty People,” and a translation of Alphonse Allais’s classically tasteless story “The Rajah Is Bored.” The international roster of contributors includes Mark Axelrod, Jocelyne Geneviève Barque, Tom Barrett, Léon Bloy, Ken Brown, Michael Casey, Wayne Coe, Norman Conquest, Thomas James Cooper, Farewell Debut, S. C. Delaney, Rhys Hughes, Harold Jaffe, David Kuhnlein, Mantis, Marcel Mariën, J. H. Matthews, M. G. Mclaughlin, Jim Meirose, Derek Pell, Agnès Potier, Mark Putzi, Richard Robinson, Marquis de Sade, John Galbraith Simmons, Nile Southern, Terry Southern, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Michel Vachey, Tom Whalen, Bill Wolak. You can find it on Amazon!

From an upcoming issue of Black Scat Review, here’s the beginning of a story about a fisherman and the fish who promises him wishes. Unfortunately, fish with magical powers are not always trustworthy.

THE FISHERMAN’S WISH

   The fisherman started out one bright morning, toting his rod and tackle. He was in a merry mood, and as he ambled through the woods, he plucked a budding thornflower to decorate his hat. When a host of scarlet fillyflies fluttered up from the bush, he batted at them playfully with his rod.

   Once he reached his fishing spot, under a shady tree beside a gently purling lake, he settled into it with a contented sigh. He opened his tackle box and pulled out a thermos of flavored gin, which he swigged thirstily. Then he took out a wriggling grub, fixed it to his hook, and leaned back against the tree, his hat over his eyes.

   Before long, a ripple dimpled the surface of the lake, and he felt a tug at his line. He tugged back, and, after a few more tugs in both directions, landed a gasping fish on the bank beside him. Whistling cheerily, he unhooked the hook, and was surprised to hear the fish speak.

   “Please, sir,” gasped the fish, “return me to the lake, and I will grant you a wish.”

   “A wish!” echoed the fisherman. “Why is it always a wish? Whenever they want to bargain, it’s always a wish. It’s never a check, or a basket of fruit, or a piece of jewelry. Always a wish.”

   “You might as well argue with gravity,” said the fish. “That’s the way of the world.”

   “And how do I know you can follow through?” the fisherman asked. “You look like a common everyday fish, not a sorcerer.” 

   “Watch this,” said the fish, and with one wave of his fin he turned the tree into a mossy boulder. With another wave, he changed the fillyflies to swallows, which winged up into the blue, chirping.

   “Whoa!” cried the startled fisherman. “You do have uncanny powers.”

….