Monday, March 26, 2007

Fosse on My Left and Jehovah on My Right

My copy of Paterson disappeared in the vortex of my apartment. That's not an excuse for no recent posts. But I was thinking that, perhaps, the book became invisible through frequent handling; that, like the purloined letter, it was so unavoidably and continuously present as to render itself invisible. However, instead what happened was more interesting. It had been on the piano stand, having fully evolved into music. I had been trying to figure out how to score the Ginsberg letters, which I thought could either be done--in the hands of a capable avant-folk strummer (not me)--a la Incredible String Band (imagine the line "When I come back . . . I'll have W. C. Fields on my left and Jehovah on my right. Why not?" done with the Scottish psychedelic crooners' twang) or with a typical boho jazz accompaniment, of which I am more capable, but would still be lacking someone with Ginsberg's voice to drive it home.
If I had actually lost my copy, I would have lost these notes (below) which are written in the backcover. I could say I wrote them there as the dance-grammar for a possible work entitled Paterson: The Musical! but they are really there just because I had the copy of Paterson on hand when I came upon the following while buying tap-sneakers in a dance store in Asheville, NC: a list of the names of Bob Fosse dance moves, "The Language of Fosse." I'll list this lost language in case I misplace it again . . . a particular type of "idea-in-things":
parallel attitude
hieroglyphic
Calypso run
hat trick
hinge layback
front attitude swipe
4th position turn
chasse changement
shoulder knee pop
monkey down
meltdown
Italian changement
foot drag, puppy dog hands
crescent jump
backbend layout
matador
spender pose

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