The Napping Wizard Sessions

In this episode, Jimmy Raskin puts the cliché under the microscope through a process he calls Slapstick Enlightenment. Always obsessed with profound moments of failure, Jimmy discusses his love of two quotes by seminal figures of his work for the past several decades, Arthur Rimbaud: “If brass wakes as a bugle, it’s not its fault,” and Frederick Nietzsche, the subtitle to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “A Book for All and None.” Putting these up against a profound moment of failure of his own in a mispronunciation of "polyphony," and finally against a recently found inspirational quote by an unlikely source, “All that is is there, all that is is here, all that is is,” he goes deep into his love of clichés and how the artist can resuscitate them.

Find Jimmy’s work at: Miguel Abreu Gallery: http://miguelabreugallery.com/artists/raskin; http://jimmyraskin.com/; http://thelasteccentric.com/

Supplemental tracks:

Jimmy Raskin, The Last Eccentric; George Jones, Wrong is What I Do Best; Jerry Lewis, The Nutty Professor; X-Files Theme Song; The Bob Dylan Foundation, feature on Joe Andoe; Blinded By The Light, Manfred Mann and more excerpts from Jimmy Raskin’s audio works.

Record date: January 27, 2019, BRIC Arts Media

Air date: April 01, 2019

From 1977-2018 Adrienne Whiteley worked at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, NY. As a voice major in college, she found part-time work as a seasonal employee at the zoo. She didn't know then that she had fallen into her career path. Over the next 41 years she worked her way up to the position of Senior Zoo Keeper, Collection Manager and Registrar, overseeing most aspects of the Zoo’s operation, and, most importantly, animal care and well-being. Since 2007 she has been teaching a highly popular course at Syracuse University on zoo animal management. In June 2018 we sat down to talk about elephants that paint, why penguins are vicious little monsters, unpredictable lions, the heart problems of gorillas and Bambi. “There’s a saying in the zoo community that there are more tigers in Texas than there are in the wild. Nobody needs a tiger.” Learn more about this wisdom and of Adrienne’s perspective on the zoo experience and the state of zoos and animal welfare in the American context. This interview is a bonus edition to my first episode of Premise: A Bold Move With The Cowardly Lion. In this isolated interview I cut the bits about the lion in the elementary school and focus on Adrienne’s experience and insights. To listen to her parts in Premise, find episode S02 E01 Premise: A Bold Move With The Cowardly Lion in my past shows.

*Photo of M'Wasi and Kierha (©Rosamund Gifford Zoo), the last two lions at the Rosamund Gifford Zoo. Kierha died in Dec. 2017 and M'Wasi in August 2018, shortly after this interview. Adrienne was fortunate to work with them.

In this multi-part series, I explore Peter Gabriel as a storyteller from the early Genesis years, 1967-1975. As introductions to the songs and as entertaining banter while the band tuned their complex Prog Rock instruments, Peter Gabriel told stories to the audience about the upcoming song. I compile these stories, grouped according to their corresponding songs and chart their growth. Along with the elaborate costumes Peter created during this period, he also concocted whacky stories: The Green Trouser Suit, Thomas S. Eiselberg and his onions, Henry and Cynthia on the croquet pitch, five rivers with one dirty mouth, Romeo and Juliet go to the cinema, Michael and his worms, Rael, the Slippermen and more. This series is for the true early Genesis fan and for those who don’t know the full scope of what Peter Gabriel added to the band during the years he was with them. Part 3 covers the stories from the Selling England By The Pound group - Britannia eating Buddha biscuits, the cosmic lawmower, the dirty mouth of the fifth river, Romeo and Juiliet at the cinema - and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway - Rael's adventures in NYC, a crashing cinematic wall, a prickly porcupine, a chamber with 32 doors, Lilly White Lilith, humpy, bumpy Slippermen and Rael's brother John.

In this multi-part series, I explore Peter Gabriel as a storyteller from the early Genesis years, 1967-1975. As introductions to the songs and as entertaining banter while the band tuned their complex Prog Rock instruments, Peter Gabriel told stories to the audience about the upcoming song. I compile these stories, grouped according to their corresponding songs and chart their growth. Along with the elaborate costumes Peter created during this period, he also concocted whacky stories: The Green Trouser Suit, Thomas S. Eiselberg and his onions, Henry and Cynthia on the croquet pitch, five rivers with one dirty mouth, Romeo and Juliet go to the cinema, Michael and his worms, Rael, the Slippermen and more. This series is for the true early Genesis fan and for those who don’t know the full scope of what Peter Gabriel added to the band during the years he was with them. Part 2 covers the rest of the stories from the Nursery Cryme group - horrifying hogweeds and the first hermaphrodite - and then Foxtrot - a martian or Coca-Cola, two women being evicted and expected to shrink to 4 feet for their next apartment, King Canute commading the waves (or not) and Michael and the worms announcing Supper's Ready.

In this multi-part series, I explore Peter Gabriel as a storyteller from the early Genesis years, 1967-1975. As introductions to the songs and as entertaining banter while the band tuned their complex Prog Rock instruments, Peter Gabriel told stories to the audience about the upcoming song. I compile these stories, grouped according to their corresponding songs, and chart their growth. Along with the elaborate costumes Peter created during this period, he also concocted whacky stories: The Green Trouser Suit, Thomas S. Eiselberg and his onions, Henry and Cynthia on the croquet pitch, five rivers with one dirty mouth, Romeo and Juliet go to the cinema, Michael and his worms, Rael, the Slippermen and more. This series is for the true early Genesis fan and for those who don’t know the full scope of what Peter Gabriel added to the band during the years he was with them. Part 1 covers The Green Trouser Suit, early Genesis singles, Trespass and The Musical Box from Nursery Cryme.

This is a show about mumbling and other vocalizations. It’s a collection of jazz songs where instrumentalists engage in a verbal exchange with their instruments. Some mumble or hum along with the melody, some transcribe poems to melodies and leave out the words, some start with found recordings and mimic the melody of the spoken word. Some start with the melody and add words to mimic it. And others speak directly into the mouthpiece as a substitute for a microphone. While you’re listening, feel free to talk to yourself, mumble or harmonize along. Songs included by Oscar Peterson, Errol Garner, Keith Jarrett, Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Branford Marsalis, John Coltrane, Jason Moran, David Dockery, Felipe Continentino, Pharoah Sanders, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Anthony Braxton, and I finish with some of my own Poems To Be Read Through A Saxophone.

In the pilot episode of this new series, PREMISE, David Colosi and his guests consider a New York City public elementary school staging a theatrical production of The Wizard of Oz by casting the role of the Cowardly Lion as a real lion.

Release date: 2018 August 28

David Colosi talks to Jeremy Sigler about … poetry.

Jeremy and David explore questions that arise from My Vibe: In the poet’s attempt to reach an audience, can one avoid succumbing to self-censorship, on the one hand, and fabricated outrageousness on the other while remaining true to oneself, flaws and all, and leave the campsite unmarred for the next campers? Are the dual desires to be read and to remain invisible at odds? Today, how does persona construction differ between a self-revealing literary book and a social media identity? What’s the impact of a poetry book footprint any more? 

In My Vibe, through the device of hyper-personal prose poems, Sigler explores the loneliness of the poet. With reference to Cheech and Chong, Marcel Duchamp, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Peter Saul, Franz Kafka and others, in this conversation and in My Vibe Sigler takes us on a slapstick Broken Flowers-esque journey of the poet (and maybe Poetry itself) in mid-life crisis, reminiscing, revisiting and rewriting personal scenes of failed rock-n-roll, sports and sexual attempts, savoring the joys of married life and parenthood while comically entertaining the desire to remain a sole and smooth operator.

His pants stick to the wall, slices of American cheese are dyed black and scaled to wrestling mats and the swimming pool becomes the site of a confrontation with Heath Ledger. Like Freddie Mercury who is the only musician Jeremy knows who carried along with the mic half of the stand “like a Shakespearean dagger,” Sigler is the only poet Colosi knows of who utilizes an intern for dictation.

Jeremy Sigler is a poet based in Brooklyn, NY where he has lived since 1991. His new collection of writings, My Vibe, is published by Spoonbill Books. He has written numerous collections of poetry, including To And To and Mallet Eyes published by Left Hand Books; Crackpot Poet published by Black Square Editions; and ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ published by Kingsboro Press/For the Common Good.

Release date: 2017 June 21