Based on: Henry Miller reading from Colossous of Maroussi (1949).
Ubuweb Henry Miller page.
A Bingorage©©™ Translation and Comment;
When Henry Miller was recorded, did he know that the second half of conversation was recorded, too? He says something about the recording session already being over. He then starts into an improvised slam/speech prophecy about the future of media and the death of print.
It sounds spontaneous.
It sounds like a long, bitter standup routine,
with no response from an audience. Is he speaking to someone, an interviewer? Or, is he speaking by himself.
"The oldest building in Hiraquiim {ERIC; source town} will outlast the newest building in America."
"I'm sorry that I didn't know about this recording, beforehand.
It's a new medium for me and it makes me awkward and self-conscious.
Every medium has its own laws
You gotta respect those laws
I don't think that you ought to read from one's own writing. One oughtta stand up and create, on the wing so to speak."
"The sound of my own voice is monotonous. It's gonna put me to sleep."
"I'll get a machine of my own and practice with it...
have something for me to drink, next time, Louie.
(When you) tackle a new medium...
you discover something about yourself...
It's another thing to talk into a microphone.
You feel like there are millions of ears out there, waiting for you.
If you sneeze or cough, that's part of it.
In speech there’s direct contact.
If I was the greatest writer in the world I'd tell ya
don't do it. Stay away from the microphone.
You sound like a ham actor reading your own words.
"There's almost something too sacred when you sit down to write.
In front of a mob it's different...
you can see the effect on their faces.
You can see it, alter it.
It's different with the microphone
It gives you the creeps.
You don't know what the hell's going on out there.
You gotta get through that maze (of wires and electronic)
You gotta believe that it's gonna register
Words, somehow when you write them; you can paint them, use them like musical notes
You can't do that over the microphone
This tape is the flimsiest most perishable thing that is...
as you're reading into the microphone, you’re recording over another speech.... It's the most contradictory thing, don't you see
(As opposed to printed words, which can be destroyed apiece, but never entirely; as is possible with a single audio copy, never backed up. In essence, however, a lone written transcript, destroyed on its way to the publisher or the printer, could be analogous to the unbacked-up audio.)
The clown vs. the comedian
Danny Kaye, the double-talker.
That's my meat; I go haywire when I hear him
We're not gonna be reading books for many more years.
We'll have this direct communication with each other
we won't even need a microphone
a man can just get up and do something
not even open his mouth
and it will just register
the creative act will be communicated instantly, globally
that will be a wonderful thing
We're in an intermediate stage.
We're moving away from that dead, cold print.
I've probably written millions of words...
useless words.
The only thing that is necessary is to communicate.
What is poetry?
What was the great poetry that we only know from a distant reverberation?
What was Homer?
Homer didn't write down his words
"He was a man, singing his words...
He was a blind man they say, wandering like a beggar."
Someone wrote it down.
They(HM: contemporary poets and workers of the microphone) 're a long way from those magicians of old... Those wizards, who had the verbal faculty."
{ERIC; Look up etymology of "wizard", particularly root of "wizened" and derivation to "wizard".}
"OK Louie, that's it."
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