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“Cold Are The Crabs:”
The Humorous, Rueful Poems of Edward Lear, ESVM, And More

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!

The Parallel Octave Chorus has resolved
to convene to record the poems of Edward Lear, ESVM, Oliver Goldsmith, Gelett Burgess, Ben Jonson, and Emily Dickinson
on the JHU campus, Mattin Center Room 105 (campus map here)
on Sunday, September 23rd,
2-3:30 PM.

There was an old man from New York…

Full text of poems, and links, pasted below:
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Forthwith, five .mp3s from our Sept. 9th session, “Poems of Escape.” Each one of these is less than a minute long, and all of them are available for filmmakers interested in next year’s ANTHOLOGY III.

The full text of the poems and individual links to the files follow:
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If you don’t, Charlotte Mew does! 22 of the 26 shorts from this summer’s ANTHOLOGY II are now up on YouTube and on the Parallel Octave website. (YouTube is best for skipping around–the ParOct page link lets you watch them in the order they appeared in the supermegafilm.)

Here’s one to get you started: filmmaker Adhiraj Goel’s stop-motion “Fin de Fete,” based on the poem by Charlotte Mew. This is one of the shorts created through the JHU Auteur 101 class.

And the poem:

Fin de Fête

Sweetheart, for such a day
One mustn’t grudge the score;
Here, then, it’s all to pay,
It’s Good-night at the door.

Good-night and good dreams to you,—
Do you remember the picture-book thieves
Who left two children sleeping in a wood the long night through,
And how the birds came down and covered them with leaves?

So you and I should have slept,—But now,
Oh, what a lonely head!
With just the shadow of a waving bough
In the moonlight over your bed.

– Charlotte Mew

ANTHOLOGY II premiered at the Creative Alliance on August 2nd, 2012; some pictures from the screening are here.

“Did Their Catullus Walk That Way?”
The Desire To Escape (From Academia, New York, Embodiedness, Humanity, And Other Prisons)

Poet Lola Ridge.

The Parallel Octave Chorus has resolved
to convene to record the poems of Lola Ridge, Dunbar, Whitman, and Yeats
in the JHU Arellano Theater (campus map here)
on Sunday, September 9th,
2-3:30 PM.

Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Poems:
– Walt Whitman, “When I Heard The Learn’d Astronomer”
– W.B. Yeats, “The Fascination of What’s Difficult” and “The Scholars”
– Paul Laurence Dunbar, “Ships That Pass In The Night”
– Lola Ridge, “Sun-Up,” “Wall Street At Night,” and the long, difficult “Celia.”

Full text of poems, and links, pasted below:
Continue reading →

Fall: it is upon us! (This image may or may not be of this fall, in Baltimore, but you get the picture.)

The Very Parallel Octave: Baltimore Chapter will meet, on the JHU Homewood campus, to record poems, on the following dates:

– THIS Sunday, September 9 (in the Arellano Theater)
Sunday, September 23 (all subsequent dates in Mattin 105)
Sunday, October 7
Sunday, November 4
Sunday, November 18

The meetings will start at 2 PM.

As usual, all are welcome–friends, foes, musicians, actors, people with and without instruments. There will be a piano in the room.

Pictures from the Parallel Octave reading of “To Die in Athens” at the Homewood Museum on August 12, 2012.

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Here are a few quick pictures from the screening of ANTHOLOGY II at the Creative Alliance–more pictures and other stuff will be ready Monday a month later (sorry-Ed.), along with sound, video, and all of the films from ANTH II going live on YouTube. We’ll also put up the entire anthology as one film, so that anyone who wants to replicate the screening experience from home can!

Here’s the class of “Auteur 101: Short Film Laboratory” outside the Creative Alliance last night, for the culminating screening.

And here’s the audience:

Here are a couple of pictures of the post-screening collaboration session, where we recorded the entire text of Gertrude Stein’s “Stanzas in Meditation.” We got some excellent sound from that session, by the way, which we will also post Monday.

We’re already looking forward to next year’s ANTHOLOGY III!

The students of Auteur 101 will screen their short films tonight at 8 pm at The Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave. Free admission.

Parallel Octave presents: ANTHOLOGY II
the short film compilation
Thursday, August 2nd
Refreshments at 7:30 pm, screening at 8:00 pm
At the Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave.
FREE ADMISSION!

More info here at the Creative Alliance website!

And here’s the link to all the student short films thus far from AUTEUR 101. Check out Alexandra Nemetschke’s “Fortschritt” below!

Here’s a newer, bluer flier for the August 2nd screening, collaged from Melee’s Gertrude Stein short:

Parallel Octave presents: ANTHOLOGY II
the short film compilation
Thursday, August 2nd
Refreshments at 7:30 pm, screening at 8:00 pm
At the Creative Alliance, 3134 Eastern Ave.
FREE ADMISSION!

More info here at the Creative Alliance website!

And here’s an updated link to all the student short films thus far from AUTEUR 101, now including seven new stop-motion pieces which will be screened on the 2nd. Check out Aidan Fisher’s “On Gut” and Juan Negrette’s “Amor Eterno” below!