"Of
course, "Sufficiently Breathless," I know that one. Classic, yeah,
great song. The name Sunfish Holy Breakfast came from it. Go back and
listen to it drunk and you'll hear it."
a SHOUt in the streeT
It isn't strange for me to suggest that the title of Guided By Voices Sunfish Holy Breakfast EP was
birthed out of a misheard lyric from the song "Sufficiently Breathless"
by Captain Beyond. This kind of notion fits in well with the mythology
of the GBV universe. What is strange is my "proof." This here is the
evidence.
In numerous interviews Robert Pollard has stated that as a youth he based much of his record purchasing decisions based solely on how weird the band names were or how strange the album art was. Captain Beyond's album Sufficiently Breathless certainly fits the bill. "Captain Beyond" even sounds distinctly Pollard-esque, like one of the hundreds of band names Pollard dreamt up and made fake album covers for. This record is definitely in Pollard's Progressive Rock Wheelhouse.
In numerous interviews Robert Pollard has stated that as a youth he based much of his record purchasing decisions based solely on how weird the band names were or how strange the album art was. Captain Beyond's album Sufficiently Breathless certainly fits the bill. "Captain Beyond" even sounds distinctly Pollard-esque, like one of the hundreds of band names Pollard dreamt up and made fake album covers for. This record is definitely in Pollard's Progressive Rock Wheelhouse.
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| "Nothing Left To Live For..." |
Even the artwork on the respective album covers is similar, as both display a band of freaks hanging out in front of buildings with identical red brick walls (more or less). And the lysergic disposition of the three long hairs sitting in bug-eyed lotus perfectly matches the refrain of the song.
For me, all the parameters for exquisite bullshit are firmly in place here, bullshit that is just entertaining and coincidental enough to convince a few fans that the story is true.
Who knows? Maybe it is true.
Here Comes Everybody
I
have always been obsessed with artists who command an unexplainable
reverence. Geniuses cloaked in mystery who, despite their fame, really
don't belong somehow: Lenny Bruce, Stanley Kubrick, Andy Kauffman,
Aleister Crowley, James Joyce, William Burroughs.
One of the defining characteristics of these artists is that they remain coy when asked "what does it mean?" Kaufmann never let down his guard. Kubrick didn't explain shit. James Joyce dropped Finnegans Wake on the world without a map, and Aleister Crowley reveled in the stupidity of fools. These artists were content to allow their artistic output to speak for itself.
One thing they all understood is that there is no such thing as an accident. They undersood that there are certain gestational necessities of the quintessence; that sometimes only silence can transubstantiate the Delphic sparks of the unconscious mind.
Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices is one of these artists.
Enter the rune.
One of the defining characteristics of these artists is that they remain coy when asked "what does it mean?" Kaufmann never let down his guard. Kubrick didn't explain shit. James Joyce dropped Finnegans Wake on the world without a map, and Aleister Crowley reveled in the stupidity of fools. These artists were content to allow their artistic output to speak for itself.
One thing they all understood is that there is no such thing as an accident. They undersood that there are certain gestational necessities of the quintessence; that sometimes only silence can transubstantiate the Delphic sparks of the unconscious mind.
Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices is one of these artists.
Enter the rune.
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| The Rune |
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| Chemical Fun In The Sun |
Wrunes For Ever
The rune made its first appearance on the Sunfish Holy Breakfast EP, released in November 1996, ten years after the first GBV release, Forever Since Breakfast, also an EP, and also concerning breakfast (a ritual associated with waking up). Floating like a two-dimensional UFO, this odd little doodle first captured my attention when it reappeared on the cover of Mag Earwhig. Soon it started showing up on t-shirts and promotional items at tour stops, on the tattooed arms of hardcore fans, and on Isolation Drills, the final appearance of the rune on an official album release (skipping Do The Collapse for some reason).
This "rune" has been referred to as many things: the doodle, the symbol, and most lovingly, the "paper football thingy." But of all the names given, rune is the most intriguing. A rune suggests something of magical importance.
Compare this writing with the writing of the Lord's Prayer in Old Norse (Runic Alphabet-Futhark):
If we’re labeling anything runic here it should be the alphabet used to inscribe the title, not the "paper football thingy."
So what the hell kind of magic is it?
A beginners level study of magic must include a discussion of the construction of sigils. Construction of a sigil is an extremely personal creative process which depends on reshaping and condensing multiple elements into a singular form. It has much in common with collage, putting the use of sigils in Pollard's Magical Wheelhouse.
In modern uses, the concept was mostly popularized by Austin Osman Spare, who published a method by which the words of a statement of intent are reduced into an abstract design; the sigil is then charged with the will of the creator. Spare's technique, now known as sigilization, has become a core element of chaos magic. The inherently individualistic nature of chaos magic leads most chaos magicians to prepare and cast (or "charge") sigils in unique ways, as the process of sigilization has not been rigorously defined. Sigils are used for spells as well as for the creation of thoughtforms.
Correctly identifying the letters of the title as runes allowed me to see that the paper football thingy was a sigil constructed out of runes.
But who's runes?
Finnegans Wake Up With
“To Joyce reality was a paradigm, an illustration of a perhaps unstatable rule. It is not a perception of order or of love; more humble than any of these, it is a perception of coincidence.”
I began this exploration with a stoned-comedian riff on the entanglement of Captain Beyond's Sufficiently Breathless and GBV's Sunfish Holy Breakfast (SHB) because it illustrates the kind of lysurgical acrobatics necessary to distill the psycho-metalytic content of James Joyce's alchemical opus Finnegans Wake (I think this process is referred to in the rejected album title Non-Local Leap Frog). It is this same freak process that I will use to discern the connection between Pollard's sigil and Finnegans Wake.
In Joyce's Finnegans Wake, the character of Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker owns and tends bar in a suburb of Dublin. His last name Earwicker is considered to be derived from eire-weiker, dweller in Ireland, but also carries many other associations. One of them is "earwig."
Earwicker, the reader is told, was originally a gardener who spent his days trying to keep earwigs out of his garden. One day, while he is at work, a king passes by and asks him what he is up to. Earwicker's response is that he is "cotchin on thon bluggy earwuggers" (31.10-11). This pleases the king, who then bestows the name 'earwicker' on him (3.27-8).
Earwicker
sounds much like "earwigger" and Joyce's dreamer, a Protestant, seems
to suspect that his Catholic neighbors maliciously pronounce it that way
behind his back. The earwig is reputed in folklore to cause dreams by
crawling into the sleepers ear, so the association Earwicker-earwig is
appropriate for a book of dreams.
Robert Anton Wilson
From a press release for the album Mag Earwhig (ME):
The first GBV album by their new lineup, which consists of leaders Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout, backed by the entire lineup of Cobra Verde. This is a conceptual rock opera inspired by the Who's Tommy, the Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow, Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and the Edgar Broughton Band's Wasa Wasa.
Finnegans Wake Up With
Skills Like
This
“To Joyce reality was a paradigm, an illustration of a perhaps unstatable rule. It is not a perception of order or of love; more humble than any of these, it is a perception of coincidence.”
Samuel Beckett
I began this exploration with a stoned-comedian riff on the entanglement of Captain Beyond's Sufficiently Breathless and GBV's Sunfish Holy Breakfast (SHB) because it illustrates the kind of lysurgical acrobatics necessary to distill the psycho-metalytic content of James Joyce's alchemical opus Finnegans Wake (I think this process is referred to in the rejected album title Non-Local Leap Frog). It is this same freak process that I will use to discern the connection between Pollard's sigil and Finnegans Wake.
In Joyce's Finnegans Wake, the character of Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker owns and tends bar in a suburb of Dublin. His last name Earwicker is considered to be derived from eire-weiker, dweller in Ireland, but also carries many other associations. One of them is "earwig."
Earwicker, the reader is told, was originally a gardener who spent his days trying to keep earwigs out of his garden. One day, while he is at work, a king passes by and asks him what he is up to. Earwicker's response is that he is "cotchin on thon bluggy earwuggers" (31.10-11). This pleases the king, who then bestows the name 'earwicker' on him (3.27-8).
Peter Mahon
Robert Anton Wilson
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| A Waking Universe |
From a press release for the album Mag Earwhig (ME):
The first GBV album by their new lineup, which consists of leaders Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout, backed by the entire lineup of Cobra Verde. This is a conceptual rock opera inspired by the Who's Tommy, the Pretty Things' S.F. Sorrow, Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and the Edgar Broughton Band's Wasa Wasa.
Pollard is the main character in this sprawling narrative, an insectile cartoon figure named the Magnificent Earwhig,
who interacts with a wild cast of characters in songs evoking
nostalgiac memories of an Ohio boyhood, starting one's first band, and
inhaling American roadside pop culture.
"Despite the progressive
conceptual 70's mindset informing this project, the record is still a
collection of beautifully twisted pop songs and can be listened to as
either an opera or just a series of rock arias."
Digging deeper into this coincidence of Finnegans Wake and GBV, I realized that both HCE and ME earn their keep by working in bars, establishments dedicated to intoxication, and that both authors, Pollard and Joyce, were born just outside of Dublin: Joyce a few miles outside of Dublin, Ireland, and Pollard a few miles outside of Dublin, Ohio. Both spent time as school-teachers, both loved to write, and both loved to sing:
If he had not become a writer, there is a very good chance that James Joyce would still have made a name for himself by pursuing a career as a vocal performer. In 1904 he even shared the stage with the great opera singer and recital artist, John McCormack; and later on in life, after he had established himself as an author, he tirelessly promoted the singing career of his fellow Irishman and tenor, John Sullivan.
Pollard and Joyce both utilize collage as a significant channel for creative expression; Pollard primarily through visual arts, Joyce through the magic ear of the printed word.
This
was enough entanglement for me to suspect Pollard might also be
obsessed with James Joyce. I say obsession because I don't think
anyone is ever casually into Joyce; much like GBV, Joyce is either meh
or full-blown obsession.
This could just be a simple coincidence. But a coincidence involving James Joyce is rarely simple.
Joyce's understanding, use of, and reverence for coincidence has more in common with Jung's definition of synchronicity than coincidence.
Synchronicity exposes us to a reality saturated with hyper-dimensional intent. It is a place where accidents simply do not exist.
Joyce's understanding, use of, and reverence for coincidence has more in common with Jung's definition of synchronicity than coincidence.
Synchronicity exposes us to a reality saturated with hyper-dimensional intent. It is a place where accidents simply do not exist.
Digging deeper into this coincidence of Finnegans Wake and GBV, I realized that both HCE and ME earn their keep by working in bars, establishments dedicated to intoxication, and that both authors, Pollard and Joyce, were born just outside of Dublin: Joyce a few miles outside of Dublin, Ireland, and Pollard a few miles outside of Dublin, Ohio. Both spent time as school-teachers, both loved to write, and both loved to sing:
If he had not become a writer, there is a very good chance that James Joyce would still have made a name for himself by pursuing a career as a vocal performer. In 1904 he even shared the stage with the great opera singer and recital artist, John McCormack; and later on in life, after he had established himself as an author, he tirelessly promoted the singing career of his fellow Irishman and tenor, John Sullivan.
Pollard and Joyce both utilize collage as a significant channel for creative expression; Pollard primarily through visual arts, Joyce through the magic ear of the printed word.
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| Bababadalgharaghtakamminaronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk! |
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| Visit This Place |
Le Soleil Secret
"For
a long time I didn’t have my own copy (of Finnegans Wake), because I
had given it to Robert Pollard from the band Guided By Voices, of which
you may have heard. He plunders it on occasion for song titles and
lyrics."
James Greer was a member of GBV from 1994-96, and played bass during the 1995 recording sessions that would become Under the Bushes, Under the Stars. Leftover
material that did not make that album would eventually be released a
year later as SHB. SHB marked the final release of the "classic" GBV
era ("One more!"). Pollard would break up the band shortly after and
reform with another Ohio group, Cobra Verde, serving as back up band.
SHB then serves as a sort of wake for the GBV funeral, and the proceedings offer a few notable anomalies. Upon release, Greer became one of only a handful of people in GBV history to have sole songwriting credit with the inclusion of his song "Trendspotter Acrobat." Another sole songwriting credit went to Tobin Sprout's "Jabberstroker" which opens the album. No other GBV release before or after opens with a song whose sole songwriting credit is someone not Robert Pollard. And of course there is the first appearance of the sigil.
I suspect that Greer's copy of Finnegans Wake
was handed over to Pollard sometime in '95 and from there Joyce's
influence began to take effect. Peeling back a few more layers of the
SHB onion we find other clues of Joyce's influence. Greer's song
"Trendspotter Acrobat" is a good name for the kind of deconstructive
detective work necessary to make sense of Finnegans Wake, and Sprout's "Jabberstroker" is evocative of "Jabberwocky," the nonsense poem
written by Lewis Carrol, and a major influence on Joyce:
Many of the words in the poem are playful nonce words of Carroll's own invention, without intended explicit meaning.
When Alice has finished reading the poem she gives her impressions:
'It seems very pretty,' she said when she had finished it, 'but it's rather hard to understand!' (You see she didn't like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) 'Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate.'
This may reflect Carroll's intention for his readership; the poem is, after all, part of a dream. In later writings he discussed some of his lexicon, commenting that he did not know the specific meanings or sources of some of the words; the linguistic ambiguity and uncertainty throughout both the book and the poem may largely be the point.
Pollard's lyrical wordplay has also been accused of "linguistic ambiguity and uncertainty," but these accusations only hold weight through a superficial listen. Any substantial investment of time reveals that even the oddest turn of phrase manifests some meaning (objective, subjective or otherwise).
SHB then serves as a sort of wake for the GBV funeral, and the proceedings offer a few notable anomalies. Upon release, Greer became one of only a handful of people in GBV history to have sole songwriting credit with the inclusion of his song "Trendspotter Acrobat." Another sole songwriting credit went to Tobin Sprout's "Jabberstroker" which opens the album. No other GBV release before or after opens with a song whose sole songwriting credit is someone not Robert Pollard. And of course there is the first appearance of the sigil.
Many of the words in the poem are playful nonce words of Carroll's own invention, without intended explicit meaning.
When Alice has finished reading the poem she gives her impressions:
'It seems very pretty,' she said when she had finished it, 'but it's rather hard to understand!' (You see she didn't like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) 'Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate.'
This may reflect Carroll's intention for his readership; the poem is, after all, part of a dream. In later writings he discussed some of his lexicon, commenting that he did not know the specific meanings or sources of some of the words; the linguistic ambiguity and uncertainty throughout both the book and the poem may largely be the point.
Pollard's lyrical wordplay has also been accused of "linguistic ambiguity and uncertainty," but these accusations only hold weight through a superficial listen. Any substantial investment of time reveals that even the oddest turn of phrase manifests some meaning (objective, subjective or otherwise).
Factory Of Raw Essentials
"I thought about it, a few years actually, and I decided that meaning and language are two different things. And that what the alien voice in the psychedelic experience wants to reveal is the syntactical nature of reality. That the real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish."
Terence McKenna
Taking over 17 years to construct, the Wake is the result of throwing multiple languages and systems of thought from countless cultures throughout history into an alchemical pot. Joyce's decisions here were guided by voices from the past, the present, and even, as some have boldly suggested, the future.
If you have never skimmed the contents of the Wake, it is an unnerving confrontation with the bizarre, and impenetrable for the novice. One cannot simply dive in head first; one must start slowly, almost as if one were a child learning how to read (Pollard being no exception). Knowing the competitiveness that drives a man like Pollard, being confronted with the language of Finnegans Wake (FW) must have lit a fire to discover all of it's secrets.
The best way to start is to cheat. Find someone to hold your hand and take you into the mess (see Joseph Campbell's Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake). With plenty of miles to cover on the road from gig to gig during those years, I imagine Pollard spent some time with a few of the many guidebooks that help usher the novice into the Wake.
Personally, I was lucky enough to discover a book called Coincidance by Robert Anton Wilson. After dozens of readings of Wilson's exegetical work on FW, I slowly started to grasp what Joyce was attempting with the construction of the Wake. Many years later, when I fully realized what Joyce had accomplished, I awoke from what felt like a very, very long sleep; it had truly been forever since breakfast.
I get the sense that Pollard experienced much of the same thing.
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| Get Under It |
According to Robert Anton Wilson, Joyce's notes for FW reveal a runic architecture that Joyce used to build FW. This architecture forms a family tree which drives the dynamics of FW, which ultimately reveal the inevitable recursive fall of man. This family tree reflects not only the dynamics of the I Ching and the binary system of Leibniz, but also the dynamics of DNA and quantum physics as well. It illustrates the intersection of spirit and matter, and is the way reality seems to be when it is stripped down to it's most naked state.
At the top of this family tree is The Tao. The Tao is a poetic representation of non-locality, that which remains when the dimensions of space and time leave the building. According to Joyce, when the Tao is expressed locally (in the space/time continuum) it manifests as the mutually exclusive entanglement known as Yin and Yang (Female and Male, Wave and Particle).
Yang = Male = Particle
A
particle can be either positive or negative, just as Yang can be either
active or passive. These polarities are further refined into the
neutral particle, the moving Yang, also expressed as the mutational
aspect of DNA into RNA.
Robert
Anton Wilson believes Joyce expressed his understanding of this unified
polar dynamic as "space-oriented arts like painting in opposition to
time-oriented arts like music, with the eventual synthesis of both into
Joyce space-time prose being gently hinted at."
The symbol for this synthesis of space-oriented arts and time-oriented arts is:
Though not exact, it certainly looks a lot like a goal post, or a busted tuning fork.
If
Pollard's study of Joyce had led him far enough down the rabbit hole to
find this symbol, it's meaning would have been heard loud and clear.
This polar dynamic not only merges athletics (goalpost) and music
(tuning fork), it also reflects the synthesis of an artistic duality,
with collage as our space-oriented art, and rock and roll our
time-oriented art.
As a sigil intends, this rune is gently reoriented as a reflection of the magician's personalized influence.
If
Pollard's study of Joyce had led him far enough down the rabbit hole to
find this symbol, it's meaning would have been heard loud and clear.
This polar dynamic not only merges athletics (goalpost) and music
(tuning fork), it also reflects the synthesis of an artistic duality,
with collage as our space-oriented art, and rock and roll our
time-oriented art. As a sigil intends, this rune is gently reoriented as a reflection of the magician's personalized influence.
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| Catching Waves Again |
Yin = Female = Wave
In Pollard's sigil, the triangle is colored in, reflecting the magicians personalized influence.
Into the Void and Over the Goal Post
Why would Pollard choose to mutate and merge these particular runes into a sigil? What could his intentions have been in 1996, with GBV on pause, and Pollard three years away from breaking through to the "big leagues" of major label rock and roll?
Here I go around the blame
Here I go with hand over flame
Down on the floor at 9:00
A scene not fully recognized
At precisely 9:00
Here I go with clapping hands
Here I go with "still no plans"
Illuminate the mystery
The film is not for view
The film is not for you.
Bomb In The Beehive - R. Pollard
