Jamie has for a while been enthused with Heather Christle, a poet who has spent some time in our dead-end end of the state (MFA at Umass and living in Northampton), him likely picking up on her love of humor and beauty and horror in frankness. Tipped off by her, he got into the William Basinski disintegration loops, a series of musical experiments that were born from trying to digitize a set of twenty year old and frantically crumbling recordings of his music. In some sort of study of unconsciousness and trance, Jamie wrote scores of “loops”: rabid little things from within the disintegration, unburdened by too much concern with structure and form.

(http://heatherchristle.tumblr.com)

(http://bostonreview.net/heather-christle-acorn-duly-crushed)

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Basinski)

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYOr8TlnqsY)

Below are some early selections from a large batch he sent me, and more will continue to come as he continues to loop:

 

—-

 

My friend came to me with an egg He said

One of the reasons I like you so much

is you strike me as someone who knows

what to do with an egg I said No no

please don’t put that on me no I am not

He handed me the egg It was white

with a few yellow spots It felt nice

in my hand What a beautiful egg! I said

He grinned and slapped his thigh For some reason

I wanted to smash it all over the floor

and then punch him in the face I have no idea

why I react this way to beautiful eggs

 

—

 

I came across a man

dying of thirst I am dying of thirst

he said I poured some water

into the dying man’s mouth I am dying of thirst

he said I poured some more water into the dying man’s mouth

I am dying of thirst he said He died of thirst Who knows

It must have been some other kind of thirst

 

—

 

Would you like to hear my theory? No Okay my theory

has to do with theories and the people who make them

and also the people who hear them I don’t care Okay my theory

is that nobody wants to hear anybody else’s theories Shut up

Okay the reason nobody wants to hear anybody else’s theories

is because the instant they hear one of anybody else’s theories

there is then one less theory for them to come up with Go away

And that makes them sad I don’t care Okay but you’re crying

 

—

 

My little brother is so much bigger He could

squash me whenever Now do you get it?

 

—

 

In this dream mother has windmill hands She’s breaking

all the dishes I’m impressed! I’m very scared Where’s dad?