Another Roadside Attraction Read Online Free
insist that the complex electrochemical sculpture in question actually had been executed by his pet baboon.
III
The prominent Janstelli Gallery presented Ziller's first one-man show of Cosmos Mystique Apparati. These were fiber glass pyramids and cones (volcano-like) about five feet tall. Some were covered with the skins of poisonous reptiles, others with the feathers of small gray birds. Others were painted in translucent whites and pinks, often with a bulb of weak light bulging in the bowels of the fiber glass like some frosty hemorrhoid or mathematical pun. Near the base of each piece was riveted a small brass plate which read: “Upon proper viewing, the external surface heat of this apparatus may reach 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, Old Master techniques are known to fail.”
IV
“The Janstelli Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of Ready Made Fossils, created by John Paul Ziller who has recently returned from travels in Africa (or was it India?).”
The artist had carved from ivory, alabaster and onyx replicas of important archaeological tidbits: the jawbone of Java man, skull fragments of Marmes man, telltale arm sockets from Tanganyika. Ziller chose to display these half concealed in mounds of sand or mud which he had dumped on the gallery floor. Upon two of the more striking pieces (embossed with gold), vats of fresh garbage had been poured. And the largest piece was buried beneath a pile of offal Ziller had gathered along the bridle paths of Central Park. Naturally, as the days wore on, the exhibition began to engage senses other than sight and touch, offering somewhat of a challenge to olfactory aesthetics.
V
At the same time that Ziller was itching the visual art world with his fossils, apparati, post-lunar illuminated Buddha turds and magnetic jade divining rods (helpful in locating the lost city of Mu), his reputation as a drummer was running like a vine along the invisible walls of the musical underground.
In those days he blew jazz, chiefly of the Afro-Cuban variety. Such was his ability that he was welcomed at jam sessions of the top jazzmen in New York, and on occasion he sat in during gigs at famous clubs such as the Half Note, the Five Spot and the Village Gate, drumming in the
bata
fashion while using an African thumb harp for orchestral effect. Since it was rumored that he had turned down chairs in some very fine combos, there was an eddy of interest in the musical undercurrent when word flashed around that Ziller was about to organize his own band. Zollie Abraham, who both promoted jazz and wrote books about it, visited Ziller with a twofold plan: (1) he would contract Ziller's group for a New England campus tour and (2) he would write an article on the aims of the new band for
Downbeat
magazine. It was a warm autumn day and Ziller and his baboon were seated on a Nigerian cotton cushion in front of an open window, eating plums and listening to the sounds that bounced in off the streets. There was a smell of carbon in the air. Upon hearing Abraham's proposal, Ziller, yellow berries of plum juice hanging from the hairs of his mustache, replied, “The jazz was the very same shape as the keyhole so that went through, the blues was lean and conditioned to suffering so it snugged through, but the rock was big like a sausage and got stuck in the middle ear to the ground.”
Pretty pissed, Abraham went away and informed all the jazzheads that Ziller was insane and an opportunist to boot. He had sold out to rock-and-roll.
In the mashed banana sunlight of Labor Day morning, Amanda basked on a log in the Sacramento River, talking to her two closest friends in the Indo-Tibetan Circus: Nearly Normal Jimmy and Smokestack Lightning. A burly redhead whose walrus nose and oxblood mustache both drooped wearily as if overpowered by the weight of his ice-cube-thick spectacles, Nearly Normal Jimmy was manager and ringmaster of the circus. An administrative genius, Nearly Normal had been a
III
The prominent Janstelli Gallery presented Ziller's first one-man show of Cosmos Mystique Apparati. These were fiber glass pyramids and cones (volcano-like) about five feet tall. Some were covered with the skins of poisonous reptiles, others with the feathers of small gray birds. Others were painted in translucent whites and pinks, often with a bulb of weak light bulging in the bowels of the fiber glass like some frosty hemorrhoid or mathematical pun. Near the base of each piece was riveted a small brass plate which read: “Upon proper viewing, the external surface heat of this apparatus may reach 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, Old Master techniques are known to fail.”
IV
“The Janstelli Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of Ready Made Fossils, created by John Paul Ziller who has recently returned from travels in Africa (or was it India?).”
The artist had carved from ivory, alabaster and onyx replicas of important archaeological tidbits: the jawbone of Java man, skull fragments of Marmes man, telltale arm sockets from Tanganyika. Ziller chose to display these half concealed in mounds of sand or mud which he had dumped on the gallery floor. Upon two of the more striking pieces (embossed with gold), vats of fresh garbage had been poured. And the largest piece was buried beneath a pile of offal Ziller had gathered along the bridle paths of Central Park. Naturally, as the days wore on, the exhibition began to engage senses other than sight and touch, offering somewhat of a challenge to olfactory aesthetics.
V
At the same time that Ziller was itching the visual art world with his fossils, apparati, post-lunar illuminated Buddha turds and magnetic jade divining rods (helpful in locating the lost city of Mu), his reputation as a drummer was running like a vine along the invisible walls of the musical underground.
In those days he blew jazz, chiefly of the Afro-Cuban variety. Such was his ability that he was welcomed at jam sessions of the top jazzmen in New York, and on occasion he sat in during gigs at famous clubs such as the Half Note, the Five Spot and the Village Gate, drumming in the
bata
fashion while using an African thumb harp for orchestral effect. Since it was rumored that he had turned down chairs in some very fine combos, there was an eddy of interest in the musical undercurrent when word flashed around that Ziller was about to organize his own band. Zollie Abraham, who both promoted jazz and wrote books about it, visited Ziller with a twofold plan: (1) he would contract Ziller's group for a New England campus tour and (2) he would write an article on the aims of the new band for
Downbeat
magazine. It was a warm autumn day and Ziller and his baboon were seated on a Nigerian cotton cushion in front of an open window, eating plums and listening to the sounds that bounced in off the streets. There was a smell of carbon in the air. Upon hearing Abraham's proposal, Ziller, yellow berries of plum juice hanging from the hairs of his mustache, replied, “The jazz was the very same shape as the keyhole so that went through, the blues was lean and conditioned to suffering so it snugged through, but the rock was big like a sausage and got stuck in the middle ear to the ground.”
Pretty pissed, Abraham went away and informed all the jazzheads that Ziller was insane and an opportunist to boot. He had sold out to rock-and-roll.
In the mashed banana sunlight of Labor Day morning, Amanda basked on a log in the Sacramento River, talking to her two closest friends in the Indo-Tibetan Circus: Nearly Normal Jimmy and Smokestack Lightning. A burly redhead whose walrus nose and oxblood mustache both drooped wearily as if overpowered by the weight of his ice-cube-thick spectacles, Nearly Normal Jimmy was manager and ringmaster of the circus. An administrative genius, Nearly Normal had been a
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