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Wichita Vortex Sutra (1988). Philip Glass /i hereby declare the end of the war/

Allen Ginsberg

I'm not sure I really like the voice of Ira Glass but he powerfully reads text by Alan Ginsburg as cousin Philip Glass plays Wichita Vortex Sutra.

The live recording is iTunes only (as far as I know).

Wikipedia:

Ginsberg juxtaposes images of the landscape of Kansas with snippets of media reports about the war in Vietnam and links the violence of war with the conservatism of the heartland. He believes that Wichita, where Carry Nation championed the temperance movement, "began a vortex of hatred that defoliated the Mekong Delta."^[2] In Buddhism, the term "sutra" refers mostly to canonical scriptures, many of which are regarded as records of the oral teachings of Gautama Buddha.

And after a several month pause, I am inspired to resume reading Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters.

Wichita Vortex Sutra (1988). Philip Glass /glass + glass/

Ira image by Getty Images via Daylife

It’s a Glass family reunion tonight as composer Philip Glass and his cousin Ira Glass, host of National Public Radio’s “This American Life,” present an evening of music and storytelling to raise $300,000 for St. Ann’s Warehouse, the Brooklyn, New York performing-arts venue. (bloomberg.com)

Ira and Philip will perform Wichita Vortex Sutra.

A stream of a Philip Glass/Allen Ginsberg joint performance of same is here. I've not heard this version before; as usual, the poet is intense. Presumably, Ira will have a more modulated reading.

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Wichita Vortex Sutra (1988). Philip Glass |arpeggiate, mediate:|

The idea of album as central to my listening experience continues to decay. Although most music still arrives in album form, it now migrates to MP3 tracks and gets inserted into various playlists and starts to feel untethered from its original container.

So I perk up when I hear an album that begs to be heard in its entirety. This morning, that album was the gorgeous playing of Bruce Brubaker on his Hope Street Tunnel Blues: Music for Piano by Philip Glass and Alvin Curran. Although even this experience gets mediated since I'm listening to each track in repeat mode.

Composer Lawrence Dillon has just blogged about Philip Glass' legacy re: arpeggios:

But any composer who uses them now will almost certainly be accused of stealing from Philip Glass.

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aworks: wichita vortex sutra political relevance + youtube video. repetition.
wikipedia: arepeggio. repeat sign.
official sites: bruce brubaker. philip glass. lawrence dillon. alvin curran. arabesque records. society for the prevention of repetitive creative endeavors.

 

Wichita Vortex Sutra (1988). Philip Glass

Choriamb: Poetry News and Reviews mentions an article about how Alan Ginsberg's Howl gets better press than his Wichita Vortex Sutra, despite the latter's particular relevance to our current times. From the article:

Instead, the poetry community will continue to focus on the anniversary of Howl--not just because 50 is a rounder number than 40, but because it's more enjoyable to celebrate the First Amendment triumph of an old sex-and-drugs anthem than wrestle with a poem that reminds us of the limitations of language in a political world.

Philip Glass wrote the music to mirror Ginsberg's reading of Wichita Vortex Sutra.

YouTube has a video of Serbian Branka Parlić playing this and other piano music of Philip Glass.