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In this debut episode for the Gap Riot Press Season Seven Launch Party Podcast Series (*phew*), Ottawa-based poets nina jane drystek and Ellen Chang-Richardson chat about erasure poetics, feminist community building, the weird and wonderful legacy of Anais Nin, and their lovely friendship while the sounds of Rideau Street sneak in.

Season Seven Launch Party Podcast

There Are No Limits

The 2022 Sweetest Little Thing Jingle
By Shotgun Jimmie, Chad VanGaalen and Julie Doiron

For more information about the Sweetest Little Thing visit www.sweetestlittlething.ca

2022 Sweetest Little Thing Jingle by Shotgun Jimmie ft. Chad VanGaalen and Julie Doiron

Ariel is on the podcast as part of the thread we’ve been having this year: off-page, extra literary, which has included discussions of artists’ books with Barrie Tullett and Sarah Bodman, recording studios with Gareth Auden-Hole, Pakistani folklore with Nimra and Manahil Bandukwala, the alphabet with Johanna Drucker, and book conservation with Christine McNair. This is the last episode on this thread.
In this episode, I speak with Ariel about her practice of mudlarking. We read together from her collaborative poetry book with Brenda Schmidt, Siteseeing.

Episode 111 - Mudlarking with Ariel Gord

Sound Allies -,Raw & Pure (dub, but not overdub)

Each stanza concerning a specific vowel has been EQ filtered through the  the formants of that specific vowel.

Vowels, Christian Bök's translation of Arthur Rimbaud's Voyelles

While we cannot see small nanoscopic objects like proteins or other molecules that make up virtually all living matter including our cells, tissues, as well as pathogens such as viruses, our computational algorithm allows us to make its material manifestation audible.  This piece is a musical representation of the amino acid sequence and structure of the spike protein of the pathogen of COVID-19, 2019-nCoV (protein data bank identifier 6VSB [1]). 

MUSICAL DECEIT

A virus’ genome hijacks the host cell’s protein manufacturing machinery, and forces it to replicate the viral genome and produce viral proteins to make new viruses from it.  This musical art teaches us something about the fine line between beauty of life and death as an opposite pole.  As you listen to the protein you will find that the intricate design results in incredibly interesting and actually pleasing, relaxing sounds. This doesn’t really convey the deadly impacts this particularly protein is having on the world. This aspect of the music shows the deceiving nature of the virus, how it hijacks our body to replicate, and hurt us along the way. So, the music is a metaphor for this nature of the virus to deceive the host and exploit it for its own multiplication. 

HOW IT IS DONE: 

What you hear is a multi-layered algorithmic composition featuring both the vibrational spectrum of the entire protein (expressed in sound and rhythmic elements), the sequence and folding of amino acids that compose the virus spike structure, as well as interwoven melodies - forming counterpoint music - reflecting the complex hierarchical intersecting geometry of the protein [2].

Scientific references:

[1] Wrapp et al., "Cryo-EM structure of the 2019-nCoV spike in the prefusion conformation," Science, 2020, DOI: 10.1126/science.abb2507

[2] Buehler et al., "A Self-Consistent Sonification Method to Translate Amino Acid Sequences into Musical Compositions and Application in Protein Design Using Artificial Intelligence," ACS Nano, 2019, DOI: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.9b02180

Viral counterpoint of the coronavirus spike protein (2019-nCoV)

Viral Counterpoint of the Coronavirus Spike Protein (2019-nCoV)

Teaser announcing upcoming podcast by The Ottawa International Writers Festival.

The Ottawa International Writers Festival Podcast Announced!

Oral poetry creating ‘neu’ language in an improvised flow-state through lived experience with ancient classical Sufi metaphysical tropes

More details www.the87press.com/hythe

Beast: Venus As A Soft Boi Dub part 1 by Sascha Aurora Akhtar

A recording of a live reading event hosted by The Babel Tower Notice Board with Cat Chong, Amanda Earl and Matthew Haigh performing.

#1 Live From Babel Tower: For One Magical Night Only

The Small Machine Talks is a monthly conversation that explores the poetry scene of Central Canada and beyond. Its hosts are Ottawa poets, Amanda Earl and a.m. kozak. The podcast features interviews with poets, publishers, and literary event organizers, discussions of recent and upcoming poetry events, calls for submission, talks on poetics, recent issues of online and print journals, books and chapbooks and sometime in the future, topics of interest to writers and readers of poetry. The podcast is part of AngelHousePress, a Canadian micropress that publishes raw talent, ragged edges and rebels in the form of chapbooks, two online magazines, a transgressive prose imprint, DevilHouse, and an essay series. 

Episode 111 - Mudlarking with Ariel Gord

The Small Machine Talks

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