March 1 2019
Plaster Cramp
Plaster Cramp* is an ongoing experimental archive of readings, descriptions, sounds, & other aural ephemera for the vision and reading impaired, created by Maliea Croy. Born partially deaf, Croy started to go progressively blind in her 20s and now seeks to transmute an ever-changing visual world through collected sounds. Maliea Croy is a therapist/artist living & working in the Bay Area.
* Plaster Cramp is named after Jorge Luis Borges' short story "The Library of Babel" in which he imagines a library that encompasses all possible information in the universe in every combination. The Plaster Cramp is the name of one of the few books the protagonist finds that is semi-legible, though completely nonsensical. Borges went blind shortly after being appointed Director of the National Library in Argentina. He talked about being given access to all the books he could imagine, but without being able to read them himself. He often wrote about "irreality," libraries, labyrinths, gardens, smells, nighttime, and cats.
Credits
In order of appearance
Tammie Brown – Welcoming meditation
Maggie Lee – “Looking”; based on “Chapter 15 – In My Bedroom” of her 2015 film Mommy
Rob Brezny – “Re-Genius Yourself”
Zoe Brezny – “Light Beams for the Sky of a Transfer Corridor”
Kathryn Scanlan – “Beef Hearts Trimmed of Fat, Braised”. This story originally appeared in the 2018 edition of NOON
Kathryn Scanlan – “Please”. This story originally appeared in the 2017 edition of NOON
Zoe Brezny – “See You in the Next World”
Music
Beethoven - Bagatelle Op. 119, No. 9
Rob Brezny - Re-Genius Yourself
Khotin - Frog Fractions
Steve Hillage - Four Ever Rainbow
Bios
Rob Brezsny writes the internationally syndicated column "Free Will Astrology," and is the author of the the book "Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings." His website is FreeWillAstrology.com.
Zoe Brezsny is a poet from Oakland, CA who lives in Brooklyn. She curates Parallax, a reading series of contemporary poetry held at Hauser & Wirth Publishers. She has a weekly radio show on WFMU 91.1 FM where she plays a medley of poetry recordings, international pop, and Youtube black-hole tracks dedicated to uplift & inspire.
Tammie Brown is the stage name of Keith Glen Schubert, a drag queen, singer, and actor living in Los Angeles. Tammie competed in the first seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race and RuPaul's All Stars Drag Race. She appeared briefly alongside Tammy Faye Bakker in Season 2 of The Surreal Life. Schubert grew up in Corpus Christi, TX and Mexico.
Maggie Lee is a multimedia artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited at the Whitney Museum, New Museum, Real Fine Arts, Lomex, and more. Maggie will have a solo exhbition at Édouard Montassut in Paris opening May 2019.
Kathryn Scanlan is the author of Aug 9—Fog (FSG, June 2019), a book constructed from the discarded diary of a stranger, and The Dominant Animal (FSG, 2020), a collection of stories from which “Please” and “Beef Hearts Trimmed of Fat, Braised” are excerpted. She lives in Los Angeles.
Special thanks to Daniel Aged and Griffin Harrison for recording.
* Plaster Cramp is named after Jorge Luis Borges' short story "The Library of Babel" in which he imagines a library that encompasses all possible information in the universe in every combination. The Plaster Cramp is the name of one of the few books the protagonist finds that is semi-legible, though completely nonsensical. Borges went blind shortly after being appointed Director of the National Library in Argentina. He talked about being given access to all the books he could imagine, but without being able to read them himself. He often wrote about "irreality," libraries, labyrinths, gardens, smells, nighttime, and cats.
Credits
In order of appearance
Tammie Brown – Welcoming meditation
Maggie Lee – “Looking”; based on “Chapter 15 – In My Bedroom” of her 2015 film Mommy
Rob Brezny – “Re-Genius Yourself”
Zoe Brezny – “Light Beams for the Sky of a Transfer Corridor”
Kathryn Scanlan – “Beef Hearts Trimmed of Fat, Braised”. This story originally appeared in the 2018 edition of NOON
Kathryn Scanlan – “Please”. This story originally appeared in the 2017 edition of NOON
Zoe Brezny – “See You in the Next World”
Music
Beethoven - Bagatelle Op. 119, No. 9
Rob Brezny - Re-Genius Yourself
Khotin - Frog Fractions
Steve Hillage - Four Ever Rainbow
Bios
Rob Brezsny writes the internationally syndicated column "Free Will Astrology," and is the author of the the book "Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings." His website is FreeWillAstrology.com.
Zoe Brezsny is a poet from Oakland, CA who lives in Brooklyn. She curates Parallax, a reading series of contemporary poetry held at Hauser & Wirth Publishers. She has a weekly radio show on WFMU 91.1 FM where she plays a medley of poetry recordings, international pop, and Youtube black-hole tracks dedicated to uplift & inspire.
Tammie Brown is the stage name of Keith Glen Schubert, a drag queen, singer, and actor living in Los Angeles. Tammie competed in the first seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race and RuPaul's All Stars Drag Race. She appeared briefly alongside Tammy Faye Bakker in Season 2 of The Surreal Life. Schubert grew up in Corpus Christi, TX and Mexico.
Maggie Lee is a multimedia artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited at the Whitney Museum, New Museum, Real Fine Arts, Lomex, and more. Maggie will have a solo exhbition at Édouard Montassut in Paris opening May 2019.
Kathryn Scanlan is the author of Aug 9—Fog (FSG, June 2019), a book constructed from the discarded diary of a stranger, and The Dominant Animal (FSG, 2020), a collection of stories from which “Please” and “Beef Hearts Trimmed of Fat, Braised” are excerpted. She lives in Los Angeles.
Special thanks to Daniel Aged and Griffin Harrison for recording.