HOTEL ST. GEORGE ARCHIVE : FALL 2007
THE GOVINDAN ANANTHANARAYANAN ACADEMY for MORAL and ETHICAL PRACTICE and the TREATMENT of SADNESS RESULTING from the MISAPPLICATION of the ABOVE
THE PLAGIARIST
THE YEAR of the PANDA
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SCREENINGS
Music by Brian Transeau
2004
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VIEWINGS Home is where your home is.
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MUSIC [from "Balkan Dreams Suite"]
[from "Masada Guitars"]
[from "Neshama"]
Steven Mackey
Gary Lucas [from "Street of Lost Brothers"]
Andrew McKenna Lee • Variation, Fixation, and Fantasy
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SONIC EVENTS [Spies like us] When Akin Fernandez, an independent record label owner and shortwave radio enthusiast, first stumbled onto these lone voices late at night reciting sequences of numbers, he was understandably disturbed and fascinated. Not much is known--or at least few people are willing to talk about--what purpose these "number stations" serve or what messages are being conveyed. Through years of research, including reading the memoirs and diaries of a number of ex-CIA and KGB operatives, Fernandez has been able to confirm that these were indeed spy messages being sent to agents in the field--one way communications whose single-use key would be immediately destroyed upon translating the instructions.
In compiling many of the recordings he made, Akin received other entries from more shortwave enthusiasts who stumbled upon these strange messages. Often proceeded by an odd, tinny jingle, the voices--both male, female, child (!) and computer--speak in any number of languages: English, German, French, and very frequently Czech (whose signoff konec or conet ('end') was used at the title of Fernandez' collection.
The Conet Project (www.iridial.com/conet.htm) has also managed to slowly seep into the mainstream. The band Wilco somewhat famously named their album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot after a sound sample from this collection (and were subsequently sued for not asking permission to commercially use the recording), and the director Cameron Crowe worked samples of these numbers into the soundtrack for his movie Vanilla Sky. Subsequently the entire collection has been made available to download for free online.
So dim the lights, shroud yourself in a blanket, and imagine a lone spy in the middle of a strange land, huddled before a radio, straining to hear a hazy queue of numbers scratching out codes into the ether.
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RADIO PLAYS
Petrovich's radio play for three voices eats dirt.
Performed by Aaron Petrovich (Father), Dianna Barone (Mother), and Ben Schneider (Son).
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