Robert Ashley
Although best known for his TV operas and theatre works, the American composer Robert Ashley (1930-2014) recorded many albums of his carefully written stream-of-consciousness and intertwining narratives. ‘Private Parts’ is an early recording that features the voice of Robert Ashley himself on what would become two sections of a much longer work, Perfect Lives, which Drew Daniel in Vice magazine declared ’40 years alter is still a hilarious mystery’.
‘Robert Ashley’s Private Parts has a plot, but you wouldn’t know it. The 1978 LP […] discusses at length the inner workings of two characters, a man and a woman, anonymous to us and perhaps even to each other. Words flood its 40-plus minute runtime, circling meaning but never arriving at a conclusion. What’s explored by Ashley, in his drawling monologues, seems to be everything that isn’t happening—an inversion that slinks and dances among the shadows. We are privy to his subjects’ fidgety obsessions, tics of behavior, heady ruminations and psychic detritus, but narrative, insight, or meaning remain as elusive as a not-quite-remembered dream. Private Parts is built on emptiness. It is startling just how riveting that emptiness can be.’
– Daniel Martin-McCormick, Pitchfork
PRIVATE PARTS
he took himself seriously
motel rooms had lost their punch for him
he opened all his bags
there were two and inside those two there were two more
its not an easy situation
but there was something like abandon in the air
there was something like the feeling of the idea of silk scarves in the air
there was a kind of madness to it
the kind we read about in magazines
one of the bags contained a bottle of liquor
a sure sign of thoughtfullness about who one mightve
been he poured himself a small drink in a fluted plastic glass sans ice
he thought to himself “if i were from the big town i would be calm and debonair
the big town doesnt send its riff raff out”
he sat on the bed both feet on the floor
he studied the ashtray and tried to rule out preference
prefering over not, prefering
but he prefered gravity over one other state
prefering in that case earth, the earth as they say
prefering some state over non-state
now he grips himself with determination
even knowing that it causes sadness
he is determined to be what
he is determined to be serious
he had determined once to be serious
later he knew that he had made a mistake
but too late he had arrived and there were rooms and all rooms were not the same
.