Wichita Vortex Sutra by Philip Glass, performed by piano Sally Whitwell (me!) on the album Mad Rush.
Getting back into practising this one in preparation for my Peninsula Summer Music Festival solo concert. I will never tire of this piece.
Speakin’ Out - Mysterious Life of the Voice Over Artist.
I just enjoyed a lovely drink and scintillating conversation with my friend Robbie, who is one of the voice over artists featured in this mini doco. I suggested to him that we perform that Philip Glass/Allen Ginsberg piece Wichita Vortex Sutra together one day. I think he’s up for it. I hope so! He’s a really fantastic actor/reader/voice-over artiste. He can also sing magnificently (as you might expect from listening to his velvety tones. Haha.)
allen ginsberg was a person, and that gives me hope
I so enjoyed recording Wichita Vortex Sutra for my ARIA Award Winning album Mad Rush. My only disappointment was that we couldn’t have version of this piece with the narration. It was just too expensive to buy the rights to do it :( Still, I thought I did a pretty good job with my recording, even if I do say so myself!
I’m off to Melbourne for the day tomorrow to play at a wedding. Yes, a wedding. It’s not something I really do any more, but this fellow called me up and said he heard my album on the radio and absolutely insisted on having me play Philip Glass’s “Wichita Vortex Sutra” as he and his good lady wife exit the church.
Kinda weird… but I like it. I like it a lot!
Another gratuitous audio repost from my album *grin* Wichita Vortex Sutra by Philip Glass.
I would so love to perform this with it’s narration one day. Perhaps I should ask someone to join me at my recital on September 3rd? Hm. So many possibilities…
Metamorphosis No. 2 by Philip Glass, from my album Mad Rush
I’m going to play this piece at a wedding, during the signing of the register. The lovely couple also want “Wichita Vortex Sutra” as their exit music.
I haven’t met them yet in the flesh, but I can tell they’re going to be my kind of people :D
Gratuitous reposting of my performance of Wichita Vortex Sutra (special request from simonsaystheword).
Here ‘tis! *grin*
Also, if you’re interested in the Allen Ginsberg poem which is sometimes narrated over the top of this piece, you can find it here. Make like karaoke in lyrical Ginsberg-style tones, yeah!
Wichita Vortex Sutra, piano solo composed by Philip Glass. Performed by Sally Whitwell.
This piece was originally conceived as an accompaniment to the narration of this poem by Allen Ginsberg.
Go like Karaoke - here are the words :o)
I'm an old man now, and a lonesome man in Kansas
but not afraid
to speak my lonesomeness in a car,
because not only my lonesomeness
it's Ours, all over America,
O tender fellows--
& spoken lonesomeness is Prophecy
in the moon 100 years ago or in
the middle of Kansas now.
It's not the vast plains mute our mouths
that fill at midnite with ecstatic language
when our trembling bodies hold each other
breast to breast on a matress--
Not the empty sky that hides
the feeling from our faces
nor our skirts and trousers that conceal
the bodylove emanating in a glow of beloved skin,
white smooth abdomen down to the hair
between our legs,
It's not a God that bore us that forbid
our Being, like a sunny rose
all red with naked joy
between our eyes & bellies, yes
All we do is for this frightened thing
we call Love, want and lack--
fear that we aren't the one whose body could be
beloved of all the brides of Kansas City,
kissed all over by every boy of Wichita--
O but how many in their solitude weep aloud like me--
On the bridge over the Republican River
almost in tears to know
how to speak the right language--
on the frosty broad road
uphill between highway embankments
I search for the language
that is also yours--
almost all our language has been taxed by war.
Radio antennae high tension
wires ranging from Junction City across the plains--
highway cloverleaf sunk in a vast meadow
lanes curving past Abilene
to Denver filled with old
heroes of love--
to Wichita where McClure's mind
burst into animal beauty
drunk, getting laid in a car
in a neon misted street
15 years ago--
to Independence where the old man's still alive
who loosed the bomb that's slaved all human consciousness
and made the body universe a place of fear--
Now, speeding along the empty plain,
no giant demon machine
visible on the horizon
but tiny human trees and wooden houses at the sky's edge
I claim my birthright!
reborn forever as long as Man
in Kansas or other universe--Joy
reborn after the vast sadness of War Gods!
A lone man talking to myself, no house in the brown vastness to hear,
imaging the throng of Selves
that make this nation one body of Prophecy
languaged by Declaration as
Happiness!
I call all Powers of imagination
to my side in this auto to make Prophecy,
all Lords
of human kingdoms to come
Shambu Bharti Baba naked covered with ash
Khaki Baba fat-bellied mad with the dogs
Dehorahava Baba who moans Oh how wounded, How wounded
Sitaram Onkar Das Thakur who commands
give up your desire
Satyananda who raises two thumbs in tranquility
Kali Pada Guha Roy whose yoga drops before the void
Shivananda who touches the breast and says OM
Srimata Krishnaji of Brindaban who says take for your guru
William Blake the invisible father of English visions
Sri Ramakrishna master of ecstasy eyes
half closed who only cries for his mother
Chaitanya arms upraised singing & dancing his own praise
merciful Chango judging our bodies
Durga-Ma covered with blood
destroyer of battlefield illusions
million-faced Tathagata gone past suffering
Preserver Harekrishna returning in the age of pain
Sacred Heart my Christ acceptable
Allah the Compassionate One
Jahweh Righteous One
all Knowledge-Princes of Earth-man, all
ancient Seraphim of heavenly Desire, Devas, yogis
& holymen I chant to--
Come to my lone presence
into this Vortex named Kansas,
I lift my voice aloud,
make Mantra of American language now,
I here declare the end of the War!
Ancient days' Illusion!
and pronounce words beginning my own millennium.
Let the States tremble,
let the Nation weep,
let Congress legislate it own delight
let the President execute his own desire--
this Act done by my own voice,
nameless Mystery--
published to my own senses,
blissfully received by my own form
approved with pleasure by my sensations
manifestation of my very thought
accomplished in my own imagination
all realms within my consciousness fulfilled
60 miles from Wichita
near El Dorado,
The Golden One,
in chill earthly mist
houseless brown farmland plains rolling heavenward
in every direction
one midwinter afternoon Sunday called the day of the Lord--
Pure Spring Water gathered in one tower
where Florence is
set on a hill,
stop for tea & gas
