November 28, 2015

8.45 pm. A late rise from a better night’s sleep. 9.30 am. In the sound studio, I reviewed the ‘spray job’ on the discs, unmasked them, and readied them for receiving the fragments of My Heart is Broken in Three:

My-Heart-is-Broken

Curiously, not all 10 inch, 78-rpm records are. The three examples that I’d purchased have as much as a 2/8th variance from the norm. Presumably, different record labels used their own pressing moulds which only approximated to the standard size. Absolute accuracy wasn’t called for; so, there was no need to strive for it. That’s a rather refreshing thought.

Next, I needed to ensure that the overlaid fragments were aligned with the spindle hole at the centre of host disc, for which task considerable accuracy was required. Mercifully, I had one large fragment that retained the hole of the whole record intact. So, I aligned the hole of the fragment with the hole of the host record and then manoeuvred one of smaller pieces into its original position next to the large fragment, from which it had broken off. The smaller fragment was then glued down, and the large fragment removed. The operation was then repeated for the remaining small fragment and, finally, the large fragment was secured to its own host disc.

Now I have three partial, playable records:

3-discs

It hadn’t struck me before, but in this piece makes possible what was impossible in the context of my Evan Roberts wax cylinder project R R B V E Ǝ T N Ƨ O A. The fragments of the cylinder couldn’t be played in their dissembled state, not least because they’d be reassembled:

Evan-Roberts_cylinder_L

Having failed to establish a link with PURE (the university’s research record database), I had a long ‘live chat’ with an operative from IS (Information Services, that is; not the terrorist organisation. Perhaps they should change their name to Services of an Informative Nature: SIN. No, that won’t do, either.) The conversation proceeded as follows:

Screen Shot 2015-11-28 at 12.55.19

… and so it went on for over an hour. No resolution. Sigh! But they were as helpful as they could be for a limited weekend service. I await further wisdom.

1.40 pm. I made a photo-document of the discs and then reviewed yesterday’s work on ‘Image and Inscription’. A sense of dread anticipation has been established, and I’m perceiving the pace of change and development more keenly. 3.45 pm. Back to CV and Academia.edu updating, and on with reference writing. I desperately need to clear my desk of small admin before I knuckle down to marking 24 x 5,000 word Abstraction submissions, early next week. Now that should see me through Wagner’s Ring Cycle many times over.

5.00 pm. Tools down. An evening with my wife.

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