Karl Jirgens at Ultimatum Festival 1985-05-05

Karl Jirgens is a writer, based in Toronto at the time, and was the editor of Rampike – a literary journal which featured hundreds of Canadian and other writers from around the world, also concrete poetry, found poetry, as well as interviews, from 1979 to 2016. He is also an 8th degree black-belt Grand-master in the martial art of Tae Kwon Do. During his performance he placed a strap over his head which held a revolver on each side of his head, pointing at his temples.

Static and light clapping sound.

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Maintenant, uh, Karl Jirgens de la revue Rampike, Toronto.

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Chimes ring out.

Knocking sound.

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Le langage de silence et la violence.

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Guttural shout.

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Guttural shout.

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The language of silence is violence.

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Clapping sounds.

Clinking noise.

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Clicking sound.

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Hi folks.

Laughter.

Percussive sound.

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Page flip sound.

Can't hardly see it.

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[Off mic]. Thanks for everybody to come out. I've really enjoyed this show so far. Can we get a little bit lower lights here on my face. [Unintelligible]. Thanks, yeah, that's good. Uh. Yeah. Okay.

[On mic]. He said talk in the mic. [Laughs]. Um. Yeah, I'd like to thank Alan Lord and especially Joe. Everybody. Um. I'd like to begin tonight by talking about the pieces that I won't be doing. Uh. That's because there were a lot of well-intentioned people who wanted to make it out here tonight but they couldn't make it so I'm dedicating this to them. Can we have the lights here in the centre, is that possible? Okay. Don't worry about it. Actually, uh, I was gonna do a poem called "Le Moncole de Mon Oncle", but uh, I think that's been done by somebody. Uh, I was gonna do a zen piece called "My Karma Ran Over Your Dogma".

Chatter and laughter.

And maybe a, maybe a rap piece 'cause I hear rap is popular though I haven't heard any in Montreal yet. It's called uh, it's got a long title: "He Was a Winnebago Dego Living Down in Tobego Eatin' a Tomato, Big Fat Tomato, it Was a Deglo Winnebego in the Bushes of Tobego". Like, the title's almost as long as the piece but [coughs]. Then I was gonna do a, I heard Sylvere's here so I thought maybe what would be appropriate would be a social realist piece, you know so I have one called "He Got a Temporary Permanent Job at Permanent Trust But He Really Wanted a Permanent Temporary Job at the Dairy Queen".

Laughter.

And uh, I was gonna do a piece called "Address to America". It's actually a triple pun, it's 'address' as in US mail or 'a dress' as in US female or 'address' as in I'm talking to you.

Starts reciting "Address to America" [English].

Laughter.

But I won't do that either because -

Laughter.

you've prob'ly heard that.

Laughter.

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So instead, I'm gonna tell you about an insane friend of mine. He's, how you say, cuckoo?

Rapid squeaking.

Recites poem [English].

Laughter.

Resumes recitation.

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Silence.

Recites poem [French] [unclear if it's the same piece from before recording cuts out].

Laughter.

This one is called "The Achilles Truth". It's a little bit long, but I think you might like it.

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Recites "The Achilles Truth" [English].

Coughs.

Resumes recitation.

Laughs.

Applause and cheers.

Recites poem [French].

Cheers and applause.

Holy [unintelligible] batman.

Okay. Just to wrap it up here, I'd like to do, first off, a very short poem.

Page flip sound.

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Creaking sounds.

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Performs poem.

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Thank you.

Laughter and applause.

I'd like to do, uh, a longer poem now.

Laughter.

Page flipping sounds.

This one. I'll just wrap up the show with this. This one is, uh, dedicated to a South Seas mammal called the dugong. It's uh, a creature that's facing extinction now because uh, there's a lot of people down south that eat this animal and uh, it has no natural self defense mechanisms, no teeth or claws, so its very easy prey and uh, I was watching a program, sort of like Jacques Cousteau on tv one day and thinking, you know, about these poor dugongs and how they're gonna go extinct.

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Recites poem [English].

Cuts out, static.

[End of recording].