Richard Sanderson is doing another one of his free-for-all projects Two Minutes Left over at Linear Obsessional Recordings (Submissions open until December 15th). I took part in last year’s Button Box with a spoken word piece from my story “Carlos” that appears in the second Fox Pockets anthology, Shapeshifters. That recording is free to download:

So I thought I’d do another piece, which came about in the usual sort of odd way. There was visiting the Kinski Bar, which I loved so very much and which still fills my head. There’s Fitzcarraldo and its mirror Burden of Dreams, or what you might call the magic and how mad the magic making is. And there was this video of Kinski with a butterfly, which comes from Mein Liebster Feind, Werner Herzog’s singular tribute to his frequent collaborator. Then I found that the German for ‘butterfly’ (der Schemetterling) according to the Wicktionary (well…) comes “from Schmetten (‘cream’) due to old belief that witches transformed themselves into butterflies to steal cream and other milk products.”

Well, that was irresistible.

So I came up with a submission–and in German! “Kinski Butterfly” is more of a poem than a song, I fear. It stole a bit from thinking about opera because of Fitzcarraldo, and from Marlene and Weill — trying to do something in that sort of vein with my, erm, very limited abilities. But that’s how my brain works (if it does). Once I see a thing in my head, I want to make it real. Every random thing that’s caught my attention might show up. It’s all part of the process. Everything, however seemingly random or insignificant (or immense and significant), that goes in my head becomes part of the creative process. And I end up doing rather frightening things that I never thought I’d try — I know it’s not exactly leaping from a tall building, but sometimes the little braveries have a big impact on one’s own life.

We’ll see how it turns out once Richard releases the collection on Xmas Eve.