Gertrude Stein read by Marian Seldes, LP 1963

Folkways Records/Smithsonian Folkways FL9742, 1963.
Painting on the cover: Richard Banks.
Photograph: Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964), the literary executor of Gertrude Stein.

Classical Broadway actress born 1928, Marian Seldes has had a long carreer starting 1947 in New York stage venues, appearing in classical plays like Euripedes’ Medea, Giraudoux, Tchekov, … In the 1960s, she was involved in Tenessee Williams and Edward Albee plays. Marian Seldes played Alice Toklas in ‘Gertrude Stein and a Companion’, a 1986 TV program based on Stein and Toklas relationship. She was also interviewed in the documentary ‘Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud’, PBS, 1996, which I’d be curious to see. Additionaly, she appeared recently in ‘Sex and the City’ as well.

This 1963 LP, part of Folkways Records/Smithsonian Folkways Poet’s Theatre Series, is a reading from 2 Gertrude Stein’s books: side A has ‘Making of the americans’ (written 1906-8, p1925) and side B has ‘Lectures in America’ (1934). This lovely reading is very nice to hear, thanks to Marian Seldes’ smooth voice.

6p booklet of texts included in the compressed file.

Luc Marianni ‘Video Screens Control’ 1984

2LP Delphes Records 1984

side A:
Screen Controls part 1-4
– World news
– French landscape
– Bunuel’s movie
– Kitchen rock

side B:
Screen Controls part 5-8
– Galileo’s wind
– Pharaoh’s Garden
– Illusion screen
– Screen Necropolis Memories

side C:
Video Screens part 1-4
– Ecran Lunaire
– Berenice’s Game
– Berlin Game
– Airport Frequency

side D:
Video Screens part 5-8
– Video Screens Controls
– Appollo’s Way
– Birds in Space-lines
– Take A Taxi

Dedicated to Peter Gabriel (!). Released with André Viaud, of Pataphonie fame, ‘Video Screens Control’ was issued on Luc Marianni’s own label, Delphes Records. Part of a planned trilogy called Between Light And Sound Waves of which this 2LP was the first and last ever released. Sarcastic excerpts from french commercials and news programs are juxtaposed with cheap robotic electronic rythms, cynical frippian guitar and (very) concrete sounds. Marianni’s masterpiece is probably ‘Souvenirs du futur’, 1980, his album with the band Rock Critics being a good release too. None of them are availaible in CD format. ‘Video Screens Control’ is a favorite, radical and funny at the same time.

LP1

LP2