Nichols Collection 0005

Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork

A Song Cycle on Poems by Richard Brautigan

Gene Nichols. Text by Richard Brautigan

Various media

Performed by Gene Nichols with the Neoteric Ensemble

April 17, 1981

Northern Illinois University

Music © 1981 Gene Nichols, text © 1971 Richard Brautigan

Collection of Gene Nichols

The second half of 1981's April 17 program was given over to these interpretations of Brautigan's 1971 poem collection Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork. Each segment is a separate poem, with its own instrumentation and score.

Please contact us with more information about this work or the performance itself. Notes and commentary can be inserted along with each file below.

<flashmp3 id="01">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_01.mp3</flashmp3>
Prologue: Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork
4' 19"

<flashmp3 id="02">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_02.mp3</flashmp3>
Two Guys Get Out of a Car
0' 47"

<flashmp3 id="03">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_03.mp3</flashmp3>

Homage to Charles Atlas
1' 19"

<flashmp3 id="04">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_04.mp3</flashmp3>
Seconds
1' 09"

<flashmp3 id="05">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_05.mp3</flashmp3>
Montana Inventory
1' 32"

<flashmp3 id="06">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_06.mp3</flashmp3>
We Meet, We Try, Nothing Happens, But
1'28"

<flashmp3 id="07">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_07.mp3</flashmp3>
As Mechanical as a Flight of Stairs
1' 26"

<flashmp3 id="08">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_08.mp3</flashmp3>
I'll Affect You Slowly
1' 20"

<flashmp3 id="09">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_09.mp3</flashmp3>
They are Really Having Fun
6' 06"

<flashmp3 id="10">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_10.mp3</flashmp3>
What Happened?
1' 44"

<flashmp3 id="11">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_11.mp3</flashmp3>
Punitive Ghosts Like Steam-Driven Tennis Courts
3' 44"

<flashmp3 id="12">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_12.mp3</flashmp3>
Crow Maiden
3' 10"

<flashmp3 id="13">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_13.mp3</flashmp3>
Nine Crows: Two Out of Sequence
1' 26"

<flashmp3 id="14">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_14.mp3</flashmp3>
Business
0' 42"

<flashmp3 id="15">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_15.mp3</flashmp3>
Voluntary Quicksand
0' 34"

<flashmp3 id="16">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_16.mp3</flashmp3>
Death Like a Needle
1' 19"

There's something about this work. The published version includes the comment, "I can't make the next two words out. I first wrote this poem in longhand," which Gene transcribed in the score, with stage directions.

Of the twenty six pages of score, this sheet (page 23) has a folded-back top right-hand corner. It had clearly been fed into the copier that way, as the print runs right up to the edge. The page number is missing.

The sheet itself is also the only one that misfed in the scanner.

<flashmp3 id="17">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_17.mp3</flashmp3>
We Were the Eleven O'Clock News
3' 09"

<flashmp3 id="18">Media:Loading_Mercury_with_a_Pitchfork_18.mp3</flashmp3>
Epilogue: The Curve of Forgotten Things
2' 54"