Posted on September 9, 2014
The oblangle
The journalist approached and I took him under my wing. Down the stairs I ushered him and into the gloom of the cellar. Theatrically I switched on the lights, and beyond us bloomed the marvels of my collection.
There, in every direction around us (the stairs were spiralled, centralised) lay my amassment. Demijohns in every direction, the world’s largest accumulation of them (unverified), demijohns, demijohns, everywhere demijohns. Demijohns in every shape (jugged) and size (a gallon, by the british reckoning) a demijohn can be. Glistening there, pristine, empty, polished, uncobwebbed. Perfect and beautiful, in shape, in word, indeed in deed.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” I said at last.
“What’s that?” he said, and pointed out among them.
“What’s what?”
“In that jar there?”
“They are not jars, they are demijohns.” And then, conceding: “It is a type of jar.”
“But in the jar?”
“There is nothing in the jar. There is nothing in any of these jars. I would not allow it.”
Yet I followed his finger (pointed at demijohn #4) and looked as hard and as far as my black eyes could manage (3 feet). There was, it seemed, something to his claims. A lump, inside. A mass of sorts, a shape. A shape I could not recognise.
I crossed to it and examined it in greater detail, tapping occasionally on the glass, looking first one way then the next, then the first way once more. This shape was not quite triangular, not fully oblongated. It was a mystery to me.
“It’s a heart,” he said. “That’s disgusting.”
This… thing, this oblangle, intrigued me. I tipped the demijohn onto the ground, and let it shatter at our feet.
“What are you doing?”
“Retrieving the oblangle from within.”
“But you’ve destroyed the jar.”
“I have,” I said, and swept my wing expansively around the room. “…many more.”
“Why are you showing me all this, anyway?”
“What else would I show you?”
“I’m here to hear your new album?”
“My what? Who are you? Where are you from? What are your doing here? I thought you were from Glassenware Monthly.”
“I’m from the NME.”
I squawked and screamed and pecked at his face and soon he retreated towards the surface whence from he came. I picked the oblangle from the floor, swallowed it in one lump. Wiped the blood from my beak, scampered back up the stairs.
Posted on May 17, 2014
An Interview With Toby Vok And The His Daughter
Toby Vok, in Essex to promote his new album The Boudiccan Devastational Layer, is a hero to many. But why? We sent senior correspondent Ted Vaak to investigate.
Ted Vaaak: Hello Toby. How are you today?
Toby Vok:
Ted: Your new album is incredible, I must say. How do you create and envisage all these sounds?
Toby:
Ted: You have been described variously as “a hero”, “a wonder”, and even “a sort of variety act which most had considered long deceased.” Do you have any ideas as to why?
Toby:
Ted: Toby, why won’t you talk to me?
Toby:
Ted: Look, will you just put that thing you’re holding down and answer my questions?
Toby:
Ted: I’ve never seen its like before. What is it?
Toby: It is my daughter.
Ted: Is it some sort of cat?
Toby: Of course not. What sort of man do you take me for?
Ted: I never knew you were a man.
Toby: Ask me her name.
Ted: I don’t know her name.
Toby: Ask me what her name is, you buffoon.
Ted: What is her name, Toby.
Toby: Her name is Ornette Toby.
Ted: Oh.
Toby: Ornette Toby!
Ted: Yes?
Toby: Toby! [points a finger at his own chest] Ornette Toby! [gestures towards the child upon his lap] Toby! Ornette Toby!
Ted: Yes.
Toby: It’s very clever don’t you think? I spent quite some time on it.
Ted: I… Yes?
Toby: Toby. Ornette. Toby.
Ted: I’m going now.
Toby: To-by. Or-nette To-by.
[The door slams shut and Toby is lost behind it]
This interview first appeared in the Essex Gramophone Groups Society Spring 2014 newsletter. It has been republished here erroneously.
Posted on February 19, 2014
A package arrives
The door clanks, the wheels revolve, everything swings and moves and whistles and grumbles until the roboticised arm of my postal delivery contraptionate thrusts a package in my hand. As ever, the handwriting reveals its source: Ted. Ted. Ted.
I open it. The contents: a board, a blue man, a red, a single dice. A note: “You go first, Toby. I’d like to see you try.” As always even an invitation from Ted sounds like a threat.
I place the board down atop a drum. I choose red, force Ted to be blue. And then I funnel the dice into a cup, rattle, crackle, shudder, roll. Out it rolls, across the expansive back of my piano (gleaming black). It rolls and rolls and rolls and does not stop. I retrieve it from the corner of the room, try once more. Roll, it rolls, roll, roll, roll. Along the warped surfaces of my piano top, along the wefted geometries of my flooring. Again it refuses to stop, refuses to decide, refuses to yield a countable result. The game sits there unstarted, unstartable, everything a confusion, a failure so absurd it’s a most risible conclusion.
I gather the wretched thing up in my claws, hold it to the light. I believe I spot the flaw. This dice is single-sided. A smooth sphere of baffling construction. Inside its glasseous form float ribbons of pink and blue. But on the surface no markings at all. No numbers, no spots. They have no edges, no lines of separation. A representation of infinity in geometric form.
I roll again, move my piece on by one. One step closer to the nearest ladder. One step closer to the nearest snake. I wonder what sort of game Ted is playing with me.
Posted on February 19, 2014
A moon, I said, a moon a moon a moon
A moon, I said. A moon a moon a moon. There was no one around to hear, but I said it anyway. A moon. A moon. A moon.
Posted on January 14, 2014
The confusion of limbs
My elbows have reversed, seemingly overnight. Complications arise: how to play the violin without the unnecessary clashing of limbs; how to play the piccolo without the unnecessary clashing of limbs; how to dance without it feeling wrong.
Other complications are available upon request.
Posted on September 26, 2013
The Clacking
To spite a friend, and several of my enemies, I recently begun using a typewriter. My friend, whom I detest, and possibly my enemies, towards which I feel naught but ambivalence, guffawed at my collection of instruments (it is vast beyond imagining) and said “You, who need so many tools, cannot even match my skill with but the one of my trade.” I assumed at first he meant the pen, and as I proceeded to count out the various colours and kinds of pen available he bellowed out in anger and smashed his wordmachine down upon his lap, where it became embedded in his thigh. “The typewriter you fool! The pen is obsolete, and the pencil even worse.” and with that limped from my sight.
I retreated back into my barn, detouring slightly via the mechanical contraption emporium, and immersed myself in the music of this so called “language” with: my newly bought utterance transcription tool; seventeen thousand sheets of paper; a stool (for me); a slightly higher stool (for the robotic word producer). And then I began, merrily, to type.
At first it was disastrous, unmelodious, cacophonous, preposterous. Nonsense and gibberish surged forth onto the paper, somehow twisted and stunted by the process of transformation that took place between brain and page. Instruments of the musical kind operate delightfully at the speed of thought and mind but this device constricted, contracted, congealed, until eventually the process of conscious thought wheezed, seized up, stopped.
“Perhaps,” I thought rather cruelly, or not cruelly enough. “This is why words suit Ted’s desiccated brain, a single thought seeping out of it daily, like a glacier calving into a dead and dying ocean.”
Of course I persevered, the power of spite knowing no bounds. Day 2 – Awful again. Day 3 – Abominable. Day 4 – Appalling. Day 5 – I fought with a wasp. Day 6 – Victory attained. Day 7 – Unagreeable. Day 8 – Sort of neutral in flavour. Day 9 – Things improved. Day 10 – I sang a song.
But I sang not with my voice but with the pressing of my fingers on the bony keys, the clack of the levers, the shuddering of the stool, the ringing of the bell, the scratching of claws on wood, the fluttering of the paper as it twisted and turned and whipped back and forth in the whirlwind that consumed us (my barn is located in Kansas).
Each letter had a unique clack, therefore each word was its own chord, each sentence a melody. I said out loud my name, the first words I had verbally uttered for some time, but I could no longer understand what I heard. “TOE. BEEEE.” It was appalling gibberish. I typed it out. CLACK (T). CLACK (O). CLACK (B). CLACK (Y). It was beautiful.
(Unfortunately due to the limitations of written language I cannot adequately convey the subtle differences between the clacks, so have had to resort, ironically, to the very letters that when spoken no longer held any meaning.)
I gave up on speech in disgust and devoted myself to the typing of words. Over the next several months (Days 11-93) I composed a symphony greater than any I had previously managed. I was just reaching the end when I was rudely awakened by a scratching at the door. I went outside and discovered Ted trapped under a bale of hay, pawing weakly at the barn to try and catch my attention. I believe he had been there for several months (his typewriter was still embedded in his leg, at any rate, and his clothes were the same as when last we fought).
“Ted,” I said. “I must show you something of great import.” I snuck back into the barn and then returned with my work clasped reverently by my trembling phalanges.
BEHOLD THE MOON, I read. LOOK UPON ITS MAJESTY WHILE YOU STILL CAN
The lack of punctuation was Ted’s own fault, distracting me in the throes of my passion. I realised then that spoken words had returned for me to meaning, the music of the machine retreated, that this work would no forever be unfinished, bereft of the correct closing mark that would have elevated the work beyond mere greatness. But at least I had shown my friend that I could master his degenerate language, safe in the knowledge that he could never master mine (Ted is both tone-deaf and lungless).
Posted on July 11, 2013
A Recipe: Garlic Mushrooms With Bacon And Theremin
Toby Vok’s Garlic Mushrooms With Bacon And Theremin
You will need:
Portable Radio
Magnetic Induction hob
Frying pan
Fork, spoon or knife (steel, stainless)
Bacon
Olive Oil
Mushrooms
Garlic
First position the portable radio on the other side of the kitchen, perhaps on a shelf, or a table, if your kitchen is so equipped. Then, switch the radio to on, radio station optional, the hissing static of the dead preferable.
Next, place the pan on the Magnetic Induction Hub. Allow the coils to energise and aggravate the pan as they see fit. Wantonly pour the oil into the pan, wait until it begins to bubble, then haphazardly thrown the bacon, mushrooms and garlic in and let heat take its toll.
Finally, at your leisure, poke the contents of the pan with your knife, fork or spoon. As the utensil approaches the magnetising fields emanating from your pan, it will conduct across time and space the screechings of the dead. If your portable radio is correctly positioned, it should intercept these broadcasts and replay their haunting melodies to you, across the room, into your ear. And from there, to the heaven of your eternal mind.
Once you have heard enough of their sufferings you may remove the fork, spoon or knife, switch off the magnetoids, and commence your nightly consumement.
If you would like to read more of my exciting experiments in sound creation and cookery, you may be interested in my Snare Drum Risotto recipe, previously collected, collated, and columnised here at Toby Vok. Co. Uk.
Posted on March 23, 2013
The forbidden cards #2
The cards came back, unbidden, still forbidden, hidden within an envelope made of gibbon’s hide and with ribbons inside.
There was a note paperclipped to the cards and I read it aloud into the gloom: “I, too, have a killing power of 87. You must choose again. I have returned your card and mine. Ted”
I checked the cards. Mine: Colossus. Ted’s: Vampire Bat. Mine: Unsullied by pen. Ted’s: The numbers changed, one by one, by hand, to exactly match mine.
I did not understand.
Posted on March 23, 2013
Toby Vok And His Words
When Toby Vok And The Eggs decided they would be interviewed by email, it became apparent their answers were going to be a little longer than usual. To do them justice, here are their full responses to Senior Hull Musical Express Editor Ted Vaaak’s questions.
To me, Toby Vok and The Eggs is more than just a band, it’s an idea. Is that true for you? What if you don’t all agree with the idea? More metaphorically, who are Toby Vok and The Eggs now: in what ways have the people in the band from the beginning changed in the time of hiatus?
Toby Vok and The Eggs is/are more than a band. They are a band (The Eggs) and a man (Toby Vok). There will be no disagreement among the band for that is not their role. The band’s role is to agree, and to do. My role is to disagree or agree as I see fit, with myself.
Who are Toby Vok and The Eggs now? Who has stayed, who has left, who has joined, and why have they joined?
Toby Vok remains. All Eggs have left, and joined, or rejoined, and releft. The Eggs are beyond names. They have joined for the same reason as they have left. They have been told to do so.
The only change since the hiatus has been a marked increase in deformity, lethargy and hoarsevoiceness among us all
Does political music change anything? Do you want it to? And is that intention for change external, or internal: a changing of hearts, not of social structures? To what extent does Hull and its politics make you the people you are and the band you are? Do you have narratives in your heads for your music? How problematic is it if people listening hear a different narrative?
“The politics of music is the same as the music of politics”. That is a quote. The politics of Hull, now that is a question. A question unanswerable. And uninteresting. And untrue.
I do not believe in narratives. Narrative is the domain of the fiends and ne’erdowells of the written word. The most untrustworthy sort of word.
How did this album come to be?
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Was there a time when you stopped appreciating the opportunity to communicate with people through music? Earlier interviews suggest it’s something you’ve had misgivings around; is that a misreading, and if not, do you still feel that?
Music is not communication. It is music.
As a member of a dance group – 10 men, democratically run – I know full well how hard it is to agree on anything. How do The Eggs operate as a community?
We once tried democracy. Everyone insisted on playing every instrument simultaneously, regardless of the amount of mouths they had. It was a disaster
Do people like me just take you too seriously?
It is impossible.
INTERVIEW ENDS
Posted on March 19, 2013
move it
he took his hand and moved it like it was a bird.
“this is how it went”, he said. he kept moving it.
all of the children looked on and nodded, mentally noting the gestures that he made.
the smallest child, the one that looked a bit unfinished, whispered something that he couldn’t quite hear.
“what’s that?” he said. “you there, with the dungarees. what did you say?”
the child scrambled up and stood bravely in front of him.
“that isn’t how it went”, said the child. “it was more like this”.
he took his hand and moved it like it was a snake.
the children gasped, and one fainted.