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June 15, 2021
snippets of sound ideas












May 1, 2021
Red group has “embraced the chaos” of collaboration, as one of the members said. After getting to know each other, they all got hooked on the idea of a futuristic puppet opera with themes of radio and signals. They have started workshopping some wonderfully imaginative stories for the basis of the project.
plot brainstorming
Mixed Signals - Jay Batzner
The recipient of “number station” signals is incorrectly decoding the messages and starts to interpret romantic undertones from the mystery sender. After a series of escalating miscommunications back and forth, the couple unsuspectingly almost triggers a war between two countries. I’m hoping that this would be comedic, possibly with a third number station member out there who was supposed to be getting the messages all along.
Using Joy of Sex to decode the messages instead of Joy of Cooking?
Other idea: the signals from the number station are being received in the wrong order. Perhaps the conversation is chronologically backwards so the station is receiving answers before the questions are submitted. Maybe I’m over-thinking this…
Rebecca - Horton hears a who gone wrong
There’s a small society of aliens that live inside a radio, evolutionarily programmed to output programming appealing to the listener. For millennium they have played music and children’s programming for various alien’s passing through the restaurant at the end of the universe. (just throwing around different franchises here). Horton, a self-righteous space backpacker type, steals the radio and begins placing extreme demands on the aliens inside. No longer catering to the desires of the many, they produce content Horton wants, and it becomes more and more radical as Horton grows increasingly alienated from the galaxy, his own entitlements being reflected back at him. The radio aliens always thought giving people what they want was a good thing. Will they be able to escape Horton’s needs and backpedal from Rush Limbaugh type bullshit??? WIll Horton become the next school shooter???
I’m thinking of a tv show I saw as a kid about people that lived inside a juke box and had to play the music. anyone remember this??
Random other ideas:
Apocalypse where aliens eat FM radio waves. what is the last surviving radio show?
Radio show involving a psychic. I’m a really vocal astrology and psychic hater but I find it all very fascinating. I have no specific vision, but a radio show from the future involving the long island medium or whatever is appealing to me.
there’s a radio signal of mysterious static, or maybe code. Somehow it is believed that this signal holds the answer to life, the universe and everything. Or the key to escaping the apocalypse. The answer won’t literally be 42, but I like the idea of a group of people on a deluded quest to decode something they feel holds all the answers.
Julia- The life of Sea Haggy
I love the alien pleasing in a box and the one that is different. I'm really into questioning materiality of radio waves, their taste, their temperatures, their texture...I also invited Bababylon a radio psychic and weather medium on my radio station from/in a car last year. She made up everything and was fabulous. Love the backward romance war love it love it.
Sea Haggy slurps everything in her past. Things she does disappear within her. As a result she grows more voluminous everyday, but quite thin flat, and long as the horizon. Soon looking like a scoby on the ocean, she filters all the waves and bounces back the radio frequencies to the moon, where a bunch of aliens are listening.
One alien on the radio was pushed by a sunwave and fall down on Sea Haggy, who received the tiny body as a trampoline. Bouncing up and down for kilometres because of gravity, the alien could receive various secret codes that reflected on the stratosphere, until he stopped and stayed still. Certain messages with strong frequencies got partially printed on Sea Haggy skin. He put his lenses on and started to read.
Love is in the air~waves.
Sea Haggy prototype finger puppet
Puppet and photo courtesy of Julia taken in a remote area in Tasmania
snippets of audio
script idea brainstorming
I’m thinking this could be staged by a bunch of finger puppets inside a radio set. I’m also looking for ways to make my entitled dude a bit less stereotyped??
CAPTAIN - Captains log, 400 human days since we landed in the transistor. My crew has been asking more questions about the nature of our mission, and I... Crew! It’s 6:57am and he asked for an alarm at 7:00 am, places now!
ALIEN 1 - But he doesn’t actually want to wake up. He was watching NCIS and Good Doctor reruns until 2am
ALIEN 2 - So do we actualize his stated desire while conscious, or the current biological needs of his unconscious mind?
CAPTAIN - We don’t give humans what they need.
ALL :(like a jingle mantra) We were sent to give humans what they want
The Aliens run into formation. A conductor cues dramatically and an alarm sounds as they open their mouths.
Alarm stops.
CAPTAIN - Alright folks it looks like he wants to hear “keep on rocking in the free world” so he can call Claire again and tell her the story about how he was listening to it when he heard about 9/11.
Day 421
ALL: We were sent to give humans what they want.
CAPTAIN: Ok team, Claire doesn’t want to go out with him so we need Sting on loop. Relief teams stand by with either “I will possess your heart” or Celine Dion
Day 438
ALL: We were sent to give humans what they want.
CAPTAIN - Alright folks, we need another Lush Limbaugh tribute.
ALIEN 1 - Any news from corporate?
CAPTAIN - Back in line Smislschmorf. You should be focussing on your auto-tune technique rather than asking questions.
Day 489
ALL: we were sent to give humans what they want. continues in various iterations beneath this Aria
We play on and on and on and on. no word from corporate.
We give and give and give and give what the human wants to hear.
Every day we are playing his song. Everyday we are singing his world.
He wants a reason to yell ‘Ref you Suck’
The purpose of our mission was never made known to me… But we will follow the directive..
(interrupted by incoming desire transmission)
Claire got a promotion at work! We need coverage of a fake rape allegation
ALIEN 2 - where?
CAPTAIN - Just choose any east coast liberal arts college. quick!