here's a not particularly good jpeg of an unphotogenic book, (i tried to touch up the lettering a bit, though it it still looks tacky) that's still a hommage to henri rousseau. the book is from a series of books that can be played as musical instruments, this a fairly simple one that you just sound by clapping the pages together. below is the text for the title plate for the book used in a one man show that started at minnesota center for the book arts and toured for a while after that. you might find it interesting.

love,

karl

The points of departure for this book are two paintings by Henri Rousseau, "The Sleeping Gypsy" and "Carnival Evening." Text inside the pages reads: "the lion is the one who sleeps." The gypsy in Rousseau's painting wears a cloak made of cloth resembling that in which the book is bound. This cloth is quoted between the words "who" and "sleeps." The text on the bottom of the pages reads "gypsies made that pavilion." In "Carnival Evening" two festivly dressed people stand next to a pavilion in the middle of bare and desolate trees with a moon above them in the dark blue sky. Seeing the painting as a child, I wondered where that pavilion came from and what it was doing there. Maybe the gypsy in the other painting helped build it at some time in the past or is building it in her dreams. One of the things I wanted to do with this book was to bring the cover into the book itself. In this case, the cloth in the book is real cloth, while the cloak in the painting is simply paint -- but the paintings have the magic. This is another acoustic book, like A Book of Noctournes, but this one has just been used for sonic meditation after my performing days were over, and has never been used as a performance instrument.