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about

This track is based on a short story called, “The Soul Is not a Smithy” which is in a compendium of DFW short stories called, “Oblivion”. The narrator of this story talks about being bored in class when he was young, and he would create comic book-style imaginary scenarios within the small wire squares covering the outside of his school windows. Ruth Simmons was a character in one of these daydreams.

Mr. Simmons is a blue collar man; a hard-working journeyman currently doing a lot of snow plowing, sidewalk shoveling, and other winter jobs. Mrs. Simmons is currently unemployed and doesn’t care. She his often listless and out of touch with her surroundings. They have 1 child: Ruth Simmons, a daughter that was born blind. As a baby Ruth would cry a lot, reaching her arms out wanting comfort. But Mr. Simmons would always be at work and Mrs. Simmons would ignore Ruth; not knowing what to do or what good a blind daughter was anyway. Instead, Mrs. Simmons often stands in front of a full length mirror with her best dress on and a drink in one hand, fantasizing about how she would look and hold a drink at social parties. Ruth would cry in darkness. As Ruth grew up she never knew love or companionship until she reached the age of elementary school and she received a dog for a pet. She named him “Cuffy” and that dog was her whole world; always there and happy to see her after school. One day Cuffy goes missing while Ruth is at school. Ruth is busy in art class, where she is supposed to be making a human figure out of clay. But her figure turns out having 4 legs instead of 2 and the whole class laughs at her, not knowing that she has done her best to form a clay figure of her beloved dog, Cuffy. Mr. Simmons is out driving his car around the neighborhood, yelling Cuffy’s name out the window. He hopes to find Cuffy before Ruth gets home from school, but eventually he gives up and goes to work. Mrs. Simmons takes over the search for Cuffy, but drives around aimlessly, not even bothering to roll down the window while calling Cuffy’s name. While making a turn, her car slides into a snowbank and gets deeply stuck. She can’t get it out, and doesn’t have the presence of mind to get out of the car. She sits staring at the window while carbon monoxide fills the car and the radio plays. She dies without even knowing it. In the meantime Mr. Simmons is snowblowing a long driveway, and about halfway through the job the snowblower gets jammed up. He sticks his hand in to remove a chunk of tree bark and when he moves it the blades start spinning and chops his arm off at the elbow. He wanders aimlessly looking for help and winds up falling headfirst into a snowbank. In his shock and confusion he doesn’t know which way is up or down, and he bleeds to death before he can figure it out. His last thought is of Cuffy; hoping the dog is found before Ruth gets home from school. Cuffy is never found.

Aaron Kerr:
There are times when you can just sit down and write an amazing piece of music and sometimes what you want is a compositional nightmare, which was the case with this one. I had what I knew was something to work with, but it took me coming back to it for days to make it work. This, I believe, was the only piece on the album that I was forced into making that way. For all the music on the album, I did write it all down - usually kind of sketched out but for my purposes only, just so I had some kind of record of it. It was usually anywhere from 8-12 measures of scored out parts for 3-4 cellos with a lot of notes written in, plus some sectional notes, like: ABACA’CB . . . and so forth. This one was hell to decipher, which I had to do for the recording, which happened years later. I ended up basically writing out every part on multiple pages to get everything to work metrically. The end result was great - but a tough journey

credits

from To Combat Loneliness: Compositions Based on the Works of David Foster Wallace, released June 21, 2019
Aaron Kerr--acoustic and electric cello
Tyson Allison--guitar, percussion, synth, piano, bass, drums, chimes

Produced by Tyson Allison and Justin Deleon
Recorded at IPR studios in Minneapolis, MN
Engineered and mixed by Justin Deleon
Mastered by Tom Garneau at AUDIOACTIVE in Minneapolis, MN
Copyright 2019 Humble Mumblings ASCAP

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Emperor Penguin Records Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Emperor Penguin Records began in 2003 in St. Paul, MN and later moved to Milwaukee, WI in 2015. The label is run by musician/producer Tyson Allison. EPR enlists and caters to singer/songwriters, introverts, experimental weirdos, bookish people, and crafters that paint pictures with words and toy with your emotions on a well-placed chord. Thank you for your interest! ... more

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