SHELLEY FELLER: “amateur drag night…”

FROM THE DESK OF JON CONLEY

NOISE:

• shelley feller

• from “amateur drag night/a fucking didactic”

• DREAM BOAT (CSU Poetry Center 2020)

• reading: part of the Lighthouse Reading Series (10/2/20)

• audio cut: bars 1205-1236

• noise gate (threshold: -65 dB)

• lightest tremolo

• hard eq cuts:

< 400 Hz

> 4k Hz

• compressor (among other things, high knee)

VISUAL:

• CLIP: from Charlie Chaplin’s Police (1916)

• film in public domain

• filmed at Majestic Studio, Los Angeles

• cast includes Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Wesley Ruggles

• film cut: mins. 10:32-10:50

• wig

• tint: cold as hell

• speed: 10%

• double the clip, reverse, flip

• buffer vid with 1.0s cross dissolves

NOTES:

• do not humanize the cop

• humanize the cop?

• do not humanize the cop

A curious moment: as Chaplin is being pushed in the back by a fugitive friend, he attempts to put his hat on, but it flies up seemingly of its own accord, wig, wig, wig. 

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Shelley Feller holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Alabama, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Emory University. Their work can be found in Interim, Puerto del Sol, Sycamore Review, and elsewhere.

Jon Conley is a writer, musician, and educator from Cleveland. He is currently a second-year poetry candidate in the NEOMFA. His work has been published at Hobart, Bending Genres, Bodega, FIVE:2:ONE, Bad Nudes, Hello Horror, and others. He produces and performs music as Beach Stav. Find him online @beachstav.

Find “amateur drag night / a fucking didactic” in Feller’s Dream Boat, out now from the Cleveland State University Poetry Center.