In the liner notes to the 1968 Mothers of Invention album, We’re Only in It for the Money, Frank Zappa instructs all and sundry that, before checking out the ultimate track on the LP, “The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny,” go and “dig up” a copy of Franz Kafka’s short story “In the Penal Colony” and read it before coming back to drop the needle. It’s a classic case of the artist suggesting the proper context to more fully appreciate and experience The Work. Awareness = potential profundity. It’s a process familiar to any student of art history. Dali’s iconic 1931 painting, The Persistence of Memory, is a powerful image in its own right; to explore the circumstances of how it came to be is to multiply its potential impact upon the psyche, and/or the soul, tenfold. Aided and abetted by an enlarged sense of perspective, in Life, as in … Continue reading Treading the Boards with Mike Keneally: Maestro masterstroke in 9/8 time