Uxa.Gov

This text was composed and revised in fits and starts from 2010 to 2024, often in wildly different states, rooms, moods, modes, spirits, and epochs. It began as a response to John Zorn’s “Treatment for a Film in Fifteen Scenes” (composed in the 1980s; published in Arcana: Musicians on Music. Zorn, J. (ed), Granary Books, 2000, alongside work by Ikue Mori, Bill Frisell, Eyvind Kang, Marc Ribot, Mike Patton, etc.), a 7-page outline consisting of 254 ‘shots’ (or prompts) described by brief (1-12 word) lines of all caps text. As a novel, UXA.GOV is meant to be read as a film; perhaps the kind one might otherwise only be allowed to view through slits in a training helmet deep before being work-released into what remains of the land where America once was. --Blake Butler