Dennis Palmer clarifies his celestial figure of speech
CELESTIAL SOUNDS: Dennis Palmer of the Shaking Ray Levis works out his cosmic constants. (Courtesy Dennis Palmer)
Hindsight does not always bring with it a clear vision, especially when reflecting on a conversation with Dennis Palmer of the twisted Chattanooga improv duo the Shaking Ray Levis.
When interviewing him for a feature story that appears in Creative Loafing this week regarding his show with Col. Bruce Hampton at Eyedrum ($7, 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19), I asked him to tell me about his relationship with the Colonel and how they interact as musicians. At the time his response felt odd but not out of place.
“He’s a dang Southern avant-garde hero to me,” he said. “Bruce has been tapped into the mystery of the seven vowels and the cosmic constants before and since he landed on this here planet. You don’t bump into someone like Bruce by accident.”
Palmer is a mild-mannered, polite and articulate fellow, and his use of colorful Southern slang and equally colorful drawl flow smoothly, maybe even too smoothly. It’s definitely accentuated to provoke a humorous, albeit weird affect.
There are dozens of atrocities committed against the English language in the name of Southern vernacular everyday. Walk down the city streets of Atlanta and they’re everywhere. On the corner of Ponce and Moreland, you can buy “vine ripen” tomatoes at the fruit stand. Go around the corner to Atkins Park and the lunch special is “blacken catfish.” At Philips Arena you can buy “bottle water” before you go sing the “natural anthem” at the Atlanta “Flacons” game.
All of these are reeling in my mind when talking with Palmer. He’s well-aware of these atrocities and makes light of them by injecting them into the conversation every chance he gets.
So what the heck are the “Seven Vowels and Cosmic Constants” anyway? Is it just another way for Palmer to exploit the tongue of his Southern character and replace “consonants” with “constants” just for fun, or is he talking about something real here?