Babs began to attract educators from the all parts of the globe (fig. 3). They studied her intricate sense of vocal harmonizing as she played piano pieces. All were amazed. Maestros from Europe admitted that the child could teach them aspects of intonation colorization and synthetic diminishment of the harmonic seclusitory minor key through adaptations of the mathematical principle of quadrant extractitives exponentially drawn from divisible trochant cassarears that hadn't yet been formulated. As the specialist will recognize, this was unheard in theory of prior to 1912! Richard Wagner reportedly spent a weekend with the child, buying her toys, goodies and ponies in exchange for a scattering of music lessons. He was convinced of her absolute genius.

At the age of 18 she enrolled in the Academie Des Beaux arts deux quartre mains avec Musiciéns in Paris (fig. 4). This put her into the front of the Parisian Avant Guard just prior to the modernist musical explosion. Unfortunately, Babs was expelled from the prestigious academy for attempting to seduce her private composition instructor. When the man refused, she beat him senseless and unconscious. The day of the expulsion, Babs fled to Brittany where she met Paul Gauguin (fig. 5). Gauguin, impressed by her wit and unsurpassable intellect and cleverity introduced her to Van Gogh. A portrait of Babs in pen and ink by Van Gogh (1889) still exists in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Babs soon grew tired of France and even of Europe itself. Unemployed, misunderstood, and in pain from doomed love affairs she thieved in order to attain the money for a ticket back to the States. When back, Babs returned to a thriving Chicago, soon finding commissions for tutorials and composition. She began holding meetings for musicians concerned about the nature of the creative moment. Her improvisational sessions were legendary. Composers would come and listen in, taking notes and at times weeping (fig. 6). Stravinsky is said to have stumbled home to begin composing Le Sacre du Printemps after a drunken night of taking in Bab's sessions of strict 5/4, 23/8 and 13/16 bars respectively. In fact Babs' use of odd time paralleled the new modernist fascination with primitivism only in its formal qualities. Whereas Klee, Picasso, Matisse and others were appropriating directly these elements, Babs had internalized them somehow, not having heard African or Oceanic music prior to 1920. Her "Balinese consciousness" as Schöenberg phrased it, came out of Chicago or the self.

Tragically, Babs began to alienate even the most daring and inventive performers of her circle by 1927 (fig. 7). She began to rip apart high priced instruments simply to see, "what they were made of". Babs began to give whole performances by smashing grand pianos over and over with axes and sledgehammers until no trace of the sounds one would expect to hear a piano emit were detectable. A quizzical problem, the action would at times last 13 or 14 hours. This deconstruction of the very materials of traditional classical music was a grand metaphor for the effect of her ideas on the music community in Chicago. Factions were formed. "Non-musicists" and Musicians acted as cultural gangsters, with random acts of violence being committed at concerts and rehearsal halls. Babs was run out of town after two bloody Opera seasons.

Babs regrouped with a small body of followers and spent the last two decades of her life [?] touring the United States and Europe presenting her "actions" and "composeds" (fig. 8). Her circle of devotees, slim but fanatical to the point of psychological unease submitted to her every request, regardless of the moral scandals within. In one instance, a vocal concert was presented on a stage coated with animal feces. The performers were instructed on the score to "ingest and expel" large quantities of the vile paste. Several "players" were hospitalized for internal shock and bleeding. Another time Babs was arrested for causing a riot with her piece "for two hens eight goats three sheep and an ax."

In 1929, Babs embarked on a six year experiment involving giraffes as part of a project she helped to envision and develop for the Smithsonian Institution with composer and writer Henry Cowell. Cowell had planned a series of scientific tonal experiments (with the aim of contributing to the realm of natural science as well as for use in composition) as field recordings on site with various family groups of the animal kingdom. As he stated in his charter proposal for the government-funded project, "Due to her international reputation as a woman of great intensity, sharp scientific knowledge and unsurpassed understanding of the potential use of sound and its phenomena, it is my feeling that Dr. Barbara Carmichaellis Alexandria Santini is the most appropriate candidate for the role of field leader in the Mammalian and Reptilian Tone Study Project."

Originally concerned with how she could appropriate and utilize new tones or vibratory techniques in her musical projects, (and in this way she anticipates composer Oliver Messian) Santini quickly became more intrigued with having witnessed what most Natural Scientists felt was inconceivable. Giraffes, it seems have a secret life and complex world unknown to humans. The data report and philosophical results having appeared in a 1937 article in the journal <<Bildenjuemen das Sceetioundus Medicalicus>> illustrated by no less than Salvador Dali. ?

Throughout the 1950's Babs hid from Red scare groups led by Senator Joseph McCarthy as she was cited for treason, conspiracy for murder, and selling secrets to the Soviets. In fact, Babs formally began ISP in an underground location somewhere beneath Vitebsk, Russia in 1953 (fig. 9). She began to explore the use of Sonic wave power for energy and control. The Soviets hoped to utilize her findings, as they had with Leon Theremin, as fuel for new weapons in the relentless paranoia tensing up in the Cold War. Babs rejected their desire for alliance. At this time she also conducted biological experiments related to cloning in hopes of developing a terrifying orchestra of self-invented performers who, zombie-like would execute her every bidding, unquestioned. Although the Soviets claimed she was successful in some of her laboratory work, no proof has been unearthed that any such experiments produced "functional duplicates" (it has been hypothesized that the members of the late1970s New Wave band, Devo were her first Soviet clones). To the United States, Babs was considered a serious domestic threat and advised never to return to the country.

Little is known, factually about Babs after 1959. Chicago has been home to the only domestic branch of the Institute for Sonic Ponderance since 1955. Scholars believe she was present at the Beatles' "All You Need is Love" sessions, her gruff voice being barely audible in the chorus. Mick Jagger claims she sat to his right. Recent evidence points to notes on napkins in Babs' signature backwards script having given Malcolm McClaren the original idea for a raunchy subversive anti rock group in 1975. And in 1994, the present ISP organization is alleged to boast three of her offspring.

The Institute For Sonic Ponderance is guardian of the Santini legacy. Barbara Santini's Archives and Papers are housed on site, cared for by collection Archivists. The scope of the collection includes letters from composers and thinkers during Babs' lifetime and important photographs (fig. 10), recordings and manuscripts — some of which you see here. The facilities are open by appointment only.

Copyright 1996 by The Institute for Sonic Ponderance, all rights reserved. All photographs are © 1996, The Institute for Sonic Ponderance Archives, gift of Barbara Santini, 1977.

Broadstone, Michael S. "A History of the Institute for Sonic Ponderance", in Modern Music Movements in America, Critical Essays. Chicago: 1994, Van Ort Press, Inc.

Cregina, Reginald. "Sound, Sonics, Vegetarianism: Santini's Theories as a Lifestyle Guide", Connoisseur, April, 1991, pp. 47-50.

Hiltebeiger, Dieter. Philosophical Fascism in Twentieth Century Art. Berlin: 1973, Prestel.

Loindinkel, Sage. "The Santini Plan: Militant Fanaticism or Necessary Evil", in Feminist Strategies for Higher Education and Morality. New York: 1985, Superlative Press.

Santini, Barbara Charmichaellis. My Dirty Tales. Berlin: 1949, Reitzgeist Press.

Santini, Barbara Charmichaellis. "The Uses of Pain in Performance", reprinted in Degenerate Composers: A Psychological Study. Published in German. Translation forthcoming. No editor listed. 1963.

Santini, Barbara Charmichaellis. "Goat as the Nietszchiean Superman", Art News, Summer 1950, pp. 97-99.

Stencil. My Years as an Eco-Feminist Lesbian Drag Queen Hermaphroditic Sulky Love Child Star Pony Boy Lot Lizard Toy (Babs N' Me for Eternity). New York: 1976, Superlative Press.

Titunius, Alfeo (Ed.). "Don't You Touch Me Motherfucker!!!": the Music Essays of Babs Santini Volume 1. Chicago: 1990, University of Chicago Press.

Titunius, Alfeo (Ed.). Music as Venom, Performer as Antichrist, Composer as Skull Basher: More from the Santini Tounge and Pen. Anthology of Babs Santini's essays (Vol. 2). Chicago: 1992, University of Chicago Press.

Wrolicrius, Lolita. "Babs Santini and the Frontline Attack", in Grabbing the Sac with Nail Sharpened Hands: Postmodernism and Unabashed Feminist Anti-Patriarchical Opposition Theory. Chicago: 1994, Van Ort Press, Inc.

Vashoo, Gensune-Tihte. Occidental Superstructural Philosophies and the Deconstuctivist Moment in Music. PhD. dissertation. Ann Arbor: 1993, Garland Fine Art Publishers.

IF ANY PORTION OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE QUOTED OR USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE INSTITUTE FOR SONIC PONDERANCE, PHYSICAL LITIGIOUS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL INJURY WILL OCCUR TO THE WRONG DOER(S) NO QUESTIONS ASKED

[.....Non-Human Mammalian independently-generated food accumulation and intimation, which is so vital to the perpetuation of food-chain and energy-resource management has simultaneously baffled and elicited ridicule from mainstream scientists for thousands of years. Yet, the "mystery" and majesty of this ancient practice, dubbed by the cynical as "sandwiches among the giraffes" has been fully researched, the data report and philosophical results having appeared in a 1937 article in the journal <<Bildenjuemen das Sceetioundus Medicalicus>> illustrated by no less than Salvador Dali.

In this landmark, but highly and sadly obscure piece, the tone scientist and sometime giraffe enthusiast, Dr. Barbara C. A. Santini laid the groundwork for others to follow in related fields (psychology, nutrition, manual dexterity assimilitude aggregation, growth, and autopsy studies). Drawing on experience culled from her time spent among the beautiful herds of giraffes now vanished near the grassy oasis's near the Mojave Desert, Dr. Santini witnessed the long scoffed at but archeological proven fact the giraffes make and enjoy food forms which resemble our "sandwiches".......

.....She had been drawn to these fairy-tale like creatures as part of a project she helped to envision and develop for the Smithsonian Institution in 1929 with Henry Cowell. Cowell had planned a series of scientific tonal experiments (with the aim of contributing to the realm of natural science as well as for use in composition) as field recordings on site with various family groups of the animal kingdom. As he stated in his charter proposal for the government-funded project, "Due to her international reputation as a woman of great intensity, sharp scientific knowledge and unsurpassed understanding of the potential use of sound and its phenomena, it is my feeling that Dr. Barbara Charmichaellis Alexandria Santini is the most appropriate candidate for the role of field leader in the Mammalian and Reptilian Tone Study Project."

Originally concerned with how she could appropriate and utilize new tones or vibratory techniques in her musical projects, (and in this way she anticipates composer Oliver Messian) Santini quickly became more intrigued with having witnessed what most Natural Scientists felt was inconceivable. The giraffes made sandwiches.

Santini noted three oddities about their practice of sandwich making which differs from that of our own species.

Firstly, giraffes, she noted, usually bury the sandwich "filler" or content in a mass of their mother's dung (we think this is what attracted Dali's interest to the project) for exactly nine days. On no occasion was this duration of burial, or "incubation period" as Dr. Santini phrased it altered in any way. Santini was highly interested in this curious practice and searched in vain for an answer to this apparently hierarchical moment in the generation of the giraffe-born sandwich.

Second (and this seems more true of the males) great roaring choruses accompany the unearthing of the sandwich filler. This frightening and beautiful performance is performed only at 4:00 a.m. as the sandwiches are being assembled. Giraffes bake their own stone ground wheat bread in primitive makeshift ovens and are the only animal besides "man" who has managed to build and manage fire effectively.

Third, the giraffes feed sandwiches to one another in great upward motions in which the trail to the mouth is preceded by a loving caress of the two necks.

These features, Santini noted separate the Giraffe from the human in several astonishing ways....]*

Here on this previously unreleased recording, Dr. Santini can be heard lecturing in Berlin (1932) on the results of her initial discoveries in the Smithsonian project, just before the rise of the Third Reich. The Institiute for Sonic Ponderance has re-mastered this recording and pressed a limited edition of 23 copies on archivally accurate vinyl. Funding for this project was assisted with a grant from the Ministeria della audiophonicttura et gramphonia la monde, Firenze, Italia.

*Excerpt from, "Barbara Santini and Natural Science: Odd Bedfellows, Odd Bed", by Professor Milton Mayjinski reprinted from the book, Progressive Aesthetics and Aesthetic Progressives: Women and the Tonal/Audio Revolution (MIT: 1993).