Steve Pantani is a long-time devotee of the Wake. He was hooked from the time when, as a high school student, he encountered it in the library stacks (probably when searching for Portrait or Dubliners), opened to the first page, and started reading with complete incomprehension but with very great amusement. Though he spent the intervening decades in the work-a-day world, diving back into the Wake has been a lifelong habit. For the last dozen or so years, he’s been a member of a Wake reading group whose collective efforts have been of enormous help in complicating and enriching his confusion (surely the proper goal). Though a rank amateur in all matters musical, he has been unable to restrain the impulse to react to the Wake, from time to time, not with words but with attempts at computer-abetted music-making. This questionable decision is one for which he refuses to take responsibility, claiming instead, “The Wake made me do it!” However, he’s been known to stutter when protesting his innocence.
Steve Pantani contributed to the Opendoor Edition of Waywords and Meansigns in 2017, recording “And Dub Did Glow”, page 329 line 14 through page 330 line 11.