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[I'm told that John and I are the headliners at this one, though frankly nothing else about this e-vite suggests that. But in any case, those of you who are generally wary of a 4-reader deal can be assured I go on either 1st or 2nd, at least that's what Christopher told me. In any case, I hear Christopher puts on a great evening regardless of the number of performers.
John Reed is the author of Snowball's Chance, a parodic sequel to Orwell's Animal Farm which is creating some controversy on the other side of the pond. Sharon Mesmer's a friend of mine who is quite funny and should be great. I have no idea who Blue is, unless he has something to do with that NY performance art group... sure, bet no one's made that joke before.]
FIRST TUESDAYS READING SERIES AT
A TASTE OF ART
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4TH, 2003 7-9P
147 Duane Street (between Church and West Broadway)
New York, NY 10013 TRIBECA
Phone: 212.964.5493
Fax: 212.964.2671
Features: Brian Kim Stefans, BLUE, Sharon Mesmer, John Reed
Curated and hosted by Christopher Stackhouse
FREE ADMISSION
John Reed is the author of SNOWBALL'S CHANCE, the controversial parody of George Orwell's ANIMAL FARM. SNOWBALL'S CHANCE (Roof Books, hardback, 2002)is currently available at your local bookstore or online. Reed's first novel, A STILL SMALL VOICE (Delacorte, 2000) is now available in paperback (Delta, 2001).
Sharon Mesmer is the author of HALF ANGEL, HALF LUNCH (poems, Hard Press) and THE EMPTY QUARTER (stories, Hanging Loose Press), the recipient of a 1999 New York Foundation for the Arts grant in poetry, and fellowships to the MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden Castle (Scotland), and Fundacion Valparaiso (Spain). She teaches fiction writing and literature at the New School.
Poet/performance artist, Blue, was born in New York City. He is the author and publisher of chapbooks "Just Blue" and "Corner Stores in the Middle of the Block". He has appeared in television commercials, and Off-Broadway productions "Sex is More Than a Three Letter Word", BET's "106" and "Park".
Brian Kim Stefans is the author of three books of poetry; his forthcoming book of essays, Fashionable Noise, is due in March 2003 from Atelos. He is the editor / creator of arras.net and Free Space Comix: The Blog, and writes frequently for the Boston Review, Publisher's Weekly and other rags.
Directions:
by subway :
from the Westside take the 1, 2 train to Franklin or 1,2,3,9,A,C,E to
Chambers
from the Eastside take the 5, 6, N or R train and get off at Chambers.
by car:
from the Westside:Take the West Side highway or 7th Avenue all the way down
to West Broadway. Turn left on Duane
from the Eastside:Take the FDR to Houston, then turn south on Broadway all
the way to Reade. Make a right on Reade. Make a right on Hudson to Duane.
For all other inquiries you can contact us at info@atasteofart.com
Curator's Note:
Quotes from a favorite book relevant to a view of art, literature, the
making of poetry, however speaking to the building of buildings:
"The search which we make for this quality, in our own lives, is the central
search of any person, and the crux of any individual person's story. It is
the search for those moments and situations when we are most alive."
Opening to Chapter 3 ON BEING ALIVE of "The Timeless Way of Building" by
Christopher Alexander
"And when a building has this fire, then it becomes a part of nature. Like
ocean waves, or blades of grass, its parts are governed by the endless play
of repetition and variety, created in the presence of the fact that all
things pass. This is quality itself."
Opening to Chapter 8 THE QUALITY ITSELF of "The Timeless Way of Building" by
Christopher Alexander
Join us Tuesday Feb. 4th 7-9p for a fine group of readers, some good
chocolate, and a wonderful glass of a carmenere/cabernet sauvignon
blend.....among other things....
Keep warm, Christopher Stackhouse
c_stackhouse@lycos.com 212. 802. 9363
These two sites swam across my ken in the past two days, one answering to Nada's expressions of nostalgia for Japan, the other sharing one word of the title of my blog (and first book of poems) but actually having something to do with the art of illustrated narrative as practiced by Gary (see blogroll at right if you don't know who the ty*dk I'm talking about).
The first is a site devoted to Japanese emoticons -- you know, these things: ; ) . According to the propaganda: "The Japanese set is read vertically, while the western ones are read horizontally. The Japanese ones also tend to be more complex, and therefore convey more nuances. The compiler of these icons speculates that the reason is that "while American (alphabet) letters in computer are 1 byte, Japanese letters in computer are 2 bytes, so Japanese letters can have more characters." Guaranteed several minutes of amusement.
The second is a single-artist run site that looks like the work of a team of specialists. I've been reading through these for a couple of minutes now, very well drawn and taking great advantage of browser screen space. The site is called Electric Sheep Comix, and it's all designed, written, drawn, etc., by one Patrick Farley. Ever heard of him? I prefer the science fiction ones the best, like Delta Thrives, even if the narratives are a bit cosmic. This is a high-bandwidth site, but there are several pieces, such as Rush Limbaugh Eats Everything, that work fine on a 56k modem.
[The interview with John Cayley is finally up at the The Iowa Review Web. A thousand pardons for the klugie title to the piece, but the one the editors had originally given it was something like "Identities at the Level of Letters," a quote of John's from the interview which I liked but which sounded too much like the title of my Flash piece. John's one of the bridges between "print" poetics, coming from both a LangPo and an Asian culture perspective, and "digital" poetry, and he's very eloquent in his responses. The website also includes a free download of his work "riverIsland," which he presented in SUNY Buffalo in 2001 at the Electronic Poetry Festival. Following is the intro to the interview, the rest of which can be found at the link above.]
John Cayley's work goes against the grain of much recent "digital poetry" in that he has resisted the temptation to transfer his attention from Mac-centered freestanding applications to the internet. This has made him appear to be, accurately or not, the standard-bearer of an "old guard," those whose involvement with hypertext and programmable literatures started (as did Cayley's) in the late seventies, using machines with less RAM than your standard floppy disk.
Cayley has also maintained a distinct interest in Asian literatures, most particularly Chinese, even as his programming and multimedial techniques have grown more sophisticated. Though he is clearly concerned with the graphemic "atom" as a unit of meaning and with poststructural approaches to text, the range of metaphors and the particulars of the Chinese sensibility suggest to the viewer of Cayley's work that he does not consider technology the grand leveler of cultural practices that renders differences of geography, history, and language entirely moot. Cayley's particular ambivalence about using Western programming languages to recreate Chinese ideograms on the screen demonstrates an awareness of how the Roman alphabet and Boolean logic which knows no shades between 0 and 1, on and off—are involved in a sub-textual, perhaps colonialist, conspiracy.
The following interview barely scratches the surface of the range of Cayley's work, focusing on his most recent projects and on the distinctive cultural strands that influence his practice. Suffice it to say, Cayley has exploited the "programmaton"—the poetic object that is both literary language and the language of code—in diverse ways that include classic hypertext experiences, non-interactive poems created in real-time, and more elaborate poem-objects such as "riverIsland," which involves 360 degree QuickTime photography, audio, lyric poetry and randomly generated intertexts. Like much of Cayley's work—his digital art, his theory and polemics—"riverIsland" has proven to be a focal point for much discussion and debate among digital poetry aficionados, most recently at a conference on digital poetry held in 2002 at the University of Iowa.
Cayley won the Electronic Literature Organizations's first annual award in digital poetry in 2001. Most recently, he published a lengthy commentary in the Electronic Book Review called "The Code is not the Text (Unless it is the Text)". His website, which is somewhat out of date but where many of his papers and online projects can be found, is shadoof.net.
As Cayley's example proves, the parameters of the exploration into electronic literature are not determined by the functionality of new software or hardware as they enter the market but are guided by artistic vision—he's a true "kid of the book machine," in McCaffery and nichol's phrase—and by a sense of the possible that often pre-exists what a machine is actually capable of doing. The integrity of Cayley's vision is demonstrated not just by the coherent development of his work, but by his never over-reaching into technology for the sake of exploiting some trick, some use of sound, color or code that is meant simply to seduce. This confidence in pulling back, in stripping the "programmaton" to what is most necessary, has given his work a quietness that belies the wide-eyed futurism conspicuous in much "digital poetry," but also allows him to preserve some aspects of the elemental (stone, water, air) aesthetics of Asian art in a decidedly non-elemental medium.
Here's an article about the uses of avant-garde art to torture prisoners during the Civil War in Spain. Courtesy Christian Bök on the ubulist.
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Anarchists and the fine art of torture
Spanish art historian says they put enemies in disorienting cells
Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Monday January 27, 2003
The Guardian
A Spanish art historian has uncovered what was alleged to be the first use of modern art as a deliberate form of torture, with the discovery that mind-bending prison cells were built by anarchist artists 65 years ago during the country's bloody civil war.
Bauhaus artists such as Kandinsky, Klee and Itten, as well as the surrealist film-maker Luis Bunuel and his friend Salvador Dali, were said to be the inspiration behind a series of secret cells and torture centres built in Barcelona and elsewhere, yesterday's El Pais newspaper reported.
Most were the work of an enthusiastic French anarchist, Alphonse Laurencic, who invented a form of "psychotechnic" torture, according to the research of the historian Jose Milicua.
Mr Milicua's information came from a written account of Laurencic's trial before a Francoist military tribunal. That 1939 account was written by a man called R L Chacon who, like anybody allowed to publish by the newly installed dictatorship, could not have been expected to feel any sympathy for what Nazi Germany had already denounced as "degenerative art".
Laurencic, who claimed to be a painter and conductor in civilian life, created his so-called "coloured cells" as a contribution to the fight against General Franco's rightwing rebel forces.
They may also have been used to house members of other leftwing factions battling for power with the anarchist National Confederation of Workers, to which Laurencic belonged.
Hidden
The cells, built in 1938 and reportedly hidden from foreign journalists who visited the makeshift jails on Vallmajor and Saragossa streets, were as inspired by ideas of geometric abstraction and surrealism as they were by avant garde art theories on the psychological properties of colours.
Beds were placed at a 20 degree angle, making them near-impossible to sleep on, and the floors of the 6ft by 3ft cells was scattered with bricks and other geometric blocks to prevent prisoners from walking backwards and forwards, according to the account of Laurencic's trial.
The only option left to prisoners was staring at the walls, which were curved and covered with mind-altering patterns of cubes, squares, straight lines and spirals which utilised tricks of colour, perspective and scale to cause mental confusion and distress.
Lighting effects gave the impression that the dizzying patterns on the wall were moving.
A stone bench was similarly designed to send a prisoner sliding to the floor when he or she sat down, Mr Milicua said. Some cells were painted with tar so that they would warm up in the sun and produce asphyxiating heat.
Laurencic told the military court that he had been commissioned to build the cells by an anarchist leader who had heard of similar ones used elsewhere in the republican zone during the civil war, possibly in Valencia.
Mr Milicua has claimed that Laurencic preferred to use the colour green because, according to his theory of the psychological effects of various colours, it produced melancholy and sadness in prisoners.
But it appears that Barcelona was not the only place where avant garde art was used to torture Franco's supporters.
According to the prosecutors who put Laurencic on trial in 1939, a jail in Murcia in south-east Spain forced prisoners to view the infamously disturbing scene from Dali and Bunuel's film Un Chien Andalou, in which an eyeball is sliced open.
El Pais commented: "The avant garde forms of the moment - surrealism and geometric abstraction - were thus used for the aim of committing psychological torture.
"The creators of such revolutionary and liberating [artistic] languages could never have imagined that they would be so intrinsically linked to repression."
typing dynamic
instructions to someone
just over
hearing when
plucky charm
and redolent odor
keep it alive
(aforementioned color)
we'd tap out
two notes then one
until she verified
she
remembered
coasts of seville
came here to live with
knocker
of tennis ball
with schedules
because of these ideas
on marble surfaces
bless you
counselor
ego teapot
(we have two of them
swimming now
grown
toothless and wise
vegetables in fact
will talk it over)
on law chests
animated
calling it right
"no bleeding on the
yellow sweating"
(the wit)
starts or hedges
don’t got no chalk
sleeping on the lamb, bringing
sting cotton
to palermo, first time
they snug and yet welted
that way
breeze nozzled odors
let’s you down on turf
like soh monkeys
huddled in sayonaraland, listen
to the yurts outside
the hotel, listen to her breathe
people nap and people sleep
i think it’s the same thing
mixing dugouts with skyscrapers
i think it’s the same thing
telling pies to the television pews
i think it’s the same thing
wondering what’s up with dirigibles
i think it’s the same thing
people call and then umpires call
i think it’s the same thing
the “shaggy set” and the “grunge set”
i think it’s the same thing
nothing much matters, deezo
skipping on rusty toe thimbles
preaching development arrest
to the perverse, shiny mortals
let the tie down the crinoline down
blue in the face at birth, and red
in the face much later, burping birth
over a shoulder of oiled carpal tunnel
down meredith street in naive ass park
it’s a type of calorie they don’t have just elsewhere
blending in finally, not feeling the mark, and belching
sun shitting over rose-colored, suggestive arbors
Though it looks a little dated, below is a list of the 300 words that would most attract the government's attention were they to be used online. I can see some good Flarf poems coming out of this, though the words themselves are not especially resonant (except "Scully").
Darren Wershler-Henry writes about this list: "Back in the Usenet days, many people used to have lists like this attached to the end of every email in the hope of flooding any sort of attempt to monitor email ... Touching, really." Hopefully none of you are President of the Hate Speedbump Illuminati.
Waihopai, INFOSEC, Information Security, Information Warfare, IW, IS, Priavacy, Information Terrorism, Terrorism Defensive Information, Defense Information Warfare, Offensive Information, Offensive Information Warfare, National Information Infrastructure, InfoSec, Reno, Compsec, Computer Terrorism, Firewalls, Secure Internet Connections, ISS, Passwords, DefCon V, Hackers, Encryption, Espionage, USDOJ, NSA, CIA, S/Key, SSL, FBI, Secert Service, USSS, Defcon, Military, White House, Undercover, NCCS, Mayfly, PGP, PEM, RSA, Perl-RSA, MSNBC, bet, AOL, AOL TOS, CIS, CBOT, AIMSX, STARLAN, 3B2, BITNET, COSMOS, DATTA, E911, FCIC, HTCIA, IACIS, UT/RUS, JANET, JICC, ReMOB, LEETAC, UTU, VNET, BRLO, BZ, CANSLO, CBNRC, CIDA, JAVA, Active X, Compsec 97, LLC, DERA, Mavricks, Meta-hackers, ^?, Steve Case, Tools, Telex, Military Intelligence, Scully, Flame, Infowar, Bubba, Freeh, Archives, Sundevil, jack, Investigation, ISACA, NCSA, spook words, Verisign, Secure, ASIO, Lebed, ICE, NRO, Lexis-Nexis, NSCT, SCIF, FLiR, Lacrosse, Flashbangs, HRT, DIA, USCOI, CID, BOP, FINCEN, FLETC, NIJ, ACC, AFSPC, BMDO, NAVWAN, NRL, RL, NAVWCWPNS, NSWC, USAFA, AHPCRC, ARPA, LABLINK, USACIL, USCG, NRC, ~, CDC, DOE, FMS, HPCC, NTIS, SEL, USCODE, CISE, SIRC, CIM, ISN, DJC, SGC, UNCPCJ, CFC, DREO, CDA, DRA, SHAPE, SACLANT, BECCA, DCJFTF, HALO, HAHO, FKS, 868, GCHQ, DITSA, SORT, AMEMB, NSG, HIC, EDI, SAS, SBS, UDT, GOE, DOE, GEO, Masuda, Forte, AT, GIGN, Exon Shell, CQB, CONUS, CTU, RCMP, GRU, SASR, GSG-9, 22nd SAS, GEOS, EADA, BBE, STEP, Echelon, Dictionary, MD2, MD4, MDA, MYK, 747,777, 767, MI5, 737, MI6, 757, Kh-11, Shayet-13, SADMS, Spetznaz, Recce, 707, CIO, NOCS, Halcon, Duress, RAID, Psyops, grom, D-11, SERT, VIP, ARC, S.E.T. Team, MP5k, DREC, DEVGRP, DF, DSD, FDM, GRU, LRTS, SIGDEV, NACSI, PSAC, PTT, RFI, SIGDASYS, TDM. SUKLO, SUSLO, TELINT, TEXTA. ELF, LF, MF, VHF, UHF, SHF, SASP, WANK, Colonel, domestic disruption, smuggle, 15kg, nitrate, Pretoria, M-14, enigma, Bletchley Park, Clandestine, nkvd, argus, afsatcom, CQB, NVD, Counter Terrorism Security, Rapid Reaction, Corporate Security, Police, sniper, PPS, ASIS, ASLET, TSCM, Security Consulting, High Security, Security Evaluation, Electronic Surveillance, MI-17, Counterterrorism, spies, eavesdropping, debugging, interception, COCOT, rhost, rhosts, SETA, Amherst, Broadside, Capricorn, Gamma, Gorizont, Guppy, Ionosphere, Mole, Keyhole, Kilderkin, Artichoke, Badger, Cornflower, Daisy, Egret, Iris, Hollyhock, Jasmine, Juile, Vinnell, B.D.M.,Sphinx, Stephanie, Reflection, Spoke, Talent, Trump, FX, FXR, IMF, POCSAG, Covert Video, Intiso, r00t, lock picking, Beyond Hope, csystems, passwd, 2600 Magazine, Competitor, EO, Chan, Alouette,executive, Event Security, Mace, Cap-Stun, stakeout, ninja, ASIS, ISA, EOD, Oscor, Merlin, NTT, SL-1, Rolm, TIE, Tie-fighter, PBX, SLI, NTT, MSCJ, MIT, 69, RIT, Time, MSEE, Cable & Wireless, CSE, Embassy, ETA, Porno, Fax, finks, Fax encryption, white noise, pink noise, CRA, M.P.R.I., top secret, Mossberg, 50BMG, Macintosh Security, Macintosh Internet Security, Macintosh Firewalls, Unix Security, VIP Protection, SIG, sweep, Medco, TRD, TDR, sweeping, TELINT, Audiotel, Harvard, 1080H, SWS, Asset, Satellite imagery, force, Cypherpunks, Coderpunks, TRW, remailers, replay, redheads, RX-7, explicit, FLAME, Pornstars, AVN, Playboy, Anonymous, Sex, chaining, codes, Nuclear, 20, subversives, SLIP, toad, fish, data havens, unix, c, a, b, d, the, Elvis, quiche, DES, 1*, NATIA, NATOA, sneakers, counterintelligence, industrial espionage, PI, TSCI, industrial intelligence, H.N.P., Juiliett Class Submarine, Locks, loch, Ingram Mac-10, sigvoice, ssa, E.O.D., SEMTEX, penrep, racal, OTP, OSS, Blowpipe, CCS, GSA, Kilo Class, squib, primacord, RSP, Becker, Nerd, fangs, Austin, Comirex, GPMG, Speakeasy, humint, GEODSS, SORO, M5, ANC, zone, SBI, DSS, S.A.I.C., Minox, Keyhole, SAR, Rand Corporation, Wackenhutt, EO, Wackendude, mol, Hillal, GGL, CTU, botux, Virii, CCC, Blacklisted 411, Internet Underground, XS4ALL, Retinal Fetish, Fetish, Yobie, CTP, CATO, Phon-e, Chicago Posse, l0ck, spook keywords, PLA, TDYC, W3, CUD, CdC, Weekly World News, Zen, World Domination, Dead, GRU, M72750, Salsa, 7, Blowfish, Gorelick, Glock, Ft. Meade, press-release, Indigo, wire transfer, e-cash, Bubba the Love Sponge, Digicash, zip, SWAT, Ortega, PPP, crypto-anarchy, AT&T, SGI, SUN, MCI, Blacknet, Middleman, KLM, Blackbird, plutonium, Texas, jihad, SDI, Uzi, Fort Meade, supercomputer, bullion, 3, Blackmednet, Propaganda, ABC, Satellite phones, Planet-1, cryptanalysis, nuclear, FBI, Panama, fissionable, Sears Tower, NORAD, Delta Force, SEAL, virtual, Dolch, secure shell, screws, Black-Ops, Area51, SABC, basement, data-haven, black-bag, TEMPSET, Goodwin, rebels, ID, MD5, IDEA, garbage, market, beef, Stego, unclassified, utopia, orthodox, Alica, SHA, Global, gorilla, Bob, Pseudonyms, MITM, Gray Data, VLSI, mega, Leitrim, Yakima, Sugar Grove, Cowboy, Gist, 8182, Gatt, Platform, 1911, Geraldton, UKUSA, veggie, 3848, Morwenstow, Consul, Oratory, Pine Gap, Menwith, Mantis, DSD, BVD, 1984, Flintlock, cybercash, government, hate, speedbump, illuminati, president, freedom, cocaine, $, Roswell, ESN, COS, E.T., credit card, b9, fraud, assasinate, virus, anarchy, rogue, mailbomb, 888, Chelsea, 1997, Whitewater, MOD, York, plutonium, William Gates, clone, BATF, SGDN, Nike, Atlas, Delta, TWA, Kiwi, PGP 2.6.2., PGP 5.0i, PGP 5.1, siliconpimp, Lynch, 414, Face, Pixar, IRIDF, eternity server, Skytel, Yukon, Templeton, LUK, Cohiba, Soros, Standford, niche, 51, H&K, USP, ^, sardine, bank, EUB, USP, PCS, NRO, Red Cell, Glock 26, snuffle, Patel, package, ISI, INR, INS, IRS, GRU, RUOP, GSS, NSP, SRI, Ronco, Armani, BOSS, Chobetsu, FBIS, BND, SISDE, FSB, BfV, IB, froglegs, JITEM, SADF, advise, TUSA, HoHoCon, SISMI, FIS, MSW, Spyderco, UOP, SSCI, NIMA, MOIS, SVR, SIN, advisors, SAP, OAU, PFS, Aladdin, chameleon man, Hutsul, CESID, Bess, rail gun, Peering, 17, 312, NB, CBM, CTP, Sardine, SBIRS, SGDN, ADIU, DEADBEEF, IDP, IDF, Halibut, SONANGOL, Flu, &, Loin, PGP 5.53, EG&G, AIEWS, AMW, WORM, MP5K-SD, 1071, WINGS, cdi, DynCorp, UXO, Ti, THAAD, package, chosen, PRIME, SURVIAC, [Hello to all my friends and fans in domestic surveillance]
marking things on clipboards
are the kids
vague, i am, suspicious
choreographers lack moxie
the splint of
dawn seriously undermines it
a certain kitsch obtains
token pastures
derange the three windows
i'm above that
screaming in hoop skirts
marking things on old clipboards
what to do about the failed
go right attitude now
punctual as a placebo
(i was going to say placenta) why
abbreviations
are the mannerism of today
instead of writing, graffito
and shorter
less encrypted goodbyes
(who cares about rituals of mourning)
words attain their cots
with a prescient, de rigeur modesty
problems with design
will lead the peasant dictator
to alternate plans
submitted by spam junkies
"mothers to the neighborhood"
they have "fabulism first"
tattooed to their lapels
other distractions include translucent hands
like ladies' hands
they bust each other up about this
is the previous trope any less
maverick, after all i've said, ripe with analysis?
[The images of the Gaudi hotel plans for the WTC site proved to be so popular I had to come up with something good to follow. All I could think of were these photographs I took last month of rats decomposing in the pool of my father's new house. They're not as gruesome as it sounds... some of the pix, in fact, would be worthy of the Hubble telescope.]
Hey poetry bloggers...
I don't want to be a bully, an innee or an outee, but don't some of you want to taste the fruits of movabletype.org. I'll be honest and say that it's a bit harder than the blogger blogs to set up, but once you get to the premised land you'll be a pretty hippy with it.
This lyric was just being emitted from my CD player as I prepared to make the announcement that, indeed, Free Space Comix:The Blog has a "mailing list" that you can join (see right column).
I don't expect anyone to join, actually, most of the readers of my blog are either 1) non-joiners by nature (or biology) and 2) already looking at it daily so do not need to receive emails about new postings. But for those of you interested, the idea is that you would receive an email notification when there are MAJOR new postings to the blog. That is, every little burp and quibble will not bring you unwanted spam, but when longish, considered pieces, such as Carol's, Keston's, etc. (see below) appear, you'll get an email. If nobody signs up, of course, I'll quasha the idea.
Many of you receive emails from me anyway already so if that's the case there's no need to sign up. But if you don't receive emails... you'll also get update notices about arras.net, which I encourage y'all to look at.
Readers of this blog have also probably noticed that I haven't tended to use it as a daily record of my thoughts on poetry, life, politics, etc. beyond the little things that I've been calling "skids" and which are mostly pretty cryptic, however accurate as gauges of my moods and, through the miracle of refraction (some call it "influence," others "utter lack of originality"), my attitude toward poetry at the time. But rest assured, I'm not acting like Charles de Gaulle and letting silence, and the military, speak for me, I just haven't thought of anything to say that makes sense to put on a blog, and am a fairly active critic elsewhere so don't see much need to lay it on much thicker. If my blog payed me $10 every time I came up with a good idea I'd probably write for it more often.
I also read a lot less than people think I do, and don't want to make that fact glaringly obvious. My spelling is bad, half the time I'm very depressed and just want to read about tennis, the other half simply unimpressed with my ability to pontificate with significant charisma or, when that is lacking, paternal authority. I also have a new book coming out, and don't want to trash my meager reputation by saying something racist, sexist, classist, agist, new yorkist or prog-rockist on the blog, as I am wont to do in moments of stress.
But sluriously folks, I've been enjoying reading the blogs, especially Heriberto's and Brandon's (see right) -- but I read them all. Once I get the VOG (voice of god) up and running again, you'll see more BLOG (brian's laughing orange guerrilla) in the future. (Fans of David Bowie will notice the evasion of the word "gnome" in the previous acronym.)
[Laura Elrick sent me the following which she asked me to post. It was originally part of an exchange on the subpoetics list, of which I myself am not a member so I can't contextualize it. I will mention, for those of you following this entirely through FSC, that Andrea Brady posted a comment this morning which can be accessed through my comments sidebar. Keston Sutherland's comments appear below. These offerings of Andrea's and Laura's seem to have been written unaware of the other; yes, the lack of causal chains may make it more confusing than "The Hours," and without the period-era costumes, but alas worth reading.]
I would like to add my two cents to the discussion, somewhat belated perhaps, on Quid 11 and Carol’s response to Andrea’s essay, apologies to those who wish it to be over. First of all… of course it is great to put together an issue such as the one Keston has done, and of course I appreciate it and felt gratitude to be invited to participate. I know Carol felt and still feels the same. Yet that should not inhibit any one of us from taking critical positions on what was in the essays or introduction at all. It is also true that it is Andrea’s right to evaluative opinions—I don’t think anyone would claim otherwise.
That said, I find to be slightly disingenuous the idea that I should be “grateful” to be introduced to British readers as a poet whose “poetry doesn’t suggest a particularly fine grasp of the elements and use of prosody.” Suggestions aside…besides that being a rather conservative way of talking about poetics, it is not, in the main, what I find disagreeable about the issue (even if you think that such “evaluations” are “true”).
Keston, in your intro to Q11 you claim that pluralism or rather “a plurality of voices” (human diversity, esp. in NY) acts as a kind of cultural template for US Imperialism—in fact, the work in Quid 11 is indirectly indicted, as if everything “produced” in the US not only “expresses” the US government’s imperialist designs, but is also guilty of actually deploying the same logic whether it means to or not. Though you don’t state so directly, I assume you meant such a critique (if one can call it that, since your tone is one of a magician astounded at the power of his brew) to resonate with Andrea Brady’s reading of my work, particularly the part about the “questionable invocation” of multiply arrayed “voices.” I also get labeled a “mimetic” “formalist,” as if the old divide were as relevant now as in the twenties—(can’t we talk about forms of content?) But though I disagree with Andrea on these points (I’ll touch on why below)—my main issue is with the conception of politics you propose, both in the intro and in your response to Carol.
While I do agree that neo-liberal uses of pluralism quash fundamental transformation of institutional/structural power, I fundamentally disagree with your assessment that subversive poetry and politics in the US is therefore necessarily politically still-born.
For starters—your statement that the European left “has long given up” on the US left is terribly out of touch. Which “left” are you talking about? The one that engages in struggles over space and power in the form of labor disputes, direct action, etc. (indeed it gets pretty messy both materially and ideologically), or the one that insists on ideological purity and is therefore relegated to standing outside the arenas selling those “more-radical-than-now” newspapers (“What do we want? Communism! When do we want it? Now!”) Even if that is the demand, and on the utopian plane I agree with it, proclaiming it won’t make it so. Funny—such maximalism is often in direct reverse proportion to the degree of actual political work that gets done. I too was annoyed by Silliman’s pronouncements after 9-11, but frankly, his broad-brush denouncement of “the left” strikes me as similar to yours, at least in tone. I haven’t heard such gloomy pronouncements since the cold war when, admittedly, the AFL-CIO was taking direct orders from the State Department (after two decades of being red-baited and rounded up by McCarthy-ites, I might add). That is clearly no longer the case, at least for now. And the labor left is getting increasingly interpolated into other struggles—green movements, civil rights, etc.
What about: The US (west coast, ILWU) and British (Liverpool /Merseyside) dock workers who successfully implemented a cross-border refusal to empty cargo in the Neptune Jade incident (Oakland / Seattle coordinated actions) when the English dock-workers were locked out, or the International environmental activists who have blocked drilling projects, or those U.S. worker-organizations who are collaborating with Maquilladora strikes in Mexico with increasing success, or the Global activist networks that are organizing some of the biggest demonstrations in decades?
I don’t mean to over-state the case, mind you. I would certainly agree that we need dialog to sharpen our critique, to clarify alternatives to the current configuration of this “democracy”-which-is-not-one. And those of us in the US who are committed to such change on such fundamental levels expect that our comrades abroad will not hold us (cryptically-“aesthetically”) individually responsible for the actions of our government, but will critically-support organizing against such actions in all the myriad forms that might take. No to collective punishment, in Iraq, in Palestine, right? I would be interested to hear you discuss why it is we are getting our asses kicked over here—domestically (Patriot Act, Presidential invocation of Taft-Hartley, corporate media domination, deployment of policing squads, mass round-ups). To me, these are not moral-aesthetic issues, to be handily marked-up as poetical-political platitudes.
As regards my poetry, I think it a regressive reading practice to drop-kick the word “voices” and thereby implicate my project with the pluralist dogma of neo and traditional liberalism. That’s too easy. I think Taylor does a good job of beginning the search for a new way to discuss this. I am clearly not “representing” “different” “voices” in my work—and I am certainly not corralling “them.” On the contrary, the soundings act more like dramatic readings of (the ventriloquy of) the social—where the residue of institutional ideologies are most likely to be concentrated—how people use and get used and, yes, as Carol says, the dense fabric of power relations in urban locales. I think Carol rightfully insists that the political-economic complexities of local and global inter-relationships is vital to an understanding of any text. The fabric of relations in any locale is rife with struggle and contradiction, no?
But I suppose it is the sweep of this whole thing as it has gone down (from Quid 11’s conceptual-political inception, all the way to the current commentaries and well-intentioned efforts to reconstruct this ‘debate’ on the subpo) that I’ve tried to respond to here. If I didn’t jump in, then it’s Carol there mainly on the hot-seat.
At the risk of causing another stir (and my question is—to what end),
Laura
[I received the following from Keston Sutherland, editor of the issue of Quid 11 in which Andrea Brady's essay on the poetry of Laura Elrick first appeared. Keston's email is a response to Carol Mirakove's comments on Andrea's essay that appear elsewhere on this blog. KS gave me permission to post it, and so I do here in the main column of the blog instead of the "comments" section, even if it doesn't read like an "open letter," simply to keep the matter stage center.]
Hey C: great news that the Q issue is generating some feedback. I got a good letter from Jules Boykoff about it this afternoon, plus several other responses already through e-mail. It's filtering into the UK scene concurrently.
I'm writing here about your piece in response to Andrea's. First off, let me say: I'm absolutely committed to publishing it if you decide that's what you want. It raises some important questions, though from a rather insistently speculative viewpoint that I don't personally find I have much sympathy for. Which is not to say that I agree with Andrea's estimation of Laura's work or even with her manner of criticism. Your point about the French language is a good one; but it doesn't exactly falsify Andrea's, unless Laura expects her work only to be read by people in her local environment (who can therefore claim initiate-status, as you do). There is after all a double-context to any speech act in poetry: its representational alliegance to a specific environment and social complex, and its necessary incorporation into the history of speech-acts in poetry as a whole; Andrea may have stressed the latter and so missed the former, but I think your corrective (although necessary in itself) tends toward a simple reversal of negligence. I have to say that your point about U.S. readers being more responsive to "new" and "valid" kinds of poetry is one that I absolutely do not share, and indeed one that I can't imagine you've actually researched; furthermore it's an idea that's just bristling with surreptitious ideological reverb, of a kind that my initiative in publishing QUID 11 was intended to quell or expose. I mean, C, how many British readers of contemporary poetry do you know well enough to classify them in this way? Surely you're not basing that view just on what the mainstream publishers, journals, educators etc. see fit to tell you? The whole question of what you could possibly mean by "valid" is something that instantly tears open a crate full of worm-cans. Valid for whom? Is poetry written in NY focused inevitably and justly on a NY reader-constituency, such that the misapprehensions of outsiders are total and dismissible from the perspective of insiders? You know, Andrea lived in NY for quite a few years too. I don't mean this to be a defense of her position, which I'm sure she'd want to offer for herself; but I don't think of her as a naif even of the wilful or elective stripe.
All this is just to say that I don't on the whole share your objections. Neither do I find Laura's work any less compelling on that account. But please don't let this put you off publishing in QUID, if you think it's important. I do think it's important to begin a dialogue of the kind you gesture toward in this piece; I think though--to be honest, and I say this as a friend--that people will discover in your piece a latent patriotism (or at least, NY-patriotism) that you might not see in it yourself. Partly that's just a misfortune caused by current political circumstances inside / outside USA: the left in Europe long ago gave up expecting anything from its natural allies in the US, who seem too preoccupied with parapolitical deflections and anti-corporate reformism to remain truly internationalist, and what I hoped to promote through starting the QUID dialogue was a recognition in both countries that poetry is potentially an internationalist (and not merely an international) discourse and power of social connection. I suspect that some readers of your piece might think that it goes somewhat against that trend, if indeed such a trend could even begin to exist.
I'm happy to say all this more objectively and clearly in QUID itself, alongside your article, if you like.
Above all: I can assure you there is absolutely nothing ad hominem in Andrea's piece. It is not intended as a slantwise reflection on her own work; I think that in raising that question you probably ought at least to offer your own answer to it.
Love and very best wishes, K
[Another one courtesy Darren W=H at alienated.net. He found it here.
from alienated.net :: you do their own thing
And you thought Lip Service was big ...Craig Dworkin's Editions Eclipse is proud to announce the online publication of Bruce Andrews' The Millennium Project -- a major new work. Dig in, kids.
are you protesting
social glue
blown out of social air
across the river
the avuncular complex
gleams
gelatin smiles
portentous, "balancing act"
roosevelt island floats
in pursed lips
as bees' squares
are marked by dashes, columns
as you out
not of
this line
drop into bathos
alarm
are you
speed in diameter
to
hear resist
pleading case
a
boat, and albatross
fa la la, emotional compass
devolved (class
hatred)
goat-bearded boys slide across
monosyllables vetted
by paul virilio
with (university) wit they're
wheeling overhead
"vengeance belongs to god
i'm just here to play tennis" (serena
williams)
but can't deliver us from safety
[In the spirit of Carol's writing below, here's a political web piece by my friend Prema Murthy that is pretty simple but effective. I got this through the Net Art mailing list maintained by rhizome.org]
Using the format of search engine results, Prema Murthy's 'Mythic Hybrid' presents contextual information on a group of women in India, micro-electronics factory workers who reported having collective hallucinations. These women are the artist's focusing device as she remodels information on industrial conditions, spiritual phenomena and womens' status. The associations Murthy brings together are varied, but make conceptual sense not just in light of the fascinating story about the hallucinating workers, but also in tandem with some of the radical notions about women and the real in Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto -- a book that informed this project. -- Rachel Greene
turbulence.org/Works/mythichybrid/index.html
[The following is a brief essay by Carol Mirakove that she asked me to post, the context of which is described in the first paragraph. Please feel free to post responses and commentary -- the new sidebar should make comments easily accessible as they accumulate. For the sake of formatting I've hidden the URLs that Carol references and embedded the links in the text. Click "more" below to see the rest of the essay.]
In the name of the “dialectic” of the “violent imperium” that collects the work of Laura Elrick, Heather Fuller, and me in QUID 11, I am compelled to respond to Andrea Brady’s essay on Laura’s poetry.
While Andrea’s native tongue is American English, I understand that her current literary engagements are located in England, and that she is today identified as an English poet-critic. Readers on both sides of the Atlantic are quick to recognize a significant difference in the approach to criticism in the U.S. and UK. Both approaches are problematic in their own ways. Kristin Prevallet wrote a terrific essay on the problems with U.S. criticism called “Why Poetry Criticism Sucks,” which appears in Jacket 11. My intention here is to consider some factors in UK criticism trends that may be counter-productive.
I think we might all agree on this: poetry and criticism that activates social and political change is good. How do we achieve this? I would suggest that we ask the following questions of a text: What does it value, in form and content? Where is it located, and what are the circumstances of that location that inform the work? What new locations might the text offer, towards regeneration and reconstruction?
My biggest grievance with Andrea’s essay on Laura’s poetry is that it seems superfluously antagonistic at nearly every turn. For every “compliment” there is a discrediting. I believe this pattern is counter-productive if we are to foster community, and a unified front against the real enemies: imperialists and global capitalists. While I appreciate that Andrea is writing in a [British] tradition that is foreign to me, I can’t help but feel it necessary that a critic demonstrate some degree of engagement with the geographic, cultural, and political positions from which a poet-under-review is writing. The disconnect that Andrea experiences from Laura’s location is most evident in the following passage:
In ‘Dream Helmet’, an argument in French between the speaker and a friend, and in ‘TOW’ the phonetic transcription of a black American dialect (“listen ahngonna be honest wichu”), emphasize the persistence of alternate modes of speech and localized idioms, even if their invocation seems rather suspect. For, while the possession of French linguistic skills signals a class privilege, African American speech patterns mostly present an economic disadvantage.
In fact, in the NY metro area, in which Laura lives and works, French speakers come from Haiti, Senegal, Guinea, Cameroon, Chad, the Ivory Coast, Rwanda.. The suspect invocation, then, is on Andrea. Furthermore, the phrase Andrea tags as “a black American dialect” is actually a class-inflected one, being a transcription of a marked Queens and Brooklyn speech pattern that is shared by blacks, Puerto Ricans, Irish Americans, Polish immigrants (and almost anyone else learning to speak English in the boroughs, native or immigrant) and which is part of the dense social fabric of power relations in New York.
Andrea seems, on the whole, suspect of Laura’s project. It’s not clear to me, for example, how Laura’s engagement with multiple speech patterns is “a liability,” or how her elliptical phrases might be edited to “carry enough weight.” In fact, the elliptical phrase Andrea quotes in her essay (“click, as in pistol cock”) is clearly less a “qualification” of the noise in question, than a critique on the gendered discourse of industry and social-engineering. In addition to such misreadings, I wonder if Andrea’s position in England — a country that has a deeper allegiance to tradition, to which it seems to appeal for literary validity — might inform her complaints. I have a sense that U.S. readers tend to be more permissive regarding new, valid forms of poetry, and might, therefore, be more accepting of Laura’s judgments regarding appropriate weight. For example, I, unlike Andrea, don’t read Laura’s “small units” as summations; I read them as events. I, like Laura, live in the NY metro area, and I may therefore be better disposed to ally with her project, which often attends to the daily encounter as it is marked by discrete utterances and signs. These small [language] events carry a great deal of weight in the context of NY. We are densely populated. We are constantly negotiating space and interpersonal relations. We do not, exclusively, project our politics (cf Andrea’s comment on Laura’s poetic forms being mimetic); we experience our politics, and we shape them in our immediate and constant contact with our neighbors, where a wide range of lived realties are encompassed in a small geographic area, yet are subject to the same historical forces affecting, and in turn being affected by, culture and class.
Andrea writes that “dealing with limited information passionately is a necessary skill, one which Elrick’s poems seem to want to impart to their readers.” Is not all information limited? Or, what would “complete” information look like, for Andrea? And what about the poem as experience?
I value Laura’s poems precisely for this, the textual performativity of them, and for her socially arrayed interventions, of the people, voices, and situations that arise out of Laura’s community-based activities in Harlem, not activities I would otherwise engage. Her poems provide me some insight into the ambiguity and contradictions of language-usages and lives I otherwise wouldn’t know at all. And, a better understanding of people in all locations, however limited, can only benefit an informed resistance.
While I appreciate and value the practice of challenging one another in our dialectical struggle towards a more just distribution of wealth and power, I cannot glean from Andrea’s essay any real suggestions regarding how a poem might best intervene in this dialectic. And I do wonder what a worthwhile poem would look like, for Andrea. I wonder if her own poems measure up to the undefined standards that Laura’s poems apparently often fail to meet. What would a “truly shared and social language” look like? It seems to me that some incarnation of Eliot’s objective correlative is implicitly championed in Andrea’s criticism, and that’s problematic, as it necessarily appeals to a fundamentalism, discounting circumstances, which are critical factors in solving our global problems.
In the course of composing this response, I stumbled upon an amusing passage from John Cage’s poem-essay “Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)”:
Europeans are still up against it.
They seem to require a center of
interest. They understand tragedy but
life itself (and any art that's like it)
puzzles them, seems unsatisfactory.
— Carol Mirakove
blue citizens conform
to green animal wishes
above yellow flutes
roll the red, anonymous pastures
of the chartreuse-tinted sky
we drink black fire
from it, lavender smoke
emanating from the pink tails
on the violet
cyclone fish, their beige eyes
inspired by visions of paisley intestines
filled with puffy, lithe cucumbers
in argentina, where they smoke
apple juice by the bushel
in porcelain cars
imported through a straw urethra
from the dominant superpower (vietnam)
listening to haitian speeches
by danish war criminals
on the combo air conditioner/radio
made of refurbished, petrified elephant dung
laughing in hoarse tones
at the slips of cartesian grammar
that erupt from the photogenic, sad doctoral student
a geographer of gertrude stein
awash in maps of orcs
piecing together middle english vocables
from neck-operated chimps
lumped in grant’s tomb
they had been baked while he was suffering
just prior to being born
in a rush of lascivious paranoia
other commentators on stein think this wasn’t important
neither lust nor sleep frenzy impacted
the role furry, breast-eating edibles played
on the writing of "in youth is pleasure," or of “hotel lautreamont”
in the beginning
stranger types
would congress here
vellum and gold
turgid remarks
were easy glory
they couldn’t spell
but foundational lies
barely suffered
marking a trend
in coterie dynamics
all that stops in the
much softer focus
afforded by distance
precious connects
were broadened fitfully
into outer boroughs
of the city
fated for dimmer lines
but charisma
flowed like cheap wine
the argots flowed
to the stadium planners
like helicopters, or doves
through a tube sock
or biopic or epic
that mated free sense
to wealthy barons
weather devolved
into the groping of clouds
but not in the open
hanging gardens
of kodachrome stock
ventures forgotten
but enticed to remembrance
by spiced cow hearts
[Here's my forthcoming web column for the Poetry Project Newsletter. Some of it is a report on the Mini-Digi Fest that I organized for the Segue series in November.]
Oct/Nov were very busy, the final event of my two month stint curating, with Gary Sullivan, the Segue reading series at the Bowery Poetry Club being (while the G-man was away in Nashville) the “Mini-Festival of Digital Poetry,” a 7-act roster of poets and poet groups who use computers in the creation andor presentation of work.
Angela Rawlings gave a suave and bountiful reading from her sequences wide slumber for lepidopterists and LOGYoLOGY, the former written from the perspective of a scientist of butterflies and moths, the latter a 'pataphysical investigation of the sciences of the body -- a poem as "Body of Knowledge" (or "BoK") that is growing online at her website (commutiny.net/). The recently unconcussed Loss Pequeño Glazier (epc.buffalo.edu/authors/glazier), perhaps representing the "old school" vibe of the digital aleatoric (a la Jim Rosenberg and John Cayley) and looking rather Kaiser Sose-ish, rendered a comical Dada jig out of Java cribs, regalling the audience with his polylingual splashes and disarming asides.
Noah Wardrip-Fruin (impermanenceagent.com) was both professional in his short intro to the concept of "electronic literature" -- the dos and donts of a digi-critic appearing on illuminated placards behind him -- and mischievous in his algorithmically-created web texts which made hyper-referential narratives out of a browser's daily meanderings. We couldn't get the vocoder working for Patrick Herron (proximate.org), but he gave a strong reading with VJ co-hort Giles Hendrix, who usually presents video work in Subtonic and other dance/lounge places in NYC; a cameo by the Sims ladies added a political bite to the ambient graphics.
Paul Chan (nationalphilistine.com/alternumerics) was the “Take On Me” rock-star of Fouriest fonts; his "self portrait in a font," in which the lower-case letters are phrases from casual conversation and numbers are the names of ex-lovers etc. brought down the house. He's probably back from Iraq by now, where he went in December to do more font-studies and deliver clothes and supplies. Aya Karpinska (technekai.com/aya/) brought back memories of the last half hour of the first Star Trek movie ("I could have had a V'ger!") with her cool navigation of her 3-dimensional Shockwave poem “Contract;” she then took us on a tour of the communal mind of a multi-authored text space (wisely avoiding my own contributions to that hypertextual cerebellum).
The Prize Budget for Boys (prizebudgetforboys.com/) were a cross between SCTV, the TRG, and the fabled anarchrists of EMI, which is to say funny, semiotic, and rude. My favorite bits were the faux-naif translations from American sign language -- "deaf small world is!" -- and the goofy grin on Jason (aka Percival Peabody's) face when reading the AltaVista translations of Osama Bin Laden's poems. A series of hellishly blurry pictures of the festival along with my hideously spelled poster are still online.
In November, I was also handed a nice email from the New York Times demanding I take down my Vaneigem series of nytimes.com detournements from public view, to which I complied because I am not interested in cat-and-mouse games with the authorities. Perhaps I fancy myself a regular Han Solo and likes to fight head-on, but more likely the Vaneigem works are not worth burning the purse for (I don't know any lawyers). But the world hasn’t heard the last of Raoul Vaneigem, or of the New York Times, or… or… You can read all about it at Tom Matrullo’s Commonplaces (tom.weblogs.com/), a blog in the Swiftian spirit that is chock-full of immodest proposals . A great website devoted to illegal art is illegal-art.org/print.
My general tendency, with “digital poetry,” is to shy away from the Flash/Director works because they usually resemble illustrated poetry books (how many successful ones of those can you name?) rather than the conceptual (“interactive,” “hypertextual,” “rhizomic”) art works they claim to be. But a few that I like quite a bit are Thomas Swiss’s “The Narrative You Anticipate You May Yet Produce,” (bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/swiss/narrative), Claire Dinsmore’s “The Dazzle as Question” (studiocleo.com/projects/dazzle) and the work of William Poundstone, who has a new thang, “The White Poem,” at ubu.com. (My interview with Poundstone can be found at the Iowa Review Website, which will also be posting my interview with John Cayley some time in January.)
All of these works share a basic quality, which is that the effort it appears to have taken to create them is equal to the effect they create – in a word, not overproduced (the age-old Johnny Mnemonic vs. Alphaville question). The folks at bannerart.org get it right (for me) by stipulating that all submissions conform to the standards – width & height, file size, etc. – published by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (iab.net/standards), thus making a monastic discipline out of corporate coercion (well, it’s better than it sounds), and figuring the artworks, of which many are poems, as parasites in the healthy colon of the transnational polis. Their recent Buy Nothing Day contest, with a grand prize of $0 (USD), shows their heartlessness is in the right cyberspace.
But once again silliness gets the best of me, and my eye candy of the year award goes to the wonderful Bembo’s Zoo (bemboszoo.com), a Flash bestiary made entirely of letterforms (demonstrating, among other things, that photography may have a ways to go before it proves useful to web poets). Oubapo (newhatstories.com/oubapo/), the site of the Oulipo of comix artists, is a nice place to spend a toked up afternoon, but even better are the bits of Atari prose at the Prize Budgies website, most recently “Pac-Mondrian,” a video game in which you are chased by goblins in a loyal reproduction of the Dutch artist’s canonical “Broadway Boogie-Woogie.” The propaganda states: “Each play of the game is an act of devotion. Mondrian's geometric spirituality fuses with his ecstatic physicality when Pac-Mondrian dances around the screen while the Trinity of Boogie Woogie jazz play 'Boogie Woogie Prayer'.” It’s as good as it sounds!
very like its ignorance
kid torched the air
passable semblance of rhyme
alike to fury
canticle abstractness
for a millennium of kicks
alice relax
able but unwilling
thrush, massachusetts farmhouses
as loops or rolls
gravity defends
with a protestant pride
you'd want to commit
for the sake of sanguinity
obvious
to the feral ransacker
there was a book behind it
degrading support
green levels split for two reds
in michael's vestpocket
peach kills
greek orthodox news
delight in the seasons
packaged for nome export
ullulate nether equanimity
satellite dishes
on the sprawling gorse
six toes was not an animal
akin to lichen
talentless, denuded of commitment
being beige and fog
fishwifing
on the slivers of big screen
touching down in dry gulch
paused
to fund medium-sized glands
[Here's one that came out in a little chapbook in Canada. Most of you in the US haven't seen it.]
The feng shui was glistening.
(This helps me to avoid the air of polemic.)
I am like you
At ten.
Might that be your swimming?
Medically, in a division game
(“Squid” revealed to be floating cheese)
A low-res boyfriend
(He talked about them like they were hotrods)
Two
In a decade
Who could scan the headlines, but who could say
Who’d laugh.
Go rent a video on it.
“Capture”
The track ball.
You are gorgeous
In information silence.
We are in a “wracked” dominion.
(I trust
The slow writer.)
“Green tortoise-shell glasses” is not an adequate response.
“Islamabad” is not an adequate response.
So that I could have a switch
In blue motion.
Visitors: a talcum blonde, Jihad versus
McWorld
(To relate to the anecdote:
It is just struggling to find a form
To our kids.)
So I motion:
The Pentagon, symbol of our erotic hope.
How much are we really paying attention to ourselves?
In quiet times, like these
Censored apparitions
(Our fog there)
I’m hurt like Rocky
(Time to replace something
In 1939). Is it my gallant?
In 1939.
There she is doing that Munch thing again.
Sad, anemic eyes
Coming to take the piss out of you.
“Spontaneous creation”
Their own sort
Of sound poetry.
(You wasting you time.)
Anyone who has ear glasses
Amid Third World Revolution
Renewals.
His famous Mom.
(These weren’t opposites somewhere.)
Mary had a jab.
Like hell you didn’t know.
IwyuriuCu ‘0 oiu woiuC uaf wX oide l’Tu
Ewyuwau rdnn Cutud.u oide
Lwuyb nuo yu euu
DX t’aLo ln’h rdoi ou
EdTa’ne
‘
Sdob ‘af ‘nouC oiu yue’Tu do twao’dauec
When does the world open up and become true?
This functioning as a numchuck
Pug pouring filth
(Ping chocolate)
Rendezvous of course.
Maine: I heard it myself, now thinking this.
Pedantic.
Showering with all his glee
(“Last call for the Devonshire armpit!”)
On the grounds of
Tables.
Repopulated Paris
(“They won’t understand this.”)
Catholic dances.
Paris, henceforth, will want to be repopulated.
Versus the hurricane.
A wasted effort you have said nothing.
Jack Nicholson
Relaxes
In disco tempo
Thursday morning
Begins to create live sets.
From the ego-sphinx, Matrix-like, you jump.
Hanging.
All the computers whisper: acqui, acqui.
They didn’t hand out
Spinach.
(I’m going to remind them.)
Twelve easy precipices
Going out
Cold solids (we’re stuck with his company
Now).
(Talk whizzes by like hands
Pushing the computer.)
I fresh toothen up bucky balls graffiti on “lunge.”
– The Blue Upset.
– Upset in Blue.
– A deep and fascinating
Distrust
Section in Synthetic Scots.
And after that: the shopping.
One doesn’t “sense” a personality
A dial of Genet’s girls
The adult.
Conic section avant-gardists
How many people
Live life at
Glibbest
(You said that
Benny Hill.) Just the same
Field of glory. Thighs of the apple tree.
Ritual
Natural expressions.
Wildcarpets. (Novel or criticism
Same thing.)
Beneath the razor.
Beneath your hands.
69
Twenty seconds later:
Isolated mountain
Singing fits
A noticeable humor in the climate
Off the roof
In which your loves circulate
Greek.
Everything is useful!
Against this genius!
I met her at the United Artists Theater on Broadway
People with nice teeth being perfectly superficial
In “patois”
To save money.
all that class
invested in a shrimp recipe
plastic drink stirrers
headed by marine
figurines
in a karoake bar
prime-timed by zagat's
hurts to know
what every vice tailor knows
winter's five o'clock
spreads word of the sanctions
against illiterate pleasure
day one
storm
"it was beautiful"
(i'm pulling this from a nick
drake tune, but
it sounds eerie, here)
the endless, colored waste
"now we rise,
we are everywhere"
as parachutes descend
griot radios tuned
to pensive cell phone users
and refried
uncle ben's
slam into the sea
"the only person left
on the island
was me" (devendra
banhart)
shoreside born like a gulf
in the flue of a house
bearded with sod in farting new
jersey, the force
of a new, god-like activity
Hey yo... I've begun tinkering with a comments sidebar. You can see what small progress I've made on the right. Actually, I just tried a few of the links and it doesn't work, but give it time!
I'm trying to figure out how to get the blog entry into the sidebar as well, like on Brandon's TextURL. I'm sure to get it soon, but for now you can see what have been posting to my site so far and the cast of zany characters who frequent my pad.
i’m in
a russia
all
thongs considered
but bloom
instead
in
face of
dangerfield
and cantonese
keds
(these are
fumes
of my flavanoid
things)
songs of
viral
torques
allow through
polygamous
pistil
forced
punt exposures
(the moose so
message
loose
but jogging)
"us
military spams
iraq"
the creeps
and gobblers
horrorshop
bibles
nettled
in frisked paucity
[The combined efforts of Laurable and Darren Wershler-Henry give me this story and links about Belgian artist Wim Delvoye's plan to tattoo poems on pigs. Delvoye is the infamous maker of the "Cloaca" machine, which had the ability to digest food and also produce waste, which would drop out the far end of the machine onto a conveyor belt at regular intervals during the day (it was installed at the New Museum here in NY for several months two years ago). He had previously tattooed grown hogs with huge Harley Davidson logos and other designs, which doesn't seem so interesting until you see the photographs, which, in close up, look like the backs of huge, Mark McGwire-size rednecks (pardon the stereotype there). You can buy the book from Yahoo!:
Here's the story on the pig poems, courtesy ananova.com.
Vegetarian artist plans to tattoo piglets with poems
A Belgian animal rights group has protested against the plans of a famous vegetarian artist to tattoo piglets as a piece of art.
Wim Delvoye says he wants to tattoo 23 piglets weighing about 50kg with poems and then exhibit them during a cultural festival in Watou in the summer.
"At the end of the summer the pigs will weigh about 300kg and the poems will have reached a huge size", Mr Delvoye said.
The artist says he wants to protest against the attitude of considering art more and more as a financial investment.
"The value of paintings is rising and so will do the pigs", he said.
Because animal rights group Gaia has protested against the idea, Mr Delvoye has promised to take proper care of the animals.
The tattoo session will be filmed and all the animals will receive sedation before being tattooed.
"They won't feel anything", promised Mr Delvoye. "And we will use cream in the summer to prevent them getting sunburn.
"And after the festival the animals won't go to the butcher. I'm a convinced vegetarian myself and I'm against animals suffering."
Gaia is said to be pleased the artist and organisers of the festival have agreed to a meeting.
they liked the lower east
paragraphs
spotted myths
of cabs on dope roles
we will insist
before tv
casts the whole era
rebuilding my entry
in black jeans
privates ransacked
for colors of suspicion
like a legendary rock and roll queen
who happens to fable
plans to reflect
what matters is decency
of course, in church
it’s math
balance one serial
with enlightenment rhetoric
and murmur stop
theory of sun blemishes
packaged
for disposal at first sign
of the paradigm’s fucked lucidity
for instance, wystan hugh auden
‘s platonic pomp
lysergic reactions
in doilies
endeavored to protest what
to the curatorial ear
reeked of
aggrandizing mischief
threw several of these parties
standard quarters
pandered to the voyeurs
as they do now, on survivor islands
is a word
primed for lecture
phallus
roman complex
(hence) replication
anon
allure through
network
with dog names
names have dogs
and dogs have names, so
do
i
in a recent post
pithy candy
lusts of
fantasy braids
“pearls that were”
long poem
long poem
long poem
long poem
four of them
endeavored in rows
(with obligatory
caesura)
(bourdieu)
a
lyre seethes
taxis purse it
(percy bysse)
bisquick retort
aches
“keep the dog far
that's friend”
but thwarts the pace
[Call me naive, but I think this web-specific project by artist David Crawford is quite compelling, partly because it's so simple, partly because it really does trouble the border between photography and motion pictures (aka "film" and "video") in a way that outdoes both of them on their own terms (kind of like a virus being a bit more effective at self-replicating than plants, animals or rocks, I guess, eh hem). I don't mean that these studies, or this method, would ever render photography or film obsolete, only that neither have been very successful on the web, and these studies contribute greatly to the idea of the web replacing the art gallery as a place for engaging pictorial art. This basic use of Flash technology and photography could become a new pictorial method for lots of artists in the future, with its own little cults and divergences of practice, like Warhol's films. Maybe not. I remember liking the earlier series better than this most recent one, but find out for yourself.]
www.turbulence.org/Works/sms3/
[Ok, I know you're all edgy about the Pete Townshend thing, but thought I'd share this bit from Paul Chan's website nationalphilistine.org. Paul has been in Iraq for the past month and has been posting very interesting (and well written) entries on his site. This is the most recent but I encourage y'all to go back and check out the others.]
January 12 : Baghdad (by way of Amman, Jordan)
Dear you,
This is a quick note letting you know I'm fine but have been unable to communicate outside of Iraq for some time because of the FUCKING Pentagon and their email "attack" (the story broke Saturday morning on CNN.com). The whole Internet infrastructure in Iraq was shut down because of it. We couriering stuff into Amman, Jordan, to be sent out.
The situation in Iraq is the same, which is to say not much. Those who can afford to prepare for a coming war do, buying petrol and water parrifin for heat and lighting. Those who cannot pay pray. The rest are busy trying to get the international media's attention on the plight of the Iraqi people and the devastation another war will bring to this country. War preparation is above all a class issue for me. There are divisions between the upper, middle, and lower classes in their perspectives on what can be done about living through an invasion. Most of the upper echelons of Iraqi society think that Baghdad will be ablaze with street fighters beating back the Americans. The middle class (if you can call it that) have largely left it to the fates, having had little to no history of political self-determination. The poor of Iraq wants to see the invasion over with. The sanctions have made their life already impossible, why not a war to shake things up a bit: what's there to lose? A young poor Iraqi teenage girl summed it up nicely when she said that she can't wait for the invasion so she can marry an American soldier. Desperation and creativity doesn't make that strange of bedfellows. Despite the differences on how one will survive a war and how a war will be waged in the country, they all agree that if there is a war, it won't begin until AFTER the invasion. It is incandescently clear that Iraq does not have the capabilities to fight the American military juggernaut. The real story of Iraq's survival will begin after the Americans come (if they come, yes there is still time and the means to stop the war, there is always time because tomorrow is today) and set up their puppet regime. A media escort and veteran of the Iran/Iraq war said, "They will have an occupation in hell."
I'm not ready to live in hell. And I assume the wonderful people I've met here in Baghdad aren't ready either, regardless of how many litres of petrol they buy off the black market. I also assume that you aren't ready for hell either, since by all accounts, in Jordan, Syria, and Turkey the sentiment is that there will be no way to contain the resentment an unjust war will bring to the Middle East. The resentment is beginning to build into a political program that promises nothing short of mass political insurrection, here and abroad, back home, where I live and you too.
I have tried to make my work here with a certain sensitivity and language to describe another kind of Iraq existing in another kind of reality marred by economic sanctions, the weight of war, and (American) popular culture. But I can feel myself losing this sensitivity. The fear is becoming overwhelming and the space for describing the taste of lamb's head stew made with food rations and trash is disappearing.
Perhaps the time and space will come again. In the meantime (what a word) there is (still) a war to stop. I am sure you've heard about the January 18th protests (global by the way, since the German, Japanese, and Italian delegations in Baghdad have informed us of their country's intention of doing solidarity protests on that date). I've been rereading Martin Luther King Jr.'s moving speech against the Vietman war delivered at New York's Riverside Church in 1967 and will try to finish off one more piece of writing based on it before I return to the States.
My return date is dicey at the moment but rest assured I'm well taken care of. Support group I will contact you first regarding my flight back. Let your media contacts know that I'm returning and that I'll talk to anyone about the work we've done here (can continue to do, members of the Iraq peace team continue to come into Baghdad and will do so throughout January and February, war or no war).
This turned out not to be such a quick note. I'll see you soon. Baghdad is tense and beautiful, as usual, by the way.
Which vegetable really poses the greatest danger to world peace in 2003? TIME asks for readers' views. (courtesy Tom Rawroth)
i'm a korean
can't you see that i'm a korean?
i'm a korean
walrus
can't you see that i'm a korean walrus?
can't you see that i'm ambling in your shade
thoughtfully reciting
hawthorne
to the
japanese
scottish terriers
and the swedish igneous rocks?
take me to your hungarian hospitals
right there on the borders of westchester and the bronx!
plug me up with serbian gauze
and clean my teeth with catalonian floss,
i'm ready!
i'll eat somalian meatballs provided they can find some
here in ronkonkama, new canada
standing beside the burundian bruce springsteen impersonator
and the little irish guy who thinks he's m jackson
in the union square station (in ny)
oh make me your heterosexual israeli walt whitman!
oh promote my ideas, like a paraplegic, lichtensteinian karl marx,
please!
and when the troubles are over
there will be pieces of water
hanging from my scandinavian beard
clouding my danish lorgnette
tasting of english wine
just squeezed from the iron curtain
(we’ll have the colombian
multimedia dehumidifier to thank for that)
though i'm not sure our latin
kabul university-educated tour guide
"vergil" is quite getting the american accent
we've avoided the essay
struggle does come
with the homology of lunch
and weekend ethics
purple sky barely breaks
through ceiling
she pauses before the screen
while deciding
her confusion is too total
randomness too alive
for a nation in whiplash theater
of plugged-in teenagers
the shoreline overloaded
with swans with signs
pasted to lapels
hovering above the commas
largesse could be a wind
too, verbally abused
with insensitive rejoinders
to fragrant, parisian attitudes
making chalk of bones
last one rotten is a perfect egg
my wincing uncle said
before shattering the wicker chair
standing on empty
proposals for the new school
built of methane gas
imported soft drinks, imported
were never quite remembered
footfalls in the carpeted hallway
untrusted and remiss
gatherings in public forests
punctuated by illiterate sobs
pulsing from big cities
we’ll never get there anyway, this way
who last folded this damn thing?
Shutting Down an Entire Artists Network over an Unresolved Complaint about One Site Sets a Worrisome Precedent for Corporate Control over the Work of Artists
NEW YORK CITY, NY -- In the contemporary Internet climate of consolidation, it is increasingly difficult for artists and arts organizations to find a safe harbor where they are free to create and where what they create is protected from the limitations and chilling effects of Internet filters, server content restrictions, and corporate dominance.
The legendary THE THING has been an Internet Presence Provider for activist and arts organizations primarily in the New York area for ten years. It hosts arts and activist groups and publications including P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center; ARTFORUM; Mabou Mines; Willoughby Sharp Gallery; ZINGMAGAZINE; JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY ART; and Tenant.net. Among many others, artists and projects associated with thing.net have included Sawad Brooks, Heath Bunting, Vuk Cosic, etoy, John Klima, Jenny Marketou, Mariko Mori, Prema Murty, Mark Napier, Joseph Nechvatal, Phil Niblock, Daniel Pflumm, Francesca da Rimini, Beat Streuli, and Beth Stryker. It also offers dial-up access; authoring and design services; arts-oriented newsletters, and online conversation spaces. Vistors can log on as a guest and visit discussions such as undercurrents: a forum about the interrelations of cyberfeminism, new technologies and globalization, moderated by Irina Aristahrkova, Maria Fernandez, Coco Fusco, and Faith Wilding.
But in December, after receiving legal threats from the Dow Chemical Corporation, thing.net's Internet access provider, NTT/Verio, temporarily shut of all the sites which thing.net hosts and subsequently gave notice that it will unilaterally terminate thing.net's contract on February 28.
In the letter to Verio, Dow's lawyers asserted that in a parody site, the Yes Men -- a group who infiltrate "the fortified compounds of commerce" to call attention to corporate/political abuses -- had violated the Digital Milenium Copyright Act (DMCA) by using copyrighted texts and images and had also violated the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which makes it unlawful for a person to register a domain name incorporating the famous trademarks of another and provides for statutory damages of up to $300,000.
The Yes Men site was implemented online by thing.net-hosted RTMark which publicizes corporate subversion of the democratic process and fosters art work which investigates corporate activities. Yes Men's parody looked like a real communication from Dow on the 18th anniversary of the disaster in which thousands of people died as a result of an accident at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. Union Carbide is now owned by Dow. In part, the fake press release read:
"'We are being portrayed as a heartless giant which doesn't care about the 20,000 lives lost due to Bhopal over the years,' said Dow President and CEO Michael D. Parker. 'But this just isn't true. Many individuals within Dow feel tremendous sorrow about the Bhopal disaster, and many individuals within Dow would like the corporation to admit its responsibility, so that the public can then decide on the best course of action, as is appropriate in any democracy. "Unfortunately, we have responsibilities to our shareholders and our industry colleagues that make action on Bhopal impossible. And being clear about this has been a very big step.'"
Parody and the use of corporate-owned images in artworks have been found to be protected in some cases. For instance, last year a federal court dismissed toymaker Mattel's lawsuit which sought to stop artist Tom Forsythe from using the Barbie doll in a series of photographs commenting on the doll and the values it embodies.
"The intellectual property laws do not grant corporations the right to control all artistic speech concerning the role of products and corporations in our society," Annette L. Hurst, Lead Counsel from the law firm Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin, which represented Forsythe in Mattel v. Walking Mountain Productions, commented about that case.
In the Dow case -- if, as the Yes Men put forth on their web site, they filed for the domain name dow-chemical.com using the name and the home address of James Parker, the son of the Dow CEO -- the situation may be complicated because of compounded cybersquatting issues.
However, Verio's shutting down of an entire network over an unresolved complaint about one site sets a worrisome precedent for corporate control over the work of artists -- making it possible to intimidate a provider to the point where the existence of challenging art on the Internet could be in jeopardy.
"If we could afford a good legal team I think we could challenge them on the grounds that they didn't have to shut down thing.net's complete c-class network (256 IPs) to get rid of the RTMark site. (which occupies only one out of the 256 addresses). To shut down the complete network is not something they were required to do by the DMCA," artist Wolfgang Staehle, Executive Director of thing.net, emphasized.
THE THING -- which since 1991 has fostered network artists, critics, curators, and activists and in the shifting Internet climate of the last decade, has sought ways to interconnect their diverse interests and activities -- now seeks to locate on a system which will be hospitable to art and activist content.
In response to a question from CURRENT about what kind of systems thing.net would implement if it were to set up its own autonomous network, Wolfgang Staehle commented that "Our intention is to build redundancies into the system by setting up backup servers with cooperative ISPs in Europe and elsewhere. Another solution we've been discussing is to purchase a block of 4096 IPs from ARIN [American Registry for Internet Numbers] and have two upstream providers. This won't solve all the problems but it could give us a bit more room to maneuver in similar future situations, should they arise."
Meanwhile, a lot of people have offered some kind of support -- including donations from two to 200 dollars, Brian Boucher, Editor of THING.REVIEWS, told NYFA Current. "We've been around for ten years. People really do appreciate what we do; it's very encouraging -- a matter of raising some money; evaluating offers; seeing how things work out with Verio." Boucher also noted that in response to articles in THE NEW YORK TIMES and WIRED, many people have contacted Verio. "Verio originally told us that they would work out a timetable. We are going on the assumption that we have until February 28, but they have not yet followed up on the timetable," he commented.
Although the Yes Men parody site now bounces to the real Dow Chemical site, many mirror sites have sprung up, including: www.dowethics.com www.dowindia.com and www.mad-dow-disease.com
Trying to suppress such a site "is like the proverbial fight with the Hydra," commented Wolfgang Staehle. "For the Yes Men and their supporters, the site is a parody, and I personally tend to agree. If they were to put a disclaimer on the page it wouldn't work -- it wouldn't have the same effect. So for the parody to be effective, they had to use the logos and the corporate lingo and so on. What the Yes Men are doing is really performance art. Only they prefer the arena of the real world to the theater or the gallery."
Sources/resources:
THING.NET -- bbs.thing.net
THE YES MEN -- www.theyesmen.org
RTMARK -- www.rtmark.com
NTT/VERIO -- www.nttverio.com
EDUCAUSE -- www.educause.edu _DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT (DMCA) -- www.educause.edu/issues/dmca.html
ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION -- www.eff.org _ANTICYBERSQUATTING CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT -- -- www.eff.org/GII_NII/DNS_control/s1255_1999_bill.html
"First Amendment Protects Criticism of Barbie Doll and the Values it Represents, Federal Court Affirms" Arts Wire CURRENT -- www.nyfa.org/current_archive/2001/cur091101.html September 11, 2001
"The Lawsuit Against etoy is Dropped" Arts Wire Current -- www.nyfa.org/current_archive/2000/cur020800.html February 8, 2000 Volume 9, No. 6
Matthew Mirapaul "Cyberspace Artists Paint Themselves Into a Corner" THE NEW YORK TIMES -- www.nytimes.com/2002/12/23/arts/design/23ARTS.html December 12, 2002
Michelle Delio "DMCA: Dow What It Wants to Do" WIRED - www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,57011,00.html
December 31, 2002
nothing
(i'm on a staple diet)
nothing is
(can't be blamed)
erosion
(all the cuticle colors
blent) 2.3 milliseconds
tenure-track pluto mooned
universe
gets them
quicker
national anthem
in a single 90-minute take
from a handy cam
on david letterman's forehead
relax
cell phones off
deviating from the script
alive
not surviving
on the weakening antarctic shelf
with a cast of
several thousand emperor brand penguins
as if febrile lepidopterists
leapt
(i'm on board)
curious, frank
as carbon dating
to frederick the great
(prior to the simoom forecast)
cough
(luke sanity)
cough again
curious, warm fixtures
"dark swans of trespass"
on a secular, avoided landscape
as elevator lips leaves
there are cuts in the world
can't say i'm troubled
we've got lent to contend with
the strange dais disappearing
other governors' budgets
protective myths
like the one about the lavender day camp
there, once we've attached the bunjee chord
to the cow's left ear
the farming community will vote labor
curses, shouts in the hallway
rouse him from a taiwanese dream
that of the rooster and the stone wall
belittling little people
ha ha try the fallen apples
dark coffee perks
stained glass window perks for the catholics
draw the mumfords to seattle
where they uninstall windows 95
from their pet tarantula
which proceeds to write a serial novel
based on the travails of the norwegian luge team
famous for their chocolates and widows
and limitless sex appeal
that doesn't translate well
into this language of stars and rabies
julianne moore played the heiress
oscar winner ralph fiennes played elevator lips
the camera couldn't find
the actor playing the cloud of dust
in the opening scenes of the man who fell to earth
too bad, that story is quite interesting
sweet words pass from mantis hips
in the art school just north of noam chomsky's hometown
of international falls, minnesota, blithely
who cares what buddha said
the boredoms rock
all the japanese are like that
they burp
into purple cellophane
to preserve carbon dioxide
no wonder john zorn brought over
yamatsuka
to prop up naked city
the city was nakeder for it
the syntax
a "vendetta fringe," benson said
and agrees
i can barely think
moth balls in the head
wings in the sink
stereo now
shades of telemachus
no, shades of "crimson and clover"
starring malcolm mcdowell
as claudius
rimbaud archangel
filmed by gus van sant
no, filmed by guy madden, yes
it's 12:19
so i go get toilet trained
with the new "whipple method"
it takes twenty years
of therapy
that's all covered
movement pretty fucking slow
like digital premise
the japanese are pragmatic
wear stereo pampers and fred flintstone bones
in the nose
record the album
Carol Mirakove instigated an interesting discussion on poetry anthologies in one of my comments boxes. But of course, as things go on blogs, these discussions tend to move down the totem pole and into obscurity. But here it is.
clips o'er the impossible
boddhisattva embryo
white collar toyotas
she infjected plastic soy rolls
icelandic bandwago band
clunk ship hospitial towels
david de gascoyne's
fissures ulton's loolly brut
roamntic new ordure
flanks by hemo-roman salutes
frutes de la rune'z ump
an ultra-gash xxxmas (shit)
to compliment
the nude vgrant is that a word?
takne ny skyline blown
life but left my lover out
in the urn, it rained
bakings made'v lover's rump
luffter o'er plsh spirits
hegels marupsiial imposslbe
lint in kanoodie's drano closet
argenot's film flam noir
with riddms frm bion byron
tum tums from the argot's cursh
it's almost smairt
it's olma spukking
diplomitisch wints're east
attahk ov usa+ soldered 'nsisters
to hlum mammers 2s t' fart
uvver dems unter dems
plissing sidreal's costco chirtz
mp3s jpgs canon't fodder
links r mumpless t-tching oddrs
hughe macridmia's hlaws
spolish sedmints wince blau wince
whtiman cinna (fakkir) fairt ni mair!
[Always a good thing to have handy. Click more for the actual staff picks, which are usually more interesting than the top sellers.]
1. Boards of Canada "Geogaddi" (Warp)
2. Interpol "Turn on the Bright Lights" (Matador)
3. Mum "Finally We Are No One" (Fat Cat)
4. Yo La Tengo "Sounds of the Sounds of Science" (Egon)
5. Clinic "Walking With Thee" (Domino)
6. Notwist "Neon Golden" (City Slang)
7. Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Yeah Yeah Yeahs" (Touch and Go)
8. Flaming Lips "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" (Warner)
9. Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
10. Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (Nonesuch)
11. Gary Wilson "You Think You Really Know Me" reissue (Motel)
12. Ladytron "Light and Magic" (Emperor Norton)
13. Beth Gibbons and Rustin' Man "Out of Season" (Go Beat)
14. Smokey and Miho "Smokey and Miho" (Afro Sambas)
15. Soviet "We Are Eyes We Are Builders" (Head)
16. RJD2 "Deadringer" (Def Jux)
17. Black Dice "Beaches and Canyons" (DFA)
18. Sigur Ros "()" (MCA)
19. A Certain Ratio "Early" (Soul Jazz)
20. Belle and Sebastian "Storytelling" (Jeepster/Matador)
21. Sleater-Kinney "One Beat" (Kill Rock Stars)
22. Various Artists "Blue Skied an' Clear" (Morr)
23. Various Artists "In the Beginning There Was Rhythm" (Soul Jazz)
24. The Streets "Original Pirate Material" (Pure Groove/Locked On)
25. DJ Shadow "Private Press" (MCA)
26. Beck "Sea Change" (DGC)
27. Pavement "Slanted & Enchanted/Luxe & Reduxe" reissue (Matador)
28. Cody Chesnutt "Headphone Masterpiece" (Ready Set Go)
29. Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
30. Boards of Canada "Twoism" reissue (Warp)
GEOFF ALBORES
Alice Coltrane "Universal Consciousness" reissue (Verve)
A Certain Ratio "Early" (Soul Jazz)
Mr. Lif "I Phantom" (Def Jux)
Super Collider "Raw Digits" (Rise Robots Rise)
Burnt Sugar "Volumes 1-3" (Trugoid)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Town and Country "C'mon" (Thrill Jockey)
Fertile Ground "Seasons Change" (Counterpoint)
Derrick Carter "Square Dancing in a Round Room" (Classic)
Stereotyp "My Sound" (G Stone)
Nicole Mitchell "Afrika Rising" (Dreamtime)
William Parker "Raining on the Moon" (Thirsty Ear)
Sticks and Stones "Sticks and Stones" (482)
Mia Doi Todd "Golden State" (Sony)
Ethiopiques 11 "Alemu Aga/Harp of King David" (Buda Musique)
MATT CONNORS
A Certain Ratio "Early" (Soul Jazz)
Future/Human League "Golden Hour of the Future" reissue
(Black Melody)
Richard Hawley "Late Night Final" (Bar/None)
Horace Andy "Dance Hall Style" reissue (Wackies)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Clinic "Walking With Thee (Domino)
Closer Music "After Love" (Kompakt)
Donovan "Open Road" reissue (Repertoire)
Ethiopiques 11 "Alemu Aga/Harp of King David" (Buda Musique)
Interpol "Turn on the Bright Lights" (Matador)
[V.A.] "8 Women/Original Soundtrack" (Rhino)
Devendra Banhart "Oh Me Oh My" (Young God)
J DENNIS
Closer Musik "After Love" (Kompakt)
[V.A.] "Disco Not Disco 2" (Strut)
Donna Regina "Northern Classic" (Karaoke Kalk)
Annie Gosfield "Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery" (Tzadik)
Hrvatski "Swarm and Dither" (Planet Mu)
Love Joys "Lovers Rock" & "Reggae Vibes" reissues (Wackies)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
The Sound "Jeopardy" reissue (Renascent)
Swayzak "Dirty Dancing" (K7)
Theorem THX "Experiments in Synchronicity" (Minus)
Akufen "My Way" (Force Inc.)
Thomas Fehlmann "Visions of Blah" (Kompakt)
Smash TV "Electrified" (Bpitch)
Stereotyp "My Sound" (G Stone)
Tom and Joyce "Partir" (Yellow)
DANIEL DEROGATIS
Sutekh "Fell" (Orthlorng)
DJ/Rupture "Minesweeper Suite" (Tigerbeat6)
Ethiopiques 11 "Alemu Aga/Harp of King David" (Buda Musique)
Lawrence "Lawrence" (Ladomat)
Rhythm & Sound/Chosen Brothers "Making History" (Burial Mix)
Ekkehard Ehlers "Plays" (Staubgold)
Michael Mayer "Immer" (Kompakt)
William Basinski "Disintegration Loops" (Mosex)
Justus Kohncke "Was Ist Musik?" (Kompakt)
Missy Elliot "Under Construction" (Elektra)
LISA GARRETT
Revlon 9 "Revlon 9" (Self-released)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Yeah Yeah Yeahs" (Touch and Go)
Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers" 12"-single (DFA)
[V.A.] "Studio One Hustle" (Soul Jazz)
Rogers Sisters "Purely Evil" (Troubleman)
Missy Elliot "Under Construction" (Elektra)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
Polyphonic Spree - Live Show, Brooklyn Lyceum, CMJ 2002
Hot Hot Heat "Knock Knock Knock" (Sub Pop)
ANDY GILES
Orchid "Gatefold" (Ebullition)
Xiu Xiu "Knife Play" (5RC)
Frog Eyes "Bloody Hand" (Global Symphonic)
Sigur Ros "()" (MCA)
Death of Marat "All Eyes Open" (Stickfigure)
Josef K "Young and Stupid" reissue (LTM)
Jacobites "Robespierres Velvet Basement" reissue
(Secretly Canadian)
Die Todliche Doris "Kinderringellreihen Fur Wahren Toren" reissue
(Psychedelic Pig)
Swans "Great Annihilator" reissue (Young God)
Nikki Sudden/Roland S. Howard "Kiss You Kidnapped Charabanc"
reissue (Secretly Canadian)
DANIEL GIVENS
Nettle "Build a Fort, Set That on Fire" (Agriculture)
Josh Abrams "Busride Interview" (Lucky Kitchen)
William Basinski "Disintegration Loops" (Mosex)
Rhythm and Sound "10-inch Series" (Basic Channel)
Guillermo E. Brown "Soul at the Hands of the Machine"
(Thirsty Ear/Blue Series)
Me'Shell NdegeOcello "Cookie" (Warner)
[V.A.] "Studio One Series" (Soul Jazz)
Stereotyp "My Sound" (G Stone)
Derrick Carter "Squaredancing in a Round House" (Classic)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Ethiopiques 11 "Alemu Aga/Harp of King David" (Buda Musique)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
GERALD HAMMILL
Revlon 9 "Revlon 9" (Self-released)
Michael Mayer "Immer" (Kompakt)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
Mum "Finally We are No One" (Fat Cat)
[V. A.] "In the Beginning There Was Rhythm (Soul Jazz)
Love Joys "Lovers Rock" reissue (Wackies)
Donna Regina "Northern Classic" (Karaoke Kalk)
Keith Fullerton Whitman "Playthroughs" (Kranky)
Clinic "Walking With Thee" (Domino)
[V.A.] "Disco Not Disco 2" (Strut)
Noonday Underground "Surface Noise" (Setanta)
Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers" 12"-single (DFA)
ROB HATCH-MILLER
A Certain Ratio "Early" (Soul Jazz)
Notwist "Neon Golden" (City Slang)
[V.A.] "Can't Stop It" (Chapter)
Black Dice "Beaches and Canyons" (DFA)
Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (Nonesuch)
Marz "Love Streams" (Karaoke Kalk)
Casino Verus Japan "Whole Numbers Play the Basics" (Carpark)
Love Joys "Reggae Vibes" reissue (Wackies)
Archie Shepp "Yasmina, a Black Woman" reissue (Sunspots)
Fennesz "Field Recordings" (Touch)
Single of the Year: Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers" (DFA)
DUANE HARRIOTT
Amerie "Why Don't We Fall In Love" 12"-single (Sony)
Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers" 12"-single (DFA)
Revlon 9 "Revlon 9" (Self-released)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
Saint Etienne "Action" 12"-single (Heavenly)
Linda Lewis "Reach for the Truth" reissue (Rhino/WSM/Reprise)
[V.A.] "Disco Connection" (WSM)
Slum Village "Trinity" (Capitol)
Akfuen "Deck the House" 12"-single (Force Inc.)
Metro Area "Miura" 12"-single (Environ)
KEAN HOLTKAMP
Eliane Radigue ""Adnos 1 to 3" (Table of the Elements)
Minamo ".kgs" (360 Degree)
Mitchell Akiyama "Temporary Music" (Raster-Noton)
Michael Hurley "Blueberry Wine" reissue (Locust)
Toshiya Tsunoda "Pieces of Air" (Lucky Kitchen)
Phil Niblock "G2, 44+x2" (Moikai)
Charlemagne Palestine "Music for Big Ears" (Staalplaat)
Stina Nordenstam "This Is" (Independiente)
Music Tapes "2nd Imaginary Symphony" (Self-released)
DAN HOUGHLAND
The glow-sticks in the Paul McCartney "Back in the USA"
CD/DVD/Cassette commercial
Woodbine "Woodbine" (Domino) -skip to track 3, then it's expert
sailing
Trad, Gras Och Stenar "Djungelns Lag" reissue (1/2 Special)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ) & live at Joe's Pub on 12/27/02
Black Dice "Beaches and Canyons" (DFA)
Black Dice "Lost Valley" EP (Tigerbeat6)
Animal Collective "Hollinndagain Live" (Secretly Canadian)
The Double "CD-R" (forthcoming release)
The Occasion "CD-R" (forthcoming release)
No Neck Blues Band "Mr. a Fan" (Trademark Quality)
Vote Robot "Five Score Six Bicycle" (Catsup Plate)
MICHAEL KLAUSMAN
Devendra Banhart "Oh Me Oh My" (Young God)
Michael Hurley "Blueberry Wine" reissue (Locust)
Eliane Radigue "Geelriandre/Arthesis" (Fringes)
William Basinksi "Disintegration Loops" (Mosex)
Dando Shaft "Anthology" (RPM)
Ilitch "10 Suicides" reissue (Fractal)
Fairport Convention "Heyday" reissue (Island)
Duncan Browne "Duncan Browne" reissue (RAK/EMI)
Chris Smither "Don't Drag It On" reissue (Tomato)
23 Skidoo "Gospel Comes to New Guinea" (Ronin)
NICOLE LANG
Iron and Wine "Creek Drank the Cradle" (Sub Pop) - Favorite album
of 2002!
William Basinski "Disintegration Loops" (Mosex)
Henry Flynt "C Tune" (Locust Music)
Missy Elliot "Under Construction" (Elektra)
Sondre Lerche "Faces Down" (Astralwerks)
Joshua "Gold Cosmos" (Feather One's Nest)
Duncan Browne "Duncan Browne" reissue (RAK/EMI)
Les Rallizes Denude "Live 1977" reissue (Fun Fun Fun)
Out Hud "S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D. (Kranky)
Breeders "Title TK (4AD/Elektra)
NOAH LENNOX
Theorem THX "Experiments in Synchronicity" (Minus)
Thomas and Richard Frost "Visualize" reissue (Revola)
Donna Regina "Northern Classic" (Karaoke Kalk)
Jay-Jay Johansen "Antenna" (RCA UK)
Lawrence "Lawrence" (Ladomat)
Durutti Column "Return of the Sporadic Recordings" reissue (Kooky)
Kaito "Special Life" (Kompakt)
Coldplay "A Rush of Blood to the Head" (Capitol)
Maja Ratkje "Voice" (Rune Grammafon)
Youngsbower "Relayer" (VHF)
JOSH MADELL
Devendra Banhart "Oh Me Oh My" (Young God)
Akufen "My Way" (Force Inc.)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Notwist "Neon Golden" (City Slang)
Noonday Underground "Surface Noise" (Setanta)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
Polyphonic Spree "Beginning Stages of" (Good)
LIANE MOCCIA
Brendan Benson "Lapalco" (Star Time)
Ms. John Soda "No P. or D." (Morr)
Deerhoof "Reveille" (Kill Rock Stars)
Interpol "Turn on the Bright Lights" (Matador)
Tyondai Braxton "History That Has No Effect" (JMZ)
Bola "Fyuti" (Skam)
Revlon 9 "Revlon 9" (Self-released)
Michael Hurley "Blueberry Wine" (Locust)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
El-P "Fantastic Damage" (Def Jux)
SCOTT MOU
Michael Mayer "Immer" (Kompakt)
[V.A.] "Opensource.code" (Source)
Carsten Jost "Pink/Silver" (Sender)
M. Mayer "Love is Stronger Than Pride" (Kompakt)
Donna Regina "Northern Classic" (Karaoke Kalk)
Suntanama "The Suntanama" (Drag City)
Future/Human League "The Golden Our of the Future" reissue
(Black Melody)
Lawrence "Lawrence" (Ladomat)
Jane - NYC - "Coconuts" (Self-released)
Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist "Hollindagain Live" (Secretly
Canadian)
JENNIFER OROZCO
Michael Hurley "Blueberry Wine" reissue (Locust)
Leslie Winer "Witch" reissue (Virgin France)
Love Joys "Lovers Rock" reissue (Wackies)
Sharon Jones "Dap Dippin'" (Daptones)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
A Certain Ratio "Early" (Soul Jazz)
ESG "Step Off" (Soul Jazz)
Nagisa Ni Te "On the Love Beach" reissue (Jagjaguwar)
Breeders "Title TK" (4AD/Elektra)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer "The Musical"
JEREMY SPONDER
Ryan Adams "Demolition" (Universal)
Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (Nonesuch)
Interpol "Turn on the Bright Lights" (Matador)
Akufen "My Way" (Force Inc.)
Anti-pop Consortium "Arrhythmia" (Warp)
Paul Westerberg "Stereo/Mono" (Vagrant)
Metro Area "Metro Area" (Environ)
Coldplay "A Rush of Blood to the Head" (Capitol)
Doves "Last Broadcast" (Heavenly)
Mum "Finally We are No One" (Fat Cat)
Single of the Year: Rapture "House of Jealous Lovers" (DFA)
ROY STYLES
Destroyer "This Night" (Merge)
Richard and Thomas Frost "Visualize" reissue (Revola)
Sunshine Company "Sunshine Company" reissue (Revola)
Blades of Grass "Are Not for Smoking" reissue (Revola)
Sandy Salisbury "Falling to Pieces" reissue (Revola)
The Moon "Without Earth and the Moon" reissue (Revola)
Eternity's Children "Eternity's Children" reissue (Revola)
Polyphonic Spree "The Beginning Stages of" (Good)
Josef K "Only Fun in Town" reissue (LTM)
Mum "Finally We are No One" (Fat Cat)
Bola "Fyuti" (Skam)
[V.A.] "Blue Skied an' Clear" (Morr)
Black Dice "Lost Valley EP" (Tigerbeat6)
Clientele "Lost Weekend EP " (Acuarela)
Hrvatski "Swarm and Dither" (Planet Mu)
CHRIS VANDERLOO
Grandpaboy "Mono" (Vagrant)
Paul Westerberg "Stereo" (Vagrant)
[V.A.] "Kompakt Total 4" (Kompakt)
William Basinski "Disintegration Loops" (Mosex)
Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (Nonesuch)
Marz "Love Streams" (Karaoke Kalk)
Walkmen "Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone" (Star Time)
Donovan "Open Road" reissue (Repertoire)
PHIL WALDORF
Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" (Nonesuch)
Destroyer "This Night" (Merge)
Spoon "Kill the Moonlight" (Merge)
Fennesz "Field Recordings" (Touch)
Loscil "Submers" (Kranky)
Pavement "Slanted & Enchanted/Luxe & Reduxe" reissue (Matador)
Gary Wilson "You Think You Really Know Me" reissue (Motel)
Okkervil River "Don't Fall in Love With Everyone You See"
(Jagjaguwar)
Television Personalities "Painted Word" reissue (Fire)
[V.A.] "Madagascar: Merina Country" (Ocora)
Nikki Sudden (Various LPs reissued this year on Secretly Canadian)
i've had letters
stick to chalk
we require it
pen kneads a diplomat
pronouncing the "e"s
with a gimlet eye
balancing a plug
maneuvers her charms
into film
letters stick to chalk
malarie gets depressive
but high marks for candor
to have come
all the way here
and be addressed
cowardly
never looked straight at
"subversive switzerland"
was the new bestseller
but purple balls
was an international trend
cheap digital cameras
you swing from the hips
(i don't believe i've taken my pills
this morning
hence the visionary
interlude) a prelude
to the lines about
ancient lots
korean mums
she coughs her phonemes
to stringent beats
flights to canada
ricochet to alaska
yes, give them a population
of quarrelsome poets
Here is my first official Free Space Comix scoop! I have these 6 images of designs Antoni Gaudí created in 1908 for a hotel in New York on what became the WTC site. A panel discussing these images will be held:
Thursday, January 23, 6 pm.
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue/34th Street
There's also a website with more images, essays, etc.
easy as some pies
relate to the retaining wall
correct
spies in mogadishu
excess
this to do with your bladder
wandering
through fortress cities
books on
the force of the code
everybody said you were beautiful
but failed to mean it
purple spot
on the sawtooth
shark in the hologram
(pensive incisions)
quickly
fear upbraids
but that's before latinate
little atlas
crime festers in piazzas
go there anyway
walking genet
on a diamond leash
as if
featured codas
clans
fall on the vorpal sword
everybody said it was beautiful
beginning to write it
storm
outrageous
colors too progressive
add "cocktail"
to the end of it, soon
you have ageless debauch
this bennie goodmean toon
piercing my ear
(on hold with hip
waiting for a shortly advocate)
advances me three minutes
into dotage
with a polystyrene bathing cap
and other fall fashions right
out of "grey
gardens"
i'm being thanked now for holding
but not for the fateful edits
that "blend together your lives and mine," no
"i wire up your fingers
and chase you right out of
my bra" i think
that's natalie merchant at the other
end (hardly my advocate
but she's been known to speak up for the whole
african continent
and that's just through her pretty, multitasking press agent)
i forgot to do anything interesting on new year's
eve, for thrice in my life, except of
course, read phil rizzuto’s poetry aloud with an aristocratic, "python-esque"
lisp,
reconfigure the supreme court
to supply me with a lifetime’s cold soda, pizza, etc.
maybe a girlfriend, etc.
i've always wanted to see my face on mt. rushmore, etc.
use fewer internal rhymes, etc.
we're getting nowhere, but with you
it's ok
because "you" in this case is my favorite album
in 1981, paradise theater by styx
"tonight's the night we make listerine"
and though you're not my advocate, you sound like you really care
calender-
wise
pull men
from shoulders
and
sell
market prices
in blood
languishing
"natural
rights"
in my confusion
the paper reads to me like a fog
drifting over a plain
repellent with detail (they
say
as if masterminding a tsunami
were less savage than
dying)
my clothes cut the kenneth cole way
such that seduction
parts like
the red sea hypnotized subway crowds
one of those digital "matrix-like" moments that
makes one feel
bourgeois
(bloomberg
should tax them
too,
should tax me
for writing these poems that
aren't so difficult
to read
but put a family through grad school
with three left-wing tenure track positions
substantially filled
I'm probably silly for thinking this is interesting, but alas, someone has finally made a program that writes poems based on Google searches in formal "patterns" such as the sonnet and sestina. Of course, I plugged my name in there, and came up with this wonderful, Ashbery-rivalling pantoum...
John Reeves Dirk Rowntree Blair Seagram Spencer Selby Linda
Sunflowers. - i put a picture snapped by brian kim stefans
Bök as examples. We are - CONTEMPORARY. Bill Luoma,
Will read at Double= Happiness at 173 Mott Street in Manhattan.
Sunflowers. - i put a picture snapped by brian kim stefans
Site Arras, and reads tonight at the Kelly Writers House.
Will read at Double= Happiness at 173 Mott Street in Manhattan.
A butterfly---. drunken boat, a - Heather
Site Arras, and reads tonight at the Kelly Writers House.
BARRICADE, Elissa Rashkin, Box 3123,
A butterfly---. drunken boat, a - Heather
Helt eksplisitt i forlengelsen av Language-poesien.
BARRICADE, Elissa Rashkin, Box 3123,
Stefans, but what is - Reviews by Andrea Brady, Drew
Helt eksplisitt i forlengelsen av Language-poesien.
Kim Stefans, NYC, NY - JANUARY 5: JOAN RETALLACK
Stefans, but what is - Reviews by Andrea Brady, Drew
Osman Kristin Prevallet Lisa Robertson Leonard Schwartz
Kim Stefans, NYC, NY - JANUARY 5: JOAN RETALLACK
Myles, Alice Notley, Julie Patton, Pat Ranzoni,
Osman Kristin Prevallet Lisa Robertson Leonard Schwartz
Jennings, Winnie Nelson, Tom Orange, Ethan Paquin, Laura
Myles, Alice Notley, Julie Patton, Pat Ranzoni,
Conference Room, 3234 51 W. Warren Ave - His web site:
Jennings, Winnie Nelson, Tom Orange, Ethan Paquin, Laura
Institutionalization. Subject: BK Stefans
Conference Room, 3234 51 W. Warren Ave - His web site:
He is author of several critical essays - LA
Institutionalization. Subject: BK Stefans
By David Daniels and friends. Including selections Category:
He is author of several critical essays - LA
- com. Arras #4, Brian Kim Stefans,
By David Daniels and friends. Including selections Category:
Dexterity with which Poundstone negotiates several
- com. Arras #4, Brian Kim Stefans,
Gate, The Samuel Daniel Helman Gate, The Brian Kim Stefans Gate.
Dexterity with which Poundstone negotiates several
Dam bam: a kerning exercise J. Lehmus, Finland from The
Gate, The Samuel Daniel Helman Gate, The Brian Kim Stefans Gate.
Flash + Java Works: The Truth Interview; Object;
Dam bam: a kerning exercise J. Lehmus, Finland from The
(Sun & Moon, 1998) and Mongrelisme
Flash + Java Works: The Truth Interview; Object;
Several collections of poems, including Gulf and Angry Penquins.
(Sun & Moon, 1998) and Mongrelisme
Bök as examples. We are - CONTEMPORARY. Bill Luoma,
Several collections of poems, including Gulf and Angry Penquins.
John Reeves Dirk Rowntree Blair Seagram Spencer Selby Linda
an arrow
your teeth
gulls
magic formulas
(california)
philip glass music
edith bunker
she sad
we cope
then there is
another pink distress
in the crouton
"gone to crouton"
humming
a big city
of scars
nothing to loathe
about it, now
crawling on glass
but the feudal norms
of life
pull up, smoke
lambast government
though attentively persist
(you're
here
now
remembering
whereas
yesterday
no taxed language)
henry
kissinger (shea
stadium)
buy new york
before chile erupts
Ok, Eno's out (see below). I don't think I want my book to seem some sort of appendage to the Eno mission, but perhaps I'll use the photo inside, I'm thinking toward the end.
So now it's a toss between green and blue. I like the green better. These aren't clickable.
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like a goat to
water, or
a field to pasture
be i a moisture
blue as
puke, mellow
as coke,
sweet as listerine
in church
ruining the code,
soft and tasty as a centuries' old
leather
shoe
that's enough
we keep parking the car in greenland
claiming to be in oregon for
the first time
all the great ideas having been started
in 1922, but never
completed (except by the mormons,
the five-finger typists, the screen actors' guild, and the enviable
japanese)
jack nicholson's new film kind of sucks, don't see it
unless you see it with your sister, and it's the last time you've seen her
for several
years
which is, of course, special
do it
do
and eat your shoe
herzog, hero
to several hundred bearded nyu film school nerds
who couldn't tell a
rimbaud
from a leonardo di caprio, oh
or understood the benefits of the mineola track star model (see below), nor do
utter lack of
memory
simplicity
herbert comes out of the piano
i call my stereo
on sunday
when william carlos williams'
shoes fit his two left feet
and he thought about that problem all day
long (pound)
declining to write
for fear of getting lost in abstraction
or
pop
like the sound of
toast
or
john belushi's
egg zit (animal house)
how
wonderful the 21st century can
be,
an anorexia
becoming the formal eating habit in the
west
wing
it's so fashionable to be upset
it's difficult to miss
the mark
stand soiled in the optimism (disney)
i missed out on dancing
with jenelle last night
for fear of my shoes falling
off
a poet with foresight
optimizing his mind for disco
Hey kids... which one of these do you like better as a design for the cover of my new book? The Eno cover would be my choice were I able to secure permissions. The other one uses a photograph that a Japanese tourist took of me and two friends when I was in Korea in 1996 or so - he thought it was an autofocus camera.
Click for enlargement, and leave your vote in the comments box.
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favorite remarks
recorded in
the soup
maintaining speech
as a measure
of reality, beside which
all our poems
don't mean much
well, that was
some attitude she pulled
returning her
values to the aether
a
trailer
park
milk heads
flame each other
in
blank
verse
there, the
"formal tradition"
"american" emotions don't cling
to
well,
according to one r
silliman
in a blog entry
better left misread
than
forgotten
when dylan thomas erupts
into toads
of skin
the dionysian element
fakes several countries' ids
i guess it's
ok
i wouldn't have it
any other
way
shaboygan
was nonsense
trope
no other tomorrow
could love
like a mother could love
his meaty
wall-eyed face
laundromats
customs irregular
speech slurred
with a quarter
soapy from playing
in the half room
with children
twice his iq and half
his quotable age
vagrants of williamsburg
stumble with epileptic
charm
avoiding
old
sublimes
sun on
thumb of
scorsese's jesus
as he smokes
dust
it's ok, an italian
restaurant will still be named
after him
[Silly thing I did today as I worked on starting a new blog which y'alls will hear about shortly.]
more than this
once upon a blister
in gimme slacks
softer than a pulse
business
to rent
unconscious
of love
humming, and then
we get arrested
we count the beats
lamenting that we hear
*
scattereye O!
lungshot O!
pleasant pheasant O!
chinese student O!
in my
blooms
playing with legos
making knee socks for toads
O shylock!
O shenandoah!
O hebrew muffins!
O ghosts of herman melville's ghost!
*
a nullity avoids
false prospects
arbors of deceit
this orangina farm
lisps
hollywood prospects
cameron blowing irish
mahoneyism
as we fake cash
and day's elation
pregnant, floats a solitude
past the hokey office
Paul Chan, creator of Alternumerics and presently in Iraq with the Iraq Peace Team has been posting journal entries on his site National Philistine.
Paul may be the first artist who has travelled to a country on a mission of peace and with express purpose to create new fonts.
is ready to stamp out coffee-tables nationwide.
The idea behind the issue is to introduce to British readers three poets from the U.S. who are not so well known here, through setting the poets' own work alongside two essays, one by a reader from the U.S. and one by a reader from Britain. The U.S. readers were in each case chosen by the poet herself and are familiar with the work, so that their essays are written out of an ongoing engagement; the readers from Britain were (with one exception) not at all familiar with the work they wrote on and so produced essays that are primary engagements.
CONTENT:
Introduction by Keston Sutherland
POEMS BY LAURA ELRICK
Essays on Elrick by Taylor Brady (US) and Andrea Brady (UK)
POEMS BY HEATHER FULLER
Essays on Fuller by Kristen Gallagher (US) and Ian Patterson (UK)
POEMS BY CAROL MIRAKOVE
Essays on Mirakove by Brian Kim Stefans (US) and Keston Sutherland (UK)
+
In the U.S., QUID costs $4, postage paid. Please make checks payable to Carol Mirakove.
Elsewhere, please contact Keston Sutherland
