"But my heart cried out for you, California
California I'm coming home
Oh make me feel good rock 'n roll band
I'm your biggest fan
California, I'm coming home"
Joni Mitchell (Blue)
Planning never hurt anybody yet, as far as I know (talking on the phone with Stephanie just now.)
Going to Berkeley, July 22- August 22
Readings (including at least one by Stephanie), plays, conversations, friends, new friends, I can't wait and... I might even get to give a reading there, you never know.
"I'm going to see the folks I dig...
California, I'm coming home..."
Distribution Automatique
Saturday, July 12
On the 5th month anniversary of opening -fait accompli- my computer crashed- spinning beachballs unending. It is possible I will need a new hard drive-which is fortunately covered by Apple care. But to recover the data will be an extra $350 please (not covered). I am posting this on a rental ibook, another $175. O, please forgive my complaining peeps, but I am a little freaked out. I have to whine to somebody because Toni is whining to me and has all the computer skills!
Meanwhile, I didn't know until 5 minutes ago that my good friend David Hess had posted my letter to him about his recent comments about my good friend Jim Berhle. Thanks, David and thanks, Jim.
Now Toni, after slaving all morning to get us back on line while I was taking a nap would like me to join her in Central Park on this beautiful day for a cup of tea. I'd like to say more to you peeps, or even do a spot of time travel today, but she missed out on a trip to Coney Island because the computer is in the shop and I am all thumbs when it comes to all things geek (not really, I'm just lazy, but don't tell Toni).
See you later! (I can't wait to read your blogs!)
Meanwhile, I didn't know until 5 minutes ago that my good friend David Hess had posted my letter to him about his recent comments about my good friend Jim Berhle. Thanks, David and thanks, Jim.
Now Toni, after slaving all morning to get us back on line while I was taking a nap would like me to join her in Central Park on this beautiful day for a cup of tea. I'd like to say more to you peeps, or even do a spot of time travel today, but she missed out on a trip to Coney Island because the computer is in the shop and I am all thumbs when it comes to all things geek (not really, I'm just lazy, but don't tell Toni).
See you later! (I can't wait to read your blogs!)
Friday, July 11
Li Bloom (Abolone) quoted Joni Mitchell's *Blue* (1971) on July 3. Symphonic feelings listening to "The Last Time I Saw Richard." triggered particularly by its intensely lyrical piano introduction. Played by Joni, of course, heard her perform it at Avery Hall, Lincoln Center in the middle seventies.
*
5/24/76
It wasn't only my notebook that was
smaller it was your voice that got
inside my head. You explained it in
many breaths. And no matter how complicated,
how many languages were being spoken
here at once, I would try to make
myself understood [by you] by adding
something remembered from yours. Could
be the sum total of your present thoughts
added to this. Something about intelligence
being wide. Some people are uptight about
this. I wonder why. I still have the feeling
of not having learned anything. Maybe
my pauses are too long or my terminology's
hesitant...maybe I should add three
dots. I know I was getting to something.
Dimly remember something being said very
lightly in the laundry room or laughs
about our forgotten objects R doesn't
want to throw away. The you-problem.
There's also plenty of room for the
hieroglyphs and intricate speculations.
Inevitably I will share in all your
catastrophes: your births, your intense
disappointments- there would be many
but how will they be timed in relation to
my silences, my needs, my
excited anticipation of your
perfectly timed movement
towards me, or away from me- two
sets of hands, two mouths just about to
speak excitedly of the same thing at the
same time, and/ or then wanting to
touch.
Maybe I was one of the people you did
not think of tonight. The tones didn't fit.
I didn't want to go out of the house. And that
is the whole story for tonight. There will
always be a long pause, always that moment
when you go- uh, now what with an anxious,
sinking feeling. The next breath will have
to be deeper, the next moment contains more.
If it's different, and sometimes it is
difficult, that single, best intensest
moment will not be enough to forestall
the next impossible period of waiting.
I know how pleased you are that I
wanted to work so hard at finding a
way to let it be known I mentioned
your name, that I thought of you in
particular. I am thinking about whether
this will be placed before, during or
after the interview, I mean, before
druring or after the conversation, sort of as
an addendum, a parting
comment- or maybe as... as something
I casually mention before we
get down to real talk. I
finally found a way to mention dull
orange brown but I'm not sure she'll
remember that. I also try to find a
way into the labyrinth to find even
more dangerous ways of getting lost.
I starve, I feel [like a black tarantula]
the ensemble image was really mine,
they are *my* prime numbers, your
words are powerful because they don't exist
yet [Parmigianino I am thinking of now
but that reference is too specific-]
What do I make of my hesitations? How
long to make the jumps? You seem to
react to them as if they were decisions.
No, you react so strongly it is a change of
rhythm for me.
You hated the song so I felt for an
object, a shoe. A list of things to do.
A film, a diary, photographs. A
diagram to cover the bare walls.
Empty down there. Not so funny.
I don't remember them that well. Full
of shit about something specific. Vadim's
wives, the soldier reciting in *Weekend*,
the doctor now the butcher cracking an
egg in her ass. Somewhere at the
deepest part of that dream I would be
attracted to his wife, the wives of Windsor.
Must be funny. Deneuve, she's like Daneuve,
in a way, not sarcastic like her in a Bunuel film,
and not really able to vanish
as gradually as she thinks. Dressed like a
New Yorker she makes mannikins, could
be fifty New Yorkers.
50 New Yorkers on vacation.
Sex is unclear. Not forthcoming.
Not coming. You get it around but
nothing's clear. Vexed New Yorkiers. Color-
go to the store and choose.
All in front of a window: something
left out.
Acting: 12 moments of ambiguity,
one after the other, quickly, not
so important to understand. I
pass the exam and wait for the grade.
It gets mixed up. It's disorganized,
disorganizing. You know that one
happened. That time we had together.
What's better than that? Oh, which
one was happening. A song
about that: I remember nothing,
I remember nothing.
He passed the exam. Disorganized.
The song, arbitrary, the merchant,
Ireland. Carcasses, caucasions,
skeleton, choice.
Image hides meaning
and there was nothing left
may hope to be both laughter
your mind unknown in this room
She immediately stripped and wanted
to make love...broken bottles..I
had no choice. I'm still
undressing. *Sleeping in words.*
Sentences, orgasms. Transmission of
messages, permutations of conceived
sentences, permutations of actuality.
Choice, not chance, reminded you to
bring whatever it was along or lose it.
No matter
how absent minded you get, even falling
asleep you will see the incommensurate
stars fading into a light blue
morning. Even that is distinguishable
but partly indistinguishable from
what I was trying to say. A
feeling of hands on the back
of my neck. Someone said he
walked around like he had
eyes in the back of his head. Close
up the stars are violent. Far away
they are cold. Time to go to the
concert. Clowns. Clarinets. It gets
hot and still and stuffy there. I'm
high on mushrooms, not hungry. Where
to move?
[It gets funneled down] to a
series of stills, one always of rain,
the other of what really happened
while we were listening to the
music last night.Set sail, they are
ready now (still noticing).
It's the nineteen-seventies and
there's no image for that. An
unintensional still- the sunrise,
bets, tracks, beach, food.
She stretches, limps a few
steps, stretches again, yawns,
thinks about a film and slowly runs
it backwards in her head.She opens
the refrigerator to look for something to
eat.
The continuing rhythm changes
and is interchangeable with the meaning of
any word I choose to represent my
wmoltion at just that moment.
The suspense is boring,
the event means nothing. Only the
accidents are interesting (flat,
unintensional.) The same
elusive decisions- a path of sparrows
spinning idly, wildly.
*
5/24/76
It wasn't only my notebook that was
smaller it was your voice that got
inside my head. You explained it in
many breaths. And no matter how complicated,
how many languages were being spoken
here at once, I would try to make
myself understood [by you] by adding
something remembered from yours. Could
be the sum total of your present thoughts
added to this. Something about intelligence
being wide. Some people are uptight about
this. I wonder why. I still have the feeling
of not having learned anything. Maybe
my pauses are too long or my terminology's
hesitant...maybe I should add three
dots. I know I was getting to something.
Dimly remember something being said very
lightly in the laundry room or laughs
about our forgotten objects R doesn't
want to throw away. The you-problem.
There's also plenty of room for the
hieroglyphs and intricate speculations.
Inevitably I will share in all your
catastrophes: your births, your intense
disappointments- there would be many
but how will they be timed in relation to
my silences, my needs, my
excited anticipation of your
perfectly timed movement
towards me, or away from me- two
sets of hands, two mouths just about to
speak excitedly of the same thing at the
same time, and/ or then wanting to
touch.
Maybe I was one of the people you did
not think of tonight. The tones didn't fit.
I didn't want to go out of the house. And that
is the whole story for tonight. There will
always be a long pause, always that moment
when you go- uh, now what with an anxious,
sinking feeling. The next breath will have
to be deeper, the next moment contains more.
If it's different, and sometimes it is
difficult, that single, best intensest
moment will not be enough to forestall
the next impossible period of waiting.
I know how pleased you are that I
wanted to work so hard at finding a
way to let it be known I mentioned
your name, that I thought of you in
particular. I am thinking about whether
this will be placed before, during or
after the interview, I mean, before
druring or after the conversation, sort of as
an addendum, a parting
comment- or maybe as... as something
I casually mention before we
get down to real talk. I
finally found a way to mention dull
orange brown but I'm not sure she'll
remember that. I also try to find a
way into the labyrinth to find even
more dangerous ways of getting lost.
I starve, I feel [like a black tarantula]
the ensemble image was really mine,
they are *my* prime numbers, your
words are powerful because they don't exist
yet [Parmigianino I am thinking of now
but that reference is too specific-]
What do I make of my hesitations? How
long to make the jumps? You seem to
react to them as if they were decisions.
No, you react so strongly it is a change of
rhythm for me.
You hated the song so I felt for an
object, a shoe. A list of things to do.
A film, a diary, photographs. A
diagram to cover the bare walls.
Empty down there. Not so funny.
I don't remember them that well. Full
of shit about something specific. Vadim's
wives, the soldier reciting in *Weekend*,
the doctor now the butcher cracking an
egg in her ass. Somewhere at the
deepest part of that dream I would be
attracted to his wife, the wives of Windsor.
Must be funny. Deneuve, she's like Daneuve,
in a way, not sarcastic like her in a Bunuel film,
and not really able to vanish
as gradually as she thinks. Dressed like a
New Yorker she makes mannikins, could
be fifty New Yorkers.
50 New Yorkers on vacation.
Sex is unclear. Not forthcoming.
Not coming. You get it around but
nothing's clear. Vexed New Yorkiers. Color-
go to the store and choose.
All in front of a window: something
left out.
Acting: 12 moments of ambiguity,
one after the other, quickly, not
so important to understand. I
pass the exam and wait for the grade.
It gets mixed up. It's disorganized,
disorganizing. You know that one
happened. That time we had together.
What's better than that? Oh, which
one was happening. A song
about that: I remember nothing,
I remember nothing.
He passed the exam. Disorganized.
The song, arbitrary, the merchant,
Ireland. Carcasses, caucasions,
skeleton, choice.
Image hides meaning
and there was nothing left
may hope to be both laughter
your mind unknown in this room
She immediately stripped and wanted
to make love...broken bottles..I
had no choice. I'm still
undressing. *Sleeping in words.*
Sentences, orgasms. Transmission of
messages, permutations of conceived
sentences, permutations of actuality.
Choice, not chance, reminded you to
bring whatever it was along or lose it.
No matter
how absent minded you get, even falling
asleep you will see the incommensurate
stars fading into a light blue
morning. Even that is distinguishable
but partly indistinguishable from
what I was trying to say. A
feeling of hands on the back
of my neck. Someone said he
walked around like he had
eyes in the back of his head. Close
up the stars are violent. Far away
they are cold. Time to go to the
concert. Clowns. Clarinets. It gets
hot and still and stuffy there. I'm
high on mushrooms, not hungry. Where
to move?
[It gets funneled down] to a
series of stills, one always of rain,
the other of what really happened
while we were listening to the
music last night.Set sail, they are
ready now (still noticing).
It's the nineteen-seventies and
there's no image for that. An
unintensional still- the sunrise,
bets, tracks, beach, food.
She stretches, limps a few
steps, stretches again, yawns,
thinks about a film and slowly runs
it backwards in her head.She opens
the refrigerator to look for something to
eat.
The continuing rhythm changes
and is interchangeable with the meaning of
any word I choose to represent my
wmoltion at just that moment.
The suspense is boring,
the event means nothing. Only the
accidents are interesting (flat,
unintensional.) The same
elusive decisions- a path of sparrows
spinning idly, wildly.
Thursday, July 10
5/27/87
An Indian and a man in a suit
of armor are eventually joined by
their mates in a lively practical
and philosophical discussion of the effect of
circumstances on our lives- how time seems
to change things- and perhaps ways that it
doesn't. (I'm now thinking of Norman's piece
at the Ear Inn which reminded me of
Charles' t.v. plots in Islets/Irritations.)
*
Poem: In Quest of The Obvious
What we want in a poem is a sense
of progression, especially an opening out.
This is what was so foregrounded
in Rilke's poems.
How much is poetry and art dependent
on an inflation of youthful passion?
(It occurs to me also that *war* is dependent on the same thing.) The passion
of the older years often has more
to do with acquisition than passion.
This creates a generation gap,
an irony between the two.
Foreground the experience of having, than the having of experience.
It's not a question of not having
distinctions between literary
forms, it's a question of using them
variously- a tendency which often
combines types of things in novel
ways. This tendency, now and then
equated with surrealism
tends to bring about a yearning
for some opposite "pure type." (Collage
vs. landscape painting or portraiture).
Join a type and get a calling card,
a structure, perhaps even an
automatic billing system!
The urge to get rid of a thought,
is great- not because it wasn't
good enough. Quite the contrary.
Also, not because of the principle of
"too much of a good thing kills it."
No, we must get rid of it, because
in order to really know its attraction
for us, we must test it by quickly
turning our minds to other things
(happily, this very activity helps to keep
the whole theatre in viable material
condition). Read a book, then sweep
the floor. Thanks, Norman.
Don't be afraid to give away the
reddest rose.
And then the
teacher returns to the library...
5/27/87
Two simultaneous narratives: one on television-
that the two actually are "following"-
(they actually talk about it) and "we"
watch both- Eventually the two switch
places- (This is a variation of Woody
Allen's story).
You don't "understand" art- you
smell it- like a fragrance- and then
it "takes its effect."
5/28/87
The language distorts actuality
in its description. We cannot "have"
knowledge, the way we can "have" a
book; we do not "have" an idea, we
glimpse an idea. Knowledge- no ledge.
We can- 1) Hear one note, one
phrase, one passage.
2) Follow out an entire melody
3) Develop variations
4) It's over
But I "know" how to walk, speak,
read. Don't I "have" this knowledge?
Maybe- knowledge converted into----memory.
So we can "memorize" knowledge- learn
it.
Above passages are questionable. I may
have been getting at something else.
5/31/87
recombinative (brief retreat to ejection)
electrical (reading out of three cities)
transformation (tries not to form a nation)
shifts (she if it is)
signal (
6/2/87
I see that the above writing is very much
like ANON, for some reason the one piece
I didn't send to Leland Hickman. ANON-
I wanted to title the book this!
L Wittgentstein, Blue and Brown Books, p 19
"If on the other hand you wish to give a
definition of wishing, i.e., to draw a sharp
boundary, then you are free to draw it
as you like, and this boundary will never
entirely. coincide with the actual usage,
as this usage has no sharp boundary."
I just understood something about
subjectivity. In the above passage
W talks about the "actual" usage.
Here is a clear example of the
philosopher equating "the actual"
with the "social actual." But
the "actual" when looked at in
word usage, what could that be?
Somebody's idea of actuality, no doubt,
because in human terms, *numbers
have no meaning*, in human terms
actuality is literally an all
or nothing proposition. I
don't mean this in the democratic
sense. If *one person* can give "wishing"
a different meaning- and articulate
this to the others- then "wishing" will
change in meaning. Philosophers of
this type have almost no faith in
the possibility of communicating. As a
result, words appear to have only
one means- in the social sense. So
Wittgenstein was right when he said
the philosopher's job was to "fight this."
I think my idea of surveillance
is as good a starting point in understanding
"social systems" as any other I can
think of. The bigger the piece of the social
pie you get, the wider need be your
area of surveillance. I take it that this
is a learned skill, passed on from
patron to patron. This is not to be
reversed by "revolution." It's a question
of attention (!) how people literally
"watch" each other.
6/7/87 Writing and Being
As soon as there are words there is hope.
This is the single cause of all the years of waiting,
And the love of silence. In silence, peace,
In words the confusion implicit in the blur,
Which is speeded, not abetted by time, and the others,
This swelling multitude, a great roar endlessly echoing
And yet, this easy lapse of stopping and starting
6/7/87
Poem: Don't You See?
Poem: Rules of Economy
Narrative advantage is social
advantage. The freedom of
the individual is to apppeal to the
freedom of the individual. Once this
chain began it has never ended-
in fact, the links grow *wider* than
our minds can imagine.To lend
momentum to revolution we must
keep before us always the model
of individual insurrection- non-
violent resistance, as advanced by
Ghandi and Martin Luther King.
In order to be a leader one must
combine laughter and kindness with clearness
of purpose (keep noticing this point in
Rasula).
[Insight: truly, visualizable, imaginable schedule]
The book: imagine it as a 700 page
book and write it as a 300 page book.
Alchemy (Breton's last series of
lectures). The alchemy of emotions.
page 1
1. t... Example---correct
-
-
-
t1
2.t1
-
-
-
3. y
-
-
-
y1
Where t is tears and y is laughter and
t1 is reflection and y1 is anger
6/10/87
Death is not from Satan- it is God's
malicious laughter. (Einstein: God is
not malicious- but subtle).
The poet's dream is of Paris.
Paris' dream is of the poet.
"Carefully saved the few little things."
Breton
It's simply the way things point that
gives them the edge.
Jackson Mac Low (1987) Pessimism weights
the outcome.
6/13/87
I keep thinking of the phrase ("Signs of
the particularities")
Response to Barrett's lecture:
As to Barretti's social 1 and social 2
"Social1 is like, 'all dressed up and
nowhere to go"
Social2 "Tongue tied at the nudist party."
.....
Time produces detritus. In human
terms it is called "aging" then
death. But during life, time also
constantly produces detritus- of
things, of thoughts, of feelings, of symbols.
The garbage men- these proud and loud surveyors
of the daily waste- never let me forget it.
And then one day- as if to demand that
I never forget them- and this-
knocked down the tree in front of my
house. "Can't you see the exchange
you've made- poor fool of a poet!"
And the the poet-songster of the forgotten
and abandoned- armed with her found
prizes- places them, with a smile-
even a small tear, perhaps- at the
altar of the gods ( a humble garbage can)
( )
( )
Later:
The cutting edge of narrative must turn
to blood. Finally, at the boundary
of outer and inner, the rage finds its
way to the surface of the skin, the
edge of a world (a universe!) A step
further is a step backward, is a
falling of time into book-time, word-time
story-time. But a good detective will always
be out watching the details. [Well,
if he was going to be a reader, reverent,
in revery, a boy scouting out the
relevant details, a paranoiac critic
lunging at every word. Ink, ink, blood,
blood- The read and the
book??]
The writer writes readings.
Hitler - murderer of 7 million effigies of
his own unborn children.
The rare pure oedipal type.
Racism is the monster in our midst.
Every writing a reading-machine
A system of writing a system of
making reading-machines.
An Indian and a man in a suit
of armor are eventually joined by
their mates in a lively practical
and philosophical discussion of the effect of
circumstances on our lives- how time seems
to change things- and perhaps ways that it
doesn't. (I'm now thinking of Norman's piece
at the Ear Inn which reminded me of
Charles' t.v. plots in Islets/Irritations.)
*
Poem: In Quest of The Obvious
What we want in a poem is a sense
of progression, especially an opening out.
This is what was so foregrounded
in Rilke's poems.
How much is poetry and art dependent
on an inflation of youthful passion?
(It occurs to me also that *war* is dependent on the same thing.) The passion
of the older years often has more
to do with acquisition than passion.
This creates a generation gap,
an irony between the two.
Foreground the experience of having, than the having of experience.
It's not a question of not having
distinctions between literary
forms, it's a question of using them
variously- a tendency which often
combines types of things in novel
ways. This tendency, now and then
equated with surrealism
tends to bring about a yearning
for some opposite "pure type." (Collage
vs. landscape painting or portraiture).
Join a type and get a calling card,
a structure, perhaps even an
automatic billing system!
The urge to get rid of a thought,
is great- not because it wasn't
good enough. Quite the contrary.
Also, not because of the principle of
"too much of a good thing kills it."
No, we must get rid of it, because
in order to really know its attraction
for us, we must test it by quickly
turning our minds to other things
(happily, this very activity helps to keep
the whole theatre in viable material
condition). Read a book, then sweep
the floor. Thanks, Norman.
Don't be afraid to give away the
reddest rose.
And then the
teacher returns to the library...
5/27/87
Two simultaneous narratives: one on television-
that the two actually are "following"-
(they actually talk about it) and "we"
watch both- Eventually the two switch
places- (This is a variation of Woody
Allen's story).
You don't "understand" art- you
smell it- like a fragrance- and then
it "takes its effect."
5/28/87
The language distorts actuality
in its description. We cannot "have"
knowledge, the way we can "have" a
book; we do not "have" an idea, we
glimpse an idea. Knowledge- no ledge.
We can- 1) Hear one note, one
phrase, one passage.
2) Follow out an entire melody
3) Develop variations
4) It's over
But I "know" how to walk, speak,
read. Don't I "have" this knowledge?
Maybe- knowledge converted into----memory.
So we can "memorize" knowledge- learn
it.
Above passages are questionable. I may
have been getting at something else.
5/31/87
recombinative (brief retreat to ejection)
electrical (reading out of three cities)
transformation (tries not to form a nation)
shifts (she if it is)
signal (
6/2/87
I see that the above writing is very much
like ANON, for some reason the one piece
I didn't send to Leland Hickman. ANON-
I wanted to title the book this!
L Wittgentstein, Blue and Brown Books, p 19
"If on the other hand you wish to give a
definition of wishing, i.e., to draw a sharp
boundary, then you are free to draw it
as you like, and this boundary will never
entirely. coincide with the actual usage,
as this usage has no sharp boundary."
I just understood something about
subjectivity. In the above passage
W talks about the "actual" usage.
Here is a clear example of the
philosopher equating "the actual"
with the "social actual." But
the "actual" when looked at in
word usage, what could that be?
Somebody's idea of actuality, no doubt,
because in human terms, *numbers
have no meaning*, in human terms
actuality is literally an all
or nothing proposition. I
don't mean this in the democratic
sense. If *one person* can give "wishing"
a different meaning- and articulate
this to the others- then "wishing" will
change in meaning. Philosophers of
this type have almost no faith in
the possibility of communicating. As a
result, words appear to have only
one means- in the social sense. So
Wittgenstein was right when he said
the philosopher's job was to "fight this."
I think my idea of surveillance
is as good a starting point in understanding
"social systems" as any other I can
think of. The bigger the piece of the social
pie you get, the wider need be your
area of surveillance. I take it that this
is a learned skill, passed on from
patron to patron. This is not to be
reversed by "revolution." It's a question
of attention (!) how people literally
"watch" each other.
6/7/87 Writing and Being
As soon as there are words there is hope.
This is the single cause of all the years of waiting,
And the love of silence. In silence, peace,
In words the confusion implicit in the blur,
Which is speeded, not abetted by time, and the others,
This swelling multitude, a great roar endlessly echoing
And yet, this easy lapse of stopping and starting
6/7/87
Poem: Don't You See?
Poem: Rules of Economy
Narrative advantage is social
advantage. The freedom of
the individual is to apppeal to the
freedom of the individual. Once this
chain began it has never ended-
in fact, the links grow *wider* than
our minds can imagine.To lend
momentum to revolution we must
keep before us always the model
of individual insurrection- non-
violent resistance, as advanced by
Ghandi and Martin Luther King.
In order to be a leader one must
combine laughter and kindness with clearness
of purpose (keep noticing this point in
Rasula).
[Insight: truly, visualizable, imaginable schedule]
The book: imagine it as a 700 page
book and write it as a 300 page book.
Alchemy (Breton's last series of
lectures). The alchemy of emotions.
page 1
1. t... Example---correct
-
-
-
t1
2.t1
-
-
-
3. y
-
-
-
y1
Where t is tears and y is laughter and
t1 is reflection and y1 is anger
6/10/87
Death is not from Satan- it is God's
malicious laughter. (Einstein: God is
not malicious- but subtle).
The poet's dream is of Paris.
Paris' dream is of the poet.
"Carefully saved the few little things."
Breton
It's simply the way things point that
gives them the edge.
Jackson Mac Low (1987) Pessimism weights
the outcome.
6/13/87
I keep thinking of the phrase ("Signs of
the particularities")
Response to Barrett's lecture:
As to Barretti's social 1 and social 2
"Social1 is like, 'all dressed up and
nowhere to go"
Social2 "Tongue tied at the nudist party."
.....
Time produces detritus. In human
terms it is called "aging" then
death. But during life, time also
constantly produces detritus- of
things, of thoughts, of feelings, of symbols.
The garbage men- these proud and loud surveyors
of the daily waste- never let me forget it.
And then one day- as if to demand that
I never forget them- and this-
knocked down the tree in front of my
house. "Can't you see the exchange
you've made- poor fool of a poet!"
And the the poet-songster of the forgotten
and abandoned- armed with her found
prizes- places them, with a smile-
even a small tear, perhaps- at the
altar of the gods ( a humble garbage can)
( )
( )
Later:
The cutting edge of narrative must turn
to blood. Finally, at the boundary
of outer and inner, the rage finds its
way to the surface of the skin, the
edge of a world (a universe!) A step
further is a step backward, is a
falling of time into book-time, word-time
story-time. But a good detective will always
be out watching the details. [Well,
if he was going to be a reader, reverent,
in revery, a boy scouting out the
relevant details, a paranoiac critic
lunging at every word. Ink, ink, blood,
blood- The read and the
book??]
The writer writes readings.
Hitler - murderer of 7 million effigies of
his own unborn children.
The rare pure oedipal type.
Racism is the monster in our midst.
Every writing a reading-machine
A system of writing a system of
making reading-machines.
Wednesday, July 9
Speaking of beautiful poems, remember this one by Stephanie Young? It was published on *Well Nourished Moon* on Thursday, June 12, 2003:
"POEM TITLED WITH LINE FROM DAVID HESS (That overdetermines things. I wanted to respond somehow to the social in poetry, O'Hara, Andrews, Snopes discussion. What happened, you'll see below. What happened? Even the poet is not sure. I keep thinking about Spicer - am I getting somewhere when the poem begins to say the opposite of what I mean or want the poem to mean?)
ANOTHER PICTURE OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS AS THEY APPEAR TO US NOW
I saunter out of bed:
substitution of an alphabet for the more confusing
moral claim, these thoughts
sent from one living person to another
or those more recently dead. HELLO
I AM HERE for that purpose.
Disturbance of sleep rhythms, overhead
I am bursting into flame.
Was it a planet we sought to increase
in friendliness and symphonic connection
or just a star
engaged in backbends from the standing position?
WHOM is orbiting WHOM
I said to myself
and struck out in that direction.
Straight for the definable axis.
Did the stars call out faintly, "Fuck you?"
Were their pants so tight
they found it difficult to move? What, in short,
caused them to explode...was that your face
raining or your face in the rain
through everybody's favorite distortion glass--
pane after pane but I honestly knew
it was you in a fog of meaning. Only
the slightest of embarrassment
when you leaned close
to brush star flakes from my lapel.
And may I have this opportunity?
To more coyly move
within the doors "of your heart," & go
unnoticed there
while the rest of the army burst in.
We are becoming visible
when the door swings shut
not as if hidden but toys
lost in a rhetoric of backdrops
icon of a bed
children of the world
running from another blazing mess...it is later now
& you suddenly become very sleepy.
We say don't you dare lay down....not in the snow...
that's close enough
even the government is played off one another
while we dine on these abundant shreds of tenderness.
Willfully simple, have pity on 8,000 connections
in the back of our head or represented by the billboard
and those who draw arrows
& those who draw them in
1:1, some
supernova"
posted by Stephanie 11:51 AM
"POEM TITLED WITH LINE FROM DAVID HESS (That overdetermines things. I wanted to respond somehow to the social in poetry, O'Hara, Andrews, Snopes discussion. What happened, you'll see below. What happened? Even the poet is not sure. I keep thinking about Spicer - am I getting somewhere when the poem begins to say the opposite of what I mean or want the poem to mean?)
ANOTHER PICTURE OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS AS THEY APPEAR TO US NOW
I saunter out of bed:
substitution of an alphabet for the more confusing
moral claim, these thoughts
sent from one living person to another
or those more recently dead. HELLO
I AM HERE for that purpose.
Disturbance of sleep rhythms, overhead
I am bursting into flame.
Was it a planet we sought to increase
in friendliness and symphonic connection
or just a star
engaged in backbends from the standing position?
WHOM is orbiting WHOM
I said to myself
and struck out in that direction.
Straight for the definable axis.
Did the stars call out faintly, "Fuck you?"
Were their pants so tight
they found it difficult to move? What, in short,
caused them to explode...was that your face
raining or your face in the rain
through everybody's favorite distortion glass--
pane after pane but I honestly knew
it was you in a fog of meaning. Only
the slightest of embarrassment
when you leaned close
to brush star flakes from my lapel.
And may I have this opportunity?
To more coyly move
within the doors "of your heart," & go
unnoticed there
while the rest of the army burst in.
We are becoming visible
when the door swings shut
not as if hidden but toys
lost in a rhetoric of backdrops
icon of a bed
children of the world
running from another blazing mess...it is later now
& you suddenly become very sleepy.
We say don't you dare lay down....not in the snow...
that's close enough
even the government is played off one another
while we dine on these abundant shreds of tenderness.
Willfully simple, have pity on 8,000 connections
in the back of our head or represented by the billboard
and those who draw arrows
& those who draw them in
1:1, some
supernova"
posted by Stephanie 11:51 AM
Kyle Schlesinger, of Cuneiform Press, has just informed me that my chapbook "The Boundary of Theory" is being listed on their gorgeous new Home Page at Cuneiform Press
In a rare serious moment Jim Berhle takes his fingers out of our ribs and favors us with a poem from "(Purple) Notebook of The Lake"
Take a sip and dig this from CorpsePoetics....Eileen Tabios "Poetry, to the extent I can articulate it this evening, is a Life, not a collection of bound pages. Oh, Poetry's Dark Angels -- please don't let a mere book ruin a life that, once, illumined the world with the radiance of Grace."
circa 1980
poetry=subtractions
unless
table
left out the most familiar
thing of all- where you put the thought.
Somewhere else, maybe later- where I put
the thought no longer called "it." For this
I use multiple languages, a variety of
arbitrary, freely related or unrelated
instances.
Handwriting is one instance of what
may be photostated. Later I'll apply
an approximate map. (This may be a hardship
on what seems to be simultaneous).
How to note the spacing of the calls...
is an amalgam of a garden of choices.
(That's what they make, bells, to communicate
their intentions.) What may honestly suit
is "wait." Only that word is copied
in the next last version.
But this
is a cut
version, the last
book, meaning the one before
this one. "Last" is next
to: "your heart's in the right
place." A motorcycle accident on
the way, I lean and look out the window.
Anxiety, with image. Transparency
into the feeling of a story all
afternoon. Foggy Thanksgiving. Poets
sign pages with words. A signed page.
Alphabet of names. Alpha bet. 2,3.
Alphaville. Still, or even if there isn't
my name, stay home, stay put. The
shamans, the advertising men, the ones with
titles are all hanging around outside,
so I'll stay in, I'll stay put.
Meanwhile, driving, "You got there,
you ought to be real happy."
"Comin' from left field."
I signed that part
"for" a poet.
Anyway,
though I'm angry,
I stayed up all
night during the early
part of the evening. Also,
I'll rest.
"You stay."
"No, you stay."
"You're" over here, on the left. I'm holding the
camera. (Turn on the tape).
Find the clue or close the case. I don't
want to close the case. So...
So, first I'll note
the details.This is
how an ordinary day is
worked through. Words, like
words go up and down the way
your moods go - could be more steady,
then: rational. Full stop. But the boxcar
(you let it stay, drifting along, they
wouldn't let me talk like this: ruins,
dreamy). It can't always be that way:
so, how do you review, reinvent all the
words, a whole new language? As angry
as we are, we all go back to her- the church
on the ocean to the right. But the ground is
close up too, sooner or later you have to
breathe, you ventilate, you have to invent
your own. That's how you bring art
back into it, how "one" does
one detail: I don't know,
but it's a socket,
a negative image,
a female,
phallic symbol
I know a page is a picture,
something to repeat, to continue
what came before is its
opposite. You get there kind, in
thought or language. No blueprint
for a picture of her- the
remainder is an origin- I
don't mean only this one
beneath my hand-
Letters are sexy-also
sexual.That is, if I
recreate your presence in this,
an accumulation of
abandoned object-cathexes.
Words smile.
She visits a
man she deosn't
recognize, a bourgeois artist.
poetry=subtractions
unless
table
left out the most familiar
thing of all- where you put the thought.
Somewhere else, maybe later- where I put
the thought no longer called "it." For this
I use multiple languages, a variety of
arbitrary, freely related or unrelated
instances.
Handwriting is one instance of what
may be photostated. Later I'll apply
an approximate map. (This may be a hardship
on what seems to be simultaneous).
How to note the spacing of the calls...
is an amalgam of a garden of choices.
(That's what they make, bells, to communicate
their intentions.) What may honestly suit
is "wait." Only that word is copied
in the next last version.
But this
is a cut
version, the last
book, meaning the one before
this one. "Last" is next
to: "your heart's in the right
place." A motorcycle accident on
the way, I lean and look out the window.
Anxiety, with image. Transparency
into the feeling of a story all
afternoon. Foggy Thanksgiving. Poets
sign pages with words. A signed page.
Alphabet of names. Alpha bet. 2,3.
Alphaville. Still, or even if there isn't
my name, stay home, stay put. The
shamans, the advertising men, the ones with
titles are all hanging around outside,
so I'll stay in, I'll stay put.
Meanwhile, driving, "You got there,
you ought to be real happy."
"Comin' from left field."
I signed that part
"for" a poet.
Anyway,
though I'm angry,
I stayed up all
night during the early
part of the evening. Also,
I'll rest.
"You stay."
"No, you stay."
"You're" over here, on the left. I'm holding the
camera. (Turn on the tape).
Find the clue or close the case. I don't
want to close the case. So...
So, first I'll note
the details.This is
how an ordinary day is
worked through. Words, like
words go up and down the way
your moods go - could be more steady,
then: rational. Full stop. But the boxcar
(you let it stay, drifting along, they
wouldn't let me talk like this: ruins,
dreamy). It can't always be that way:
so, how do you review, reinvent all the
words, a whole new language? As angry
as we are, we all go back to her- the church
on the ocean to the right. But the ground is
close up too, sooner or later you have to
breathe, you ventilate, you have to invent
your own. That's how you bring art
back into it, how "one" does
one detail: I don't know,
but it's a socket,
a negative image,
a female,
phallic symbol
I know a page is a picture,
something to repeat, to continue
what came before is its
opposite. You get there kind, in
thought or language. No blueprint
for a picture of her- the
remainder is an origin- I
don't mean only this one
beneath my hand-
Letters are sexy-also
sexual.That is, if I
recreate your presence in this,
an accumulation of
abandoned object-cathexes.
Words smile.
She visits a
man she deosn't
recognize, a bourgeois artist.
9/25/85
"I need my subject matter. I need to
hold onto it joyfully and even more
so if I am anxious..."
9/27/85 - 11:00 am
Gloria (after *A Wave*, poem by John Ashbery)
With very few experiences do we stop on a dime.
For the most part we live in many time zones at once.
It's very reasonable that the obvious should slip by
Just when we are dumbstruck by the evidence.
And, although this occasion and that occurance mark the precise moment of its consummation
All the surrounding experiences take on a heightened, lucid intensity.
This is how these events connect and the wall surrounding them
Is vague (staring at the postcard, trying
to remember where I had seen it).
The desire to speak is partly a desire
To remark on what is, to elevate
Some common occcurance- or even relatively rare occurance-
to the level of myth. Only of course,
At this moment appearances would say that the future looks good
For this reality to come into being
So we bet on it. By now a surrounding
Crystalline structure has enveloped the
Mall. "Let's capitalize on this," and
Then the best of them shake their heads.
"It wasn't clear." And yet, the actual amount
Of light *and* shade increased, whipping
Past current consciousness at tremendous speed.
So, you need not really worry about feeling that something is toppling
Until well after your attention has been drawn to some
Area of safety and you're burning to get there.
Otherwise,why not continue on your present course,
Thinking all the while that you have your very own
Way of doing things anyway. There
*are* real dangers, but these must be
Understood, like everything else, over time.
With practice, the crisis is well rehearsed
Long before it has come, and you have
Been concentrating on mastering your personal blend
Of easy-going humor and ready, accurate information.
"I need my subject matter. I need to
hold onto it joyfully and even more
so if I am anxious..."
9/27/85 - 11:00 am
Gloria (after *A Wave*, poem by John Ashbery)
With very few experiences do we stop on a dime.
For the most part we live in many time zones at once.
It's very reasonable that the obvious should slip by
Just when we are dumbstruck by the evidence.
And, although this occasion and that occurance mark the precise moment of its consummation
All the surrounding experiences take on a heightened, lucid intensity.
This is how these events connect and the wall surrounding them
Is vague (staring at the postcard, trying
to remember where I had seen it).
The desire to speak is partly a desire
To remark on what is, to elevate
Some common occcurance- or even relatively rare occurance-
to the level of myth. Only of course,
At this moment appearances would say that the future looks good
For this reality to come into being
So we bet on it. By now a surrounding
Crystalline structure has enveloped the
Mall. "Let's capitalize on this," and
Then the best of them shake their heads.
"It wasn't clear." And yet, the actual amount
Of light *and* shade increased, whipping
Past current consciousness at tremendous speed.
So, you need not really worry about feeling that something is toppling
Until well after your attention has been drawn to some
Area of safety and you're burning to get there.
Otherwise,why not continue on your present course,
Thinking all the while that you have your very own
Way of doing things anyway. There
*are* real dangers, but these must be
Understood, like everything else, over time.
With practice, the crisis is well rehearsed
Long before it has come, and you have
Been concentrating on mastering your personal blend
Of easy-going humor and ready, accurate information.
Surveillance- May 21, 1987
1. A veil of attention.
2. A proposition. In both senses. Do you agree?
Then *take* it.
3. So one proposition at a time. A melody (quote Chopin)- a "run" of assertions.
These are delicately made
Lightly: Thougts about Alan- meeting on Saturday.
Was I abrupt- my sensitive registering of *response*.
4. See the dash there? An attempt at
a *light* melody. Light emphasis.
"These are instructions: construct a
melody. Carrying forth."
5. Questions of *institutional* committment.
6. Sneaking away, fading away,
running away, hiding away. With
the attempt to "carry forth" the
powerful impulse to back off. Toni
does this too. The antidote is
initiative.
7. What would "initiative" or
"surveillance" look like in a purely
physical medium? "Initiative" might
be translated as "spontaneous
combustion," the response on the part of
matter to certain "forces." Words
change the way we attend to
phenomena. As soon as I use the
word "force" the visual referent which
explains the meaning of the word to me
particularizes a certain boundary of
possibly related phenomena...
Twice I've quoted my own "aphorism"- to
Alan and to Charles without actually
writing down in this notebook- I
wrote it at work on a scrap of paper.
"Under repressive conditions, it is conservative
to do what is obvious, but revolutionary
to say what is obvious."
5/21/87
With each poem, carry something over from
the previous poem, as Chopin did
with his waltzes. This provides
perhaps, ways of avoiding leaving the
poor particular ideas or
thoughts out there stranded with no
connection to the others.
5/21/87 (later)
Nostalgia for the whole. As soon as
one sees a new connection, comes the longing
to convert this insight into a new
key to the whole. Too often this comes to
trying to force things. I get that picture
of Einstein after his work being extremely
altered by Heisenberg's indeterminacy
principle and Einstein spent the rest of his
life trying to match this chess move.
He failed, perhaps because this idea
was better adapted to the actual
technical problems in dealing with the atomic
entity itselof, rather than its abstract
place in the cosmos.
The yearning for the whole, the
nostalgia for the whole, the myth of
the whole (Blake on details ["particulars"])
Wholeness a question of being, rather
than of seeing. Our knowledge remains
fragmentary, possibly precisely because
we are constantly being changed by
the knowledge we keep pursuing.
The yearning for the whole ultimately
is a yearning for stasis.
What if we gave over the role of
wholenss to the realm of death? For
one thing, both seem to be in the
same category- areas we ca only discuss
in the realm of complete conjecture.
Almost all conjecture in the history
of written ideas is on this topic
anyway- and if it isn't, this
topic will inevitably touch on it anyway.
Perhaps the answer that we want- that
the whole is attainable in life- is just
the opposite to what is true. And perhaps
death- that we view as the opposite of
wholeness- is complete dissolution- after
all- that is what we see- and seeing
is believing. Yet, even though I can
accept almost nothing offered to me by
conventional religions- it is very possible
that in disposing of religion- and going
over to science we robbed the mind of
one of its most fertile and enlivening
topics- speculation as to to other states
as these relate to the state of being.
Wholeness= death
the fragmentary=life
I often wonder about the fundamental
aspects of the relationship between the organic
and inorganic universe. The obvious
thought that I usually turn to is that
inorganic and organic life are
functions of each other, and light is
a transitive substance between the two.
If light is empowering, perhaps it
is the organizing force in nature.
it is the one that moves the quickest-
this best adaptable to have a function
of "suveillance." And it is
being "watched" that we usually
connect to being "looked after."
Perhaps just as we need light to
see, light watches us in some way,
so as to watch over us. We are
warmed by the Sun, and it lights our
way. So, being enabled to
watch, we are watched.
So perhaps also, in dying, in giving
up our individual perspectives, we are
ennabled , in some unimaginable way,
to be part of it all, in a dimension
unobtainable to any living being.
And perhaps this wall we reach, this straining
after something *complete,* something total,
comprehensive, comprehensible.
But, after all, doesn't all experience
lead to more and more glimpsing
something behind physical reality
if not more than the assumptions guiding
our way of looking at it.
1. A veil of attention.
2. A proposition. In both senses. Do you agree?
Then *take* it.
3. So one proposition at a time. A melody (quote Chopin)- a "run" of assertions.
These are delicately made
Lightly: Thougts about Alan- meeting on Saturday.
Was I abrupt- my sensitive registering of *response*.
4. See the dash there? An attempt at
a *light* melody. Light emphasis.
"These are instructions: construct a
melody. Carrying forth."
5. Questions of *institutional* committment.
6. Sneaking away, fading away,
running away, hiding away. With
the attempt to "carry forth" the
powerful impulse to back off. Toni
does this too. The antidote is
initiative.
7. What would "initiative" or
"surveillance" look like in a purely
physical medium? "Initiative" might
be translated as "spontaneous
combustion," the response on the part of
matter to certain "forces." Words
change the way we attend to
phenomena. As soon as I use the
word "force" the visual referent which
explains the meaning of the word to me
particularizes a certain boundary of
possibly related phenomena...
Twice I've quoted my own "aphorism"- to
Alan and to Charles without actually
writing down in this notebook- I
wrote it at work on a scrap of paper.
"Under repressive conditions, it is conservative
to do what is obvious, but revolutionary
to say what is obvious."
5/21/87
With each poem, carry something over from
the previous poem, as Chopin did
with his waltzes. This provides
perhaps, ways of avoiding leaving the
poor particular ideas or
thoughts out there stranded with no
connection to the others.
5/21/87 (later)
Nostalgia for the whole. As soon as
one sees a new connection, comes the longing
to convert this insight into a new
key to the whole. Too often this comes to
trying to force things. I get that picture
of Einstein after his work being extremely
altered by Heisenberg's indeterminacy
principle and Einstein spent the rest of his
life trying to match this chess move.
He failed, perhaps because this idea
was better adapted to the actual
technical problems in dealing with the atomic
entity itselof, rather than its abstract
place in the cosmos.
The yearning for the whole, the
nostalgia for the whole, the myth of
the whole (Blake on details ["particulars"])
Wholeness a question of being, rather
than of seeing. Our knowledge remains
fragmentary, possibly precisely because
we are constantly being changed by
the knowledge we keep pursuing.
The yearning for the whole ultimately
is a yearning for stasis.
What if we gave over the role of
wholenss to the realm of death? For
one thing, both seem to be in the
same category- areas we ca only discuss
in the realm of complete conjecture.
Almost all conjecture in the history
of written ideas is on this topic
anyway- and if it isn't, this
topic will inevitably touch on it anyway.
Perhaps the answer that we want- that
the whole is attainable in life- is just
the opposite to what is true. And perhaps
death- that we view as the opposite of
wholeness- is complete dissolution- after
all- that is what we see- and seeing
is believing. Yet, even though I can
accept almost nothing offered to me by
conventional religions- it is very possible
that in disposing of religion- and going
over to science we robbed the mind of
one of its most fertile and enlivening
topics- speculation as to to other states
as these relate to the state of being.
Wholeness= death
the fragmentary=life
I often wonder about the fundamental
aspects of the relationship between the organic
and inorganic universe. The obvious
thought that I usually turn to is that
inorganic and organic life are
functions of each other, and light is
a transitive substance between the two.
If light is empowering, perhaps it
is the organizing force in nature.
it is the one that moves the quickest-
this best adaptable to have a function
of "suveillance." And it is
being "watched" that we usually
connect to being "looked after."
Perhaps just as we need light to
see, light watches us in some way,
so as to watch over us. We are
warmed by the Sun, and it lights our
way. So, being enabled to
watch, we are watched.
So perhaps also, in dying, in giving
up our individual perspectives, we are
ennabled , in some unimaginable way,
to be part of it all, in a dimension
unobtainable to any living being.
And perhaps this wall we reach, this straining
after something *complete,* something total,
comprehensive, comprehensible.
But, after all, doesn't all experience
lead to more and more glimpsing
something behind physical reality
if not more than the assumptions guiding
our way of looking at it.
Tuesday, July 8
Poetry Today
No Starting Point...Emma Barnes
Dead Letter Game...Bill Marsh
Million Poems... Jordan's Poems
The Brutal Kittens...James Meetze
Julia's Poems...Julia Mayhew
Process Documents...Ryan Fitzpatrick
Word Placements...Clayton A. Couch
Love's Last Gasps...Eileen Tabios' Poem Journal
Swimming for Dummies...Tanya Brolaski
Nightjar 2...Jean Gier
Hatstuck Snarl...Stephen Kirbach
abolone..Li Bloom
: (solipsis)...Lanny Quarles
Yoo Doo Right...Mike County
and don't forget the beautiful
Solipsistic Gazette
No Starting Point...Emma Barnes
Dead Letter Game...Bill Marsh
Million Poems... Jordan's Poems
The Brutal Kittens...James Meetze
Julia's Poems...Julia Mayhew
Process Documents...Ryan Fitzpatrick
Word Placements...Clayton A. Couch
Love's Last Gasps...Eileen Tabios' Poem Journal
Swimming for Dummies...Tanya Brolaski
Nightjar 2...Jean Gier
Hatstuck Snarl...Stephen Kirbach
abolone..Li Bloom
: (solipsis)...Lanny Quarles
Yoo Doo Right...Mike County
and don't forget the beautiful
Solipsistic Gazette
1/16/98
Do you ever wish for something delicate,
Something yielding, yet exact,
Warm, yet encompassing? The idea
Follows you, then , constantly, situating itself
At your side, accompanying every step,
Imitating your gestures, mimicking your voice.
It knows you, resembles you, repeats your words,
Translating them patiently into the idiom of desire.
The words were new, yet already familiar,
As if they had been uttered every single day of your life,
As if, in fact you had memorized them,
Or written them into a code which you could hide
And bring out at will, under your sleeve,
To deliver them as a speech,
Whenever needed. But now and then
They retreat from you, retreat like a child playing a secret game
The point of which is known only to herself.
A cloud, it seems, passes by and she jumps onto it,
Sailing away into the kind blue mist.
How gentle is the cloud, the child, the mist.
Do you ever wish for something delicate,
Something yielding, yet exact,
Warm, yet encompassing? The idea
Follows you, then , constantly, situating itself
At your side, accompanying every step,
Imitating your gestures, mimicking your voice.
It knows you, resembles you, repeats your words,
Translating them patiently into the idiom of desire.
The words were new, yet already familiar,
As if they had been uttered every single day of your life,
As if, in fact you had memorized them,
Or written them into a code which you could hide
And bring out at will, under your sleeve,
To deliver them as a speech,
Whenever needed. But now and then
They retreat from you, retreat like a child playing a secret game
The point of which is known only to herself.
A cloud, it seems, passes by and she jumps onto it,
Sailing away into the kind blue mist.
How gentle is the cloud, the child, the mist.
4/26/84
writing- criticism- the aura of a story pulling you
in- the intellectual- the emotional- pulling you in-
free association- Freud- honesty- directness- taking
responsibility for the unconscious- if someone
dreams something- whose responsibility is it?-
each person is one- the illusion of extending this-
can't be done- the growth of the idea of an
equivalence between inner freedom and outer freedom-
what I know equals what I am?- the various
types of knowing- Christianity-God as a
multiple identity (father- son- Holy Ghost)-
Holy Ghost- mother seen but not heard- also- Female
as absence- the illusion of a development- the
illusion of scale- bigger being more powerful,
for example- language and precision versus language
as evocation- can it be more?- time/timing-
the Other as medium for the self-
writing/criticism; self/other; genius as resistance;
painter---object
-----viewer------
analyst---patient
-----analyst-----
Analysis is "group analysis" because of the interconnectedness
of all relationships- the artist is the culture's
analyst- the antipathy between analyst and artist
viewer-----object
painter----object
painter-----viewer
critic-----painter
action------viewpoint
-----------------------
painter-----object
-----------------------
relativity of time and space
empathize-----analyze
relative to what------experience
place of battle---Oedipal conflict
battle-------babble
# of words----experience
moving from *here* to *here*
sequence vs development
conflict-----change
change---facing conflict----movement----resistance
to movement- movement-"embracing"--conflict
Letter Freud to Lou-Andreas Salome 2/4/19
"I must make a vigorous protest against
your riposte. What has happened to my
*metapsychology*? In the first place it
has not been written. The systematic
working through of material is not
possible for me. The fragmentary nature
of my experiences and the sporadic
character of my insights do not permit it."
writing- criticism- the aura of a story pulling you
in- the intellectual- the emotional- pulling you in-
free association- Freud- honesty- directness- taking
responsibility for the unconscious- if someone
dreams something- whose responsibility is it?-
each person is one- the illusion of extending this-
can't be done- the growth of the idea of an
equivalence between inner freedom and outer freedom-
what I know equals what I am?- the various
types of knowing- Christianity-God as a
multiple identity (father- son- Holy Ghost)-
Holy Ghost- mother seen but not heard- also- Female
as absence- the illusion of a development- the
illusion of scale- bigger being more powerful,
for example- language and precision versus language
as evocation- can it be more?- time/timing-
the Other as medium for the self-
writing/criticism; self/other; genius as resistance;
painter---object
-----viewer------
analyst---patient
-----analyst-----
Analysis is "group analysis" because of the interconnectedness
of all relationships- the artist is the culture's
analyst- the antipathy between analyst and artist
viewer-----object
painter----object
painter-----viewer
critic-----painter
action------viewpoint
-----------------------
painter-----object
-----------------------
relativity of time and space
empathize-----analyze
relative to what------experience
place of battle---Oedipal conflict
battle-------babble
# of words----experience
moving from *here* to *here*
sequence vs development
conflict-----change
change---facing conflict----movement----resistance
to movement- movement-"embracing"--conflict
Letter Freud to Lou-Andreas Salome 2/4/19
"I must make a vigorous protest against
your riposte. What has happened to my
*metapsychology*? In the first place it
has not been written. The systematic
working through of material is not
possible for me. The fragmentary nature
of my experiences and the sporadic
character of my insights do not permit it."
Monday, July 7
Noahglass...Noah E.Glass had an accident. Get well soon, Noah.
Word Placements...Clayton A. Couch is on a roll!
Ironstone Whirlygig...Amanda Cook
Will -fait accompli- make her Monday Crush List? She loves us, she loves us not...
xtina.org....Christina Strong
xtina's world!
Solipsistic Gazette
Check it out every day!
Ron Silliman
Check out Ron's visual poetry update and mini-anthology (his review of Spider Tangle...The Book)
Word Placements...Clayton A. Couch is on a roll!
Ironstone Whirlygig...Amanda Cook
Will -fait accompli- make her Monday Crush List? She loves us, she loves us not...
xtina.org....Christina Strong
xtina's world!
Solipsistic Gazette
Check it out every day!
Ron Silliman
Check out Ron's visual poetry update and mini-anthology (his review of Spider Tangle...The Book)
The Wily Filipino...Benito M. Vergara, Jr. discusses very recently discovered CROP CIRCLES IN THE BAY AREA
1/16/86
This file: my life
This life, my file
This life, my file
Remember this some other way
The melting pot- non-
melting pot theory
of American conservatism
Perhaps this deep
narcissistic injury
Also generates an
outrage which *must*
respond-
With characteristic
Japanese (Buddhist-
servile, passive)
attitude
Listen to the echo-
repeat yourself slowly
(Rosalind Krauss,
Douglas Hofstadter)
Retain the private
language, while
using the public language
"Don't analyze, utilize"
says AAA
totally whacked-out
(in there, part of the
truth)-not the oddball
who anybody might
want to know about
but nobody wants to
know
but everybody wants to know
not true- as madness
as your want- prized by-
valuable-usable-
with analysis- so at
least I could remember
what I thought- *that's*
a minimum value
one thought- but I don't
have to explain it *right* now
a second thought: quickly,
so as to remember
as much as
possible
also- in the right
vein, you only need a
sample
-With Einstein, with
Freud, as with so
many other -[crossed out]
The most important
minds attract vast
numbers of followers
in a sense, this has
become the gauge of a
great mind. This fact
generates a important
problem.Whatever field
of experience such a
mind focusses on- such
as the atom, or
sexuality, or love,
for vast amounts of
time after such a
discovery, vast
numbers of minds
assay the same field.
The wonderful thing
about succession is that
once started, a certain
predictable form will
show up when this
system of ordering is
applied that relates very
expectably to space and
time. Variance from the
*focus* on interval leads
to variance from the
focus on succession
which leads to focus
on previously uncharted
territiories.Whatever we
can know about a
not yet completely
understood area must
be very little. All
great speculations have
been built on that
little bit.
For example: Jesus
built his centuries long
following on his zeroing
in on love as a
major factor. Freud
chose sex (or more
generally, pleasure)
This file: my life
This life, my file
This life, my file
Remember this some other way
The melting pot- non-
melting pot theory
of American conservatism
Perhaps this deep
narcissistic injury
Also generates an
outrage which *must*
respond-
With characteristic
Japanese (Buddhist-
servile, passive)
attitude
Listen to the echo-
repeat yourself slowly
(Rosalind Krauss,
Douglas Hofstadter)
Retain the private
language, while
using the public language
"Don't analyze, utilize"
says AAA
totally whacked-out
(in there, part of the
truth)-not the oddball
who anybody might
want to know about
but nobody wants to
know
but everybody wants to know
not true- as madness
as your want- prized by-
valuable-usable-
with analysis- so at
least I could remember
what I thought- *that's*
a minimum value
one thought- but I don't
have to explain it *right* now
a second thought: quickly,
so as to remember
as much as
possible
also- in the right
vein, you only need a
sample
-With Einstein, with
Freud, as with so
many other -[crossed out]
The most important
minds attract vast
numbers of followers
in a sense, this has
become the gauge of a
great mind. This fact
generates a important
problem.Whatever field
of experience such a
mind focusses on- such
as the atom, or
sexuality, or love,
for vast amounts of
time after such a
discovery, vast
numbers of minds
assay the same field.
The wonderful thing
about succession is that
once started, a certain
predictable form will
show up when this
system of ordering is
applied that relates very
expectably to space and
time. Variance from the
*focus* on interval leads
to variance from the
focus on succession
which leads to focus
on previously uncharted
territiories.Whatever we
can know about a
not yet completely
understood area must
be very little. All
great speculations have
been built on that
little bit.
For example: Jesus
built his centuries long
following on his zeroing
in on love as a
major factor. Freud
chose sex (or more
generally, pleasure)
1/29/86 (3)
Authenticity in the observation
of inner events
Authenticity in the observation
of external events
Function of "humility"
Riding---authenticity
Freud-authenticity
physical sciences-authenticity
business, politics, law
Ad hominum argument
Christ-cross-gravity
(a weight)
"Weight" of reality
"pressure" of reality
reality vs. actuality
Bernstein and "eccentricity"
Stevens- irrrational element
poetry
Authenticity-
succession vs secession
succession
secession
cessation
Upon the obtaining of
power by succession
certain aspects of effort
secede-"giving"
over the right (rite)
of authentification to
a new group (see
Duhem)-intellectual
economy of theory (p.21)
"Abstraction entered the
scene. It brought about
the removal of everything
private of individual
from those facts" (p,22)
(p.23)
The development of physics
incites a continual
struggle between "nature
that does not tire of
providing" and reason
that does not wish to "tire
of conceiving"
p. 32 Aridne's thread-
labyrinth
75 English physicists
"what he is concerned
with are not combinations
intended to be conceived
by reason"
81 -
Thus, in English
theories we find those
disparities, those
incoherencies, those
contradictions which we
are driven to judge severely
because we seek a
rational system where
the author has sought
to give us only a work
of imagination
Authenticity in the observation
of inner events
Authenticity in the observation
of external events
Function of "humility"
Riding---authenticity
Freud-authenticity
physical sciences-authenticity
business, politics, law
Ad hominum argument
Christ-cross-gravity
(a weight)
"Weight" of reality
"pressure" of reality
reality vs. actuality
Bernstein and "eccentricity"
Stevens- irrrational element
poetry
Authenticity-
succession vs secession
succession
secession
cessation
Upon the obtaining of
power by succession
certain aspects of effort
secede-"giving"
over the right (rite)
of authentification to
a new group (see
Duhem)-intellectual
economy of theory (p.21)
"Abstraction entered the
scene. It brought about
the removal of everything
private of individual
from those facts" (p,22)
(p.23)
The development of physics
incites a continual
struggle between "nature
that does not tire of
providing" and reason
that does not wish to "tire
of conceiving"
p. 32 Aridne's thread-
labyrinth
75 English physicists
"what he is concerned
with are not combinations
intended to be conceived
by reason"
81 -
Thus, in English
theories we find those
disparities, those
incoherencies, those
contradictions which we
are driven to judge severely
because we seek a
rational system where
the author has sought
to give us only a work
of imagination
1/29/86 (2)
For theory to crystallize
a *group* effort is
therefore superior in some ways-
protectng the individual
from dangers-
yet the individual-
unencumbered by the
timidities of the group-
is better able to challenge
the autonomously charged
authoritarianism- residing
in the individual-
The group-clustered
individual has replaced this
system
Theoretical scientist
"leading" experimentalists-
Thus- the "small group"
system has evolved-
(Jesus and 12 followers-etc)
The limitations of such an
approach being that the
leader(s) must bow to the the
superior anticipations of the
leader-
In literature- the idea of
an "independent" operator
assaying the field is now
pre-eminent
Rather than project a hero
who rises in the ranks-
the anti-hero breaks from
the ranks- to propose
independent authenticating
maxims- thus combining
individual observations and
maximum freedom of generalizations-
Thus the hero is more
than ever endangered by
*loss of reality* in
discovering authenticity-
Doubt must in this situation
be overcome by individual
comprehension (psychoanalysis)
*Authentification In
Contemporary Discovery
Theory*
Sages anonymous:
"That's the way the ball
bounces"
"That's the way the
cookie crumbles"
[Jury duty followed by
-building construction-
3 days and 2 days and
3 days- can't do my
work here-]
Quote from I ching in
*Timewarp*
"persistence"
For theory to crystallize
a *group* effort is
therefore superior in some ways-
protectng the individual
from dangers-
yet the individual-
unencumbered by the
timidities of the group-
is better able to challenge
the autonomously charged
authoritarianism- residing
in the individual-
The group-clustered
individual has replaced this
system
Theoretical scientist
"leading" experimentalists-
Thus- the "small group"
system has evolved-
(Jesus and 12 followers-etc)
The limitations of such an
approach being that the
leader(s) must bow to the the
superior anticipations of the
leader-
In literature- the idea of
an "independent" operator
assaying the field is now
pre-eminent
Rather than project a hero
who rises in the ranks-
the anti-hero breaks from
the ranks- to propose
independent authenticating
maxims- thus combining
individual observations and
maximum freedom of generalizations-
Thus the hero is more
than ever endangered by
*loss of reality* in
discovering authenticity-
Doubt must in this situation
be overcome by individual
comprehension (psychoanalysis)
*Authentification In
Contemporary Discovery
Theory*
Sages anonymous:
"That's the way the ball
bounces"
"That's the way the
cookie crumbles"
[Jury duty followed by
-building construction-
3 days and 2 days and
3 days- can't do my
work here-]
Quote from I ching in
*Timewarp*
"persistence"
1/29/86 (1)
Duhem- Like the auteur
theory of film- this
is like an auteur theory
of theory
On individual observation- the
authenticity of the observation
depends on the authenticity
(entitlement) of the confirming
observation
On Generalized Observation-
The originator's authenticity
must be established *over
time* as time is needed
to confirm such observations
in the innumerable calculations
needed to confirm such a
theory- to establish the
authenticity of each
calibration is- in
some ways- a bureaucratic
problem of authorization-
Thus error is
attributable to malformations
in group participation and
is traceable to a system
of exchanges which has been'
falsified
Cetainty of observation is
always a function of time-
"Authority" is related to
Hoftadter's notion of "the
sphexish"- as in
Lincoln's political dictum
"You can feel some of the
people all of the time
and all of the people some of
the time
but not all of the people-
all of the time"
The 20th Century is replete
with examples of false
authority (Hitler, Mussolini,
Nixon, Lenin)- innumerable examples
of "witch hunting"
of endangered authority
(M.L.K., Ghandi,
John Lennon)
The attempt to garner
power in order to
confirm "wild theories"--
replete with examples-
the "Kool Aid" Guru-
other-Leader-gurus
Duhem- Like the auteur
theory of film- this
is like an auteur theory
of theory
On individual observation- the
authenticity of the observation
depends on the authenticity
(entitlement) of the confirming
observation
On Generalized Observation-
The originator's authenticity
must be established *over
time* as time is needed
to confirm such observations
in the innumerable calculations
needed to confirm such a
theory- to establish the
authenticity of each
calibration is- in
some ways- a bureaucratic
problem of authorization-
Thus error is
attributable to malformations
in group participation and
is traceable to a system
of exchanges which has been'
falsified
Cetainty of observation is
always a function of time-
"Authority" is related to
Hoftadter's notion of "the
sphexish"- as in
Lincoln's political dictum
"You can feel some of the
people all of the time
and all of the people some of
the time
but not all of the people-
all of the time"
The 20th Century is replete
with examples of false
authority (Hitler, Mussolini,
Nixon, Lenin)- innumerable examples
of "witch hunting"
of endangered authority
(M.L.K., Ghandi,
John Lennon)
The attempt to garner
power in order to
confirm "wild theories"--
replete with examples-
the "Kool Aid" Guru-
other-Leader-gurus
Sunday, July 6
Six Degrees of Separation Dep't
I hope this does not embarrass her, but Stephanie Young happened to mention to me in a recent letter that she had just watched a James Bond movie (she was not particularly thrilled about his, by the way.) Now, assuming Sean Connery was in this one, his name seems to keep popping up in my life in significant ways. Yesterday,Toni and I went to see -the Hulk- with the friends we are visiting, Martin and Myrna Tamny. Their son Mark Tamny, who lives in Berkeley, happens to work in the area of movie animation. A movie about to be released that he worked on is called "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman," starring Sean Connery. But also, not long ago my good friend Charles Bernstein had a role as a High School principal in "Finding Forrester," starring, of course, Sean Connery.
I hope this does not embarrass her, but Stephanie Young happened to mention to me in a recent letter that she had just watched a James Bond movie (she was not particularly thrilled about his, by the way.) Now, assuming Sean Connery was in this one, his name seems to keep popping up in my life in significant ways. Yesterday,Toni and I went to see -the Hulk- with the friends we are visiting, Martin and Myrna Tamny. Their son Mark Tamny, who lives in Berkeley, happens to work in the area of movie animation. A movie about to be released that he worked on is called "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman," starring Sean Connery. But also, not long ago my good friend Charles Bernstein had a role as a High School principal in "Finding Forrester," starring, of course, Sean Connery.
-fait accompli- is taking a brief vacation this weekend. We are disappointed to be unable to present you with our usual Crush List feature, more so because checking around among some of our favorite link lists we see a number of blogs whose names are new to us that we are looking forward to exploring more fully; there are so many (((((hot)))))(((((blogs))))) to talk about we can't wait!!!!!
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