from *Automatic Manifesto #1*

...Must confess secrets, get attention. Must conceal
embarassments, create embarassments. Must
mystify, satisfy, entertain, beguile, charm, remember,
enlighten, soothe, relax, inspire, challenge, attract,
impress, confuse, enrapture, mobilize. I must
rebel, I must gather, I must disseminate, I must
canonize, be canonized. I must never be literal,
romanticize, hate too much or love too much,
or reveal my undesirable or questionable values.
I must not be ingenuous or native, too intellectual
or theoretical, too simplistic or bombastic, too
sententious or litigious. I must not be blank or silent,
outrageously moralistic. I must be more sexual, I
must not dwell on my personal identity, and never
get too involved with feelings. I must not think too
much about my audience. I must be spontaneous,
I must record faithfully the dialogues and events of
my time, like a combination tape recorder and
camera. I must be funny and use language in a witty,
inspired, telegraphic and rhythmic way. I must be aware
of the group process and not overly dwell on simplistic
psychological issues in enormous, repetitive, boring
detail as frequently as possible. I must use images,
images of life and death, of youthful sexuality, of
corporate power and greed- and, most of all,
naked violence. I must mention the police. I must
plunder my diary writings- but disguise them and
efface them. I must divide my text into ever more
digestible sub-headings. I must copy and plagiarize,
I must appropriate. I must create ironies, within
ironies, within ironies. I must reflect form. I must
create more snappy dialogue. I must be publicized
more, write more letters, be discussed more, be
anthologized more. I must be seen at fashionable
parties. I must befriend the famous, woo them, flatter
them, flirt with them. I must dress befitting my artistic
accomplishments. I must be calm, I must be cool, I must
conceal my emotional nature. I must not dwell on my
mistakes. I must be witty, I must be charming, I must learn
to ignore cheerfully accusations of literary imitation or
influence. I must not commit literary or social suicide.

I must create new forms, I must create new words, I must
allude to many levels, many literatures. I must go mad,
I must make sane. I must create, I must destroy. I must make
to live. I must let die.


first published in *Ribot* edited by Paul Vangelisti, 1994
published in *Theoretical Objects* (Green Integer, 1999)