Deja Vu Dep't

Just now I went into my Site Meter (what
else is new?) and saw an unusual link,
checked it out and found out it went to a blog called
Visions of Johanna {click here}
whose most recent link is about the birth of her baby!
For a second I wondered if Johanna Rauhala had brought
back her blog with its earliest name (if you remember
she changed it to *Rutabaga* before retiring it
some months back.) But this is someone who
started her blog this past September and who
signs off with the name Suze.
Welcome, *Visions of Johanna*
and thanks for the link!

Hmmm....Maybe it's getting to be
time for a new (((((fait)))))(((((accompli))))
((((((HOT)))))((((((BLOG))))) list. Tomorrow
is one of those quiet days in Blogland,
it's a Sunday....Why not tomorrow?

In the midst of writing several papers, Josh Corey
opines on anxiety, narcissism and the value of
blogging- and takes issue with some major
academic players!


He writes "This search for community is part of the reason
I feel I must reject the priestly convictions of one
of the commenters on Holmes' original post, Aaron McCollough.
I don't want to reprint it
without his permission, but I think what he says
pathologizes my "paradoxical desires" (for transcending the
system and for being rewarded by the system),
rather than recognizing that this pathology is
a reaction to a paradoxical system. Again, to go
back to Nick Piombino's "Blogging and Narcissism" post,
these are actual social problems that turn into psychological
problems. McCollough's solution seems to be that one
should accept one's role as unacknowledged legislator
and opt out of the system entirely...."

While Cahiers de Corey (Josh Corey) {click here}
is finishing his paper for class,
you have a small window of time to catch up
on this interesting discussion, before Josh's next post,
which may take you elsewhere...

Speaking of Elsewhere (Gary Sullivan) {click here}
don't miss Gary Sullivan on K.S. Mohammad {click here} and Tina Darraugh.

Dean's Dilemma

I've been thinking a lot about the hullabaloo created
on tv over the last few days about an emotionally
demonstrative speech Howard
Dean gave to some of his supporters after coming
out third in the Iowa primary that has been extensively
interpreted as "over the top." Dean himself acknowledged
its "nuttiness" (I don't think so) but appropriately refused
to apologize. Apologize to whom for what?

The passage below is from my
chapbook *The Boundary of Theory*
published by Cuneiform Press
early in 2001. The text was talk given at SUNY/Buffalo
on September 27, 2000. Kyle Schlesinger published
the chapbook and interviewed me shortly thereafter
and included the interview in the chapbook.

"One theory I noted for the (suggested) successes of
Bush during the televised debates was his lack of
surface anger. Aside from the familiar McLuhanistic
theories of the "coolness" of the television medium,
perhaps a more basic explanation for the apparently
pervasive lack of emotion is the manipulative power
of remaining "cool." Coolness, in our culture, implies
self-control, conviction and confidence. Perhaps one
of the most familiar images for indoctrination during
the Second War were those clips of Hitler and Mussolini's
frigteningly rageful speeches. I think indoctrination in our
time has more to do with talk that is so lacking in
listening, introspection and respect for the speaker that
the give and take of discussion is reduced to the effect
of canned dialog, complete with laugh and applause tracks.
This is where narrative structure comes in, for me.

I associate narrative structure with predictable outcomes,
even when the outcomes are predictably unpredictable. The
more predictable outcomes become for the practiced viewer
(and we are all now incredibly practiced viewers) the more
outrageous the endings have to become, in their soon to
be predictable ways. I'm thinking at the moment of the
"surprise" ending(s) of the (relatively) recent *Reindeer Games*.
I feel that Bush, the cooler his is, the more frightening the
implied violence becomes. Thus his popularity with U.S. males.
So perhaps what is being repressed, better yet, disguised,
is the relationship between emotional reaction and violence,
thus the heightened effect of ruthlessness. Only a truly
ruthless person can be trusted to be predictably violent.

What appeals to me about disrupting narrative structure
is the transgression of automaticity. The "automatic"
and the machine gun are apt contemporary images for
the internally terrifying sensation of violence exactly
because "reaction time" has been effectively eliminated.
No time for pity or sympathy. Just plug 'em. Simply stated:
narrative structure=violence. Or, as I put it in *The Boundary
of Blur*: 'The cutting edge of narrative often turns to blood
and is fascinated by monsters.'"

**************************************************

Has it reached a point that manipulation
is the only reality, and heartfelt openness
is considered...what...crazy? Why? As I
suggest above, it appears now that unless a politician
is sufficiently cool, they will not appear to be sufficiently
manipulative (=powerful) to lead a nation
more and more run by people mainly concerned to
appear more covert and manipulatively shrewd than
the next representative. This is enhanced by the covert
insistence that all citizens follow orders
and control any desire to think and feel for themselves
which includes the unstated expetation that one dare not
spontaneously expose one's feelings whatever they might be.
It is no surprise that Howard Dean found a home
among the blogs. Clearly there are fewer and fewer places
left to openly state a dissident point of view
where numerous others might have a chance to listen and respond
if you are not a member of the "vast right wing conspiracy"
that Hllary Clinton once spoke about so passionately. She's
quieter now. I guess she has to be.
Big Brother of the Patriot Act is watching.

Cup of Chicha {click here} makes
the point that *The Butterfly Effect* is a "bad" movie.
But lots of cinemaniacs like
me and Toni occasionally enjoy grade B movies,
especially grade B science fiction movies. Though
admittedly this movie is sounding a bit more like
grade F. Sometimes it is advisable
to let such films "ripen" for
awhile to be able to endure them- or, if they
are really rotten, maybe let them dry out a little.

An LRB article focussing on Oulipo and Harry Matthews
London Review of Books {click here}
via the consisitently informative blog Language Hat {click here}

Today, a movie called *The Butterfly Effect*,
starring Ashton Kutcher, will open that is about
someone who time travels by reading their own
journals. I don't exactly know what to think about
this. Certainly no one had ever heard about this movie
or its premise when I started *::fait accompli::spellbound
speculations:: time travel* on February 11,
2003. From that time on, I began writing frequently about my idea
of time travel, and blogging my journal which often
deals with time and time travel since the 70's. Time
travel is not a new idea, but doing it through journal
writing is something I never thought or heard about
before I began doing it. Also, I wonder if anyone else who
reads *fait accompli*, especially from early on, would make similar connections
with the premise of "The Butterfly Effect" that I do.
Then I start to think, maybe these people lifted my idea and rightfully
owe me some money, or at least a credit? But in
these days of artistic appropriation, maybe
their lifting my idea should be considered cool...I dunno...
It's a rather common dilemma, isn't it?

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about this, is related to why I
waited so long to publish most of these journals- although
my book *Theoretical Objects* (Green Integer, 1999)
is also culled from my journals
and deals with time travel in some of the pieces.
Truthfully, I've enjoyed the
privacy of my strange little experiment all these years.
Now a couple of movie producers turn my idea of time travel
through synchronistically connecting with early journal writing
into something "mainstream", tranforming it into something as accessible
and omnipresent as *The Gap.*
Yuck. On the other hand, if more people
start thinking about this particular possibility of time travel--
perhaps it will it become less
fiction and more reality? Who knows?
Only time will tell...ha-ha.


Anyway, here is a piece I blogged on *fait accompli* on 4/18/03:
******************************************************

I began to recognize the fact that some degree of evidence was likely to exist in the most recent notes I took. Chances are, going backwards in time, I would find fewer and fewer marked examples of what I was looking for. (Also, I have to take heed of who has succeeded me in breaking into the room, to discover its contents and who might have been there. Your mission, if you wish to accept it, is to try to remember and picture the inhabitants.)

Meanwhile, he could be there now, chuckling to himself that my ideal typewriter was all I ever really wanted out of it- not the words themselves, just that totally portable, ever ready to respond, trusty machine. Some joke.
(7/22/87)

The Cassandra Pages {click here} quotes Martin Luther King and discusses nonconformity (Wednesday, January 21)

Thanks to the following blogs for
new links to *fait accompli* and our
blogging and narcissism discussion
Eratio (Gregory St. Thomasino) {click here}
Sifry's Alerts (David Sifry) {click here}
Scriptorium (Carlos Arribas) {click here}
Mysterium (Carlos Arribas)
Twists and Turns (Michael Gates){click here}
Chimera Song Mosaic (Deborah Wardlaw Pattillo)
Equanimity (Jordan Davis)
Hoarded Ordinaries {click here}
Porthole Redux {click here}
including Drunken Slugs {click here} reflecting on "narcissistic voyeurism" , "sollipsism" and "community"
as related issues for bloggers.

Here's another fine site
brought to my attention by Gregory St. Thomasino
Eratio Postmodern Poetry {click here}

The excellent new edition
Sidereality {click here}

is now available
with a new look designed by Clayton Couch and Greg Couch.
Edited by Clayton Couch and Lewis LaCook.
*************************************

Technorati has a new beta page.
Go check out your links at
Technorati Beta Page {click here}


Thanks to Sifry's Alerts (David Sifry) {click here}

Vulnerability on Ice


The reservoir in Central Park is
almost completely iced over now.
The ducks and seagulls have settled
into the few little melted patches that
opened up because of the daylight sun.
Yesterday I noticed
a bedraggled swan among the ducks and gulls
in one open patch
near the jogging path
and I was very surprised. I have
never seen a swan there before-
they usually go to the large lake
in the Rambles. Last year one died in that lake
although nobody knows why for sure.

A couple of years ago, after 9/11, I got
into the habit of going down to the
lake in the Ramble, particularly after
very cold spells, to feed the birds. The
colder it gets, the less food the birds get,
and though technically you are not supposed
to feed them- maybe because they
should learn to go elsewhere to get
their food in winter-
- I'm not really sure
why it's not allowed- I do it anyway.

Actually, I got reminded of this
practice during the past two winters when I saw the
Lucas Samaras show
recently at PaceWildenstein Gallery.
(32 East 57th St, 212-421-3292)
consisting mostly of powerful,
very large computer generated photographic
images of Central Park.
In one. Samaras pictures himself
as part bird, part human. These works
brought back some of the thoughts and feelings
I had when feeding the ducks, gulls and swans
day after day, mulling over the state of the world,
looking again and again at the downtown skyline.
Samaras himself was at the gallery photographing
the installation when I was there,
a coincidence that led me to studying the images
even more closely, as he appears, often
nude, in many of the images. This, also and
alas, may be why he fled the gallery shortly
after taking the pictures, who knows.
Maybe he was just in a hurry. And I could
well understand why the actor in a
drama of their own creation might
not want to be observed
backstage by the audience.
(Probably Samaras was documenting
the show because it closed on Sat 1/17.)
Here’s an article about Samaras with some
images- and for some reason, I just keep
bumping straight into the topic of narcissism.
Of course, I don’t agree with Roberta Smith’s
use of this term, but here’s a recent article
on Samaras: Roberta Smith on Lucas Samaras {click here}


A couple of winters ago I learned
how to toss hunks of bread to the seagulls
as they flew towards me as I was stationed
on the shore of the lake. After a
few visits the flock of seagulls learned how to line
up and fly around right by me one
at a time to get the pieces of bread
tossed up to them. When they are
really hungry they fly by very close to
catch it. Today it was a little like a
scene out of "The Birds" by Hitchcock,
and Toni, though completely into feeding the birds,
was understandably a bit concerned that
they might soil our coats as they flew by,
they seemed so extremely
eager to get the bread,
much more anxiously than I had ever seen before,
they were flying by so close and so
excitedly. There have
been many truly well below freezing
days and nights of late and the park
has been rather sparsely visited
at least here uptown in the 90’s.

I remembered today that I would
frequently get ideas for *fait accompli*
while I was feeding those birds. Today I thought
about power and greed, and human vulnerability
and the coming election.
I realized that I liked Howard Dean not only
because he is against war but also because he
studied science in order to be a doctor.
I don't see how this country
can use science and technology
to heal our wounds and protect
the country and its resources
by depending mainly on forms of
Christian mysticism to guide us.
I can well understand how religious
feeling and experience
can mean a lot to many individuals and groups
and help to bring people together in
a caring way. But the separation of church and state
was a doctrine not only developed for reasons
of protecting the diversity
of religious practice, but also for
insuring that governmental
decisions were based on reason, not “faith.”
And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know
that rocket science (the only type of science that
Bush seems to be interested in) is by far
not the most crucial
priority for the needs of the world
at the moment.
(By the way, we heard the comedienne
Reno discuss this topic brilliantly and
hilariously just this past Friday evening
at the Bowery Poetry
Club).

No matter how Bush tries to
impress the world with the United States’
power to conquer other countries
and outer space, I haven't forgotten
for a moment that 9/11 took place
on Bush’s watch, with all that information available
for predicting such attacks in the technological
informational pipeline.

Birds on a icy lake in a park,
people living in a cold and threatening world,
we are all only too vulnerable.

The fantastic in art and fiction
from The Cornell Digital Collection
The Fantastic in Art and Fiction {click here}
via (solipsis)//:phaneroemikon (Lanny Quarles) {cllick here}

**
Did you know that

Lanny Quarles lives in Portland, Oregon
with his wife Kara and their two cats
Patchen and Anise?

Ben Affleck discovers major new way to use Google.
Via Harlequin Knights (Joseph Mosconi) {click here} (scroll down on Tuesday, 1/20)

Notebook: 2/1978

No matter who I am
nothing can completely
allow this silence.

I, who speak, can only repeat
who- not that which becomes
what we are now in relation to together-
I add. But I am not this personal
being who questions, who marks the
equations of what I have added
to your listening- to be
continually prior to it, to be
listening to this one, this I,
before I have imagined a later
answer, our exchange must be
immediately postponed. Set
before you immediately

2/28/78

Get rid of your be-longings
he cackles at me- I listened
to him once & followed his
call a long time ago. I
can speak.

3/10

To prepare for the reading I
looked up the word labyrinth
in the thesaurus

3/16

"I can stare."

Correspondences, coincidences,
criticisms, decisions,
cannibalisms, canizba (a sound
I don't yet recognize the meaning of,
going before and through.)

Before is not just the past.
Before is an emphasis of just
past. The recorded definitions.
The unspeakable ceremonies avowing
each letter going from one carved letter
to another inscription.

It took place near a marble
monument, stone anyway, which
is so dense with time it surrounds
itself with a wide air of silence,
of association. These vague structures,
reminiscent of so much that came
before, the many possible resemblances
to familiar objects of childhood,
like the height of the sink in relation
to your growing, or the red hot
glare of morality whicih can be
frozen into your heart by anger.
Against the pain of that yielding,
next to this serious weightiness is
juxtaposed the translucence of
the art of 1885-1912, the
fruitful years preceding the war.
That dream seems comical now

::fait accompli:: very pleased to announce our inclusion on
New Pages Guide to Weblogs and Daily News Sites {Click Here}

This just in from: Buffalo Poetics {click here}


SMALL PRESS CULTURE WORKERS:
A Conference on Small Presses in Ithaca, NY
February 7, 2004
Small Press Culture Workers is a forum for poets,
publishers, and editors of small, independent presses
and magazines as well as publishers of artist's books
to investigate the sub-economic force of small press publishing.
Cultural work made possible by artists
and editors committed to building and sustaining
community, beyond simply marketing and
consumable products, will be examined
through a variety of papers and talks
given by panel presentations.
Presenters include:
Charles Alexander, Chax Press
Allison Cobb, co-editor, POM2
Jennifer Coleman, co-editor, POM2
Rory Golden, Executive Director, Center for Book Arts
Brendan Lorber, Editor, Lungfull!
Jennifer Savran, LunaSea Bindery and Press
Juliana Spahr, co-editor, Chain, Subpress
Buzz Spector, former editor of White Walls, Chair, Department of Art, Cornell University
Mark Weiss, Editor, Junction Press
The conference includes panel presentations, small press book fair, gallery exhibit: "Pages," curated by Buzz Spector, at the Ink Shop/Olive Branch Press and a group reading by the poet/publishers in attendance as part of the West End Reading Series February event.
The Clinton House, 116 N. Cayuga Street,
Ithaca, NY.
Contact Jane Sprague for further information
regarding registration, lodging and conference
details at janesprague@clarityconnect.com or
(607) 564-3617. http://www.palmpress.org/culture_workers.html
Posted by: Kyle / 1/6/2004 08:32:10 PM

Bibliography for "The Narcissistic Personality"

8. Idealization and Transference

Heinz Kohut, *The Analysis of The Self*, Chapter 4,
"Clinical and Therapeutic Aspects of the Idealizing
Transference," "The Idealizing Transference Distinguished
From Mature Forms of Idealization"" pp. 74-78 (International
Universities Press, 1971)

Heinz Kohut, ibid, "Varieties of Indealizing Transference" pp, 78-85

Heinz Kohut, ibid, "The Process of Working Through and Other
Clinical Problems in the Idealizing Transference," pp. 86-104

for my comments on the James Rosenquist show at
the uptown Manhattan Guggenheim Museum
*Debussy on Canvas: Rosenquist at the Guggenheim*
scroll down to Saturday, January 17
********************************************
(This list has been updated to include recent links)

My essay "Blogging and Narcissism" was posted on Sunday, January 11th, in response to Ernest Priego's January 11th essay "Primary Passions". My sincere thanks to Never Neutral (Ernesto Priego) {click here}, Boynton {click here}, Paula's House of Toast {click here}, Wood s Lot (Mark Woods) {click here}, The Cassandra Pages {click here}, This Journal (Brother Tom Murphy) {click here}, The Well Nourished Moon (Stephanie Young) {click here}, Bellona Times (Ray Davis) {click here}, Ought (Ron Henry) {click here} , Blaugustine (Natalie D'Arbeloff) {click here}, Cahiers de Corey (Josh Corey) {click here} , Mairead Byrne, Sheila Murphy, Gregory St. Thomasino, Topher Tune's Times (Christy Church) {click here}, Blue Kangeroo (Jean Vengua) {click here} , Blogmatrix Rss Feed for January 14 {click here} , Live Journal {click here} , Moonshine Highways (Amy Bernier) {click here} ,...something slant {click here} , and Savoradin.com {click here} for recent links and kind words.
If I missed anybody, thanks to you too, and
please let me know so
*fait accompli* can publish an
acknowledgement.

*********************************************

Bibliography for "The Narcissistic Personality"

7. Forms of Narcissistic Pathology

Otto F. Kernberg, *Internal World and External Reality"
"Normal Narcissism in Middle Age," pp. 135-154 (1987)

Otto F. Kernberg, ibid, "Pathological Narcissism in Middle Age"
pp. 135-154.

Arnold H. Modell, "A Narcissistic Defense against Affects and
The Illusion of Self-Sufficiency" *International Journal of
Psychoanalysis," Vol. 56, pp 275-82 (1975)

Alice Miller, "Depression and Grandiosity as Related Forms
of Narcissistic Disturbances, " International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, Vol 6, pp 61-76 (1979)

Check out: Nobody Here (Jogchem Niemendverdriet) (English/Dutch/Japanese) {click here}

[via, and check out Twists and Turns (Michael Gates) {click here}]

**
Boynton's Labyrinth of Links

Boynton Kills Age {click here}

and

Boynton & Blogging Writ Large (BBC- Style)

The Age of Boynton {click here}

(Evidently, the product of something called the Mixmaster)

**

Also, don't miss the ice angel on
The Cassandra Pages {click here}

This Week in Blogland

Sunday, January 18

Is this your lucky day?
Professor Wiseman's guide to good luck- BBC News {click here}
via Caterina {click here}

Who strikes me as a lucky person.
Did you know that Caterina started blogging when
she was recovering from an illness- and now gets
2000 hits a day on her blog?
That she is an artist and lives in Vancouver?

**
from Equanimity (Jordan Davis) (click here}
Saturday, January 17:
"Since this is the undercurrent of pain and envy that
drives so much of poetry culture, it's almost a relief
to have it out in the open. Almost."
**
Friday, January 16
(solipsis)//:phaneroemikon (Lanny Quarles) {click here}
opines on narcissism and
publishes a poem by tex files (Chris Murray) {click here}
who names Word Placements (Clayton A.Couch) {click here} the texfiles poet of the week!
**
Thursday, January 15
Savoradin.com {click here}
tells about 12 blogs he would take with him to a desert island (many of them new to us)
and *fait accompli* makes the cut! Thanks Tonio!

**
Wednesday, January 14
ululations (Nada Gordon's) {click here} 40th birthday

**
Tuesday, January 13
Overlap (Drew Gardner) {click here} reports on
art in Washington, D.C.

**
Monday, January 12
Bellona Times (Ray Davis) {click here} passes on some thoughts by Lawrence L. White regarding Yvor Winters on Yeats:
"Yeah, Yeats is a dope. You know what? Poetry is dopey.
Getting up in front of everyone (even if behind the screen
of the printed page) & singing w/out music is at the least an
unusual gesture. I'd go as far as call it preposterous. Certainly
one should never risk the resulting social censure w/out the excuse
of drunkenness or misanthropy."
More:God In The Machine {click here}
**
Looking for "Blogging and Narcissism"? Click Here and Scroll down to
Sunday, January 11...

Bibliography for "The Narcissistic Personality", continued
*Highly Recommended

5. Adolescence- The Turning Point

Peter Blos, "Adolescence", "The Ego in Adolescence" (Chapter 5)
The Free Press, 1962, ppp. 168-195

Annie Reich, "Early Identifications as Archaic Elements in the Superego" (1954)
in *Psychoanalytic Contributions*, pp. 209-236

*Annie Reich, ibid. "Pathologic Forms of Self-Esteem Regulation" (1960),

Erik H. Erikson, *Identity and the Life Cycle*, "The Problem of
Ego Identity" (Chapter 3), pp. 120-158

6. Idealization and Mastery

*Karen Horney, *Neurosis and Human Growth* (1950), "The Search for Glory"
(Chapter 1),pp. 17-39.

*Janine Chassguet-Smirgel, "The Development of the Ego Ideal"
in *The Ego Ideal*, Norton, 1985, pp.26-45

*Heinz Kohut, "Forms and Transformations of Narcissism", Journal of
the American Psychoanalytic Association, Voll 14, pp. 243-72
pp. 288-311

Carlos Arribas, of the lush, luminous blog
Mysterium {click here} has opened a poetry blog aptly titled
Scriptorium {click here}