Went to work on the storage space today
to get ready to move. Call it synchronicity,
spirit or just plain luck but the first book I
saw in the first box I opened was
*Onion Leaves, Her Map Untended*, by
Elizabeth Was .The gorgeous xexoxial
book, with about 8 pages of text, with
mysterious xerox graphics, with the look
of woodblock prints between each
page of continuous prose texts with varied
fonts, was given to Toni and I when Miekel and
Liz came to visit at our West 87 Street apartment in
1986 or thereabout, around the
time the book was published.
"*Up out of & in touch*. Talk to break between
sentence, to bathe before noontide, she hesitates
stately the ideas like pajamas. Pollution worries this
'granite-nut tender. Laughter is homogenous reliance
out the back door in a flashy pants. (Type justifies
the wandering. The explorer stumbles over the trailmarks,
cursing the numbers irate nonstop cuticle. A breath *before*
penning, vibrant, inner-aural prowl minus the sun or a new
distraction. Unrecorded voume the atlas of her going. Silent.
A modal detail hollowed to nothings diminutive. AS IF STUCK
ON A GLEESTRING, SELF STANDING ABOVE, HER HANDS
HEADSHINE; TOO FAR, ONLY THE GLOBE."
Other books of Miekel and Liz
we have include: *formula for labor* (about an
inch wide),*euy:,
a zaumist biography of Alexei Kruchenykh*,
*the plagiarist codex*,*L=I=N=G=-L=A=G=E*
and *The Aperiodic Journal of -Pataphysical-
Succulentosophy*
Distribution Automatique
Saturday, March 6
Notebook: Circa, late 1986
To present the raw coal to
take in, burn , and finally bring
to a red- hot state, to
present the substance in its
various states of polish,
from unpolished mineral to the
finest faceted stone, these
are the essences of the results
of presented form. So my
choice is to present the coal, for
we are now all miners of the
unknown regions, and the time is less
one to bedrock ourselves in
finery, but to burn through to the core
within which lies the substance
of still greater forms of energy. To
bring together our combined
essences must be the goal of
poetics, for this project if
it is to have a goal, it must be re
readjust the lines of the mind itself.
Thus it is that poetics came to be the
center of poetry's white heat,
not because it
offered the greatest promise
of new and better products-
we've all listened to
Ron Sillman's views on this,
who has shown us the
futility of seeking paradise there-
the fact is, poetry, and therefore
the profession of poet has, like so
many others, been sent packing to
the back laboratories- and the majority
have selected this humble position,
indentifying with the potential for
authenticity in these quiet and unequivocal
surroundings- does not at all
detract from the fates of these who have
chosen to publicize their "findings"-
for the best of those who have
embraced that role have recognized
the provisional nature of their "results"
as well, knowing well that a billion
successful poems could not make up
for one minute of the lives of the billions
still *suppressed*, and all the rest
*repressed*, or the millions dead
in our own beloved century,
by the unaccountable
primitive tidal pull towards power
struggle and death- also
at the glowing core of
our deepest energies.
But we did not find such unalloyed
conditions of authenticity in our laboratories,
in our untested state of reflexivity
and exploration of the products of the thought
process because these products defy
ownership in the same way that we cannot
own ourselves when the divided nature
of our identities hold a sense of wholeness
ever out in front.
The poems cannot be ours as long
they must continue to be ransacked for the
buried treasure that loses currency
before its distributed. The shall game of
power is none other than the matching
shell game of selves. As fast as we
stitch them to keep up
with the shifting conditions of the games,
of recognition of the continuity of dailiness.
As quickly as we might
examine a poem's
existence by its objective value as a poem,
just as instantly do we search the entire context
of its existance, including the most private
aspect of its very atmosphere-
the self of the poet-
also as simultaneously consumed
for its promise of breaking down
the margins between the public fact
of the poem's existence, and the relative public
skepticism about the possibility of such a person
having any consistency of relavance
to him or her.
Under such conditions, it seems to me
one of the most attractive positions
must be to embrace this secrecy and to, more or less
permantently lock the gates between the front stage
until a better distribution is possible, until the relative
positions have changed, possible as one
result of a change in power conditions.
One would not be hoping for an accord
to be reached between poets in this way,
but a growing mutual recognition that what is
shared between poets is not truly
shareable between the reader and the poem.
The sutation is truly fragmented and
the conditions are severe.The poet's quest
for authenticity has actually become
more dangerous, however, the risk inherent
in marginality. On the other hand,
it is a little more subtle to see the direct
relationship between this emergence and
actual satisfaction.
To present the raw coal to
take in, burn , and finally bring
to a red- hot state, to
present the substance in its
various states of polish,
from unpolished mineral to the
finest faceted stone, these
are the essences of the results
of presented form. So my
choice is to present the coal, for
we are now all miners of the
unknown regions, and the time is less
one to bedrock ourselves in
finery, but to burn through to the core
within which lies the substance
of still greater forms of energy. To
bring together our combined
essences must be the goal of
poetics, for this project if
it is to have a goal, it must be re
readjust the lines of the mind itself.
Thus it is that poetics came to be the
center of poetry's white heat,
not because it
offered the greatest promise
of new and better products-
we've all listened to
Ron Sillman's views on this,
who has shown us the
futility of seeking paradise there-
the fact is, poetry, and therefore
the profession of poet has, like so
many others, been sent packing to
the back laboratories- and the majority
have selected this humble position,
indentifying with the potential for
authenticity in these quiet and unequivocal
surroundings- does not at all
detract from the fates of these who have
chosen to publicize their "findings"-
for the best of those who have
embraced that role have recognized
the provisional nature of their "results"
as well, knowing well that a billion
successful poems could not make up
for one minute of the lives of the billions
still *suppressed*, and all the rest
*repressed*, or the millions dead
in our own beloved century,
by the unaccountable
primitive tidal pull towards power
struggle and death- also
at the glowing core of
our deepest energies.
But we did not find such unalloyed
conditions of authenticity in our laboratories,
in our untested state of reflexivity
and exploration of the products of the thought
process because these products defy
ownership in the same way that we cannot
own ourselves when the divided nature
of our identities hold a sense of wholeness
ever out in front.
The poems cannot be ours as long
they must continue to be ransacked for the
buried treasure that loses currency
before its distributed. The shall game of
power is none other than the matching
shell game of selves. As fast as we
stitch them to keep up
with the shifting conditions of the games,
of recognition of the continuity of dailiness.
As quickly as we might
examine a poem's
existence by its objective value as a poem,
just as instantly do we search the entire context
of its existance, including the most private
aspect of its very atmosphere-
the self of the poet-
also as simultaneously consumed
for its promise of breaking down
the margins between the public fact
of the poem's existence, and the relative public
skepticism about the possibility of such a person
having any consistency of relavance
to him or her.
Under such conditions, it seems to me
one of the most attractive positions
must be to embrace this secrecy and to, more or less
permantently lock the gates between the front stage
until a better distribution is possible, until the relative
positions have changed, possible as one
result of a change in power conditions.
One would not be hoping for an accord
to be reached between poets in this way,
but a growing mutual recognition that what is
shared between poets is not truly
shareable between the reader and the poem.
The sutation is truly fragmented and
the conditions are severe.The poet's quest
for authenticity has actually become
more dangerous, however, the risk inherent
in marginality. On the other hand,
it is a little more subtle to see the direct
relationship between this emergence and
actual satisfaction.
Friday, March 5
Very sorry to miss Ron Silliman & Michael McClure
at the Poetry Project, as well at the Boog City
Carve reading. Engulfed in all the details and the difficulties
of moving. Damn!
I appreciate Drew's brief reviews at Overlap{click here}
Now I'm looking for one re: the Carve reading.
at the Poetry Project, as well at the Boog City
Carve reading. Engulfed in all the details and the difficulties
of moving. Damn!
I appreciate Drew's brief reviews at Overlap{click here}
Now I'm looking for one re: the Carve reading.
My Quizilla query vias Chris Murray's Tex Files {click here}.
*You are naturally born with a gift,
whether it be poetry, writing or song.
You love beauty and creativity,
and usually are highly intelligent.
Others view you as mysterious and dreamy,
yet also bold since you hold firm in your beliefs.*
All of this because I like gray and write in a journal and
like to make new friends?
Anyway, I'm a sucker for astrology too.
*You are naturally born with a gift,
whether it be poetry, writing or song.
You love beauty and creativity,
and usually are highly intelligent.
Others view you as mysterious and dreamy,
yet also bold since you hold firm in your beliefs.*
All of this because I like gray and write in a journal and
like to make new friends?
Anyway, I'm a sucker for astrology too.
"The real secret of the contemplator's success is in his refusal
to consider as an evil the encrochment on his personality by
things....."
"The precise contemplation of objects is also a form of rest,
but a privilaged rest of adult plants that bear fruits..."
Francis Ponge *Things*
translated by Cid Corman
***********************************************
"'One invisible puff-puff whisk of economically priced Ubik
banishes compulsive obsessive fears that the entire world
is turning into clotted milk, worn-out tape recorders and
obsolete iron-cage elevators, plus other further, as yet
unglimpsed manifestations of decay. You see, world
deterioration of this regressive type is a normal experience
of many half-lifers, especially in the early stages when ties
to real reality are still very strong..."
*Ubik*, Phillip K. Dick, Doubleday, 1969, p. 118
************************************************
"As I mentioned, I had begun early to find evidence that she unconsciously
defended herself against the recognition of her own psychological instability,
through projecting this instability upon not only other persons, but upon
her nonhuman environment as well. That is, she indicated that she not
only experienced other *person* in her presence (including myself, in the
therapeutic session) as being replaced, repeatedly, by different persons;
she also experienced the hospital buildings, the contours of the landscape,
and the locations of the trees as changing more or less constantly. She could
only conclude that all of her surroundings were a giant movie set which was
changed continuously. This included even the neighboring village, and the adjacent
city of Washington; when she went into the village or the city, she was sure,
each time, that this was a different community from any that she had ever
visited before. She was certain that there were thousands of Chestnut Lodges,
thousands of Rockvilles, thousands of Washingtons. Changes in these physical
surroundings , as well as changes in the appearance of other persons, would occur
right before her eyes. She had had a similar perception of her environment, for years
before my first interview with her. She once confided to me that even before the
age of eight, "I used to feel as though I were walking on quicksand."
Harold Searles, *The Nonhuman Environment*, New York, 1960, p. 315-316 316,
**********************************************************************
"No urban planner, puzzling out the rational requirements of a new city
development, would ever have arrived at the Morroccan birdcage shop.
Yet, of all the businesses on the block this is the only one which is most
typical of the peculiar big-city flavour of the quarter. It is an example of pure,
bedsitter-entrepreneurism; you import a functional object from a distant
place or period, make it both useless and decorative with a lick of paint, then
sell it at a fancy price as a status-enhancer. If the bottom falls out of the
birdcage market, no doubt the shop can quickly adapt t selling cracked
78 rpm rock-and-roll records, 1940's Aztec-fretwork radio sets, or glass
liquid jars for growing miniature gardens in. The market in fashion is
omnivorous in this improvisatory, make-do-and mend way; it transforms
junk into antiques, rubbish into something rich, strange, expensive and
amusing. It is solely concerned with effecting arbitrary changes in value; its
raw material is the continuous stream of waste products which we leave
behind us in our crazes. It is cyclical and self-sufficient, replenishing itself
as demand dictates, from the reservoir of refuse f rom which we have
temporarily averted our eyes. One blink, and we are making out a cheque
to pay for some *object d'art* which we tossed into a garbage can only
last month. The Moroccan birdcage syndrome is a useful model for a certain
kinnd of urban industrial process- a process which both supplies a demand
for commodities whose sole feature is their expression of aste, and becomes,
by virtue of its laws of economic transformation, the ultimate arbiter of that taste."
Jonathan Raban, *Soft City*, New York, 1974, p 95.
*****************************************************************
"WOZZECK Well, Doctor- you see, sir- sometimes there's folk
with this or that kind of character, or structure so to say; but
you see, sir, with Nature, sir- (He *snaps his fingers*) it's like that
sir. How could I put it? Like-
DOCTOR Wozzeck, you're philsophizing again.
WOZZECK You see, Doctor, when Nature gjives way, sir-
DOCTOR Nature! What! Nature!
WOZZECK- gives out, sir, and the world turns all
dark, and you go round fumblin after things
with your 'ands. And then'tis as though it might
all break up, sir- like a spider's web. Oh, sir- and
then there's something there; but it's not there at
all. Oh, Marie! 'Tis all so dark, and nol more than
a glint of red to west, like out of a chimney, sir-
and what are you to hold to then? (HE *paces
the room*.)
DOCTOR Tch! Don't shift your feet like that.
You're not a spider.
WOZZECK Doctor, have you ever seen anything
of compound reason? When the sun burns down
at mid-day, and it's as though the world might go
up in one flame. Once I heard a fearful voice, sir-
speaking to me.
Georg Buchner, *WOZZECK*
translated by Geoffrey Dunlop, London, 1952
*************************************************************
"In the sequence one can say that first there is object-relating,
then in the end there is object-use; in between, however, is the
most difficult thing, perhaps, in human development; or the most
irksome of all the early failures that come for mending. This thing
that there is in between relating and use is the subject's placing
of the object outside the area of the subject's omnipotent control;
that is, the subject's perception of the object as an external phenomenon,
not as a projected entity, in fact recognition of it as an entity in its own
right.
The change (from relating to usage) means that the subject destroys
the object. From here it could be argued by an armchair philosopher
that there is therefore no such thing in practice as the use of an object:
If the object is external, then the object is destroyed by the subject.
Should the philosopher come our of his chair and sit on the floor with
the patient, however, he will find that there is an intermediate positon.
In other words he will find that after 'subject relates to object' comes
*object survives* destruction by the subject'. But there may or may not
be survival."
"The Use of An Object" from *Playing and Reality*, D.W. Winnicott.
London, 1971, p. 89
*************************************************************
"Those things of which there is sight, hearing, knowledge: these are
what I honor most."
Hericleitus of Ehpesus
translated by Kathleen Feeman
**************************************************************
"Ideas are not my forte. I do not handle them with ease. They handle me
instead. Give me a queasy feeling, nausea. I don't like to find myself
thrown in their midst. Objects in the external world, on the other hand,
delight me. They sometimes surprise me, but they seem in no way concerned
about my approval: which they immediately acquire. I do not question them."
Francis Ponge, *Methods*
from * The Voice of Things*
translated by Beth Archer
****************************************************************
"But," said K., "Ive'seen the inside of an official sledge in which
there weren't any papers." Olga's sotry was opening for him
with such a great and almost incredible world that he could not help
trying to put his own small experiences in relation to it, as much to
convince himself of its reality as of his own existence.
"That's possible," said Olga, "but in that case it's even worse, for
that means that the official's business is so important that the papers
are too precious or too numerous to be taken with him, and those
officials go at a gallop. In any case, none of them can spare time for father.
And besides, there are several roads to the Castle. Now one of them
is in fashion, and most carriages go by that, now it's another and everything
drives pell-mell there. And what governs this change of fashion has never
been found out. At eight o'clock one morning they'll all be on on another
road, ten minutes later on a third, and half an hour after that on the first
road again, and then they may stick to that road all day, but every minute
there's a possibility of a change. Of course, all the roads join up near the
village, but by that time all the carriages are racing like mad, while nearer the
Castle the pace isn't quite so fast. And the amount of traffic varies just
as widely and incomprehensibly as the choice of raods. There are often days
when there's not a carriage to be seen, and others when they travel in
crowds. Now, just think of all of that in relation to father. In his best suit,
which soon becomes his only suit, off he goes every morning from the house
with our best wishes."
Franz Kafka, *The Castle*, New York, 1930, p. 238
translated by Edwin and Willa Muir
****************************************************************
"The Situationists even believed that they had discovered the vastest
and most irreducible subject possible: "life." Unfortunately, this approach
does not solve the problem of the subject, as is demonstrated by the
rigid dichotomous vision to which it leads. The relationship of society to the
spectacle comes to be pictured as one between life and non-life. to the
commodity, the economy, and the spectacle, defined as "a negation of life
that *has become visible* as "non-life," and as "the life, moving of
itself, of that which is dead"...is opposed life as flux."
*Guy Debord* Anselm Jappe, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith,
UC Press, 1993.
***************************************************************
"The events that happen in individual existence as it is organized,
the events that really concern us and require our participation are generally
precisely those that merit nothing more than our being distant, bored,
indiferent spectators. In contrast, the situation that is seen in some artistic
transposition is rather often attractive, something that would merit our
participating in it. This is a paradox to reverse, to put back on its feet. This
is what must be realized in acts. and this idiotic spectacle of the fragmented
and filtered past, full of sound and fury: it is not a question now of transmitting-
it- of 'rendering' it, as is said- in another neatly ordered spectacle that would
play the game of neatly ordered comprehension and participation. No. Any
coherent artistic expression already expresses the coherence of the past,
already expresses passivity. It is necessary to destroy memory in art. To
destroy the conventions of its communication. To demoralise its fans. What a task!
As in blurry, drunken vision, the memory and the language of the film fade out
simultaneously. At the extreme, the miserable subjectivity is reversed into a certain
sort of objectivity: a documentary on the conditions of non-communication."
Guy Debord, *Society of The Spectacle and Other Films*
*Refutation of all judgements whether for or against,
which have been brought to date of the film 'Society of
The Spectacle" is based on the translation by Ken Sanborn,
New York, 1989. No copyright for non-profit editions.
*********************************************************************
"We do not see the human eye as a receiver, it appears not
to let anything in, but to send something out. The ear receives;
the eye looks. (It casts glances, it flashes, radiates, gleams.) One
can terrify with one's eyes, not with one's ear or nose. When
you see the eye you see something going out from it. You see
the look in the eye."
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Zettel, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe
UC Press, 1967, p. 40e
to consider as an evil the encrochment on his personality by
things....."
"The precise contemplation of objects is also a form of rest,
but a privilaged rest of adult plants that bear fruits..."
Francis Ponge *Things*
translated by Cid Corman
***********************************************
"'One invisible puff-puff whisk of economically priced Ubik
banishes compulsive obsessive fears that the entire world
is turning into clotted milk, worn-out tape recorders and
obsolete iron-cage elevators, plus other further, as yet
unglimpsed manifestations of decay. You see, world
deterioration of this regressive type is a normal experience
of many half-lifers, especially in the early stages when ties
to real reality are still very strong..."
*Ubik*, Phillip K. Dick, Doubleday, 1969, p. 118
************************************************
"As I mentioned, I had begun early to find evidence that she unconsciously
defended herself against the recognition of her own psychological instability,
through projecting this instability upon not only other persons, but upon
her nonhuman environment as well. That is, she indicated that she not
only experienced other *person* in her presence (including myself, in the
therapeutic session) as being replaced, repeatedly, by different persons;
she also experienced the hospital buildings, the contours of the landscape,
and the locations of the trees as changing more or less constantly. She could
only conclude that all of her surroundings were a giant movie set which was
changed continuously. This included even the neighboring village, and the adjacent
city of Washington; when she went into the village or the city, she was sure,
each time, that this was a different community from any that she had ever
visited before. She was certain that there were thousands of Chestnut Lodges,
thousands of Rockvilles, thousands of Washingtons. Changes in these physical
surroundings , as well as changes in the appearance of other persons, would occur
right before her eyes. She had had a similar perception of her environment, for years
before my first interview with her. She once confided to me that even before the
age of eight, "I used to feel as though I were walking on quicksand."
Harold Searles, *The Nonhuman Environment*, New York, 1960, p. 315-316 316,
**********************************************************************
"No urban planner, puzzling out the rational requirements of a new city
development, would ever have arrived at the Morroccan birdcage shop.
Yet, of all the businesses on the block this is the only one which is most
typical of the peculiar big-city flavour of the quarter. It is an example of pure,
bedsitter-entrepreneurism; you import a functional object from a distant
place or period, make it both useless and decorative with a lick of paint, then
sell it at a fancy price as a status-enhancer. If the bottom falls out of the
birdcage market, no doubt the shop can quickly adapt t selling cracked
78 rpm rock-and-roll records, 1940's Aztec-fretwork radio sets, or glass
liquid jars for growing miniature gardens in. The market in fashion is
omnivorous in this improvisatory, make-do-and mend way; it transforms
junk into antiques, rubbish into something rich, strange, expensive and
amusing. It is solely concerned with effecting arbitrary changes in value; its
raw material is the continuous stream of waste products which we leave
behind us in our crazes. It is cyclical and self-sufficient, replenishing itself
as demand dictates, from the reservoir of refuse f rom which we have
temporarily averted our eyes. One blink, and we are making out a cheque
to pay for some *object d'art* which we tossed into a garbage can only
last month. The Moroccan birdcage syndrome is a useful model for a certain
kinnd of urban industrial process- a process which both supplies a demand
for commodities whose sole feature is their expression of aste, and becomes,
by virtue of its laws of economic transformation, the ultimate arbiter of that taste."
Jonathan Raban, *Soft City*, New York, 1974, p 95.
*****************************************************************
"WOZZECK Well, Doctor- you see, sir- sometimes there's folk
with this or that kind of character, or structure so to say; but
you see, sir, with Nature, sir- (He *snaps his fingers*) it's like that
sir. How could I put it? Like-
DOCTOR Wozzeck, you're philsophizing again.
WOZZECK You see, Doctor, when Nature gjives way, sir-
DOCTOR Nature! What! Nature!
WOZZECK- gives out, sir, and the world turns all
dark, and you go round fumblin after things
with your 'ands. And then'tis as though it might
all break up, sir- like a spider's web. Oh, sir- and
then there's something there; but it's not there at
all. Oh, Marie! 'Tis all so dark, and nol more than
a glint of red to west, like out of a chimney, sir-
and what are you to hold to then? (HE *paces
the room*.)
DOCTOR Tch! Don't shift your feet like that.
You're not a spider.
WOZZECK Doctor, have you ever seen anything
of compound reason? When the sun burns down
at mid-day, and it's as though the world might go
up in one flame. Once I heard a fearful voice, sir-
speaking to me.
Georg Buchner, *WOZZECK*
translated by Geoffrey Dunlop, London, 1952
*************************************************************
"In the sequence one can say that first there is object-relating,
then in the end there is object-use; in between, however, is the
most difficult thing, perhaps, in human development; or the most
irksome of all the early failures that come for mending. This thing
that there is in between relating and use is the subject's placing
of the object outside the area of the subject's omnipotent control;
that is, the subject's perception of the object as an external phenomenon,
not as a projected entity, in fact recognition of it as an entity in its own
right.
The change (from relating to usage) means that the subject destroys
the object. From here it could be argued by an armchair philosopher
that there is therefore no such thing in practice as the use of an object:
If the object is external, then the object is destroyed by the subject.
Should the philosopher come our of his chair and sit on the floor with
the patient, however, he will find that there is an intermediate positon.
In other words he will find that after 'subject relates to object' comes
*object survives* destruction by the subject'. But there may or may not
be survival."
"The Use of An Object" from *Playing and Reality*, D.W. Winnicott.
London, 1971, p. 89
*************************************************************
"Those things of which there is sight, hearing, knowledge: these are
what I honor most."
Hericleitus of Ehpesus
translated by Kathleen Feeman
**************************************************************
"Ideas are not my forte. I do not handle them with ease. They handle me
instead. Give me a queasy feeling, nausea. I don't like to find myself
thrown in their midst. Objects in the external world, on the other hand,
delight me. They sometimes surprise me, but they seem in no way concerned
about my approval: which they immediately acquire. I do not question them."
Francis Ponge, *Methods*
from * The Voice of Things*
translated by Beth Archer
****************************************************************
"But," said K., "Ive'seen the inside of an official sledge in which
there weren't any papers." Olga's sotry was opening for him
with such a great and almost incredible world that he could not help
trying to put his own small experiences in relation to it, as much to
convince himself of its reality as of his own existence.
"That's possible," said Olga, "but in that case it's even worse, for
that means that the official's business is so important that the papers
are too precious or too numerous to be taken with him, and those
officials go at a gallop. In any case, none of them can spare time for father.
And besides, there are several roads to the Castle. Now one of them
is in fashion, and most carriages go by that, now it's another and everything
drives pell-mell there. And what governs this change of fashion has never
been found out. At eight o'clock one morning they'll all be on on another
road, ten minutes later on a third, and half an hour after that on the first
road again, and then they may stick to that road all day, but every minute
there's a possibility of a change. Of course, all the roads join up near the
village, but by that time all the carriages are racing like mad, while nearer the
Castle the pace isn't quite so fast. And the amount of traffic varies just
as widely and incomprehensibly as the choice of raods. There are often days
when there's not a carriage to be seen, and others when they travel in
crowds. Now, just think of all of that in relation to father. In his best suit,
which soon becomes his only suit, off he goes every morning from the house
with our best wishes."
Franz Kafka, *The Castle*, New York, 1930, p. 238
translated by Edwin and Willa Muir
****************************************************************
"The Situationists even believed that they had discovered the vastest
and most irreducible subject possible: "life." Unfortunately, this approach
does not solve the problem of the subject, as is demonstrated by the
rigid dichotomous vision to which it leads. The relationship of society to the
spectacle comes to be pictured as one between life and non-life. to the
commodity, the economy, and the spectacle, defined as "a negation of life
that *has become visible* as "non-life," and as "the life, moving of
itself, of that which is dead"...is opposed life as flux."
*Guy Debord* Anselm Jappe, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith,
UC Press, 1993.
***************************************************************
"The events that happen in individual existence as it is organized,
the events that really concern us and require our participation are generally
precisely those that merit nothing more than our being distant, bored,
indiferent spectators. In contrast, the situation that is seen in some artistic
transposition is rather often attractive, something that would merit our
participating in it. This is a paradox to reverse, to put back on its feet. This
is what must be realized in acts. and this idiotic spectacle of the fragmented
and filtered past, full of sound and fury: it is not a question now of transmitting-
it- of 'rendering' it, as is said- in another neatly ordered spectacle that would
play the game of neatly ordered comprehension and participation. No. Any
coherent artistic expression already expresses the coherence of the past,
already expresses passivity. It is necessary to destroy memory in art. To
destroy the conventions of its communication. To demoralise its fans. What a task!
As in blurry, drunken vision, the memory and the language of the film fade out
simultaneously. At the extreme, the miserable subjectivity is reversed into a certain
sort of objectivity: a documentary on the conditions of non-communication."
Guy Debord, *Society of The Spectacle and Other Films*
*Refutation of all judgements whether for or against,
which have been brought to date of the film 'Society of
The Spectacle" is based on the translation by Ken Sanborn,
New York, 1989. No copyright for non-profit editions.
*********************************************************************
"We do not see the human eye as a receiver, it appears not
to let anything in, but to send something out. The ear receives;
the eye looks. (It casts glances, it flashes, radiates, gleams.) One
can terrify with one's eyes, not with one's ear or nose. When
you see the eye you see something going out from it. You see
the look in the eye."
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Zettel, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe
UC Press, 1967, p. 40e
Thursday, March 4
David Sifrey, whose Technorati website is one of the most
useful sites in the blogosphere, posted the following regarding
the sociology of linking. See paragraph 2,
February 16: "I've been giving a lot of thought
to Tim Oren's succinct comments that linking is a new kind of social gesture..."
Sifrey's Alerts {click here}
useful sites in the blogosphere, posted the following regarding
the sociology of linking. See paragraph 2,
February 16: "I've been giving a lot of thought
to Tim Oren's succinct comments that linking is a new kind of social gesture..."
Sifrey's Alerts {click here}
"Well, let's put it this way: I have ideas, ideas that can be
turned into profits, and I have a way with things, of making
an idea concrete and giving it cash value. After my first big-
payoff inventions or discoveries, I didn't even need a way
with things; I got myself a staff. One invention led to another.
The money kept pouring in; it still does. All I really ever
needed was ideas, and I have never had a lack of those.
What is my secret? I start with myself. That's my first
million dollar idea. What would I really like? What do I
need? What would make my life better, even a little bit
better? What would I pay good money for? What would make
my life more comfortable and pleasurable?
There's a lecture I give, and I've given it all over the
country and in Europe, too, that I call 'How To Invent
Your Way To Big Money.' What I've just said is exactly
how I begin it every time. Usually I make people pay big
bucks for these words: I only speak to 20 people at a time
and I charge them each $1000 at least. My time is valuable
to me. I have to say, though, that most people just don't
get the message no matter how much they pay to hear
me speak. Most people are lumps. So you can quote me
for free. I figure that poor people might do better with my
secret to success than the rich ones."
"The Big Cheese" from *Hotel Death and other tales*
by John Perrault
Sun and Moon Press, Los Angeles, 1989
**************************************************
"Sometimes, you just have to bow down in awe. A person
comes up with an idea that no one has ever thought of, an
idea so simple and perfect that you wonder how the world ever
managed to survive without it. The suitcase with wheels, for
example. How could it have taken so long? For thirty thousand
years, we've been lugging our burdens around with us, sweating
and straining as we moved from one place to another, and the only
thing that's ever come of it is sore muscles, bad backs, exhaustion.
I mean, it's not as though we didn't have the wheel, is it? That's
what gets me. Why did we have to wait untiil the end of the
twentieth century for this gizmo to see the light of day?...I'm
telling your friend, things aren't so simple as they look. The human
spirit is a dull instrument, and often we're no better at figuring
out how to take care of ourselves than the lowest worm on the ground."
Paul Auster, *Timbuktu*, faber and faber, 1999
**********************************************************
"Reports of air attacks are seldom without the names of the firms
which produced the planes: Focke-Wulff, Heinkel, Lancaster
feature where once the talk of of cuirrassiers, lancers and hussars.
The mechanism for reproducing life, for dominating and destroying
it, is exactly the same, and accordingly, industry, state, and
advertising are amalgamated. The old exaggeration of sceptical
Liberals, that war was a business, has come true: state power
has shred even the appearance of independence from particular
interests in profit; always in their service really, it now also places
itself there ideologically. Every laudatory mention of the chief
contractor in the destruction of cities, helps to earn it the
good name that will secure it the best commissions in their
rebuilding."
"Out of The Firing Line," f rom *Minima Moralia* Thodore Adorno,
Verso,1978, translation by E.F.N. Jephcott
******************************************************
"As a focus of regression, mass culture assiduously concerns
itself with the production of those archetypes in whose survival
fascistic psychology perceives the most reliable means of perpetuating
the modern conditions of domination. Primeval symbols are constructed
on the production line. The dream industry does not so much fabricate
the drama of the customers as to introduce the dreams of the suppliers
among the people. This is the thousand-year empire of an industrial
caste system governed by a stream of never-ending dynasties. In the
dreams of those in charge of mummifying the world mass culture
represents a priestly hieroglyphic script which addresses its images to
those who have been subjugaged not in order that they might be
enjoyed but only that they be read...But the secret doctrine which is
communicated here is the message of capital. It must be secret because
total domination likes to keep itself invisible."
Theodore Adorno, *The Culture Industry*
Routledge, 1991
***********************************************************
"The spectacular organisation of modern class society brings with it
two consequences recognisable everywhere: on the one hand, the
generalised falsification of products as well as of reasoning; on the
other, the obligation, for those who pretend to find their happiness
therein, of always maintaining themselves at a great distance from that
which they affect to love, for they never possess the means, whether
intellectual or otherwise, by which to accede to direct and profound
knowledge, a complete praxis and authentic taste.
What is already so apparent when it is a question of living conditions,
of wine, of cultural consumption or of the liberation of morals, should
be naturally only the more marked when it is a matter of revolutionary
theory, and of the redoubtable language which they attach to a
condemned world. this naive falsification and this incompetent approbation,
which are like the specific odour of the spectacle, have hardly failed to
illustrate the commentaries, variously imcomprehensible, which have
responded to the film entitled *The Society of the Spectacle*.
Incomprehension, in this case, imposes itself, for still a bit longer. The
spectacle is a poverty, even more than it is a conspiracy. And those who
write in the newspapers of our epoch have dissimulated nothing of their
intelligence from us. What could they say of pertinence concerning a film
which attacks them at the moment when they themselves begin to feel
themselves caving in in every detail. The debility of their reactions accompanies
the decadence of their world...One who looks at the poverty of their life
understands well the poverty of their discourse. It is enough to see
their set decorations and their occupations, their commodities and their
ceremonies; and that is spread out everywhere. It's enough to hear these
imbecilic voices which tell you that you have become alienated, as they inform
you of it with contempt, at every hour that passes.
Spectators do not find what they desire: they desire what they find."
Guy Debord *Society of the Spectacle and Other Films*
Rebel Press, London, 1992
*************************************************************
"WILLY: Charley, I'm strapped. I'm strapped. I don't know
what to do. I was just fired.
CHARLEY: Howard fired you?
WILLY: That snotnose. Imagine that? I named him. I named
him Howard.
CHARLEY: Willy, when you gonna realize that them things
don't mean anything? You named him Howard, but you can't
sell that. The only thing you got in this world is what you can
sell. And the funny thing is that you're a salesman, and you
don't know that.
WILLY: I've always tried to think otherwise, I guess. I always
felt that if a man was impressive, and well liked, that nothing-
CHARLEY: Why must everybody like you? Who liked J.P. Morgan?
Was he impressive? In a Turkish bath he'd look like a butcher.
But with his pockets on he was very well liked. Now listen, Willy,
I know you don't like me, and nobody can say I'm in love with you,
but I'll give you a job because- just for the hell of it, put it that way.
Now what do you say?
WILLY: I- I just can't work for you, Charley.
CHARLEY: What're you, jealous of me?
WILLY: I can't work for you, that's all, don't ask me why.
CHARLEY, *angered, takes out more bills*:You've been
jealous of me all your life, you damned fool. Here, pay
your insurance. *He puts the money in Willy's hand*
WILLY: I'm keeping strict accounts.
CHARLEY: I've got some work to do. Take care of
yourself. And pay your insurance.
WILLY, *moving to the right: Funny, y'know? After
all the highways and the trains, and the appointments,
and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive."
from *Death of A Salesman*
Arthur Miller
Viking, NY 1949
turned into profits, and I have a way with things, of making
an idea concrete and giving it cash value. After my first big-
payoff inventions or discoveries, I didn't even need a way
with things; I got myself a staff. One invention led to another.
The money kept pouring in; it still does. All I really ever
needed was ideas, and I have never had a lack of those.
What is my secret? I start with myself. That's my first
million dollar idea. What would I really like? What do I
need? What would make my life better, even a little bit
better? What would I pay good money for? What would make
my life more comfortable and pleasurable?
There's a lecture I give, and I've given it all over the
country and in Europe, too, that I call 'How To Invent
Your Way To Big Money.' What I've just said is exactly
how I begin it every time. Usually I make people pay big
bucks for these words: I only speak to 20 people at a time
and I charge them each $1000 at least. My time is valuable
to me. I have to say, though, that most people just don't
get the message no matter how much they pay to hear
me speak. Most people are lumps. So you can quote me
for free. I figure that poor people might do better with my
secret to success than the rich ones."
"The Big Cheese" from *Hotel Death and other tales*
by John Perrault
Sun and Moon Press, Los Angeles, 1989
**************************************************
"Sometimes, you just have to bow down in awe. A person
comes up with an idea that no one has ever thought of, an
idea so simple and perfect that you wonder how the world ever
managed to survive without it. The suitcase with wheels, for
example. How could it have taken so long? For thirty thousand
years, we've been lugging our burdens around with us, sweating
and straining as we moved from one place to another, and the only
thing that's ever come of it is sore muscles, bad backs, exhaustion.
I mean, it's not as though we didn't have the wheel, is it? That's
what gets me. Why did we have to wait untiil the end of the
twentieth century for this gizmo to see the light of day?...I'm
telling your friend, things aren't so simple as they look. The human
spirit is a dull instrument, and often we're no better at figuring
out how to take care of ourselves than the lowest worm on the ground."
Paul Auster, *Timbuktu*, faber and faber, 1999
**********************************************************
"Reports of air attacks are seldom without the names of the firms
which produced the planes: Focke-Wulff, Heinkel, Lancaster
feature where once the talk of of cuirrassiers, lancers and hussars.
The mechanism for reproducing life, for dominating and destroying
it, is exactly the same, and accordingly, industry, state, and
advertising are amalgamated. The old exaggeration of sceptical
Liberals, that war was a business, has come true: state power
has shred even the appearance of independence from particular
interests in profit; always in their service really, it now also places
itself there ideologically. Every laudatory mention of the chief
contractor in the destruction of cities, helps to earn it the
good name that will secure it the best commissions in their
rebuilding."
"Out of The Firing Line," f rom *Minima Moralia* Thodore Adorno,
Verso,1978, translation by E.F.N. Jephcott
******************************************************
"As a focus of regression, mass culture assiduously concerns
itself with the production of those archetypes in whose survival
fascistic psychology perceives the most reliable means of perpetuating
the modern conditions of domination. Primeval symbols are constructed
on the production line. The dream industry does not so much fabricate
the drama of the customers as to introduce the dreams of the suppliers
among the people. This is the thousand-year empire of an industrial
caste system governed by a stream of never-ending dynasties. In the
dreams of those in charge of mummifying the world mass culture
represents a priestly hieroglyphic script which addresses its images to
those who have been subjugaged not in order that they might be
enjoyed but only that they be read...But the secret doctrine which is
communicated here is the message of capital. It must be secret because
total domination likes to keep itself invisible."
Theodore Adorno, *The Culture Industry*
Routledge, 1991
***********************************************************
"The spectacular organisation of modern class society brings with it
two consequences recognisable everywhere: on the one hand, the
generalised falsification of products as well as of reasoning; on the
other, the obligation, for those who pretend to find their happiness
therein, of always maintaining themselves at a great distance from that
which they affect to love, for they never possess the means, whether
intellectual or otherwise, by which to accede to direct and profound
knowledge, a complete praxis and authentic taste.
What is already so apparent when it is a question of living conditions,
of wine, of cultural consumption or of the liberation of morals, should
be naturally only the more marked when it is a matter of revolutionary
theory, and of the redoubtable language which they attach to a
condemned world. this naive falsification and this incompetent approbation,
which are like the specific odour of the spectacle, have hardly failed to
illustrate the commentaries, variously imcomprehensible, which have
responded to the film entitled *The Society of the Spectacle*.
Incomprehension, in this case, imposes itself, for still a bit longer. The
spectacle is a poverty, even more than it is a conspiracy. And those who
write in the newspapers of our epoch have dissimulated nothing of their
intelligence from us. What could they say of pertinence concerning a film
which attacks them at the moment when they themselves begin to feel
themselves caving in in every detail. The debility of their reactions accompanies
the decadence of their world...One who looks at the poverty of their life
understands well the poverty of their discourse. It is enough to see
their set decorations and their occupations, their commodities and their
ceremonies; and that is spread out everywhere. It's enough to hear these
imbecilic voices which tell you that you have become alienated, as they inform
you of it with contempt, at every hour that passes.
Spectators do not find what they desire: they desire what they find."
Guy Debord *Society of the Spectacle and Other Films*
Rebel Press, London, 1992
*************************************************************
"WILLY: Charley, I'm strapped. I'm strapped. I don't know
what to do. I was just fired.
CHARLEY: Howard fired you?
WILLY: That snotnose. Imagine that? I named him. I named
him Howard.
CHARLEY: Willy, when you gonna realize that them things
don't mean anything? You named him Howard, but you can't
sell that. The only thing you got in this world is what you can
sell. And the funny thing is that you're a salesman, and you
don't know that.
WILLY: I've always tried to think otherwise, I guess. I always
felt that if a man was impressive, and well liked, that nothing-
CHARLEY: Why must everybody like you? Who liked J.P. Morgan?
Was he impressive? In a Turkish bath he'd look like a butcher.
But with his pockets on he was very well liked. Now listen, Willy,
I know you don't like me, and nobody can say I'm in love with you,
but I'll give you a job because- just for the hell of it, put it that way.
Now what do you say?
WILLY: I- I just can't work for you, Charley.
CHARLEY: What're you, jealous of me?
WILLY: I can't work for you, that's all, don't ask me why.
CHARLEY, *angered, takes out more bills*:You've been
jealous of me all your life, you damned fool. Here, pay
your insurance. *He puts the money in Willy's hand*
WILLY: I'm keeping strict accounts.
CHARLEY: I've got some work to do. Take care of
yourself. And pay your insurance.
WILLY, *moving to the right: Funny, y'know? After
all the highways and the trains, and the appointments,
and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive."
from *Death of A Salesman*
Arthur Miller
Viking, NY 1949
Wednesday, March 3
This Just In From Aaron Tieger
(just in because my email server's been
down since last night)
If you're in or near NYC on Thursday,
March 4, please come celebrate issue 2
(and others) of CARVE with poetry readings by
Michael Carr
Gregory Ford
Brenda Iijima
Mark Lamoureux
Dorothea Lasky
Jess Mynes
Christina Strong
Aaron Tieger
Matvei Yankelevich
With music by The Millerite Redeemers!
Curated & with introduction by David Kirschenbaum.
Free wine, cheese, food, etc.
6 pm.
ACA Galleries
529 W.20th St., 5th Flr. (Chelsea)
NYC
Directions: C/E to 23rd St., 1/9 to 18th St.
Venue is bet. 10th and 11th avenues
FREE AND OPEN TO THE
PUBLIC. BRING FRIENDS, DATES, ETC.
(just in because my email server's been
down since last night)
If you're in or near NYC on Thursday,
March 4, please come celebrate issue 2
(and others) of CARVE with poetry readings by
Michael Carr
Gregory Ford
Brenda Iijima
Mark Lamoureux
Dorothea Lasky
Jess Mynes
Christina Strong
Aaron Tieger
Matvei Yankelevich
With music by The Millerite Redeemers!
Curated & with introduction by David Kirschenbaum.
Free wine, cheese, food, etc.
6 pm.
ACA Galleries
529 W.20th St., 5th Flr. (Chelsea)
NYC
Directions: C/E to 23rd St., 1/9 to 18th St.
Venue is bet. 10th and 11th avenues
FREE AND OPEN TO THE
PUBLIC. BRING FRIENDS, DATES, ETC.
"Every given commodity fights for itself,
cannot acknowledge the others, and attempts
to impose itself everywhere as if it were the only
one. The spectacle then, is the epic poem of this struggle,
an epic which cannot be concluded by the fall of any
Troy. The spectacle does not sing the praises of
men and their weapons, but of commodities and
their passions. In this blind struggle, every commodity
pursuing its passion unconsciously realizes something
higher: the becoming-world of the commodity,
which is also the becoming-commodity of the
world. So, by a TRICK OF COMMODITY LOGIC,
what is SPECIFIC in the commodity wears itself
out in the fight while the commodity-form moves
towards its absolute realization.
In the image of the society happily unified by
consumption, real division is only SUSPENDED
until the next non-accomplishment in the
consumable. Each specific product which represents
hope for a dazzling short-cut to the promised land
of total consumption, is ceremoniously presented
in its turn as the decisive entity. But as in the
case of the simultaneous diffusion of seemingly
aristocratic first-names carried by almost all
individuals of the same age, the objects from which
one expects a unique power could not have been proposed
for the devotion of the masses unless it had been
produced in large enough numbers to be consumed
massively. A product acquires prestiige only when
it is placed at the center of social life as the revealed
mystery of the ultimate goal of production.
The object which was prestigious in the spectacle becomes
vulgar as soon as it enters the home of the consumer, and
at the same time enters the homes of all the others. Too late,
it reveals its essential poverty, which it naturally gets from the'
misery of its production. But, by then, another object already
carries the justification of the system and the demand to be
recognized.
The fraud of satisfaction must denounce itself by being
replaced, following the change of products and the
general conditions of production. That which asserted
its definitive excellence with perfect impudence nevertheless
changes, both in the diffuse and in the concentrated
spectacle, and it is the system alone which must continue.
Stalin, as well as the outmoded commodity are denounced
precisely by those who imposed them. Every NEW LIE of
advertising is also an AVOWAL of the previous lie. The
fall of every figure of totalitarian power reveals the ILLUSORY
COMMUNITY which approved him unanimously, and was no
more than an agglomoration of solitudes without illusions.
What the spectacle offers as eternal is based on change, and
must change with its base. The spectacle is abolutely
dogmatic and at the same time cannot really arrive with any
solid dogma. Nothing stops for it; this condition is natural to
it yet most contrary to its inclination.
The unreal unity proclaimed by the spectacle masks the class
division on which the real unity of the capitalist mode of
production rests. What obliges the producers to participate
in the construction of the world is also what separates them
from it. What brings together men liberated from their local
and national boundaries is also what pulls them apart. What requires
a more profound rationality is also what nourishes the irrationality
of hierarchical exploitation and repression. What creates
the abstract power of society creates its concrete UNFREEDOM."
Guy Debord
*Society of the Spectacle
and Other Films*
cannot acknowledge the others, and attempts
to impose itself everywhere as if it were the only
one. The spectacle then, is the epic poem of this struggle,
an epic which cannot be concluded by the fall of any
Troy. The spectacle does not sing the praises of
men and their weapons, but of commodities and
their passions. In this blind struggle, every commodity
pursuing its passion unconsciously realizes something
higher: the becoming-world of the commodity,
which is also the becoming-commodity of the
world. So, by a TRICK OF COMMODITY LOGIC,
what is SPECIFIC in the commodity wears itself
out in the fight while the commodity-form moves
towards its absolute realization.
In the image of the society happily unified by
consumption, real division is only SUSPENDED
until the next non-accomplishment in the
consumable. Each specific product which represents
hope for a dazzling short-cut to the promised land
of total consumption, is ceremoniously presented
in its turn as the decisive entity. But as in the
case of the simultaneous diffusion of seemingly
aristocratic first-names carried by almost all
individuals of the same age, the objects from which
one expects a unique power could not have been proposed
for the devotion of the masses unless it had been
produced in large enough numbers to be consumed
massively. A product acquires prestiige only when
it is placed at the center of social life as the revealed
mystery of the ultimate goal of production.
The object which was prestigious in the spectacle becomes
vulgar as soon as it enters the home of the consumer, and
at the same time enters the homes of all the others. Too late,
it reveals its essential poverty, which it naturally gets from the'
misery of its production. But, by then, another object already
carries the justification of the system and the demand to be
recognized.
The fraud of satisfaction must denounce itself by being
replaced, following the change of products and the
general conditions of production. That which asserted
its definitive excellence with perfect impudence nevertheless
changes, both in the diffuse and in the concentrated
spectacle, and it is the system alone which must continue.
Stalin, as well as the outmoded commodity are denounced
precisely by those who imposed them. Every NEW LIE of
advertising is also an AVOWAL of the previous lie. The
fall of every figure of totalitarian power reveals the ILLUSORY
COMMUNITY which approved him unanimously, and was no
more than an agglomoration of solitudes without illusions.
What the spectacle offers as eternal is based on change, and
must change with its base. The spectacle is abolutely
dogmatic and at the same time cannot really arrive with any
solid dogma. Nothing stops for it; this condition is natural to
it yet most contrary to its inclination.
The unreal unity proclaimed by the spectacle masks the class
division on which the real unity of the capitalist mode of
production rests. What obliges the producers to participate
in the construction of the world is also what separates them
from it. What brings together men liberated from their local
and national boundaries is also what pulls them apart. What requires
a more profound rationality is also what nourishes the irrationality
of hierarchical exploitation and repression. What creates
the abstract power of society creates its concrete UNFREEDOM."
Guy Debord
*Society of the Spectacle
and Other Films*
Tuesday, March 2
Thanks to Mike Snider's Formal
Blog and Sonnetarium {click here} ,
and to Tim Peterson's Mappemunde {click here}
for the kind words and vote of confidence for this blog.
Blog and Sonnetarium {click here} ,
and to Tim Peterson's Mappemunde {click here}
for the kind words and vote of confidence for this blog.
"The entire life of societies in which modern conditions of production
prevail, heralds itself as an immense accumulation of SPECTACLES.
Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a
representation.
The images that detach themselves from every aspect of life fuse
in a common stream where the unity of life can no longer be
re-established. Reality considered PARTIALLY unfolds itself in its
own general unity as a pseudo-world APART, an object of mere
contemplation.
The specialisation of images of the world finds itself
accomplished in the world of the automatised image where the
liar has lied to himself. The spectacle in general, as the concrete
inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living.
The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as
a part of society, and as INSTRUMENT OF UNIFICATION. As a part
of society it is specifically the sector which concentrates all
looking and consciousness. Due to the very fact this sector is
SEPARATE, it is the common ground of the deceived gaze and of
false consciousness, and the unification it achieves is nothing
but an official language of generalised separation.
The spectacle is not an aggregate of images but a social relation
amongst people, mediated by language. The spectacle, grasped
in its totality, is both the result and project of the existing mode
of production. It is not a supplement of the real world, its added
decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of the real society. In
all its specific forms, as information or propaganda, advertisement
or direct entertainment consumption, the spectacle is the present
MODEL of socially dominant life. It is the omnipresent affirmation
of the choice ALREADY MADE in production and its corollary
consumption.
Separation is itself part of the unity of the world, of the global
social praxis split into image and reality. The social practice
before which the autonomous spectacle installs itself is also
the real totality which contains the spectacle. But the gash within
this totality mutilates it the point of making the spectacle appear
to be the goal. In a world which is REALLY UPSIDE DOWN, the
true is a moment of the false.
Considered in its own terms, the spectacle is AFFIRMATION of
appearance and affirmation of all human life, that is of social
life, as mere appearance. But the critique which reaches the truth
of the spectacle uncovers it as the visible NEGATION of life; as a
negation of life which HAS BECOME VISIBLE.
The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive,
indisputable and inaccessible. It says nothing more than "whatever
appears is good, and whatever is good appears". The attitude
it requires in principle is this passive acceptance, which in fact
it has already obtained by its method of appearing without reply,
by its monopoly of appearance.
The spectacle subjugates living men to itself to the extent that
the economy has subjugated them. It is no more than the economy
developing itself for itself. It is the faithful reflection of the production
of things, and the false objectification of the producers.
Where the real world changes into simple images the simple
images become real beings and efficient motivation of hypnotic
behavior.
At the rate that necessity is socially dreamed, the dream
becomes necessary. The spectacle is the nightmare of
enchained modern society which ultimately only expresses its
desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian angel
of this sleep."
Guy Debord
*Society of the Spectacle
And Other Films*
prevail, heralds itself as an immense accumulation of SPECTACLES.
Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a
representation.
The images that detach themselves from every aspect of life fuse
in a common stream where the unity of life can no longer be
re-established. Reality considered PARTIALLY unfolds itself in its
own general unity as a pseudo-world APART, an object of mere
contemplation.
The specialisation of images of the world finds itself
accomplished in the world of the automatised image where the
liar has lied to himself. The spectacle in general, as the concrete
inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living.
The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as
a part of society, and as INSTRUMENT OF UNIFICATION. As a part
of society it is specifically the sector which concentrates all
looking and consciousness. Due to the very fact this sector is
SEPARATE, it is the common ground of the deceived gaze and of
false consciousness, and the unification it achieves is nothing
but an official language of generalised separation.
The spectacle is not an aggregate of images but a social relation
amongst people, mediated by language. The spectacle, grasped
in its totality, is both the result and project of the existing mode
of production. It is not a supplement of the real world, its added
decoration. It is the heart of the unrealism of the real society. In
all its specific forms, as information or propaganda, advertisement
or direct entertainment consumption, the spectacle is the present
MODEL of socially dominant life. It is the omnipresent affirmation
of the choice ALREADY MADE in production and its corollary
consumption.
Separation is itself part of the unity of the world, of the global
social praxis split into image and reality. The social practice
before which the autonomous spectacle installs itself is also
the real totality which contains the spectacle. But the gash within
this totality mutilates it the point of making the spectacle appear
to be the goal. In a world which is REALLY UPSIDE DOWN, the
true is a moment of the false.
Considered in its own terms, the spectacle is AFFIRMATION of
appearance and affirmation of all human life, that is of social
life, as mere appearance. But the critique which reaches the truth
of the spectacle uncovers it as the visible NEGATION of life; as a
negation of life which HAS BECOME VISIBLE.
The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive,
indisputable and inaccessible. It says nothing more than "whatever
appears is good, and whatever is good appears". The attitude
it requires in principle is this passive acceptance, which in fact
it has already obtained by its method of appearing without reply,
by its monopoly of appearance.
The spectacle subjugates living men to itself to the extent that
the economy has subjugated them. It is no more than the economy
developing itself for itself. It is the faithful reflection of the production
of things, and the false objectification of the producers.
Where the real world changes into simple images the simple
images become real beings and efficient motivation of hypnotic
behavior.
At the rate that necessity is socially dreamed, the dream
becomes necessary. The spectacle is the nightmare of
enchained modern society which ultimately only expresses its
desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian angel
of this sleep."
Guy Debord
*Society of the Spectacle
And Other Films*
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Blogger
At the same moment that Jack Kimball, who both captains
Pantaloons:Tykes on Poetry (Jack Kimball) {click here},
a sure and steady blogship, and sails a sharp and
swift publishing racing craft he calls *Faux Books* is
publishing an excellent series of book reviews on his blog
(he complimented Cori Copp's recent chapbook with
a comment very mildly disparaging blogging in favor of books
of poetry), on the Buffalo Poetics list the old theme of blogging being
a drag on the energies of the vivacious and glittering poetics list has once
again emerged. Unfortunately, we rose to the occasion with a
post to the poetics list, but fortunately so did Tim Yu and Chris Murray.
Tim's much clearer and more insightful post is available right now
on Tympan (Tim Yu) {click here}.
tex files (Chris Murray) {click here}
has not republished the comments she made on the poetics list,
but she does have a thoughtful comment to make on
last night's poetics brouhaha.
The subject line was: "Start an Argument on the Poetics List."
I may have been mistaken, but I thought Alan Sondheim
had called for more argumentative discussions on the
poetics list as in days of yore.
Here's my rather grouchy and pious ourburst:
*****************************
Blaming the blogosphere for what is lacking on
the poetics list is an old tradition,(old in internet-time)
and sounds to these old poet's ears like a cry of pain. This
is not unusual from Mr. Sondheim, whose precision
of perception is not the least bit
lost on a great number of poets, despite
its many fascinating, complex camouflages.
What a poet needs, especially a long distance marathon
poetry runner, is response. Some say
there is never enough response for an artist, and that
might be true, especially for those who crave the energizing,
potentially infinitely expanding cycle of signal and response
between artist and audience.
It may sadden, alarm and confuse some to hear,
given its tawdry, tinny surfaces,
that this is exactly what is delighting and challenging
many writers in Blogland. But the cycle (of signal land response),
that is occurring in this situation is unlike any
that has ever existed before, in the world of
letters, it seems to me, and is not at all
subsumed under the model shaped by the
cycle of argument and debate, the taste for
which is no doubt being stimulated (for some)
by the pathetically tired old clichéd debates now
going on in the mostly false and fraudulent
US election process: another kind of
Academy Award ceremony that is not even funny anymore.
Though many realize all of this movie
academy and election academy sturm
and drang is almost completely devoid of
meaning (not significance, of course),
does not prevent the emergence of the
mentally stimulating, imagination- appetizing
aspects of the spectacle of debate, an ancient
mode of provoking the discovery and identification
of greatness. But this election process is the
clearest proof of Guy Debord's theories
anybody could ever want to see.
The Society of the Spectacle is beyond crisis; it is moribund.
Can I wonder aloud if this argument and debate method of exchanging
knowledge and inducing change, discovering truth,
and uncovering greatness is totally bankrupt?
What might replace it? What could replace it?
Something is happening in Blogland and you don't know what
it is, do you, Mr. Jones?
affectionate regards to my list friends and literary comrades,
Nick Piombino
At the same moment that Jack Kimball, who both captains
Pantaloons:Tykes on Poetry (Jack Kimball) {click here},
a sure and steady blogship, and sails a sharp and
swift publishing racing craft he calls *Faux Books* is
publishing an excellent series of book reviews on his blog
(he complimented Cori Copp's recent chapbook with
a comment very mildly disparaging blogging in favor of books
of poetry), on the Buffalo Poetics list the old theme of blogging being
a drag on the energies of the vivacious and glittering poetics list has once
again emerged. Unfortunately, we rose to the occasion with a
post to the poetics list, but fortunately so did Tim Yu and Chris Murray.
Tim's much clearer and more insightful post is available right now
on Tympan (Tim Yu) {click here}.
tex files (Chris Murray) {click here}
has not republished the comments she made on the poetics list,
but she does have a thoughtful comment to make on
last night's poetics brouhaha.
The subject line was: "Start an Argument on the Poetics List."
I may have been mistaken, but I thought Alan Sondheim
had called for more argumentative discussions on the
poetics list as in days of yore.
Here's my rather grouchy and pious ourburst:
*****************************
Blaming the blogosphere for what is lacking on
the poetics list is an old tradition,(old in internet-time)
and sounds to these old poet's ears like a cry of pain. This
is not unusual from Mr. Sondheim, whose precision
of perception is not the least bit
lost on a great number of poets, despite
its many fascinating, complex camouflages.
What a poet needs, especially a long distance marathon
poetry runner, is response. Some say
there is never enough response for an artist, and that
might be true, especially for those who crave the energizing,
potentially infinitely expanding cycle of signal and response
between artist and audience.
It may sadden, alarm and confuse some to hear,
given its tawdry, tinny surfaces,
that this is exactly what is delighting and challenging
many writers in Blogland. But the cycle (of signal land response),
that is occurring in this situation is unlike any
that has ever existed before, in the world of
letters, it seems to me, and is not at all
subsumed under the model shaped by the
cycle of argument and debate, the taste for
which is no doubt being stimulated (for some)
by the pathetically tired old clichéd debates now
going on in the mostly false and fraudulent
US election process: another kind of
Academy Award ceremony that is not even funny anymore.
Though many realize all of this movie
academy and election academy sturm
and drang is almost completely devoid of
meaning (not significance, of course),
does not prevent the emergence of the
mentally stimulating, imagination- appetizing
aspects of the spectacle of debate, an ancient
mode of provoking the discovery and identification
of greatness. But this election process is the
clearest proof of Guy Debord's theories
anybody could ever want to see.
The Society of the Spectacle is beyond crisis; it is moribund.
Can I wonder aloud if this argument and debate method of exchanging
knowledge and inducing change, discovering truth,
and uncovering greatness is totally bankrupt?
What might replace it? What could replace it?
Something is happening in Blogland and you don't know what
it is, do you, Mr. Jones?
affectionate regards to my list friends and literary comrades,
Nick Piombino
Lanny Quarles, creator of the
endlessly inventive blog
(solipsis)//:phaneroemikon {click here}
sent us this poem
and gave us permission to publish it. Dig this:
S Qua Mater
by Lanny Quarles
the rose alloyed
of spectral S
tongues
within a hollow laddering
[pulse of pale-small digit-streams, system of microwave energies]
pale savage bitterness
of password (the hummingruel and shimmingrowl)
the moment as it seems
to history
[shave any multiplier or discriptor, they dream in separation]
that plain 'S'
whose surface as construction
opens conduits
undulating topologies
of holes
and of nights
[forever can be understood like a painting at best]
the fields of speaking hair
the rose alloyed
of spectral
vivid and optical bloodcakes
by extraction
in a woven yellow bowl
[the place of the hissing den]
placed over a round abundance
of emptiness
[the peoples of an inner wilderness]
and the lapis tongue
ceremoniously robed
as some zeus or zagreus of blackinsected corn
in curls of inky steam-stone
platyrhignostic, the kitschyschitzy image of divinity
[SCOP=structural classification of proteins]
and a field of lush green rolling
valley
hidden
a gigantic white sphere
where a rusted volvo is just exploding
and one lone red horned toad
peeks out from its make-believe hole
with a lone white ant
perched between its eyes
like a hood ornament
antennae
endlessly inventive blog
(solipsis)//:phaneroemikon {click here}
sent us this poem
and gave us permission to publish it. Dig this:
S Qua Mater
by Lanny Quarles
the rose alloyed
of spectral S
tongues
within a hollow laddering
[pulse of pale-small digit-streams, system of microwave energies]
pale savage bitterness
of password (the hummingruel and shimmingrowl)
the moment as it seems
to history
[shave any multiplier or discriptor, they dream in separation]
that plain 'S'
whose surface as construction
opens conduits
undulating topologies
of holes
and of nights
[forever can be understood like a painting at best]
the fields of speaking hair
the rose alloyed
of spectral
vivid and optical bloodcakes
by extraction
in a woven yellow bowl
[the place of the hissing den]
placed over a round abundance
of emptiness
[the peoples of an inner wilderness]
and the lapis tongue
ceremoniously robed
as some zeus or zagreus of blackinsected corn
in curls of inky steam-stone
platyrhignostic, the kitschyschitzy image of divinity
[SCOP=structural classification of proteins]
and a field of lush green rolling
valley
hidden
a gigantic white sphere
where a rusted volvo is just exploding
and one lone red horned toad
peeks out from its make-believe hole
with a lone white ant
perched between its eyes
like a hood ornament
antennae
Monday, March 1
dpqp: Visualizing Poetics {click here}
reported the death of Lyx Ish, aka Elizabeth Was, this past weekend.
Our condolences to Miekel And.
reported the death of Lyx Ish, aka Elizabeth Was, this past weekend.
Our condolences to Miekel And.
::fait accompli::
(((((BLOGLINK)))))(((((CRUSH)))))((((((LIST))))) (New Links)
(((((THESE)))))(((((BLOGS)))))(((((ARE)))))(((((HOT)))))
Notes From The Dovecote (click here}
Mappemunde {click here}
DagZine {click here}
the postmodern romantic {click here}
Anita Rust {click here}
A Parsnip {click here}
Dumbfoundry {click here}
Crony. {click here}
Twists and Turns {click here}
hanging like a ragdoll {click here}
Nice Guy Syndrome {click here}
dolebludger {click here}
"if.." {click here}
the trigger {click here}
3rd House Party {click here}
fuse {click here}
Anita Rust {click here}
DaDooDoFlow {click here}
The Shuniverse Dialogues {click here}
Malibu's Blues {click here}
Poetic Inhalation {click here}
pseudopodium {click here}
Black Spring {click here}
Almost Successfully {click here}
Fictions of Deleuze and Guittari {click here}
savoradin's photoblog {click here}
In Place of Chairs {click here}
A New Broom {click here}
gunther's block {click here}
**********************************************************************************
***********************************************************************************
::fait accompli::
(((((BLOGLINK)))))(((((CRUSH)))))((((((LIST)))))
(((((TIME)))))(((((TRAVEL))))
January 25, 2004
Almost Successfully (Michael Bogue)
Blaugustine (Natalie D'Arbeloff)
The Chatelaine's Poetics (Eileen Tabios)
Crag Hill's Poetry Scorecard
Heaven (Mairead Byrne)
Luminations (Ben Basan)
Muladar, Movedizo, Muladar (Heriberto Yepez) (Spanish/English)
Nemski.com
New Pages (Guide to Blogs)
Nobody Here (Jogchem Niemendverdriet (English/Dutch/Japanese)
random items (German/English)
Rob McLennan's Blog
Twists and Turns (Michael Gates)
Under Mind (Brennen Lukas}
Visions of Johanna (Johanna Rauhala)
Eratio (Gregory St. Thomasino)
Sifry's Alerts (David Sifry)
Scriptorium (Carlos Arribas)
Drunken Slugs (Nicole Cordrey)
dbqp: visualizing poetics (Geof Huth)
Vanishing Points of Resemblance (Tom Beckett)
Hoarded Ordinaries (Lorianne Schaub)
Ought (Ron Henry)
Paula's House of Toast
sodaddictionary part II
...something slant
God of The Machine
and
Froth (Marianne Shaneen) {click here} is back!!!
*************************************************************************************
This just in from Johanna Rauhala (Visions of Johanna)
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Yep, I've come out from underground turnips and rutabagas, and plan to post occasionally on this blog. (Sorry about the confusion with the name "Suze" . I have a work-related blog and I was using that as a pseudonym. But it's really me, Johanna!) And it's true- I'm pregnant! Almost four months. Scary/excited/scary/excited/scary/excited.
More links coming.
# posted by J : 5:54 PM
(((((BLOGLINK)))))(((((CRUSH)))))((((((LIST))))) (New Links)
(((((THESE)))))(((((BLOGS)))))(((((ARE)))))(((((HOT)))))
Notes From The Dovecote (click here}
Mappemunde {click here}
DagZine {click here}
the postmodern romantic {click here}
Anita Rust {click here}
A Parsnip {click here}
Dumbfoundry {click here}
Crony. {click here}
Twists and Turns {click here}
hanging like a ragdoll {click here}
Nice Guy Syndrome {click here}
dolebludger {click here}
"if.." {click here}
the trigger {click here}
3rd House Party {click here}
fuse {click here}
Anita Rust {click here}
DaDooDoFlow {click here}
The Shuniverse Dialogues {click here}
Malibu's Blues {click here}
Poetic Inhalation {click here}
pseudopodium {click here}
Black Spring {click here}
Almost Successfully {click here}
Fictions of Deleuze and Guittari {click here}
savoradin's photoblog {click here}
In Place of Chairs {click here}
A New Broom {click here}
gunther's block {click here}
**********************************************************************************
***********************************************************************************
::fait accompli::
(((((BLOGLINK)))))(((((CRUSH)))))((((((LIST)))))
(((((TIME)))))(((((TRAVEL))))
January 25, 2004
Almost Successfully (Michael Bogue)
Blaugustine (Natalie D'Arbeloff)
The Chatelaine's Poetics (Eileen Tabios)
Crag Hill's Poetry Scorecard
Heaven (Mairead Byrne)
Luminations (Ben Basan)
Muladar, Movedizo, Muladar (Heriberto Yepez) (Spanish/English)
Nemski.com
New Pages (Guide to Blogs)
Nobody Here (Jogchem Niemendverdriet (English/Dutch/Japanese)
random items (German/English)
Rob McLennan's Blog
Twists and Turns (Michael Gates)
Under Mind (Brennen Lukas}
Visions of Johanna (Johanna Rauhala)
Eratio (Gregory St. Thomasino)
Sifry's Alerts (David Sifry)
Scriptorium (Carlos Arribas)
Drunken Slugs (Nicole Cordrey)
dbqp: visualizing poetics (Geof Huth)
Vanishing Points of Resemblance (Tom Beckett)
Hoarded Ordinaries (Lorianne Schaub)
Ought (Ron Henry)
Paula's House of Toast
sodaddictionary part II
...something slant
God of The Machine
and
Froth (Marianne Shaneen) {click here} is back!!!
*************************************************************************************
This just in from Johanna Rauhala (Visions of Johanna)
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Yep, I've come out from underground turnips and rutabagas, and plan to post occasionally on this blog. (Sorry about the confusion with the name "Suze" . I have a work-related blog and I was using that as a pseudonym. But it's really me, Johanna!) And it's true- I'm pregnant! Almost four months. Scary/excited/scary/excited/scary/excited.
More links coming.
# posted by J : 5:54 PM
Sunday, February 29
Bored with the Academy Award show?
Check out:Errata and Contradiction: A visual poetry show online {click here}
Check out:Errata and Contradiction: A visual poetry show online {click here}
Meet the new Poetic Inhalation {click here}
blog and dig the lovely photo of bloggers, Andrew and Star.
blog and dig the lovely photo of bloggers, Andrew and Star.
Met Museum adding space to show
works now in storage
Met Museum new space {click here}
via Mysterium (Carlos Arribas) {click here}
works now in storage
Met Museum new space {click here}
via Mysterium (Carlos Arribas) {click here}
First Heathens in Heat ...David Hess {click here},
is back, and now Semioanalysis Discotheque (Karl Merleau-Marcuse) {click here}.
Let the brilliant fun begin!
is back, and now Semioanalysis Discotheque (Karl Merleau-Marcuse) {click here}.
Let the brilliant fun begin!
During the time I was writing some of the poems
for my collection
Light Street {click here},
I was experimenting with the idea of writing
poems along the lines of those I wrote as a child and
as an adolescent. For awhile I continued this practice,
and on 3/19/90 wrote the following poem:
Shakespeare's Shadow On Lined Paper
I was captured rather early in the game
By the sounds of cars going by and the sounds of rain
By the pigeons' aimless squawking across the street
By the look of a face or an eye in someone I'll never meet
And at times it's distracting to get through a day
When thoughts and feelings stream through in their own chaotic way
When perhaps I'm dismayed at life's contradictory play
And at last even come to lament death's final say
The warm rays of the sun are disappearing
The clattering sounds of the afternoon are clearing
The dissonant desires of night and dreams are nearing
And only the thought of sleep's soft arms is cheering
In one dream time itself has a place
Like every other object in trackless space
To go there happiness itself is but a lure
To be there is to partake of what is sure
In another the dark itself is bright
Color, hands, events are a kind of light
Where even the helpless fate of life is light
Where the closed eye of nothingness has sight
for my collection
Light Street {click here},
I was experimenting with the idea of writing
poems along the lines of those I wrote as a child and
as an adolescent. For awhile I continued this practice,
and on 3/19/90 wrote the following poem:
Shakespeare's Shadow On Lined Paper
I was captured rather early in the game
By the sounds of cars going by and the sounds of rain
By the pigeons' aimless squawking across the street
By the look of a face or an eye in someone I'll never meet
And at times it's distracting to get through a day
When thoughts and feelings stream through in their own chaotic way
When perhaps I'm dismayed at life's contradictory play
And at last even come to lament death's final say
The warm rays of the sun are disappearing
The clattering sounds of the afternoon are clearing
The dissonant desires of night and dreams are nearing
And only the thought of sleep's soft arms is cheering
In one dream time itself has a place
Like every other object in trackless space
To go there happiness itself is but a lure
To be there is to partake of what is sure
In another the dark itself is bright
Color, hands, events are a kind of light
Where even the helpless fate of life is light
Where the closed eye of nothingness has sight
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