Last night we saw the Romare Bearden retrospective at the
Whitney {click here}
Don't miss this terrific show! Except for those of Kurt Schwitters,
these are the most beautiful examples of the art of collage
I've ever seen.
from Romare Bearden online:
Romare Bearden {click here}
click here
click here
click here
click here
click here
click here
click here
click here
*****************************************************************************
Holiday poetry shopping at Small Press Distribution
from Kathleen Miller at Small Press Distribution:
“Small Press Distribution (SPD), the country’s only nonprofit literary book distributor, opens its warehouse for its annual holiday Open House on Saturday, December 4, 12-4 pm, at 1341 7th Street (off Gilman Street) in Berkeley. The free event will highlight the conjunction of gardening, writing, and writing about gardening. The guest of honor will be Cole Swensen, whose most recent book of poetry, Goest, is a finalist for the National Book Award. The Open House also offers open-stack browsing on our 13,000+ titles, a 10-50% discount on all books, and ample free food and drink.”
Distribution Automatique
Friday, December 3
Heathens in Heat asks the question: "But why write if you have nothing to tell us?"
Like a hand on the shoulder from a friend, a knock on the door,
a mumble or a grunt, if it is coming from someone I like or
care about, a message without much content might be very
welcome indeed. I am glad to hear from them quite often, even
if what they have to say is not that specific. This is because
when they do have something to say, it means something to me.
With people I don't care for, often they can say the most
fascinating things, the most useful information, they
might be brilliant but I still don't want to hear from them.
I just wish they would be quiet or go away.
It's people who know how to llisten that keep me interested
in the long run. What they have to say is resonant with the world,
not just with themselves.
**************************
Speaking of friends chiming in, Tim Peterson continues the discussion here on
Mappemunde {click here}
Like a hand on the shoulder from a friend, a knock on the door,
a mumble or a grunt, if it is coming from someone I like or
care about, a message without much content might be very
welcome indeed. I am glad to hear from them quite often, even
if what they have to say is not that specific. This is because
when they do have something to say, it means something to me.
With people I don't care for, often they can say the most
fascinating things, the most useful information, they
might be brilliant but I still don't want to hear from them.
I just wish they would be quiet or go away.
It's people who know how to llisten that keep me interested
in the long run. What they have to say is resonant with the world,
not just with themselves.
**************************
Speaking of friends chiming in, Tim Peterson continues the discussion here on
Mappemunde {click here}
Thursday, December 2
"The spectacle must deny history, because history
proves that laws are nothing, whereas process and
struggle are all. The spectacle is the reign of an eternal
present that claims to be history's last word. Under
Stalinism, it took the form of a systematic manipulation
and rewriting of the past. In countries where the diffuse
spectacular system holds sway, by contrast the mechanism
is subtler. To begin with, it eliminates all opportunities
for people to share experiences without intermediaries
or to recognize themselves in their own actions and in the
effects of these actions. To complete the disappearance
of historical intelligence creates socially atomized individuals
with no choice but to contemplate the seemingly unalterable
progression of blind forces. All those faculties that might
allow individuals to perceive the contrast between the fasifications
wrought by the spectacle and earlier forms are likewise eradicated."
*Guy Debord* by Anselm Jappe
University of California Press, 1999
***********************************************************************
"There can be no freedom apart from activity, and within the spectacle activity is nullified — all real activity having been forcibly channeled into the global construction of the spectacle. Thus, what is referred to as a “liberation from work,” namely the modern increase in leisure time, is neither a liberation of work itself nor a liberation from the world shaped by this kind of work. None of the activity stolen by work can be regained by submitting to what that work has produced."
Guy Debord
The Society of The Spectacle by Guy Debord (Complete Text) {click here}*******************************************************************
UbuWeb | UbuWeb Papers
Ubu Web-Guy Debord's Comments {click here}
Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (February-April 1988)
Guy Debord
VII.
"With the destruction of history, contemporary events themselves retreat into a remote and fabulous realm of unverifiable stories, uncheckable statistics, unlikely explanations and untenable reasoning. For every imbecility presented by the spectacle, there are only the media's professionals to give an answer, with a few respectful rectifications or remonstrations. And they are hardly extravagant, even with these, for besides their extreme ignorance, their personal and professional solidarity with the spectacle's overall authority and the society it expresses makes it their duty, and their pleasure, never to diverge from that authority whose majesty must not be threatened. It must not be forgotten that every media professional is bound by wages and other rewards and recompenses to a master, and sometimes to several; and that every one of them knows he is dispensable. "
*********************************************************
*Note
A good contemporary illustration of the above took place last night
when Frank Rich-who is enlightened enough to know better-
on Chris Matthews MSNBC's *Hardball*
revealed his pathetic compliance with mainstream media's wimpout
on widespead demands for investigations concerning possible
vote count manipulations- Rich, in line with the media armies,
dismissed all such claims as "blogger conspiracty theories."
New York Times is Over If You Want It!
proves that laws are nothing, whereas process and
struggle are all. The spectacle is the reign of an eternal
present that claims to be history's last word. Under
Stalinism, it took the form of a systematic manipulation
and rewriting of the past. In countries where the diffuse
spectacular system holds sway, by contrast the mechanism
is subtler. To begin with, it eliminates all opportunities
for people to share experiences without intermediaries
or to recognize themselves in their own actions and in the
effects of these actions. To complete the disappearance
of historical intelligence creates socially atomized individuals
with no choice but to contemplate the seemingly unalterable
progression of blind forces. All those faculties that might
allow individuals to perceive the contrast between the fasifications
wrought by the spectacle and earlier forms are likewise eradicated."
*Guy Debord* by Anselm Jappe
University of California Press, 1999
***********************************************************************
"There can be no freedom apart from activity, and within the spectacle activity is nullified — all real activity having been forcibly channeled into the global construction of the spectacle. Thus, what is referred to as a “liberation from work,” namely the modern increase in leisure time, is neither a liberation of work itself nor a liberation from the world shaped by this kind of work. None of the activity stolen by work can be regained by submitting to what that work has produced."
Guy Debord
The Society of The Spectacle by Guy Debord (Complete Text) {click here}*******************************************************************
UbuWeb | UbuWeb Papers
Ubu Web-Guy Debord's Comments {click here}
Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (February-April 1988)
Guy Debord
VII.
"With the destruction of history, contemporary events themselves retreat into a remote and fabulous realm of unverifiable stories, uncheckable statistics, unlikely explanations and untenable reasoning. For every imbecility presented by the spectacle, there are only the media's professionals to give an answer, with a few respectful rectifications or remonstrations. And they are hardly extravagant, even with these, for besides their extreme ignorance, their personal and professional solidarity with the spectacle's overall authority and the society it expresses makes it their duty, and their pleasure, never to diverge from that authority whose majesty must not be threatened. It must not be forgotten that every media professional is bound by wages and other rewards and recompenses to a master, and sometimes to several; and that every one of them knows he is dispensable. "
*********************************************************
*Note
A good contemporary illustration of the above took place last night
when Frank Rich-who is enlightened enough to know better-
on Chris Matthews MSNBC's *Hardball*
revealed his pathetic compliance with mainstream media's wimpout
on widespead demands for investigations concerning possible
vote count manipulations- Rich, in line with the media armies,
dismissed all such claims as "blogger conspiracty theories."
New York Times is Over If You Want It!
Wednesday, December 1
"Most importantlly, however, I still feel like there is a lot
of talk about poetry on blogs, but not a lot about *poems*.
(from) cosmopoetica {click here}
****************************************************
"Politics is itself increasingly enclosed in the
media world either by adapting to its codes
and rules or by attempting to change the
rules of the game by creating and imposing
new cultural codes. In both cases, politics
becomes an application of the hypertext, since
the text simply reconfigures itself to the new codes.
Yes, there is life beyond the network society; in
the fundamentalist, cultural communes that reject
dominant values and build autonomously the sources
of their own meaning; sometimes around self-constructed,
alternative utopias; more often, around the transcendent
truths of God, Nation, Family, Ethnicity, and Territoriality.
Thus, the planet is not subsumed entirely by the
network society, as the industrial society never extended
to the totality of humankind. Yet the networking logic of
instrumentality has already llinked up dominant
segments of societies in most areas of the world around
the structural logic embodied in the new, global, networked
economy; in the flexible forms of individualized work; and
in the culture of real virtuality, inscriptied in the electronic
hypertext.
The networking logic, rooted in informationalism, has
also transformed our practice of space and time.
The space of flows, characteristic of the network
society, links up distant locales around the shared
functions and meanings on the bases of electronic
circuits and fast transportation corridors, while isolating
and subduing the logic of experience embodied in
the sphere of places. A new form of time, which I
call timeless time, emerges out of sytemic trends
to compress chronologicall time to its smallest
possible expression (as in split-second financial
transactions) as well as to blur time sequences,
as can be observed in the twisting of professional
career patterns away from the predictable progression
of the organization man, now replaced by the flexible woman."
*The Hacker Ethic* by Pekka Himanen
(Random House, 2001)
translated by Anselm Hollo and Pekka HImenen
(Himenen works at the University of Helsinki and
the University of California at Berkeley)
of talk about poetry on blogs, but not a lot about *poems*.
(from) cosmopoetica {click here}
****************************************************
"Politics is itself increasingly enclosed in the
media world either by adapting to its codes
and rules or by attempting to change the
rules of the game by creating and imposing
new cultural codes. In both cases, politics
becomes an application of the hypertext, since
the text simply reconfigures itself to the new codes.
Yes, there is life beyond the network society; in
the fundamentalist, cultural communes that reject
dominant values and build autonomously the sources
of their own meaning; sometimes around self-constructed,
alternative utopias; more often, around the transcendent
truths of God, Nation, Family, Ethnicity, and Territoriality.
Thus, the planet is not subsumed entirely by the
network society, as the industrial society never extended
to the totality of humankind. Yet the networking logic of
instrumentality has already llinked up dominant
segments of societies in most areas of the world around
the structural logic embodied in the new, global, networked
economy; in the flexible forms of individualized work; and
in the culture of real virtuality, inscriptied in the electronic
hypertext.
The networking logic, rooted in informationalism, has
also transformed our practice of space and time.
The space of flows, characteristic of the network
society, links up distant locales around the shared
functions and meanings on the bases of electronic
circuits and fast transportation corridors, while isolating
and subduing the logic of experience embodied in
the sphere of places. A new form of time, which I
call timeless time, emerges out of sytemic trends
to compress chronologicall time to its smallest
possible expression (as in split-second financial
transactions) as well as to blur time sequences,
as can be observed in the twisting of professional
career patterns away from the predictable progression
of the organization man, now replaced by the flexible woman."
*The Hacker Ethic* by Pekka Himanen
(Random House, 2001)
translated by Anselm Hollo and Pekka HImenen
(Himenen works at the University of Helsinki and
the University of California at Berkeley)
Tuesday, November 30
[posted late due to Blogger being slow…]
Good Morning! First things first...
Coffee, and....
"Rewrite a substance, prove it has thoughts. Up cracks &
parts accorded to my birthday arranging form. prime hour, behold.
He seize your map, you sea; His lustre’s all Mont Blanc have looked & constructed these three parts."
(from )The Red Dragon and the Black Beast {click here}
"Delimited strike
on the back of the mouth
from my moving reference that has no spirit.
My country has no spirit."
(from Blue Revisions {click here}
"I do believe that poetry has a peculiar power to access some kind of collective unconscious by opening up the writer/reader's singular unconscious through/in language and is therefore worthy of reverence. "
(from) Cahiers de Corey {click here}
"The funny pages that want to get into your pants."
The Jimside {click here}
Good Morning! First things first...
Coffee, and....
"Rewrite a substance, prove it has thoughts. Up cracks &
parts accorded to my birthday arranging form. prime hour, behold.
He seize your map, you sea; His lustre’s all Mont Blanc have looked & constructed these three parts."
(from )The Red Dragon and the Black Beast {click here}
"Delimited strike
on the back of the mouth
from my moving reference that has no spirit.
My country has no spirit."
(from Blue Revisions {click here}
"I do believe that poetry has a peculiar power to access some kind of collective unconscious by opening up the writer/reader's singular unconscious through/in language and is therefore worthy of reverence. "
(from) Cahiers de Corey {click here}
"The funny pages that want to get into your pants."
The Jimside {click here}
Baltimore Chronicle: Did Bush Lose The Election {click here}
[Link published with author's permission]
[Link published with author's permission]
Monday, November 29
Hey There Boston People- You Won The Series and Now You
Get A Great Double Feature:
Peter Gizzi and David Shapiro at Tim Peterson's
Analogous Series {click here}
Get A Great Double Feature:
Peter Gizzi and David Shapiro at Tim Peterson's
Analogous Series {click here}
Sunday, November 28
Books and Company, Part II
If interested, please scroll down
for the first part of this
post. In the area of book gathering,
this Thanksgiving gave me a lot
to be thankful for. It's a highly
varied list, and here's some more:
Rodney Koeneke, *Rouge State*,
Pavement Saw Press, 2003
"Impurity's the watch word here;
you get that the minute you step/
off the boat"
Bob Perelman, *Ten to One:
Selected Poems*, Wesleyan,
1999
"I do not believe poetry and
prose will continue seven years
longer"
Gilbert Sorrentino, *The Moon
In Its Flight*, Coffee House, 2004
'Consider the young, reasonably
well-mannered men who killed so
many people on September 11th.
There they are, as unremarkable,
as sadly ordinary as any representative
American one can conjure up..."
Edward Bellamy, *Looking Backward:
2000-1887* (1888, Signet classic, 2000)
"To borrow a phrase which was often used
in your day, we should not consider life
worth living if we had to be surrounded by a
population of ignorant, boorish, coarse, wholly
uncultivated men and women..."
*New Worlds*, edited by Michael Moorcock,
Thunder's Mouth Press, 1983, 2000
Science fiction and speculative essay
anthology including Thomas
M. Disch, Brian W.Aldiss, Norman Spinrad,
J.G. Ballard, Daphne Castell
"Certainly Nazi society seems strangely
prophetic of our own-- the same maximizing
of violence and sensation, the same alphabets
of unreason and the fictionalizing of experience."
(JG Ballard, from *Alphabets of Unreason*; first'
published in 1969)
Paul West, *The Immensity of the Here
and Now: a novel of 9.11* (Voyant, 2003)
"When I at last lose consciousness, it will
not be to regain it...I am a haunted man,
victim of appalling dreams, both night
and day variety."
*Lucid Dreams in 30 Days: The Creative
Sleep Program*, St Martin's Griffin, 1989
by Keith Harry, PHD and Pamela
Weintraub "Then quietly say to yourself,
*from now on, I'll remember my dreams."
*The Portable Boog Reader*, edited by
David A. Kirschenbaum, Boog Literature,
2000. Poetry anthology, includes:
Lee Ann Brown (her photo, by Allen Ginsberg
is on the cover), Bruce Andrews, Anselm
Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan, Allison Cobb,
Katie Degentesh, Rob Fitterman, Ed Friedman,
Drew Gardner, Nada Gordon, Mitch Highfill, Bob Holman,
Rachel Levitsky, Lisa Jarnot, Andrew Levy, Lisa Lubasch,
Kimberly Lyons, Dan Machlin, Eileen Myles,
Julie Patton, Matthew Rohrer, Kim Rosenfeld,
Douglas Rothschild, Eleni Sikelianos, Chris Stroffolino,
Gary Sullivan, - and these are only the poets
I know!- many others.
Paul Levinson, *The Pixel Eye* (Tor, 2003)
"A cold November wind stalked Central Park....
In the past 24 hours I'd been propositioned
by a hologram working literally underground
for the feds, and a make=believe scientist
who said she really worked for some *uber*
ACLU."
Alberto Moravia, *Contempt*, translated
by Angus Davidson, (New York Review Books,
1999) "'Well, Freud will serve us as a guide
through this interior landscape of Ulysses,
not Berard with his maps and his philology
which explains nothing...'"
Rainer Maria Rilke, *Sonnets to Orpheus*
translated by Edward Snow (Northpoint,
2004)
"Breathing, you invisible poem!
World-space in pure, continuous interchange
with my own being, Equipoise
in whch I rhythmically transpire."
Jonathan Letham, *Amnesia Moon*,
(Harcourt Brace, 1995)
"Nah, I got a problem with The Man- all that
dream-stuff doesn't work on me. I'm
immune, got a built-in bullshit protector.
I used to live in California..."
If interested, please scroll down
for the first part of this
post. In the area of book gathering,
this Thanksgiving gave me a lot
to be thankful for. It's a highly
varied list, and here's some more:
Rodney Koeneke, *Rouge State*,
Pavement Saw Press, 2003
"Impurity's the watch word here;
you get that the minute you step/
off the boat"
Bob Perelman, *Ten to One:
Selected Poems*, Wesleyan,
1999
"I do not believe poetry and
prose will continue seven years
longer"
Gilbert Sorrentino, *The Moon
In Its Flight*, Coffee House, 2004
'Consider the young, reasonably
well-mannered men who killed so
many people on September 11th.
There they are, as unremarkable,
as sadly ordinary as any representative
American one can conjure up..."
Edward Bellamy, *Looking Backward:
2000-1887* (1888, Signet classic, 2000)
"To borrow a phrase which was often used
in your day, we should not consider life
worth living if we had to be surrounded by a
population of ignorant, boorish, coarse, wholly
uncultivated men and women..."
*New Worlds*, edited by Michael Moorcock,
Thunder's Mouth Press, 1983, 2000
Science fiction and speculative essay
anthology including Thomas
M. Disch, Brian W.Aldiss, Norman Spinrad,
J.G. Ballard, Daphne Castell
"Certainly Nazi society seems strangely
prophetic of our own-- the same maximizing
of violence and sensation, the same alphabets
of unreason and the fictionalizing of experience."
(JG Ballard, from *Alphabets of Unreason*; first'
published in 1969)
Paul West, *The Immensity of the Here
and Now: a novel of 9.11* (Voyant, 2003)
"When I at last lose consciousness, it will
not be to regain it...I am a haunted man,
victim of appalling dreams, both night
and day variety."
*Lucid Dreams in 30 Days: The Creative
Sleep Program*, St Martin's Griffin, 1989
by Keith Harry, PHD and Pamela
Weintraub "Then quietly say to yourself,
*from now on, I'll remember my dreams."
*The Portable Boog Reader*, edited by
David A. Kirschenbaum, Boog Literature,
2000. Poetry anthology, includes:
Lee Ann Brown (her photo, by Allen Ginsberg
is on the cover), Bruce Andrews, Anselm
Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan, Allison Cobb,
Katie Degentesh, Rob Fitterman, Ed Friedman,
Drew Gardner, Nada Gordon, Mitch Highfill, Bob Holman,
Rachel Levitsky, Lisa Jarnot, Andrew Levy, Lisa Lubasch,
Kimberly Lyons, Dan Machlin, Eileen Myles,
Julie Patton, Matthew Rohrer, Kim Rosenfeld,
Douglas Rothschild, Eleni Sikelianos, Chris Stroffolino,
Gary Sullivan, - and these are only the poets
I know!- many others.
Paul Levinson, *The Pixel Eye* (Tor, 2003)
"A cold November wind stalked Central Park....
In the past 24 hours I'd been propositioned
by a hologram working literally underground
for the feds, and a make=believe scientist
who said she really worked for some *uber*
ACLU."
Alberto Moravia, *Contempt*, translated
by Angus Davidson, (New York Review Books,
1999) "'Well, Freud will serve us as a guide
through this interior landscape of Ulysses,
not Berard with his maps and his philology
which explains nothing...'"
Rainer Maria Rilke, *Sonnets to Orpheus*
translated by Edward Snow (Northpoint,
2004)
"Breathing, you invisible poem!
World-space in pure, continuous interchange
with my own being, Equipoise
in whch I rhythmically transpire."
Jonathan Letham, *Amnesia Moon*,
(Harcourt Brace, 1995)
"Nah, I got a problem with The Man- all that
dream-stuff doesn't work on me. I'm
immune, got a built-in bullshit protector.
I used to live in California..."
Books and Company
was the name of a bookshop, gone long ago, housed
by the Whitney Museum, and then heartlessly
thrown aside. Its passing was mourned by innumerable
writers; it has never been replaced, not by a long
shot.
I always liked the name of that store, because, in a
way, books *are* company, and the combination
is unbeatable. By that I mean, hanging out with
friends and family who you exchange books and
talk about them with.
The aforementioned visits, in combination with a
trip to the Brooklyn Public Library, has yielded
several huge stacks of books, a list of which I
am about to share with you. Don't ask me why,
and don't ask me why I blog: that's a conversation
for another day. Today it is raining, things are
relatively inert in Blogland (I've read Blue Revisions {click here},and I've read quickly through DagZine's {click here}interesting piece about Michael Davidson, and I'm
looking forward to catching up on today's blogposts later-especially
wood s lot {click here} on Blake,
and the latest conversations on Okir {click here}
and p- ramblings {click here}-
and many other favorites, of course. Checking my
own and other bloggers' bloglink crush lists always
leads to interesting discoveries-while the hours melt away...
The first book on the list,
Dan Fante's *Mooch* (Canongate,
2000) is one of the best
short novels I've read in a long
time, reminiscent of Hubert Selby and
the movie *Leaving Las Vegas*, I
read it in one long sitting and
one short sitting last night
and this morning. An addicitve
page turner. But the rest of
the books on this list I haven't completely
read yet. Some are long shots,
indeed.
Robert Sheckley's
*Xolotl* is a short story
about the Aztecs. Sheckley,
if you don't know, is one
of the greatest science fiction
writers of the 50's and 60's.
I have a copy of *Galaxy*
magazine for October, 1954
signed by Sheckley and
Phillp K. Dick, that I got
online.
Another book of Sheckley's
I found in a Cambridge, Mass
bookstore is *Journey Beyond
Tomorrow* (Dell, 1962).
"America the 21st Century and
the nightmare triumph of the
machines*. Well, this was correct
but the machines are walking
and are mostly born-again
Christians.
I've always wanted a copy
of John Lennon's *In His
Own Write and A Spaniard
In The Works* (Signet, 1964)
and I got one for a dollar.
"Why did Harrassed MacMillion
go golphing mit Bod Hobe?"
*Stardoc* is a novel by S.L. Viehl
that looks intriguing (Roc, 2000).
It starts with an epigraph from
Hippocrates (460-377? B.C.)
"Into whatever houses I enter,
I will go into them for the benefit
of the sick."
*The Vintage Book of Amnesia:
An Anthology on the Subject of
Memory Loss* edited by Jonathan
Lethem (Vintage, 2000) looks
fascinating. Anyway, I read everything
I can find by or about Jonathan
Lethem. Toni's sister gave me a
first edition hardbound copy of
*Gun, With Occasional Music.*
I can't recommend his first novel
too strongly. It's a hoot! The
Amnesia Book has articles by:
Robert Sheckley, Shirley Jackson,
Borges, Oliver Sacks, Geofrey O'Brien
(did you ever read his book on
the 1960's?), Barthelme, Nabokov,
others.
*Galatea 2.2* by Richard Powers
(Harper, 1996) looks intriguing.
"...I lost my 35th year. We got
separated in the confusion of a foreign
city where the language was strange
and the authorities horrible... Some
years slip their chrysalis, leaving only
a casing to hold their place in my
sequence."
I've started *The Hacker Ethic*
by Pekka Himenen and have already
mentioned it here. It was translated
by Anselm Hollo, published in 2001
by Random House. "First playfulness
was removed from work, then
playfulness was removed from play,
and what is left is optimized leisure
time."
I met Geoffrey Dyer in Berkeley
a couple of summers ago and liked
his band. *The Dirty Halo Of Everything*
was published by one of the hottest
poetry publishers around, Krupskaya,
in 2003. "Inside the paint and cockroach
world you forgot how ro improvise. Replacing
freedom with a process, the closest thing
was writing an essay...This is an anecdote
for escape."
Edmund Jabes is someone who I
feel I should read more often, but
who sometimes disappoints me.
I'm going to give *Desire for a Beginning
Dread of One Single End*, published by
my friend Steve Clay of Granary Books
in 2001 the old college try.
I've made no secret of my
affection for aphorisms. "All light
resides in thought."
Some of my friends don't seem
to overly appreciate the poetry of
Rachel Blau DuPlessis yet I
really enjoy it. I want to reread
*Drafts 15-XXX: The Fold* (Potes
and Poets, 1997). II might have a copy still packed
away somewhere in a box. "This kind
of speaking/doubles the unspeakable."
*Draft 43* by R BD came out
from Belladonna in Spring 2001.
Side stapled chapbook. ." a pile
of ashes orphaned/or bare feet
sloshing through the narrow part
near shore."
Belladonna 10 was *Soft Pages*
by Kathleen Fraser. (Winter, 2001).
I enjoy nearly every word I read
by KF. "The sentence, of course,
will be different once it has been
retrieved. " OK, like Barrett Watten
she can be didactic; but it is a kind
of didactic that has a lot of worthwhile
things to teach.
Kim Lyons' work is awash with
humor, charm, curiosity and
wisdom.
. *In Padua*
(St Lazaire Press, 1991) should
be at the top of anyone's holiday
shopping list. If you can find it!
(4 Patten Road, Rhinebeck, NY
12572). "After two days of
complicated rain/an arrival
of sentences wet and anxious."
*Lip Service* by Bruce
Andrews (Coach House Books,
2001). Unreadable required reading,
like Finnigan's Wake. I will place
it respectfully next to *No. 111 2.7. 93-
10.20.96* by Kenneth Goldsmith
(The Figures, 1997)
on my bookshelf and open it and
read as much as I can muster, a
sprint of reading/thought, when I am so inspired.
"In champion the vagina sailor
on leave-"
*An Anthology of New (American) Poets*
edited by Lisa Jarnot, Leonard Schwartz
amd Chris Stroffolino ((Talisman, 1998).
includes Judith Goldman, Bill Luoma, Kimbely Lyons,
Eleni Sikelianos, Juliana Spahr, Mark Wallace,
Rod Smith, many others.
from Kim Lyons *Millefleur*:
"A whirling vortex of fragmented conversations/
threw up sparks, shards/of the beautiful shale."
Adeena Karasik's *The House That HIJACK Built*
(Talonbooks 2004) is concerned with the Kaballah
and is visually energized and absorbing. ""speak of taut machines/
speech, thought, motion"
Jena Osman, who edits *Chain* with Juliana Spahr
is another poet whose work I have long
felt deserves more attention from me.
*The Character* was published in 1999
by Barnard and won the 1998 Barnard
New Poets Prize. 'A pool stick can transform
a person into a thing."
to be continued...
was the name of a bookshop, gone long ago, housed
by the Whitney Museum, and then heartlessly
thrown aside. Its passing was mourned by innumerable
writers; it has never been replaced, not by a long
shot.
I always liked the name of that store, because, in a
way, books *are* company, and the combination
is unbeatable. By that I mean, hanging out with
friends and family who you exchange books and
talk about them with.
The aforementioned visits, in combination with a
trip to the Brooklyn Public Library, has yielded
several huge stacks of books, a list of which I
am about to share with you. Don't ask me why,
and don't ask me why I blog: that's a conversation
for another day. Today it is raining, things are
relatively inert in Blogland (I've read Blue Revisions {click here},and I've read quickly through DagZine's {click here}interesting piece about Michael Davidson, and I'm
looking forward to catching up on today's blogposts later-especially
wood s lot {click here} on Blake,
and the latest conversations on Okir {click here}
and p- ramblings {click here}-
and many other favorites, of course. Checking my
own and other bloggers' bloglink crush lists always
leads to interesting discoveries-while the hours melt away...
The first book on the list,
Dan Fante's *Mooch* (Canongate,
2000) is one of the best
short novels I've read in a long
time, reminiscent of Hubert Selby and
the movie *Leaving Las Vegas*, I
read it in one long sitting and
one short sitting last night
and this morning. An addicitve
page turner. But the rest of
the books on this list I haven't completely
read yet. Some are long shots,
indeed.
Robert Sheckley's
*Xolotl* is a short story
about the Aztecs. Sheckley,
if you don't know, is one
of the greatest science fiction
writers of the 50's and 60's.
I have a copy of *Galaxy*
magazine for October, 1954
signed by Sheckley and
Phillp K. Dick, that I got
online.
Another book of Sheckley's
I found in a Cambridge, Mass
bookstore is *Journey Beyond
Tomorrow* (Dell, 1962).
"America the 21st Century and
the nightmare triumph of the
machines*. Well, this was correct
but the machines are walking
and are mostly born-again
Christians.
I've always wanted a copy
of John Lennon's *In His
Own Write and A Spaniard
In The Works* (Signet, 1964)
and I got one for a dollar.
"Why did Harrassed MacMillion
go golphing mit Bod Hobe?"
*Stardoc* is a novel by S.L. Viehl
that looks intriguing (Roc, 2000).
It starts with an epigraph from
Hippocrates (460-377? B.C.)
"Into whatever houses I enter,
I will go into them for the benefit
of the sick."
*The Vintage Book of Amnesia:
An Anthology on the Subject of
Memory Loss* edited by Jonathan
Lethem (Vintage, 2000) looks
fascinating. Anyway, I read everything
I can find by or about Jonathan
Lethem. Toni's sister gave me a
first edition hardbound copy of
*Gun, With Occasional Music.*
I can't recommend his first novel
too strongly. It's a hoot! The
Amnesia Book has articles by:
Robert Sheckley, Shirley Jackson,
Borges, Oliver Sacks, Geofrey O'Brien
(did you ever read his book on
the 1960's?), Barthelme, Nabokov,
others.
*Galatea 2.2* by Richard Powers
(Harper, 1996) looks intriguing.
"...I lost my 35th year. We got
separated in the confusion of a foreign
city where the language was strange
and the authorities horrible... Some
years slip their chrysalis, leaving only
a casing to hold their place in my
sequence."
I've started *The Hacker Ethic*
by Pekka Himenen and have already
mentioned it here. It was translated
by Anselm Hollo, published in 2001
by Random House. "First playfulness
was removed from work, then
playfulness was removed from play,
and what is left is optimized leisure
time."
I met Geoffrey Dyer in Berkeley
a couple of summers ago and liked
his band. *The Dirty Halo Of Everything*
was published by one of the hottest
poetry publishers around, Krupskaya,
in 2003. "Inside the paint and cockroach
world you forgot how ro improvise. Replacing
freedom with a process, the closest thing
was writing an essay...This is an anecdote
for escape."
Edmund Jabes is someone who I
feel I should read more often, but
who sometimes disappoints me.
I'm going to give *Desire for a Beginning
Dread of One Single End*, published by
my friend Steve Clay of Granary Books
in 2001 the old college try.
I've made no secret of my
affection for aphorisms. "All light
resides in thought."
Some of my friends don't seem
to overly appreciate the poetry of
Rachel Blau DuPlessis yet I
really enjoy it. I want to reread
*Drafts 15-XXX: The Fold* (Potes
and Poets, 1997). II might have a copy still packed
away somewhere in a box. "This kind
of speaking/doubles the unspeakable."
*Draft 43* by R BD came out
from Belladonna in Spring 2001.
Side stapled chapbook. ." a pile
of ashes orphaned/or bare feet
sloshing through the narrow part
near shore."
Belladonna 10 was *Soft Pages*
by Kathleen Fraser. (Winter, 2001).
I enjoy nearly every word I read
by KF. "The sentence, of course,
will be different once it has been
retrieved. " OK, like Barrett Watten
she can be didactic; but it is a kind
of didactic that has a lot of worthwhile
things to teach.
Kim Lyons' work is awash with
humor, charm, curiosity and
wisdom.
. *In Padua*
(St Lazaire Press, 1991) should
be at the top of anyone's holiday
shopping list. If you can find it!
(4 Patten Road, Rhinebeck, NY
12572). "After two days of
complicated rain/an arrival
of sentences wet and anxious."
*Lip Service* by Bruce
Andrews (Coach House Books,
2001). Unreadable required reading,
like Finnigan's Wake. I will place
it respectfully next to *No. 111 2.7. 93-
10.20.96* by Kenneth Goldsmith
(The Figures, 1997)
on my bookshelf and open it and
read as much as I can muster, a
sprint of reading/thought, when I am so inspired.
"In champion the vagina sailor
on leave-"
*An Anthology of New (American) Poets*
edited by Lisa Jarnot, Leonard Schwartz
amd Chris Stroffolino ((Talisman, 1998).
includes Judith Goldman, Bill Luoma, Kimbely Lyons,
Eleni Sikelianos, Juliana Spahr, Mark Wallace,
Rod Smith, many others.
from Kim Lyons *Millefleur*:
"A whirling vortex of fragmented conversations/
threw up sparks, shards/of the beautiful shale."
Adeena Karasik's *The House That HIJACK Built*
(Talonbooks 2004) is concerned with the Kaballah
and is visually energized and absorbing. ""speak of taut machines/
speech, thought, motion"
Jena Osman, who edits *Chain* with Juliana Spahr
is another poet whose work I have long
felt deserves more attention from me.
*The Character* was published in 1999
by Barnard and won the 1998 Barnard
New Poets Prize. 'A pool stick can transform
a person into a thing."
to be continued...
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