The Loneliness of the Long Distance Blogger:
Summer in Blogland: Sizzle or Fizzle?

Boynton {click here}

links to recent writings by bloggers
on blogging.

*Boynton* please don't go!

[scroll down to
Friday, July 1st for notes
and links on
Filippo Lippi]
*******************************
This just in: Chris Stroffolino enters the Blogosphere

with a long post about Robert Creeley


Continuous Peasant {click here}

[scroll down to Thursday,
June 30 for notes re:
*The Soft Voice
of Philosophy* and
*Community of Ideas*
by Ludwig Wittgenstein
and a link to a reading by
Frank Kuenstler, Wednesday, June 29 for
Bookmarks, New and Notable
including: Steven Schroeder and
Maryann O'Donnell's lovely
*A Walk in Shenzhen* with
recent photos from The People's
Republic of China; also a link
to Bernstein's exciting *Close Listening*
series and Monday, June 27
for a preview of Vanitas #1, edited
by Vincent Katz]




Bits and Pieces; Filippo Lippi

notebook: 1/7/05

I'm not sure exactly when it was that I
discovered that everything, no matter
what, comes together bit by bit. In itself,
this might not have been such a meaningful
discovery, if it weren't for the connected
insight that if you save these bits, eventually
sorting them and putting them together into
a whole, you might have something.

I was never much interested in jig-saw
puzzles, only if you don't put the pieces
together, if you give up, you don't just give
up on a child's box of fun and suffer a
mild defeat and a few moments of
boredom. If you don't see the big picture,
you know you're missing out on something
but you can't quite figure out what that
might be.

In real life that jig-saw puzzle is more like
a map- and without a good map and
good instruments you're going to spend
a lot of time wandering around, feeling
pretty much lost. To a certain extent, of
course, this is inevitable.

*

Sudden change of syncopation in the
Beatles tune - Live and Let Die. I
think also of Strauss' *Don Juan*.

The same for fiction- otherwise
flat and uninteresting.

Then weave the pieces together with
transitional parts- or leave the sudden
changes alone.
........................................

Fillipo Lippi (1406-1469)


The Annunciation {click here}

and {click here}

The gospel according to St. Luke
"And the Holy Ghost shall come
upon thee and the power of the Highest
shall overshadow thee."

Depiction of the miraculous by means
of the luminous. Time transcending
powers of the tempera medium.

*
Idealization of the miraculous.

*

The Christ child as the birth
of grandiosity.

Immortality implies superhuman
miraculous powers.

In the face of the utterly tyrannical
forces of nature, Fillipo Lippi
restores faith by means of references
to the miraculous in his art. Some of
these miraculous powers are
experienced subliminally, employing
uncannily dreamlike details
that may only by achieved by
"second" sight. The angel child is
also idealized as are all the
feminine forces, magical,
maternal, restorative powers
of nature (again, the tempera).

An infinity of details achieves the
miraculous by means of second
sight. Lucidity in the presence
of so many details. These details
are partly occluded (submerged)
by means of their overwhelming
number. Endless depths are also
elicited by means of numerous
receding colonnades. With
the miraculous, the background
"shimmer" - the way the wings
of the angel shimmer. The color
of the robes is very stressed
(the mystery underlying the
material reality is "clothed.")
Curtains open to other curtains.
Twilight is coming on (the
emergence of dreams again).

There are an infinite number
of other worlds hidden
behind the screens and
curtains of this world (also
Christo's gates- reference
to the miraculous by means
of color)


Filippo Lippi {click here}


{click here}


{click here}

{click here}

{click here}

Fra Carnevale -The
Annunciation. Also, a
curtained stairway that
leads to an upstairs not
depicted, In the far
foreground a gate is
depicted behind the
angel. Behind this are
leaved and unleaved
Cypress trees.

[this image is available
but cannot be linked:
search Google images
for Fra Carnevale and
find it in the second
row, second to the right]

.................................
Schwitters' collages
as arial photographs
.................................
German, born 1955
Andreas Gursky

99 c. 1999
the immense power
of reproducibility
*
I'm sent a paranoid,
depressed robot
for treatment.

[scroll down to Monday, June 27
for a preview of Vanitas #1,
and Wednesday, June 29 for
Bookmarks, New and Notable
including: Steven Schroeder and
Maryann O'Donnell's lovely
*A Walk in Shenzhen* with
recent photos from The People's
Republic of China; also a link
to Bernstein's exciting *Close Listening*
series]


Soft Voice of Philosophy

"453. (As one can sometimes reproduce
music only in one's ear, and cannot
whistle it, because the whistling drowns
out the inner-voice, so sometimes the
voice of a philosophical thought is
so soft that the noise of spoken words
is enough to drown it and prevent it from
being heard, if one is questioned and
and has to speak.)"

*****************************************
Community of Ideas

"455. (The philosopher is not a citizen of
any community of ideas. This is what makes
him a philosopher.)"

from *Zettel*

Ludwig Wittgenstein

edited by G.E,M. Anscombe
& GH Von Wright

translated by G.EM. Anscombe
University of California Press, 1970
*******************************************
Frank Kuenstler, author of *Lens*, *Fugitives Rounds*
*In Which* and other works
is now represented with a superb,
touching, hilarious reading on Penn Sound

Close Listening: *The Carols & The Similes* {click here}

"Have pity on the midgets
for they are the last to know it is raining"

Books available from Abebooks by Frank Kuenstler

Frank Kuenstler {click here}
*******************************************
Shadowtime, an opera about
Walter Benjamin by Brian Ferneyhough at Lincoln Center- libretto
by Charles Bernstein {click here}
only two days , Thursday July 21 and July 22
plus free symposium and concert on July 18 & 20,
featuring Charles Bernstein, Marjorie Perloff and others

Bookmarks: New and Notable

[Don't miss our extensive preview of the first issue of Vincent Katz' *Vanitas*-scroll down to ::fait accompli:: Monday, June 27]

Hot enough for ya?

Stay in and enjoy the air conditioning
while close listening to

Charles Bernstein's new
poetry and talk series on
WPS1 and Penn Sound
Close Listening {click here}

Interviews with and readings by
David Antin, Erica Hunt, Rachel DuPlessis,
Peter Inman, Pierre Joris, Christian Bok,
Peter Straub, Susan Stewart,
Tan Lin, Bob Perelman,
Ted Greenwald, yours truly and others.
Bernstein's latest contemporary
poet series, announced
yesterday on the Buffalo listserv,
will go far to liven up the
summer poetry doldrums!
***********************************************
A Walk in Shenzhen

by
Steven Schroeder and
Maryann O'Donnell {click here}

Blogger Steven Shroeder {click here}
spends considerable time in the
People's Republic of China.
This lyrical, touching poetry/photo
collaboration with
Maryann O'Donnell is an
online "must bookmark!"
**************************************
Flarfmaster Kasey Mohammad tells all to Tom Beckett
right now on
E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S {click here}
**************************************
Buck Downs

is a D.C. poet whose postcards have been
one of the poetry pleasures of my life
(which reminds me, I have to send
him my new address in Brooklyn)
now has a new interview up at
Narrow House Recordings {click here}- also, they have one
with David-Baptiste Chirot,
another well known mail art afficianado.

Oratorio, a new poem by Nada Gordon
right now on Ululations {click here}

New and Notable


*Vanitas*, first issue, edited by Vincent Katz

For some reason, everything, from the
magazine itself, to the reading, to
the party afterwards, to thinking about
it now, seems to be triggering endless
deja vus. Anyone, which is nearly
everyone, who has had this feeling
knows how it encompasses many aspects
of memory and timelessness.

I keep coming back to seeing Greg Masters {click here}
at the reading. Greg is an old-timer like me,
a vintage Poetry Project person. Connecting
with Greg again helps heal the rifts that
necessarily occur in the course of a lifetime
with poets and poetry. Vanitas opens up
with an article by Jordan Davis {click here} about the
available histories of the New York school.
He writes about David Lehman's
*The Last Avant-Garde*,
Daniel Kane's *All Poets Welcome*, and
Joe LeSueur's memoir, *Digressions on
Some Poems by Frank O'Hara*, the last two
published in 2003. Jordan appreciates these
but wants more and feels the history taking
of this era and its progeny is incomplete.
"What would be nice to have is a not-too-
long book that tells the story of the New York
School of poets, identifying the common
interests of the writers and sources of their
work, while placing the groups as they develop
in their shifting milieus."i

Next comes a piece by Carter Ratcliff titled
*The Anaxagoras Variations: A Note on Theory*
A fine poet in his own right, Carter Ratcliff is
best known as an art critic. Once upon a time
I would have been annoyed by this piece, which
attempts to deconstruct &
critique theory by means of theory.
But, living in the heart of my own anecdotage, I can
only enjoy reading the words of someone who
attended Ted Berrigan's poetry workshop with me
in 1967 and wrote a poem about it published in
Ann Waldman's first *World Anthology* (1969) in which he writes:
"Disagree with anything anybody else says, especially
what Charles, Ted, Nick, and Scott say
Agree with everything anybody says, especially
what Marcel Flamm says
Figure out who likes what
Be jealous of everybody
Approve of this sentiment and its intensity
Arrive late when all the places around the table
are taken"
I remember admiring & enjoying Carter Ratcliff's
first book of poetry *Fever Coast*, which featured
an unforgettable poem titled "The Comma".

Next comes a poem by Ann Lauterbach, *Triangles
and Squares (Guston, Malevich)*:
"yea the geometric sun, yes the line of abstraction. o yes
monster ambition flourishing, the violent inhuman field"

Then 4 poems by Fanny Howe including *Empty Handed*:
"This blindness was all our fault, it was our work
until the lock of sleep"

Then 4 by Ange Mlinko, including the
*The Most Awkward Hugger*:
"It's the sort of weather Tybalt murdered Mercutio in.
I sold a dinner jacket for cash to buy a birthday present."

3 by Carol Mirakove including *substance*:
"populace spending 17 billion dollars a year on
books and a 105 billion dollars on booze"

Judith Malina, who lead off the BPC reading
superbly, has one untitled poem:
"I am Kandinsky standing
in front of Monet's haystack
about to discover a simple
truth that changes everything"

Then, my #1 favorite young poet right now,
Nada Gordon's *_Nothing is Untitled_*
"It fans across black as a hand (like a sassy cloud
in the ghetto of the sky) it spires an undersea

Maryanne Shaneen (who couldn't make the reading
because she was ill; get better soon, Maryann!)
contribues 5 poems including *Magnetic Memory Loss*:
"each tenderness extends into whipcrack.
war hidden in the language. by
influencing their appetites or desires."
and a collaboration with Rod Smith *tertium
striangular-alacrity*:
"(sky) to be (sky) to be (by) to be (ours) to be (come) (&)
to rise"

Sarah Manguso contributed *Epthalamion*
"Do not be too serious! You are part of it now!"

Elaine Equi, who helped to edit the issue, contributed
4 poems:
"...If only we had/some good, loud insults to hurl
at these floats,/ these mirages that pass for current events."

3 from Anne Waldman, including
*Neural-Linguistically: this is the writing dance..."
"This is the trespass dance this is the way I get down for it
It's my power structure to STRANGLE Rumsfeld"

Then a Jim Dine portfolio of painted poems:
"This Morning, when I was youong
I went into a little room where there was
A CLEAR MIRACLE LIKE
OBJECT A big sculpture
In The Room"

4 from Jerome Sala, including *A Pageant of
Agents*, a poem about beautiful spies being
hired by the CIA, including Britney Spears:
"'She may be our
biggest coup (and cop)
since the days when we
backed abstract art
in Europe; hey, from Jackson Pollack
to the Back Street Boys
you've got to go
with the flow
of the times'"

4 from Carter Ratcliff
including *Since When*:
"Since when didi you make manners your manifest
and rudeness your apologia? Since when

did you admit that there was any difference between the
two?

Pizazz, you say, is a Darwinian adaptation,
and altruism, down for the count"

Two from David Lehman,
including, *The Crown of An Evening*
"in one drawer I kept the collages of David Shapiro.
Frank O'hara was dead but kept writing in that drawer."

one from Francis Ponge, translated by Laird Hunt:
*Banks of the Loire, Rome, May 24th, 1941*
"Never try to arrange things. Things and poems are
irreconcilable"

one from Drew Gardner, *from The Fire Escape*
"I can't afford this
to slowly turn around
it's not dying, it's just
bizarre, and true
we are in a chemical world
and we fight in a high, panicked screen-memory"

3 Haiku from me, including *Unearth*

"a few delicate
thoughts

now buried
beneath an avalanche"

then two untitled poems from Richard Hell

"the wack, the tang, the brassiere
the poop eye candle-flame"

one from Charles Borkhuis, *Valley of the Dogs*
"don't talk to me about your nightmares
everybody's got 'em"

5 from Daniel Bouchard, including
*Christmas is Bombing*
"Melville tells us there is nothing
more insignificant
than having a book of poems published"

one from Michel Bulteau *The Wounded Dream*
translated from the French by Vincent Katz
"Let's cut off our hands!
They've spent too much time under the earth....
Will you believe for very much longer
That your affirmations seal your identity?"

one from Morgan Russell, *Walk Fragment*
"he (the tape I suspect)
shot me awake 4AM"

one from Clayton Eshleman *Autumn 2004*
"How to say myself as an American 21st Century
exasperated person?"

another from Nada Gordon, *Decency in the Arts*
"Take thy bev'rage from the ancient rose,
and ram it up your dirty bomb
In order to felch its eyeball with a straw
And on John Ashcroft's breast repose"

two essays from Alvin Curran written as liner notes
to his CD *Animal Behavior*, including
*Why Is This Night Different Than All Other Nights*
"...the ever-present choral hum of the
Brooklyn Bridge acts as a reminder of what
that momument once sounded like; it also acts
like a safety net to catch the tuba spittle,
the violin's rosin, the accordion's breath"

an essay from Ricardo Abromovay, *The Brazilian Left:
Far From the Night of the Ultimate Overthrow*
'The principal mission of a government of the left in
contemporary societies consists in promoting conditions
that open greater opportunities for social integration
to the poorest citizens, stimulating productive investments,
applying substantial resources in education, and
above all allowing greater productivity and greater
access to markets for the millions of workers who
might not participate in the economic growth."

an essay from Martin Brody, *Music Like That*
"Adrian Piper suggests how an operation of
'self-confounding' might function as a poetics of
intransigence with a strong formalist bent:
'[T]o confound oneself by incorporating into
works of art an aesthetic language one recognizes
as largely opaque to one; as having a significance
one recognizes as beyond one's ability to grasp...
[T]he cross-cultural appropriation of alien formal
devices reminds one of one's subjectivity'"

Following this, a section of a memoir by
Morgan Russell *A Girl Named Lunch*:
"...she told me of a lover with a glass eye...
your eye, take it out...why?..because I want to
lick the membrane behind it...(its actually
almost licking the brain: a brain job)"

the excellent issue ends with a statement of
purpose by the editor Vincent Katz:
"Someone asked me if the point was September
11, and I said no, it was a general dysfunction
that had set in, marked by the thrusting into
power of a group of figures that will be remembered
as among the most destructive in U.S. and world history."
**********************************
Terrific Photo on

equanimity {click here} today. I thought
it was a photo of a painting, but straight
for the horse's mouth it's a photo!
**********************************
New Interviews

Bernstein on *Shadowtime*; Perloff on
Abstract Poetry
The Argotist Online {click here}

Thanks, Nada!


Some ::fait accompli:: readers
may have noticed the incredible
shrinking type on this blog of late.
Not sure how that happened, but
I do know why it's better. Nada,
who turns out to know much more
than I do about html came to the
rescue and showed me how
to enlarge the type. What a pal!
************************************

Vanitas at the Bowery Poetry Club

The readings in celebration of the
first issue of Vincent Katz' new
poetry and arts magazine, *Vanitas*
were clearly well received- and when
the attendees had a chance to
check out the terrific work therein
and the issue's excellent production values-
with cover and a section of art work by Jim Dine
the palpable excitement spilled over
into the impromptu party afterwards
at the Cafe Orlin. Vanitas #1 is
available from Vincent Katz at
vanitas@el.net
The editorial address is
211 West 19th Street, #5
New York, NY 10011
Vincent, in an editorial
afterword writes: "Most
people in the U.S. use
the word "political incorrectly."
Political must be an actual
functioning apporoach to changing
or avoiding governmental policies.
this issue is reflection on THE STATE.
Next, we will approach what can
possibly thought of as politics. One
move will be towards an investigation
of current possibilities of Anarchy.
Each issue will have a theme
or thrust....One part of VANITAS
is open it to current voices from
around the world. We start in
this issue with a poem from France and an
essay from Brazil..."

Well, after a day in Prospect Park
enjoying the breezes and ducking
various missiles used for child's
play, it's time to go for pizza.

More on this excellent issue soon!