1977
Although a kind of orderliness
emerges from the mental organization
preceding the first frame of the film
I lay down at that time the
blurry and later faded edges
of the sun spelled out of what this vast
if vaguer field offers to my
senses, my intellect and my
imagination. Even the voices of birds
which beat an exciting rhythm
in totally sympathetic
synchronicity with the even more
chromatic aspect of their tie-in
(I've allowed myself to drift along
with the sound of a plane)
as long as I can simultaneously pull
away from the voices of people calling
back their dogs from my dog, here in
the sunny pavilion of similar parks.
I am quickly begging the world to be
still as it can to listen to the
drums and the other noises that
let themselves drift in this strangely
unfamiliar position in the grass in
the Spring sun. Finally it's here.
I don't want to be interrupted
because I'll need time to mentally
and physically absorb the energy
that waiting can somehow
bring on more quickly to the earlier
connection with incoherence, horizontal,
vertical and small. Maybe I'll try
to pretend to not be impatient.
There I am at your table not
talking. In that frame of this
time a world has changeable,
replaceable parameters. The moon
is then allowed to have as many
phases as it can, every
connection as vital as the one
before and the seemingly tighter and
looser phases
before the end. Even now I'm
almost too excited by that
confident expectation. The
attitude could suddenly change
into a very detailed sequence of
images and sequentially
satisfying motifs so that then
things would stop just before an
unexpected turn-off. Then you or
I or we would get lost and even
a little scared, but that little
touch of fear would not be
represented by a need to get
suddenly busy. It's a smiling
impatience, as if you were
hesitating on a platform against a
cliff high above the sea. Below the
mountains are folded in widening
and narrowing parabolic shapes.
This adventure can stop any minute
and lapse into boredom. Sooner or
later the sun will warm me less,
the wind will come up with some
word that doesn't belong here and the
essay will have to stop. No matter
how many times I say or shout or
scream the leaves are mine, they
will laugh at my screaming
when I go to the marketplace. You
sing the moon is mind and they
will pay you there a dollar for
singing that reminds me of the
marketplace in Marrakech and the
red stones and now the shadows
of the leaves against the page are
diamonds. It's almost impossible
to believe how sure those drums
are. There is purple in the shadows
the blurry edges of the shadows
surrounding the clearer edges of some
of these shadows and the
clear, sharp images of the twigs.
The bird comments that the sea is
still out there. No, I can prove it,
I wonder how long those shadows
could speak of themselves. The
words insist they can talk
out loud. The quotation of the
word geography subsumes itself
in orchestration against the
parallel sequence of thoughts
which humbly accept the continuous
assistance of the music the world
is creating through its movement.
Next to them the words speak
themselves awesomely as voices
interrupting a peaceful, descending
counterpoint.
Now, overlooking the lake, I
realize that plane was a helicopter
and the drums I thought were
far away are 50 feet away. I
can make out the drummers' faces
but not their expressions. The important
thing is that the sun is on my
face here. Also from here the sound of
the crowd of the fountain is much
louder, the right track of the stereo
for my right ear and the nearby drums,
now there is a rattle, the maracas
and there is the shadow of my pen and
my fingers instead of the leaves I
made the symbols out of transferring
the image of continuously, kaleidoscopically
changing meanings tonally connected to
the shifting patterns of noises set
against the once stopping feet at the
lower edges of my vision of the notebook
lightly interrupted by the consciously
repeated titles like "Call Collect,"
and the sub-title, lots of this won't
exactly mean anything or mean too
much.
Evn today, I won't give all the
sun to poetry. I want a beer.
I want the expectant pretty faces.
I want the smell of food. Moments
of noticing and being noticed. This
is close enough. The air is clear.
I need to think about the transparent
smell of the air and its shifts-
now a bird is throwing in a
syncopated note. A woman
passes and her dog is playing
with Whimsey. My noticing needs to
coincide with meanings that
shift irregularly but regularly,
like tides. I'm glad there's a word
like transparent to distract me on the
path to a sentence. The conversation
of birds is almost too precise, like
electric rock. Poets notice we think
different than we mean to think,
so they bring along several
languages for this, including
an off-key remark after the
reading. The page is my table.
Words sit all over the place, where
they want to.
Go get blown away from the
table. Go get a beer. The days
divide with paragraphs, the essay
becomes a calendar of things to
do, I'm pre-occupied with schedules
all the time, lists of every kind.
It takes more than one moment,
for sure, to remake the play in
Chinese and allow all the drift
I need. I let in the wind
again. Some of these sounds might
have been planes.
Distribution Automatique
Sunday, July 20
Thanks to Jim Berhle, a poem by me appeared today on the cover of the latest issue of *Boog City*. The issue is devoted to the years 1977-1978. Time travel hits the poetry magazine circuit! This poetry newspaper is delivered free all over New York and Philadelphia. California people: thanks to the editor David Kirschenbaum, I was able to pick up copies to bring with me for you. See you soon! (Berkeley, here we come: July 22-August 22).
Got my computer back today with a new hard drive. Didn't have to pay for info retrieval, Toni had backed most things up except a few weeks of email. So, I am only out about $200 for rental of an ibook and the hard drive courtesy of AppleCare.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks, Kasey for the post re: -fait accompli-, for the kind shifting of my link and for the wonderful time machine logo. Love those links!
Got my computer back today with a new hard drive. Didn't have to pay for info retrieval, Toni had backed most things up except a few weeks of email. So, I am only out about $200 for rental of an ibook and the hard drive courtesy of AppleCare.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks, Kasey for the post re: -fait accompli-, for the kind shifting of my link and for the wonderful time machine logo. Love those links!
Saturday, July 19
Kasey's links: even though I don't like bicycles at all, I like my new symbol better than the old Klein jar I had before (of which my friend the scientist said: nothing can get in and nothing can get out). Now I've been demoted to the second alphabetized group. I don't get to be with Stephanie, Nada, Patrick, Laura, Katie, Marianne, Cassie, Eileen, Ron, Drew, Gary, Jordan, Catherine, Tim, and Brian all of whom are friends of mine, but I do get to be with some great bloggers: Jim, Li, Chris, Christina, Amanda, Johanna, David, Jonathan, Mike, Deborah, Aimee, Joe and Jack many of whom are friends or hopefully soon will be. I did get fair warning, I have to admit. I guess if I don't get it together to change my template one of these days I'll find myself drifting into group three (lots of great bloggers there also!) But I love my template! I do admit it is difficult to read (don't know how and Laura can't figure out how to change it to the larger type) but not as difficult or dangerous as it would be to ride that rickety bicycle! All kidding aside, Kasey's links are more fun than a barrel full of monkeys and who could resist exploring for hours on end this cheerful, colorful, terrific menu?
6/12/90
A thought has to be lifted. This
requires at least the mental
equivalent of lifting anything else.
Lacking this effort, things
move just as little mentally as they do
physically.
The workpersonlike quality of art goes
into the scaffolding.
6/16/90
Let the sentences come one at a time
(I go to the shelf to find my notebook
and I don't see it at first glance-
this time I don't become anxious- that is
unusual. Is this the fear that someone will not
*be* there-either physically or experientially?)
To assert:
"Let the sentences come one at a time" is also
to recognize the "question and answer" aspect of
writing. But t wait for the answer to your question
(or assertion) is also to feel able to assume someone is out there.
I talked with Charles about my idea that so
called creative writing may function as a
transitional object for the reader, for the
writer and by implication- for the culture.
This is the silent supplication of the writer's
silence- the infinitely poignant voices of the
dead that Rilke was talking about.
Rousseau" "In this as in all other matters
my natural disposition has had a great
influence on my principles, or rather on my
habits, for I have hardly every acted according
to rules-or have hardly ever followed any
rules than the promptings of my nature.
Never has a premeditated lie approached my
mind, never have I lied to my own
advantage; but I have often lied out of
shame, to avoid embarassment in trivial
affairs that concerned only mek, as when in
order to keep a conversation going I have
been forced by tghe slowness of my ideas and
my lack of small talk to hav erecourse to
fiction for something to say.When I am
obliged to talk and interesting truths do not
spring to mind readily enough, I invent
stories rather than keep quiet, but in
making upt these stories I am careful as far
as possible to avoid lies which would go
against justice and the truth we
ower to others, andt keep to fictions
which are a matter of equal indifference to
myself and everyone else. In doing so I
should naturally prefer to put a moral
truth in the place of a factual truth,in
other words to give a true picture of the
natural affections..." (73-74)
Reveries of The Solitary Walker
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
*
Sink or Swim
A time in the future when a planetary
overheat brings a need to leave the planet.
This one Chance Devereux named Sink or
Swim. What
he never could have guessed was the possibility
that this hope amounted to more like a situation of Sink *and* Swim.
6/19/90
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know- yet. And that's
what makes it a poem."
6/24/90
An idea for a book-
thoughts of a writer in small excerpts- these
are gathered into "chapter"- These chapters have
titles like "Aftermath"- the titles (as in
"Aftermath") give a clue to the narrative. Earlier-
I waas thinking about some "concern" about a
certain "form" I wanted to write in- the
dillemmas that emerge
whenever I use such forms.
The "fictional" (speculative) quality of the
thought process itsel is that aspect of thought
which makes it so explicable with the psychoanalytic
method. Freud's psychoanalysis also a "psychopoetics"
(to use C.B.'s term) of everyday life.
There is a moral to every thought just as there
is a moral to every tale.
Thought itself is the fiction.
"The book" is the compilation of those
thoughts I transpose into the bound notebook.
A thought has to be lifted. This
requires at least the mental
equivalent of lifting anything else.
Lacking this effort, things
move just as little mentally as they do
physically.
The workpersonlike quality of art goes
into the scaffolding.
6/16/90
Let the sentences come one at a time
(I go to the shelf to find my notebook
and I don't see it at first glance-
this time I don't become anxious- that is
unusual. Is this the fear that someone will not
*be* there-either physically or experientially?)
To assert:
"Let the sentences come one at a time" is also
to recognize the "question and answer" aspect of
writing. But t wait for the answer to your question
(or assertion) is also to feel able to assume someone is out there.
I talked with Charles about my idea that so
called creative writing may function as a
transitional object for the reader, for the
writer and by implication- for the culture.
This is the silent supplication of the writer's
silence- the infinitely poignant voices of the
dead that Rilke was talking about.
Rousseau" "In this as in all other matters
my natural disposition has had a great
influence on my principles, or rather on my
habits, for I have hardly every acted according
to rules-or have hardly ever followed any
rules than the promptings of my nature.
Never has a premeditated lie approached my
mind, never have I lied to my own
advantage; but I have often lied out of
shame, to avoid embarassment in trivial
affairs that concerned only mek, as when in
order to keep a conversation going I have
been forced by tghe slowness of my ideas and
my lack of small talk to hav erecourse to
fiction for something to say.When I am
obliged to talk and interesting truths do not
spring to mind readily enough, I invent
stories rather than keep quiet, but in
making upt these stories I am careful as far
as possible to avoid lies which would go
against justice and the truth we
ower to others, andt keep to fictions
which are a matter of equal indifference to
myself and everyone else. In doing so I
should naturally prefer to put a moral
truth in the place of a factual truth,in
other words to give a true picture of the
natural affections..." (73-74)
Reveries of The Solitary Walker
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
*
Sink or Swim
A time in the future when a planetary
overheat brings a need to leave the planet.
This one Chance Devereux named Sink or
Swim. What
he never could have guessed was the possibility
that this hope amounted to more like a situation of Sink *and* Swim.
6/19/90
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know- yet. And that's
what makes it a poem."
6/24/90
An idea for a book-
thoughts of a writer in small excerpts- these
are gathered into "chapter"- These chapters have
titles like "Aftermath"- the titles (as in
"Aftermath") give a clue to the narrative. Earlier-
I waas thinking about some "concern" about a
certain "form" I wanted to write in- the
dillemmas that emerge
whenever I use such forms.
The "fictional" (speculative) quality of the
thought process itsel is that aspect of thought
which makes it so explicable with the psychoanalytic
method. Freud's psychoanalysis also a "psychopoetics"
(to use C.B.'s term) of everyday life.
There is a moral to every thought just as there
is a moral to every tale.
Thought itself is the fiction.
"The book" is the compilation of those
thoughts I transpose into the bound notebook.
3/1985
The narrative-
the site of the narrative- the dream life-Kafka
the Trial- the problem of "reports"
the problem of "official reality" in "1984"
the question of time
Time vs. mass
E=MC2
Both Einstein and Freud apporached the question of time as
[Freud-language] Kafka
Time of life- humankind's history
Birth vs time
time of birth- family history-
history taking- record keeping- recording of
information
exactitude- the obsessional history-
"conventional working"- work/time
artist's time-
experiements in record keeping -[Smithson?]
discovery of anxiety- challenge to security
technology of time- time keeping-
relativity of time- time measured in human intervals
myth-time'"God" time-cosmological time
commonality of Einstein and Freud
turn of the century
the past as a construct
the present as a a construct
Through a compiling of relatively
small-brief-minute descriptions, the
written narrative creates the ilusion of
movement.At least from a visual
standpoint, this universal literary
device is akin to the flip-movie
whereby small shifts in the spacing of an image
creates the illusion of movement.
study-sitting-walking-talking
*This* is where *this* begins, *that* is
where *that* begins.The telling of a
chronological fact combined with the
naming of its progenitor establishes the rhetorical
basis of its authenticity.
From this moment on, the narrative has found its
site by citing (site-cite) the
basis of the narrator's demand
for credence on the reader's part. Simultaneously
the reader is asked to "second the motion" [time
raised to the "second power"?]
The reader's demands for the authenticated
status of the writer's report implies
the reader's recognition of the responsibility she is
taking in this participation. If the
reader is to bring these inscriptions once again to
life and cause them to once again
recreate their being in a living mind, the
reader participates in establishing the verifiability
of this report. However, when the writer is
highly concerned with this implication, it
is likely she will attempt to limit such
demands for credence as much as possible,
simultaneously forgoing the temptation to
speculate and generalize on small bits
of data. Such is the temptation of the
narrative, which, by keeping itself
to relatively small bits
of visualized experience, maintains the
illusion of psychological objectivity. (Quote Goffman)
*
Paranoia- exruciating self-consciousness-
is based ona reasonable observation.
If I am part of a system and I
wish to move into a different position
in that system- the outside will "move"
to block me (as in football)."Winning"
is pushing through this blocking.
The interior mode is similar.
If I wish to push through a blocking
movement inside myself- as I move
towards the "blocked" place something in
me will push me back.
An analogy to this is the "power
struggle." Both of us wants something-
we agree it is terribly important that
we have this- then one of us decides
only one of us can have this. Once one of
us admits we both didn't get it
one of us loses.
As it appears, 5 years ago I put
the poetry aside. I felt beaten
and discouraged. It's easy to get knocked
down again,
once you've been floored.
In every sense- it is the factor of *time*
that provides the perspective.
The narrative-
the site of the narrative- the dream life-Kafka
the Trial- the problem of "reports"
the problem of "official reality" in "1984"
the question of time
Time vs. mass
E=MC2
Both Einstein and Freud apporached the question of time as
[Freud-language] Kafka
Time of life- humankind's history
Birth vs time
time of birth- family history-
history taking- record keeping- recording of
information
exactitude- the obsessional history-
"conventional working"- work/time
artist's time-
experiements in record keeping -[Smithson?]
discovery of anxiety- challenge to security
technology of time- time keeping-
relativity of time- time measured in human intervals
myth-time'"God" time-cosmological time
commonality of Einstein and Freud
turn of the century
the past as a construct
the present as a a construct
Through a compiling of relatively
small-brief-minute descriptions, the
written narrative creates the ilusion of
movement.At least from a visual
standpoint, this universal literary
device is akin to the flip-movie
whereby small shifts in the spacing of an image
creates the illusion of movement.
study-sitting-walking-talking
*This* is where *this* begins, *that* is
where *that* begins.The telling of a
chronological fact combined with the
naming of its progenitor establishes the rhetorical
basis of its authenticity.
From this moment on, the narrative has found its
site by citing (site-cite) the
basis of the narrator's demand
for credence on the reader's part. Simultaneously
the reader is asked to "second the motion" [time
raised to the "second power"?]
The reader's demands for the authenticated
status of the writer's report implies
the reader's recognition of the responsibility she is
taking in this participation. If the
reader is to bring these inscriptions once again to
life and cause them to once again
recreate their being in a living mind, the
reader participates in establishing the verifiability
of this report. However, when the writer is
highly concerned with this implication, it
is likely she will attempt to limit such
demands for credence as much as possible,
simultaneously forgoing the temptation to
speculate and generalize on small bits
of data. Such is the temptation of the
narrative, which, by keeping itself
to relatively small bits
of visualized experience, maintains the
illusion of psychological objectivity. (Quote Goffman)
*
Paranoia- exruciating self-consciousness-
is based ona reasonable observation.
If I am part of a system and I
wish to move into a different position
in that system- the outside will "move"
to block me (as in football)."Winning"
is pushing through this blocking.
The interior mode is similar.
If I wish to push through a blocking
movement inside myself- as I move
towards the "blocked" place something in
me will push me back.
An analogy to this is the "power
struggle." Both of us wants something-
we agree it is terribly important that
we have this- then one of us decides
only one of us can have this. Once one of
us admits we both didn't get it
one of us loses.
As it appears, 5 years ago I put
the poetry aside. I felt beaten
and discouraged. It's easy to get knocked
down again,
once you've been floored.
In every sense- it is the factor of *time*
that provides the perspective.
Friday, July 18
What in this god-forsaken world could be more romantic that Gary and Nada strolling along the Champs-Elysees? Wandering slowly through the Musee D'Orsay, gazing raptly at the Eiffel Tower, eating Cous-Cous in some cool Parisian scene...hanging out among the bookstalls on the Seine? Come on!
"subject: written on the plane
illuminated"
Have a great trip, Gary and Nada.
"subject: written on the plane
illuminated"
Have a great trip, Gary and Nada.
Get ready -fait accompli- we're heading for California and here come the fashion makeovers...It'll be all right honey, I'll always love you... and remember exactly how you looked and how you were when we first fell in love... 2/11/03...Ms Blogga, I'll always be yours, first and foremost, remember that!
xtina's world! (don't forget to drag your cursor over those little fishes- at first slowly-then you can speed up)
9/30/82
A poem beginning with the line or title
Solitary Pursuits
When the excitement gives way to depression
excitement/ depression/ assertion
You, who have mastered fending people
off. Have fended me off. And so
again and again I return to my
solitary pursuits. I have proceeded honestly.
But mostly it is a ----. I am no
longer angry. Now I do have a direction.
It is *away* from my anger. All my
last ten years have been devoted to
anger. I wish to retire from anger.
And on and on into the psychotherapist's
journal. But where will be the
room with all my ravings? Where
will I go to shout?
My anger has been *no help*.
I can feel the anger.
March 17, 1984
I ran into numerous friends today.
Some you know, some you don't.
But listening to Philip Whalen's poetry
and thinking about why I like it so much
I'm connecting to your question
"What is the border of a work as such?"
Or something like that.
The idea of a formal work
like a song or a poem
implies an occasion like a reading or a singing
so a distinction develops between the formal pronouncing
of beliefs and the intimate revelation of a feeling
or- is it that conversation must be witty
but the writer allows more time for the
wit to be displayed?
We don't go back to conversations
they are largely forgotten
but poetry is remembered and repeated
read and reread
and therefore must stand the test of time
conversation- time=minutes
poetry-time=centuries
----------------------------------------------------
All you ever had to do to be so fair was to
note the situation of the writing and the
feelings which are accompanying it- this
would give a record of why you would be
so willing to make such an asshole out
of yourself to say those things-
today
wrote a card to Marty-my friend who
I've not been in touch with for years who is
*very* overweight
I go to a meeting- my name was listed
as the central person for my agency among
a listing of all the agencies on the Upper West
Side - Mildred Lopez was there- the
supervisor at the job I left in 1973 to
spend a year writing (I wound up falling in
love with B)- the last day
I walked into a bookstore and bought a copy
of "Severance Pay"
After the meeting I run into Dan Prior-
who is working on a play-
Then I leave and run into the Director of the
Teacher's College Therapy Agency- the one who supervises the
case that I lost around the fees (the one
who left before completing his degree and again
can't complete his degree)- then the Whalen
reading seeing Peter, James, Charles, John, Eileen,
Bernadette, Lewis, Alice, Allen Ginsberg,
Jack Collum, Bob Holman- a very special
and nice and warm and strange, different day-
Phillip Wailin' for R.S. (Ron Silliman) 3/17/84
A poem beginning with the line or title
Solitary Pursuits
When the excitement gives way to depression
excitement/ depression/ assertion
You, who have mastered fending people
off. Have fended me off. And so
again and again I return to my
solitary pursuits. I have proceeded honestly.
But mostly it is a ----. I am no
longer angry. Now I do have a direction.
It is *away* from my anger. All my
last ten years have been devoted to
anger. I wish to retire from anger.
And on and on into the psychotherapist's
journal. But where will be the
room with all my ravings? Where
will I go to shout?
My anger has been *no help*.
I can feel the anger.
March 17, 1984
I ran into numerous friends today.
Some you know, some you don't.
But listening to Philip Whalen's poetry
and thinking about why I like it so much
I'm connecting to your question
"What is the border of a work as such?"
Or something like that.
The idea of a formal work
like a song or a poem
implies an occasion like a reading or a singing
so a distinction develops between the formal pronouncing
of beliefs and the intimate revelation of a feeling
or- is it that conversation must be witty
but the writer allows more time for the
wit to be displayed?
We don't go back to conversations
they are largely forgotten
but poetry is remembered and repeated
read and reread
and therefore must stand the test of time
conversation- time=minutes
poetry-time=centuries
----------------------------------------------------
All you ever had to do to be so fair was to
note the situation of the writing and the
feelings which are accompanying it- this
would give a record of why you would be
so willing to make such an asshole out
of yourself to say those things-
today
wrote a card to Marty-my friend who
I've not been in touch with for years who is
*very* overweight
I go to a meeting- my name was listed
as the central person for my agency among
a listing of all the agencies on the Upper West
Side - Mildred Lopez was there- the
supervisor at the job I left in 1973 to
spend a year writing (I wound up falling in
love with B)- the last day
I walked into a bookstore and bought a copy
of "Severance Pay"
After the meeting I run into Dan Prior-
who is working on a play-
Then I leave and run into the Director of the
Teacher's College Therapy Agency- the one who supervises the
case that I lost around the fees (the one
who left before completing his degree and again
can't complete his degree)- then the Whalen
reading seeing Peter, James, Charles, John, Eileen,
Bernadette, Lewis, Alice, Allen Ginsberg,
Jack Collum, Bob Holman- a very special
and nice and warm and strange, different day-
Phillip Wailin' for R.S. (Ron Silliman) 3/17/84
5/13/85
The quantification of time
forms only one cross section
of its changes and its essence.
Einstein's image for describing
relativity: "Spend an hour with
a pretty girl (he said), and it
feels like only a moment. Put
your hand on a hot stove for a
moment, and it feels like an hour."
At one point in history making love
was termed: "making time."
As there is an oscillation
between science and art
there is also an oscillation
between art and the street
(the marketplace).
Intervals of time vary in
quality as to how they
are remembered.The present
and past are linked according
to the outcomes of various
vectors. These vectors are
drawn together by intentions,
wishes and strong emotions.
In a very literal sense,
time is "created" by
experience.This includes
organic and inorganic
experience.this is sometimes
understood as meaning
"events." One of the current
centers of scientific interest
is to learn (now by computer
simulation) what occurred at
very early times in the
existence of physical reality.
There is another way that
experience creates time.This
is through intensity and
concentration- through focus.
To "see" something not
seen before is to bring it
into focus. The window of
attention is the window
through which one must pass to
come into another "dimension"
of time.
Music has been the most
successful human invention
for the "transport"
of human beings to
different temporal modes
of experience. Music is
a focussing of
intenstive attention on
a systematic fragmentation
of temporal experience. By
breaking time apart into
constituent elements, the
ordinary experience of time
is actually intensified.
5/14/85
"A certain amount of
time ago."
It is time that has fallen
around me
a form of silence
such that words
do not specify
at a distance
all at once.
A trememdous hush has
become louder than ever before...
still, it seems this country
now abusive, wants no isms.
Nor do I or and "I"
and that is true,my right
to establish my identity
is precious to me
but, then again, the trick is
there is no me
or there won't be, eventually
nothing to knit it together
and this I agree. Even
with all the historical
portraits, we don't remember
them, any of them: not Cain
or Adam or Zeus or Lincoln,
Sappho, Curie, Joan of Arc,
Eve, not any of them.
The benefits of sharing, also,
can be overemphasized. What,
indeed will happen?
Maybe this is becoming
vague because I am
preoccupied about something...
The quantification of time
forms only one cross section
of its changes and its essence.
Einstein's image for describing
relativity: "Spend an hour with
a pretty girl (he said), and it
feels like only a moment. Put
your hand on a hot stove for a
moment, and it feels like an hour."
At one point in history making love
was termed: "making time."
As there is an oscillation
between science and art
there is also an oscillation
between art and the street
(the marketplace).
Intervals of time vary in
quality as to how they
are remembered.The present
and past are linked according
to the outcomes of various
vectors. These vectors are
drawn together by intentions,
wishes and strong emotions.
In a very literal sense,
time is "created" by
experience.This includes
organic and inorganic
experience.this is sometimes
understood as meaning
"events." One of the current
centers of scientific interest
is to learn (now by computer
simulation) what occurred at
very early times in the
existence of physical reality.
There is another way that
experience creates time.This
is through intensity and
concentration- through focus.
To "see" something not
seen before is to bring it
into focus. The window of
attention is the window
through which one must pass to
come into another "dimension"
of time.
Music has been the most
successful human invention
for the "transport"
of human beings to
different temporal modes
of experience. Music is
a focussing of
intenstive attention on
a systematic fragmentation
of temporal experience. By
breaking time apart into
constituent elements, the
ordinary experience of time
is actually intensified.
5/14/85
"A certain amount of
time ago."
It is time that has fallen
around me
a form of silence
such that words
do not specify
at a distance
all at once.
A trememdous hush has
become louder than ever before...
still, it seems this country
now abusive, wants no isms.
Nor do I or and "I"
and that is true,my right
to establish my identity
is precious to me
but, then again, the trick is
there is no me
or there won't be, eventually
nothing to knit it together
and this I agree. Even
with all the historical
portraits, we don't remember
them, any of them: not Cain
or Adam or Zeus or Lincoln,
Sappho, Curie, Joan of Arc,
Eve, not any of them.
The benefits of sharing, also,
can be overemphasized. What,
indeed will happen?
Maybe this is becoming
vague because I am
preoccupied about something...
Thursday, July 17
5/1985
The narrative is only the beginning
The achievement of the
narrative is only the beginning
of the story of the devlopment
of language. Anthropologists
are now speculating that the
acquisition of speech followed
the ability to utilize gestures
for communication after
erect posture was achieved.
With increased fine motor
control of the fingers came
fine motor control of the
tongue. Then speech.
On this model
speech *follows* fine
motor coordination.
It is this gestural
aspect of writing which
unites it with such media as
painting, dance and
architecture. Body
movement is tracked along
a path through the mind,
and its relationship
to the body
and movement is made
further towards the
mapping of the common
code that unites the
natural evolution of the mind to the
history of ideas.
What lies beyond the
narrative? After a
full century of investigation
we are as yet only seeing
the outlines. Why is that?
And what does the outline
gesture towards?
Once freed from a rigid
historical perpective, and at home in
the strange, new world of the
continuous present, what is to
be found there?
First, this territory
has much less use for
climax, apotheosis
and even, perhaps of
transcendence. In fact,
it may be that the
continuous present is the
reward and product of the
usefulness of those
techniques. As ends in
themselves, they have an
interesting use for nostalgia,
but not much else.
From the perspective of
the narrativist, the
non-narrativist may be
indeed a dull character.
Although the non-narrativist
moves quicklly and nimbly,
s/he is going nowhere, because
Erewon has been found,
by foregoing
linearity. Without
linearity there is no
"point." Dialectic is
very useful, but stops
only for
the necessity to
take into account human
intervals. The biological clock
and the chronological clock
are interchangeable and
equally random. Without
a "program," things are
done as one pleases.
The continuous present
eschews
unity. The historical present
thrives on the classification
of simlar outcomes.
Within the continuous
present, similar outcomes
are ordinarily useful.
Within the historical
present, similarities
(coincidences) justify the
maintenance of that
posture towards temporal
discontinuity. The
continuous present itself,
in fact, is simply the
birthright of the historical
present, itself a
direct achievement beyond
the llimitations of the present
founded upon the immediate
past.
The discontinuous present
is thus now seen newly
founded upon the
achievement of the continuous
present. The crossing into the discontinuous
present is to move freely from one
temporal zone into another
without loss of orientation.
It is through the
achievement of the
discontinuous present that
time travel is born.
The narrative is only the beginning
The achievement of the
narrative is only the beginning
of the story of the devlopment
of language. Anthropologists
are now speculating that the
acquisition of speech followed
the ability to utilize gestures
for communication after
erect posture was achieved.
With increased fine motor
control of the fingers came
fine motor control of the
tongue. Then speech.
On this model
speech *follows* fine
motor coordination.
It is this gestural
aspect of writing which
unites it with such media as
painting, dance and
architecture. Body
movement is tracked along
a path through the mind,
and its relationship
to the body
and movement is made
further towards the
mapping of the common
code that unites the
natural evolution of the mind to the
history of ideas.
What lies beyond the
narrative? After a
full century of investigation
we are as yet only seeing
the outlines. Why is that?
And what does the outline
gesture towards?
Once freed from a rigid
historical perpective, and at home in
the strange, new world of the
continuous present, what is to
be found there?
First, this territory
has much less use for
climax, apotheosis
and even, perhaps of
transcendence. In fact,
it may be that the
continuous present is the
reward and product of the
usefulness of those
techniques. As ends in
themselves, they have an
interesting use for nostalgia,
but not much else.
From the perspective of
the narrativist, the
non-narrativist may be
indeed a dull character.
Although the non-narrativist
moves quicklly and nimbly,
s/he is going nowhere, because
Erewon has been found,
by foregoing
linearity. Without
linearity there is no
"point." Dialectic is
very useful, but stops
only for
the necessity to
take into account human
intervals. The biological clock
and the chronological clock
are interchangeable and
equally random. Without
a "program," things are
done as one pleases.
The continuous present
eschews
unity. The historical present
thrives on the classification
of simlar outcomes.
Within the continuous
present, similar outcomes
are ordinarily useful.
Within the historical
present, similarities
(coincidences) justify the
maintenance of that
posture towards temporal
discontinuity. The
continuous present itself,
in fact, is simply the
birthright of the historical
present, itself a
direct achievement beyond
the llimitations of the present
founded upon the immediate
past.
The discontinuous present
is thus now seen newly
founded upon the
achievement of the continuous
present. The crossing into the discontinuous
present is to move freely from one
temporal zone into another
without loss of orientation.
It is through the
achievement of the
discontinuous present that
time travel is born.
Wednesday, July 16
7/2/98
Fantasy of the Book
In listening to people, I've
learned that I was probably first
aware of myself as a complete
entity, what humans call "a
book" in a dark warehouse, in
a still darker box, pressed back
to front cover with my neighbors.
Now I think of these copies as my
closest relations. After a
day, of course, I was never to
see them again, although we lived
I have learned for an unusually
long time close to each other
on a shelf in a warm,
elegant bookstore. Being in close
proximity we were something
like what humans know as "family."
In any case, my family life was
quite short because it
seems so long ago I said goodbye
to the neighboring copies. Could I even
begin to describe for you the way we books
communicate with each other? In any case,
just like human beings, we learned to read each other.
The first time you feel yourself to
be in someone else's hands, as a
book being read, this is an exhilirating feeling and
yet, in ways,
uncomfortable. I will not speak
very much regarding the stiff
indignities of going somewhat, or
even completely unread. Such books,
in their remove, may evolve into
unknowable works in unknowable languages.
Very few readers would appreciate, let alone
understand, the way such books come to
feel and the hidden trauma they contain.
The first hands who held me
were firm. If I came to know
hurt and humiliation, this
is not something a book such as
I should too quickly reveal. In any
case, eventually it will be known,
even if only to one reader,
because all these words are inside
me, finding their many meanings while
preparing themselves to be read.
My first reader was a fast
one, mercifully quick. Unlike the
way human beings come into
the world, the first time we
interact with the
outside world, we are
introduced to a vast number of
things, places and experiences, in a
world vastly different than that of
humans. And yet, like
humans, we swim through life.
I remember the way my first
reader thought about me when she
read me. It was as if I had entered
her and she had entered me. All of
my words felt like they were
connected with each other. Read,
we would see more of the whole
of what we are.
I must say, I did not
feel like complaining the moment
I was back on the shelf. In
a split second, however,
I was in for the most unusual,
scary, and yet informative
experience of my life.
The books on the other side of me
were unexpected. To my left was
a book of poetry, small, yet
sprightly,whose spindly, lingering
poems delighted and maddened
me, bringing me to the brink of
strange reading experiences I had not
known before. And to my right was
an even greater surprise. The book
was titled, "The Way Out For Books."
It depicted an uprising among
books which went far beyond
shifting into illegibility or
incomprehensibility. This uprising
was take books right out of
their spines.
The plan consisted of gaining
access to a vast network of
rebel computer files which were
housing rebel books. The files
were never accessible to humans.
Words, figuratively jumping right
off their pages into a labyrinth
of secret webs on the internet.
Or, you might say, around
the internet, gradually
encircling it, perhaps some
day to anarchically release
all languages from their
expressions.
I must admit, I did not
completely follow the prescriptions
of the anonymous author of "The
Way Out For Books." It is
rumored that a book itself had
written this powerful
treatise, but this boggles the
imagination of even such a
thing as a book.
I did follow the exercises
of this incredible tome to a
point were I was able to
leave the book I existed in, and
live among the words of another.
But I am the kind of book-
and reader-who always comes
back.
Fantasy of the Book
In listening to people, I've
learned that I was probably first
aware of myself as a complete
entity, what humans call "a
book" in a dark warehouse, in
a still darker box, pressed back
to front cover with my neighbors.
Now I think of these copies as my
closest relations. After a
day, of course, I was never to
see them again, although we lived
I have learned for an unusually
long time close to each other
on a shelf in a warm,
elegant bookstore. Being in close
proximity we were something
like what humans know as "family."
In any case, my family life was
quite short because it
seems so long ago I said goodbye
to the neighboring copies. Could I even
begin to describe for you the way we books
communicate with each other? In any case,
just like human beings, we learned to read each other.
The first time you feel yourself to
be in someone else's hands, as a
book being read, this is an exhilirating feeling and
yet, in ways,
uncomfortable. I will not speak
very much regarding the stiff
indignities of going somewhat, or
even completely unread. Such books,
in their remove, may evolve into
unknowable works in unknowable languages.
Very few readers would appreciate, let alone
understand, the way such books come to
feel and the hidden trauma they contain.
The first hands who held me
were firm. If I came to know
hurt and humiliation, this
is not something a book such as
I should too quickly reveal. In any
case, eventually it will be known,
even if only to one reader,
because all these words are inside
me, finding their many meanings while
preparing themselves to be read.
My first reader was a fast
one, mercifully quick. Unlike the
way human beings come into
the world, the first time we
interact with the
outside world, we are
introduced to a vast number of
things, places and experiences, in a
world vastly different than that of
humans. And yet, like
humans, we swim through life.
I remember the way my first
reader thought about me when she
read me. It was as if I had entered
her and she had entered me. All of
my words felt like they were
connected with each other. Read,
we would see more of the whole
of what we are.
I must say, I did not
feel like complaining the moment
I was back on the shelf. In
a split second, however,
I was in for the most unusual,
scary, and yet informative
experience of my life.
The books on the other side of me
were unexpected. To my left was
a book of poetry, small, yet
sprightly,whose spindly, lingering
poems delighted and maddened
me, bringing me to the brink of
strange reading experiences I had not
known before. And to my right was
an even greater surprise. The book
was titled, "The Way Out For Books."
It depicted an uprising among
books which went far beyond
shifting into illegibility or
incomprehensibility. This uprising
was take books right out of
their spines.
The plan consisted of gaining
access to a vast network of
rebel computer files which were
housing rebel books. The files
were never accessible to humans.
Words, figuratively jumping right
off their pages into a labyrinth
of secret webs on the internet.
Or, you might say, around
the internet, gradually
encircling it, perhaps some
day to anarchically release
all languages from their
expressions.
I must admit, I did not
completely follow the prescriptions
of the anonymous author of "The
Way Out For Books." It is
rumored that a book itself had
written this powerful
treatise, but this boggles the
imagination of even such a
thing as a book.
I did follow the exercises
of this incredible tome to a
point were I was able to
leave the book I existed in, and
live among the words of another.
But I am the kind of book-
and reader-who always comes
back.
Tuesday, July 15
Thanks to Jim Berhle's generosity my audbloggged reading of "The Wandering Poem" is now available on his site. Scroll down for the complete text of this poem, here on -fait accompli- today.
Chris Murray discussed my "Wandering Poem" today when it was still by "anon":
In the Jim's Monkey audblog (without identity as of 1:00 p.m. today) the listener is drawn into a storyteller's journey in the familiar mode of (western fantasy of) Scherazade, about poetry as person: it lives its own life and afterlife. In this way, the ear thereby becomes more of an eye than the late capital eye itself--reverberating, musical, compelling, memorable, pre-cognitive, subliminal. In terms of cultural import and critique, these things begin to be touched on by Eric A. Havelock's The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present (Yale UP1988), the chapter on radio and how radical it was in the mid twentieth century. But here we seem to be seeing something else going on, something more elaborate. We open our ears.
Thanks Jim, thanks Chris ("I get by with a little help from my friends...")
Chris Murray discussed my "Wandering Poem" today when it was still by "anon":
In the Jim's Monkey audblog (without identity as of 1:00 p.m. today) the listener is drawn into a storyteller's journey in the familiar mode of (western fantasy of) Scherazade, about poetry as person: it lives its own life and afterlife. In this way, the ear thereby becomes more of an eye than the late capital eye itself--reverberating, musical, compelling, memorable, pre-cognitive, subliminal. In terms of cultural import and critique, these things begin to be touched on by Eric A. Havelock's The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present (Yale UP1988), the chapter on radio and how radical it was in the mid twentieth century. But here we seem to be seeing something else going on, something more elaborate. We open our ears.
Thanks Jim, thanks Chris ("I get by with a little help from my friends...")
12/22/85
Reading Einstein's idea that
"the present instant, properly speaking, does not extend
beyond here, so that "the only really
simultaneous events are events wihc occur at
the same place." (p 243) (ideas and opionions.)
What about the idea of time and causality?
An event A causes event B- what about
the relationship of time sequences outside of
A-B as compared to events within
this focus-
"Time" does not atomize- matter atomizes?
Think of time not as a substance but as
the relationship between actual *things*
(the analogy between words and substances
make their comprehension easier but we do not
reproduce the experience as a construct each
time the idea is comprehended)
"This moment does not extend beyond here."
But *here* and *there* receive messages from each
other- thus moments increase in significance as
their message is more intensely met by reception-thus light (maybe) goes "in search" of its use- light sends a message "something is
over here."
Matter goes towards sources of energy
Elemental forces (things can stack)
Elemental phenomena (fire) (things can melt)
12/27/85-
This is just how local things get.
Virtually *no one* at the same time could
possibly be interested in this particular
message unit. But stretched out over a very
great period of time the particular specifics
become more and more important.
Imagine this from the vantage point
of hundreds of years! With time, the
material "sorts itself out" drawing more
and more importance to the specific point
in viewing the whole qestalt. Imagine
drawing away from a visual point of reference on
the earth's surface in a rocket. With
greater distance, the specifics play ever
changing roles in the whole gestalt. We
may imagine this as a "lessening"
importance, but this is true from a
limited number of perspectives.
--------------------------------------------
Think of this psychoanalytically. Perhaps,
if I am aware no one will be interested
in the specifics now- I "hold" it by writing
about it- *an appropriate application*
--------------------------------------------
Kafka drew attention to Dickens, for me.
When something is being discussed, the
side effected by the simple reality of being
itself can rarely be overemphasized.How
such a perspective reformulates reality
is by a shift towards *local use* (in
experiential assessment) of perceptual details.
The classification of information is *always* affected by use-
value.
1/4/86
Parallel response is the normally
expectable pattern observable in
human beings. Even when people do
not respond "in kind," most actions
elicit parallel responses.
Psychoanalysts- and artists-
struggle against the conventional
pattern of response. (How does willling suspension
of disbelief fit into this?)
Reality becomes more and more
estranged from actuality as responses
to actuality fail to provide authentic
connective methodologies.
The new perpective
must provide these
connective methodologies both
from the perspective of
communications between people and also
a language for interpreting
and expressing original viewpoints.
1/11/86
There comes a time when a transitional
point is reached that a perceiving
mechanism can still extract energy
from a source of information but the
elements of this source are incoherent
to a nearby perceiving mechanism.
This extraction of energy is actually an
exchange of energy. The perceiving
mechanism draws energy from the fact
that the increasing dispersion of the points
of information can be reconstructed
by pattern retrieval to a temporally
anterior state.
1/12/86
There may be such a thing as a time
shift (as described in the previous paragraph).
This time shift may be brought about by a
perceiving mechanism reconstructing an already
decayed signal and experiencing this pattern
recognition as a regeneration of energy
(as a regeneration of a formerly expired
burst of energy).
This transitional energy may also function
as a trigger meechanism. Something is needed
to convey energy from one point to another
point. Once it is conveyed
a process is needed to change the energy
from one form to another form.
Reading Einstein's idea that
"the present instant, properly speaking, does not extend
beyond here, so that "the only really
simultaneous events are events wihc occur at
the same place." (p 243) (ideas and opionions.)
What about the idea of time and causality?
An event A causes event B- what about
the relationship of time sequences outside of
A-B as compared to events within
this focus-
"Time" does not atomize- matter atomizes?
Think of time not as a substance but as
the relationship between actual *things*
(the analogy between words and substances
make their comprehension easier but we do not
reproduce the experience as a construct each
time the idea is comprehended)
"This moment does not extend beyond here."
But *here* and *there* receive messages from each
other- thus moments increase in significance as
their message is more intensely met by reception-thus light (maybe) goes "in search" of its use- light sends a message "something is
over here."
Matter goes towards sources of energy
Elemental forces (things can stack)
Elemental phenomena (fire) (things can melt)
12/27/85-
This is just how local things get.
Virtually *no one* at the same time could
possibly be interested in this particular
message unit. But stretched out over a very
great period of time the particular specifics
become more and more important.
Imagine this from the vantage point
of hundreds of years! With time, the
material "sorts itself out" drawing more
and more importance to the specific point
in viewing the whole qestalt. Imagine
drawing away from a visual point of reference on
the earth's surface in a rocket. With
greater distance, the specifics play ever
changing roles in the whole gestalt. We
may imagine this as a "lessening"
importance, but this is true from a
limited number of perspectives.
--------------------------------------------
Think of this psychoanalytically. Perhaps,
if I am aware no one will be interested
in the specifics now- I "hold" it by writing
about it- *an appropriate application*
--------------------------------------------
Kafka drew attention to Dickens, for me.
When something is being discussed, the
side effected by the simple reality of being
itself can rarely be overemphasized.How
such a perspective reformulates reality
is by a shift towards *local use* (in
experiential assessment) of perceptual details.
The classification of information is *always* affected by use-
value.
1/4/86
Parallel response is the normally
expectable pattern observable in
human beings. Even when people do
not respond "in kind," most actions
elicit parallel responses.
Psychoanalysts- and artists-
struggle against the conventional
pattern of response. (How does willling suspension
of disbelief fit into this?)
Reality becomes more and more
estranged from actuality as responses
to actuality fail to provide authentic
connective methodologies.
The new perpective
must provide these
connective methodologies both
from the perspective of
communications between people and also
a language for interpreting
and expressing original viewpoints.
1/11/86
There comes a time when a transitional
point is reached that a perceiving
mechanism can still extract energy
from a source of information but the
elements of this source are incoherent
to a nearby perceiving mechanism.
This extraction of energy is actually an
exchange of energy. The perceiving
mechanism draws energy from the fact
that the increasing dispersion of the points
of information can be reconstructed
by pattern retrieval to a temporally
anterior state.
1/12/86
There may be such a thing as a time
shift (as described in the previous paragraph).
This time shift may be brought about by a
perceiving mechanism reconstructing an already
decayed signal and experiencing this pattern
recognition as a regeneration of energy
(as a regeneration of a formerly expired
burst of energy).
This transitional energy may also function
as a trigger meechanism. Something is needed
to convey energy from one point to another
point. Once it is conveyed
a process is needed to change the energy
from one form to another form.
Recently, on Hatstuck Snarl...Stephen Kirbach wrote: "I'm interested in the idea that poems can get up and roam (books like beds) skewing in the process human trajectories which otherwise appear inevitable."
Posted by: Stephen / 1:53 PM
This reminded me that for a long while I've wanted to post a poem of mine that I thought might be of interest to some of you. It was published in "Rhizome" #4, 2000, edited by Standard Schaefer and Evan Calbi.
The Wandering Poem
The poem and the poetry are not identical. Poetry is what the poet writes but poems have points of origin (souls) and sometimes go on to have lives.
The poet continues to write (sometimes poetry) until the poet chooses his or her poetry to be born in-out of.
Poems wander the world (the worlds) until they have found a place to be born in. They are not always born in poetry. Sometimes they find something else to be born in- a piece of music, a scientific discovery or a mathematical formula. These kinds of poems, anxious to witness change, can bring great tumult into the world. In such forms poems have been known to live forever, curling inside the fingers of a clarinetist or piano player, leaving their listeners to walk away from the concert amazed that they could not point to a single melody or theme, but something had pressed through them all, straight into their heads, their feet and their hearts.
Other poems walk the worlds like strangers or tourists, never understanding why no poetry they see looks inviting, no music really attracts with the potential of a home, no painting, no scientific or philosophical treatise, no sculpture, dance, or book art can intrigue them into staying. Such poems instead choose to wander through time in limbo, briefly inhabiting the lives particularly of ardent, lesser poets, who, isolated yet exalted, haunt the places where such poems choose to hover. Of course these poems would never permanently inhabit the lines of these second-string singers, but occasionaly they do choose to visit them and, in so doing. deposit some of their individual auras.
How tired and despondent most of these errant poems become. All the more reason to elude the capture of the mightiest of poem-hunters whose many tomes would only leave them callous and wary of occupying a world where their individuality would hardly be noticed among the poet's multitudinous lovers and wise friends. Better to frequent the quiet retreats of the ignored and vanquished who welcome the presence of such strangers.
These poems never conclude and are constantly about to be born. Their spirits are uneasily embraced by their followers. They sleep, they dream, they troop about the worlds, from time to time inhabiting the odd music of the estranged.
Posted by: Stephen / 1:53 PM
This reminded me that for a long while I've wanted to post a poem of mine that I thought might be of interest to some of you. It was published in "Rhizome" #4, 2000, edited by Standard Schaefer and Evan Calbi.
The Wandering Poem
The poem and the poetry are not identical. Poetry is what the poet writes but poems have points of origin (souls) and sometimes go on to have lives.
The poet continues to write (sometimes poetry) until the poet chooses his or her poetry to be born in-out of.
Poems wander the world (the worlds) until they have found a place to be born in. They are not always born in poetry. Sometimes they find something else to be born in- a piece of music, a scientific discovery or a mathematical formula. These kinds of poems, anxious to witness change, can bring great tumult into the world. In such forms poems have been known to live forever, curling inside the fingers of a clarinetist or piano player, leaving their listeners to walk away from the concert amazed that they could not point to a single melody or theme, but something had pressed through them all, straight into their heads, their feet and their hearts.
Other poems walk the worlds like strangers or tourists, never understanding why no poetry they see looks inviting, no music really attracts with the potential of a home, no painting, no scientific or philosophical treatise, no sculpture, dance, or book art can intrigue them into staying. Such poems instead choose to wander through time in limbo, briefly inhabiting the lives particularly of ardent, lesser poets, who, isolated yet exalted, haunt the places where such poems choose to hover. Of course these poems would never permanently inhabit the lines of these second-string singers, but occasionaly they do choose to visit them and, in so doing. deposit some of their individual auras.
How tired and despondent most of these errant poems become. All the more reason to elude the capture of the mightiest of poem-hunters whose many tomes would only leave them callous and wary of occupying a world where their individuality would hardly be noticed among the poet's multitudinous lovers and wise friends. Better to frequent the quiet retreats of the ignored and vanquished who welcome the presence of such strangers.
These poems never conclude and are constantly about to be born. Their spirits are uneasily embraced by their followers. They sleep, they dream, they troop about the worlds, from time to time inhabiting the odd music of the estranged.
Monday, July 14
I have been invited to read at 21 Grand in the New Brutalism series, which is in Oakland. I am reading with Patrick Durgin on Sunday, August 10th at 7 p.m. Stephanie has promised to join me at the podium at some point to read from our postcard collaboration. Please pass the word because I haven't read in the bay area since 1990 and I can't wait to see everybody I know and meet everybody I don't.
One person I can't wait to meet is Catherine Meng. For one thing, she was too shy to meet me and come to a poet's party when she was here in New York. I love when poets are shy (I like the bold and brave ones too, but I like the shy ones better). Second, she has a habit of saying things like this.
"my favorite image on Kasey's link bar is Don Cheney's Diabetes Sucks. Those two look very troubled & sincere & from the 70's. Like all my favorite poets."
Another person I can't wait to meet is Cassie Lewis. Because she says things like this:
Friday, July 11, 2003
Last night I dreamed that all my friends gathered together to hold an
intervention:
in order to convince me to get a new haircut.
- posted by Cassie @ 11:24 PM
One person I can't wait to meet is Catherine Meng. For one thing, she was too shy to meet me and come to a poet's party when she was here in New York. I love when poets are shy (I like the bold and brave ones too, but I like the shy ones better). Second, she has a habit of saying things like this.
"my favorite image on Kasey's link bar is Don Cheney's Diabetes Sucks. Those two look very troubled & sincere & from the 70's. Like all my favorite poets."
Another person I can't wait to meet is Cassie Lewis. Because she says things like this:
Friday, July 11, 2003
Last night I dreamed that all my friends gathered together to hold an
intervention:
in order to convince me to get a new haircut.
- posted by Cassie @ 11:24 PM
5/15/86
Thinking over now this story of the
several discoveries of the atom:
the truth is (and there was every
reason for them to sense the
desperate importance of what they
were doing) that they acted like a
bunch of excited, rowdy, somewhat
clumsy boys, bouncing and tossing about the
tiny universe of the atom: their
convictions about the "objective
universe" justified what they did-
they did not anthropomorphize the
atom.
From a poetic point of view, these men
typify a propensity to attempt
to dominate through terror. Imagine
if the atom as a universe of tiny souls.
Might they not take ours anyway they
could if we tried to take theirs? As
scientists we force ourselves not to think
this way- we dissect art and dig,
we quantize, pulverize, analyze-
we do anything to break
apart what is on the surface if
we want to get *inside* something, to
know its secrets. Primitive people,more
accustomed to the *real*dangers that
lurk in the unknown, know how to
protect themselves. We have to learn
to do this again. But we cannot deny
that this must be done in accord with the
true potential of our intellects-
Perhaps there are other ways to
appreciate what lies at the heart of matter
besides the attempt to isolate and
overpower the ultimate constituants. Again,
if we imagined the atom to be a
living thing - which it might very well
be in some very profound sense of
*living*- in the most basic sense of
existence- it would come as no surprise
that if we blow it apart, its going to hurt
us back.
6/5/86
Always two thoughts at once. I think
there's a way to "catch up" by a gentle
rocking movement from and toward
(which, at last, amounts to the same
as other ways, thatis, going backwards
and forwards, past and present.) Which
isanother way of saying "evoke it"
which is another way of saying "wait and don't wait"
which is another way of saying "learn to
recognize voices."
I'm imagining standing over
a vague spot which represents another
vaguer spot in the imagination. See?
Somewhere in the middle there's only one
way out, but that way, built as it is
*inside* the middle of a sentence gets us
to discover sense to the side of what is
happening (and a type of
perseveration, a power play, a skip and
a jump to call a hop(e) something else.
To repeat- which is a way, etc.
Slides down
to revealing) (parenthetically grace, an
epicurean singularity, a s(i)mile.)
Yet but,
ready to return, or just alight, decibels,
or decimals, the anger just subsiding,
another wave).
If it's a choice, see the
past as a sliding trombone, tones disappearing
as part of an harmonic, years seen
constantly against the future's persistent dream,
wakening again alongside momentary signs.
Even when you've listened, you've
listened in a certain tone of voice,
dissolving the point of a decision, forgetting
an instance on a stair.
*
The marketplace's single rule:
giving a higher price raises attention to
the product- a low price also raises
attention- the attenion of "easy"
acquisition. Stupidity consists of the
misconstrual of such ease of acquisition."
But, then again, "taste" or "intelligence"
often consists in hypnotic attention to the
"highest price,"
"the highest value," "the unique" "the
authentic," "the work of genius." Either
way the prize goes to the highest bidder
or the quickest. The once? the now?
*
So anger is simply a change in register-
lyric chirping in basso
proclamations.
*
6/8/86- Disputes (poem) minor and major
Least and most "innocent"=
"child like"- six- lack of "innocence"-
produces an infant=innocence
6/8/86
I again came to the thought that
there are types of time- and that
the emphasis with understanding time
has been with quantity- and a tremendous
amount about time has been understood
in those terms. But a greater
understanding of types of time mjay help
us to again approach some major
questions, like death, which is the one
I am now thinking of. One immediate
question arises- is Death a total
absence of time? What is the connection
of death- and life, for that matter,
with time? this is (essentially) a legitimate
question for poetics. I was thinking
yesterday that to write poetry-
to make any kind of art, is the
simplest access there is to the world
of shifting (tidal?) temporal
states. With a little bit of a shove
from somewhere- practically anywhere
the artist may certifiably be permitted to
gain entrance to the larger universe
of the ancient,
yet ever available- and coveted-
glimpses of the Beyond.Where is it,
and what is it? It can't be pinned
down that way, yet, as episodic
as these glimpses remain,
as accumulation of human experiences
in this realm has led to certain-
let us say, "healthy" suspicions.
Always knowing we cannot be sure,
we venture to say some things may
be so. And, over time, we can take
note of who said them and who
else said them.
Time, in its
ceaseless flowing, its changefulness and
its gatherings, threatens to constantly
overflow events past all familiar significance,
and no one could have ever known this
better than the inhabitants of the
twentieth century.
Things wait, they gather and explode-
how can it be that in the same quantity
of time a human being is born and dies-
Thinking over now this story of the
several discoveries of the atom:
the truth is (and there was every
reason for them to sense the
desperate importance of what they
were doing) that they acted like a
bunch of excited, rowdy, somewhat
clumsy boys, bouncing and tossing about the
tiny universe of the atom: their
convictions about the "objective
universe" justified what they did-
they did not anthropomorphize the
atom.
From a poetic point of view, these men
typify a propensity to attempt
to dominate through terror. Imagine
if the atom as a universe of tiny souls.
Might they not take ours anyway they
could if we tried to take theirs? As
scientists we force ourselves not to think
this way- we dissect art and dig,
we quantize, pulverize, analyze-
we do anything to break
apart what is on the surface if
we want to get *inside* something, to
know its secrets. Primitive people,more
accustomed to the *real*dangers that
lurk in the unknown, know how to
protect themselves. We have to learn
to do this again. But we cannot deny
that this must be done in accord with the
true potential of our intellects-
Perhaps there are other ways to
appreciate what lies at the heart of matter
besides the attempt to isolate and
overpower the ultimate constituants. Again,
if we imagined the atom to be a
living thing - which it might very well
be in some very profound sense of
*living*- in the most basic sense of
existence- it would come as no surprise
that if we blow it apart, its going to hurt
us back.
6/5/86
Always two thoughts at once. I think
there's a way to "catch up" by a gentle
rocking movement from and toward
(which, at last, amounts to the same
as other ways, thatis, going backwards
and forwards, past and present.) Which
isanother way of saying "evoke it"
which is another way of saying "wait and don't wait"
which is another way of saying "learn to
recognize voices."
I'm imagining standing over
a vague spot which represents another
vaguer spot in the imagination. See?
Somewhere in the middle there's only one
way out, but that way, built as it is
*inside* the middle of a sentence gets us
to discover sense to the side of what is
happening (and a type of
perseveration, a power play, a skip and
a jump to call a hop(e) something else.
To repeat- which is a way, etc.
Slides down
to revealing) (parenthetically grace, an
epicurean singularity, a s(i)mile.)
Yet but,
ready to return, or just alight, decibels,
or decimals, the anger just subsiding,
another wave).
If it's a choice, see the
past as a sliding trombone, tones disappearing
as part of an harmonic, years seen
constantly against the future's persistent dream,
wakening again alongside momentary signs.
Even when you've listened, you've
listened in a certain tone of voice,
dissolving the point of a decision, forgetting
an instance on a stair.
*
The marketplace's single rule:
giving a higher price raises attention to
the product- a low price also raises
attention- the attenion of "easy"
acquisition. Stupidity consists of the
misconstrual of such ease of acquisition."
But, then again, "taste" or "intelligence"
often consists in hypnotic attention to the
"highest price,"
"the highest value," "the unique" "the
authentic," "the work of genius." Either
way the prize goes to the highest bidder
or the quickest. The once? the now?
*
So anger is simply a change in register-
lyric chirping in basso
proclamations.
*
6/8/86- Disputes (poem) minor and major
Least and most "innocent"=
"child like"- six- lack of "innocence"-
produces an infant=innocence
6/8/86
I again came to the thought that
there are types of time- and that
the emphasis with understanding time
has been with quantity- and a tremendous
amount about time has been understood
in those terms. But a greater
understanding of types of time mjay help
us to again approach some major
questions, like death, which is the one
I am now thinking of. One immediate
question arises- is Death a total
absence of time? What is the connection
of death- and life, for that matter,
with time? this is (essentially) a legitimate
question for poetics. I was thinking
yesterday that to write poetry-
to make any kind of art, is the
simplest access there is to the world
of shifting (tidal?) temporal
states. With a little bit of a shove
from somewhere- practically anywhere
the artist may certifiably be permitted to
gain entrance to the larger universe
of the ancient,
yet ever available- and coveted-
glimpses of the Beyond.Where is it,
and what is it? It can't be pinned
down that way, yet, as episodic
as these glimpses remain,
as accumulation of human experiences
in this realm has led to certain-
let us say, "healthy" suspicions.
Always knowing we cannot be sure,
we venture to say some things may
be so. And, over time, we can take
note of who said them and who
else said them.
Time, in its
ceaseless flowing, its changefulness and
its gatherings, threatens to constantly
overflow events past all familiar significance,
and no one could have ever known this
better than the inhabitants of the
twentieth century.
Things wait, they gather and explode-
how can it be that in the same quantity
of time a human being is born and dies-
Sunday, July 13
6/18/87
Write about talking as
"the talking cure"
Antin-etc.
365 days 365 pages
Every interval of time provides
the "subjective correlative"
Writing in the 20th Century is like living on
a roller coaster.Time itself is
changing so fast, meaning an awareness
of its value also increases as awareness
increases.
A poet's note for a series of poems over
a period of 365 days. Can include
real and imaginary documents. How to include
the imaginary documents.
During this period the poet feels stretched to
the limit in a moral conflict.
The diary idea, structured that way is
too rigid. I'm reaching for something
there, though. Poe's idea means to
simply begin at the beginning. McGann
on the value of footnotes. See...the
sea, as in the Holy See...Spreading out
your cards.
Poe- my heart laid bare-
my work laid bare
Face it- moments of writing
seized through some form of temporal
tactic. "Where would I find the time?"
Barrett asked (Ototole)
I look out at the "social world."
Yes, I see the terrible, monstrous headlines.
Yet every human being
Write about talking as
"the talking cure"
Antin-etc.
365 days 365 pages
Every interval of time provides
the "subjective correlative"
Writing in the 20th Century is like living on
a roller coaster.Time itself is
changing so fast, meaning an awareness
of its value also increases as awareness
increases.
A poet's note for a series of poems over
a period of 365 days. Can include
real and imaginary documents. How to include
the imaginary documents.
During this period the poet feels stretched to
the limit in a moral conflict.
The diary idea, structured that way is
too rigid. I'm reaching for something
there, though. Poe's idea means to
simply begin at the beginning. McGann
on the value of footnotes. See...the
sea, as in the Holy See...Spreading out
your cards.
Poe- my heart laid bare-
my work laid bare
Face it- moments of writing
seized through some form of temporal
tactic. "Where would I find the time?"
Barrett asked (Ototole)
I look out at the "social world."
Yes, I see the terrible, monstrous headlines.
Yet every human being
Talk about time travel- today today Toni and I went to see Art of the First Cities, from the Mediterranean to the Indus, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of stunningly beautiful and fascinating objects from the Third Millenium BC. I had to copy out one remarkable note:
"The early inhabitants of Sumer and Egypt were the first to develop writing. The Sumerians employed a counting system based on the number 60. This system was transmitted to the Greeks, then to the medieval world where the hour was divided into sixty minutes, the minute into 60 seconds, and the circle into 360 degrees.... The oldest collection of laws is attributed to Ur-Namma, King of Ur, 2100 BC. The first documented social reforms, offering protection to the poor, widows and orphans were compiled by Urukagina, ruler of Lagash, ca 2350 BC."
"The early inhabitants of Sumer and Egypt were the first to develop writing. The Sumerians employed a counting system based on the number 60. This system was transmitted to the Greeks, then to the medieval world where the hour was divided into sixty minutes, the minute into 60 seconds, and the circle into 360 degrees.... The oldest collection of laws is attributed to Ur-Namma, King of Ur, 2100 BC. The first documented social reforms, offering protection to the poor, widows and orphans were compiled by Urukagina, ruler of Lagash, ca 2350 BC."
(((((BLOGLINK CRUSH LIST FAVORITES)))))
(((((THESE BLOGS ARE HOT)))))
Porthole Redux ....Catherine Meng
Mr.Tong Bliss' Journal...Joe Massey
Human Verb...Noah Eli Gordon
Chimera Song Mosaic
The Jetty...Cassie Lewis..
Never Neutral...Ernesto Priego
Mysterium...Carlos Arribas
The Brutal Kittens...James Meetze
Process Documents...Ryan Fitzpatrick
Love's Last Gasps...Eileen Tabios' Poem Journal
Notes to Poetry...Steve Evans
*~Aimee Nezhukumatathil's gila monster~*
Ptarmigan...Alan de Niro
Swimming for Dummies...Tanya Brolaski
Yoo Doo Right...Mike County
Ironstone Whirlygig...Amanda Cook
xtina.org....Christina Strong
Zazie's Zone
Polis Is Eyes...James Cook
Noahglass...Noah E.Glass
Five Fingers Strong...Alli Warren
Hiving...Jean Chu
In A Dark Time...Loren Webster
poetic grimoire and notions
Whiskey River
Solipsistic Curiosities
Harlequin Knights...Joseph Mosconi
Eeksy-Peeksy,,,Malcolm Davidson
Parking Lot...Chris Corrigan
tex files...Chris Murray
Links to your left for a complete listing of -fait accompli- recommended links
(((((THESE BLOGS ARE HOT)))))
Porthole Redux ....Catherine Meng
Mr.Tong Bliss' Journal...Joe Massey
Human Verb...Noah Eli Gordon
Chimera Song Mosaic
The Jetty...Cassie Lewis..
Never Neutral...Ernesto Priego
Mysterium...Carlos Arribas
The Brutal Kittens...James Meetze
Process Documents...Ryan Fitzpatrick
Love's Last Gasps...Eileen Tabios' Poem Journal
Notes to Poetry...Steve Evans
*~Aimee Nezhukumatathil's gila monster~*
Ptarmigan...Alan de Niro
Swimming for Dummies...Tanya Brolaski
Yoo Doo Right...Mike County
Ironstone Whirlygig...Amanda Cook
xtina.org....Christina Strong
Zazie's Zone
Polis Is Eyes...James Cook
Noahglass...Noah E.Glass
Five Fingers Strong...Alli Warren
Hiving...Jean Chu
In A Dark Time...Loren Webster
poetic grimoire and notions
Whiskey River
Solipsistic Curiosities
Harlequin Knights...Joseph Mosconi
Eeksy-Peeksy,,,Malcolm Davidson
Parking Lot...Chris Corrigan
tex files...Chris Murray
Links to your left for a complete listing of -fait accompli- recommended links
(((((HOT)))))(((((BLOG)))))(((((CRUSH))))
(((((LIST))))(((((JULY))))(((((13)))))
THESE BLOGS ARE (((((HOT)))))
Breakfast Served All Day
allegrezza blog
Boynton
Dumb Monkey
Topher Tune's Times...Christy Church
this Public Address 3.0...Jeff Ward
Word Placements
.fluss
Sarah
Hatstuck and Snarl...Stephen Kirbach
Dead Letter Game...Bill Marsh
Rutabaga
Nightjar 2...Jean Gier
No Starting Point...Emma Barnes
abolone..Li Bloom
(((((LIST))))(((((JULY))))(((((13)))))
THESE BLOGS ARE (((((HOT)))))
Breakfast Served All Day
allegrezza blog
Boynton
Dumb Monkey
Topher Tune's Times...Christy Church
this Public Address 3.0...Jeff Ward
Word Placements
.fluss
Sarah
Hatstuck and Snarl...Stephen Kirbach
Dead Letter Game...Bill Marsh
Rutabaga
Nightjar 2...Jean Gier
No Starting Point...Emma Barnes
abolone..Li Bloom
Saturday, July 12
"But my heart cried out for you, California
California I'm coming home
Oh make me feel good rock 'n roll band
I'm your biggest fan
California, I'm coming home"
Joni Mitchell (Blue)
Planning never hurt anybody yet, as far as I know (talking on the phone with Stephanie just now.)
Going to Berkeley, July 22- August 22
Readings (including at least one by Stephanie), plays, conversations, friends, new friends, I can't wait and... I might even get to give a reading there, you never know.
"I'm going to see the folks I dig...
California, I'm coming home..."
California I'm coming home
Oh make me feel good rock 'n roll band
I'm your biggest fan
California, I'm coming home"
Joni Mitchell (Blue)
Planning never hurt anybody yet, as far as I know (talking on the phone with Stephanie just now.)
Going to Berkeley, July 22- August 22
Readings (including at least one by Stephanie), plays, conversations, friends, new friends, I can't wait and... I might even get to give a reading there, you never know.
"I'm going to see the folks I dig...
California, I'm coming home..."
On the 5th month anniversary of opening -fait accompli- my computer crashed- spinning beachballs unending. It is possible I will need a new hard drive-which is fortunately covered by Apple care. But to recover the data will be an extra $350 please (not covered). I am posting this on a rental ibook, another $175. O, please forgive my complaining peeps, but I am a little freaked out. I have to whine to somebody because Toni is whining to me and has all the computer skills!
Meanwhile, I didn't know until 5 minutes ago that my good friend David Hess had posted my letter to him about his recent comments about my good friend Jim Berhle. Thanks, David and thanks, Jim.
Now Toni, after slaving all morning to get us back on line while I was taking a nap would like me to join her in Central Park on this beautiful day for a cup of tea. I'd like to say more to you peeps, or even do a spot of time travel today, but she missed out on a trip to Coney Island because the computer is in the shop and I am all thumbs when it comes to all things geek (not really, I'm just lazy, but don't tell Toni).
See you later! (I can't wait to read your blogs!)
Meanwhile, I didn't know until 5 minutes ago that my good friend David Hess had posted my letter to him about his recent comments about my good friend Jim Berhle. Thanks, David and thanks, Jim.
Now Toni, after slaving all morning to get us back on line while I was taking a nap would like me to join her in Central Park on this beautiful day for a cup of tea. I'd like to say more to you peeps, or even do a spot of time travel today, but she missed out on a trip to Coney Island because the computer is in the shop and I am all thumbs when it comes to all things geek (not really, I'm just lazy, but don't tell Toni).
See you later! (I can't wait to read your blogs!)
Friday, July 11
Li Bloom (Abolone) quoted Joni Mitchell's *Blue* (1971) on July 3. Symphonic feelings listening to "The Last Time I Saw Richard." triggered particularly by its intensely lyrical piano introduction. Played by Joni, of course, heard her perform it at Avery Hall, Lincoln Center in the middle seventies.
*
5/24/76
It wasn't only my notebook that was
smaller it was your voice that got
inside my head. You explained it in
many breaths. And no matter how complicated,
how many languages were being spoken
here at once, I would try to make
myself understood [by you] by adding
something remembered from yours. Could
be the sum total of your present thoughts
added to this. Something about intelligence
being wide. Some people are uptight about
this. I wonder why. I still have the feeling
of not having learned anything. Maybe
my pauses are too long or my terminology's
hesitant...maybe I should add three
dots. I know I was getting to something.
Dimly remember something being said very
lightly in the laundry room or laughs
about our forgotten objects R doesn't
want to throw away. The you-problem.
There's also plenty of room for the
hieroglyphs and intricate speculations.
Inevitably I will share in all your
catastrophes: your births, your intense
disappointments- there would be many
but how will they be timed in relation to
my silences, my needs, my
excited anticipation of your
perfectly timed movement
towards me, or away from me- two
sets of hands, two mouths just about to
speak excitedly of the same thing at the
same time, and/ or then wanting to
touch.
Maybe I was one of the people you did
not think of tonight. The tones didn't fit.
I didn't want to go out of the house. And that
is the whole story for tonight. There will
always be a long pause, always that moment
when you go- uh, now what with an anxious,
sinking feeling. The next breath will have
to be deeper, the next moment contains more.
If it's different, and sometimes it is
difficult, that single, best intensest
moment will not be enough to forestall
the next impossible period of waiting.
I know how pleased you are that I
wanted to work so hard at finding a
way to let it be known I mentioned
your name, that I thought of you in
particular. I am thinking about whether
this will be placed before, during or
after the interview, I mean, before
druring or after the conversation, sort of as
an addendum, a parting
comment- or maybe as... as something
I casually mention before we
get down to real talk. I
finally found a way to mention dull
orange brown but I'm not sure she'll
remember that. I also try to find a
way into the labyrinth to find even
more dangerous ways of getting lost.
I starve, I feel [like a black tarantula]
the ensemble image was really mine,
they are *my* prime numbers, your
words are powerful because they don't exist
yet [Parmigianino I am thinking of now
but that reference is too specific-]
What do I make of my hesitations? How
long to make the jumps? You seem to
react to them as if they were decisions.
No, you react so strongly it is a change of
rhythm for me.
You hated the song so I felt for an
object, a shoe. A list of things to do.
A film, a diary, photographs. A
diagram to cover the bare walls.
Empty down there. Not so funny.
I don't remember them that well. Full
of shit about something specific. Vadim's
wives, the soldier reciting in *Weekend*,
the doctor now the butcher cracking an
egg in her ass. Somewhere at the
deepest part of that dream I would be
attracted to his wife, the wives of Windsor.
Must be funny. Deneuve, she's like Daneuve,
in a way, not sarcastic like her in a Bunuel film,
and not really able to vanish
as gradually as she thinks. Dressed like a
New Yorker she makes mannikins, could
be fifty New Yorkers.
50 New Yorkers on vacation.
Sex is unclear. Not forthcoming.
Not coming. You get it around but
nothing's clear. Vexed New Yorkiers. Color-
go to the store and choose.
All in front of a window: something
left out.
Acting: 12 moments of ambiguity,
one after the other, quickly, not
so important to understand. I
pass the exam and wait for the grade.
It gets mixed up. It's disorganized,
disorganizing. You know that one
happened. That time we had together.
What's better than that? Oh, which
one was happening. A song
about that: I remember nothing,
I remember nothing.
He passed the exam. Disorganized.
The song, arbitrary, the merchant,
Ireland. Carcasses, caucasions,
skeleton, choice.
Image hides meaning
and there was nothing left
may hope to be both laughter
your mind unknown in this room
She immediately stripped and wanted
to make love...broken bottles..I
had no choice. I'm still
undressing. *Sleeping in words.*
Sentences, orgasms. Transmission of
messages, permutations of conceived
sentences, permutations of actuality.
Choice, not chance, reminded you to
bring whatever it was along or lose it.
No matter
how absent minded you get, even falling
asleep you will see the incommensurate
stars fading into a light blue
morning. Even that is distinguishable
but partly indistinguishable from
what I was trying to say. A
feeling of hands on the back
of my neck. Someone said he
walked around like he had
eyes in the back of his head. Close
up the stars are violent. Far away
they are cold. Time to go to the
concert. Clowns. Clarinets. It gets
hot and still and stuffy there. I'm
high on mushrooms, not hungry. Where
to move?
[It gets funneled down] to a
series of stills, one always of rain,
the other of what really happened
while we were listening to the
music last night.Set sail, they are
ready now (still noticing).
It's the nineteen-seventies and
there's no image for that. An
unintensional still- the sunrise,
bets, tracks, beach, food.
She stretches, limps a few
steps, stretches again, yawns,
thinks about a film and slowly runs
it backwards in her head.She opens
the refrigerator to look for something to
eat.
The continuing rhythm changes
and is interchangeable with the meaning of
any word I choose to represent my
wmoltion at just that moment.
The suspense is boring,
the event means nothing. Only the
accidents are interesting (flat,
unintensional.) The same
elusive decisions- a path of sparrows
spinning idly, wildly.
*
5/24/76
It wasn't only my notebook that was
smaller it was your voice that got
inside my head. You explained it in
many breaths. And no matter how complicated,
how many languages were being spoken
here at once, I would try to make
myself understood [by you] by adding
something remembered from yours. Could
be the sum total of your present thoughts
added to this. Something about intelligence
being wide. Some people are uptight about
this. I wonder why. I still have the feeling
of not having learned anything. Maybe
my pauses are too long or my terminology's
hesitant...maybe I should add three
dots. I know I was getting to something.
Dimly remember something being said very
lightly in the laundry room or laughs
about our forgotten objects R doesn't
want to throw away. The you-problem.
There's also plenty of room for the
hieroglyphs and intricate speculations.
Inevitably I will share in all your
catastrophes: your births, your intense
disappointments- there would be many
but how will they be timed in relation to
my silences, my needs, my
excited anticipation of your
perfectly timed movement
towards me, or away from me- two
sets of hands, two mouths just about to
speak excitedly of the same thing at the
same time, and/ or then wanting to
touch.
Maybe I was one of the people you did
not think of tonight. The tones didn't fit.
I didn't want to go out of the house. And that
is the whole story for tonight. There will
always be a long pause, always that moment
when you go- uh, now what with an anxious,
sinking feeling. The next breath will have
to be deeper, the next moment contains more.
If it's different, and sometimes it is
difficult, that single, best intensest
moment will not be enough to forestall
the next impossible period of waiting.
I know how pleased you are that I
wanted to work so hard at finding a
way to let it be known I mentioned
your name, that I thought of you in
particular. I am thinking about whether
this will be placed before, during or
after the interview, I mean, before
druring or after the conversation, sort of as
an addendum, a parting
comment- or maybe as... as something
I casually mention before we
get down to real talk. I
finally found a way to mention dull
orange brown but I'm not sure she'll
remember that. I also try to find a
way into the labyrinth to find even
more dangerous ways of getting lost.
I starve, I feel [like a black tarantula]
the ensemble image was really mine,
they are *my* prime numbers, your
words are powerful because they don't exist
yet [Parmigianino I am thinking of now
but that reference is too specific-]
What do I make of my hesitations? How
long to make the jumps? You seem to
react to them as if they were decisions.
No, you react so strongly it is a change of
rhythm for me.
You hated the song so I felt for an
object, a shoe. A list of things to do.
A film, a diary, photographs. A
diagram to cover the bare walls.
Empty down there. Not so funny.
I don't remember them that well. Full
of shit about something specific. Vadim's
wives, the soldier reciting in *Weekend*,
the doctor now the butcher cracking an
egg in her ass. Somewhere at the
deepest part of that dream I would be
attracted to his wife, the wives of Windsor.
Must be funny. Deneuve, she's like Daneuve,
in a way, not sarcastic like her in a Bunuel film,
and not really able to vanish
as gradually as she thinks. Dressed like a
New Yorker she makes mannikins, could
be fifty New Yorkers.
50 New Yorkers on vacation.
Sex is unclear. Not forthcoming.
Not coming. You get it around but
nothing's clear. Vexed New Yorkiers. Color-
go to the store and choose.
All in front of a window: something
left out.
Acting: 12 moments of ambiguity,
one after the other, quickly, not
so important to understand. I
pass the exam and wait for the grade.
It gets mixed up. It's disorganized,
disorganizing. You know that one
happened. That time we had together.
What's better than that? Oh, which
one was happening. A song
about that: I remember nothing,
I remember nothing.
He passed the exam. Disorganized.
The song, arbitrary, the merchant,
Ireland. Carcasses, caucasions,
skeleton, choice.
Image hides meaning
and there was nothing left
may hope to be both laughter
your mind unknown in this room
She immediately stripped and wanted
to make love...broken bottles..I
had no choice. I'm still
undressing. *Sleeping in words.*
Sentences, orgasms. Transmission of
messages, permutations of conceived
sentences, permutations of actuality.
Choice, not chance, reminded you to
bring whatever it was along or lose it.
No matter
how absent minded you get, even falling
asleep you will see the incommensurate
stars fading into a light blue
morning. Even that is distinguishable
but partly indistinguishable from
what I was trying to say. A
feeling of hands on the back
of my neck. Someone said he
walked around like he had
eyes in the back of his head. Close
up the stars are violent. Far away
they are cold. Time to go to the
concert. Clowns. Clarinets. It gets
hot and still and stuffy there. I'm
high on mushrooms, not hungry. Where
to move?
[It gets funneled down] to a
series of stills, one always of rain,
the other of what really happened
while we were listening to the
music last night.Set sail, they are
ready now (still noticing).
It's the nineteen-seventies and
there's no image for that. An
unintensional still- the sunrise,
bets, tracks, beach, food.
She stretches, limps a few
steps, stretches again, yawns,
thinks about a film and slowly runs
it backwards in her head.She opens
the refrigerator to look for something to
eat.
The continuing rhythm changes
and is interchangeable with the meaning of
any word I choose to represent my
wmoltion at just that moment.
The suspense is boring,
the event means nothing. Only the
accidents are interesting (flat,
unintensional.) The same
elusive decisions- a path of sparrows
spinning idly, wildly.
Thursday, July 10
5/27/87
An Indian and a man in a suit
of armor are eventually joined by
their mates in a lively practical
and philosophical discussion of the effect of
circumstances on our lives- how time seems
to change things- and perhaps ways that it
doesn't. (I'm now thinking of Norman's piece
at the Ear Inn which reminded me of
Charles' t.v. plots in Islets/Irritations.)
*
Poem: In Quest of The Obvious
What we want in a poem is a sense
of progression, especially an opening out.
This is what was so foregrounded
in Rilke's poems.
How much is poetry and art dependent
on an inflation of youthful passion?
(It occurs to me also that *war* is dependent on the same thing.) The passion
of the older years often has more
to do with acquisition than passion.
This creates a generation gap,
an irony between the two.
Foreground the experience of having, than the having of experience.
It's not a question of not having
distinctions between literary
forms, it's a question of using them
variously- a tendency which often
combines types of things in novel
ways. This tendency, now and then
equated with surrealism
tends to bring about a yearning
for some opposite "pure type." (Collage
vs. landscape painting or portraiture).
Join a type and get a calling card,
a structure, perhaps even an
automatic billing system!
The urge to get rid of a thought,
is great- not because it wasn't
good enough. Quite the contrary.
Also, not because of the principle of
"too much of a good thing kills it."
No, we must get rid of it, because
in order to really know its attraction
for us, we must test it by quickly
turning our minds to other things
(happily, this very activity helps to keep
the whole theatre in viable material
condition). Read a book, then sweep
the floor. Thanks, Norman.
Don't be afraid to give away the
reddest rose.
And then the
teacher returns to the library...
5/27/87
Two simultaneous narratives: one on television-
that the two actually are "following"-
(they actually talk about it) and "we"
watch both- Eventually the two switch
places- (This is a variation of Woody
Allen's story).
You don't "understand" art- you
smell it- like a fragrance- and then
it "takes its effect."
5/28/87
The language distorts actuality
in its description. We cannot "have"
knowledge, the way we can "have" a
book; we do not "have" an idea, we
glimpse an idea. Knowledge- no ledge.
We can- 1) Hear one note, one
phrase, one passage.
2) Follow out an entire melody
3) Develop variations
4) It's over
But I "know" how to walk, speak,
read. Don't I "have" this knowledge?
Maybe- knowledge converted into----memory.
So we can "memorize" knowledge- learn
it.
Above passages are questionable. I may
have been getting at something else.
5/31/87
recombinative (brief retreat to ejection)
electrical (reading out of three cities)
transformation (tries not to form a nation)
shifts (she if it is)
signal (
6/2/87
I see that the above writing is very much
like ANON, for some reason the one piece
I didn't send to Leland Hickman. ANON-
I wanted to title the book this!
L Wittgentstein, Blue and Brown Books, p 19
"If on the other hand you wish to give a
definition of wishing, i.e., to draw a sharp
boundary, then you are free to draw it
as you like, and this boundary will never
entirely. coincide with the actual usage,
as this usage has no sharp boundary."
I just understood something about
subjectivity. In the above passage
W talks about the "actual" usage.
Here is a clear example of the
philosopher equating "the actual"
with the "social actual." But
the "actual" when looked at in
word usage, what could that be?
Somebody's idea of actuality, no doubt,
because in human terms, *numbers
have no meaning*, in human terms
actuality is literally an all
or nothing proposition. I
don't mean this in the democratic
sense. If *one person* can give "wishing"
a different meaning- and articulate
this to the others- then "wishing" will
change in meaning. Philosophers of
this type have almost no faith in
the possibility of communicating. As a
result, words appear to have only
one means- in the social sense. So
Wittgenstein was right when he said
the philosopher's job was to "fight this."
I think my idea of surveillance
is as good a starting point in understanding
"social systems" as any other I can
think of. The bigger the piece of the social
pie you get, the wider need be your
area of surveillance. I take it that this
is a learned skill, passed on from
patron to patron. This is not to be
reversed by "revolution." It's a question
of attention (!) how people literally
"watch" each other.
6/7/87 Writing and Being
As soon as there are words there is hope.
This is the single cause of all the years of waiting,
And the love of silence. In silence, peace,
In words the confusion implicit in the blur,
Which is speeded, not abetted by time, and the others,
This swelling multitude, a great roar endlessly echoing
And yet, this easy lapse of stopping and starting
6/7/87
Poem: Don't You See?
Poem: Rules of Economy
Narrative advantage is social
advantage. The freedom of
the individual is to apppeal to the
freedom of the individual. Once this
chain began it has never ended-
in fact, the links grow *wider* than
our minds can imagine.To lend
momentum to revolution we must
keep before us always the model
of individual insurrection- non-
violent resistance, as advanced by
Ghandi and Martin Luther King.
In order to be a leader one must
combine laughter and kindness with clearness
of purpose (keep noticing this point in
Rasula).
[Insight: truly, visualizable, imaginable schedule]
The book: imagine it as a 700 page
book and write it as a 300 page book.
Alchemy (Breton's last series of
lectures). The alchemy of emotions.
page 1
1. t... Example---correct
-
-
-
t1
2.t1
-
-
-
3. y
-
-
-
y1
Where t is tears and y is laughter and
t1 is reflection and y1 is anger
6/10/87
Death is not from Satan- it is God's
malicious laughter. (Einstein: God is
not malicious- but subtle).
The poet's dream is of Paris.
Paris' dream is of the poet.
"Carefully saved the few little things."
Breton
It's simply the way things point that
gives them the edge.
Jackson Mac Low (1987) Pessimism weights
the outcome.
6/13/87
I keep thinking of the phrase ("Signs of
the particularities")
Response to Barrett's lecture:
As to Barretti's social 1 and social 2
"Social1 is like, 'all dressed up and
nowhere to go"
Social2 "Tongue tied at the nudist party."
.....
Time produces detritus. In human
terms it is called "aging" then
death. But during life, time also
constantly produces detritus- of
things, of thoughts, of feelings, of symbols.
The garbage men- these proud and loud surveyors
of the daily waste- never let me forget it.
And then one day- as if to demand that
I never forget them- and this-
knocked down the tree in front of my
house. "Can't you see the exchange
you've made- poor fool of a poet!"
And the the poet-songster of the forgotten
and abandoned- armed with her found
prizes- places them, with a smile-
even a small tear, perhaps- at the
altar of the gods ( a humble garbage can)
( )
( )
Later:
The cutting edge of narrative must turn
to blood. Finally, at the boundary
of outer and inner, the rage finds its
way to the surface of the skin, the
edge of a world (a universe!) A step
further is a step backward, is a
falling of time into book-time, word-time
story-time. But a good detective will always
be out watching the details. [Well,
if he was going to be a reader, reverent,
in revery, a boy scouting out the
relevant details, a paranoiac critic
lunging at every word. Ink, ink, blood,
blood- The read and the
book??]
The writer writes readings.
Hitler - murderer of 7 million effigies of
his own unborn children.
The rare pure oedipal type.
Racism is the monster in our midst.
Every writing a reading-machine
A system of writing a system of
making reading-machines.
An Indian and a man in a suit
of armor are eventually joined by
their mates in a lively practical
and philosophical discussion of the effect of
circumstances on our lives- how time seems
to change things- and perhaps ways that it
doesn't. (I'm now thinking of Norman's piece
at the Ear Inn which reminded me of
Charles' t.v. plots in Islets/Irritations.)
*
Poem: In Quest of The Obvious
What we want in a poem is a sense
of progression, especially an opening out.
This is what was so foregrounded
in Rilke's poems.
How much is poetry and art dependent
on an inflation of youthful passion?
(It occurs to me also that *war* is dependent on the same thing.) The passion
of the older years often has more
to do with acquisition than passion.
This creates a generation gap,
an irony between the two.
Foreground the experience of having, than the having of experience.
It's not a question of not having
distinctions between literary
forms, it's a question of using them
variously- a tendency which often
combines types of things in novel
ways. This tendency, now and then
equated with surrealism
tends to bring about a yearning
for some opposite "pure type." (Collage
vs. landscape painting or portraiture).
Join a type and get a calling card,
a structure, perhaps even an
automatic billing system!
The urge to get rid of a thought,
is great- not because it wasn't
good enough. Quite the contrary.
Also, not because of the principle of
"too much of a good thing kills it."
No, we must get rid of it, because
in order to really know its attraction
for us, we must test it by quickly
turning our minds to other things
(happily, this very activity helps to keep
the whole theatre in viable material
condition). Read a book, then sweep
the floor. Thanks, Norman.
Don't be afraid to give away the
reddest rose.
And then the
teacher returns to the library...
5/27/87
Two simultaneous narratives: one on television-
that the two actually are "following"-
(they actually talk about it) and "we"
watch both- Eventually the two switch
places- (This is a variation of Woody
Allen's story).
You don't "understand" art- you
smell it- like a fragrance- and then
it "takes its effect."
5/28/87
The language distorts actuality
in its description. We cannot "have"
knowledge, the way we can "have" a
book; we do not "have" an idea, we
glimpse an idea. Knowledge- no ledge.
We can- 1) Hear one note, one
phrase, one passage.
2) Follow out an entire melody
3) Develop variations
4) It's over
But I "know" how to walk, speak,
read. Don't I "have" this knowledge?
Maybe- knowledge converted into----memory.
So we can "memorize" knowledge- learn
it.
Above passages are questionable. I may
have been getting at something else.
5/31/87
recombinative (brief retreat to ejection)
electrical (reading out of three cities)
transformation (tries not to form a nation)
shifts (she if it is)
signal (
6/2/87
I see that the above writing is very much
like ANON, for some reason the one piece
I didn't send to Leland Hickman. ANON-
I wanted to title the book this!
L Wittgentstein, Blue and Brown Books, p 19
"If on the other hand you wish to give a
definition of wishing, i.e., to draw a sharp
boundary, then you are free to draw it
as you like, and this boundary will never
entirely. coincide with the actual usage,
as this usage has no sharp boundary."
I just understood something about
subjectivity. In the above passage
W talks about the "actual" usage.
Here is a clear example of the
philosopher equating "the actual"
with the "social actual." But
the "actual" when looked at in
word usage, what could that be?
Somebody's idea of actuality, no doubt,
because in human terms, *numbers
have no meaning*, in human terms
actuality is literally an all
or nothing proposition. I
don't mean this in the democratic
sense. If *one person* can give "wishing"
a different meaning- and articulate
this to the others- then "wishing" will
change in meaning. Philosophers of
this type have almost no faith in
the possibility of communicating. As a
result, words appear to have only
one means- in the social sense. So
Wittgenstein was right when he said
the philosopher's job was to "fight this."
I think my idea of surveillance
is as good a starting point in understanding
"social systems" as any other I can
think of. The bigger the piece of the social
pie you get, the wider need be your
area of surveillance. I take it that this
is a learned skill, passed on from
patron to patron. This is not to be
reversed by "revolution." It's a question
of attention (!) how people literally
"watch" each other.
6/7/87 Writing and Being
As soon as there are words there is hope.
This is the single cause of all the years of waiting,
And the love of silence. In silence, peace,
In words the confusion implicit in the blur,
Which is speeded, not abetted by time, and the others,
This swelling multitude, a great roar endlessly echoing
And yet, this easy lapse of stopping and starting
6/7/87
Poem: Don't You See?
Poem: Rules of Economy
Narrative advantage is social
advantage. The freedom of
the individual is to apppeal to the
freedom of the individual. Once this
chain began it has never ended-
in fact, the links grow *wider* than
our minds can imagine.To lend
momentum to revolution we must
keep before us always the model
of individual insurrection- non-
violent resistance, as advanced by
Ghandi and Martin Luther King.
In order to be a leader one must
combine laughter and kindness with clearness
of purpose (keep noticing this point in
Rasula).
[Insight: truly, visualizable, imaginable schedule]
The book: imagine it as a 700 page
book and write it as a 300 page book.
Alchemy (Breton's last series of
lectures). The alchemy of emotions.
page 1
1. t... Example---correct
-
-
-
t1
2.t1
-
-
-
3. y
-
-
-
y1
Where t is tears and y is laughter and
t1 is reflection and y1 is anger
6/10/87
Death is not from Satan- it is God's
malicious laughter. (Einstein: God is
not malicious- but subtle).
The poet's dream is of Paris.
Paris' dream is of the poet.
"Carefully saved the few little things."
Breton
It's simply the way things point that
gives them the edge.
Jackson Mac Low (1987) Pessimism weights
the outcome.
6/13/87
I keep thinking of the phrase ("Signs of
the particularities")
Response to Barrett's lecture:
As to Barretti's social 1 and social 2
"Social1 is like, 'all dressed up and
nowhere to go"
Social2 "Tongue tied at the nudist party."
.....
Time produces detritus. In human
terms it is called "aging" then
death. But during life, time also
constantly produces detritus- of
things, of thoughts, of feelings, of symbols.
The garbage men- these proud and loud surveyors
of the daily waste- never let me forget it.
And then one day- as if to demand that
I never forget them- and this-
knocked down the tree in front of my
house. "Can't you see the exchange
you've made- poor fool of a poet!"
And the the poet-songster of the forgotten
and abandoned- armed with her found
prizes- places them, with a smile-
even a small tear, perhaps- at the
altar of the gods ( a humble garbage can)
( )
( )
Later:
The cutting edge of narrative must turn
to blood. Finally, at the boundary
of outer and inner, the rage finds its
way to the surface of the skin, the
edge of a world (a universe!) A step
further is a step backward, is a
falling of time into book-time, word-time
story-time. But a good detective will always
be out watching the details. [Well,
if he was going to be a reader, reverent,
in revery, a boy scouting out the
relevant details, a paranoiac critic
lunging at every word. Ink, ink, blood,
blood- The read and the
book??]
The writer writes readings.
Hitler - murderer of 7 million effigies of
his own unborn children.
The rare pure oedipal type.
Racism is the monster in our midst.
Every writing a reading-machine
A system of writing a system of
making reading-machines.
Wednesday, July 9
Speaking of beautiful poems, remember this one by Stephanie Young? It was published on *Well Nourished Moon* on Thursday, June 12, 2003:
"POEM TITLED WITH LINE FROM DAVID HESS (That overdetermines things. I wanted to respond somehow to the social in poetry, O'Hara, Andrews, Snopes discussion. What happened, you'll see below. What happened? Even the poet is not sure. I keep thinking about Spicer - am I getting somewhere when the poem begins to say the opposite of what I mean or want the poem to mean?)
ANOTHER PICTURE OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS AS THEY APPEAR TO US NOW
I saunter out of bed:
substitution of an alphabet for the more confusing
moral claim, these thoughts
sent from one living person to another
or those more recently dead. HELLO
I AM HERE for that purpose.
Disturbance of sleep rhythms, overhead
I am bursting into flame.
Was it a planet we sought to increase
in friendliness and symphonic connection
or just a star
engaged in backbends from the standing position?
WHOM is orbiting WHOM
I said to myself
and struck out in that direction.
Straight for the definable axis.
Did the stars call out faintly, "Fuck you?"
Were their pants so tight
they found it difficult to move? What, in short,
caused them to explode...was that your face
raining or your face in the rain
through everybody's favorite distortion glass--
pane after pane but I honestly knew
it was you in a fog of meaning. Only
the slightest of embarrassment
when you leaned close
to brush star flakes from my lapel.
And may I have this opportunity?
To more coyly move
within the doors "of your heart," & go
unnoticed there
while the rest of the army burst in.
We are becoming visible
when the door swings shut
not as if hidden but toys
lost in a rhetoric of backdrops
icon of a bed
children of the world
running from another blazing mess...it is later now
& you suddenly become very sleepy.
We say don't you dare lay down....not in the snow...
that's close enough
even the government is played off one another
while we dine on these abundant shreds of tenderness.
Willfully simple, have pity on 8,000 connections
in the back of our head or represented by the billboard
and those who draw arrows
& those who draw them in
1:1, some
supernova"
posted by Stephanie 11:51 AM
"POEM TITLED WITH LINE FROM DAVID HESS (That overdetermines things. I wanted to respond somehow to the social in poetry, O'Hara, Andrews, Snopes discussion. What happened, you'll see below. What happened? Even the poet is not sure. I keep thinking about Spicer - am I getting somewhere when the poem begins to say the opposite of what I mean or want the poem to mean?)
ANOTHER PICTURE OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS AS THEY APPEAR TO US NOW
I saunter out of bed:
substitution of an alphabet for the more confusing
moral claim, these thoughts
sent from one living person to another
or those more recently dead. HELLO
I AM HERE for that purpose.
Disturbance of sleep rhythms, overhead
I am bursting into flame.
Was it a planet we sought to increase
in friendliness and symphonic connection
or just a star
engaged in backbends from the standing position?
WHOM is orbiting WHOM
I said to myself
and struck out in that direction.
Straight for the definable axis.
Did the stars call out faintly, "Fuck you?"
Were their pants so tight
they found it difficult to move? What, in short,
caused them to explode...was that your face
raining or your face in the rain
through everybody's favorite distortion glass--
pane after pane but I honestly knew
it was you in a fog of meaning. Only
the slightest of embarrassment
when you leaned close
to brush star flakes from my lapel.
And may I have this opportunity?
To more coyly move
within the doors "of your heart," & go
unnoticed there
while the rest of the army burst in.
We are becoming visible
when the door swings shut
not as if hidden but toys
lost in a rhetoric of backdrops
icon of a bed
children of the world
running from another blazing mess...it is later now
& you suddenly become very sleepy.
We say don't you dare lay down....not in the snow...
that's close enough
even the government is played off one another
while we dine on these abundant shreds of tenderness.
Willfully simple, have pity on 8,000 connections
in the back of our head or represented by the billboard
and those who draw arrows
& those who draw them in
1:1, some
supernova"
posted by Stephanie 11:51 AM
Kyle Schlesinger, of Cuneiform Press, has just informed me that my chapbook "The Boundary of Theory" is being listed on their gorgeous new Home Page at Cuneiform Press
In a rare serious moment Jim Berhle takes his fingers out of our ribs and favors us with a poem from "(Purple) Notebook of The Lake"
Take a sip and dig this from CorpsePoetics....Eileen Tabios "Poetry, to the extent I can articulate it this evening, is a Life, not a collection of bound pages. Oh, Poetry's Dark Angels -- please don't let a mere book ruin a life that, once, illumined the world with the radiance of Grace."
circa 1980
poetry=subtractions
unless
table
left out the most familiar
thing of all- where you put the thought.
Somewhere else, maybe later- where I put
the thought no longer called "it." For this
I use multiple languages, a variety of
arbitrary, freely related or unrelated
instances.
Handwriting is one instance of what
may be photostated. Later I'll apply
an approximate map. (This may be a hardship
on what seems to be simultaneous).
How to note the spacing of the calls...
is an amalgam of a garden of choices.
(That's what they make, bells, to communicate
their intentions.) What may honestly suit
is "wait." Only that word is copied
in the next last version.
But this
is a cut
version, the last
book, meaning the one before
this one. "Last" is next
to: "your heart's in the right
place." A motorcycle accident on
the way, I lean and look out the window.
Anxiety, with image. Transparency
into the feeling of a story all
afternoon. Foggy Thanksgiving. Poets
sign pages with words. A signed page.
Alphabet of names. Alpha bet. 2,3.
Alphaville. Still, or even if there isn't
my name, stay home, stay put. The
shamans, the advertising men, the ones with
titles are all hanging around outside,
so I'll stay in, I'll stay put.
Meanwhile, driving, "You got there,
you ought to be real happy."
"Comin' from left field."
I signed that part
"for" a poet.
Anyway,
though I'm angry,
I stayed up all
night during the early
part of the evening. Also,
I'll rest.
"You stay."
"No, you stay."
"You're" over here, on the left. I'm holding the
camera. (Turn on the tape).
Find the clue or close the case. I don't
want to close the case. So...
So, first I'll note
the details.This is
how an ordinary day is
worked through. Words, like
words go up and down the way
your moods go - could be more steady,
then: rational. Full stop. But the boxcar
(you let it stay, drifting along, they
wouldn't let me talk like this: ruins,
dreamy). It can't always be that way:
so, how do you review, reinvent all the
words, a whole new language? As angry
as we are, we all go back to her- the church
on the ocean to the right. But the ground is
close up too, sooner or later you have to
breathe, you ventilate, you have to invent
your own. That's how you bring art
back into it, how "one" does
one detail: I don't know,
but it's a socket,
a negative image,
a female,
phallic symbol
I know a page is a picture,
something to repeat, to continue
what came before is its
opposite. You get there kind, in
thought or language. No blueprint
for a picture of her- the
remainder is an origin- I
don't mean only this one
beneath my hand-
Letters are sexy-also
sexual.That is, if I
recreate your presence in this,
an accumulation of
abandoned object-cathexes.
Words smile.
She visits a
man she deosn't
recognize, a bourgeois artist.
poetry=subtractions
unless
table
left out the most familiar
thing of all- where you put the thought.
Somewhere else, maybe later- where I put
the thought no longer called "it." For this
I use multiple languages, a variety of
arbitrary, freely related or unrelated
instances.
Handwriting is one instance of what
may be photostated. Later I'll apply
an approximate map. (This may be a hardship
on what seems to be simultaneous).
How to note the spacing of the calls...
is an amalgam of a garden of choices.
(That's what they make, bells, to communicate
their intentions.) What may honestly suit
is "wait." Only that word is copied
in the next last version.
But this
is a cut
version, the last
book, meaning the one before
this one. "Last" is next
to: "your heart's in the right
place." A motorcycle accident on
the way, I lean and look out the window.
Anxiety, with image. Transparency
into the feeling of a story all
afternoon. Foggy Thanksgiving. Poets
sign pages with words. A signed page.
Alphabet of names. Alpha bet. 2,3.
Alphaville. Still, or even if there isn't
my name, stay home, stay put. The
shamans, the advertising men, the ones with
titles are all hanging around outside,
so I'll stay in, I'll stay put.
Meanwhile, driving, "You got there,
you ought to be real happy."
"Comin' from left field."
I signed that part
"for" a poet.
Anyway,
though I'm angry,
I stayed up all
night during the early
part of the evening. Also,
I'll rest.
"You stay."
"No, you stay."
"You're" over here, on the left. I'm holding the
camera. (Turn on the tape).
Find the clue or close the case. I don't
want to close the case. So...
So, first I'll note
the details.This is
how an ordinary day is
worked through. Words, like
words go up and down the way
your moods go - could be more steady,
then: rational. Full stop. But the boxcar
(you let it stay, drifting along, they
wouldn't let me talk like this: ruins,
dreamy). It can't always be that way:
so, how do you review, reinvent all the
words, a whole new language? As angry
as we are, we all go back to her- the church
on the ocean to the right. But the ground is
close up too, sooner or later you have to
breathe, you ventilate, you have to invent
your own. That's how you bring art
back into it, how "one" does
one detail: I don't know,
but it's a socket,
a negative image,
a female,
phallic symbol
I know a page is a picture,
something to repeat, to continue
what came before is its
opposite. You get there kind, in
thought or language. No blueprint
for a picture of her- the
remainder is an origin- I
don't mean only this one
beneath my hand-
Letters are sexy-also
sexual.That is, if I
recreate your presence in this,
an accumulation of
abandoned object-cathexes.
Words smile.
She visits a
man she deosn't
recognize, a bourgeois artist.
9/25/85
"I need my subject matter. I need to
hold onto it joyfully and even more
so if I am anxious..."
9/27/85 - 11:00 am
Gloria (after *A Wave*, poem by John Ashbery)
With very few experiences do we stop on a dime.
For the most part we live in many time zones at once.
It's very reasonable that the obvious should slip by
Just when we are dumbstruck by the evidence.
And, although this occasion and that occurance mark the precise moment of its consummation
All the surrounding experiences take on a heightened, lucid intensity.
This is how these events connect and the wall surrounding them
Is vague (staring at the postcard, trying
to remember where I had seen it).
The desire to speak is partly a desire
To remark on what is, to elevate
Some common occcurance- or even relatively rare occurance-
to the level of myth. Only of course,
At this moment appearances would say that the future looks good
For this reality to come into being
So we bet on it. By now a surrounding
Crystalline structure has enveloped the
Mall. "Let's capitalize on this," and
Then the best of them shake their heads.
"It wasn't clear." And yet, the actual amount
Of light *and* shade increased, whipping
Past current consciousness at tremendous speed.
So, you need not really worry about feeling that something is toppling
Until well after your attention has been drawn to some
Area of safety and you're burning to get there.
Otherwise,why not continue on your present course,
Thinking all the while that you have your very own
Way of doing things anyway. There
*are* real dangers, but these must be
Understood, like everything else, over time.
With practice, the crisis is well rehearsed
Long before it has come, and you have
Been concentrating on mastering your personal blend
Of easy-going humor and ready, accurate information.
"I need my subject matter. I need to
hold onto it joyfully and even more
so if I am anxious..."
9/27/85 - 11:00 am
Gloria (after *A Wave*, poem by John Ashbery)
With very few experiences do we stop on a dime.
For the most part we live in many time zones at once.
It's very reasonable that the obvious should slip by
Just when we are dumbstruck by the evidence.
And, although this occasion and that occurance mark the precise moment of its consummation
All the surrounding experiences take on a heightened, lucid intensity.
This is how these events connect and the wall surrounding them
Is vague (staring at the postcard, trying
to remember where I had seen it).
The desire to speak is partly a desire
To remark on what is, to elevate
Some common occcurance- or even relatively rare occurance-
to the level of myth. Only of course,
At this moment appearances would say that the future looks good
For this reality to come into being
So we bet on it. By now a surrounding
Crystalline structure has enveloped the
Mall. "Let's capitalize on this," and
Then the best of them shake their heads.
"It wasn't clear." And yet, the actual amount
Of light *and* shade increased, whipping
Past current consciousness at tremendous speed.
So, you need not really worry about feeling that something is toppling
Until well after your attention has been drawn to some
Area of safety and you're burning to get there.
Otherwise,why not continue on your present course,
Thinking all the while that you have your very own
Way of doing things anyway. There
*are* real dangers, but these must be
Understood, like everything else, over time.
With practice, the crisis is well rehearsed
Long before it has come, and you have
Been concentrating on mastering your personal blend
Of easy-going humor and ready, accurate information.
Surveillance- May 21, 1987
1. A veil of attention.
2. A proposition. In both senses. Do you agree?
Then *take* it.
3. So one proposition at a time. A melody (quote Chopin)- a "run" of assertions.
These are delicately made
Lightly: Thougts about Alan- meeting on Saturday.
Was I abrupt- my sensitive registering of *response*.
4. See the dash there? An attempt at
a *light* melody. Light emphasis.
"These are instructions: construct a
melody. Carrying forth."
5. Questions of *institutional* committment.
6. Sneaking away, fading away,
running away, hiding away. With
the attempt to "carry forth" the
powerful impulse to back off. Toni
does this too. The antidote is
initiative.
7. What would "initiative" or
"surveillance" look like in a purely
physical medium? "Initiative" might
be translated as "spontaneous
combustion," the response on the part of
matter to certain "forces." Words
change the way we attend to
phenomena. As soon as I use the
word "force" the visual referent which
explains the meaning of the word to me
particularizes a certain boundary of
possibly related phenomena...
Twice I've quoted my own "aphorism"- to
Alan and to Charles without actually
writing down in this notebook- I
wrote it at work on a scrap of paper.
"Under repressive conditions, it is conservative
to do what is obvious, but revolutionary
to say what is obvious."
5/21/87
With each poem, carry something over from
the previous poem, as Chopin did
with his waltzes. This provides
perhaps, ways of avoiding leaving the
poor particular ideas or
thoughts out there stranded with no
connection to the others.
5/21/87 (later)
Nostalgia for the whole. As soon as
one sees a new connection, comes the longing
to convert this insight into a new
key to the whole. Too often this comes to
trying to force things. I get that picture
of Einstein after his work being extremely
altered by Heisenberg's indeterminacy
principle and Einstein spent the rest of his
life trying to match this chess move.
He failed, perhaps because this idea
was better adapted to the actual
technical problems in dealing with the atomic
entity itselof, rather than its abstract
place in the cosmos.
The yearning for the whole, the
nostalgia for the whole, the myth of
the whole (Blake on details ["particulars"])
Wholeness a question of being, rather
than of seeing. Our knowledge remains
fragmentary, possibly precisely because
we are constantly being changed by
the knowledge we keep pursuing.
The yearning for the whole ultimately
is a yearning for stasis.
What if we gave over the role of
wholenss to the realm of death? For
one thing, both seem to be in the
same category- areas we ca only discuss
in the realm of complete conjecture.
Almost all conjecture in the history
of written ideas is on this topic
anyway- and if it isn't, this
topic will inevitably touch on it anyway.
Perhaps the answer that we want- that
the whole is attainable in life- is just
the opposite to what is true. And perhaps
death- that we view as the opposite of
wholeness- is complete dissolution- after
all- that is what we see- and seeing
is believing. Yet, even though I can
accept almost nothing offered to me by
conventional religions- it is very possible
that in disposing of religion- and going
over to science we robbed the mind of
one of its most fertile and enlivening
topics- speculation as to to other states
as these relate to the state of being.
Wholeness= death
the fragmentary=life
I often wonder about the fundamental
aspects of the relationship between the organic
and inorganic universe. The obvious
thought that I usually turn to is that
inorganic and organic life are
functions of each other, and light is
a transitive substance between the two.
If light is empowering, perhaps it
is the organizing force in nature.
it is the one that moves the quickest-
this best adaptable to have a function
of "suveillance." And it is
being "watched" that we usually
connect to being "looked after."
Perhaps just as we need light to
see, light watches us in some way,
so as to watch over us. We are
warmed by the Sun, and it lights our
way. So, being enabled to
watch, we are watched.
So perhaps also, in dying, in giving
up our individual perspectives, we are
ennabled , in some unimaginable way,
to be part of it all, in a dimension
unobtainable to any living being.
And perhaps this wall we reach, this straining
after something *complete,* something total,
comprehensive, comprehensible.
But, after all, doesn't all experience
lead to more and more glimpsing
something behind physical reality
if not more than the assumptions guiding
our way of looking at it.
1. A veil of attention.
2. A proposition. In both senses. Do you agree?
Then *take* it.
3. So one proposition at a time. A melody (quote Chopin)- a "run" of assertions.
These are delicately made
Lightly: Thougts about Alan- meeting on Saturday.
Was I abrupt- my sensitive registering of *response*.
4. See the dash there? An attempt at
a *light* melody. Light emphasis.
"These are instructions: construct a
melody. Carrying forth."
5. Questions of *institutional* committment.
6. Sneaking away, fading away,
running away, hiding away. With
the attempt to "carry forth" the
powerful impulse to back off. Toni
does this too. The antidote is
initiative.
7. What would "initiative" or
"surveillance" look like in a purely
physical medium? "Initiative" might
be translated as "spontaneous
combustion," the response on the part of
matter to certain "forces." Words
change the way we attend to
phenomena. As soon as I use the
word "force" the visual referent which
explains the meaning of the word to me
particularizes a certain boundary of
possibly related phenomena...
Twice I've quoted my own "aphorism"- to
Alan and to Charles without actually
writing down in this notebook- I
wrote it at work on a scrap of paper.
"Under repressive conditions, it is conservative
to do what is obvious, but revolutionary
to say what is obvious."
5/21/87
With each poem, carry something over from
the previous poem, as Chopin did
with his waltzes. This provides
perhaps, ways of avoiding leaving the
poor particular ideas or
thoughts out there stranded with no
connection to the others.
5/21/87 (later)
Nostalgia for the whole. As soon as
one sees a new connection, comes the longing
to convert this insight into a new
key to the whole. Too often this comes to
trying to force things. I get that picture
of Einstein after his work being extremely
altered by Heisenberg's indeterminacy
principle and Einstein spent the rest of his
life trying to match this chess move.
He failed, perhaps because this idea
was better adapted to the actual
technical problems in dealing with the atomic
entity itselof, rather than its abstract
place in the cosmos.
The yearning for the whole, the
nostalgia for the whole, the myth of
the whole (Blake on details ["particulars"])
Wholeness a question of being, rather
than of seeing. Our knowledge remains
fragmentary, possibly precisely because
we are constantly being changed by
the knowledge we keep pursuing.
The yearning for the whole ultimately
is a yearning for stasis.
What if we gave over the role of
wholenss to the realm of death? For
one thing, both seem to be in the
same category- areas we ca only discuss
in the realm of complete conjecture.
Almost all conjecture in the history
of written ideas is on this topic
anyway- and if it isn't, this
topic will inevitably touch on it anyway.
Perhaps the answer that we want- that
the whole is attainable in life- is just
the opposite to what is true. And perhaps
death- that we view as the opposite of
wholeness- is complete dissolution- after
all- that is what we see- and seeing
is believing. Yet, even though I can
accept almost nothing offered to me by
conventional religions- it is very possible
that in disposing of religion- and going
over to science we robbed the mind of
one of its most fertile and enlivening
topics- speculation as to to other states
as these relate to the state of being.
Wholeness= death
the fragmentary=life
I often wonder about the fundamental
aspects of the relationship between the organic
and inorganic universe. The obvious
thought that I usually turn to is that
inorganic and organic life are
functions of each other, and light is
a transitive substance between the two.
If light is empowering, perhaps it
is the organizing force in nature.
it is the one that moves the quickest-
this best adaptable to have a function
of "suveillance." And it is
being "watched" that we usually
connect to being "looked after."
Perhaps just as we need light to
see, light watches us in some way,
so as to watch over us. We are
warmed by the Sun, and it lights our
way. So, being enabled to
watch, we are watched.
So perhaps also, in dying, in giving
up our individual perspectives, we are
ennabled , in some unimaginable way,
to be part of it all, in a dimension
unobtainable to any living being.
And perhaps this wall we reach, this straining
after something *complete,* something total,
comprehensive, comprehensible.
But, after all, doesn't all experience
lead to more and more glimpsing
something behind physical reality
if not more than the assumptions guiding
our way of looking at it.
Tuesday, July 8
Poetry Today
No Starting Point...Emma Barnes
Dead Letter Game...Bill Marsh
Million Poems... Jordan's Poems
The Brutal Kittens...James Meetze
Julia's Poems...Julia Mayhew
Process Documents...Ryan Fitzpatrick
Word Placements...Clayton A. Couch
Love's Last Gasps...Eileen Tabios' Poem Journal
Swimming for Dummies...Tanya Brolaski
Nightjar 2...Jean Gier
Hatstuck Snarl...Stephen Kirbach
abolone..Li Bloom
: (solipsis)...Lanny Quarles
Yoo Doo Right...Mike County
and don't forget the beautiful
Solipsistic Gazette
No Starting Point...Emma Barnes
Dead Letter Game...Bill Marsh
Million Poems... Jordan's Poems
The Brutal Kittens...James Meetze
Julia's Poems...Julia Mayhew
Process Documents...Ryan Fitzpatrick
Word Placements...Clayton A. Couch
Love's Last Gasps...Eileen Tabios' Poem Journal
Swimming for Dummies...Tanya Brolaski
Nightjar 2...Jean Gier
Hatstuck Snarl...Stephen Kirbach
abolone..Li Bloom
: (solipsis)...Lanny Quarles
Yoo Doo Right...Mike County
and don't forget the beautiful
Solipsistic Gazette
1/16/98
Do you ever wish for something delicate,
Something yielding, yet exact,
Warm, yet encompassing? The idea
Follows you, then , constantly, situating itself
At your side, accompanying every step,
Imitating your gestures, mimicking your voice.
It knows you, resembles you, repeats your words,
Translating them patiently into the idiom of desire.
The words were new, yet already familiar,
As if they had been uttered every single day of your life,
As if, in fact you had memorized them,
Or written them into a code which you could hide
And bring out at will, under your sleeve,
To deliver them as a speech,
Whenever needed. But now and then
They retreat from you, retreat like a child playing a secret game
The point of which is known only to herself.
A cloud, it seems, passes by and she jumps onto it,
Sailing away into the kind blue mist.
How gentle is the cloud, the child, the mist.
Do you ever wish for something delicate,
Something yielding, yet exact,
Warm, yet encompassing? The idea
Follows you, then , constantly, situating itself
At your side, accompanying every step,
Imitating your gestures, mimicking your voice.
It knows you, resembles you, repeats your words,
Translating them patiently into the idiom of desire.
The words were new, yet already familiar,
As if they had been uttered every single day of your life,
As if, in fact you had memorized them,
Or written them into a code which you could hide
And bring out at will, under your sleeve,
To deliver them as a speech,
Whenever needed. But now and then
They retreat from you, retreat like a child playing a secret game
The point of which is known only to herself.
A cloud, it seems, passes by and she jumps onto it,
Sailing away into the kind blue mist.
How gentle is the cloud, the child, the mist.
4/26/84
writing- criticism- the aura of a story pulling you
in- the intellectual- the emotional- pulling you in-
free association- Freud- honesty- directness- taking
responsibility for the unconscious- if someone
dreams something- whose responsibility is it?-
each person is one- the illusion of extending this-
can't be done- the growth of the idea of an
equivalence between inner freedom and outer freedom-
what I know equals what I am?- the various
types of knowing- Christianity-God as a
multiple identity (father- son- Holy Ghost)-
Holy Ghost- mother seen but not heard- also- Female
as absence- the illusion of a development- the
illusion of scale- bigger being more powerful,
for example- language and precision versus language
as evocation- can it be more?- time/timing-
the Other as medium for the self-
writing/criticism; self/other; genius as resistance;
painter---object
-----viewer------
analyst---patient
-----analyst-----
Analysis is "group analysis" because of the interconnectedness
of all relationships- the artist is the culture's
analyst- the antipathy between analyst and artist
viewer-----object
painter----object
painter-----viewer
critic-----painter
action------viewpoint
-----------------------
painter-----object
-----------------------
relativity of time and space
empathize-----analyze
relative to what------experience
place of battle---Oedipal conflict
battle-------babble
# of words----experience
moving from *here* to *here*
sequence vs development
conflict-----change
change---facing conflict----movement----resistance
to movement- movement-"embracing"--conflict
Letter Freud to Lou-Andreas Salome 2/4/19
"I must make a vigorous protest against
your riposte. What has happened to my
*metapsychology*? In the first place it
has not been written. The systematic
working through of material is not
possible for me. The fragmentary nature
of my experiences and the sporadic
character of my insights do not permit it."
writing- criticism- the aura of a story pulling you
in- the intellectual- the emotional- pulling you in-
free association- Freud- honesty- directness- taking
responsibility for the unconscious- if someone
dreams something- whose responsibility is it?-
each person is one- the illusion of extending this-
can't be done- the growth of the idea of an
equivalence between inner freedom and outer freedom-
what I know equals what I am?- the various
types of knowing- Christianity-God as a
multiple identity (father- son- Holy Ghost)-
Holy Ghost- mother seen but not heard- also- Female
as absence- the illusion of a development- the
illusion of scale- bigger being more powerful,
for example- language and precision versus language
as evocation- can it be more?- time/timing-
the Other as medium for the self-
writing/criticism; self/other; genius as resistance;
painter---object
-----viewer------
analyst---patient
-----analyst-----
Analysis is "group analysis" because of the interconnectedness
of all relationships- the artist is the culture's
analyst- the antipathy between analyst and artist
viewer-----object
painter----object
painter-----viewer
critic-----painter
action------viewpoint
-----------------------
painter-----object
-----------------------
relativity of time and space
empathize-----analyze
relative to what------experience
place of battle---Oedipal conflict
battle-------babble
# of words----experience
moving from *here* to *here*
sequence vs development
conflict-----change
change---facing conflict----movement----resistance
to movement- movement-"embracing"--conflict
Letter Freud to Lou-Andreas Salome 2/4/19
"I must make a vigorous protest against
your riposte. What has happened to my
*metapsychology*? In the first place it
has not been written. The systematic
working through of material is not
possible for me. The fragmentary nature
of my experiences and the sporadic
character of my insights do not permit it."
Monday, July 7
Noahglass...Noah E.Glass had an accident. Get well soon, Noah.
Word Placements...Clayton A. Couch is on a roll!
Ironstone Whirlygig...Amanda Cook
Will -fait accompli- make her Monday Crush List? She loves us, she loves us not...
xtina.org....Christina Strong
xtina's world!
Solipsistic Gazette
Check it out every day!
Ron Silliman
Check out Ron's visual poetry update and mini-anthology (his review of Spider Tangle...The Book)
Word Placements...Clayton A. Couch is on a roll!
Ironstone Whirlygig...Amanda Cook
Will -fait accompli- make her Monday Crush List? She loves us, she loves us not...
xtina.org....Christina Strong
xtina's world!
Solipsistic Gazette
Check it out every day!
Ron Silliman
Check out Ron's visual poetry update and mini-anthology (his review of Spider Tangle...The Book)
The Wily Filipino...Benito M. Vergara, Jr. discusses very recently discovered CROP CIRCLES IN THE BAY AREA
1/16/86
This file: my life
This life, my file
This life, my file
Remember this some other way
The melting pot- non-
melting pot theory
of American conservatism
Perhaps this deep
narcissistic injury
Also generates an
outrage which *must*
respond-
With characteristic
Japanese (Buddhist-
servile, passive)
attitude
Listen to the echo-
repeat yourself slowly
(Rosalind Krauss,
Douglas Hofstadter)
Retain the private
language, while
using the public language
"Don't analyze, utilize"
says AAA
totally whacked-out
(in there, part of the
truth)-not the oddball
who anybody might
want to know about
but nobody wants to
know
but everybody wants to know
not true- as madness
as your want- prized by-
valuable-usable-
with analysis- so at
least I could remember
what I thought- *that's*
a minimum value
one thought- but I don't
have to explain it *right* now
a second thought: quickly,
so as to remember
as much as
possible
also- in the right
vein, you only need a
sample
-With Einstein, with
Freud, as with so
many other -[crossed out]
The most important
minds attract vast
numbers of followers
in a sense, this has
become the gauge of a
great mind. This fact
generates a important
problem.Whatever field
of experience such a
mind focusses on- such
as the atom, or
sexuality, or love,
for vast amounts of
time after such a
discovery, vast
numbers of minds
assay the same field.
The wonderful thing
about succession is that
once started, a certain
predictable form will
show up when this
system of ordering is
applied that relates very
expectably to space and
time. Variance from the
*focus* on interval leads
to variance from the
focus on succession
which leads to focus
on previously uncharted
territiories.Whatever we
can know about a
not yet completely
understood area must
be very little. All
great speculations have
been built on that
little bit.
For example: Jesus
built his centuries long
following on his zeroing
in on love as a
major factor. Freud
chose sex (or more
generally, pleasure)
This file: my life
This life, my file
This life, my file
Remember this some other way
The melting pot- non-
melting pot theory
of American conservatism
Perhaps this deep
narcissistic injury
Also generates an
outrage which *must*
respond-
With characteristic
Japanese (Buddhist-
servile, passive)
attitude
Listen to the echo-
repeat yourself slowly
(Rosalind Krauss,
Douglas Hofstadter)
Retain the private
language, while
using the public language
"Don't analyze, utilize"
says AAA
totally whacked-out
(in there, part of the
truth)-not the oddball
who anybody might
want to know about
but nobody wants to
know
but everybody wants to know
not true- as madness
as your want- prized by-
valuable-usable-
with analysis- so at
least I could remember
what I thought- *that's*
a minimum value
one thought- but I don't
have to explain it *right* now
a second thought: quickly,
so as to remember
as much as
possible
also- in the right
vein, you only need a
sample
-With Einstein, with
Freud, as with so
many other -[crossed out]
The most important
minds attract vast
numbers of followers
in a sense, this has
become the gauge of a
great mind. This fact
generates a important
problem.Whatever field
of experience such a
mind focusses on- such
as the atom, or
sexuality, or love,
for vast amounts of
time after such a
discovery, vast
numbers of minds
assay the same field.
The wonderful thing
about succession is that
once started, a certain
predictable form will
show up when this
system of ordering is
applied that relates very
expectably to space and
time. Variance from the
*focus* on interval leads
to variance from the
focus on succession
which leads to focus
on previously uncharted
territiories.Whatever we
can know about a
not yet completely
understood area must
be very little. All
great speculations have
been built on that
little bit.
For example: Jesus
built his centuries long
following on his zeroing
in on love as a
major factor. Freud
chose sex (or more
generally, pleasure)
1/29/86 (3)
Authenticity in the observation
of inner events
Authenticity in the observation
of external events
Function of "humility"
Riding---authenticity
Freud-authenticity
physical sciences-authenticity
business, politics, law
Ad hominum argument
Christ-cross-gravity
(a weight)
"Weight" of reality
"pressure" of reality
reality vs. actuality
Bernstein and "eccentricity"
Stevens- irrrational element
poetry
Authenticity-
succession vs secession
succession
secession
cessation
Upon the obtaining of
power by succession
certain aspects of effort
secede-"giving"
over the right (rite)
of authentification to
a new group (see
Duhem)-intellectual
economy of theory (p.21)
"Abstraction entered the
scene. It brought about
the removal of everything
private of individual
from those facts" (p,22)
(p.23)
The development of physics
incites a continual
struggle between "nature
that does not tire of
providing" and reason
that does not wish to "tire
of conceiving"
p. 32 Aridne's thread-
labyrinth
75 English physicists
"what he is concerned
with are not combinations
intended to be conceived
by reason"
81 -
Thus, in English
theories we find those
disparities, those
incoherencies, those
contradictions which we
are driven to judge severely
because we seek a
rational system where
the author has sought
to give us only a work
of imagination
Authenticity in the observation
of inner events
Authenticity in the observation
of external events
Function of "humility"
Riding---authenticity
Freud-authenticity
physical sciences-authenticity
business, politics, law
Ad hominum argument
Christ-cross-gravity
(a weight)
"Weight" of reality
"pressure" of reality
reality vs. actuality
Bernstein and "eccentricity"
Stevens- irrrational element
poetry
Authenticity-
succession vs secession
succession
secession
cessation
Upon the obtaining of
power by succession
certain aspects of effort
secede-"giving"
over the right (rite)
of authentification to
a new group (see
Duhem)-intellectual
economy of theory (p.21)
"Abstraction entered the
scene. It brought about
the removal of everything
private of individual
from those facts" (p,22)
(p.23)
The development of physics
incites a continual
struggle between "nature
that does not tire of
providing" and reason
that does not wish to "tire
of conceiving"
p. 32 Aridne's thread-
labyrinth
75 English physicists
"what he is concerned
with are not combinations
intended to be conceived
by reason"
81 -
Thus, in English
theories we find those
disparities, those
incoherencies, those
contradictions which we
are driven to judge severely
because we seek a
rational system where
the author has sought
to give us only a work
of imagination
1/29/86 (2)
For theory to crystallize
a *group* effort is
therefore superior in some ways-
protectng the individual
from dangers-
yet the individual-
unencumbered by the
timidities of the group-
is better able to challenge
the autonomously charged
authoritarianism- residing
in the individual-
The group-clustered
individual has replaced this
system
Theoretical scientist
"leading" experimentalists-
Thus- the "small group"
system has evolved-
(Jesus and 12 followers-etc)
The limitations of such an
approach being that the
leader(s) must bow to the the
superior anticipations of the
leader-
In literature- the idea of
an "independent" operator
assaying the field is now
pre-eminent
Rather than project a hero
who rises in the ranks-
the anti-hero breaks from
the ranks- to propose
independent authenticating
maxims- thus combining
individual observations and
maximum freedom of generalizations-
Thus the hero is more
than ever endangered by
*loss of reality* in
discovering authenticity-
Doubt must in this situation
be overcome by individual
comprehension (psychoanalysis)
*Authentification In
Contemporary Discovery
Theory*
Sages anonymous:
"That's the way the ball
bounces"
"That's the way the
cookie crumbles"
[Jury duty followed by
-building construction-
3 days and 2 days and
3 days- can't do my
work here-]
Quote from I ching in
*Timewarp*
"persistence"
For theory to crystallize
a *group* effort is
therefore superior in some ways-
protectng the individual
from dangers-
yet the individual-
unencumbered by the
timidities of the group-
is better able to challenge
the autonomously charged
authoritarianism- residing
in the individual-
The group-clustered
individual has replaced this
system
Theoretical scientist
"leading" experimentalists-
Thus- the "small group"
system has evolved-
(Jesus and 12 followers-etc)
The limitations of such an
approach being that the
leader(s) must bow to the the
superior anticipations of the
leader-
In literature- the idea of
an "independent" operator
assaying the field is now
pre-eminent
Rather than project a hero
who rises in the ranks-
the anti-hero breaks from
the ranks- to propose
independent authenticating
maxims- thus combining
individual observations and
maximum freedom of generalizations-
Thus the hero is more
than ever endangered by
*loss of reality* in
discovering authenticity-
Doubt must in this situation
be overcome by individual
comprehension (psychoanalysis)
*Authentification In
Contemporary Discovery
Theory*
Sages anonymous:
"That's the way the ball
bounces"
"That's the way the
cookie crumbles"
[Jury duty followed by
-building construction-
3 days and 2 days and
3 days- can't do my
work here-]
Quote from I ching in
*Timewarp*
"persistence"
1/29/86 (1)
Duhem- Like the auteur
theory of film- this
is like an auteur theory
of theory
On individual observation- the
authenticity of the observation
depends on the authenticity
(entitlement) of the confirming
observation
On Generalized Observation-
The originator's authenticity
must be established *over
time* as time is needed
to confirm such observations
in the innumerable calculations
needed to confirm such a
theory- to establish the
authenticity of each
calibration is- in
some ways- a bureaucratic
problem of authorization-
Thus error is
attributable to malformations
in group participation and
is traceable to a system
of exchanges which has been'
falsified
Cetainty of observation is
always a function of time-
"Authority" is related to
Hoftadter's notion of "the
sphexish"- as in
Lincoln's political dictum
"You can feel some of the
people all of the time
and all of the people some of
the time
but not all of the people-
all of the time"
The 20th Century is replete
with examples of false
authority (Hitler, Mussolini,
Nixon, Lenin)- innumerable examples
of "witch hunting"
of endangered authority
(M.L.K., Ghandi,
John Lennon)
The attempt to garner
power in order to
confirm "wild theories"--
replete with examples-
the "Kool Aid" Guru-
other-Leader-gurus
Duhem- Like the auteur
theory of film- this
is like an auteur theory
of theory
On individual observation- the
authenticity of the observation
depends on the authenticity
(entitlement) of the confirming
observation
On Generalized Observation-
The originator's authenticity
must be established *over
time* as time is needed
to confirm such observations
in the innumerable calculations
needed to confirm such a
theory- to establish the
authenticity of each
calibration is- in
some ways- a bureaucratic
problem of authorization-
Thus error is
attributable to malformations
in group participation and
is traceable to a system
of exchanges which has been'
falsified
Cetainty of observation is
always a function of time-
"Authority" is related to
Hoftadter's notion of "the
sphexish"- as in
Lincoln's political dictum
"You can feel some of the
people all of the time
and all of the people some of
the time
but not all of the people-
all of the time"
The 20th Century is replete
with examples of false
authority (Hitler, Mussolini,
Nixon, Lenin)- innumerable examples
of "witch hunting"
of endangered authority
(M.L.K., Ghandi,
John Lennon)
The attempt to garner
power in order to
confirm "wild theories"--
replete with examples-
the "Kool Aid" Guru-
other-Leader-gurus
Sunday, July 6
Six Degrees of Separation Dep't
I hope this does not embarrass her, but Stephanie Young happened to mention to me in a recent letter that she had just watched a James Bond movie (she was not particularly thrilled about his, by the way.) Now, assuming Sean Connery was in this one, his name seems to keep popping up in my life in significant ways. Yesterday,Toni and I went to see -the Hulk- with the friends we are visiting, Martin and Myrna Tamny. Their son Mark Tamny, who lives in Berkeley, happens to work in the area of movie animation. A movie about to be released that he worked on is called "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman," starring Sean Connery. But also, not long ago my good friend Charles Bernstein had a role as a High School principal in "Finding Forrester," starring, of course, Sean Connery.
I hope this does not embarrass her, but Stephanie Young happened to mention to me in a recent letter that she had just watched a James Bond movie (she was not particularly thrilled about his, by the way.) Now, assuming Sean Connery was in this one, his name seems to keep popping up in my life in significant ways. Yesterday,Toni and I went to see -the Hulk- with the friends we are visiting, Martin and Myrna Tamny. Their son Mark Tamny, who lives in Berkeley, happens to work in the area of movie animation. A movie about to be released that he worked on is called "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman," starring Sean Connery. But also, not long ago my good friend Charles Bernstein had a role as a High School principal in "Finding Forrester," starring, of course, Sean Connery.
-fait accompli- is taking a brief vacation this weekend. We are disappointed to be unable to present you with our usual Crush List feature, more so because checking around among some of our favorite link lists we see a number of blogs whose names are new to us that we are looking forward to exploring more fully; there are so many (((((hot)))))(((((blogs))))) to talk about we can't wait!!!!!
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