Contradicta








There are three things in life well worth waiting for: sublime passion, a superb meal and an inspired idea. Right now I'd settle for a good book.




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


Maturity: the state of mind that allows one to love a friend even when that friend does not admire one's writing.

Contradicta








One truth will produce a thousand lies, one kindness a thousand hurts, one success a thousand uncertainties.




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



Of all the potions, balms and drugs there is no more powerful elixir than a smile.

Contradicta











Sufficient exagerration can make any detail of experience fascinating -or frightening- depending on the light.


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


"The best" is the beast.

Contradicta







There can be no secrets between friends when your silence confides as much as your words.






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



Coincidence is a wink in the eye of eternity.

[For Alan Davies]



**
I ran into Alan at St Mark's Bookstore yesterday. He asked me what book I was buying. I showed him-"The Neurotic Personality of Our Time* by Karen Horney. He showed me the book he was carrying in his briefcase, the one he is reading with so much pleasure now: same book. He had purchased his hardbound copy at the Strand. I told him I was carrying in my briefcase, Horney's *Our Inner Conflicts*. We had never discussed our shared admiration for this terrfic writer.

Contradicta








Your fears encompass as much information about your world as your library.




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



If you make truth a frequent companion, courage will be your friend.

Contradicta






To be an artist is to be forever hungry for things you have never tasted, to relentlessly search for things you have never seen and can't understand, to repeatedly and warmly welcome back the most confused, lonely and unfair part of yourself, and the world- all for the singular joy of having something you can only experience by releasing it.



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


Unforgettable music awakens abandoned hopes and forgotten dreams.

Contradicta









It's the hidden things- like enigmas in dreams- that most often remind us that choices abound.




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



Start at the beginning- then work back.

Contradicta









Love restores hope, hope imagination, imagination memory, memory emotion, emotion song.




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



Truth is a ladder composed of painful steps but at the top one you see from the sky.

Contradicta








Thought is a delicate thing- nearly anything can interrupt or disturb it- particularly- as with most things- if you take too much at one time.




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



Come to your own conclusions- or never see anything come to one.

Contradicta








Everything is going downhill so fast- but we'll need the momentum- the next slope could be the steepest one yet.




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


God created the world in 7 days- 3 of them waiting to get online, 2 to clear out the spam, 1 to download and 1 to rest.

Contradicta










Even when today's novels, stories and poems eliminate the plots they never eradicate the twists.



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


I think I found what I was looking for: looking for.

Contradicta










Everything is pushing my buttons today- except the one that says "on."




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


Peace and quiet- there goes the diet.

Contradicta









How many nascent ideas, skewered like game, lay dead at your feet?




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



Time wasted is time tasted.

Contradicta








As the truth tellers grow more numerous, passionate and articulate, the liars become more organized, cunning and cruel.




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


Open your mind quickly and your mouth slowly.

Contradicta









As perplexity frequently foreshadows the new, adoration as often augurs the old.



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


Opinions and affections mixed together, like vinegar and oil, may spice something bland, but left to themselves they quickly separate.

Contradicta









It's molting season: shed the old regrets and fly.




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



Don't be too nicey to those who are icy.

Contradicta






Wit is used more often to silence than to say.




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




Ipod therefore I am.




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

A Writer's Lament: the Bipolar side of Blake

Came across this surprisingly personal poem by Blake, written in a letter to Thomas Butts, August 16, 1803.


"O why was I born with a different face?
Why was I not born like the rest of my race?
When I look each one starts! When I speak I offend;
Then I'm silent & passive & lose every Friend.

Then my verse I dishonor. My pictures despise,
My person degrade & my temper chastise;
And the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame;
All my Talents I bury, and dead is my Fame.

I am either too low or too highly priz'd;
When Elate I am Envied, when Meek I'm despis'd."


[Penguin Classics Blake
edited by Alicia Ostriker]

Contradicta








Your shadow's quicksands will also follow you: beware the abyss.




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



There's more to you than meets the I.

Contradicta









Decision's pendulum can seem slow- but let it sway until you know.




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


Cynical, wary- alert, prepared; vulerable, earnest- dreamy, astonished.

Contradicta







The more you know what's new the less you learn what's true.






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




To know is more enlightening, but less comforting, than to be known.

Contradicta









Futility in the morning, despair at noon, devastation at night: next news update 11 p. m.





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


The essence of happiness: don't give up.

Contradicta









The admirable attributes of who and what you love have captured your devotion but it is the enigmatic qualities you think about.



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

Originality is impossible where imitation is universal.

Contradicta









Regarding mistakes with a degree of tolerant affection lessens worry and enhances change.




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


Spend your whole life annoyed with the rules of others or take a few moments creating your own.

Contradicta









If you forget what it is like to go hungry you will forget what it's like to taste anything.




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


Stumble- discover.

Contradicta








About the same time a generation of men perceive how uncertain their fathers are they prepare for war.




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


Violence enrages but the numb and frozen aftermath is silent.

Contradicta









To want to do most things you have to do creates energy and invites contentment.




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


Sharpen your mind's teeth on your mistakes.

Contradicta









The pleasure in viewing the belongings of the great masters derives from the inability to believe that they did things in the same way and places that everyone else does.


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


My father never spoke so now I can't stop listening.

[for Tom Beckett]

Contradicta








Aphorisms remind us there is more to be understood in a world that suggests mostly there is more to be owned.

[for Jordan Davis]




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

Everything can be known in an instant. That's all there ever was.

Contradicta









The center will not hold-no matter-everything is in orbit anyway-keep turning.



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



Celebrate your sensitivity-don't be numb.The greatest danger in the world's ever increasing intrusiveness lies in accepting it.

Contradicta








The first inkling is that no one else seems to understand what you want. Then you realize you do not know. Then you know.



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

The movement of life is like the wind. You can't see it but then a breeze comes along and you notice it's there; or it rushes at you suddenly and almost knocks you off your feet.

Contradicta








When I'm outside I feel more inside myself; when I'm inside I look out.




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



Ahead of myself, behind the others....

Contradicta











Tried and true convictions don't raise heads but they don't lower minds either.



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

Convictions without empathy can justify anything.

Contradicta






What writing begins only committment to a point of view completes.




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



Talk opens a possibility to listening, listening to understanding, understanding to insight, insight to change. But anywhere along the line the chain might break.

Contradicta








At the heart of some poems there is no meaning but at the heart of every meaning there is a poem.



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



What hasn't been said in what is said is the part that sings.

Contradicta








There's no time for remembering- savor everything to the quick.




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


Everything gets clearer and clearer- then you realize you don't have to understand.

Contradicta






The ever vigilant ape within us (who remains, not out of necessity, but sheer compassion) continues to protect us, in spite of ourselves:- knowing full well that- out of vanity- we will deny its very existence should it reveal its face to us, or anyone else, even for an instant.


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


Our affection for the books we love is similar to that of a parent for a child- as much for the fact that they very likely will outlive us as for the qualities we hold so dear.

Contradicta









Cruelty conquers briefly what kindness alone can keep.



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



There is no escape: breathe deep.

Contradicta








The complacent regard the truth the way some regard a panorama of sky: too obvious for these, too distant for those.




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


Even the useless isn't useless.

Contradicta


As you read further into the past writers were more often hopeful but desperately earnest; as you come closer to the present they are more often hopeless yet desperately funny.


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


To span the space between the known and the unknown begin with the gulf between the thought and the said.


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

*Shadows Within Shadows* Within Shadows

I googled Tom Beckett's blog Shadows Within Shadows today and found the dreaded Blogger: 404 Page Not Found.

Hopefully, Tom will return to blogging soon. I took this opportunity to reread all the chapbooks by him that I have. They are: *Wagers of Synthesis^ (Zasterle, 1997); *Separations* (Generator, 1988) and *Vanishing Points of Resemblance* (Generator, 2004). Here is a beautiful passage from "Vanishing Points of Resemblance*:

"For years I thought I knew that the accident occurred when I was five. My parents now tell me I was more like two years old at the time. Maw-maw, my grandmother, was driving and stopped abruptly. We'd just, so it has been said, purchased a goldfish. My little head smashed against the dash. Although it wasn't immediately apparent, my brain got scrambled. Up to that point, I'd been developing normally, could do somersaults, perceived spatial relations appropriately, etc. However, one day at the dinner table I flopped forward, began having convulsions. and all that changed. This was in the mid-1950's, an era that didn't celebrate differance. Unlike our current era which pretends to. I became extremely uncoordinated, the physical trauma having created a disconnect between body and brain. All cylinders weren't firing right. My mother's perfect baby wasn't perfect anymore. the coordination problem became worse still as I became ridiculously tall, having reached six feet by sixth grade and eventually topping out at 6'7" during high school."


..

Contradicta

The wise philosophize well but are lax about the obvious. Dolts are inarticulate but wary and watchful. Who rules?

*******************************
The warmer the luck the colder the attitude.
4/11
***********************
************************


Which is more important the word or the idea?
Which is more important your feet or the ground?

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

Be decent- dissent.

4/10
*************************
*************************

Magic remains invisible and unknown because it must by discovered unconsciously and by accident.
It cannot be located, only noticed.

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

Words descending like snowflakes or rain.
A few too many and I think about shelter.

4/9

A Friend in Need

My deepest appreciation goes out to Christy Church, known to his blogger friends as Toph, whose blog Topher Tune's Times [click here] has been a favorite on my blogging trail from the moment I started out. Toph and I have occasionally stayed in touch by email over the years, and I can't begin to express my gratitude for his work in getting ::fait accompli:: back in working order. What began as a clumsy effort on my part last week to get my site meter back in working order escalated into a major nightmare when I clumsily tried to do things with html I don't know how to do. My thanks also to Toni Simon, Nada Gordon and Drew Gardner whose quick response, support and advice were very helpful as well. Toni put many hours in on an emergency basis immediately and soon made it possible for me to post my Contradicta on the::fait accompli:: sidebar.

Although I never doubted it for a moment, it brings to mind the kind of community we have here as bloggers. I think of all the blogs that have played a crucial role in my daily life for three years now - how much it means, has meant to me:- the ideas, the shared experiences, the links, the responses, the encouragement, the interactive energy- our ongoing community of bloggers.

As Ernesto Priego (Never Neutral) [click here] put it recently "Never underestimate
the power of the blog."

Toph, you're quite a guy in my archive!

As I said in the maxim just below, "Caring eyes think they can see and do anything. They are right." I was right.

Contradicta






Caring eyes think they can see and do anything. They are right.



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




Some treasures grow only when they are shared- notably memories.

Contradicta






Effervescent writing, like its cousins beer and champagne, should be consumed all at once or fast as its bubbles also quickly disappear.



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



Enthusiasm's effort builds a castle out of hopes; with a careless elbow, antagonism levels the playing field.

Contradicta










When I am sad I am not myself. A strange being inhabits my body who I don't know and can't recognize.


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


Worry is hurry with nowhere to go.

Contradicta








Even what you most strongly want to do often you must force yourself to do. Why? Because negation is the norm, a creditor waiting to pounce.



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


Unentangled perseverance produces energy. Energy creates delight. Delight brings happiness.

Contradicta







Writers and thieves have something in common- to succeed they must dispose of the evidence.




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


You don't go to masters for correct techniques but for efficacious attitudes.

Contradicta








What has eroded with time is not so much the pleasure of discovering the truth but awareness of the pleasure in confronting its nemeses.



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


Not only is truth stranger than fiction but it is stranger than facts.

Contradicta






Those compelled to mock the serious are perhaps not quite sure who will get the last laugh.




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



You thought you were completely free of scorn until someone's shaft of ridicule pierced your poise.

Contradicta











It's comfort- not conscience- that makes cowards of us all.


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

The bland leading the bland...

Contradicta








They support the "radical" poet who insults and bullies everyone - yet wonder why the President is a fascist.



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


The verdict is in, the drums are rolling, the executioner is expected - tremble or live?

Contradicta








Tell your troubles to a dark cloud you get rain.




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




Cold latitudes proffer cold platitudes.

Contradicta









The seductive informalities of contemporary life correspond to the ironic formalisms of contemporary art.


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


Define me by how I think, describe me by what I know, know me by how I feel.

Contradicta






Life's conspiracy- perhaps the shadow of desire- an irrepressible aura of incompletion.




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



What you are thinking is the parrot in the cage of what you are doing.

Contradicta







Treating others as equals demands considerable stamina. Most people prefer to worship and be worshipped- thus the predictable failure of democracies.



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


No one would credit anyone for anything if not for the compulsive craving for hierarchy.

Contradicta





Since insight requires independent thought applied to information, the average American, bloated with the fast food of facts, has grown more informed and more stupid at the same time.



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


What you deem inconvenient may disguise your most formidable adversary.

Contradicta








When a *raison d'etre* fades it is hard to recall why we did what we did. Remembering appears linked to what made something *apropos*


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


Think or, better yet , daydream around, among, between- in the interstices-and not a moment will be wasted.

Contradicta







For very long I have been alienated by the expectable. Now I am additionally alienated by the expectable alienation by the expectable.



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



What did all that running ahead of myself accomplish other than declaiming emphatically: "Nothing can stop me!"

Contradicta








Even more ghastly than hatred itself, indifferent eyes fly by coldly like headlights of cars on dark streets at night.



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



Convictions contingent on praise fade with the earliest qualms.

Contradicta







You complain about the chip on my shoulder- I worry about the ax in your hand.




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



Wisdom isn't newsworthy - and the vampire media drink the blood of all hopes.

Contradicta







Worries are daydreams without legs, or, worry is the caterpillar, daydream the butterfly.




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



Joy is the giant, sadness the shadow

Contradicta






Our daily Darwin: in order to sustain itself, happiness must remain oblivious to the unhappiness it creates in others




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



Misery commiserates; the American "pursuit of happiness" decimates.

Contradicta

Without daydreams between them, experiences themselves tend to become overly dreamlike- one displacing another suddenly and with too much logic -like sequences in a film, inexorable and coming to the point too soon.


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


Ideas come together the way way a body makes itself comfortable. Somewhere, perhaps in the throat, a shoulder or an arm the thought resides. The thought is a link between fragments that might fit together-that want to be together- so they remain immobile until they unite and escape by means of the voice.

Contradicta




If you are a male, the preponderance of other males will find a way to condescend to you, even with their
dying breath. A panhandler will tell you to "have a nice day" -as if it were theirs to give- or accept your donation with the indifference of a king.


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


Intelligent response is to acclamation as love is to sex. As the latter grows ever more prevalent and public, the former grows ever more private and rare.

Contradicta




A significant error provokes reflection; a major blunder demands change; an impossible dilemma reveals your soul.




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



Yesterday was two days before tomorrow.

Contradicta




Acceptance of uncertainty won't banish every qualm but unreasonable demands for certitude will make doubt a steady companion.



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



Not all information is beneficial. Cultivating a taste for not knowing some things may make for a better day.

Contradicta





Self-destruction may feel like rebellion in a society where weakness and doubt are increasingly looked upon as suspect behaviors.



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


The more contemporary life demands acquiescence and assent, the harder, and more necessary it is to something, anything, solo.

Contradicta





Again you were challenged by that callous friend- who always inquires how you are when you meet- but never seems to notice how you feel when you part.



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



Solve global cooling global warming will follow.

Contradicta





Truth cloaks itself in paradox, lies in deception, poetry in obscurity, love in self-effacement. Everything important remains masked.


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



Those that can no longer be surprised lose the capacity to surprise. By being predictably astonishing, some console themselves.

Contradicta





There is one mountain that will never be scaled: the height of arrogant stupidity.




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



When you've been duped do something quickly, but make your plan slowly.

Contradicta






Nothing is easy until you do it every day.




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



The secret of generosity is to know how to rest.

Contradicta





Friends are like angels, wonderfully givng and kind,
but mostly invisible or flying off somewhere.



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



If we only knew how much others needed us
we might let ourselves need them.

Contradicta






The fewer the notes the greater the melody.




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



Originality- having the boldness to exhale what everyone else inhales.

Contradicta





In the voice of kindness truth sings, or at least rings; from the mouth of cruelty it stings.




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



Children can keep hardly anything to themselves. It's love that should be seen and not heard.

Contradicta




Sun, water and praise will grow anything.




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



The only thing in this world that is infinite is the envy of small minds.

Contradicta





To treasure- that is the treasure.




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




If you can't find time to do everything find time to do nothing.

Contradicta




Little time to think about what you don't like or don't have when so much time is needed to think about what you can't understand.



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



I fell asleep on a merry-go-round with a pocketful of tickets and woke up on a roller coaster with a handful of stubs.

Contradicta




Even when being hurtful, people think they've been kind. They could have been so much meaner!




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




The best way to show how you feel is to ask a question.

Contradicta




You can always tell how much a well- known writer is being read by how condescending they are. The less read, the more condescending.



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



No fame without maim.

Contradicta




"Beauty is truth- truth, beauty- that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." John Keats.

- Maybe so, but not if you live in New York.



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

"Perpetual moderness is the measure of merit in every work of art." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanks, Waldo, but I'll take an old-fashioned aphorism any day.



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

Camena longa, vita brevis.

Poetry is long, life is short.

Contradicta




Measure detracts from pleasure.





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




Until noticed, even the loveliest things feel plain.

Contradicta



The poems are all telling me the same thing. "This is all a poem. You're alive, get it?"




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



Ah, poetry. It's such a pleasure to have somthing that does not demand to be understood, in a world where clearly there is already not one iota of understanding to spare.

Contradicta



When I see something beautiful I try not to think about poetry; when I see poetry I just try not to think.



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


Never ponder, never sink, never overeat, never drink, never proselytyze, never stall, never do anything at all.

Contradicta



News and advertising persuade us to memorize what we can't believe.





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




Truth is bland, so few ask for seconds; surprise is sweet and everyone asks for more.






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




Imitating well is the sincerest form of revenge.





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




Slow and steady comes in like a lamb and gets fleeced by a lion.

Contradicta



Remember music, particularly in times of weariness and despair- as its charms are nearly inexhaustible and its demands negligible.




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




Aimless thought explores every open path- but most converge on the downward slope.

Contradicta



Nakedness is universally fascinating except for the naked truth- which must be considered boring- since it is always decked out in controversy, or at least wit.



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


Everyone knows what to say- no one knows what to do- except for those who do not care what they say and shoot first.

Contradicta



Beware the sly generosity of the thief who freely distributes the right to steal.




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




If someone takes what is yours you have less, but if you forfeit your generosity you lose everything.




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




Flattery and deceit paint a fine smile on imitation's lips in deception's hall of mirrors.




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




The lighthouse is far away and dim on the shores of mistrust's lonely latitudes




.

Contradicta





People go to extremes in order to be different. But the remarkable differences are the subtle ones.



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




Life creates immense variety- but all endings are the same.





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




No two thoughts are exactly alike- until someone writes them down.




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



All books exist to end in a thought.




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




I read to understand feelings.
I write to understand thoughts.
Sometimes talking helps me to understand what I need to know or do.
But if I want to just understand I stay quiet.


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


Understanding is like gladly coming to the end of a chapter of a book you've been totally absorbed in. But still, you don't want the book to end.

Contradictory Aphorisms (Contradicta)




Never reveal what makes you happy, or at least conceal some things, because unless you can be surprised, you will never be loved.


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


Hidden hearts, like flowers in darkness, wilt quickly.


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


One by one the finest philosophers concluded they should no longer try to tell us how to live. Imperceptibly, yet gradually, an immense sadness fell upon the world and the sadists took over.


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


Think for yourself or go mad with everyone.



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

Nota Bene


Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
-Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)



(thanks to Ray DiPalma for sending in this quote)
************************

Bachelard's *Dialectic of Duration*

is very interesting and I spent part of my morning reading its captivating phenomenological musings, mostly having to do with Bergson who I should read more of. Then I began considering why I've so frequently defended so-called "bad" poetry when I've heard poets gripe about it. I understood, in my Bachelardian reverie, why I prefer even boring poetry, philosophy or almost any intellectualizing to everyday complaining. I realized this must have happened because even the most trivial poetic or philosophical thinking is more interesting than thinking about my own complaints, even the "legitimate" ones; focusing for awhile on other people's objections to poetry or philosophy or blogging they don't like is still more enjoyable than those seemingly endless repetitious ruminations about everyday annoyances.

What led me to Bachelard? Probably the title of a blog I've been reading regulary lately: Bachelardette [click here]

*************************************
Contradict myself, very well then...

I've been thinking lately about contradictory aphorisms, and how they can both be true. Wasn't it Rousseau who said that if you don't talk about yourself you'll never say much at all; and who was it that said a boring conversationalist is one who talks about themselves, but an interesting one is one who talks about you?

Ensemble


Specific events or declarations (external) or particular insights or revelations (internal) are like notes and chords in melodies that are repeatedly heard and experienced but not quite yet identified or recognized for their irresistible and pursuasive social effects- until well after those infectious, catchy tunes- and the musicians who played and exulted in them- have exited the stage and become part of history. What you noticed, again and again, is that you were tapping your foot all the way home, that's all.

***************
He Who Laughs Apps

Guess what recent superbly hilarious performance inspired the little theoretical object you see above?

Gary Sulivan's performance at the Bowery Poetry Club this past Saturday is already legendary- but hopefully will be appearing soon on Penn Sound, as will, I might expect, Marshall Reese's excellently stirring reading.

(for an excellent evocation of the reading and oeuvres of the two readers, by Jack Kimball [click here])

Gary Sullivan dedicated his final work at the BPC on Saturday, a playlet featuring Jim Behrle and Sharon Mesmer, to Stan Apps.

Here, Oracular Vagina [click here] fluffs flarf. Standard Schaefer, author of *Nova* and *Water and Power* weighs in on googlism, via Lucipo.

While the powers that be barter our beings for a few quarts of oil, the least we can do is entertain ourselves with the flarf whirrs.


-a sunny Tuesday in February

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

Slam poetics is back!
Read the latest round in Stan vs Stan, the flarf whirs:

Standard Schaefer's response with a response from Stan Apps [click here]

Tuesday afternoon- and still sunny!
****************

You're Toast in an Unquiet Grave

Tony Tost [click here]
has been embedded in the flarf whirs for awhirl now.

-sunset and tea time on Tuesday, Feb 7th.
(Warmest January on record in NY)

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Blogger

We've always known that our freedom as bloggers could very well be ephemeral. Check out this urgent story.

Thanks to ever-vigilant Mark Woods for linking to this article of crucial important to every blogger - in fact, to everyone who uses the internet.


The End of The Intervet?: The Nation online [click here]

(via wood s lot [click here])

Inspiration: A Breathing In



from *Plausible Worlds* by Aaron Belz:

"MERYL STREEP

"Hard to believe your first movie
Came out in 1977-you are timeless,
Like a Dracula statue in the rain:
And now, as you rub my shoulders,
Wearing that flowered nightgown,
We hear actual rain, or is it wind..."

***********************
from *The First Hay(na)ku Anthology*
edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young

"Night
is language.
And I will."

(Tom Beckett, Eileen Tabios and Mark Young)************************

from *Stops* by Joel Sloman

"Modernism's dead.
A gloomy wand shimmies.
A blue lake among clouds, dizzies upside-down humans.
Our heads have been rattled, shattered, shivered.
It's just 20th-century stuff.
Some colorless remnants are shredded on branches,
a maroon sapling leans away from the future..."

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

from *AN AUGUST DAYBOOK* by Ray DiPalma

"Words, parts of words, fragmentary phrases, lengthy and complex sentences-some of which were carefully punctuated-elaborate mathematical computations indicative of the application of careful procedures evolving into ever more detailed numeric and symbolic discernments- written everywhere, covering every surface in the hallway and all three rooms, covering the walls, the floors, doors, the drapes, blank pages in books, paintings, the bedding, shirts, trousers, the surfaces of appliances- every available space in the entire apartment..."

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

from *A February Sheaf* by Gerrit Lansing

"Boston, you were to me, after I left New York
hub of, haven,/
Would pile in exhausted from nights of pleasure /
to hear yr morning chatter,/
drink coffee, sometimes beer or wine./
You knew the Boston crevices, their histories, the rats,/
and marketplace..."

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

from *The Letters of Gusav Flaubert 1830-1857*
selected, edited and translated by Francis Steegmuller

"Tobacco? My throat is raw from it. Alcohol? I am pickled in it. The only thing left is eating, and that I do for hours on end. As a result, my body is fatter but my mind emaciated. In the past I used to think, reflect, write, dash down on paper all the verve I felt in my heart. Now I no longer think, no longer reflect- even less write. Poetry has left me, too bored to stay. Poor angel, will you ever return? And yet I have a confused feeling of something stirring within me, I am in a period of transition, curious to see what the result will be, how I'll come out of it: I am moulting (in the intellectual sense). Will I be hairless, or magnificent? I wonder. We shall see. My thoughts are confused. I am unable to do any work requiring imagination, everything I produce is dry, labored, painful. I began a morality play two months ago- what I have done of it is absurd, absolutely empty of ideas. Perhaps I'll drop it. Too bad: at least I'll have had a glimpse of something sublime, but clouds came up and plunged me back into the inglorious commonplace. My life, in my dreams so beautiful, so poetic, so vast, so filled with love, will be like everyone else's- monotonous, sensible, stupid. I'll attend Law School, be admitted to the bar, and end up as a respectable district attorney in a small provincial town, like Yvetot or Dieppe..."

(to Robert Chevalier, [Rouen, Sunday morning, February 24th, 1839]. Flaubert was 18 years old when he wrote this letter]

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

from *How To Proceed in the Arts* by Gary Sullivan

"True or false: No matter how much intimacy remains today between the book and the writer, no matter how directly the author's figure, presence, and history are illuminated by the circumsances of publication- circumstances that are not accidental but that may be already slightly anachronistic- in spite of this, every reading in which consideration of the writer seems to play such a large role is an impeachment that obliterates him/her in order to give the work back to itself, to its anonymous presence, to the violent, impersonal affirmation that it is."

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

from *Slush* by Marshall Reese

"The President reached under the table for my hand and squeezed it. He started speaking, looking off distantly, as if gazing into an imaginary teleprompter:

Herein lies the tragedy of the age, our images, those we paint have lost their power. How can their canvases beguile the mind, when words are without meaning? This is the algebra of our times, imperfect though it is.

He drew his hand in front of him and began to trace lines in the air of an ancient and bleak geometry. He made gestures of fantastic equations, calculations of soiled beds and mattresses drenched with blood. He pointed to integers of matted hair, and combined them with blood congealing around the nose. These he multiplied by a woman slumped in her chair to arrive at a constant divided by the coefficient of a hole in the head. Such formed a parabola, hand clutching blouse, triggered by the debris of a skirt over thighs and blood spilling out. Thus, our President spelled out his policy."

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

Aaron Belz, *Implausible Worlds*
(2005)
Observable Books
3734 Hartford Street
St Louis, Missouri 63116
http://www.observable.org

The First Hay(na)ku Anthology
edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young
2005
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Road
St. Helena, CA 94574
http://www.meritagepress.com

Joel Sloman, *Stops*
1997
Zoland Books
384 Huron Avenue
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Ray DiPalma, *AN AUGUST DAYBOOK*
2005
NYC

Gerrit Lansing, *A February Sheaf*
(2003)
Pressed Wafer
9 Columbus Square
Boston, MA 02116

The Letters of Gustav Flaubert 1830-1857
edited by Francis Steegmuller
(1979)
The Belknap Press
Harvard UP
Cambridge, Mass

Gary Sullivan, *How To Proceed In The Arts*
[dedicated to David Bromige]
(2001)
Faux Press
Cambridge, MA
http://www.fauxpress.com

Marshall Reese, *Slush*
(written 1992-1999)
Situations
NYC

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Blogger



The process of becoming familiar with the characters in a novel cannot be directly compared with the complex sensations that flood the mind and body when relating to a living person. You open a book-perhaps it easily takes the mind along with its flow, and with some degree of confidence you are inevitably comfortable and intimate with its characters. Parallels include the awakening of a world of feeling and a rudimentary opening towards a course of judgement. Experience suggests that no two meetings are precisely alike. This is true for a number of reasons, including the circumstances of the contacts, and the time available for unravelling enigmas. In any case, people tend to find themselves compelled by an appetite for the related experiences of reaction and conjecture.

Most of us, of course, accept and expect a more or less continuous stream of such meetings in reality and in imaginative (re)enactment- including those presented by the omnipresent media where such dramas are routinely displayed for our absorption and our pleasurable, baffled or horrified consideration. These in turn engender mesmerizing speculations, and few can resist for long their fascinations, puzzles, their engrossing uncoverings, the spellbindng astonishments of a more or less steady diet of such quotidian perplexities. They impose themselves continuously in the course of a day. And yet so rarely we ask ourselves, in retrospect, what they were. Now and then a recurring observation or insight crystallizes on the periphery of currents of thought and worry- the only momentary shore and respite from the oncoming tide, the flux and undertow of curiously bewildering entanglements.


***

Backstage

We are dismayed to immediately understand what incited the work of an artist or a writer. To be impelled to ponder what might have motivated their efforts is one of the main sources of our pleasure- and their pain.


***

Magician Magnifique

Sarcasm, the greatest contemporary conjuror: one hat, infinite rabbits.

Look Again: Richard Tuttle at the Whitney

This superb show closes on February 5th. Toni and I went to see it on January 6th. I've been fascinated by this artist's work ever since I began noticing it in galleries decades ago. Lucky for me Tuttle and I shared a space in a group show a few years back, curated by Charles Bernstein and Jay Sanders. But I had already known Tuttle for awhile, as his wife, the poet Mei-Mei Bersenbrugge is a close friend of publisher James Sherry, who published my collection of essays, The Boundary of Blur, back in 1993. Tuttle is interested in poetry and philosophy, and in the video accompanying the show makes the point that "some people characterize my work as visual poetry." Tuttle doesn't seem to mind the characterization, as he is the diametric opposite of the stereotype of the hyper-masculine sculptor who measures the importance of work in terms of physical mass and monumentality. Over the years I've always had the sense that Tuttle has a lot in common with the surrealists who espoused the use of materials to be found right at hand, or collected for reasons otherwise hard to explain. Perhaps my own earliest works of art consisted of sitting and thinking in the basement of my parents' house on Bay Ridge Parkway in Bay Ridge in the 50's. My parents fortunately never bothered to throw out the huge collection of obsolete technology down there. The ambience was one of science -fiction at the boundary point of present, past and future. In reality, I was watching my childhood disappear and also trying to hold on to it at the same time.

For those interested in the artist as cultural heavyweight, Tuttle's work must be a true puzzle, even a disappointment or a bit anxiety-provoking. He has never seemed interested in playing this role, though perhaps in his mid sixties this is becoming more tempting, yet, knowing Tuttle, fame probably won't dazzle him for all that long, since he's too much of a philosopher to totally give way to that temptation. In his piece Title 16, gouache, graphite and paper are folded crossways in the simplistic way any grade school child might think of in an art class. The paper is painted red and brown and attached to the wall with a piece of black paper. This was one of my favorite works in the show. No grand settings, no heavy duty trucking or delivery bills. A gesture: fragile, evanescent, yet, paradoxically, definitive, memorable. A significant part of his ongoing projects consists of collaborations with poets including works of book art and some of these are included in this necessarily abbreviated retrospective as well. Tuttle became well known to a much wider circle in 1975 when the Whitney sponsored a now famous show of his work curated by Marcia Tucker who left the Whitney shortly after. His understated works created quite a stir, though in retrospect seem perfectly in tune with the conceptual tenor of many art works earning a following at that point in time.

Some of the pieces from the 80's are anything but timeless. The materials insist on the denial of permanancy. The "no's" outweight the "musts" a hundred to one. This is protest art in the same way Dylan insists that all his songs are protest art. The are themselves, not representations, no less, no more. No problem with nearly any one of these works passing muster with the Dada group- Arp particularly, but also Schwitters, Duchamp, Andre Breton. Toni describes Tuttle's works as "art in the disguise of everyday materials." Toni also enjoyed the enigma that a piece may be viewed as both a framed drawing and a sculpture of a framed drawing.

Of any artist working today, Tuttle's work most sucessfully establishes a Grand Unified Theory of contemporary art. This is true, even beyond the fact that his spare wire sculptures well preceded the triumph of string theory in contemporary physics. Tuttle's work reestablishes the primacy for the artist of paradox and the central importance of uncovering other dimensions. With Tuttle's work you realize you were standing at the edge all the while: with a gentle nudge, his work tumbles your imagination down the rabbit hole. Of course, admiring critics are quick to follow these somewhat obvious points by assuring us (and his collectors) of their visual beauty and retinal value, and this is quite true; in this regard I particulary enjoyed the assemblages of the 80's which are clearly exquisitely collectible, in addition to sustaining the implacable presence of Tuttle's artistic convictions. Oh yes, convictions: remember those? No, they didn't necessarily disappear with the end of the 60's and the gradual waning of the impact of the 70's conceptual art revolution.

In the video accompanying the show, there is an extensive, excellent interview with Tuttle I recommend, along with urging you to try not to miss this provocative, hauntingly, achingly beautiful assemblage of art works. Tuttle says in the video interview that probably only 1 in 10 of what might be the audience for this work will "get it." Tuttle's art subliminally urges the viewer to look- and think- again and again.

Book Party 1988

Book Party 1988
Originally uploaded by fait accompli.

Book party for my Sun and Moon book *Poems*, 1988
Clockwise: Toni Simon, Deborah Thomas, James Sherry, Charles Bernstein, me, Hannah Weiner, Tessie Davies

20 Years Ago- *Under The Bridge*

20 Years Ago- *Under The Bridge*
Originally uploaded by fait accompli.

The inscription reads:
"Hi Nick

Your talk was
a great occasion for
languages to intermingle.
So now it's 1986.

Love,
Carla"

Carla Harryman signed this copy of *Under The Bridge*, her beautiful book of prose poems published
by *This* (Barrett Watten) in 1980. The occasion was a talk I gave titled *Subject to Change* at Intersection in San Francisco, later published as an essay in my collection *The Boundary of Blur*

We Apologize for the Delay in Programming

In February, 2006, ::fait accompli:: will celebrate its third year of publication; in a few days we will reach our 100,000th visit; we have also received over 130, 000 "page views" (whatever they are). As always, we appreciate and enjoy your patronage immensely and apologize for the recent delay in programming; right now we are just taking a much needed breather. We promise to return as soon as possible with new content!

Meanwhile, do check out MiPoesias, Volume 20 issue 1 [click here]

**
Also, Croissant Factory [click here] makes the point we need to hear more from Carla Harryman and ::fait accompli::couldn't agree more!

Bubble Bubble Wash Away Your Lexical Trouble

with a shiny, squeaky new
Shampoo [click here]

Wow! Tom Beckett interviews

Jean Vengua [click here] on
e-x v-a-l. This excellent interview
by one of blogworld's favorite
bloggers covers a range of topics
including Jean's poetics, her haunted dreams,
many of her beautiful poems, her terrific blogs,
her experiences with music, and
much more.
Jean is the editor, with Mark Young
of the recent *The First Hay(na)ku
Anthology*

"Nothing
Adds up.
Love isn't math"

(Dan Waber).
**


You have but 30 days to see

Fra Angelico at the Met [click here]

Toni and I went to see these superb 15th century paintings with Gary and Nada on Friday night, who were very likely not quite as enthused about these thematically Christian paintings as we were (Toni's third visit). As Gary writes in his How to Proceed in the Arts (Faux Press) he is a *third generation* atheist and clearly an enthusiast of Elsewhere cultures; so, Gary and Nada seemed to appreciate the Spirit Photography show and the Indian and the Mayan art more than they liked the Fra Angelico. However, if you enjoy 15th century painting as much as we do, make sure to get over to the Met by the January 29th.

Although I rarely mention movies on ::fait accompli:: I have to mention the movie Nada brought us to: Narnia. Although I generally don't appeciate Tolkien-like movies (this movie is based on books by CS Lewis) it is right up there with King Kong for fascinating special effects; and returns you to childhood in a way I have rarely experienced in movies; next time you get depressed about the state of the world, find a kid or a kid at heart to go with and do check out these incredible feats of animation and special effects. We're lucky to have a vintage movie theatre in walking distance and starting with the transit strike we have been steadily checking out some of the latest feats of commercial filmaking. From Syriana to *Pride and Prejudice* to the aforementioned fantasy world movies, there's some hard work ahead for the Academy Award committees this year. Also, the word is out that the new Woody Allen movie is one of his best in years.

young friends

young friends
Originally uploaded by fait accompli.

Although I thought this photo was taken in the early 80's near Central Park, I showed it to Charles tonight and he was sure it was taken no later than 1978 and possibly as far back as 1976 or 1977. Since I was living in Park Slope between 1977 and 1980, this photo may have been taken in Prospect Park.