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.

Happy Holidays from Toni and Nick

Happy Holidays from Toni and Nick
Originally uploaded by fait accompli.

Sebastopol, 1990

Sebastopol, 1990
Originally uploaded by fait accompli.

Left to right:
Cydney Chadwick, Norman Fischer, Steve Benson,
David Bromige

Sebastopol, CA 1990

Short Listed!

Thanks to Kevin Andre Elliot whose blog

Slant Truth [click here] listed ::fait accompli:: in its top ten favorites.

On the "Maudlin Art Cohones of Self-Destruction"

Lavamatique [click here] puts some thoughts on bohemia (almost wrote: bohernia) on spin cycle...

TL of the LDB, part II, The Boho Awards
La Vie de Boheme-ery and the Capital of
Pain

Pantaloons presents the
awards, with the usual panache
***********
Odalisqued on La Vie de Boheme-ery
***********
Some Like It Ravishing

Shadows Within Shadows
*****
The Capital of Pain

Equanimity [click here] connects the dots

****
The Boomer Hath Spoken

Bachelardette [click here} picks up the gauntlet