Distribution Automatique
Saturday, May 3
Lunched with Caterina Fake today. Yes it is pronounced fake. She was at the GEL conference which focusses on understanding what creates "experience" with her husband who was giving a talk here. I saw her blog on Thursday where she mentioned she was coming to stay on Amsterdam Avenue and W. 77th St. I live on West 95th Street. So I emailed her and she picked it up here on airport right in the middle of the steet. Then a lot of phone tag and we met. She even let me interview her! Caterina was a sparkling, sprightly, elegant presence with a sly sense of humor, much prettier than her picture on Caterina.net, and a veritable font of information, know how and history about blogging. We had salad, sandwiches and desert for an hour and a half and it was a joy to see how little in a hurry she was. She had just received my book in the mail before she left and had it with her. We were sitting at an outside cafe in the bright sun and she put on her sunglasses for a few minutes so that sunlight pretty much lasted until it started to rain lightly when she had to leave. She carries her little Apple laptop wherever she goes and she showed me how she opens in on the street and writes in it using wireless access just floating around in the air here on the Upper West Side. We ate outside at a cafe down the block on W.77th Street near the NY Historical Society Building. We could barely stop to eat and breathe, there was so much to talk about, I had so many questions and she seemed to like to listen very carefully too. She told me how she became a blogger at the time that Blogger had 20 blogs, how she had a Diary Site before she started with Blogger in 1999 and then later realized the two were the same thing. She looked at at an article I'm working on about blogging and corrected where I put she gets 2000 reads a day to 2000 hits a day! She talked about a blogger at this conference who gets 8000 hits a day and how some newspapers are uneasy about all this blogging. There are some published articles about her blogging but this will be her first interview in cyberspace. There's so much more to say but I've been working on my links all night and at least I got to write this little note. Lots of bloggers are changing their links and I'm enjoying all this interaction!
4.18.2003
Press Release: SDPG Nominated for Award
SDPG has been nominated for the prestigious "Best Blogged Oxymoron of the Year Award" for a statement issued earlier this week.
The announcement came on the morning of Wednesday, April 16. Fait Accompli, an organization dedicated to "spellbound speculations" and "time travel," offered the nomination in response to the following statement, which appeared in the April 15 edition of the SDPG blog:
"I'm trying to survive as a writer without actually being one. Perhaps that's the best way to put it."
SDPG accepted the nomination, but according to an anonymous spokesperson, the Group is cautious about its prospects.
"We're hopeful, but then again, there's so much oxymoron out there you never know who's going to walk away with the award," the spokesperson said.
SDPG also promised more oxymorons in the near future. "We'll do what we can for as long as the luck holds out."
However, SDPG denied allegations that the oxymoron was deliberately planted in the April 15 blog in order to win back disgruntled fans lost in the wake of the Group's unexplained name change.
"We don't operate like that," the spokesperson said. "All of our oxymorons are free to come and go as they please."
Nonetheless, SDPG is grateful for the nomination and plans to attend the award ceremony, scheduled for later this year.
bill marsh | link
As a special service to the *Special Delvery Oxymoron Group* -Fait Accompli-is drawing attention to the banner ad above SPOG at this very moment!
Become a Freelance Writer
Writing opportunities & resources for a successful writing career.
www.freelance-writing.net
Press Release: SDPG Nominated for Award
SDPG has been nominated for the prestigious "Best Blogged Oxymoron of the Year Award" for a statement issued earlier this week.
The announcement came on the morning of Wednesday, April 16. Fait Accompli, an organization dedicated to "spellbound speculations" and "time travel," offered the nomination in response to the following statement, which appeared in the April 15 edition of the SDPG blog:
"I'm trying to survive as a writer without actually being one. Perhaps that's the best way to put it."
SDPG accepted the nomination, but according to an anonymous spokesperson, the Group is cautious about its prospects.
"We're hopeful, but then again, there's so much oxymoron out there you never know who's going to walk away with the award," the spokesperson said.
SDPG also promised more oxymorons in the near future. "We'll do what we can for as long as the luck holds out."
However, SDPG denied allegations that the oxymoron was deliberately planted in the April 15 blog in order to win back disgruntled fans lost in the wake of the Group's unexplained name change.
"We don't operate like that," the spokesperson said. "All of our oxymorons are free to come and go as they please."
Nonetheless, SDPG is grateful for the nomination and plans to attend the award ceremony, scheduled for later this year.
bill marsh | link
As a special service to the *Special Delvery Oxymoron Group* -Fait Accompli-is drawing attention to the banner ad above SPOG at this very moment!
Become a Freelance Writer
Writing opportunities & resources for a successful writing career.
www.freelance-writing.net
Friday, May 2
"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes..."
"Gregor," said his father now from the left-hand room, "the chief clerk has come and wants to know why you didn't catch the early train. We don't know what to say to him."....
"Mr Samsa," the chief clerk called now in a louder voice, "what's the matter with you? Here you are, barricading yourself in your room, giving only 'yes' and 'no' for answers, causing your parents a lot of unecessary trouble and neglecting- I mention this only in passing-neglecting your business duties in an incredible fashion. I am speaking here in the name of your parents and your chief, and I beg you quite seriously to give me an immediate and precise explanation. You amaze me, you amaze me. I thought you were a quiet, dependable person, and now all at once you seem bent on making a disgraceful exhibition of yourself. The chief did hint to me early this morning a possible explanation for your disappearance- with reference to the cash payments that were entrusted to you recently- but I almost pledged my solemn word of honor this could not be so. But now that I see how incredibly obstinate you are, I no longer have the slightest desire to take your part at all. And your position in the firm is not so unassailable. I came with the intention of telling you all this in private, but since you are wasting my time so needlessly I don't see why your parents shouldn't hear it too. For some time past your work has been most unsatisfactory, this is the season of the year for a business boom, of course, we admit that, but for season of the year for doing no business at all, that does not exist, Mr. Samsa, must not exist."
"But, sir," cried Gregor, beside himself and in his agitation forgetting everything else, "I'm just going to open the door this very minute. A slight illness, an attack of giddiness, has kept me from getting up. I'm still lying in bed. But I feel all right again. I'm getting out of bed now. Just give me a moment or two longer. But I'm all right, really. How a thing like that can suddenly strike one down! Only last night I was quite well, my parents can tell you, or rather I did have have a slight presentiment. I must have showed some sign of it. Why didn't I report to the office!"
"The Metamorphsis"
Franz Kafka
"Gregor," said his father now from the left-hand room, "the chief clerk has come and wants to know why you didn't catch the early train. We don't know what to say to him."....
"Mr Samsa," the chief clerk called now in a louder voice, "what's the matter with you? Here you are, barricading yourself in your room, giving only 'yes' and 'no' for answers, causing your parents a lot of unecessary trouble and neglecting- I mention this only in passing-neglecting your business duties in an incredible fashion. I am speaking here in the name of your parents and your chief, and I beg you quite seriously to give me an immediate and precise explanation. You amaze me, you amaze me. I thought you were a quiet, dependable person, and now all at once you seem bent on making a disgraceful exhibition of yourself. The chief did hint to me early this morning a possible explanation for your disappearance- with reference to the cash payments that were entrusted to you recently- but I almost pledged my solemn word of honor this could not be so. But now that I see how incredibly obstinate you are, I no longer have the slightest desire to take your part at all. And your position in the firm is not so unassailable. I came with the intention of telling you all this in private, but since you are wasting my time so needlessly I don't see why your parents shouldn't hear it too. For some time past your work has been most unsatisfactory, this is the season of the year for a business boom, of course, we admit that, but for season of the year for doing no business at all, that does not exist, Mr. Samsa, must not exist."
"But, sir," cried Gregor, beside himself and in his agitation forgetting everything else, "I'm just going to open the door this very minute. A slight illness, an attack of giddiness, has kept me from getting up. I'm still lying in bed. But I feel all right again. I'm getting out of bed now. Just give me a moment or two longer. But I'm all right, really. How a thing like that can suddenly strike one down! Only last night I was quite well, my parents can tell you, or rather I did have have a slight presentiment. I must have showed some sign of it. Why didn't I report to the office!"
"The Metamorphsis"
Franz Kafka
Karen Horney on the arrogant-vindictive personality:
"The need to save face is urgent, and there is more than one way of effecting it. As a matter of fact, there are so many different ways, gross and subtle, that I must restrict my presentation to the more frequent and important ones.The most effective, and, it seems, most ubiquitous one is interlinked with the impulse to take revenge for what is felt as humiliation. We discussed it as a reaction of hostility to the pain and the danger involved with hurt pride. But vindictiveness may in addition be a means towards self-vindication. It involves the belief that by getting back at the offender one's own pride will be restored. This belief is based on the fact that the offender, by his very power to hurt our pride, has put himself above us and has defeated us. By our taking revenge and hurting him more than he did us, the situation will be reversed. We will be triumphant and will have defeated him.The aim of the neurotic vindictive revenge is not "getting even" but triumphing by hitting back harder. Nothing short of triumph *can* restore the imaginary grandeur in which pride is invested. It is this very capacity to restore pride that gives neurotic vindictiveness its incredible tenecity and accounts for its compulsive character....Because the power to retaliate is so valuable for the restoration of pride, this power can itself be invested with pride. In the minds of certain neurotic types it is equal to strength and often it is the only strength they know. Conversely, the incapacity to hit back usually registers as weakness, no matter whether external or internal factors prohibited a vindictive move. Thus when such a person feels humiliated, and either the situation or something within him does not allow him to retaliate, he suffers a double injury: the original "insult" and the "defeat" as opposed to a vindictive triumph....The need for a vindictive triumph,as stated before, is a regular ingredient in a search for glory. If it is the dominant motivating force in life, it sets going a vicious circle that is most difficult to disentangle. The determination then to rise above others in every possible way is so gigantic that it reinforces the whole need for glory, and with that the neurotic pride. The inflated pride in turn enhances the vindictiveness, and thereby makes for a still greater need for triumph."....
"...But he never allows himself to *feel* any hurt because his pride prohibits it. Thus the hardening process, which originally was necessary to protect real feelings, now must gather momentum for the sake of protecting his pride. His pride then lies in being above hurts and suffering. Nothing and nobody, from mosquitoes to accidents to people, can hurt him. This measure, however, is double edged.His not consciously feeling the hurts allows him to live without constant sharp pain. Besides, it is questionable whether the diminshed awareness of hurts does not actually dampen the vindictive impulses too; whether, in other words, he would not be more violent, more destructive without this lessened awareness. Certainly there is a diminished awareness of vindictiveness as such. In his mind it turns to warrented wrath at a wrong done and into the right to punish the wrong-doer. If, however, a hurt does not penetrate through the protective layer of invulnerability, then the pain becomes intolerable. In addition to his pride being hurt- for instance, by a lack of recognition- he also suffers the humilitating blow of having "allowed" something or somebody to hurt him....Closely akin to his belief and pride in his inviolability or invulnerability, and indeed complementing it, is that in immunity and impunity. This belief, entirely unconscious, results from a claim which entitles him to the freedom to do to others whatever he pleases, and to having nobody mind or try to get back at him. In other words, nobody can hurt me with impunity but I can hurt everybody with impunity. In order to undersand the necessity for this claim we must reeconsider his attitudes toward people. We have seen that he offends people easily through his militant rightness, arrogant punitiveness, and his rather openly using them as a means to his ends...He must indeed keep an even balance between letting others feel his righteous anger and between holding it back. What drives his to express it is not only the magnitude of his vindictive urges but even more his need to intimidate others and to keep them in awe of an armed fist. This in turn is so necessary because he sees no possibility of coming to friendly terms with others, because it is a means to assert his claims, and- more generally- because in a warfare of all against all taking the offensive is the best defense....In arguments that may arise he seems to be unconcerned about the truth of any statement he interprets as a hostile attack, but automatically responds with counterattacks- like a porcupine when it is touched. He simply cannot afford to consider even remotely anything that might engender a doubt in his rightness....Or he may realize that he is infuriated at somebody for no other reason than that the latter is always cheerful or intensely interested in something....It hurts his pride that anybody could have something which, whether he wants it or not, is out of his reach....Most people respond to this type by either being intimidated into submissiveness or by rejecting him altogether. Neither attitude will do for the analyst"
from "Neurosis and Human Growth" (Norton, 1950)
"The need to save face is urgent, and there is more than one way of effecting it. As a matter of fact, there are so many different ways, gross and subtle, that I must restrict my presentation to the more frequent and important ones.The most effective, and, it seems, most ubiquitous one is interlinked with the impulse to take revenge for what is felt as humiliation. We discussed it as a reaction of hostility to the pain and the danger involved with hurt pride. But vindictiveness may in addition be a means towards self-vindication. It involves the belief that by getting back at the offender one's own pride will be restored. This belief is based on the fact that the offender, by his very power to hurt our pride, has put himself above us and has defeated us. By our taking revenge and hurting him more than he did us, the situation will be reversed. We will be triumphant and will have defeated him.The aim of the neurotic vindictive revenge is not "getting even" but triumphing by hitting back harder. Nothing short of triumph *can* restore the imaginary grandeur in which pride is invested. It is this very capacity to restore pride that gives neurotic vindictiveness its incredible tenecity and accounts for its compulsive character....Because the power to retaliate is so valuable for the restoration of pride, this power can itself be invested with pride. In the minds of certain neurotic types it is equal to strength and often it is the only strength they know. Conversely, the incapacity to hit back usually registers as weakness, no matter whether external or internal factors prohibited a vindictive move. Thus when such a person feels humiliated, and either the situation or something within him does not allow him to retaliate, he suffers a double injury: the original "insult" and the "defeat" as opposed to a vindictive triumph....The need for a vindictive triumph,as stated before, is a regular ingredient in a search for glory. If it is the dominant motivating force in life, it sets going a vicious circle that is most difficult to disentangle. The determination then to rise above others in every possible way is so gigantic that it reinforces the whole need for glory, and with that the neurotic pride. The inflated pride in turn enhances the vindictiveness, and thereby makes for a still greater need for triumph."....
"...But he never allows himself to *feel* any hurt because his pride prohibits it. Thus the hardening process, which originally was necessary to protect real feelings, now must gather momentum for the sake of protecting his pride. His pride then lies in being above hurts and suffering. Nothing and nobody, from mosquitoes to accidents to people, can hurt him. This measure, however, is double edged.His not consciously feeling the hurts allows him to live without constant sharp pain. Besides, it is questionable whether the diminshed awareness of hurts does not actually dampen the vindictive impulses too; whether, in other words, he would not be more violent, more destructive without this lessened awareness. Certainly there is a diminished awareness of vindictiveness as such. In his mind it turns to warrented wrath at a wrong done and into the right to punish the wrong-doer. If, however, a hurt does not penetrate through the protective layer of invulnerability, then the pain becomes intolerable. In addition to his pride being hurt- for instance, by a lack of recognition- he also suffers the humilitating blow of having "allowed" something or somebody to hurt him....Closely akin to his belief and pride in his inviolability or invulnerability, and indeed complementing it, is that in immunity and impunity. This belief, entirely unconscious, results from a claim which entitles him to the freedom to do to others whatever he pleases, and to having nobody mind or try to get back at him. In other words, nobody can hurt me with impunity but I can hurt everybody with impunity. In order to undersand the necessity for this claim we must reeconsider his attitudes toward people. We have seen that he offends people easily through his militant rightness, arrogant punitiveness, and his rather openly using them as a means to his ends...He must indeed keep an even balance between letting others feel his righteous anger and between holding it back. What drives his to express it is not only the magnitude of his vindictive urges but even more his need to intimidate others and to keep them in awe of an armed fist. This in turn is so necessary because he sees no possibility of coming to friendly terms with others, because it is a means to assert his claims, and- more generally- because in a warfare of all against all taking the offensive is the best defense....In arguments that may arise he seems to be unconcerned about the truth of any statement he interprets as a hostile attack, but automatically responds with counterattacks- like a porcupine when it is touched. He simply cannot afford to consider even remotely anything that might engender a doubt in his rightness....Or he may realize that he is infuriated at somebody for no other reason than that the latter is always cheerful or intensely interested in something....It hurts his pride that anybody could have something which, whether he wants it or not, is out of his reach....Most people respond to this type by either being intimidated into submissiveness or by rejecting him altogether. Neither attitude will do for the analyst"
from "Neurosis and Human Growth" (Norton, 1950)
Thursday, May 1
Another idea about fiction. Why be afraid of the first person? The very situation forces out philosophical issues and also (as I was told) frees you from a dependence (or requirement) on physical description. Well, naturally. If you are more *worried about* issues of internal consistency you are not going to pay so much attention to the details.The *delicious* details of which the actual present consists. The other idea is presenting before the reader a "case." I think this is the most interesting kind of book. The author must also convince themselves this way- the ambivalence is about choosing among several possible ways of understanding things and people.
There is every possibility that I have unconsciously been held back from writing as completely as I am able about others on account of certain kinds of anxieties. The point is not so much to catalogue these anxieties but to circumvent them. Reading "Howard's End" has effected me in many ways, but one of these ways is to review thoughts about these issues.
Words reveal us at the same moment we reveal them. It is as much the need to try to control what they reveal as it is to use them to reveal.
Words reveal us at the same moment we use them to reveal anything. This is primarily what is so absorbing about them and why we turn to them or wish to at nearly every significant moment of our experience. Both literature and psychoanalysis consists of the things we say to ourselves, and to each other. But these things we say we always say in words and these words often have somethiing to say of their own back to us. This is how language itself comes to be part of our lives in the same way that beliefs and wishes and memories become part of our lives. As I came to realize this with more and more conviction, my desire to express this conviction to others became more a part of my desire to write.
There is every possibility that I have unconsciously been held back from writing as completely as I am able about others on account of certain kinds of anxieties. The point is not so much to catalogue these anxieties but to circumvent them. Reading "Howard's End" has effected me in many ways, but one of these ways is to review thoughts about these issues.
Words reveal us at the same moment we reveal them. It is as much the need to try to control what they reveal as it is to use them to reveal.
Words reveal us at the same moment we use them to reveal anything. This is primarily what is so absorbing about them and why we turn to them or wish to at nearly every significant moment of our experience. Both literature and psychoanalysis consists of the things we say to ourselves, and to each other. But these things we say we always say in words and these words often have somethiing to say of their own back to us. This is how language itself comes to be part of our lives in the same way that beliefs and wishes and memories become part of our lives. As I came to realize this with more and more conviction, my desire to express this conviction to others became more a part of my desire to write.
An anxiety attack is a kind of small physical spasm that gets generalized by the mind into a fearful fantasy. It is a kind of shiver the fantasy coming to the surface provokes, and is provoked by the physical response. In monotonously preventing action, perhaps it is meant to delay action which could be dangerous under threatening circumstances.
(5/26/92)
Le Rochefoucauld
#557 - "There is nothing more natural, or more mistaken, than to suppose we are loved."
#558- "We prefer being with people we do things for to people who do things for us."
#559- "It is harder to hide feelings we have than to feign those we lack."
#560- "Patched-up friendships call for greater care than never torn ones."
#561- "A man whom no one pleases is much worse off than a man who pleases no one."
#557 - "There is nothing more natural, or more mistaken, than to suppose we are loved."
#558- "We prefer being with people we do things for to people who do things for us."
#559- "It is harder to hide feelings we have than to feign those we lack."
#560- "Patched-up friendships call for greater care than never torn ones."
#561- "A man whom no one pleases is much worse off than a man who pleases no one."
Le Rochefoucauld
#238- "It is less dangerous to do most people harm than to show them too much kindness."
#269- "Almost no one is perceptive enough to realize all the harm he does."
#309- "There are people destined to be fools who not only do stupid things from choice but are even forced to do them by fate.
#310- "Sometimes situations occur in life where we must be a trifle mad to come off well."
#337- "Certain good qualities are like the five senses: those who entirely lack them can neither recognize nor understand them."
#341- "The hotheadedness of youth causes more damage than the apathy of old age."
#357- "Small minds are too much hurt by small things, great minds know they are trifling, and are not harmed."
#369- "The suffering we go through to keep from loving is often worse than the hardships endured by love."
#370- "There are few cowards who know how really cowardly they are."
#384- "What alone should astonish us is that we can still be astonished."
#386- "They are most often wrong who cannot bear to be."
#388- "If vanity does not topple the virtures, it leaves every last one of them swaying.
#390- "We sacrifice our welfare more willingly than our inclinations."
#402- "What counts least of all in conventional lovemaking is love."
#406- "We come newborn to every milestone of life's journey, and often act like novices at each, no matter what our age."
#480 - "When we are merely prostrated by misfortune, we often think we are steadfast; and we endure it without daring to look it in the face, as cowards consent to be killed, too frightened to defend themselves."
#421- "Self-confidence adds more to conversation than wit does."
#436- "It is easier to know mankind in general than any particular man."
#441- "In friendship as in love, we are often happier not knowing things than knowing them."
#453- "In matters of moment, we should not so much strive to create opportunities as to profit by those that arise."
#470 "All our qualities are questionable and unfixed, in good times as in bad; and they are almost all the playthings of circumstance."
#473- "However rare true love may be, true friendship is rarer."
#477- "The same strength of character that resists love can make it fierce and enduring; and weak people, who are constantly in emotional turmoil, are almost never truly flooded by passion."
#538- "A wise man needs little to be happy, just as nothing will make a fool content- wherefore, most men are miserable."
#540- "To overcome an initial desire is much easier than to satisfy all those that come after it."
#550- "It is more essential to study people than books."
#556- "It is never harder to speak well than we we feel embarassed at keeping silent."
#238- "It is less dangerous to do most people harm than to show them too much kindness."
#269- "Almost no one is perceptive enough to realize all the harm he does."
#309- "There are people destined to be fools who not only do stupid things from choice but are even forced to do them by fate.
#310- "Sometimes situations occur in life where we must be a trifle mad to come off well."
#337- "Certain good qualities are like the five senses: those who entirely lack them can neither recognize nor understand them."
#341- "The hotheadedness of youth causes more damage than the apathy of old age."
#357- "Small minds are too much hurt by small things, great minds know they are trifling, and are not harmed."
#369- "The suffering we go through to keep from loving is often worse than the hardships endured by love."
#370- "There are few cowards who know how really cowardly they are."
#384- "What alone should astonish us is that we can still be astonished."
#386- "They are most often wrong who cannot bear to be."
#388- "If vanity does not topple the virtures, it leaves every last one of them swaying.
#390- "We sacrifice our welfare more willingly than our inclinations."
#402- "What counts least of all in conventional lovemaking is love."
#406- "We come newborn to every milestone of life's journey, and often act like novices at each, no matter what our age."
#480 - "When we are merely prostrated by misfortune, we often think we are steadfast; and we endure it without daring to look it in the face, as cowards consent to be killed, too frightened to defend themselves."
#421- "Self-confidence adds more to conversation than wit does."
#436- "It is easier to know mankind in general than any particular man."
#441- "In friendship as in love, we are often happier not knowing things than knowing them."
#453- "In matters of moment, we should not so much strive to create opportunities as to profit by those that arise."
#470 "All our qualities are questionable and unfixed, in good times as in bad; and they are almost all the playthings of circumstance."
#473- "However rare true love may be, true friendship is rarer."
#477- "The same strength of character that resists love can make it fierce and enduring; and weak people, who are constantly in emotional turmoil, are almost never truly flooded by passion."
#538- "A wise man needs little to be happy, just as nothing will make a fool content- wherefore, most men are miserable."
#540- "To overcome an initial desire is much easier than to satisfy all those that come after it."
#550- "It is more essential to study people than books."
#556- "It is never harder to speak well than we we feel embarassed at keeping silent."
Cesar Vallejo-Trilce-XXVII
"This house pleases me perfectly, a perfect spot for this not knowing where to be/Let's not go in. It frightens me, this permission/ to return by the minute, across exploded bridges."
In 1996 I returned to a study of Cesar Vallejo's *Trilce*. I don't speak or write Spanish with the excuse of time. Time is nothing that invites me closer so don't criticize or disagree. The poem is found elsewhere.
Enigmatic notes in the middle of nowhere.This is a kind of loving that wrenches me out of language, that reverses me inside a catalogue of surrealistic prepositions.That they always correct deprives us of accurate lessons.I stand by my note about *Trilce*. It's not much but that's all there is.
I am inside outside inside.Transference of the lexicons. Exhausted admiration not me. But that's all to continue. Not. Midnight. That wrenches languge out of me.
(6/2/96)
"This house pleases me perfectly, a perfect spot for this not knowing where to be/Let's not go in. It frightens me, this permission/ to return by the minute, across exploded bridges."
In 1996 I returned to a study of Cesar Vallejo's *Trilce*. I don't speak or write Spanish with the excuse of time. Time is nothing that invites me closer so don't criticize or disagree. The poem is found elsewhere.
Enigmatic notes in the middle of nowhere.This is a kind of loving that wrenches me out of language, that reverses me inside a catalogue of surrealistic prepositions.That they always correct deprives us of accurate lessons.I stand by my note about *Trilce*. It's not much but that's all there is.
I am inside outside inside.Transference of the lexicons. Exhausted admiration not me. But that's all to continue. Not. Midnight. That wrenches languge out of me.
(6/2/96)
Eileen Tabios has quietly announced on WinePoetics that a book of her stories is to be published! She says they are sexy. That's all to the good, because she's a good writer and this will add a bit of spice to the mix.
The thing is, she sandwiched this terrific news between flattering hints about me, and flattering hints about her parents.
Hey, Eileen. Forget me and your parents (easy solution: don't give them your book.) Actually, don't give anybody your book (unless they are writers who are willing to swap). Make 'em buy their copies. Readers are nicer to you when you do that. If your parents buy your book on the sly, they won't have to tell you about all the fun they had reading it!
Now: tell us more about your book!
The thing is, she sandwiched this terrific news between flattering hints about me, and flattering hints about her parents.
Hey, Eileen. Forget me and your parents (easy solution: don't give them your book.) Actually, don't give anybody your book (unless they are writers who are willing to swap). Make 'em buy their copies. Readers are nicer to you when you do that. If your parents buy your book on the sly, they won't have to tell you about all the fun they had reading it!
Now: tell us more about your book!
Wednesday, April 30
Today, from -Heathens In Heat-
Great aphorism or adage from Jordan today: "All work is the avoidance of harder work."....
Our moralization of the work ethic, labor as an end in itself and ownership has made us lazy and worst of all, as Marx knew, stupid, in too many ways to fully diagnose.
posted by David at 7:11 AM
Hey Dave, can't resist chiming in with my own maxim on this topic, from *Boundary of Blur* (1993) :
"9/8/86
Everyone must have a night world and a day world. And often, this day world is as afraid of unleashed work, as the night one is of unleashed love."
And, since you mention Marx, David, what about Freud's notion that life consists of two main activities: "Lieben und arbeiten" (work and love).
Great aphorism or adage from Jordan today: "All work is the avoidance of harder work."....
Our moralization of the work ethic, labor as an end in itself and ownership has made us lazy and worst of all, as Marx knew, stupid, in too many ways to fully diagnose.
posted by David at 7:11 AM
Hey Dave, can't resist chiming in with my own maxim on this topic, from *Boundary of Blur* (1993) :
"9/8/86
Everyone must have a night world and a day world. And often, this day world is as afraid of unleashed work, as the night one is of unleashed love."
And, since you mention Marx, David, what about Freud's notion that life consists of two main activities: "Lieben und arbeiten" (work and love).
Subject matter: the air, the ground. Earth/air/water/fire. Object and experience. A "given" already seen, deja vu.The opposite of blank (ness); for example, by making blankness a subject, what is describable as being negative, an absence of something becomes something which can be added-on, something filling. A defining process makes subject matter objective, an alchemy of extended focus causes an abstracted concept, invisible by nature to be at the center of continuous analyses. Seeing (seeking) without need of an image, the consumer of subject matter may suspend all choice and judgement, perhaps making subject matter better grounds for science, than art. The possibility of choice splits subject matter in two; with parts gone, subject matter becomes fragmented and discontinuous, no longer a compendium, its completeness is determined only by those who choose to examine it.
------------
To discuss "subject-matter" somehow offers a perspective on writing processes which is not really linguistics or philosophy. Such a topic is literary in the most literal sense and offers the possibility of a defining a boundary for literary processes. Pragmatic obvious point: I can say- "The literary cannot exist without subject matter" if I said "not for very long." Becuse even the most modest of literary experiments in "subjectless" writing will soon replicate its history through its replications- the lists, documentations, the sum total of the social history which surrounds it. "Subjectless writing" seems to function like a black hole of meaning- the immense amounts of interpretive energy which hovers on, around, beneath, witin the work of such writers as Beckett, for example, whose characters approximate inner perpectives more than they do "actual" persons in the "real world."
------------
A title: "Signs of Life"- somehow connected- sounds.
-------------
Subject matter is more than just matter and more than "just matters." And it has to do with just matters. Syntax sparkles, glistens, echoes around subject matter but it is different- it bends to the will, it has elastic properties, it is not intractable.
Ponge's method of revealing objects: it is like he is closing his eyes and feeling the object through all the other senses- remembering the smells and sounds, touching it, feeling it. This way subject matter is created out of experience, not out of thoughts, concepts and categories. these are syntactical, more map-like- or like a set of directions, a program.
The very act of writing "about" an experience tends to push the mind towards of view of experience likening it to subject matter.
Is there any area of exprience which offers no possibility of becoming transformed- (or transposed or transfigured) into subject matter? This is soon obvious- none. Then, is there anything other than experience which offers itself as subject-matter? The answer is much less obvious- I suggest it is- yes!
(Smithson suggested that language is (=) physical matter.)
What is this subject-matter other than experience. The answer is plain but not so simple- abstraction.
Because-
Sign-making converts experience into abstraction.
Through abstraction we chip away at the massive block of reality which we are incapable- thus far- of knowing and experiencing.
Subject matter is map like because it is the remaining trace of all experience.
(But) subject matter's relationship to art has vastly changed in the past century. Simultaneously- in another sense- it remains nothing less- than all of reality.
What can I mean by that?
-------------------
Or nothing more than a celebration, no more than a pause to reflect a journey to remember and talk about (or) target for a souvenir and change. Say you had never learned more than this letting things go with a great silence- sending others off their tracks to nowhere, it might still be enough.
I'm glad you remembered once
that I reminded you to notice what its like in the so quiet. snow
and, in the end, no more than particles that twinkle and dissolve
a star or a moment
dissolving after a pause
of billions of years
(922/85)
An experience: Toni couldn't find her Tarot deck. I stood up, after she looked for awhile and couldn't find it. I didn't know *why*- but I walked to the corner of the room. I had a thought: why do I think it's around here. Then I said to myself, I'll look around here.
I started to think about tracking. I mean a literature that tells us something new because it helps to didrect us *where to look* for the answers, if not the answers- or I could say (almost)-*how to look*----
If I don't like the way it's put, I can still abstract out the idea- it was *the experience* I was interested in anyway. How does experience become subject matter?
------
What more than one observation at a time? Thisis the perceptual breadth of the eyes- limited to the range of vision. With the multi-sensorial (dreams, visual art, poetry) comes the multi-perspective,multi-rational, many strands or sequences of developmental thought, melodically related or contrapuntally contrasted.
(9/23/85)
------------
To discuss "subject-matter" somehow offers a perspective on writing processes which is not really linguistics or philosophy. Such a topic is literary in the most literal sense and offers the possibility of a defining a boundary for literary processes. Pragmatic obvious point: I can say- "The literary cannot exist without subject matter" if I said "not for very long." Becuse even the most modest of literary experiments in "subjectless" writing will soon replicate its history through its replications- the lists, documentations, the sum total of the social history which surrounds it. "Subjectless writing" seems to function like a black hole of meaning- the immense amounts of interpretive energy which hovers on, around, beneath, witin the work of such writers as Beckett, for example, whose characters approximate inner perpectives more than they do "actual" persons in the "real world."
------------
A title: "Signs of Life"- somehow connected- sounds.
-------------
Subject matter is more than just matter and more than "just matters." And it has to do with just matters. Syntax sparkles, glistens, echoes around subject matter but it is different- it bends to the will, it has elastic properties, it is not intractable.
Ponge's method of revealing objects: it is like he is closing his eyes and feeling the object through all the other senses- remembering the smells and sounds, touching it, feeling it. This way subject matter is created out of experience, not out of thoughts, concepts and categories. these are syntactical, more map-like- or like a set of directions, a program.
The very act of writing "about" an experience tends to push the mind towards of view of experience likening it to subject matter.
Is there any area of exprience which offers no possibility of becoming transformed- (or transposed or transfigured) into subject matter? This is soon obvious- none. Then, is there anything other than experience which offers itself as subject-matter? The answer is much less obvious- I suggest it is- yes!
(Smithson suggested that language is (=) physical matter.)
What is this subject-matter other than experience. The answer is plain but not so simple- abstraction.
Because-
Sign-making converts experience into abstraction.
Through abstraction we chip away at the massive block of reality which we are incapable- thus far- of knowing and experiencing.
Subject matter is map like because it is the remaining trace of all experience.
(But) subject matter's relationship to art has vastly changed in the past century. Simultaneously- in another sense- it remains nothing less- than all of reality.
What can I mean by that?
-------------------
Or nothing more than a celebration, no more than a pause to reflect a journey to remember and talk about (or) target for a souvenir and change. Say you had never learned more than this letting things go with a great silence- sending others off their tracks to nowhere, it might still be enough.
I'm glad you remembered once
that I reminded you to notice what its like in the so quiet. snow
and, in the end, no more than particles that twinkle and dissolve
a star or a moment
dissolving after a pause
of billions of years
(922/85)
An experience: Toni couldn't find her Tarot deck. I stood up, after she looked for awhile and couldn't find it. I didn't know *why*- but I walked to the corner of the room. I had a thought: why do I think it's around here. Then I said to myself, I'll look around here.
I started to think about tracking. I mean a literature that tells us something new because it helps to didrect us *where to look* for the answers, if not the answers- or I could say (almost)-*how to look*----
If I don't like the way it's put, I can still abstract out the idea- it was *the experience* I was interested in anyway. How does experience become subject matter?
------
What more than one observation at a time? Thisis the perceptual breadth of the eyes- limited to the range of vision. With the multi-sensorial (dreams, visual art, poetry) comes the multi-perspective,multi-rational, many strands or sequences of developmental thought, melodically related or contrapuntally contrasted.
(9/23/85)
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