Here's the scoop. Stop doing everything else you are doing and listen right now to James Meetze and Aimee Nezhukumatahil on Come On Feel The Monkey
Then you can go back to endlessly staring at Kasey's new links bar.
Distribution Automatique
Saturday, June 28
You Can Say That Again Dep't
In A Dark Time...Loren Webster writes: "No matter how optimistic Bloggers are that they're going to change the world, most of the world is going to avoid the virtual hell of setting up a blog until someone comes up with something a lot easier than this to work with."
Posted by Loren at 04:54 PM | Comments (1)
In A Dark Time...Loren Webster writes: "No matter how optimistic Bloggers are that they're going to change the world, most of the world is going to avoid the virtual hell of setting up a blog until someone comes up with something a lot easier than this to work with."
Posted by Loren at 04:54 PM | Comments (1)
9/22/86
Non-narrative
Being a Pongeian exposition of the word
Narrative is one step back: I look into
a mirror and what I see is
what I intended. But beyond all this
you don't have to hang yourself to
prove that the rope is strong. Such as:
a softie can never be a heavy. Limit a world
becomes more than one text. The before has
died- they were in earnest. What does
it mean to mention an interval? (Squeeze
that one in- "after awhile, you want to
follow it- the power of name.") Close
quotes. On separate ground. A vast
portrait of the American flag- such as
"the poem" and not "the poetry=a vast
proving ground." Un etage. M returns.
An elaborate trick to hold the floor. This
time we are laughing and holding our sides.
The moon in a furor. "Racing with
The Moon"= a tracing, a blank space.
Young and old, a wild spelling and
a cold. "Mean it" inhabits. The
text glows with aplomb (valorization
princiiple becomes "words make their own
things.") Everybody played a hand and
beat me so evidently this put me out of
the game- different kind of Bridge, but
this game could form a
bridge to who is being addressed there-
racing with the moon Alfred Ryder.
Non-narrative
Being a Pongeian exposition of the word
Narrative is one step back: I look into
a mirror and what I see is
what I intended. But beyond all this
you don't have to hang yourself to
prove that the rope is strong. Such as:
a softie can never be a heavy. Limit a world
becomes more than one text. The before has
died- they were in earnest. What does
it mean to mention an interval? (Squeeze
that one in- "after awhile, you want to
follow it- the power of name.") Close
quotes. On separate ground. A vast
portrait of the American flag- such as
"the poem" and not "the poetry=a vast
proving ground." Un etage. M returns.
An elaborate trick to hold the floor. This
time we are laughing and holding our sides.
The moon in a furor. "Racing with
The Moon"= a tracing, a blank space.
Young and old, a wild spelling and
a cold. "Mean it" inhabits. The
text glows with aplomb (valorization
princiiple becomes "words make their own
things.") Everybody played a hand and
beat me so evidently this put me out of
the game- different kind of Bridge, but
this game could form a
bridge to who is being addressed there-
racing with the moon Alfred Ryder.
8/27/86
Looking at the images of the saloon
I am reminded of seeing a movie
tonight- "The Cincinnati Kid" with Steve
McQueen.When I was in the Resistance
group I burnt my draft card in a Selective
Service office, with pictures snapping-1967.
Now back here 1987- McQueen on T.V.-
he gave the ones who burned their cards his
credit card number to use- you could see the
follow-through in his eyes-reminds me of Paul
Newman, in a way, those eyes-
So I saw the card game last night- this was
going forward one day- I got a few of
the details wrong- but the pattern is to be
seen in many places-
9/8/86 Work
Everybody wants and to some extent
must have a night worlld and a
day world. the Freudian equivalent
of this is "conscious and unconscious"
another dichotomy is "love and work,"
"lieben und arbeiten." But in
contemporary reality- at least the
one I know- this seems to sort
itself out more into night world and
day world. The rising of the Right
conceived as a rising of the light in the
Fundamentalist Christian sense attempts
to submerge the "dark side" which in
their most barbaric id-consciousness
is simply Black people- and in the
Nazi sense their cohorts Jews and Catholics.
The Black person is seen as a cipher for unrestrained energy
(unleashed work).
9/12/86 A Poem- The Illusion of Level
Something precedes it
and how it breaks my heart
that what I don't have
doesn't have me.
I'm applying for a job in eternity.
The hours are terrible but the duties are light
and only the furniture and love
leans on your molecules.
Oh, the embitterment
Oh, the tears cried for a birthday
and the endless waiting.
But it is mostly a trick
due to the kind of siezures
that accompany the holidays.
A portrait of salamanders on wood and glass.
Forgive me kind teacher,
For my miserable Spanish,
my references to globules
both stout and slim.
You put them there anyway
Just to confuse me
(thought's honesty so abrasive)
I ought to just leave, and I do, and I will.
Just one moment!
2.
Finally there's someone to give to
And there so much to give, I'm scared.
A simple decision...oh, that *word!*
I'm tired of it and also of the punctuation,
the pronunciation, light for light and dark for dark.
I'm exhausted, black against white, horrible screams,
white against yellow, brown against brown.
Who determines these things? Don't they listen?
A poet is a voice from the gutter,
a blubbering, terrified, lonely child.
How I gape.
How I stare and let my eyes grow large,
How impatient she is, in her crying,
How patient and irritable mother is,
Never tired of talking and listening.
The men accuse me, whispering and laughing.
Two pants legs, what a riot.
Voices and more voices, *Stimmen und drang.*
Noise isn't what's destroying these maniacs
it's sobbing.
3.
They put me in jail and expect me to talk.
Whose kidding who?
Who is the therapist and who the artist?
This one you can never shut up
And the other one won't start talking.
Dialogue is impossible, better to use
A wet nurse and a television set.
4.
If they use the word "transference" one more time
I'm going to start screaming.
5.
"Resistance" what a laugh.
It's like trying to make a
non-site out of bronze.
They are chocolats instead,
They peel them from pages of Freud
and nibble. No one even steps in the hallway.
and walks around in here like
a neglected "borderline."
Isn't anybody else sick of words?
6.
Bite the hand that feeds you.
7.
They're going after art with an ax.
Don't ask questions in here.
Shut up and please yourself.
Looking at the images of the saloon
I am reminded of seeing a movie
tonight- "The Cincinnati Kid" with Steve
McQueen.When I was in the Resistance
group I burnt my draft card in a Selective
Service office, with pictures snapping-1967.
Now back here 1987- McQueen on T.V.-
he gave the ones who burned their cards his
credit card number to use- you could see the
follow-through in his eyes-reminds me of Paul
Newman, in a way, those eyes-
So I saw the card game last night- this was
going forward one day- I got a few of
the details wrong- but the pattern is to be
seen in many places-
9/8/86 Work
Everybody wants and to some extent
must have a night worlld and a
day world. the Freudian equivalent
of this is "conscious and unconscious"
another dichotomy is "love and work,"
"lieben und arbeiten." But in
contemporary reality- at least the
one I know- this seems to sort
itself out more into night world and
day world. The rising of the Right
conceived as a rising of the light in the
Fundamentalist Christian sense attempts
to submerge the "dark side" which in
their most barbaric id-consciousness
is simply Black people- and in the
Nazi sense their cohorts Jews and Catholics.
The Black person is seen as a cipher for unrestrained energy
(unleashed work).
9/12/86 A Poem- The Illusion of Level
Something precedes it
and how it breaks my heart
that what I don't have
doesn't have me.
I'm applying for a job in eternity.
The hours are terrible but the duties are light
and only the furniture and love
leans on your molecules.
Oh, the embitterment
Oh, the tears cried for a birthday
and the endless waiting.
But it is mostly a trick
due to the kind of siezures
that accompany the holidays.
A portrait of salamanders on wood and glass.
Forgive me kind teacher,
For my miserable Spanish,
my references to globules
both stout and slim.
You put them there anyway
Just to confuse me
(thought's honesty so abrasive)
I ought to just leave, and I do, and I will.
Just one moment!
2.
Finally there's someone to give to
And there so much to give, I'm scared.
A simple decision...oh, that *word!*
I'm tired of it and also of the punctuation,
the pronunciation, light for light and dark for dark.
I'm exhausted, black against white, horrible screams,
white against yellow, brown against brown.
Who determines these things? Don't they listen?
A poet is a voice from the gutter,
a blubbering, terrified, lonely child.
How I gape.
How I stare and let my eyes grow large,
How impatient she is, in her crying,
How patient and irritable mother is,
Never tired of talking and listening.
The men accuse me, whispering and laughing.
Two pants legs, what a riot.
Voices and more voices, *Stimmen und drang.*
Noise isn't what's destroying these maniacs
it's sobbing.
3.
They put me in jail and expect me to talk.
Whose kidding who?
Who is the therapist and who the artist?
This one you can never shut up
And the other one won't start talking.
Dialogue is impossible, better to use
A wet nurse and a television set.
4.
If they use the word "transference" one more time
I'm going to start screaming.
5.
"Resistance" what a laugh.
It's like trying to make a
non-site out of bronze.
They are chocolats instead,
They peel them from pages of Freud
and nibble. No one even steps in the hallway.
and walks around in here like
a neglected "borderline."
Isn't anybody else sick of words?
6.
Bite the hand that feeds you.
7.
They're going after art with an ax.
Don't ask questions in here.
Shut up and please yourself.
Friday, June 27
There's Noplace Like Home Dep't
Toni: "How come I'm watching *Antigone* and you're listening to Jism?"
Toni: "How come I'm watching *Antigone* and you're listening to Jism?"
Nada, narcissism used to come up regularly as a discussion topic on the poetics list. I remember reportiing then that I feel that there are two types of narcissism more or less along the lines of two types of cholesterol. There is "good" narcissism, that actually contributes to one's self esteem and ultimately one's abilities to solidly assess and utilize the strengths and weaknesses of oneself and others, and "bad" narcissism. like bad cholesterol, which tends to mostly damage self-esteem because it is not anchored within constructive self and social relationships. No activity or writing or form, even self-portraits, are necessarily more or less narcissistic than others. The same writing might contribute to one person's bad narcissism and to someone else's good narcissism. Everyone needs to obtain positive self-esteem. As they say, "the love you take is equal to the love you make."
I made a Crush List! Well, not exactly a Crush List, but Chris Murray put me on some kind of big important list! Heaven, I'm In Heaven
(8/20/86)
Why must this be centered around some
great pain? It all ends with an
explosion, a tearing...Nurnberg...
the walled city...the bombed out buildings...
memories read, exploded and reconstructed...
composition ends in decomposition...airy
fragments...
"It is almost as if two people were writing it."
"Only two?"
"It doesn't make sense, doesn't cohere,
doesn't go anywhere."
The very qualities we like may not be
acceptable to us. This is frightening and feels
like a diminution of power. Under these
conditions, power seems to reside in renouncing
temptation. This is not the first time (poetic
exagerration- in turn, this depends on
the purpose of possibilities and subtexts) we have
had to pause at the juncture when something
interesting was about to happen...we were
about to go on...in a camp where many
voices can be heard...this isn't Nurnberg,
Germany, this is the Presideo, San Francisco...
some of the people may actually remember
you from school...What about Skipper
Amory- does anybody remember him...
he was fun and then he was mean...after
he tripped me in the schoolyard and I didn't
want to be his friend after that...
but now you've gone adrift into the
details of your own life...they'll feel
that conflict anyway...it was in the
apprehension of that Western room
and it was in that man's face before he put
his arm through the bars of the cage...
the details start to get fuzzy...it's
not the sleepiness, it's the smell of this
man's fear, it's in the smell of his room and
the eyes of his mother...in the fearsome
unlikihood of the act...in its breaking of
the boundaries between the real and the unreal...
these cardboard men with their paper cards...
it all goes limp, particularly after the
man falls wounded and the act has been done and
the man is lying limp on the ground, or
maybe screaming. I can't completely see it
yet...this man was terrified and the pain
came crashing through on every level, his
strange wanting it somehow, the feel of the power
the way the man shooting the gun must have
felt - his power...all of this in the darkest
dark , it must be, a dim
day at the zoo, cloudy and a lantern held
above the table for light...and, will these
shadows be all it takes to put meaning there?...
Much more...
8/21
The nameless horror
Why must this be centered around some
great pain? It all ends with an
explosion, a tearing...Nurnberg...
the walled city...the bombed out buildings...
memories read, exploded and reconstructed...
composition ends in decomposition...airy
fragments...
"It is almost as if two people were writing it."
"Only two?"
"It doesn't make sense, doesn't cohere,
doesn't go anywhere."
The very qualities we like may not be
acceptable to us. This is frightening and feels
like a diminution of power. Under these
conditions, power seems to reside in renouncing
temptation. This is not the first time (poetic
exagerration- in turn, this depends on
the purpose of possibilities and subtexts) we have
had to pause at the juncture when something
interesting was about to happen...we were
about to go on...in a camp where many
voices can be heard...this isn't Nurnberg,
Germany, this is the Presideo, San Francisco...
some of the people may actually remember
you from school...What about Skipper
Amory- does anybody remember him...
he was fun and then he was mean...after
he tripped me in the schoolyard and I didn't
want to be his friend after that...
but now you've gone adrift into the
details of your own life...they'll feel
that conflict anyway...it was in the
apprehension of that Western room
and it was in that man's face before he put
his arm through the bars of the cage...
the details start to get fuzzy...it's
not the sleepiness, it's the smell of this
man's fear, it's in the smell of his room and
the eyes of his mother...in the fearsome
unlikihood of the act...in its breaking of
the boundaries between the real and the unreal...
these cardboard men with their paper cards...
it all goes limp, particularly after the
man falls wounded and the act has been done and
the man is lying limp on the ground, or
maybe screaming. I can't completely see it
yet...this man was terrified and the pain
came crashing through on every level, his
strange wanting it somehow, the feel of the power
the way the man shooting the gun must have
felt - his power...all of this in the darkest
dark , it must be, a dim
day at the zoo, cloudy and a lantern held
above the table for light...and, will these
shadows be all it takes to put meaning there?...
Much more...
8/21
The nameless horror
(8/20/86)
You can go in as deeply as you like
in zooming for the detail, even the red hearts
on the card...you can see the leg of
the table, feel the shoulder of the man
holding the cards...everything stops at once...
hard to believe the gun racks because it
wouldn't be that way now...remember, before
they move, you only need a few details...
Say, the reason for the card game and the
name of one of the players...you can smell
by the air where this is, I mean whether
the way out in the woods or someplace
drier than that...then again, stepping
outside, you can see this is the woods...
you can feel the stakes are high, for these
people...you can already begin to guess
the tension in this for them...now,
how do you distinguish the details from
the results?...you can see something is
about to happen and you can feel it...
you've already had ample time to decide
what you think will be the outcome...this
stillness cannot be borne forever, though in
some sense these men were meant to sit there,
and the women in this room, listening
but afraid to listen...you start to feel
someone in there wants to cry out...but still,
this is only an investigation into a few
details... and to imagine it in the first
place something had to hold your affection...
And then the newspaper account of a man
who stuck his arm into a lion's cage to prove that
God does or does not exist...if God has
a power, he announced to his mother, he will
not let the lion hurt me- and then, he lost an
arm...to be transported to a mental hospital
"Are you going to let these thoughts
push you around like this?"
You were in a room and something was about to
happen...what does it have to do with a
lion? Does a lion burst into a room?
It feels like something is going to be mangled,
something is going to break apart...but,
in this man's cage, his internal world demanded
absolute proof of God's *power* to believe in
him...possibly because his own powers appeared to
be drastically failing him...and this mangling
leapt into the story and those men in a
room anyway, a natural overlap of a
day's experience...and the days keep
switching hands...no question that something
meant to jump out and it turned out to be a
lion's paw, not a card...still, one of these
men was about to say something...look,
he's knocking the table over with one hand while
the other is springing back...there are screams and
a door bursts open...a gun explodes...
a man appears almost to be hurled into the
air and thrown back...the noise is deafening...
yet this scream is really the same scream
as the man who was mangled by the lion...
You can go in as deeply as you like
in zooming for the detail, even the red hearts
on the card...you can see the leg of
the table, feel the shoulder of the man
holding the cards...everything stops at once...
hard to believe the gun racks because it
wouldn't be that way now...remember, before
they move, you only need a few details...
Say, the reason for the card game and the
name of one of the players...you can smell
by the air where this is, I mean whether
the way out in the woods or someplace
drier than that...then again, stepping
outside, you can see this is the woods...
you can feel the stakes are high, for these
people...you can already begin to guess
the tension in this for them...now,
how do you distinguish the details from
the results?...you can see something is
about to happen and you can feel it...
you've already had ample time to decide
what you think will be the outcome...this
stillness cannot be borne forever, though in
some sense these men were meant to sit there,
and the women in this room, listening
but afraid to listen...you start to feel
someone in there wants to cry out...but still,
this is only an investigation into a few
details... and to imagine it in the first
place something had to hold your affection...
And then the newspaper account of a man
who stuck his arm into a lion's cage to prove that
God does or does not exist...if God has
a power, he announced to his mother, he will
not let the lion hurt me- and then, he lost an
arm...to be transported to a mental hospital
"Are you going to let these thoughts
push you around like this?"
You were in a room and something was about to
happen...what does it have to do with a
lion? Does a lion burst into a room?
It feels like something is going to be mangled,
something is going to break apart...but,
in this man's cage, his internal world demanded
absolute proof of God's *power* to believe in
him...possibly because his own powers appeared to
be drastically failing him...and this mangling
leapt into the story and those men in a
room anyway, a natural overlap of a
day's experience...and the days keep
switching hands...no question that something
meant to jump out and it turned out to be a
lion's paw, not a card...still, one of these
men was about to say something...look,
he's knocking the table over with one hand while
the other is springing back...there are screams and
a door bursts open...a gun explodes...
a man appears almost to be hurled into the
air and thrown back...the noise is deafening...
yet this scream is really the same scream
as the man who was mangled by the lion...
Thursday, June 26
Latest Crush List winners and losers: Stephanie Young chooses tex files...Chris Murray
From a recent number four position on the Ironstone Whirlygig Crush List, now I've completely vanished. Damn!
Well, at least we made Bill Marsh's very first *field report!* This helps. I think.
Amanda Cook, I'm crushed!
From a recent number four position on the Ironstone Whirlygig Crush List, now I've completely vanished. Damn!
Well, at least we made Bill Marsh's very first *field report!* This helps. I think.
Amanda Cook, I'm crushed!
Jordan Davis, ever vigilant and generous, noticed and pointed out a mix-up on -fait accompli- this morning. Blogger, in the process of renovating my posting page (all current blogs are in process of receiving a new posting page) mixed in some archives with my current posts. In doing so, Blogger temporarily created its own version of time travel! However, when I saw this in the middle of the night I went into a state of panic, thinking my site was permanently jumbled. Of course this would have to happen, accoring to the inexorable rule that whatever could go wrong will go wrong, as soon as I posted a proud message to the poetics list about my recent site statistics. Toni woke up and helped me quite a bit, and this morning adorable Laura, my site administrator, applied some magic and sent me some reassuring emails. However, when it occurred to me to try posting a new message, -fait accompli- whisked itself back into shape! Thanks to Toni, Laura, Jordan for their concern and help and to my readers for their patience and interest!
“If you don’t believe in god, don’t quote
him,” Valery once said when he was
about ready to give up poetry. The
purposefull suspension of disbelief.
Jack Spicer
Language
“Distance, Einstein said, goes around
in circles.”
Jack Spicer
Language
8/20/86
Pause
If I wanted to open a door or look
out a window-no. If I wanted to
open a door and walk into a world I
would like to live in for awhile- it is
this feeling more than any other I have sought
out by reading and writing. Invariably, I
want to choose the first door at hand that
intrigues me because, now that I have
discovered the opportunity I am well aware that
there is no time to waste. As often, no, more
often, much more often than not there is
nothing behind the door, and once I have
tried to open it and see that the door
won’t budge, very soon after I realize that
there wasn’t any door there at all. But
sometimes- the best times- I can walk
right through, look around, even settle
in for awhile. And, despite any wishes to
the contrary, after awhile, the room,
the door, it all disappears. But then
sometimes, there will be another one, maybe
this time a window, a place, a time
machine. Machines…I imaged a
language machine (not unlike Kafka’s that
wrote horrible messages on his character’s back),
a machine that would generate words from
each other. Often, in my early experience,
I would simply associate to the last letter of a
word, then make that word my next word.
These strange poems were capable of reminding
me of the thoughts and feelings I was thinking
about when I was writing them, although
none of the words seemed at all connected
to these thoughts.The poems would be
built out of a strange conjunction of words
that spelled a rhythm but not a specific
experience. The experience of reading those
poems became more and more specific,
more palpable over time.Some had colors,
others shifted around and in patterns of
light and dark. Or even castles in
mist or even lines like
“ideas so that the can will very”
which where probably borrowed in part
from early readings of ee cummings. What
I was looking for was a world to inhabit,
a world for the eye and the ear and for
thought and imagination. Most of all, this
world had to have sounds and sights
and what other appurtanances of reality
which I was attracted to for the purpose
of constructing my imaginary universe. The
problem only began when I wanted
others to view these adventures as something
called poetry. For a long time- at least
with other types of experiments nobody
would go that far.
-“We’re not complaining, Piombino,” said
some strange voice, “You did the right thing.”-
So, I went about my
business writing some poems that I felt
could directly demonstrate my competence in
some “traditional” form- or some recent
forms-
“What are you talking about,” I want to
say to some imaginary figure, “all you
think about is poetry.”
Something recognizable- these were published-
a couple of them. Soon, however, my old wish
to open a magic door asserted itself and
I began my journey. What I’ve learned is
that time is a merry-go-round in which
you will always get another chance to reach
for the ring and not fall off your horse-until
the end of the whole ride, not just a
few turns around (called years). Just the
right combination of waiting and reaching. There
is more than one combination, but there are
right and wrong combinations.
Doors, merry-go-rounds, waiting, combinations,
here it is again, as expected, trinkets to
play with in the gaze of some light, so
I can watch them sparkle. Memories…
prices to pay, compensations…there are
series of events, view them microscopically
or at a distance, but remember you can
change it. Not a question of which one
is better, but the changes help understanding…
You can’t just say anything…then
again you can…you can remember a
card game or one can come hazily into
view-you remember a time when you
would imagine needing thousands of details
to see this…actually, being there is more
like being aware of one or two details very
clearly or a few at a time in a sequence…
You can go in as deeply as you like
in zooming for the detail, even the red hearts
on the card…you can see the leg of
the table, feel the shoulder of the man
holding the cards…everything stops at once.
him,” Valery once said when he was
about ready to give up poetry. The
purposefull suspension of disbelief.
Jack Spicer
Language
“Distance, Einstein said, goes around
in circles.”
Jack Spicer
Language
8/20/86
Pause
If I wanted to open a door or look
out a window-no. If I wanted to
open a door and walk into a world I
would like to live in for awhile- it is
this feeling more than any other I have sought
out by reading and writing. Invariably, I
want to choose the first door at hand that
intrigues me because, now that I have
discovered the opportunity I am well aware that
there is no time to waste. As often, no, more
often, much more often than not there is
nothing behind the door, and once I have
tried to open it and see that the door
won’t budge, very soon after I realize that
there wasn’t any door there at all. But
sometimes- the best times- I can walk
right through, look around, even settle
in for awhile. And, despite any wishes to
the contrary, after awhile, the room,
the door, it all disappears. But then
sometimes, there will be another one, maybe
this time a window, a place, a time
machine. Machines…I imaged a
language machine (not unlike Kafka’s that
wrote horrible messages on his character’s back),
a machine that would generate words from
each other. Often, in my early experience,
I would simply associate to the last letter of a
word, then make that word my next word.
These strange poems were capable of reminding
me of the thoughts and feelings I was thinking
about when I was writing them, although
none of the words seemed at all connected
to these thoughts.The poems would be
built out of a strange conjunction of words
that spelled a rhythm but not a specific
experience. The experience of reading those
poems became more and more specific,
more palpable over time.Some had colors,
others shifted around and in patterns of
light and dark. Or even castles in
mist or even lines like
“ideas so that the can will very”
which where probably borrowed in part
from early readings of ee cummings. What
I was looking for was a world to inhabit,
a world for the eye and the ear and for
thought and imagination. Most of all, this
world had to have sounds and sights
and what other appurtanances of reality
which I was attracted to for the purpose
of constructing my imaginary universe. The
problem only began when I wanted
others to view these adventures as something
called poetry. For a long time- at least
with other types of experiments nobody
would go that far.
-“We’re not complaining, Piombino,” said
some strange voice, “You did the right thing.”-
So, I went about my
business writing some poems that I felt
could directly demonstrate my competence in
some “traditional” form- or some recent
forms-
“What are you talking about,” I want to
say to some imaginary figure, “all you
think about is poetry.”
Something recognizable- these were published-
a couple of them. Soon, however, my old wish
to open a magic door asserted itself and
I began my journey. What I’ve learned is
that time is a merry-go-round in which
you will always get another chance to reach
for the ring and not fall off your horse-until
the end of the whole ride, not just a
few turns around (called years). Just the
right combination of waiting and reaching. There
is more than one combination, but there are
right and wrong combinations.
Doors, merry-go-rounds, waiting, combinations,
here it is again, as expected, trinkets to
play with in the gaze of some light, so
I can watch them sparkle. Memories…
prices to pay, compensations…there are
series of events, view them microscopically
or at a distance, but remember you can
change it. Not a question of which one
is better, but the changes help understanding…
You can’t just say anything…then
again you can…you can remember a
card game or one can come hazily into
view-you remember a time when you
would imagine needing thousands of details
to see this…actually, being there is more
like being aware of one or two details very
clearly or a few at a time in a sequence…
You can go in as deeply as you like
in zooming for the detail, even the red hearts
on the card…you can see the leg of
the table, feel the shoulder of the man
holding the cards…everything stops at once.
Wednesday, June 25
1/21/86
There is nothing I hate more than
the odor of an organizer.
Now imagine- for what seemslike an
impossibly long time, I will not write
poetry. X is right- but *fuck
him.* What a crank.
I am bound and determined not to let
such "organizer-cranksters" rule my
life.
But really, what holds me back?
It is tremendous anxieties surrounding
my success- and potential for much
more success. Imagine how long and how
much I've held myself back.
Such bottom-line questions as- if you're
so smart-why aren't you rich?
I've become much more interested in developing
controls than I am in expressing myself.
I spent most of my life looking for ways
to express myself and now the whole
subject is coming up makes me
wonder about myself.
On the other hand- there is no sweeter
right that I cherish above anything-
is this right to express myself without
official involvement being necessary. Obviously
by my mmense hesitations to write
anything at all and my even growing
offhand way of dealing with it- I try by
every means not to take myself too
seriously- on the other hand- that
it embarasses me to write *that* is still
incredible-given my awareness and concern
about the privacy of this act.
(A series of images followed this...)
There is nothing I hate more than
the odor of an organizer.
Now imagine- for what seemslike an
impossibly long time, I will not write
poetry. X is right- but *fuck
him.* What a crank.
I am bound and determined not to let
such "organizer-cranksters" rule my
life.
But really, what holds me back?
It is tremendous anxieties surrounding
my success- and potential for much
more success. Imagine how long and how
much I've held myself back.
Such bottom-line questions as- if you're
so smart-why aren't you rich?
I've become much more interested in developing
controls than I am in expressing myself.
I spent most of my life looking for ways
to express myself and now the whole
subject is coming up makes me
wonder about myself.
On the other hand- there is no sweeter
right that I cherish above anything-
is this right to express myself without
official involvement being necessary. Obviously
by my mmense hesitations to write
anything at all and my even growing
offhand way of dealing with it- I try by
every means not to take myself too
seriously- on the other hand- that
it embarasses me to write *that* is still
incredible-given my awareness and concern
about the privacy of this act.
(A series of images followed this...)
1/4/86
Parallel response is the normally
expectable pattern observable in
human beings. Even when people do
not respond "in kind" most actions
elicit parallel responses.
Psychoanalysts- and artists-
struggle against this conventional
pattern of response. How does willing suspension
of disbelief fit into this?
Reality becomes more and more
estranged from actuality as reponses
to actuality fail to provide authentic
connective methodologies.
The new perspective
must provide these
connective methodologies both
from the perpective of
communications beween people and also
as a language for interpreting
and expressing original viewpoints.
Parallel response is the normally
expectable pattern observable in
human beings. Even when people do
not respond "in kind" most actions
elicit parallel responses.
Psychoanalysts- and artists-
struggle against this conventional
pattern of response. How does willing suspension
of disbelief fit into this?
Reality becomes more and more
estranged from actuality as reponses
to actuality fail to provide authentic
connective methodologies.
The new perspective
must provide these
connective methodologies both
from the perpective of
communications beween people and also
as a language for interpreting
and expressing original viewpoints.
The yogi who seeks to magically deny his need for food, who seems to live on air in fact has taken control of his or her attention- a hightly sophisticated act of concentration and discipline.
To deny attention to one’s own hunger is also the subject of Kafka’s “The Hunger Artist,” amply illustrating how an indiscriminate appplication of attentional focus can lead to extreme forms of isolation and self-destruction.
Boehm’s understanding of Pribram’s holographic theory of informational processes includes the notion that “Memories from many different times may merge together, and that memories may be connected by association and by logical thought to give a certain further order to the whole pattern. In addition, if sensory data is also being attended to at the same time, the whole of this response from memory will, in general, fuse with the nervous excitation coming in from the senses to give rise to an overall experience in which memory,logic, and sensory activity combine into a single unanalyzable whole.” (p. 198, “Wholeness and the Implicate Order.”
To deny attention to one’s own hunger is also the subject of Kafka’s “The Hunger Artist,” amply illustrating how an indiscriminate appplication of attentional focus can lead to extreme forms of isolation and self-destruction.
Boehm’s understanding of Pribram’s holographic theory of informational processes includes the notion that “Memories from many different times may merge together, and that memories may be connected by association and by logical thought to give a certain further order to the whole pattern. In addition, if sensory data is also being attended to at the same time, the whole of this response from memory will, in general, fuse with the nervous excitation coming in from the senses to give rise to an overall experience in which memory,logic, and sensory activity combine into a single unanalyzable whole.” (p. 198, “Wholeness and the Implicate Order.”
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