This Just In: Films on UBUWEB

UBU WEB {click here}
[Caveat: UBUWEB recommends downloading rather tthan streaming
these films, as they are large files]

III.5 *Pacis Amor deus est, pacem veneramur amantes*

"The god of peace is Love, we lovers venerate peace:
Hard battles with my mistress suffice for me.
My heart is not consumed for hateful gold,
My thirst doesn't drink from cups of precious stone,
Fat Campania's not ploughed for me by a thousand yoke.
I get no bronzes from your ruin, hapless Corinth.

O primal earth Prometheus unluckily shaped-
Too little prepared, he began to work on our hearts:
Skilfully ordering bodies, he did not look to the mind.
From the first there should have been a straight path
For the soul: now we are tempest-tossed far out to sea:
We seek out enemies, and join fresh wars to wars.
You shall carry no riches to Acheron's waters:
Naked, fool, you'll be borne on hell's ferry.
Victor and victim shades are mingles as equals:
Consul Marius, you sit by the captive Jugurtha.
Lydian Croesus does not stand off from Dulichian Irus:
The death is best which comes at fate's appointed hour.
I am glad that in early youth I worshipped Helicon,
And linked my hands in the Muses' choral dance:
I am glad that plenteous Bacchus enchains my mind,
And always to wreathe my head in vernal roses.
When heavy age has interrupted Venus
And age's white has brindled my black hair,
Then may it please me to study's nature's ways:
Which god controls by art our home this world;
How comes the rising sun, how sinks, and how each month,
Horns brought together, the moon returns to the full;
Whence winds overmatch the deep, what Eurus snatches
At with his squall, whence the clouds' perennial water;
If a day shall come which undermines world-fortresses;
Why the shining bow imbibes the water of rain;
Why Perrhaebian Pindus' summits shook
And the sun has mourned, horses draped in black;
Why Bootes is late to turn his oxen and cart,
Or the Pleiads group their fiery dance so close;
Or why the deep main does not exceed its bounds;
Or why the whole year passes in four sections;
If underground are tortured Giants; gods' laws;
If Tisiphone's head is maddened with black snakes;
Alcmaeon's Furies, Phineus' hunger,
The wheel, the rock, the thirst amid the waters;
If Cerberus guards with triple jaws the pit
Of hell; nine acres too strait for Tityus:
Or fictions have come down to hapless folk,
And no alarms can be beyond the pyre.

Such going is what is left to me. You
Who welcome war, fetch Crassus' standards home."

from *Propertius/The Poems*
translated by W.G. Shepherd
Penguin Books, 1985

The Unbearable Lightness of Blogging

::fait accompli:: is proud to announce
we have been banned by *foetry*!

Now, get this: the foetry blog links to my name-here's the link on Google:

Foetry :: View topic - A new Blog!
... some-combination just haven't seemed like the types that would have run a blog with
a blogroll that included Jordan Davis, Jim Behrle, Nick Piombino, Josh Corey ...
foetry.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=2296& - 58k - Cached - Similar pages

and then bans me from visiting it even though I've never attempted
to visit the blog...But we're in excellent company!

Here's the link:

LISTSERV

foetry {click here}

from *The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950*
Cesare Pavese

"12 August (1940)

Love and poetry are mysteriously linked, because both
are a desire for self-expression, for talk and communication,
no matter with whom. An orgiastic desire for which there is
no substitute. Wine can induce a fictitious state of the same
sort, and, in fact, a drunkard talks and talks and talks."

"14 August (1940)

A man succeeds in completing a work only when his
qualities transcend that work."....

"10th October (1940)

There is an art in taking the whiplash of suffering
full in the face, an art you must learn. Let each single attack
exhaust itself; pain always makes single attacks, so that its
bite may be more intense, more concentrated. And you, while
its fangs are implanted and injecting their venom at one spot,
do not forget to offer it another place where it can bite you,
and so relieve the pain of the first. Real suffering is made up
of many thoughts. You can think only one thought at a time,
so learn how to dodge from one to another, and you will
relieve each pain in turn."

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

"What I hear whispered, I whisper to you."


Ketih Waldrop
*Semiramis if I Remember
(Self-Portrait As Mask)*
Avec, 2001

Vispo Show at the Durban Segini Gallery, Miami, Florida {click here}

Spring In This World Of Poor Mutts

was the title of a book of poetry by the superb poet
Joe Ceravolo. Early this morning, at about 7:30 am,
the first moment of Spring, the vernal equinox, occurred.
What poet does not respond to the coming of Spring
without a little song in the heart? Lots of songs were in the air
yesterday at the Bowery Poetry Club where we went to hear and see
Tim Peterson and Brenda Iijima. Tim, whose
blog is Mappemunde {click here},
and who sponsors the Analogous series (see the blog for details,
Lyn Hejinian and Emilie Clarke are presenting today, in Cambridge, Mass),
has had two chapbooks published, one titled Cumulous from
Brenda Iijima’s Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, and the other
from Jack Kimball’s ebook faux press, Trinkets Crushed In A Blender.
On Saturday, Tim, in a ringing, clear, yet sensitive and lyrical voice,
read mostly from his chapbook Cumulous. His reading style put these
absorbing works in a fine light: syncopated, sure, the line enjambments
came through strikingly, criss-crossing each other, and creating a layered effect
of meanings and juxtapositions. We hope he comes back soon, as some
who unfortunately may have missed this program, deserve another
chance to hear him. Brenda, who is a painter as well as a poet,
read works from her recent book
around sea- O Books {click here}.
My copy was purchased directly from Brenda at her reading a few months back at the Zinc Bar, and
I obtained one whose cover was graced by a painting she added by hand;
she had brought a number of copies, each with a unique cover.
As a publisher and as a poet, Brenda reveals an inventive
outpouring and wide range of thought-provoking ideas and
interests. Her unmatchable determination and fortitude were
revealed on this occasion by the fact that she read in spite of a
terrible case of the flu. Still, in an aside, she had the focus to talk
about a recent article concerning the thought processes of animals,
and wondered aloud if the poem she was about to read were channeled
to her by the local birds!
Noted in the audience were poets Rodrigo Toscano,
Mark Weiss and Mitch Highfill, as well as bloggers
Xtina Strong and Drew Gardner.

The emcee, Charles Borkhuis accompanied a few of us
to one of the BPC poets’ favorite local Indian restaurants
Haveli, where Toni and I had to content ourselves with
appetizers because we had reservations so soon nearby
at PS 122 for Fiona Templeton’s, workshop version of a few
acts from her play-in-progress Medead. Before we left,
Mitch Highfill gave Toni and I a copy of Kimberly Lyons’
new book Saline from Instance Press, in Boulder. Colorado,
with a cover designed by Brenda Iijima and Anna Moschovakis.
The title is taken from the concluding prose poem:
“Like perpendicular shadows, people grab one another
suddenly in affection. Rattle drawers throwing everything
to the floor while looking for keys or something bought at a
drugstore or something found behind papers on a high shelf.
A person might scream in pain or seem beset with some feeling
while looking for this. People laugh so hard they kick their boots
on the floor and tears come to their eyes.”

[Aside: this quote was changed from the original version
of this post, which was completed and then unfortunately
bleeped out, due to so-called “instability” in the functioning
of blogger. The quote beautifully reflected my
response to this experience]

Then we hurried over to PS 122. “Medea on the Argo”
and “Medea in Corinth” by
Fiona Templeton {click here}
were shown as parts of a
development workshop by the Mabou Mines
Resident artist program for 2004-2005.
The cast included: Amelie Champagne Lyons as Medea in
Aia, Clarinda MacLow aas Medea on the Argo,
Theo Stockman played Jason, Jackson Loo was Orpheus,
Anna Kohler played Medea in Corinth and Valda Setterfield
was "Medea returns and bird". The latter referred to the bird
sounds created by Valda Setterfield during the first part, a
moving, eerie musical accompaniment to most of the
first act evoking a lonely sea voyage. Clarinda MacLow
was electrifying as Medea in this part, bringing together
a powerful portrayal of Medea’s insanity with a rendering
of Fiona Templeton’s poignant poetry that will be
long remembered by all who were there.
Between the acts during a break,
Toni mentioned that she thought of
Clarinda MacLow’s father, the late Jackson Mac Low’s
poetry performances, during most of the first act, and,
though I hadn’t thought of this, I knew exactly what she meant.
Clarinda has certainly had much experience hearing and seeing poetry
read by one of the greatest poets of her generation, her father the late
Jackson Mac Low. Still, her own performance
work revealed astonishing originality
and penetrating insight into human emotions and conflict.

Anna Kohler’s Medea dominated the second half,
and was also powerful. Much of her performance
took place on a platform moved by pulleys and her mastery
of Templeton’s poetry was also impressive.
I was reminded of how astonished I was seeing
Mac Wellman’s plays some years ago, when actors
were able to memorize page after page of
highly disjunctive poetry and work with their roles
as if they were speaking ordinary language.
Anna Kohler created her Medea masterfully,
portraying the character’s motivations and conflicts
with convincing psychological reality,
without losing any of the haunting,
yet forceful and stirring aspects of Templeton’s poetry.
“What, unraveling already?”, she says at one point,
as her character’s personality dissolves
in the agonistic atmosphere
of her homicidal conflicts. Templeton’s poetry, in the speeches of her
characters demands to know, again and again:
what do our words really say
about what we are experiencing and wishing
or trying to say to one another?
At just the moment when I was writing that last comment
on my playbill, Medea (Anna Kohler) was saying:
“A baby is an easy word to say. It’s a hard eared basket case.”
At another point Medea says to the chorus:
“If it’s not true how do we know so much about it?”
The chorus answers in one voice: “It was told!”
It was told indeed, and told well and masterfully
by Fiona Templeton & cast.

And, thankfully, there’s more to come: The playbill tell us:
"Watch for more this summer at The Ice Factory, with Valda Setterfield as Medea:
Ice Factory {click here}

"Be big."

Ted Berrigan
from *Bean Spasms*

*****************
Remembered Poem- Ted
Berrigan on the EPC {click here}

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Blogger

Well, no one's "passed the stick" to poor lonely
::fait accompli:: so, we are going to crash the party
and say that: the book we would save from the
fires of the Fahrenheit flames is: *Voices* by
Antonio Porchia.

Reading: right now mainly:

*How To Make A Living As A Poet* by Gary Mex Glazner,
Soft Skull Press, 2005. Due to the fact that Soft Skull is
about to publish by my good friend Jerome Sala's new book
of poems

Look Slimmer Instantly {click here},

and that I am an admirer of Soft Skull's general attitude and politics, I gladlly accepted an emailed offer of a review copy of How To Make A Living As A Poet {click here}, even though the title kind of made me wonder about it. You remember hearing about Gary Mex Glazner, I am sure. He's the guy that left 45,000 copies of his book on guest pillows in hotels all over the country awhile back.. Actually, the book is a collection of quite interesting interviews with poets, including one with that human dynamo, the owner-operator of the Bowery Poetry Club, Bob Holman. The book must have been in process for years, as the interview was done when Bob was just getting the place into shape: "I love this point, where it's got paper on the windows like it's just meant to write on and also cause I'm so scared it's not going to work at all. There's so much that's been done over the last couple of years. There's so much left to do. .." There are numerous other interviews, including those of Sherman Alexie, Janine Pommy Vega, and Naomi Shihab Nye who titles her piece: "The Word Career Does Not Fit My Whole Way Of Thinking About Poetry , but the Word Devotion Does*- a terrific piece. There are numerous other interesting chapters, including Glazner's cogent advice on how Poetry magazine might best spend their 100 million dollar bequest. Anyway, despite the faux ad agency hype title, this is a book well worth its modest price of $15.

I quite realize I haven't been asked, but I'l tell you anyway that I'm also reading: *The House of Mirth* by Edith Wharton, and just finished reading *Jane Eyre*. I'm on a kick of reading novels by women writers, so if you have any suggestions please let me know: nickpoetique@earthlink.net.

Desert island books? *V.imp* by Nada Gordon; David Copperfield; The Tennis Court Oath-Ashbery; Theodore Dreiser-Jennie Gerhardt; Bernadette Mayer,-Studying Hunger; Frank Kuenstler-Lens; Charles Bernstein- Republics of Reality; Barrett Watten-Bad History; Carla Harryman-Under the Bridge; Joe Ceravolo-Fits of Dawn; Phillip K. Dick-Time Out of Joint; kari edwards-Day in the Life of P; David Bromige-Desire; Ron Silliman-Tjanting; Jackson Mac Low-Twenties; Walter Benjamin-Selected Writings; Orwell-1984; Grant Baille-Cloud 8; Finnigan's Wake; Joan Retallack -Errata Suite; Jerome Sala- Raw Deal;Tom Phillips -Humament; Elaine Equi -Views without Rooms; Allen Ginsberg-Howl; Cesare Pavese -The Burning Brand; Cesar Vallejo-Trilce. Ann Lauterbach-If In Time; I mean, there's plenty of room on a desert island, right?

I'll leave you with this line from *The House of Mirth*:

"The Wetheralls always went to church. They belonged to the vast group
of human automata who go through life without neglecting to
perform a single one of the gestures executed by the surrounding puppets."

You come to the delicate portion, which
is the center of the machine. You get
there by feeling your way, beause your
eyes are no good to you there. Your feelers
fly in the air. You touch the delicate part
with your feelings-feelers, and the whole
machine moves.



Notebook: 10/29/88
from: The Boundary of Blur
(Roof, 1993)

Machine Envy

Human beings have become so mechanized it is hard to
resist the conjecture that they suffer from conscious and
unconscious machine-envy. The situation of the artwork in the
"age of mechanical reproduction" is striking
not only as a result of the decline of the work's
aura, as Walter Benjamin postulated, but in the
decline of the auras of human beings
themselves; this includes such qualities, for example,
that formerly might have been experienced as
exquisitely and uniquely human;
the tendency to make mistakes, for example ("To err is human,
to forgive divine.")

The more beautiful and efficient machines become,
the more people admire them, want to have them
and, it seems , want to be like them. As humans are
incredible mimes (the monkey-see monkey-do aspect of people
is as irritating at it is compelling, irresistible and unavoidable) we
should not be surprised that just as machines are made to
perfectly suit our needs, that we are more than willing to
accomodate ourselves to them and emulate them.
Once recognized, it is hard
to not see machine-envy everywhere.
Like everyone else,
the contemporary artist, poet and novelist is tempted to embody
their unmatchably utilitarian powers that include the power
to infinitely sustain apparently unstoppable production, to make
every product comprise identical and perfect value, and to have them be
nearly universally available. The machine
made object is a safe bet to be exactly like every other copy
of the same type- so that once an individual obtains one, his or her
particular version contains exactly the same qualities as anyone else's
examples of this object. The vast majority of machine made
products, instead of being made to last indefinitely, are made to
last a predictable period of time (few would buy a used car over
100,000 miles old, for example). The disposibility or aging of products
is compensated for by the immediate availability of an identical
copy. People can now rest assured that their resources are basically
of equal value as everyone else's, as long as they own identical
technology embodies identical qualities; the implications for
the frighteningly expansive growth of automatism and conformism are anxiety-
provoking; but then there is the equally as rapid expansion of the tranquilizing
advantages of conformism; including the exciting mirroring
of manufactured perfection; thus the breathless excitement, and forbidden-fruit
qualities of cloning. In anticipation of the "magnificent" coming
final triumph of machines, people are impelled to become as
much alike as possible, and as much like perfect machines as possible,
and whatever conceivable morsels of difference
that might continue to exist must be more than countered by fierce
insistence on conformity in some other realm.
Even the celebration of
difference must be manifested and
discussed in a remorselessly similar
vocabulary and manner.


One method of emulating machines for
artists is by means of constant
and prodigious output: steady,
predictable, ample production,
where each object or copy is of equal
complexity and precision with every other; I think
of such artists as Picasso and Dali in this
regard, but there are countless others,
including some whose works themselves are
meant to conceal
the presence of the hand
and resemble machine made products.
Contemporary artists and writers are also
expected to continuously produce works that,
while functioning as interchangeable parts,
must somehow achieve at the same
time the aura of uniqueness. What, in the
art work, can this "uniqueness"
inhabit if not the design of the work?
Uniqueness of conception is not
machine-like enough. The artwork must
be brilliantly novel in its
design or formal qualities, or it must rival the
machine in the smoothness and appeal
of its inventiveness. Such art, in its perfecting of
risk-free, recognizably robotic, manufactured
forms of charming inventiveness,
participates in an
automated, inevitable obliteration or
taming of all eccentricity,
even as it ostensibly celebrates
uniqueness and individuality.

The setting, by the way, for the above
meditation was the
Tim Hawkinson {click here}
show at the Whitney, if you haven't
already guessed. I had been thinking
about this for awhile now, and these
thoughts came to mind so quickly
as I perused Hawkinson's engaging works,
that one of the security guards
noticed me trying to squeeze an
inordinate number of words on the back of
a receipt and thankfully offered me a few
pages of notepaper with the name
*Whitney* in green caps on the top.
Someone had already
written on one sheet the following
sentence: "How often do you change the pen?"
It took me a little time to
figure out that probably this was a question
someone wanted to address Tim
Hawkinson with, as one of his fascinating
machines was a device for writing his
signature over and over on identical slips of
paper and dropping them to the floor.
The visitors were asked by a guard to
kindly return these copies of
Hawkinson's signature to the ground (of course,
mine made it into my pocket, to join the equally
enigmatic little pieces of orange
cloth that I received recently at a visit to Christo
and Jeanne-Claude's Gates).

Well, if you haven't yet gone, I highly recommend you
visit the Hawkinson show. Some
of my favorite pieces of his were not there-
including a few that I saw some years back in the
cavernous rooms at the Ace Gallery.
The piece in this show that most impressed
me was one that he titled *Magdalen*.
I usually don't avail myself of audio guides
at art shows, but this one had the voice of the
artist and I wanted to hear it so
I took one. *Magdalen* was constructed in 2003 of
"paper, wire, string, foam rubber
and caulking (painted black)." On the tape
Hawkinson says: " Magdalen is a little
different from the other work. My nephew calls
it a monster tire blowout and it
refers to the retread tires you see
discarded along the freeway. The tentacles
formed by the steel and radial reinforcements
and so forth led to this kind of dragon-
like quality I was really interested in. And then, when it was
nearly getting to be completed it kind of reminded me
of this stature of Donnatello where she
appears with matted hair...her wretchedness kind of
reminded me of this piece... " I stood and
stared for a long time at
this huge, cartoon-like
semblance of a blown-out tire transformed into a
walking monster (it also reminded me
of a wonderfully frightening, tentacled
"technozoic" *Medusa* (1990)
Toni Simon {click here} once painted,)
Hawkinson is
brilliant in his manner of transforming
materials in unexpected ways that indirectly
reminds me of Richard Tuttle. In one piece
he used dog chews to create a hanging
skeleton that strangely whistles,
like an owner, in some spirit space,
aimlessly whistling for her dog.
One of the things I most enjoyed about Hawkinson's
show is his obvious ambivalence
towards machines.
While he obviously enjoys
inventing, constructing and playing with
them, many of these works also encompass an
almost mournful suggestion that we might enjoy our
mechanical side much more if we could
see and emulate the more "human" aspect of machines,
in their constructiveness and in their
destructiveness.

Then we went downstairs and
looked at the Cy Twombly show, an aesthetic
that is about as different from Hawkinson as
one could possibly be. It was
hard to look at this graceful, almost
awkwardly childlike, understated, quiet,
unassuming work as appreciatively as
I usually do after the histrionics
of Hawkinson. After a few turns around the
room I remembered what I liked so much
about Twombly. As he himself put it in
a drawing dated 1990: "The image contains
a primordial freshness ideas can never claim."

This show stands as an antithesis and balm to
the intense, huge, labyrinthal paradoxes of Hawkinson's
work. I liked both, but in this context, in a way,
I appreciated the Hawkinson even more, because
as much as beautiful images can offer inner relief
and peace, only insight into the dangers
of completely succumbing to the
intoxicating, seductive charm of our
powerful machines
might, hopefully, protect us from
completely abandoning our complex
humanity in favor of ease, pleasure and power.
This is all the more possible, Hawkinson seems
to suggest, if we take a more literally hands-on
attitude towards our machines by thinking about
them with greater imagination and making things
with and out of them that reflect
some of our uniquely human qualities: humor,
whimsicality, empathy, generosity.


A trip to the basement, searching for restrooms
and coffee landed us in the gift shop.
I was charmed, but now forewarned, when
I noticed a tiny item on sale for $135 called
"Desktop Ball Bearings and Crank" described
as follows: "Constructed out of aluminum and
brass, this tilted platform provides endless amusement.
Turning the crank carries the ball bearings
to the top...", etc. "Endless", eh?

"We are truly fed up
with mental machines of peace & war
nuclear monoxide brains, cancerous computers
motors sucking our hearts of blood
that once sang the choruses of natural birds!
We've had enough dynamos and derricks
thud-thud-thudding valves & pulleys
of the Devil Mankin's invention/And soon
if they aren't *silenced*
and we survive the sacrifical altars
of the automobile god and the vulvas of steel
spitting molecular madness

if the complete crowd-manacled Machine
isn't *dissolved, back into the Earth*
from where its elements were stolen/
*we shall call on*
the Great Ocean Wave
Neter of waters
and the king of Atlantis & his snake-spirits
otherwise known as/Orcus/Dagon & Drack!
to send up calamitous tidal waves
-a thousand feel high if need be-
to bury all the monster metal cities
and their billion, bullioned wheels of chemical death!..."

(from *VOICE OF EARTH MEDIUMS*
*Selected Poems 1943-1966*, City Lights #20
1967)

Phillip Lamantia
10/23/27- 3/11/05

Gary Sullivan's Koan

Question

What was the last poem you read that made you question a previously held
belief?

Send poem title, author, and belief-in-question to:

gpsullivan at hotmail dot com

I'm compiling a list that I'll post on my blog in a couple of days. Feel
free to pass this question along to others.

Thanks,

Gary

Poems About Autism

The following link from ::fait accompli:: is included in the
site Poem About Autism {click here}

7/21/01 Things resting in their place {click here}

A poem from the Autism site by Daniel Janes (1985-2003) Dark Matter {click here}
*****************************************
We received the following correction from reader DW regarding yesterday's post on Bob Marley:

"That piece was actually written by Haille Selassie the emperor of Ethiopa who said it during a speech at the United Nations in NYC. Bob Marley accepted no credit for it but set it to music and the titled the song War! "

Bob Marley on Racism and War

A member of the poetics list posted this link to Bob Marley's powerful
indictment against racism and war:

Bob Marley {click here}

Tim Yu on *Why I (Finally) Quit The Poetics List*

Tympan {click here}

Online Exhition- Dudley House, Harvard University
2005: Infinity {click here}

The Unbearable Lightness of Blogging

I've had occasion to mention that the Grand Army Plaza
branch of the Brooklyn Public Library is just a short
walk through Prospect Park from where I live now. Also,
since I've been travelling by subway to my Manhattan
office, I've gotten back into reading fiction, which is
the perfect activity for a train ride. Once or twice, I've
been so focused on my book, I've missed my stop.

Today I was browsing the "new fiction" shelves,
which has become a second home for me. Reading
fiction has somewhat cut into my blog time and
has almost completely eliminated watching t.v.- an
activity I never liked much anyway (except for the
Jon Stewart show, of course).

I noticed the woman checking out the shelf next
to me had a book in her hand I had just read and
checked back in a few days ago. The book,
*The Society of Others* is by William Nicholson,
the author of *Shadowlands*, one of Anthony
Hopkins' more run-of-the-mill movies,
(I take books out of the library by the dozen
and read only a handful of them). But this one
I read in a night or two, and then promptly forgot
about. But when I saw the book in my library
neighbor's hand, I blurted out: "That's a fabulous
book." She said, "Thank you," in a demure, but
grateful way, and we went back to our separate
searches. But then I thought about what I had just said
(I hadn't realized how much I had enjoyed the book)
and I thought about a few other things too.

I thought about the fact that books, libraries
and bookstores have always been my life's
blood, my home away from home. I noticed
I had dwelled on this a bit in my recent interview
with Tom Beckett. I realized, as I thought about
this further, that books, for me, are essentially
links, a way back to other people. They are a way
of being with people, thinking about them, wondering
about them, while also being somewhat away from
them. The are a bridge, Toni reminded me, and then
I thought again of Donald Winnicott's concept of
the "transitional object." Books are such objects
in the best possible way, because they offer
both a refuge and a mode of connection,
disconnection and reconnection,
and a center for concentration
and contemplation of self and others

Anyway, you can check out the first chapter of
the book at First Chapters-NY Times {click here}


2.

Gary, Nada, Toni and I enjoyed a day together at
Central Park this past Sunday checking out the Christo/Jeanne-Claude Gates. On the way up there on the train, Gary helped
me figure out how to use my
(relatively) new digital camera, since
he has a very similar one of the same brand. It was
fun to do this and I mentioned to him that I wondered
why it was that it is so much easier to figure things out
like this with someone else. Gary remarked simply-
"That's just the way it is. People need to do things like
this with other people." There it is again- just about
everything we do, everything we have and enjoy or love (also)
serves as a bridge, as a gate between us. Maybe it's
true, as someone said, that "good fences make good neighbors."
But the fact is, one of the most fascinating aspects
of it all is how these things
reconnect us; as Gary said, "this is how people are."
Gary reminded me also on this trip
that he had mentioned me among
his "influences"-I appreciated this-
and was reminded how much I had enjoyed Gary's
blog about the history of his influences, including
some photos of the books that had
been important to him, as well as a photo
of Nada.



3.

One of the books I took out earlier today was:
*The Unbearable Lightness of Being*
by Milan Kundera. The least I could do is read
the book, the title of which
I've been enjoying for years - and have recently have
been, in a way, (respectfully) parodying, for this column,
as you can see.

4.

Time to go- the Jon Stewart show
is on now.

Interview with Tom Beckett

Please check out the current edition of
e-x-c-h-a-n-g-e-v-a-l-u-e-s {click here}; Tom Beckett and I have been
hard at work on this interview for awhile now,
and I hope you like it. I have to mention that despite
that fact that I was a most difficult interviewee, Tom
stayed the course, remaining staunchly at the helm
through thick and thin. I must say I appreciate his dedication and
fortitude immensely. Thanks, Tom!

Opening "The Gates"

Although Toni was very enthusiastic about the Christo
and Jeanne-Claude Gates on our first two visits,
today's jaunt finally left me ebullant as well. Toni had
heard that the Harlem Meer (up around West 110th Street) is
one of the most beautiful spots for viewing the Gates in the park.
The sun breaking through clouds, looking out
across a huge open area covered with snow,
with the venerable Central Park residences serving as a backdrop,
the Gates stuttered across the snow, like orange frames in a silent movie,
while we excitedly discussed our responses, when suddenly
one of the long pointer-with-green-tennis ball bearing
guides came up from behind and spoke to us. Had we received
one of the small pieces of cloth being given out,
(we had asked a few guides, unsuccessfully for these)
and had we taken a picture of
Christo himself? She handed us each one of the
sought-after little golden squares of the vinyl material
that forms the cloth part of the gates, saying that when
it's over, all that will be left are are the photos, the little pieces of
material and our memories. We never caught sight of Christo,
but we did learn that all the materials will be recycled.
The guide explained that Christo wants the memories and
photos to be the only physical remains of the artwork.
I admire this, just as I admired Robert Smithson's work, like his Sprial Jetty,
made to be exerienced and understood outside the gallery and museum system
then to disappear into time and philosophical musings.
Toni and I had shared plenty of these (Toni liked that I called the Gates
"philosophy in a bottle"); plenty more discussions like this,
I am sure, will keep taking place during and well
after the disappearance of the 23 miles of columns,
their golden pennants rustling in the wind.

Then Toni took me to the Art =/ Functional Design show at the
Cooper-Hewitt. Toni was disappointed that most of the
Albers furniture pieces were taken off view due to "problems with the humidity."
Toni is a textile designer and explained that
Annie Albers is her textile design mentor and guide.
We were delightfully
surprised to discover in this show numerous examples of Richard Tuttle's
drop dead beautiful furniture designs, as well as
striking pieces by Scott Burton, Dan Flavin, Sol Lewitt and
Rachel Whitehead. I spent some time copying out some of the
thought-provoking quotations printed
on the wall as accompaniying inspiration
to the show. Sorry that we went only on the
Friday before the closing. But if you haven't been,
hurry over soon: you have until Sunday.
On the wall at the design show were the words of Richard Tuttle,
Scott Burton, Joseph Albers,
Oscar Wilde, and others.
Albers: "Thinking in situations is just as important as thinking
in conclusions."

And Wilde:

"I have found that all ugly things are made by
those who strive to make something beautiful,
and that all beautiful things
are made by those who strive to make something useful."


The Wilde quote brought me back to our conversation obout the
towering, time and culture defying/defining/expanding artistic accomplishment
of Frederick Law Olmstead and this current tribute
in the form of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Gates.
What I loved about the Conceptual Art movement of the 70's connects
not only to the Gates and to the ideals behind the Minimalist design show-
but in part has to do with what I most loved about the 60's themselves. For a brief
moment, the less material, more generous, spiritual side
of recent social and artistic movements were in the ascendent.
The Gates, after a quite a bit of looking, and quite of bit of
walking, a little luck with the weather (hadn't Christo said that the orange
was meant to been seen against crystal reflections of the snow?)
and a willingness to let some of the cynicism, billiousness and jadedness of our own
relatively narrow era subside in order to allow those orange vibes to
penetrate the eyes and soul, leading, hopefully, to an opening
of The Gates. These gates are surely the same as the famed Blakian "doors
of perception", not merely the Gates so temporarily hammered into the
Central park pavement, but the ones that reside,
more or less permanently, in all of us.

Maybe a trifle corny for the year 2005, but, as Blake put it,
echoed by Aldous Huxley, and, more recently, by Jim Morrison:
"If the doors of perception were cleansed,
every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite."

Anyway, two more days for both shows.

There's Always A First Time

Since you're reading this online, of course
you probably have, but if you never have
try publishing online- we think you'll enjoy it.

Tom Beckett's issue of MiPoesias- submission page {click here}