Otoliths Issue 12
Otoliths is edited by Mark Young
Southern Summer 2009
Distribution Automatique
Sunday, January 25
OCHO 21, published by CASA MENENDEZ is now available
with poets: Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Laynie Browne, Abigail Child, Joe Elliot, Laura Elrick, Elizabeth Fodaski, Joanna Fuhrman, Anthony Hawley, Drew Gardner, Jessica Grim, Michael Lally, Douglas Messerli, Bill Marsh, Christina Strong
Nick Piombino (Editor) Toni Simon (Cover artist)
OCHO 21
*****************
Nada replies to my question about how Japan has changed:
"I noticed on my last two visits there that Japan, already techno-sleek, was getting even techno-sleeker. On the train, it seemed that everyone was writing a cellphone novel. More trains are equipped with screens showing commercials, news flashes, weather reports, etiquette reminders (a lot of these in Japan!), etc..." More...
Ululations
with poets: Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Laynie Browne, Abigail Child, Joe Elliot, Laura Elrick, Elizabeth Fodaski, Joanna Fuhrman, Anthony Hawley, Drew Gardner, Jessica Grim, Michael Lally, Douglas Messerli, Bill Marsh, Christina Strong
Nick Piombino (Editor) Toni Simon (Cover artist)
OCHO 21
*****************
Nada replies to my question about how Japan has changed:
"I noticed on my last two visits there that Japan, already techno-sleek, was getting even techno-sleeker. On the train, it seemed that everyone was writing a cellphone novel. More trains are equipped with screens showing commercials, news flashes, weather reports, etiquette reminders (a lot of these in Japan!), etc..." More...
Ululations
Tuesday, January 13
Ron Silliman's Links
At at art opening at Cue a few months ago (Cynthia Miller-April to May, 2008, curated by Ron] I told Ron Silliman how much I was enjoying his link lists and asked him- thinking I wouldn't blame him if he didn't answer me- how he does it. Come on- does Macy's tell Gimbel's? (that reference might go right by some of my readers). But lately I've been noticing that I haven't missed going through Ron's link lists for a very long time.
Often when I talk with a poet at length I feel like writing, and I remember going home and putting up a post about Goodreads, a site I was enjoying quite a lot just then.
Looking through today's repast on Ron's links I read Adam Fieled and others on the post avant, Tom Mandel talking to Tom Beckett about autobiography and death, the fact that Jack Spicer's new collection is sold out (damn, I meant to be a first printing of that!), Jerome Rothenberg on Emma Bee's passing, about the Cleave Anthology, today's exchanges on Kenny Goldsmith, the latest thoughts on lango, SoQ, flarf, Mesmer, Kasey Mohammad, Bolano, Wittgenstein, Poe, Derrida and so much more. The thing is, I enjoy knowing about the links I don't open and I usually come back to open most of them by the end of the week. On a good week, anyway.
Soon fait accompli will reach its 6th birthday and I have to admit I don't have anywhere near the enthusiasm for blogging that I felt when I started this blog in February 2003. I don't read very many blogs regularly anymore though now and again I have the occasion to feast on them for a few hours at a time. Still, there is something about Ron's link list that fascinates me. I'm beginning to read them as poems in themselves. As in reading any poem, I might pause on a particular passage and read more deeply into it. In this case, however, I will simply open the link and read the post it opens. If I have a bit of time, and the link is to another blog, I might start surfing as in days of old. But that is rare. But what never happens is that I stop reading through the whole link list until I've finished it. As with any absorbing poem, I always leave wanting to read more thereby looking forward to the next one, usually in a day or two.
I read Ron's link list the way I used to read the New York Times, which I read rarely now, beyond the few headlines and stories on Google. Since I happen to be married to a total news junkie, I have nearly every significant story reported to me with either wit or outrage or both during dinner.
I'm trying to understand why I find Ron's link lists so...no other word will suffice here except... soothing, except they are soothing with a good dose of excitement in the old sense of "something is happening but you don't know what it is/do you Mr Jones?" But now I wax nostalgic. Lets face it, I'm addicted, and they are free, legal and non fattening.
Ron's link lists are the best of what blogging has always been to me. A feeling of hanging out in the poet's cafe, running into lots of familiar friends, making new acquaintances, catching up on the gossip, and leaving with plenty to think about.
At at art opening at Cue a few months ago (Cynthia Miller-April to May, 2008, curated by Ron] I told Ron Silliman how much I was enjoying his link lists and asked him- thinking I wouldn't blame him if he didn't answer me- how he does it. Come on- does Macy's tell Gimbel's? (that reference might go right by some of my readers). But lately I've been noticing that I haven't missed going through Ron's link lists for a very long time.
Often when I talk with a poet at length I feel like writing, and I remember going home and putting up a post about Goodreads, a site I was enjoying quite a lot just then.
Looking through today's repast on Ron's links I read Adam Fieled and others on the post avant, Tom Mandel talking to Tom Beckett about autobiography and death, the fact that Jack Spicer's new collection is sold out (damn, I meant to be a first printing of that!), Jerome Rothenberg on Emma Bee's passing, about the Cleave Anthology, today's exchanges on Kenny Goldsmith, the latest thoughts on lango, SoQ, flarf, Mesmer, Kasey Mohammad, Bolano, Wittgenstein, Poe, Derrida and so much more. The thing is, I enjoy knowing about the links I don't open and I usually come back to open most of them by the end of the week. On a good week, anyway.
Soon fait accompli will reach its 6th birthday and I have to admit I don't have anywhere near the enthusiasm for blogging that I felt when I started this blog in February 2003. I don't read very many blogs regularly anymore though now and again I have the occasion to feast on them for a few hours at a time. Still, there is something about Ron's link list that fascinates me. I'm beginning to read them as poems in themselves. As in reading any poem, I might pause on a particular passage and read more deeply into it. In this case, however, I will simply open the link and read the post it opens. If I have a bit of time, and the link is to another blog, I might start surfing as in days of old. But that is rare. But what never happens is that I stop reading through the whole link list until I've finished it. As with any absorbing poem, I always leave wanting to read more thereby looking forward to the next one, usually in a day or two.
I read Ron's link list the way I used to read the New York Times, which I read rarely now, beyond the few headlines and stories on Google. Since I happen to be married to a total news junkie, I have nearly every significant story reported to me with either wit or outrage or both during dinner.
I'm trying to understand why I find Ron's link lists so...no other word will suffice here except... soothing, except they are soothing with a good dose of excitement in the old sense of "something is happening but you don't know what it is/do you Mr Jones?" But now I wax nostalgic. Lets face it, I'm addicted, and they are free, legal and non fattening.
Ron's link lists are the best of what blogging has always been to me. A feeling of hanging out in the poet's cafe, running into lots of familiar friends, making new acquaintances, catching up on the gossip, and leaving with plenty to think about.
Saturday, January 10
Tuesday, January 6
Saturday, January 3
The Portable Boog City Reader 3
Thank You Maestro David Kirschenbaum
***************
Contradicta
Where plan, point and purpose end, melody begins.
******
I am the instrument, you are the song.
**********
Chopin- Berceuse Opus 57 Evgeny Kissin
Thank You Maestro David Kirschenbaum
***************
Contradicta
Where plan, point and purpose end, melody begins.
******
I am the instrument, you are the song.
**********
Chopin- Berceuse Opus 57 Evgeny Kissin
Tuesday, December 30
Sunday, December 21
Friday, December 19
Old Crap Mulch Pile- Steve Tills (Black Spring)
Poem 12-04-08- Steve Tills
*************
Recent dreams by Chris Tiefel, Ryan Vine, Stan Apps, Anne Boyer, Brian Salchert, Robert Kelly and Anne Gorrick on
Annandale Dream Gazette
**
-from Ron Silliman's Blog Thursday, December 18
"3. What other poetry-related blog or website should I check out?
There are so many. But let's point to The Annandale Dream Gazette, the only site I know of devoted to the unconscious of poets."
Poem 12-04-08- Steve Tills
*************
Recent dreams by Chris Tiefel, Ryan Vine, Stan Apps, Anne Boyer, Brian Salchert, Robert Kelly and Anne Gorrick on
Annandale Dream Gazette
**
-from Ron Silliman's Blog Thursday, December 18
"3. What other poetry-related blog or website should I check out?
There are so many. But let's point to The Annandale Dream Gazette, the only site I know of devoted to the unconscious of poets."
Thursday, December 18
Monday, December 15
Monday, December 8
Two Dreams
Annandale Dream Gazette
Thanks to Lynn Behrendt
**
Jan Peerce singing Bluebird of Happiness (You Tube)
Annandale Dream Gazette
Thanks to Lynn Behrendt
**
Jan Peerce singing Bluebird of Happiness (You Tube)
Sunday, December 7
Saturday, December 6
Jacob Russell on Silliman's Alphabet
" What is sadder than the small book of well-wrought
poems, none spilling over to the next page even, each pretending to its own completeness."
Ron Silliman: The Alphabet. ZYXT, 985
" What is sadder than the small book of well-wrought
poems, none spilling over to the next page even, each pretending to its own completeness."
Ron Silliman: The Alphabet. ZYXT, 985
Sunday, November 23
LIfe by Ernst Herbeck translated by Gary Sullivan and Oya Ataman
"Life
The life of the chickens is red.
The seism of compassion is red.
Life is beautiful.
Seism of the hearts in the body of dogs.
The life of the heart is dear.
The life makes the heavens heer.
Life would like to be longer.
may love live slower.
slowest life is long."
read more on Gary Sullivan's Ernst Herbeck site
***************************
Il Pleut by Apollinaire conceived by Gregory Vincent St Thomasino, digitalized by Mary Ann Sullivan
Il Pleut
*************************
Derailing The Sublime: On Alan Davies Odes
Joe Brainard's Pyjamas
via Pantaloons
*************************
In October 2008, Stephen McLaughlin, Gregory Laynor, and Vladimir Zykov published Issue 1, a 3,785-page document featuring almost as many poets. The pdf was posted at forgodot.com. The poems were produced by a poem generator called Erika, or Erica T. Carter.
The ISSUE 2 document is a collection of the blog posts and comments that responded to the project and/or responded to responses about the project and/or responded to issues that were raised within the discussion (419 pages).
Issue 2
via Pantaloons
"Life
The life of the chickens is red.
The seism of compassion is red.
Life is beautiful.
Seism of the hearts in the body of dogs.
The life of the heart is dear.
The life makes the heavens heer.
Life would like to be longer.
may love live slower.
slowest life is long."
read more on Gary Sullivan's Ernst Herbeck site
***************************
Il Pleut by Apollinaire conceived by Gregory Vincent St Thomasino, digitalized by Mary Ann Sullivan
Il Pleut
*************************
Derailing The Sublime: On Alan Davies Odes
Joe Brainard's Pyjamas
via Pantaloons
*************************
In October 2008, Stephen McLaughlin, Gregory Laynor, and Vladimir Zykov published Issue 1, a 3,785-page document featuring almost as many poets. The pdf was posted at forgodot.com. The poems were produced by a poem generator called Erika, or Erica T. Carter.
The ISSUE 2 document is a collection of the blog posts and comments that responded to the project and/or responded to responses about the project and/or responded to issues that were raised within the discussion (419 pages).
Issue 2
via Pantaloons
Saturday, November 22
Tuesday, November 18
Friday, November 14
Stan Apps on Sarcasm
"There are few legitimate responses to a world in which idealistic narratives are repeatedly used to devastate communities, where devastation is routinely applauded as long as it is for the sake of ideals. With ideals like these we don’t need enemies..."
Read more:
elective annoyance
"There are few legitimate responses to a world in which idealistic narratives are repeatedly used to devastate communities, where devastation is routinely applauded as long as it is for the sake of ideals. With ideals like these we don’t need enemies..."
Read more:
elective annoyance
Wednesday, November 12
Notes from Underground
Life as it is lived today underground at times feels impersonal to the point of sterility. This atmosphere results not only from the dire warnings loudly and constantly announced over the loudspeakers in every car, contrasted with wistful advertisements recommending schools for dental assistants or college degrees, but also the atmosphere of trauma within which we have regularly lived has dampened nearly any sort of spirit of connectedness that might be mustered. No one can remain light for very long under these conditions, while the efforts of the nightly tv comics elicit more of a sense of generosity and determination than shared hilarity. The homeless on the train asking for change this week seemed a notch more desperate than usual. Maybe it's just the full moon. Obama's promises of hope notwithstanding, now hovering on the edges of the future, even spontaneous pleasantness and brief polite interchanges, while intensely welcome, still feel strangely alien, or even surreal, after a few moments. Next to me, near my seat, two very small children cling to a vertical metal supporting bar and act themselves, that is, very silly. The parents smile warmly towards them and chat about quitting caffeine. The wackier the children behave, the more serious the passengers become, certainly not annoyed, since the kids were not in the least bit being disturbing. The children were happy, that was all. These moments reveal our social conditions far more than any news broadcast will ever be able to encompass. I think about the bank teller that I go to regularly who demanded I rewrite my signature to match my ATM card even to withdraw a small sum of money and the man who asked for five dollars for the seat he has vacated in Barnes and Noble. It was a try at a joke, and my silence made him add; "Only in New York." Crossing the street in Brooklyn after leaving the train station a car cuts me off rudely. As we hurtle towards a holiday unlike few in many decades in New York, it will be awhile until we feel the emotions that we might expect after such a startlingly uplifting election. I think about my visit with my old friend Alan today and how the conversation, once again, turned towards the Weimar era. We talked about novels by Alan Furst, Tana French, Joseph Kanon and Candace Bushnell that point up moral ambiguities in times like these, recent and long ago. On the bus home, I think the subway is a good metaphor for how I see this period. For the moment, most emotions have gone underground, and as we move inexorably down a dark tunnel, over a route we know all too well, while images of light at the end of that tunnel have yet to appear, we think about them as they have been suggested, yet we seem to endlessly slow before arriving anywhere, holding mainly to an attitude set to endure what is likely to remain a bumpy ride for quite some time.
Life as it is lived today underground at times feels impersonal to the point of sterility. This atmosphere results not only from the dire warnings loudly and constantly announced over the loudspeakers in every car, contrasted with wistful advertisements recommending schools for dental assistants or college degrees, but also the atmosphere of trauma within which we have regularly lived has dampened nearly any sort of spirit of connectedness that might be mustered. No one can remain light for very long under these conditions, while the efforts of the nightly tv comics elicit more of a sense of generosity and determination than shared hilarity. The homeless on the train asking for change this week seemed a notch more desperate than usual. Maybe it's just the full moon. Obama's promises of hope notwithstanding, now hovering on the edges of the future, even spontaneous pleasantness and brief polite interchanges, while intensely welcome, still feel strangely alien, or even surreal, after a few moments. Next to me, near my seat, two very small children cling to a vertical metal supporting bar and act themselves, that is, very silly. The parents smile warmly towards them and chat about quitting caffeine. The wackier the children behave, the more serious the passengers become, certainly not annoyed, since the kids were not in the least bit being disturbing. The children were happy, that was all. These moments reveal our social conditions far more than any news broadcast will ever be able to encompass. I think about the bank teller that I go to regularly who demanded I rewrite my signature to match my ATM card even to withdraw a small sum of money and the man who asked for five dollars for the seat he has vacated in Barnes and Noble. It was a try at a joke, and my silence made him add; "Only in New York." Crossing the street in Brooklyn after leaving the train station a car cuts me off rudely. As we hurtle towards a holiday unlike few in many decades in New York, it will be awhile until we feel the emotions that we might expect after such a startlingly uplifting election. I think about my visit with my old friend Alan today and how the conversation, once again, turned towards the Weimar era. We talked about novels by Alan Furst, Tana French, Joseph Kanon and Candace Bushnell that point up moral ambiguities in times like these, recent and long ago. On the bus home, I think the subway is a good metaphor for how I see this period. For the moment, most emotions have gone underground, and as we move inexorably down a dark tunnel, over a route we know all too well, while images of light at the end of that tunnel have yet to appear, we think about them as they have been suggested, yet we seem to endlessly slow before arriving anywhere, holding mainly to an attitude set to endure what is likely to remain a bumpy ride for quite some time.
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