The Enthusiast, a novel by Charlie Haas
* * * * *
The Summer 2009 Oranges and Sardine Is up!
* * * * *
Bits
Sven Birkerts
via wood s lot
* * * * *
Writing as Thinking
Silliman's Blog
* * * * *
Otoliths 14
* * * * *
La Comunidad Inconfesable Agosto 2009
* * * * *
Contradicta
The dissemination of creativity and productivity gradually grinds to a stop in the universal contagion of hurt feelings.
* * *
Perfection is an aroma best applied in tiny doses. Employ more and your day will reek of it like perfume in small room.
Distribution Automatique
Saturday, July 25
Contradicta
The stairways go higher between some of the floors, that's all. And every now and then, you've got to take a break from all that climbing.
* * * * *
What do I feel, what could it mean, what do I think, what do I do
* * * *
Contradicta are being developed/posted on twitter now
* * * *
"Why is writing important? Mainly, out of egotism, I suppose. Because I want to be that persona, a writer, and because there is something I must say. Yet why not that, too? With a little ego building- such as the fait accompli this journal provides- I shall win through to the confidence that I (I) have something to say, that should be said."
Susan Sontag,12/31/57, from Reborn, Journals & Notebooks, 1947-1963
* * * * *
William Shatner reads Sara Palin's farewell speech as a Beat nature poem
Via Al Filreis on Twitter
* * * * *
Richard Baker
Toni and I visited Richard, Liz and their two daughters yesterday in Wellfleet. I've never met anyone more excited about hunting for great used books than Richard. And not only is he looking for great books, but he's looking for subjects for his portraits as well.
Check out some of Richard's book portraits here::poets and writers http://www.pw.org/content/richard_baker039s_book_portraits
* * * * *
This just gets it
Leonard Cohen on poetry and life
The stairways go higher between some of the floors, that's all. And every now and then, you've got to take a break from all that climbing.
* * * * *
What do I feel, what could it mean, what do I think, what do I do
* * * *
Contradicta are being developed/posted on twitter now
* * * *
"Why is writing important? Mainly, out of egotism, I suppose. Because I want to be that persona, a writer, and because there is something I must say. Yet why not that, too? With a little ego building- such as the fait accompli this journal provides- I shall win through to the confidence that I (I) have something to say, that should be said."
Susan Sontag,12/31/57, from Reborn, Journals & Notebooks, 1947-1963
* * * * *
William Shatner reads Sara Palin's farewell speech as a Beat nature poem
Via Al Filreis on Twitter
* * * * *
Richard Baker
Toni and I visited Richard, Liz and their two daughters yesterday in Wellfleet. I've never met anyone more excited about hunting for great used books than Richard. And not only is he looking for great books, but he's looking for subjects for his portraits as well.
Check out some of Richard's book portraits here::poets and writers http://www.pw.org/content/richard_baker039s_book_portraits
* * * * *
This just gets it
Leonard Cohen on poetry and life
Friday, July 24
Jobless Checks Delayed for Millions of Americans
Feeding America
* * * * *
Destined for You Tube Fame: The Catcerto played by Nora the Cat
Nora
* * * * *
Tom Beckett: Sitting Shirtless Under a Ceiling Fan
Slim Windows
Feeding America
* * * * *
Destined for You Tube Fame: The Catcerto played by Nora the Cat
Nora
* * * * *
Tom Beckett: Sitting Shirtless Under a Ceiling Fan
Slim Windows
Wednesday, July 22
Ryan MacDonald video on
The Continental Review
* * * * *
William Kentridge
Automatic Writing
* * * * *
Somerset Maugham on Life and Art
* * * * *
Contradicta on Twitter
Contradicta
Contradicta
* * * * *
Laughter
FreeSound
* * * * *
Didi Menendez
For Love of an Armadillo
illustrations by Jeremy Baum
The Continental Review
* * * * *
William Kentridge
Automatic Writing
* * * * *
Somerset Maugham on Life and Art
* * * * *
Contradicta on Twitter
Contradicta
Contradicta
* * * * *
Laughter
FreeSound
* * * * *
Didi Menendez
For Love of an Armadillo
illustrations by Jeremy Baum
Monday, July 20
Ideas that Work
"In the presence of some people we inevitably depart from ourselves: we are inaccurate, we say things we do not feel, and talk nonsense. When we get home we are conscious that we have made fools of ourselves. Never go near these people".
Mark Rutherford More Pages from a Journal, 1910
"In the presence of some people we inevitably depart from ourselves: we are inaccurate, we say things we do not feel, and talk nonsense. When we get home we are conscious that we have made fools of ourselves. Never go near these people".
Mark Rutherford More Pages from a Journal, 1910
Monday, July 13
Wood s lot remembers fait accompli's Unbearable Lightness of Blogging: A Mid-Summer Night's Masque (scroll down) July 13, 2005
Saturday, July 11
Friday, July 10
Peter Ciccariello- "Hidden poem with brain scans and chairs"
Peter Ciccariello-hidden poem with brain scans and chairs"
Peter Ciccariello-hidden poem with brain scans and chairs"
Tuesday, July 7
Mourning and Poetics
The most recent thread on the Suny Buffalo Poetics List has been mourning and poetics. This absorbing issue is concerned with poetry one might read at a time of mourning and how this reflects on issues of poetics. To read the thread in its entirety or to join the list go to:
Poetics LIst Archive
Click on July 2009 on topic headings: poetics and mourning.
Today I posted the following as a contribution to that thread:
This is one of those threads that gets me thinking, and I've been looking forward to every post. I've not read them all, so I apologize if I am repeating anything. Eight years ago when someone I felt particularly close to died, almost literally in my arms, I needed some poetry that would help. What met my need at the time was Lynn Dreyer's book The White Museum (Roof,1986). Here's a sample: Lynn Dreyer. Something about its heartbeat, its wave-like backbeat, soothed me, the way a mother might rock a child during a stricken moment. That episode of choice in reading pushed me towards thinking about writing as healing, an issue that's been on my mind ever since.
Much of post-avant writing, obviously, employs parody, often of a particularly biting kind. It's no surprise that at a time of ear splitting, mind smashing hypocrisies and assaults on a social/political level that some of our best minds might want to address such grotesque realties in ways that accurately reflect them when modes of earnestness or literal or symbolic or abstract statement, what I once called writing below the din, won't suffice.
At a time of personal crisis, what one might want, what I wanted as I said, are truthful yet gentle words, singing, compassionate, and yes, even quiet words. Still, such occasional personal needs probably do not justify a dominant poetics of quietism in an ongoing way. There is something reassuring and stimulating about experiencing a number of relatively newer voices work to invent and persist with new forms that convincingly reflect the impossibility of accepting as such the eco-socio-political realities we are forced to live in right now. The post avant employs a biting, confrontational voice that says, to me anyway, don't give up trying to dispassionately recognize and reveal what that reality is, as painfully traumatic, as incessantly quotidian as it is coming to be. Forms that meet that continuous nightmare face to face, as unimaginable as it is, or was. Is the most relevant issue in contemporary poetics hegemony, or power, or is it which model, the quietist or the post-avant, suggests the more apropos interpretation of current reality as it actually presents itself?
Either way, life's needs are inordinately complex, and issues of poetic movement aside, one size will not always fit all.
* * * * *
New Links
Check out:
Contemporary LIterary Horizon
Drunken Boat 10
I Am A TV Junkie-Rachel Maddow's Big Catch Thanks for the link!
* * * * *
Caterina, one of the pioneer bloggers, who helped create Flikr, has created a new site, Hunch.
Here is the poet category: Hunch Poets
The most recent thread on the Suny Buffalo Poetics List has been mourning and poetics. This absorbing issue is concerned with poetry one might read at a time of mourning and how this reflects on issues of poetics. To read the thread in its entirety or to join the list go to:
Poetics LIst Archive
Click on July 2009 on topic headings: poetics and mourning.
Today I posted the following as a contribution to that thread:
This is one of those threads that gets me thinking, and I've been looking forward to every post. I've not read them all, so I apologize if I am repeating anything. Eight years ago when someone I felt particularly close to died, almost literally in my arms, I needed some poetry that would help. What met my need at the time was Lynn Dreyer's book The White Museum (Roof,1986). Here's a sample: Lynn Dreyer. Something about its heartbeat, its wave-like backbeat, soothed me, the way a mother might rock a child during a stricken moment. That episode of choice in reading pushed me towards thinking about writing as healing, an issue that's been on my mind ever since.
Much of post-avant writing, obviously, employs parody, often of a particularly biting kind. It's no surprise that at a time of ear splitting, mind smashing hypocrisies and assaults on a social/political level that some of our best minds might want to address such grotesque realties in ways that accurately reflect them when modes of earnestness or literal or symbolic or abstract statement, what I once called writing below the din, won't suffice.
At a time of personal crisis, what one might want, what I wanted as I said, are truthful yet gentle words, singing, compassionate, and yes, even quiet words. Still, such occasional personal needs probably do not justify a dominant poetics of quietism in an ongoing way. There is something reassuring and stimulating about experiencing a number of relatively newer voices work to invent and persist with new forms that convincingly reflect the impossibility of accepting as such the eco-socio-political realities we are forced to live in right now. The post avant employs a biting, confrontational voice that says, to me anyway, don't give up trying to dispassionately recognize and reveal what that reality is, as painfully traumatic, as incessantly quotidian as it is coming to be. Forms that meet that continuous nightmare face to face, as unimaginable as it is, or was. Is the most relevant issue in contemporary poetics hegemony, or power, or is it which model, the quietist or the post-avant, suggests the more apropos interpretation of current reality as it actually presents itself?
Either way, life's needs are inordinately complex, and issues of poetic movement aside, one size will not always fit all.
* * * * *
New Links
Check out:
Contemporary LIterary Horizon
Drunken Boat 10
I Am A TV Junkie-Rachel Maddow's Big Catch Thanks for the link!
* * * * *
Caterina, one of the pioneer bloggers, who helped create Flikr, has created a new site, Hunch.
Here is the poet category: Hunch Poets
Tuesday, June 30
In The Middle of It All with Fred G. Leebron
So far, Fred G. Leebron has published three novels, all well worth reading; Out West in 1997, Six Figures in 2001 and In the Middle of It All in 2002. Six Figures was made into a movie in 2005.
Contemporary novels, it seems to me, fall basically into two large categories; one type giving great attention to physical description and depiction, the other focussing essentially on the mind and internal life of the characters. Leebron's exceptional writing style and point of view encompasses both. Critics have compared his work to Richard Yates, and the comparison is apt. Having recently completed reading every word available by Richard Yates in print, I was initially so greatly attracted by these books because it feels that Leebron is the clear inheritor of Yates' vision. But there are enough touches of Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote and Milan Kundera and his own very unique and original style to make Fred G. Leebron already a standout in today's fiction. Along with Heather O'Neill, Paul Auster and Jonathan Lethem, he has quickly joined my group of favorites.
Out West tracks a young pair of murderers closely through virtually every physical action, feeling and thought they have over several days. The book is astonishing in its cinematic qualities, but also in its philosophical depth and complexity. The writer's excitement in writing every single sentence is palpable; this has become my measure in assessing quality in writing. If the writing feels dutiful and labored, I start to wonder why the writer bothered. In the three books by Leebron I've read in the past week, I notice a gradual transition towards a close examination of family life. Leebron in his two more recent books takes the risk to examine the quotidian with the same great focus on detail as his first book, which depicts a greatly unusual and grotesque situation, the same risk that Yates takes, of course. And with Leebron I see an empathy with the issues that plague nearly every marriage and relationship that makes Yates so unusual, particularly for a male writer. Six Figures follows a suburban couple in their intense efforts to remain ethical and become adequately financially successful at the same time. This is without doubt among the most unexplored and undocumented crises of our time. The pathos, dark comedy and masked desperation implicit in American suburban living is exactly what made the film American Beauty such a classic. There are lots of numbers out there assessing this, but few portrayals on the level of Leebron's. Like Out West, in Six Figures a mysterious violent act ( in Six Figures, the aggression is acted out against the wife and mother character) tests every internal and social aspect of all the novel's characters, major and minor. The family's efforts to deal with all this creates a Sisyphus myth for our own time. In each of his novels, Leebron's concerns with the dialectic between what someone can show, and what a person can know and care about in the life of another is explored in a way that creates a kind of suspense of the social kind that is well beneath the surface and mostly concealed and camouflaged in everyday life. It is in this sense that Leebron's take on suspense in fiction is so cathartic yet so unique psychologically and philosophically.
I will conclude with a quote from Leebron's most recent novel In The Middle of All This, which mostly concerns itself with the effects on a brother of a sister who is slowly dying of cancer. The sibling aspect of couples is a theme throughly and very interestingly explored in all of Leebron's books. What I found fascinating about the following quote is the fact that this internal moment is the actual, though not apparent, climax of the book, a fact that may have thrown off some of the book's critics. The passage, one of Leebron's best yet, I think captures Leebron's acute sensitivity and the breadth of his perceptions about contemporary living and, importantly, dying:
"Everybody died. But what went on between now and then- all the entanglements and annoyances and deprivations and enjoyments and inspirations and despair and redemption- you could never really know unless it was you or the person came right out and told you, and even in the telling there'd have to be a shift between what it was and what language made it sound like it was. Could nothing be shared? He wished he were back in his own bed with his screaming thoughts and fears and dreams. He wished he were younger, he wished he were older. He wished that his wife could tell him everything she ever thought, and he wished that he'd be interested by all of it. He wished he didn't ache for a hundred different women. He wished that his kids wold stop growing up, and he wished that they were already grown up and done and safe and out of the house. He wished that his father were dead and he wished that his father were once again young enough that he could actually talk with him. Had he every really talked with his father? And what the hell did that mean?- really talk? Did anyone really talk? Did anyone really listen?"
So far, Fred G. Leebron has published three novels, all well worth reading; Out West in 1997, Six Figures in 2001 and In the Middle of It All in 2002. Six Figures was made into a movie in 2005.
Contemporary novels, it seems to me, fall basically into two large categories; one type giving great attention to physical description and depiction, the other focussing essentially on the mind and internal life of the characters. Leebron's exceptional writing style and point of view encompasses both. Critics have compared his work to Richard Yates, and the comparison is apt. Having recently completed reading every word available by Richard Yates in print, I was initially so greatly attracted by these books because it feels that Leebron is the clear inheritor of Yates' vision. But there are enough touches of Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote and Milan Kundera and his own very unique and original style to make Fred G. Leebron already a standout in today's fiction. Along with Heather O'Neill, Paul Auster and Jonathan Lethem, he has quickly joined my group of favorites.
Out West tracks a young pair of murderers closely through virtually every physical action, feeling and thought they have over several days. The book is astonishing in its cinematic qualities, but also in its philosophical depth and complexity. The writer's excitement in writing every single sentence is palpable; this has become my measure in assessing quality in writing. If the writing feels dutiful and labored, I start to wonder why the writer bothered. In the three books by Leebron I've read in the past week, I notice a gradual transition towards a close examination of family life. Leebron in his two more recent books takes the risk to examine the quotidian with the same great focus on detail as his first book, which depicts a greatly unusual and grotesque situation, the same risk that Yates takes, of course. And with Leebron I see an empathy with the issues that plague nearly every marriage and relationship that makes Yates so unusual, particularly for a male writer. Six Figures follows a suburban couple in their intense efforts to remain ethical and become adequately financially successful at the same time. This is without doubt among the most unexplored and undocumented crises of our time. The pathos, dark comedy and masked desperation implicit in American suburban living is exactly what made the film American Beauty such a classic. There are lots of numbers out there assessing this, but few portrayals on the level of Leebron's. Like Out West, in Six Figures a mysterious violent act ( in Six Figures, the aggression is acted out against the wife and mother character) tests every internal and social aspect of all the novel's characters, major and minor. The family's efforts to deal with all this creates a Sisyphus myth for our own time. In each of his novels, Leebron's concerns with the dialectic between what someone can show, and what a person can know and care about in the life of another is explored in a way that creates a kind of suspense of the social kind that is well beneath the surface and mostly concealed and camouflaged in everyday life. It is in this sense that Leebron's take on suspense in fiction is so cathartic yet so unique psychologically and philosophically.
I will conclude with a quote from Leebron's most recent novel In The Middle of All This, which mostly concerns itself with the effects on a brother of a sister who is slowly dying of cancer. The sibling aspect of couples is a theme throughly and very interestingly explored in all of Leebron's books. What I found fascinating about the following quote is the fact that this internal moment is the actual, though not apparent, climax of the book, a fact that may have thrown off some of the book's critics. The passage, one of Leebron's best yet, I think captures Leebron's acute sensitivity and the breadth of his perceptions about contemporary living and, importantly, dying:
"Everybody died. But what went on between now and then- all the entanglements and annoyances and deprivations and enjoyments and inspirations and despair and redemption- you could never really know unless it was you or the person came right out and told you, and even in the telling there'd have to be a shift between what it was and what language made it sound like it was. Could nothing be shared? He wished he were back in his own bed with his screaming thoughts and fears and dreams. He wished he were younger, he wished he were older. He wished that his wife could tell him everything she ever thought, and he wished that he'd be interested by all of it. He wished he didn't ache for a hundred different women. He wished that his kids wold stop growing up, and he wished that they were already grown up and done and safe and out of the house. He wished that his father were dead and he wished that his father were once again young enough that he could actually talk with him. Had he every really talked with his father? And what the hell did that mean?- really talk? Did anyone really talk? Did anyone really listen?"
Saturday, June 27
Rachel Maddow's Big Catch
Toni and I ran into Rachel Maddow who was with some friends on Herring Cove Beach today walking her good sized black dog. I mentioned to her that we had spoken with her a couple of years ago in Provincetown when the dog was still a puppy who clearly liked meeting Toni (the dog reacted similarly to Toni today also). At that time, as you will see in our post from two years ago, Rachel seemed doubtful that she would land a show of her own on cable. Well, I'm quite sure you know what happened since then, now that she is back to back nightly with Keith Olbermann (she has hosted her own show on MSNBC since September, 2008). I mentioned to Rachel that I had noticed on Twitter yesterday that she was heading for Nelson's Bait and Tackle on Race Road in Ptown. She told me that she caught a 22 pound bass this very day! Check out the story and photos at their website, here: Nelson's Bait and Tackle
check out our Rachel Maddow post from two years ago, here: Rachel's puppy
Toni and I ran into Rachel Maddow who was with some friends on Herring Cove Beach today walking her good sized black dog. I mentioned to her that we had spoken with her a couple of years ago in Provincetown when the dog was still a puppy who clearly liked meeting Toni (the dog reacted similarly to Toni today also). At that time, as you will see in our post from two years ago, Rachel seemed doubtful that she would land a show of her own on cable. Well, I'm quite sure you know what happened since then, now that she is back to back nightly with Keith Olbermann (she has hosted her own show on MSNBC since September, 2008). I mentioned to Rachel that I had noticed on Twitter yesterday that she was heading for Nelson's Bait and Tackle on Race Road in Ptown. She told me that she caught a 22 pound bass this very day! Check out the story and photos at their website, here: Nelson's Bait and Tackle
check out our Rachel Maddow post from two years ago, here: Rachel's puppy
Thursday, June 25
Sunday, June 21
Contradicta
The inability to be completely and totally silly or to respond sympathetically to such reveals a dead or dying spirit. Of all the pretenses available to most, to be utterly silly might also be among the hardest responses to fake.
*****
The imagination is not about picturing things. Even if it is, this is a small, unimportant part of it. Imagination is more about believing in possibilities where none had existed before. But accepting limitations might assist in this. Knocking one's head against the wall is bad for the mind so it is equally bad for the imagination.
The inability to be completely and totally silly or to respond sympathetically to such reveals a dead or dying spirit. Of all the pretenses available to most, to be utterly silly might also be among the hardest responses to fake.
*****
The imagination is not about picturing things. Even if it is, this is a small, unimportant part of it. Imagination is more about believing in possibilities where none had existed before. But accepting limitations might assist in this. Knocking one's head against the wall is bad for the mind so it is equally bad for the imagination.
Tuesday, June 16
The Extreme of The Middle-Jack Tworkov writings edited by Mira Schor
I've been following Mira's progress in editing this book for awhile now, and I'm so excited it's out. My early summer reading is looming into view: The Extreme of the MIddle, I Am You by Anne Tardos, Notes on Conceptualisms by Fitterman and Place and Douglas Rothschild's Theogony. Ah, the pleasures of the text, as Roland Barthes put it so well!
Oh, and one more: Reread David Bromige's selected, titled Desire.
I've been following Mira's progress in editing this book for awhile now, and I'm so excited it's out. My early summer reading is looming into view: The Extreme of the MIddle, I Am You by Anne Tardos, Notes on Conceptualisms by Fitterman and Place and Douglas Rothschild's Theogony. Ah, the pleasures of the text, as Roland Barthes put it so well!
Oh, and one more: Reread David Bromige's selected, titled Desire.
Saturday, June 13
David Bromige
David Bromige, a friend whose writing and spirit I much admired and was grateful for, had a way of saying things sometimes that I still think of, again and again, years later. Once we were talking about irony. Later in the conversation I had occasion to mention that I used to have a great repugnance for doing anything twice the same way. But, given the direction my life had eventually taken, becoming more and more bound to a tight schedule, I told him I had given in, but had switched over to the opposite and now did as many things every day as much as possible exactly in the same way. "But, NIck", he said, in his witty yet warm way, "that itself is a kind of irony, an irony of action."
David Bromige, a friend whose writing and spirit I much admired and was grateful for, had a way of saying things sometimes that I still think of, again and again, years later. Once we were talking about irony. Later in the conversation I had occasion to mention that I used to have a great repugnance for doing anything twice the same way. But, given the direction my life had eventually taken, becoming more and more bound to a tight schedule, I told him I had given in, but had switched over to the opposite and now did as many things every day as much as possible exactly in the same way. "But, NIck", he said, in his witty yet warm way, "that itself is a kind of irony, an irony of action."
Tuesday, June 9
Thursday, June 4
Wednesday, June 3
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